Chapter 8 #2
Pushing away disappointment, Lyric nods.
The Amado Reconciler of the histories, who co-led the miran during the initial generation of Holy Design, was well liked in firsthand accounts, and if this Amado Reconciler is the same, or connected, it would be good for Lyric to maintain contact at least. And perhaps alliance.
There is so much to consider, but it is sounding more and more like either he and Iriset interrupted the events of the Holy Syr’s arrival here, or they are the events.
“Amado is a small king in the city? Chimera fortress?”
“Yes. Thirteen fortresses spread throughout the city right now, with three outside the crater walls. Chimera is not the wealthiest, but perhaps the most influential.” Amado says it lightly, with an affected shrug.
Then he turns the full power of a smile toward Lyric, who senses the falling force tugging him in.
The same dominant force as Amaranth. “Amado can claim it, and back it up. Few, if any, would dispute the fact.”
“Bold,” Lyric murmurs, but he doesn’t mind.
He dislikes politicking, dislikes the simpering, flirtatious, cutting steps of the dance.
It’s the reason he’s always led with his faith before him, his real mask.
Let Amaranth shine at politics in his stead—though perhaps it was a mistake, given how far she took the trust he gave her.
“The Moon-Eater’s city rewards boldness,” Amado says, canine filigrees glinting in the lowering sun as he continues to smile. “Until, naturally, one dies.”
Lyric nods, assuming that Amado means boldness is rewarded until it kills you.
“Is it not so where Lyric Aharté comes from?”
The question is lobbed gently, to catch him off guard, and Lyric almost laughs. He glances with disapproving amusement at Amado. Lyric will not be tricked into revealing anything so easily. “Where does the Moon-Eater say Lyric and Iriset come from?”
Amado taps his narrow blackwood cane to the slate border of the nearest moss island.
“The Moon-Eater has said nothing but that Lyric and wife are friends. Friends to be treated with respect and ‘left the fuck alone until ready.’” Amado’s voice at the end turns into a light drawl, surely meant to not quite mock the Moon-Eater.
“This humble husband trusts that enjoying the gardens suggests a modicum of readiness.”
Lyric nods again, wishing Amaranth was here to do this instead, despite her betrayals. Or Singix—Iriset. They’re all better at conversing with intent than he is. “Lyric is ready enough. Amado is married?”
“Twice, to beautiful spouses.”
The phrasing in Old Sarenpet makes it unclear if Amado means twice consecutively, or at the same time. Amado leans toward Lyric and adds, “Perhaps Lyric and wife would join Amado Chimera for a family feast soon.”
“Iriset,” he murmurs. There is no benefit he can see to denying the possibility of friendship with anyone here, much less a powerful small king.
He won’t know his position with regard to the Moon-Eater until the god deigns to meet him again, and despite the display of interest in who Lyric is and how he was made, Lyric suspects Iriset will be the more sought of the two of them.
She’s more dynamic, passionate, argumentative.
She wants to be here. Lyric will need friends whether they attempt to go home or not.
Blessed Silence, he doesn’t belong here.
“Iriset,” Amado says slowly. “And Lyric Aharté.”
Lyric grimaces slightly. “Aharté is a god.” He pauses, because Aharté’s other name in mirané won’t translate directly. “The One Who Loves Silence,” he says.
“Aharté is known to the crater city. A god of peace in Saria, no?” Amado says.
“Yes,” Lyric says, but he hears Iriset’s voice cut harshly through his mind: Peace?
A goddess whose people conquer and slaughter?
Where is there brutality in peace, Lyric méra Esmail Your Glory?
“Balance,” Lyric adds softly. “Aharté is the peace to be found in balanced design, balanced breathing. The intricate connections linking life and death, the whole design of the world. Holy Design.”
“Lyric sounds devoted. A priest perhaps?”
The smile bending Lyric’s mouth feels self-deprecating. “It was a childhood wish, yes.”
Amado the Reconciler hums. “Well, Lyric Priest of Aharté, there is little balance in this city of monsters.”
“That is apparent in the dance of forces,” Lyric says, reaching a hand out, playing his fingers through the wind.
He cannot touch threads of force, but he can feel the energies slipping, pinging, sparking, dragging all around him in a mess too tangled to parse.
But Lyric imagines he can pull at rising, his dominant force, to draw his spine up, clear his head.
“Amado introduced, ah, Amado’s self.” Lyric stumbles with the grammar a little.
“Chimera. But Amado Chimera does not appear redesigned to such an extent.”
Amado laughs, quiet and real. “It is only the name of the fortress Amado rules. Amado is no chimera.”
