in a tiny, unbelievable gift, treason according to the absolute letter of the law, Cliopher sayo Mdang would look up after his obeisance and meet my eyes and smile and say, “Good morning, my lord.” One moment each morning in which you spoke as a person to another person, and was greeted as a person by another person: on such did the entire machinery of apotheosis stutter to a halt. [loc. 393]
A novella set three years after the Emperor's awakening, and well before the events of The Hands of the Emperor, covering the first days of Cliopher Mdang's employment as secretary to the Last Emperor -- from whose point(s) of view this tale is told -- and the effect that his presence has on His Radiancy, and indeed on the world.
I liked it a great deal, especially on rereading when I could better appreciate the gradual shift from 'you' to 'I': the narrator reclaiming himself and his magic, separating that self from the symbol, the god, the figurehead that is (or was, before Kip) the Emperor. He, our narrator, finds a way to touch the world as something other than a tyrant or a deity: and he discovers that he is not wholly severed from the ordinary people around him, and that his magic (as opposed to the straitjacketed magic defining and wielded by the Emperor) is not lost for ever.
It's very cheering to see Kip from the viewpoint of Artorin Damara, and to see the first glimmers of friendship between His Radiancy and those who'll become the closest members of his household.
Fulfils the ‘Under 200 pages’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.
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