Chapter 8
Does that not make me one
Bitter emotions churn jaggedly under Lyric’s skin.
He doesn’t want to veer too far from Iriset, but he can’t imagine returning to face her before he’s calmed himself.
He’ll find a garden with a good path for a walking meditation, put one foot before the other again and again until he’s found a rhythm for breathing.
And if he meets anyone, perhaps they’ll be able to tell him when he is, exactly. Gather some data points.
And work on his arguments for why she should want to go home. Or at least help him do so. And if they cannot, then… make a plan for what to do here. How to affect, or not affect, their future.
He passes through a dazzling courtyard of melted glass pillars and does not give in to curiosity at the sight of a geodesic dome hothouse, despite the inexplicable scents of almost-plumeria and not-quite-jasmine wafting out.
Beyond it Lyric finds a tiny yard of pink rock and pockmarked gray volcanic stone that looks like it could be the surface of Aharté’s moon.
A gardener carefully rakes tiny pink gravel, and Lyric backs out before he is seen, so as not to disrupt the smooth pattern.
When he emerges from a tunnel of pale green ivy dripping delicate golden bell-shaped flowers, he startles a group of red birds with too many wings, and when they flit away Lyric finds himself before a small lake—if it can be called such.
The pools and streams of water are shaped into channels with knots and spirals like a force array, except there is no balance, no symmetry at all.
The lines of water fill out a full circle that gleams under the sun, and in between the water are narrow islands and pockets and dams of mosses in every shade of green and blue Lyric can imagine.
If the waters were footpaths, it would be an ideal labyrinth.
He imagines walking it, soles skimming the surface of the water like he’s walking on sunlight, and considers the situation.
The most detailed information he knows about the Apostate Age is how it ended, and as Lyric thinks through the stories, his whole body begins to tingle.
First a star fell from the sky.
A star fell from the sky, and where it landed a woman appeared with an alliraptor cradled in her lap.
She was called the Holy Syr, and in the officially sanctioned version of the story, the alliraptor stood out of her lap, transforming into a woman as rock-red as the god of the red moon, the Moon-Eater.
This woman’s name was Aharté, and the Holy Syr was her wife.
Lyric moves his eyes rapidly along the waterways, knowing if he closes them he might faint at the revelatory trajectory of his thoughts.
The Holy Syr and Aharté were greeted at the crater by Maimeri Sarenpet, a young man descended from the Sarenpet dynasty.
Maimeri was skilled at design work, but longed for change, longed to bring balance to design.
Aharté left to wander the city, to greet her people, while Maimeri and Syr created a great array to unravel the Moon-Eater and level the apostatical creations of the age.
After defeating the Moon-Eater, they founded the Vertex Seal, and from them the mirané people were born.
Lyric pictures the alliraptor chimera who climbed down into the crater to help him with Iriset.
Who called him Aharté, and then Lyric called Iriset his wife.
That would make Iriset the Holy Syr, and if anybody can unravel the Moon-Eater, can transform the entire crater city toward Holy Design, it’s Iriset mé Isidor.
Oh, his apostatical wife is going to hate this.
There’s more to the stories, more details he read in various history books—both about the Apostate Age and the founding of Holy Design.
Lyric knows the names of small kings before and after the founding.
For example: Irsu River was small king before but not after, Sera mé Alish was not before but became one after, and Amado the Reconciler was small king both before and after.
Lyric’s scholarship leaned much heavier toward the initial years of the empire, of course, as the miran learned to impose their Holy Design under the leadership of Maimeri, the first Vertex Seal, and the development of the chapels and force-steeples, and the mechanisms of inheritance.
He needs to write down everything he remembers that might be useful.
But first, Lyric needs to know if Maimeri Sarenpet is alive, is here, which will prove he’s right about the timing.
And he needs to find that alliraptor chimera.
It can’t be Aharté, especially if that’s—if that’s to be his own role.
But the chimera must be important to have made it into the histories.
Spinning, Lyric nearly steps right into a person standing beside him.
