God-Kings of Lotus: Heroes of the Unconquered Sun

[GryffonDurime]

Downtime Theatre

Ivory smiled as she ran her thumb across the spines of the books. There were quite a few of them. The Adamant Lily Pagoda had an empty library where shelves lined walls so tall that she could fit everything she owned into that room and still have space left over to fly about, but the delivery had exceeded even that capacity. The shelves were full now, and the overflow covered the floor of the room in ankle-high piles of books and files and papers.

"Most of this is regrettably useless, mistress," D'resh said from his perch on her new desk. "Records kept with the Bureau of Destiny on the minutea of the lives of sorcerers throughout history. The chafe, not the wheat, either. If you were curious as to what Salina favored for midafternoon tea, the answer would appear to be chamomile," he said as he glided down to the pile and opened a file with a flap of his wings. "When Miss Ura was preparing the readings you requested, orders came down from the...which was the green one, Miss Ivory Eyes?"

"The Forbidding Manse of Ivy," she said absentmindedly and she flipped through an old tome. It turned into dust in her hands.

"Yes. Orders came down from the Manse to include...everything. And news that there had been a most regrettable incident with the index and a flame duck. My apologies," D'Resh said as he lept to Ivory's shoulder. "But Miss Ura did advise me, rather conspiratorially, to help you look for that--" he pointed to a thin saffron volume near the edge of the shelves.

Ivory took the volume gingerly and opened it, smiling as she did so. Inside there were clippings and copies of notes: names of a few fine Sidereal savants, notes on spells and artifacts. Even a few notions about shinmatic theory.

"Relay my compliments to Ayesha when you meet with her next," Ivory said as she took a seat at the desk.

"And when do you think that would be, Miss Ivory Eyes?" D'Resh asked, his manners starched and straight as a butler's coat.

"I was hoping it would be tomorrow. Assuming, of course, that you accept a position as my retainer here in Heaven."

"You could simply bind me to such a task," D'Resh said. A test. He was clever, yes, and politely paranoid. Practically perfect for such a position.

"I've not even bound you to my service yet, D'Resh, and I was hoping you'd prefer a salary. Of course, if you'd rather I bound you," she said, looking up from her notes with a smile.

D'Resh grinned, the tips of his beak curving in a matter that would have been unnatural for anything other than a spirit. He extended his wing, she took it, and they shook.

***

"Are you sure about this, mother?" Ivory asked, scraping a last sliver of rock from the statue set before her on the counter.

"Positive," Somber Reed replied, finishing her cup of tea with a satisfied sound. "I've seen how hard you work, how many nights you go without any sleep."

"I don't need sleep anymore."

"Just because you don't need to sleep doesn't mean that you shouldn't," Somber Reed said.

Would you care for more tea, Miss Reed? Bronzeheart asked, his voice light and elated to be of service again. Ivory had become an infrequent visitor in her own home, and the great mechanical spider enjoyed his protracted discussions with the woman. She spoke of Heaven and her career as a Chiaroscuran glassblower, and she had taken to inventing with such minimal instruction that Ivory sometimes wondered if her mother was Exalted.

"That would be lovely, Bronzeheart," she replied, and there was the noise of mechanisms lowering. A spark kindled in the brick hearth and a thin track of iron spiraled out from the cupboard with a kettle. Two pipes slid forward and released sprays of water and tea leaves.

"I still can't believe you got that little system working with his circuitry," Ivory said with a smile as she seated herself at the table and offered up the statue for her mother's approval. It was the Somber Reed of thirty years ago: the strong-shouldered woman who had pulled her daughter from the raucous of divine justice. The face, though, was lost to Ivory Eyes and so she had borrowed the severity and solemnity of her mother's current features, smoothing wrinkles where she could.

"Where did you think you got your resourcefulness from?" Reed asked as she picked up the statue and turned it over in her hands, paying special attention to the hands. The hands holding the statue were old and weathered, but the statue's hands themselves were young and strong and each palm was set with a diamond. "Your father was a brilliant man, Ivory, but rigid as a pipe."

"I wouldn't know," Ivory said. It could have sounded mean, but she chose her tone carefully.

Somber Reed shook her head, sighed, and spoke all at once: "He was a tinker. Loved mechanisms, especially the rare few First Age curios he got his hands on. I met him at the bazaar. He bough a piece of my crystal, and he looked at me with his big green eyes and I fell. We were happy for a few seasons, and then it...just ended, Ivory. He said he couldn't keep up with me, and I think what he meant was that we didn't want the same things. But I'd like to think that somewhere, he knows what a beautiful young woman you've grown up to be."

