Chapter 41
Too heavy
The earthquakes are coming twice a day, and in another quad it will be every six hours.
It’s both more apparent and less dangerous in the Moon-Eater’s fortress because it’s the epicenter, so the initial thrust of the untethered array attempting to complete itself is intense and fresh, but this is also where the mitigation dome is most secure and centralized.
Each quake feels more like a long rumble of nearby thunder.
At the next meeting of the whole task force, Eliri is the only person missing—and River, of course, though Roc Aliel shows up and is assumed incorrectly by everyone who was not at the Rivermouth fortress that night to be River’s representative.
Roc does nothing to belie that impression, sidling up to Iriset with warm gossip from the Rivermouth dining hall and including everyone in his stories while they wait for the last members to arrive.
Even Helica Silkhair returns his smile, and Iriset makes a note in her messy sheaf of sketches and plans to discuss with Lyric who they should make the first Vertex Seal.
Amado Chimera clearly would like to be, and Maimeri is the choice of history, but maybe Roc should be a contender.
The biggest steps forward presented during that meeting are: First, the city designers of Chimera and Sharp-Shin have completed their survey of the sixteen steeples under construction and everything is on time, especially the Rising Steeple, which had been lagging for weeks thanks to the efforts of the recently assassinated Rising Smoke small king.
His successor was convinced to be more helpful by a personal visit from the Moon-Eater, who wears a shit-eating grin when the city designers describe the whole affair.
The point is, the four quadrant steeples will be finished, the four in the Moon-Eater’s fortress are already done, and the eight precinct steeples to connect them all are in testing stages.
Second, the cardinal of the College of Lightning Revelation has finally landed on a working model for momentarily pausing the moon, and it’s a helix form, he says, as if that’s a miracle itself.
His students have proven the theory with a series of experiments east of the crater involving immovable objects and tricky force equations, and the only remaining problem is the blowback everyone is already aware of, which leads to the third step: Iriset briefly describes the math for channeling the blowback through what she calls a process of raveling.
It’s more like re-raveling, or reverse rivation, but instead of going into details about the process, she leans over and takes Helica’s stylus.
With a mere four-count breath and closing of her eyes, she sunders it from quartz into cherrywood.
She says, “It can and will be done. All it means for this task force is sixty-four volunteers must be identified, people who are willing to be changed into the same stuff as Lyric Aharté and Maimeri.”
Amado Chimera speaks up (of course). “These will be the leaders of Holy Design, presumably?”
“You’re already on the list, Amado,” Shade says silkily.
“Both my spouses as well,” he says. “What are the requirements?”
Iriset answers. “No chimeras. Small apostatical aesthetics are fine, ah, small human redesigns. Feathers in the hair, gemstone eyebrows, that sort of thing. Superficial changes. This sunderer will evaluate individuals. And the second requirement is a skill level with design, the ability to understand the nuances of this design.” Iriset leans over the table and taps a few knots of design, unfurling them just as the late-afternoon earthquake hits.
She feels it rumbling under her feet, and several drops of water suddenly hit the table with bit splatters.
Everyone looks up at the ocean overhead, the shimmer of forces as the design holding it in place trembles. Iriset wonders if it’s enough water to drown them if it all collapses.
“Perhaps meetings should take place elsewhere in the future,” Roc Aliel says with a bold laugh.
As they walk back to Iriset’s workroom, Lyric says he can’t believe how easily the people accept the potential of being transformed into a new kind of people.
“In a city of apostates?” Iriset rolls her eyes at him.
“What is skin color and internal symmetry to people who are used to quartz bones and alliraptor chimeras and fetal mesh?”
Lyric nods reluctantly. “I suppose Shade offering compensation to the families of the volunteers in the event it all goes dreadfully wrong helps.”
“It won’t go wrong,” Iriset insists, though she is not as confident as she pretends to be.
They get so many volunteers from the design colleges and small kings they invite, including friends and family, that they must turn people away.
Maybe rewards from the Moon-Eater were unnecessary.
But Shade insisted. He’s in fine form these days, throwing lavish parties across the expanse of his fortress, filled with debauchery and fireworks, showing off what he can do and what he likes to do.
