Garden of the Peak / The Celestial Court / Ribe

Late Hour of the Hawk

 

“Moonie! Mooniemoon! Mooniemooniemoooooniemoon!”

Reflecting Pirilulatiko stiffened in her bench seat as Illuminating Kyokenajidumo called for her from somewhere else in the Garden. She briefly considered ducking down below the half-walls of the gazebo where she was currently reading before deciding it was still too undignified.

Things wouldn’t stay that way much longer, though, if the Dawn’s trend towards increasing immaturity thanks to His new Xeno-protege’s influence continued unabated.

“Moonie!” Kyo said triumphantly. “There you are!”

The Dawn’s Illuminating bounded into the gazebo, unshaven, his clothes disheveled. There was a despairing wince lurking beneath the gleeful expression on the man serving as his God’s primary avatar. He rushed over to her and rubbed his scratchy whiskers all over her delicate cheeks, almost translucently jade-white and perfect as her orbiting icon.

“Geh!” both the Moon and Piri objected. “Father! Stop that!”

Illuminating Kyo stepped back, grinning. “But We’re so happy to see you, Moonie!” They hopped onto the bench opposite Reflecting Piri, sitting crosslegged, grinning like fools.

“We wish we could say the same,” Reflecting Piri said dourly. “You’re a mess, Father. Are – are those soup stains!?”

“Tea!”

“They / were / visiting / us,” two of her sister’s voices came from nearby in eerie sequence – the Glinting and the Glittering again, hidden in the shadows as usual. The Stars was using those two to interact with the rest of the Celestial family much more often these days. It was a sign of how upset she currently was, since they were the most capable of criticism among her many avatars, in comparison to, say, Twinkling or Sparkling.

“That thing / did something / ‘so amusing’ / that Father / spit out / a mouthful,” They continued.

“Yes!” Illuminated Kyo said, “That’s why We came to see You, Moonie!”

They hopped to their feet again and spread out their arms. “What’s the difference between Us and a High Court Prosecutor?”

“We’re sure We have no idea, Father,” Reflecting Piri sighed.

“We don’t think a High Court Prosecutor shines out of Our butt!” Illuminating Kyo said.

“Father!” Moon gasped, scandalized.

A rumble of thunderous laughter came from Sky Father’s Tower overhead.

“Oh, lighten up!” Illuminating Kyo said, Their halo flashing brighter for a moment. “See? Even your Grandfather thinks that’s funny!”

Not for the first time in her recent days, Reflecting Pirilulatiko wondered if it might be time to leave the Celestial Court and let some other noblewoman serve as the Moon’s primary avatar. When she’d taken on the holy duty, she’d thought she would spend her days providing mortal insight into the guidance of lovers and the inspiration of poets, and the physicality of the ritual dancing with the Moon’s twin brother Sea, and all the other materialistic aspects of the. . .noble. . .pursuits of the Moon’s Celestial portfolio.

And, yes, she did do those things, and enjoyed them at a literally Heavenly level, but what she hadn’t expected was all the. . .familial. . .interaction necessary to the position. All the living together. All the. . . squabbling.

The powers – the natures - of Celestials were so great, so all-encompassing, that only though their relatively limited avatars could they meet and consult and discuss and. . .do all the other things families did, without risking each other’s destruction. Which naturally, sometimes, included irritating each other.

“Whoops, gotta go!” Illuminating Kyo’s voice broke into Their thoughts. “New guy’s about to Invest his Shop! Can’t miss that!”

They rushed out of the gazebo again, robes flapping.

Reflecting Piri sighed, harder this time. And it wasn’t like she wouldn’t get to try this chocolate stuff soon enough as a mere mortal anyway, considering how fascinated the Moon Herself was by its potential.

 

# # #

 

The Shrine of the Fist and the Rod / District of the Stars / Ribe

Early Hour of the Hawk

 

Once Kimmukkanaya had returned, with Konolati wriggling under half her arms, still ridiculously insisting he was now Big K! Big Bro said so! and had tossed the annoying pest into his little river-world in the rear yard, the weaker Demons started trickling in and trickling out. Mostly to report on The Monster; the Monster had gone to the Bank, the Monster had gone to the east, the Monster had gone to the south and hallowed Riku-go’s Folly in the Dawn’s name and boarded it and sailed away.

She was back in her child-avatar, sipping a cup of tea on the side porch when Ginugoro dropped that hot news in her ear. Her long, wicked fangs erupted out of her jaws and her black third eye cracked open reflexively as she turned and examined him. He prostrated himself, trembling, his muzzle extending as he pressed himself flat against the floor and his Demonic characteristics rose to the fore.

