Chapter 24 #2
Helica Silkhair sits beside someone Iriset doesn’t know, another woman but this one dark as a Bow queen and absolutely exuding rising force like it’s not just dominant but singular.
Beside them on one of the floor chairs is a masculine-forward person with what looks like metal growing out of his brow ridge and both cheekbones.
He’s in dark blue robes with golden constellation embroidery on the shoulders, and an array is tattooed to his bare brown scalp that from this angle is obviously a subtle resonance cap.
Iriset leaps to the conclusion that he can attach some kind of visual telescopic apparatus to his face, and she guesses, “The astronomer?”
The man lifts his nonexistent eyebrows and says, “Cardinal of the College of Lightning Revelation,” and beside him Helica Silkhair says to Iriset, “Yes, astronomer.”
Iriset introduces herself, wishing they didn’t need to conduct this whole meeting in Old Sarenpet.
Eliri went over a vocabulary list of design terms with her when they started discussing the untethered array, and Iriset knows she can keep up now, but it’s annoying to constantly mentally translate back and forth.
Before she can get the name of the Bow queen, the main doors swing open and Amado Chimera strides in, tricolored hair vivid against a stark-white outfit with internal structure to sharpen his shoulders and bell the skirt around his ankles.
With him are two people Iriset doesn’t know, introduced as the Chimera city planner and the small king of Sharp-Shin fortress.
The small king sits beside the Bow designer who immediately beings speaking to her in an undertone.
They’re still expecting Eliri and Irsu River, an artist for some reason, two more small kings, and at least one more commander-philosopher.
Iriset lounges beside the Moon-Eater as attendants come in with pitchers of cold water and tea and wine, interested in the way most people seem so wary of him, despite his youthful appearance. She wonders if he does it on purpose, to be disconcerting.
River’s drawled greeting is easy enough to ignore, but at Lyric’s voice, Iriset jerks hard and spills her wine.
The Moon-Eater laughs at her.
Lyric stands almost directly across the table, nodding to the Sharp-Shin small king, and doesn’t even look her way.
Iriset’s heart thuds hard, and her left eye socket seems to burn. He’s right there and she was not expecting it. She’s not ready!
Lyric’s hair is shorn so close to his head she can see the rich mirané brown under the short black sheen.
Scars sprinkle around his left eye, where there used to be freckles and maybe still are.
The scars scatter back into his hair, little shiny stars disappearing into the black.
With a shaved head his features seem bolder, more beautiful, and are those earrings?
Someone is giving her husband jewelry: little silver-and-black studs she wants to suck on right now.
Then his head turns and Lyric looks at her with such a changed gaze.
One eye mirané brown and flecked with brassy crater red, the other almost orange-gold in this dreamy ocean light.
Her desert-glass eye looks different tucked under his lashes, the up-tilted shape of Lyric’s eyelids and cheekbone.
How amazing the way little shapes can change a color.
Illusion, of course, and the effect of his mirané skin instead of her warm tan.
In his face her eye is like a topaz, a tiny sun.
There’s no way he isn’t upset about it. Ecstatic pops faster in her veins.
People are talking. They don’t matter because she hasn’t seen Lyric in more than a quad, the longest it’s been since they met, and she knows what she did, she knows.
A poke in her ribs distracts her. It’s Shade smirking. “Close your mouth,” he teases in mirané. And Iriset grabs her wine from him and knocks it back.
While she was stuck, everyone else arrived, she assumes, because there are two more strangers seated, accepting drinks from the attendants, and one of them basically glares at her like he could kill her that way.
Shade claps his hands. “Let this begin,” he declares.
A feminine-forward person Iriset is sure she’s met but barely remembers stands.
“Sipipia,” she introduces herself. Delicate strokes of black ink cross her white face, fluttering like feathers in wind, and oh, Iriset remembers: the artist. “Moon-Eater, this artist acts as coordinator between elements of the investigation, as a neutral participant with regards to design theory.”
Shade waves his hand, leaning back in his chair to stretch his legs under the table.
Sipipia glances toward Helica Silkhair, and the geo-designer removes a scroll from a bag at her waist. “Allow this designer to overlay the basic design,” she says, and with a flick of her wrist unrolls the scroll across the table.
It does not merely unroll in a long line, but folds outwards in five directions, each unfurling to the edge of the table.