He starts an impromptu design contest, inviting city designers into the fortress for an aesthetic fashion show, and turns into a dragon to give rides to those brave enough.
Only six people die from extreme design blowbacks, and one dies when his blood vessels all burst after going home for the night.
Iriset learns of all this when she’s made to eat so she doesn’t starve—usually it’s Lyric enforcing meals, and usually Maimeri is with him.
Maimeri is scathing in ahz reports of ahz mother’s party agenda.
It’s good, Lyric teases, because setting Maimeri as opposed to the Moon-Eater will play into the stories Maimeri tells for the future generations.
(Lyric is completely in favor of Maimeri as the first Vertex Seal.)
Lyric takes care of everything that isn’t design.
Coordinating with Amado Chimera to speak with the mirané volunteers and teach them the basics of the Holy laws of Silence and Silent meditations.
Working to finesse Word of Aharté and write down the basics of mirané vocabulary and grammar with Roc Aliel, who, despite the truths revealed about the Renovation War, is an enthusiastic participant in establishing the Silent Chapel to go alongside Holy Design.
Lyric writes down the calendar and traditions of Moonshadow City, and the rituals for the Days of Mercy.
Roc enjoys debating finer details with Lyric, except that Lyric actually knows the answers to all of Roc’s critiques.
Lyric anoints into the priesthood several of the young ones who have kept up the little shrine at the crater.
To everyone’s surprise he makes his first attendant, Peace, the high priest of the Silent Chapel.
Maimeri wants to know why, if it’s because she worships him as Aharté, and Lyric only admits that he chose her for her name.
(At one of their morning meals, Iriset reminds Lyric to set up the Moon-Eater’s Mistress inheritance. “Is there a requirement besides being the direct descendant of the Vertex Seal?” he asks.
Iriset thinks while tapping her lip with her finger, stimulating ecstatic.
“No, and actually, anyone could do it, as long as they’re mirané.
It would be better if they have a falling-dominant inner design.
I think that will gather the necessary forces to restart the helix array more easily, though it’s not necessary. ”
“Does Amaranth know what she’s really doing every morning?” Lyric wonders.
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“All right, and what about the bloodletting I do on the rock—ah, I must remember we need to find a suitable rock. What is that purpose for your array? I didn’t think blood would be necessary. Do you know?”
Iriset nods slowly, her eyes getting wider.
Lyric waits, and she stares until he nudges her arm. “Iriset.”
“Ah, nothing. It does nothing!” Iriset laughs. “Purely symbolic! Lyric, that face you’re making, you look like a spoiled child.”
He stuffs a piece of soda bread into her mouth to stop her laughter.)
Iriset is bent over the floor, various papers tossed about in what most would assume to be a mess but is actually the closest approximation to a two-dimensional representation of a helix array as she can manage.
The knot she’s diagramming is to comprehensively encompass her understanding of mirané selfhood—biology, gender, inner and outer design.
It’s symbolic and wouldn’t mean anything to most people.
But each thread of force, each patterning, needs to mean something to her.
Iriset needs to believe it will work, needs to believe this means this, that means that, and everything will come together.
It’s a strange tension, when she’s used to either complete scientific confidence or total freestyle.
“Iriset,” Eliri the Adept Hand says from the doorway, and Iriset leans up with a shot of ecstatic from tailbone to nape.
“Eliri,” she breathes, getting to her feet. “Are you… well?”
“How can this chimera help?”
It’s been more than a quad since River kicked them out of ans fortress, and Eliri hasn’t sent word or anything. Iriset stares for a moment. “Is River well?” she tries again.
Eliri lowers her big gray eyes. “River keeps ans contracts, and so Rivermouth will be ready and suited to the Holy Design.”
That’s not even close to what Iriset was asking, but she expects it’s the best she’ll get. And she won’t refuse Eliri’s help if that’s what Eliri wants.
“Here,” Iriset says, kneeling again. “Iriset is working on the blowback channeling. The solution is to redesign sixty-four people in sixty-four nodes all at once. It should take the excess power and give it work. Like a pressure release in a heating array.”
Eliri’s gaze flicks along the threads of Iriset’s design, leaping between sheets of paper and diagrams. “Where is the theory display?”