Her Yin Eye of Shadows saw he was repeating the truth as he’d heard it; there were no hidden secrets for it to uncover and reveal to her.

“Who told you this?” she growled, not bothering to undo her display.

“Uolo, O Fist, who heard it from Hiridhabi,” he squeaked, his long rodent whiskers trembling against the boards. “He said the Quickest told him she has been following The Monster since this morning. The Longer of the Bridges District told me she said she saw it herself, and instructed him to pass the word around.”

“Hmm,” she growled. “Anything else?”

A sudden - and intimidatingly massive- build-up of the Dao’s Rectification to the north-east was the universe’s answer. She darted off the porch, out from under the eaves, and then leaped to the roof’s tall flag-bearing spire in one bound. Behind her, Gin shrank completely into his multi-headed and -tailed rodent-avatar and scurried off the porch as well, ducking under the Shrine’s foundations to hide.

Kimukkanaya the Fist, the Strongest of Ribe, rested a foot at the spire’s base and wrapped three hands around its tip, her face still bright red, white-dotted, fanged and three-eyed. She leaned towards the burgeoning concentration of power in the distance, her Yin Eye searching for every possible detail she could find.

Purple-tinged thunderheads were building up over the The Drops, where the city shallows turned to undersea cliffs, descending precipitously into the dark, cold depths below.

A new rival? she wondered, and let her avatar expand into its supernaturally proper cloudy, misty hugeness. Her point of view ascended higher and higher until she reached the limit of Master Kaji’s barrier. Now she could see Riku-go’s Folly, sailing parallel to the Drops, every sheet of sun-yellow canvas sail out to catch the wind. A small flotilla followed behind it, slowly catching up. Fools, she thought. Couldn’t they see what was – ah, now they were breaking off. Most of them.

Down below, Kon’s own giant, whiskered dog-dragon cloud-head popped out of his private river-world, his Rod firmly clenched in his jaws.

“Big Brooooo!” he roar-howled “Goooo forrrr iiiiit! YEEEAAHHH!”

Oh, she thought. Not a rival; The Monster. She should have thought of that. It griped at her to acknowledge how the man’s – the entity’s – strength was so much greater than her own; so much that she dared not think to oppose him. But she had attained, and retained, her five-syllable-name and superior position through the strength of her mind and her self-mastery as much as her body, and could repress her supernatural instinct to challenge him for dominance.

Does that mean – is he using – sacrificing - the Folly to protect himself as he ascends? A different kind of admiration, more Demonic than the vulnerability his tenderness had surprised out of her earlier, sparked in the tiny cinder of her mortal heart. Ruthless! she thought. So ruthless! So much god-wood, consumed to protect only one being’s rise to power! Truly a Monster!

She failed to notice her own assumption that the success of his semi-apotheosis, contrary to the Law of Heaven, was a certainty, not just a mere attempt.

The few lesser Demons nearby them in the District, the ones not slumbering in their Hokko, raised their voices in ululation, echoing Kon’s cry. Some of the more sensitive mortals she could see in the streets shivered, or looked around, trying to find the source of the faint animalistic sounds which their senses had translated the Demonic howling around them into.

The bare few who knew better - who could hear better - paused what they were doing otherwise. Most of them shuttled nearby children indoors, or suddenly closed the doors and windows of their homes or businesses.

In the north-east, the lightning descended. A warm yellow light glowed around its target at the water’s surface, disrupting and deflecting it, as repeated crackling booms thundered over the city.

He’s not ascending​? Kim thought. That was the Dawn’s godly righteousness, turning aside the Dao’s reflexive response to the exertion of unnatural forces in the world. She felt oddly disappointed. Then what is he doing with all that power?

“Let’s go get a gift!” Kon shouted below her, fully emerged and recovered enough to take his boy-form again, even within Master Kaji’s barrier.

“What? No! Why?” she called back.

“For Big Bro’s housewarming!”

“His what!?”

“Stinks that we can’t bring him one of his first Sunfires, but I bet he’d like. . .um. . .a book! Yeah! Let’s go get him a book!”

“No, Kon!”

“Big K! My name is Big K!”

Kim groaned wordlessly and began condensing back down into her child-avatar.

 

# # #

 

Exotic Arcana / Lower Caster’s Ward / Carna

Early Hour of the Hawk

 

“Master Kyden! Master Kyden!”

Kyden looked up from his review of Osckelat’s A Journeyman Magician’s Introduction to Void Essence Integration, Volume 2: Theory and Practice. The agitated voice approaching from the hallway outside the open door to his study belonged to Tip, Archmage Morristan’s newest charity-prentice. A moment later the pre-teen girl herself skidded into view, grabbing the doorjamb to stop her headlong rush.