“This is the underlying array detectable from the touchdown point, based on the diagnostic overlay Mirea and Helica developed.”
The Bow-descended designer, who must be Mirea, stands and walks swiftly around opposite Helica.
They use double styli to engage several points on the scroll, and a lovely map of force appears a handsbreadth over the scrolls.
It’s an enlarged version of the central anchor point Iriset studied in the valley of their crater.
Iriset easily orients herself to the cardinal directions.
“It looks like incremental deviations on a security reversal,” one of the people Iriset doesn’t know says, an older woman with severe white bangs stark against warm brown skin and very pretty iridescent green eyes. Honestly, she’s striking but Iriset has no idea what she’s talking about.
But Mirea nods. “It’s not exactly, but the similarity is why it is believed the array cannot be destroyed without catastrophic damage to the Moon-Eater’s fortress at least, if not the entire crater.”
“Is it counting down?” the cardinal asks.
Iriset bites back a grimace as Helica Silkhair says, “If that were the purpose of the array, perhaps a countdown would be its functionality, but this designer and Mirea sir Unrich think it is deteriorating due to lack of completion. Though it is an anchor, it is not anchored.”
Amado Chimera taps a finger on his knee. “Translation, please, for those nonexperts in the room?”
Eliri lifts her head. “When an array is created, especially a layered metadesign, it is usually done all at once because of the delicacy of such large-scale constructions. This array was begun, but not completed. It needs to be complete, or it will fall.”
“And take the city with it,” says the striking older designer. She must be one of the commander-philosophers.
“Seems simple enough,” River says, lighting a pink cigarette.
Iriset looks at Lyric. Does he know what the array needs? Has he guessed? Is that why he’s here?
“It does, doesn’t it?” says the Moon-Eater.
“Why did Iriset Sunderer do this?” the stranger who was glaring suddenly demands, leaping to his feet. He’s older, with gorgeous blue hair and deeply brown skin, and pale blue tattoos filigreed across his forehead. He points furiously at Lyric. “And Lyric Aharté, who has been hiding?”
“Sit down, Berrik,” Irsu River snaps, sharper than Iriset has ever heard an. “This one knows Design fortress has no interest in nuance, but perhaps Design might like a chance to learn something from greater thinkers.”
Berrik snarls. “Rivermouth pathetically clings to a new cult leader? What has become of Roc Aliel?”
River rolls ans eyes and blows a long stream of smoke.
Though several others begin to argue, it’s Shade who says, “Shut up, Design,” very quietly.
But everyone hears. A moment of awkwardness passes, and Berrik slams back down into his seat. Iriset guesses he must be here because a few of the colleges are homed in Design fortress. Too bad.
Tentatively, the third person who arrived with Amado Chimera stands.
They’re feminine-forward, but styled more like the Moon-Eater’s usual attire.
An says, “This planner has been coordinating through Sipipia to map out the edges of the influence as far as it is detectable in each quadrant of the crater city.” As an speaks, an moves around the map, setting tiny pagoda caps in eight spots—that, Iriset approves of.
Eight is closer than six. When the pagodas are all in place, the entire diagnostic array shifts, shrinking inward so that the whole crater city can fit onto the table.
“These are the boundaries of the city, roughly, and the untethered array is reaching out—flaring really—in every direction. It’s not regular, or predictable as far as the data can yet determine.
Also”—an points toward the northwest—“the Lodestone and Rising Smoke fortresses refuse to cooperate, so there is no way to penetrate with combat tracing.”
“It is accidental that the array flared toward Rivermouth so strongly?” River asks.
“If the array’s energy can be manipulated, it is unknown,” Helica says, then looks pointedly at Iriset. “By city designers.”
Iriset says, “If a geo-designer cannot do it, how could this one?”
Amado interrupts. “If everyone agrees that the array must be completed to end the danger of earthquakes, let that be discussed.”
There is grumbling, especially from blue-haired Berrik, but Helica Silkhair levels Iriset with another cold look. “This designer would like to know more about the array and its purpose before discussing completion. Arrays do things. This isn’t about completing it and there being no consequences.”
Iriset slides to her feet. “It’s magic,” she says, cheeky, because if this silk-chimera already doesn’t like her, why bother? “How does Helica Silkhair think Iriset and Lyric came to be here?”
“This designer does not guess without evidence, and there is little of that,” Helica says.