Page 131 of The Mercy Makers
Iriset touches the numen’s back, urging patience, for even though Garnet is the Vertex Seal’s first attendant and body-twin, he doesn’t have usual business here. It sighs quietly and seems to settle into the large body, even relaxing slightly againsther hand. She taps a force-rhythm gently with her forefinger, lingering in flow to encourage this patience, and the numen tilts its head to shoot her a wry look more familiar than Garnet usually would be with her.
She wonders if this is how Ambassador Erxan felt when he saw through the Singix mask—unsettled and unbelieving, even knowing the truth.
When the miran finish their song, they bow to the altar and one another, slipping out. One nods a greeting and says Garnet’s name. Another, an older woman, asks, “Does the Vertex Seal wish to honor his wife and mother with the Moon-Eater? I expected him to haunt the Silent Chapel.”
“His wife?” Iriset says thoughtlessly.
The mirané woman flicks her a dismissive glance. “He would not mourn her according to Ceres traditions, naturally.”
Iriset drops her head and quickly flattens her hand over both eyes, under her veil. She leans into the numen as the world tilts beneath her, out of balance.
Lyric returned to the palace and killed her. Did he say Silk did it? Is that how he will control what he can of the narrative?
“Naturally,” the numen says in Garnet’s voice. “There will be balance in mourning, as in all things.”
The miran agrees, or must; Iriset doesn’t exactly see what they do except that they file past and out of the sanctuary.
When they’re alone, Iriset finds herself breathing her eight-count rhythm as she approaches the altar. To lock down her grief. To move past it, to—to just focus on what is before her. The altar.
Even knowing the teeth never belonged to a god but some ancient dead monster, she remains reluctant to disturb them. The numen, however, sweeps the teeth off the altar in one stronggesture: They crash down with a cracking clatter, chipping on the tiled floor. Iriset presses her lips together, fighting the urge to chide it.
“Look,” the numen says.
“At what?”
“The lines of force creating this prison.”
“I can’t see force with my bare eyes.”
Its responding frown suits Garnet’s features better than the numen’s previous smiles. “Do you have your stylus?”
Removing it from the front of her robe jacket, she holds it up.
“Help me draw a basic design diamond—say, sixteen paces from point to point.”
“We have nothing to mark the forces with.”
The numen picks up a fossil molar. It holds it in one hand, and Iriset feels again the drawing forces for a brief moment before the molar simply crystallizes. Then it shatters into four nearly equal chunks. Each falls to the floor, and the numen smiles.
Iriset decides not to analyze how that transformation occurred right now and gathers them in the left skirt of her robe. Together, she and the numen begin their work.
Always binding
Maybe it is Holy Design that keeps pushing Raia mér Omorose toward the threads that Iriset personally interferes with, or perhaps an is simply like her—not quite a natural sunderer, but with the instincts to learn. And so an is drawn toward the same kinds of design problems as Iriset.
The point is, Raia notices the blip of force as the security nets guarding the spiral stairs to the numen’s prison bend strangely. It’s practically a miracle for an to notice, given the state of the nets and how many of them are currently bent in ways they ought not be. An has a design cube set up in ans office that alerts an to any strange knots or disruptions in the palace’s complicated layers of design. The cube merely senses the blips, and then Raia must open ans floor to reveal the palace complex design map, engage with it, and hunt through four hundred years of architectural signatures, redesigns, new petals, and domes, plus the constantly rotating security threads to locate the blip. Often it comes from the office of the Architect of the Seal, and sometimes an attendant merely has broken their thread cuff. But every once in a while there’s no immediate explanation.
This time, an already has the floor open, as an has spent the past thirteen hours mapping out the worst of the mess Silk created and sending memos to various teams of architects for where they should direct their efforts and how this fix is causing a cascading effect of its own to re-tangle what’s already been straightened.
Raia is studying the section near the Silent Chapel when an has a feeling and glances toward the mirané hall. The blip near the numen’s prison is new and Raia is on ans feet immediately.
With a security alert in hand, an hurries to the mirané hall, ready to slap the alert against the palace wall where it will set off immediate alarm. An doesn’t wish to upset anyone prematurely, and so an will check on the nets anself first. It could be one of those cascading effects, after all.
As an nudges at one of the doors in the entrance arch, it opens swiftly and Garnet méra Bež emerges, followed by an attendant in palace orange, with her veil pulled across her eyes. Raia considers asking Garnet to wait, but the man looks on serious business, so an merely touches ans eyelids and lets the body-twin pass.
Then an slips inside and dashes across the wide-open hall, aware of ans footsteps echoing again and again off the high layered domes.
When an arrives at the hidden arch, Raia activates the panel at the top of the staircase and checks the security nets. They each appear intact, without tampering. An frowns and pushes ans palace key into place, then taps ans personal identification pattern into the threads, unlocking the nets. Nothing appears out of place, but something caused ans design cube to ping, so an had better check on the numen.