Ivory bit the bottom of her lips as they curved into a smile just as her mother slid a hand to Ivory's swollen stomach.

"Are you going to be alright? It's such a long ritual, Ivory. We could wait."

"I'll be fine," Ivory Eyes said as she stood, taking her mother by the hand with the statue tucked under her arm. She took the kettle from the fire and poured a cup for each of them. They toasted and clambered up the stairs.

The room was full of cushions: Ivory seated herself on a blue poof and her mother chose a thin pink pillow. She set the statue between them and gestured: every candle in the room lit all at once.

"What I do here, I do in the name of the Unconquered Sun and Autocthon. Their gifts empower the mortal race, and what light they have offered me, I now offer you."

***

The pegasi landed just as soon as the high jade walls came into view and trotted forward to the gate at a brisk pace. Ivory suspected that they could practically taste the sunwheat.

"That trip was absolutely interminable," the Doctor said. His own horse craned it's neck back to shoot him a nasty look.

"I think I may have an idea for fixing that," Ivory said with a smile as she slid from her mount, handing his reigns to one of the guards, a phantom conjured from wyldstuff. Ivory still wasn't sure if they were functionally real, completely human. Every Wyldshaper in Petal had weighed in on the debate without reaching a conclusion, but ultimately Ivory had decreed that they would air on the side of humanity--until proof could be offered to the contrary, every person created by Wyldshaping was afforded the full rights due to any mortal.

"That Sidereal has been selling you his wild fancies," the Doctor said as he took the guard by the elbow, turning him around to examine him as he adjusted his spectacles.

"They're interesting ideas," Ivory replied, smacking the Doctor away from the bewildered guard. "I believe they have promise, though they may require a bit of Solar perspective."

"I'm surprised you trust the Viziers at all after what they did."

"What one of them did," Ivory replied, and grabbed the Doctor's hand to drag him across the threshold. "And welcome to Petal."

Petal was a city built in concentric rings, crisscrossed by a web of canals and bridges. Most of the city was flat and empty lots, but a few of the Amalga had settled down into modest palaces. They could have a great deal more than they generally did: the Amalaga had been chosen for fine minds and responsible spirits. Each precinct had a distinct aspect of essence from the demense at it's heart, and they had entered at the wood-aspected Rose Precinct. They strolled the broad highroad that ran to the Solar Manse at the heart of Petal, passing infrequent homes and countless empty spaces.

"I see you've left considerable room for expansion," Doctor Brass said as they passed a pair of Wyldshaped consorts: two coquettish boys with sly smiles. They bowed low as Ivory passed.

"I've tried to layout the city with an eye for what it will become. Lotus is a bit of a lost cause in that respect," she adds with a laugh.

They walked in awkward silence, finally making it to the center of petal: a field of thick sunflowers as tall as Ivory's chest and the Doctor's waist. They waded through them as best they could, finally coming to the center: a circular copse where the sunflower had grown so tall and so thick that their cable-like stems had braided with one another into a high dome. There was a great gap in the ceiling to let sunlight in, and a basin that collected it just below. All around them, Wyldshapers sat, pulling elastic wyldstuff all the colors of the rainbow, shaping it like a cat's cradle. Ivory sat herself and the Doctor beside an old man with glistening adamant eyes.

"Anything to report, Ashrin?" Ivory asked.

The old man shook his head. "A few more goblins tried to come at us. Big mistake. We only got your message yesterday, though, ma'am. We've made decent progress towards the components...your statues are almost complete, but the gauntlet is still proving a bit tricky."

"Well, then," Ivory said as she reached towards the basin with her hand and drew out a globe of raw sunlight, slick with the rainbow sheen of the Wyld. It hung between her fingers, free-floating as her eyes bled to bright white, her anima erupting. The Doctor offered her his hand and she took it; Ashrin did the same. "This...is going to be quite difficult. Producing a stable Protoshinmatic Vortex was a challenge even for the Lawgivers of old. Have you instructed the Shaped to withdraw to the edge of the city?"

"I have," Ashrin said with a nod. "And everyone else is under the effects of an Integrity-Protecting Prana. We may begin whenever you are ready, ma'am."

"Here is good, and I can imagine no time better than now," Ivory said. The Doctor and Ashrin linked hands, completing the circuit and encircling the globe. The three turned slowly, peering into the unraveled heart of the Wyld.

And maybe it peered back.