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Chapter OneAulic Prension lay still on the courtyard bench against the backdrop of a peach-painted wall concentrating intently on thoughts of an obese waxen figure. The figure wasa pale white one, the unattractive white of sour milk, and around its base misshapenprotuberances, small dried drippings and streams of wax, stood out in bumpy relief.The Grey Hour had settled in on Prension Town and the dwindling orange lightwas muted and meditative. There was an anticipatory air before the lavish Autumn Girldance set to begin in a few hours. The moments before a dance were an odd time,perhaps, for a session of Dream Hand practice, but Corben Corsaire, the most respectedPrension Dream Hand, was determined to squeeze in another session before Aulic’sMaturity Ritual
.
Even though he was intent on his teaching, Corben, an occasional painter with aremarkable eye for color, couldn’t help noticing that the tan-brown streaks in Aulic’s haircomplemented the peach wall. His concentrating face with its closed eyes was renderedespecially striking by the distinct strip of scalp showing down the middle part of his hair.It was an unusual but noble style, this scalp-strip, forbidden to all Prensioners exceptmembers of the royal family. On Aulic, the strip worked unusually well, since his hairnaturally had a center part. On others, the strip was less felicitious. His mother, EmpressLandau, never looked quite right with it dividing her mounds of curling brown andblonde hair, and so she often favored an empresses’ headdress.“You must think of the Pudding Dinner Ghost legend. That’s the kind of lumpishness and bumpy waxiness I’m imagining.” Corben could keep the desired avatar
firmly in mind even with his eyes open, a talent possessed in full only by the mostmasterful Dream Hands. For Corben, it was as though the Pudding Dinner Ghost wasvividly superimposed on the image of his pupil.Under Corben’s tutelage, Aulic was attempting to envision this same waxwork. If he summoned the Ghost to his mind in a full-fledged form, he’d be that much closer tomastering the creation of his own Dream Avatar.But Aulic found it difficult to focus on figure contemplation as dance tunestrickled from the windows of the ballroom where poko musicians were rehearsing. Thesame dances were brought out each year to the Autumn Girl ball-goers’ predictabledelight. Though he tried to form the Ghost Corben had sculpted a few days before,Aulic’s attention was constantly drawn away by the interminable bolka rhythm. Hearingthe thudding of mallets on lizard skins, he could picture only the clicking of reveler’sshoes on the floor, the rhythmic signals of men’s extended arms, their festive fingerclicks, and the circle of maidenly grins, moving in a blurry rotation.The annual ball extended back in time even before Dovan’s reign. Girls wouldspend all summer anticipating the chance to demonstrate elegant heirloom gowns. Forcenturies the ritual had endured, with the same bolkas and spanilles trotted out, the samebaked mammals trussed up and smothered with sweetened fruit sauce, and the samespiced ciders and weed brews dispensed by poko attendants.With such distractions rampant, Corben was not hopeful about the session’soutcome. He knew Aulic possessed an agile mind and a memory attracted to facts anddetail. But his interest in dream arts was minimal and he was rarely engaged in creativetasks. Corben felt his sensibility was analytical, one to cast an evaluating gaze over
other’s creations. It was not unusual for a Prension to be meditative, but few were soskeptical in their mindset. Many courtiers found Aulic’s frequent acerbic commentsunsettling, his spiked observations annoying, but Corben maintained an indulgent smileat his remarks. Perhaps his mystical leanings, his devotion to the oft-disdained DreamHand rites, encouraged him to empathize with the young rucklen.Aulic perversely kept seeing an old emperor’s rigid face rather than Corben’s waxfigure. He was a Frissen Emperor Aulic had read of in the dense Brown Tomes thatcovered entire walls of the court library. The emperor’s small, unattractive head cameunbidden into his thoughts, its features pinched and squinted, his mouth ranting with everincreasing speed about insufficiently compliant neighbors on the Frissen borders. Aulicrecognized the head as that of Tor Molk, with his well-known nose appearing as smalland squeezed as it was in the anecdotes, his eyes a drippy shade of moldy green and hishair plastered with sweat onto his short forehead.Somehow this unpleasant head appeared of its own volition with a vividnessAulic never experienced with Corben’s inert figures. With each effort he made torefocus, Molk’s visage grew denser and more insistent. Just as the head’s jabberingreached a physically impossible rate, there was a clatter and intrusion of outside voices.A crowd had suddenly appeared in the courtyard. A break had been called in theball preparations and the toiling pokos and half-girls had quickly spilled outside, makingdripping comments and laughing dull, half-girl laughs. Concentration would beimpossible with the crowd clustering in noisy batches.“We should have gone to my wax hut!” Corben declaimed in frustration.
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