He makes a startled sound, knowing Garnet would be angry and disappointed in him for letting his guard down. Especially in such an unknown place where Lyric has no power, is so vulnerable.
Lyric shifts his weight just enough to defend himself if necessary.
The newcomer is an older masculine-forward person with a hawk nose and rich brown skin, and shocks of silver-black-red hair.
It’s braided half-back and the stripes of color weave elaborately.
Vivid red combs hold the braids in place and shades of pink makeup highlight the iridescence shimmering in his hazel eyes.
He wears multilayered robes with some infrastructure around the collar and shoulders to give the style exaggerated sharpness.
Staring boldly at Lyric, the man smiles. Golden filigree decorates his canine teeth. “Lyric Aharté stands so still as to be mistaken for a statue.”
Taken aback by the lack of mask obscuring the man’s face, and his aggressive stare, Lyric returns the man’s gaze expressionlessly.
Of course, the stare isn’t aggressive, it’s only that Lyric is so used to people treating him with deference, while being so unused to people seeing him without mask or design paint.
This man has the clearest view of Lyric’s face that anyone but his intimate family members has ever seen.
It makes Lyric feel as helpless as he is.
He glances back to the intricate water feature, attempting to get a hold of himself, to balance his inner design toward confidence.
The sunlight turns fiery along the western edges of it, reaching in streaks that hop from channels and knot over islands of moss.
“Lyric finds peace in tracing the courses of the water” is what he says.
Simple truth serves better than arrogance, and can be just as powerful in claiming space.
“Admirable,” the man says, stepping parallel to Lyric. In the corner of his eye, Lyric can see his companion gliding his attention across the waters, too. “This friend is Amado Chimera,” he says after a moment.
Noting the use of friend as more of an offer than a fact, Lyric smiles very slightly. Then the name reaches his memory and he glances sharply over. “Amado the Reconciler?” he says thoughtlessly.
Amado turns more smoothly, red-and-black-striped eyebrows raised. “Lyric Aharté knows such appellation?”
Lyric swallows, discombobulated all over again. Amado the Reconciler was one of the first mirané princes; Lyric was just thinking of him. But this Amado before him is not mirané. It chills Lyric, though of course there must be an explanation. “It is an honor to meet you,” he dissembles.
“Likewise. It has been a hope to speak with Lyric Aharté since the day before yesterday. This Reconciler is glad to have the chance now, in such a lovely location.”
“It is lovely,” Lyric says, trailing his eyes behind Amado, seeking an entourage or bodyguards.
He finds them stationed at the bell-flower tunnel exit, two in red armor, with the bearing of combat-designers or the like.
One has what appears to be a quad or two of short conical horns all over her hairless scalp, the other streaks of black design paint or tattoos that shift like wind shadows across her blunt white face.
Apostasy everywhere. “What can Lyric do for Amado the Reconciler?”
Amado shakes his head, catching one blood-red braid on the structured silk of his outer robe.
“A conversation, to begin. The arrival of Lyric and Lyric’s wife has the Pit court astir.
Our Moon-Eater does not declare friendship or protection often, of course, especially to someone wearing the Moon-Eater’s skin. ”
Lyric frowns. He has noticed there are no miran here, none with the same auburn-red skin as the Moon-Eater and himself. Even the numen seems to prefer the silver-pink of Aharté’s moon. Before he can ask, Amado clarifies.
“Though there is little illegal or taboo in this crater city when it comes to design, historically that old fairy vaporizes anyone caught wearing skin and eyes and hair like Lyric Aharté. Including the fruit of the Moon-Eater’s own womb.”
That’s not information Lyric expected to have casually dropped upon him, that he might have been killed instantly for just looking mirané.
And the Moon-Eater had said he was perfectly designed.
Lyric presses his lips together and attempts to retain some control of this conversation.
“Does Amado know of a person called Maimeri Sarenpet?”
Amado shakes his head immediately. “Though Amado’s line of Chimera kings is directly descended from the Sarenpet dynasty that came to the crater some three hundred years ago. Perhaps Lyric will find the one sought through time spent in friendship with Chimera fortress?”