Lyric glances again at the bodyguards with obvious apostasy redesigning their bodies. “Amado does not partake of human architecture?” He asks it, knowing the tricolor of Amado’s hair is very likely designed.
“Some.” Amado taps his high brown cheekbone, indicating something Lyric can’t see. “How old does Lyric think Amado is?”
“Thirty?” Lyric says, though it must be a trick question.
Amado’s smile widens. “Thirty is the age of Amado’s oldest grandchild.”
Lyric shakes his head, rather stunned.
“It only requires occasional external and aesthetic design treatments to maintain this pleasing young mask.”
Ah, yes, Lyric realizes. People here do wear masks.
Apostatical, seamless masks. He may never see a real face in all his time here.
A fissure of anxiety tingles across his stomach, but he stuffs it away.
“When Iriset and Lyric… arrived,” Lyric says carefully, “a chimera was there. Alliraptor, and human, perhaps more. Does Amado the Reconciler know of such a chimera?”
The small king tilts his head, and in the setting sun a shimmer streaks along his eyeline. Makeup, or design. Amado says, “There are several chimeras living in the sanctuary of the Moon-Eater’s gardens. Perhaps this chimera is one of them.”
“It would be good to thank the chimera for helping,” Lyric says quietly, though that is not really what he wants.
“Ask a gardener, perhaps, or someone who spends more time here. Has Lyric made any connections within the fortress already?”
Before Lyric can decide to affirm or deny the information fishing, a cheerful voice calls out from above, “Amado!”
Lyric looks directly up to see a figure floating—flying?—in the air above the water feature.
“Old Fairy,” Amado greets, raising a hand.
(In Old Sarenpet there tend to be multiple proper names for everything, and nicknames abound, given the necessity of calling everything by some form of address in speech and writing.
Since the start of the reign of the Moon-Eater, habits have tended more and more toward grandiose and melodramatic naming conventions, made worse by the humor and encouragement of the Moon-Eater himself, who goes by all sorts of appellations: the Red God, Sky’s Eclipse, Amethyst Beast, Fairy of Death, Old Fairy, and interestingly, the Screamer.
He’s the Moon-Eater, too, of course, and might flirtatiously welcome nicknames like beloved and lover, true-heart or honey-kiss, but he has not introduced himself as Shade to anyone in several hundred years.)
“Filling the ears of Lyric Aharté with gossip and sedition?” The Moon-Eater sinks down through the air, alighting on one of the mossy islands with one pointed toe.
He hangs there, arms relaxed but spread to either side.
The casual power is stunning. He appears as a youth, coltish long limbs and knobby knees and elbows exposed by the pleated skirt and sleeveless vest he wears.
His black hair is pulled in a messy tail high on his head, and he’s made his skin a soft, cool brown. But his eyes are vivid mirané red.
Amado bows his head. “Merely getting to know one another.”
“Amado is a good person to know,” the Moon-Eater tells Lyric with an exaggerated wink.
Lyric glances between the two; he never would throw a word like sedition around without meaning it, but Amado seems unbothered.
“Now go away, Amado,” the Moon-Eater says, splashing into one of the water channels. “This old fairy is taking Lyric Aharté to dinner.”
Amado steps back, sending Lyric an amused look. “Do take up the offer to visit Chimera fortress for a meal on another day.”
“Yes,” Lyric agrees, distracted by the stomping of the Moon-Eater as he kicks and splashes his way through the formerly peaceful water labyrinth.
Amado withdraws with the two bodyguards, unhurried, and Lyric folds his hands together, breathing calmly through the unsettled anxiety prickling at him. His fingertips tingle. Historically that old fairy vaporizes anyone caught wearing skin and eyes and hair like Lyric Aharté.
When the Moon-Eater hops out of the water, Lyric manages not to flinch.
The Moon-Eater lands so that Lyric must turn directly into the setting sun.
He can’t help a slight wince, glancing away to the shadows stretching across the gardens.
And there in the melting sky is the slivered moon, growing brighter pink-silver as the light of the sun fades.
It is Lyric’s moon, even if it does not belong so near the horizon.
The Moon-Eater plants his fists on his hips and cocks his head so the fluffy hair swings childishly. Lyric holds his feelings and thoughts in a tight grip. “Moon-Eater,” he says quietly.
“Aharté,” the boy answers, then his face splits into a wide grin with extra layers of teeth. “What were you doing?”
“Speaking with Amado the Reconciler. Before that, meditating.”
The Moon-Eater wrinkles his mouth and nose, displeased. “Why?”