13 The purpose of this kind of design
The purpose of this kind of design
At sunset, Lyric sits on the balcony. A small plate with the remnants of a nut cake is beside him, and tea gone cold. He can’t see the western horizon on the other side of the tower, but the clouds before him are high and thin, turning a soft shade of violet against deep bruised purple.
What he did today he feels all right about, though it was only meeting an alliraptor chimera possibly referenced in history, and teaching a small handful of people balanced force meditation.
So little in the scheme of his work and life.
He is used to the lives of hundreds of thousands resting on his decisions at every moment.
And perhaps even more so now, if his actions can affect the entire future.
This feels like a small thing, today, yet it’s so much to consider being the start of Silence here in the city.
The ramifications are colossal. Stories from mirané history play in his mind, the stories of Aharté herself—or so he always believed—recorded in the book Word of Aharté that he memorized as a child.
The people who came to the crater shrine seem so eager to hear what he has to say, to believe in him because he fell like a star from the sky.
Or because they are so hungry for balance amid the chaos of the Moon-Eater’s city.
They need it. Setka seems to long for balance.
Perhaps she craves Silence for the sake of her body, or perhaps it is only that Lyric takes her seriously and tries to speak to her like she’s a person.
Perhaps it is a yearning in her soul, as in Lyric’s.
Lyric has no memory of a time when he did not believe in Aharté, in Holy Design.
Then a half-quad ago he was made to realize he’d married a lie. He never suspected that Singix, his wife, the woman tied to him through the marriage knot, was Iriset mé Isidor, Silk, an unapologetic apostate who reveled in what he knew to be wrong. How could that be part of Aharté’s Holy Design?
When Lyric suddenly understood what Iriset had done to him, to Singix, for a singular, crystalline moment he thought, Iriset is more powerful than Aharté.
He’s been ignoring that thought, burying it under the hundred other issues and griefs of the Silk rebellion and his mother’s death, the vast spider design that disrupted the whole palace of the Vertex Seal and proved apostasy not only existed under his rule but thrived.
The numen’s escape, his panic at Amaranth being in danger, Iriset, Iriset, Iriset refusing to flee, refusing to just go and leave him alone, and now he’s in the past with her, with the Moon-Eater.
And Lyric is the one preaching Silence and seeking Maimeri the Great, and—
Maybe Aharté never existed at all.
“Lyric!”
It’s her voice, and she calls his name again from the corridor, then blows into their guest chamber frazzled, thrilled, her hands up and gesturing already as she sees him through the doorway.
“I cannot even begin to describe what I’ve done today,” she gasps, breathless, laughing.
She swoops down beside him, grabbing the last of the nut cake.
Chewing fast, she makes big eyes at him, and Lyric lifts his cup of tea for her.
Iriset drains it, winces, then asks if there’s more to eat.
Lyric stands and goes to the inlaid table, gathering up another plate with slices of fruit and a hard cheese baked with chilis. He turns and she’s already there, having followed him. He gives it over, then pulls the tab beside the door to summon an attendant. “Did you eat anything today?”
“Ah, some, but I’m starving. Eliri took me to her design tower, and it is unbelievable.
” Iriset sounds giddy. Lyric ushers her back to the balcony and waits for Saff or Peace to appear.
He asks for another meal before joining Iriset where she’s stuck her entire arm between two slats of the railing to stretch her fingers toward a trio of butterflies whose wings look as sharp as broken glass.
“Eliri has worked in the fortress with the Moon-Eater for more than six years,” she says, still focused on the butterflies.
They seem to be fluttering nearer. “She has so many drawings of old experiments, designs that actually work, and let me pull apart several pieces of the tower itself—also they use stabilizing domes that actually draw all four forces into balance, so we talked for a long time about the benefits of having large areas balanced the way our city is, versus the chaos it is here, when you can still create such balanced areas for more delicate design. The most incredible thing, though, were several fully articulated chimera skeletons, with extensive notes on what worked and didn’t, and what killed them.
That was all before we even started playing with sundering!
It was so strange even to me, you probably can’t even imagine!
” She glances at him with a bright smile.
“No, I can’t imagine,” he says lightly, enjoying her effulgence from a distance, but thinking of Setka. Wondering if her skeleton will end up in Eliri’s workshop one day.