“Yes?” Kyden said. In his lap, sleepy little Scuffle hoot-growled, his big yellow owlbear cub eyes cracking open just enough to reveal the lower chord of their black pupils.

“There’s something wrong with the Ancient Grimoire!” Tip said breathlessly, her pale face even whiter than usual under her light brown hair, apart from two bright spots of red high on her cheeks. “It turned all. . .meaty! And then started shedding! Rian got some on her and she’s apeing out!”

“Oh, bother,” Kyden muttered. “Wakey-wakey, Scuffle. Shoulder, please.”

The familiar grumbled, but stood up on Kyden’s thigh and stretched before climbing his master’s reinforced jacket to the scarred leather pad on its left shoulder. He dug his claws in and hunkered down, eyes drowsily slitted. Kyden put a bookmark on his page, closed the tome, pushed his notes up beside its edge, and dropped a protective canvas dustcover over it all.

“Show me,” he told Tip, rising from his nice warm comfy chair. She was dancing from foot to foot in excitement.

He followed her down the hallway to the main Reading Hall. Half a dozen customers were clustered around the doorway to the Reserved Room where the Ancient Grimoire was kept, whispering in shocked voices and gesturing. Above, near the third-story ceiling, one of the normally invisible Automated servants - clad in the white robes with bronze accents under a cloth sphere for a head that he’d had made to cover them - continued to clean a large, arch-topped twenty-foot tall window.

Since the Automated servant was acting normally, Kyden relaxed a little.

“Excuse me,” Kyden said, coming up behind the small crowd in the doorway. They hurried out of his way with apologetic mumbles of “sir” and “master kyden”.

‘I don’t feel like I’m deviating more, but!- ” Rian’s voice shrilled from inside. Kyden leaned in to look.

Tip’s senior had indeed gone simian again, wispy ochre hair sprouting out of the gaps in her clothes, and her face and face compressed into a half-human, half-orangutan mix. She had retreated into a ceiling corner of the Reserved Room’s second floor and was frantically grooming herself, searching for more, weirder alterations of her body.

“Hold still, Rian,” Kyden said, pulling his standard, general-use divining monocle out of its slot in his belt. He held it up to one eye, circled between his thumb and forefinger, squinting the other closed and unconsciously opening his mouth as a result. The half-monkey girl froze in place as he scanned her.

“No, I’m not seeing any more chaos on or in you,” he said reassuringly. “And look at the shadows. They’re not reacting, and the Servant outside isn’t either. I don’t think it’s – contagious – whatever it is.”

He stepped forward for a closer look at the Ancient Grimoire where it rested on its singular lectern.

“Weird as hell, though,” he muttered under his breath, studying it. Tip’s choice of words had been accurate. The Grimoire’s dark cover had turned leathery, and bits of it were flaking off, rising into the air like black paper-kindling ash floating above a fire. Faint glowing lines of yellow and white glimmered underneath its new surface, fading and returning in flows like pulsating veins of gold and silver.

He scanned the Grimoire and its sheddings with his monocle as well. No chaos there either. On a sudden inspiration, he replaced his standard divination lens with his specifically Void-aligned one. Sure enough, instead of its usual tight halo, spines of the Grimoire’s empty Void nothingness aura projected from it in all directions like a spiky sea-urchin.

“We should leave it be, though,” he said, and motioned for Rian to climb down and exit with him. “Come on, you’re fine, come with us,” he cajoled her.

“Yes, Master Kyden,” Rian said, still wild-eyed. She swung around the room’s top before hand-and-footing her way down the wall next to him and over his head and out through the doorway.

“Uhhh. . .Master Kyden?” came another voice, from the Reading Hall’s doorway to the hall behind his Shop’s front sales space. “We can’t get out. The door is sealed somehow. You. . .didn’t, um, wouldn’t do that, did you?”

Oh now what? Kyden thought, then restrained a shout of surprise as, for the first time in the over two years since his signing, the Contract responded:

 

 

<wut th lumpy pellets wuzzat!?> Scuffle thought at him in shock. Kyden had picked up the little owlbear cub half a year after he’d arrived from Earth, and thus Scuffle had never experienced the Contract’s brain-injected blue-box manner of communication.

<Language!> Kyden thought back automatically. <What have I told you about swearing?>

<iz lazy.> Scuffle admitted <sorry pops.>

<Good boy.> Kyden praised <It was a shock for me too, so we’ll leave it at that.>

Scuffle inched over on Kyden’s shoulder and rubbed his feathered cheek against his foster-father’s in affectionate agreement.

Now. . how should I explain this to my guests? Kyden wondered.