Page 13 of The Mercy Makers
“It would be difficult,” Iriset says, not glancing at Anis. “A difficult way to live. Trapped with only two options.”
“But are they a man or a woman? Which is more important, outer design or inner design?”
Iriset feels trapped herself. What does Amaranth want?
This is the test. Not leaving her alone all those hours this afternoon, but this.
Sheshouldsay Aharté does not make mistakes. The external design of men and women is perfect, balanced. Sheshouldsay, in teaching with the empire’s laws, that only Aharté can know which is more important, outer or inner design. That they must trust Silence, trust Aharté’s designs, and if there is such disagreement between a person’s outer and inner design, then She Who Loves Silence intended that disagreement to exist, and so the person must live with the disagreement. But Iriset doesn’t believe it is so simple. She has examined human bodies in great detail, and the more details she explored, the more certain she became that dividing everyone into merely two was one of the stupider things the miran had done. No stool with but two legs can stand. The most stable designs require four points, four forces. Rising, falling, ecstatic, flow. In the mirané calendar there are four days in a quarter, four quarters in a quad, four great forces. With that in mind, how odd it is that Aharté’s Holy Design and her mirané language do not account for at least four genders.
The empire sometimes acts against its own internal design in order to oppress what it cannot control.
But that is not what Iriset was asked.
“Aharté does not make mistakes,” Iriset says slowly, maneuvering through respect for the laws and what she knows to be true. Without referencing Silk’s heretical writings. Amaranth said she collects exceptional handmaidens, and so Iriset ought to behave exceptionally. “Butwemake mistakes. Life, and the Holy Design, are immensely more complex than we understand, Your Glory. Perhaps what we expect when we ask either-or is our mistake, not a mistake in her Design. There are more than two forces in the world, and maybe more than two options for a person’s design.”
“Apostasy,” Amaranth says, rather blithely.
“To be expected from the daughter of the Little Cat,” Istof says dismissively.
“No.” Iriset’s hands curl into fists. “It is not apostasy to say we are less skilled architects than Aharté herself, it is only apostasy if we consider the alternative.”
The smile that breaks across Her Glory’s mouth melts Iriset’s anxiety and confusion into rising relief.
“Aharté designed you as she intended to,of course,” Iriset says to Anis, suddenly ferocious. “There is only one conflict, and that is who you are versus what you are allowed to do about it.”
Anis studies Iriset for a moment. Then murmurs, “Very well, Amaranth. We can keep her.”
Amaranth laughs—as do Nielle and Ziyan, in delight and relief, respectively—and takes back the reins. “It is apostasy, though, Iriset: Once, before Aharté, there were at least four genders we lived with in our crater city, and the Sarians named them ahz, ahzran, friahz, and frian. You likely have not studiedthe language, but that prefix,fri, can only be translated rather complicatedly asweighted toward balance. Is that not charming? You might sayfriahzmeansweighted toward womanortoward womanand that if we were apostates or spoke Sarenpet, perhaps someone like my hypothetical friend could be called such a person. Friahz. But that is my hypothetical friend.Anisis a woman. Do you understand?”
Iriset nods, thinking that she does. “Anything balanced serves Aharté.”
Her Glory snorts. “Your mistress Silk, who you claim taught you design, is a proven apostate. We have heard of her terrible work. Would she have been able to redesign my hypothetical friend a face and body that better mirrored their inner design?”
Suddenly angry, Iriset says, “If that is what your friend actually wanted, and if the Little Cat was paid well enough for it.”
Silence cuts through the chamber. None of the handmaidens move or even breathe. Then Sidoné turns her head to Amaranth as if to claim the winnings of a bet.
But Amaranth only says, “Careful, kitten.”
Iriset freezes. Her father called her that. What is Amaranth trying to say?
She lets Her Glory stare at her for a moment before rising, shaky with the adrenaline of fear and anger. She moves around the oval table to kneel at the foot of Her Glory’s low sofa.
“I am your servant,” she says, and hides her eyes against the floor lest she give herself away.
The red moon
It is said that if Moonshadow City is the heart of the empire, then the Vertex Seal is the heart of Moonshadow City. It’s true, though not because his palace is the location from which flow moral and legal proclamations, nor only that it’s the geographical center of the city. It is true because the palace of the Vertex Seal marks—no, the throne itself marks—the focal point of all the Design of the empire.
Moonshadow City glimmers in a red-rock crater, a wound gashed into the center of the continent millennia ago. To the north, red-rock mountains grow slowly from the arid forests that used to be Ilmar and Saria, the earth filled with minerals and gems ready to be mined, and beyond them rise the drastic peaks of the Cloud Ranges.
Fertile rolling fields and gentle forests spread to the west through the former Land of God, then give way to kinder mountains of Ur-Syel dividing the empire from the martial Bow queendoms with their canopy cities and volcanic magic.
Plains push east, flat and dry and perfect for cattle and sheep, toward the prairie with its troubled clans and states thatonce had been an empire of their own. But our empire drove countless Pir refugees and broken Reskik peoples across those plains into Huvar, a pleasant enough oligarchy that only survives because the empire, when it expands, must expand in all directions equally thanks to the necessary balance of the four forces.
The Lapis River pours out of the northern red mountains and dives toward the city in a rush, curving east to cup the south of the crater before widening into a glorious channel slow and steady enough for barges and ships to enjoy. Then it dives into the deserts of the south, carving canyons and caves for miles, before it becomes a snaking jungle river that spills into the sea. That is where the Ceres Remnants maintain themselves, islands that once were a continent of their own, with a grand empire of their own, but some other young god struggled there long ago and destroyed that world. The islands are rich, and safe from the empire because Aharté’s Design does not do well on the open sea.
The empire flourishes. Within its boundaries Design works wonders. Within it, power is in the hands of architects and therefore in the hands of the Vertex Seal.