Iriset stops and pulls her arm in. She turns to him, desert-glass eyes flicking about his face as she studies him. “I don’t have to talk about this,” she says with tentative care. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
This time, he hears in her voice, as if she added it aloud.
He studies her back, her dusky peach skin, the irreverent tangle of her hair in knots like the first time he saw her.
She found some cloth bands to tie the wide sleeves of her tunic up to her shoulders to bare her arms. Making the clothes suit her.
Fitting in. Thriving, even. He says, “Once, I met a woman in a garden who would say it was good for me, for a person like me, to sit in my discomfort.”
“Smart woman,” Iriset says with a dry smile. The smile falls away, though, and she says, “This is the first time, between the two of us, that you’re the one who doesn’t belong.”
Lyric looks away. The sky is darker, the clouds fading into the night sky except for a few soft curves where the final light glances along them.
“I met someone else in a garden today,” he says to the clouds.
“Oh?” Iriset says a little sharply.
He doesn’t smile at her expense. This isn’t a happy story anyway. “A chimera.”
Nothing. Lyric looks over and Iriset remains expectant. As if it’s not impressive to meet a chimera. He feels his brow pinch.
“Eliri is a chimera, Lyric. It’s not rare here.”
“Oh,” it’s his turn to say. Yes, he remembers Eliri referring to herself as such, and discussing fetal mesh, which sounds awful, and experiments. But even then, Lyric continued to think of chimeras primarily as amalgamations of different living creatures. “Oh.”
“Tell me about the one you met,” Iriset says, leaning in.
But Saff comes and spreads out a meal for Iriset, so they move inside and Lyric pours wine for her and picks at a few more crackers, then tells her.
He describes the garden of windows with the tiny landscapes first, to see her gape and descend into a quick, thoughtful lecture on how they make it rain in miniature.
He waits until she runs herself in a full circle and stops, glaring playfully at him.
He has no excuse, except some pull to know what it might have been like if they’d married as themselves. Pushing more food toward her, he talks of the gardener who chastised him, and then Setka.
“Lyric méra Esmail,” she interrupts, when he says the Moon-Eater gave Setka permission to live in his garden until the Night of Chimeras, which is tomorrow, so Lyric offered her work after. “Did you adopt a monster today?”
Lyric’s eyes flash up to Iriset’s. Her eyes are smiling, though her mouth is busy with food. He presses his lips flat. “She is not a monster,” he says.
“No more than any of us, at least.”
“Iriset—”
“Go on, I’m sorry I interrupted.” Iriset raises her hand and casually taps her forefinger and thumb to her eyelids.
For the rest of our lives, you will not hide your eyes from your husband, Lyric thinks.
He asked that of Singix Es Sun the day before they married.
A favor in return for a favor. Only it was Iriset mé Isidor wearing her face.
Iriset mé Isidor whose favor was to speak with her own condemned father.
Silly of Lyric to imagine they could ever have married as themselves.
Lyric doesn’t want to talk to her anymore.
But he promised Setka. Settling his hands on his knees and his gaze on the edge of the table, he says, “Setka is interested in Silence, in pursuing it. She’s not falling apart, or weak, or any of the things that might mean her inner design is disintegrating, or—or whatever it is that happens to chimeras.
Whatever made her maker decide he was finished with her.
But she is in pain in places, her teeth I think, and her tail certainly.
Will you go with me in the morning to see her, and help her if you can? ”
There’s no response. Lyric stares at the grains in the polished wood and strains to listen. Iriset might not even be breathing. She’s certainly not eating. Or laughing. Finally he looks up.
Iriset stares at him with an expression he can’t read. Intense, yes, but not angry or shocked. Not desirous by any means. There is nothing soft about it.
“What?” he demands gently.
Slowly she shakes her head. “I thought I heard you ask if I would perform human architecture.”
He clenches his jaw. Breathes. Says as flatly as he can, “If it will help her pain.”
“What the fuck, Lyric!” Iriset explodes. She jumps to her feet and spins around.
With hard-earned control, he picks up his cup of water and drinks it to wet the dryness in his mouth. “I am aware of the irony,” he murmurs.
“Ha!” Iriset whirls back. “Ha!” she says again. She’s making enough noise they’ll have company soon. “How quickly you shuck your morality when there’s no more small kings or sisters or priests judging you!”