13 The purpose of this kind of design #2
“That’s not what this is,” he says, eyes shutting of their own accord. His stomach is upset again.
“Oh?” Iriset says seductively, stomping back down into the recessed floor beside him. There’s a slam, and the entire table rattles.
Startled, he looks at her fist, clenched against the table, then up at her face. She’s so close to him he involuntarily leans away.
“Just kill her,” Iriset snarls. “If she’s a flawed chimera, if she’s not suitable to live, doesn’t meet the exacting laws of Aharté’s Holy Design, put her out of her misery.”
“She is none of those things,” Lyric says with a calmness like death. “She is in pain because of human architecture, because of apostasy that sees no limits, no consequences to the apostate, only to the girl who was given no choice in the matter.”
“None of us choose to be born,” Iriset scoffs.
“I asked her.” Lyric feels the ferocity of his anger rearing up finally. “She does not want to be healed or changed, but she is in pain. Why won’t you help her? Only because I’m the one asking?”
“I didn’t say I won’t help her.” Iriset moves around to her seat and plops down. She pours more wine, but only sloshes it carefully in the cup, watching the surface, lost in thought.
“What was done to create Setka shouldn’t have been done. What is the purpose of this kind of design?” Lyric asks. “But it was done, and she is alive, and deserves to be… comfortable.”
“Sure, Lyric. But… why do you think I wanted—want—to be able to design whatever I like? Human architecture, apostasy? Why do you think I crave it?” She sounds conversational now, but Lyric knows there’s a trick. A purpose to her phrasing.
He says, “Because you can.” Simple enough. “You can, and so you push boundaries. Pride, arrogance, curiosity.”
Half her mouth hitches into a smile. “I won’t pretend I’m not all those things.
But I originally dug into human design only because of my mother.
I wanted to cure apostatical cancer, and I did, and I wish I could have saved others.
Why shouldn’t I be able to share it? Take away that kind of pain for anyone, like you want me to help Setka? ”
“Maybe you should,” he admits. “But that isn’t all you did, all you wanted to do. You went too far, and how much further would you be willing—eager—to go if you had no constraints?”
Iriset sighs. “I always wanted to fly,” she says softly.
“If I could give myself wings, I might, despite risks. If I could design a web, a silk thread of force with the right tensile strength and lift, maybe I could float at least, like little baby spiders. Not because I think people would be better if we could fly, or justice would be served. I want to fly because it sounds awesome.”
The distant smile she wears is lovely. He’s seen her smile like this with both faces, now.
She continues, “Maybe Setka’s designer wanted to design a body to survive the desert, or to breathe underwater—do alliraptors breathe underwater?
No, it’s air, I think, but… anyway, he was exploring the biological attributes of the alliraptors and trying to join human and alliraptor traits for something useful, or at least incredible.
Maybe it was for pleasure—there are a lot of reasons to explore such things, the limitations of life and humanity.
You said your chimera doesn’t hate herself, hate how she is, it’s only the pain, right? ”
“I didn’t interrogate her, Iriset,” Lyric says, feeling sharp and cranky.
“That is the impression I got. But it isn’t only the pain.
She is ostracized. Avoided. Feared. Here in the heart of the Moon-Eater’s city.
That is intolerable. Is it because she’s not beautiful?
Because she’s a—a flawed chimera, is that what you said?
If designers here are going to make these choices, they should care for them and accept the consequences at least.”
“I agree. I’ll go with you to meet her, Lyric, of course I will.
” Iriset sighs, slumping over. “It’s just, I don’t know what I’ll be able to do.
Human design is hard.” She grimaces. “I can speak with her, get a look at her, but I’m…
nothing compared to Eliri, for example. I don’t know their technology here. I’m not truly a human architect.”
“But—” He makes a rather distorted gesture at her face.
Iriset offers him a self-deprecating smile.
“What I did, with Singix, of course it was the most amazing, incredible, skilled thing a designer has done in Moonshadow City in centuries. It was hard, but I did it, and nobody saw through me. I was untouchable, really, a ‘mere strand of silk to bring down an empire,’” she misquotes from Writings of the Holy Syr.
“But compared to this place, the Moon-Eater’s city, I was only scraping paint off a canvas and slapping my own handprints all over it, and calling it a masterpiece. ”
“If that was true, the numen wouldn’t have been so impressed. Or the Moon-Eater.”
She winces. Then sets her wine on the table without drinking it. He can tell she’s contemplating something. Lyric waits, but in the end Iriset gets up. “I think I’ll… I’ll go find it. The numen.”
It hurts slightly, that she doesn’t want to stay. But Lyric can hardly blame her.