Lyric recognizes a word, then another. It’s not mirané, but he does know it, he—
Old Sarenpet.
The words form in his mind: He’s fluent in reading it, but he’s never attempted speaking it before.
“Wife…” he hears, and “needs help” and “go”—or “leave”?
Lyric says in Old Sarenpet, “Help… up.” He shakes his head, frustrated. The language has no personal pronouns, and in reading that’s easy because the sigil for whatever the subject or object of a sentence is can simply be repeated. It will take practice to teach his ears and tongue to understand and speak smoothly. Do they use personal names for me and I and us and them?
Someone else speaks, maybe a question, and he hears the wordmoonorstarand maybeman. Lyric looks beyond the woman and monster to the edge of the crater as another voice joins the discussion, which grows swiftly into an argument.
Standing around the rim of the small crater are a quad or so of people staring down at them wide-eyed, whispering. None are miran, but they could be Osahar and Sarenpet, colored like southern sand and sun-baked browns and freckled desert peach, dark hair in braids and strange short-chops. They wear sandals and pleated skirts knee- or calf-length with layered tunics instead of the robes and trousers of Lyric’s people. Dark paint lines most of their eyes and some lips, some have chunky jewelry, their hair bound up in heavy combs; others have shade-fans tied into elaborate braids. Most with the fans and braids wear a uniform pale purple: attendants, Lyric guesses from a lifetime of being attended. The rest give the impression of finery and expense. They must be nobility or of a high caste.
None of them wear actual masks, but they do have elaborate face paint that looks like scales or flowers along cheeks, and two have headdresses involving elegant feathers, and another’s eyes are so bright a pink they almost glow.
And Lyric slowly realizes it isn’t face paint or headdresses or impressive illusion: That manhasscales, and those women have feathers instead of hair, crested like a bird from the Bow, and the eyes are—the eyes are real.
The monster beside him isn’t a monster, it’s a chimera. This is—
Human architecture.
Now that he sees it, he can tell there is a uniform beauty to all the people, symmetry and smoothness as if they’re works of art, not human. His breath thins out, shallow with alarm.
“Eliri will help Aharté,” says the young woman at his side, the one with crystal claws. There is no other sign of apostasy about her. Iriset would like those claws, Lyric thinks numbly, if she could see what this apostate does with them.
“Eliri,” Lyric says tentatively. “Name?”
“Yes.”
“Lyric,” he says. The murmuring of the crowd starts up again, but Lyric doesn’t think his name means anything in Old Sarenpet—at least not that he knows. It’s a thoroughly mirané name.
“Does Lyric need help climbing out?” Eliri asks. She has yet to make an expression. Though her gaze tracks to Iriset’s face repeatedly. “The Moon-Eater will see Lyric Aharté and wife and then wife will be properly healed.”
“Yes,” Lyric says, shying away fromthe Moon-Eaterbecause—becausewell…
He stands gracelessly, arms full of Iriset. Eliri and the chimera each take an elbow. He flinches from the chimera and it widens its eyes, then darts away, whipping a thick, stiff-looking tail around as itdigs claws into the crater, skimming up like a lizard. The crowd leaps away from it, too, and it’s gone.
Lyric shifts to tilt Iriset’s head against his shoulder as he hooks his arms under her thighs and around her back, holding her against him. He doesn’t know how to climb up, and he doesn’t know how to let Iriset go.
“Be calm,” the same voice that saidpressuremurmurs in mirané. Suddenly arms of force wrap his waist, lifting, and Lyric chokes back a cry. He struggles to hold on to Iriset and his posture as he’s carried up the crater smoothly by this invisible thing. Eliri steps back, and Lyric raises his chin, wipes his face clear of expression, and goes with it. Whatever is happening will make him look powerful as long as it doesn’t throw him back down. Looking powerful is a good strategy in unknown situations.
The crowd backs away, watching indeed with awe, and Lyric’s boots settle to the flat ground and the invisible arms release him. Lyric resists the urge to glance back. He waits, holding Iriset, trying to control his breathing because obviously he can’t control anything else.
Several bystanders reach down and help Eliri up. When she’s at his side again, Lyric says, “Wife needs help,” impatient to end this strange quiet. They’re standing in a rock garden of some kind, spread with tiny obsidian gravel that eats light, interspersed with red flagstones, twisting crystalline columns, and flowering spider cacti. The rock garden is bordered by trellises teeming with lush flora that shouldn’t coexist with the desert rocks and dry air.
Beyond the garden rises an elaborate complex of clustering silver spires like skeletal fingers reaching up into the stark blue sky. A forest of them, some towering so high the afternoon sun itself is half hidden by the tip of one spire. The silvery, metallic walls shimmer strangely, pockmarked by bubbles of colorful glass like windows. Lyric’s eyes ache from how bright it all is, and the relentless bold blue of the sky.
Lyric takes a trembling breath and focuses on the woman Eliri. “Please,” he adds in Old Sarenpet.
“Come with Eliri,” she answers, holding out a hand she sweeps toward the widest trellis path. Without waiting for an answer, she turns and walks. She says to a young person in the violet skirts, “Go to Alis Healer. Bring to the Moon-Eater’s Pit with surgery tools.”
The attendant dashes off and Lyric follows Eliri. His arms ache already and he hitches Iriset closer. The small crowd comes, too, after a moment’s hesitation, flowing behind them like a river. The Moon-Eater’s Pit. The Moon-Eater, god of apostasy, in this garden of chimeras and apostates.
Lyric breathes carefully to avoid panic and holds his gaze forward, determined not to stumble or distract himself. Flashes of silver flicker as the sun glints against the spires. He smells flowers everywhere, hears piercing birdsong and some animalistic calls that sound almost like human laughter. There must be an explanation for what is happening—Iriset has to know, she’s the one who did it. Lyricneedsher to wake.
Focusing on Eliri before him, Lyric takes one step at a time. He is only walking a strange labyrinth, that’s all. Eliri leads him without rushing. Her tunic is finely embroidered with dark purple flowers and her skirt falls nearly to her bare feet. Despite her simple attire she commands the respect of those near her: They give her breathing room, none near enough to touch accidentally despite their eagerness to lean closer to stare at Lyric.
They pass a gardener, standing with his mouth dropped open. A trowel falls from his hand, tip sinking into the gravel. The gardener points at Lyric’s face. Someone from the crowd hisses and darts forward to make the gardener step back. Lyric ignores it. Ignores everything. It’s not the time for conclusions, not when there’s so much information he needs, when he’s aching all over, when he senses eyesupon him, and eddies of forces scratch and kiss his skin though they aren’t clearly ecstatic or flow or falling or rising. He must stay calm to survive.
