"Log, PF plus ten Tellurian days, addendum. Lieutenant Seward reporting in.

"One of the scouting crews came back. The kids actually tracked the automated genotype seeder I saw from orbit. They even humped a chemical testing set back. I'll debrief them later. Finding food comes first. Maybe that way they'll let me keep my head."

--Recording recovered from Site Resh, reconstructed 1887 CE (restricted access)

----

25 Tumbling Blooming, 1886 CE

The Nameless City, Sodality Territory

"Palace of the Ascension, may your ascent be swift. Skywhale Wolfhaven requests permission to land." Rosabella released the shortsphere blister and smiled at the pilot, though behind the mask she was considerably less sanguine about the prospects. Risky though it was, however, an in-person delivery was the only way for her to protect the integrity of her report.

The shortsphere crackled a response. "Skywhale Wolfhaven, Palace Actual requests that you identify your business."

"Maga Ambassatrix Magistra Uxoris Rosabella Sodalitatis of Acerbia has need of an audience with the High."

"Skywhale Wolfhaven, we will prepare a landing zone for you. Please stand by for further instructions."

Of course, merely being allowed to land was no indication that she would actually be received by any of the High. For all she knew, she would exit the airship only to be informed that the High were far too busy to spare any time for her.

So be it, then. If the High didn't care that two women had been unaccountably sharing Synapsis beneath a silver-sun hallucination even since before becoming Magae, the loss would be theirs.

And Rosabella's. Her nights would become ever more sleepless.

Rosabella contented herself with looking out over the landscape. The Palace of the Ascension, a double-helix structure that twisted into the sky, straddled the mountain path to Vallus. On the near side of the Palace, the strange, avant-garde buildings of the Nameless City cut uneven swathes through the jungle environs.

Here in this most holy place the Sodality explored new construction techniques. Living highrises, tan and flush with sanguine life, grasped for the sky. Criss-crossing structures of bone, some as violent and deadly-looking as gigantic burrs, speared the air and the jungle both.

The oldest buildings were clear predecessors to the construction styles of various cities on Tellus. The bony burrs, for example, were reminiscent of New Pullmas's buildings, save that in that city the thin fingers of the structures climbed to the sky like so many gossamer towers, rather than lashing out into the jungle.

Near the Palace there were enormous trees that reminded Rosabella of Lellonell's beauty. The only difference was in the species of the tree itself: Lellonell was a city of great hardwoods, while here soft jungle trunks swayed unsteadily in the breeze.

Beyond the mountain pass the double-helix Palace straddled, there was nothing. No construction would take root in Vallus, holy ground profaned by uncountable Chimeras. Development in Vallus would be both blasphemy and suicide. Only the wild jungle grew beyond the Palace of Ascension, just as nature had intended.

The landing clearance came in, and the pilot navigated to the proper platform. Rosabella spent the final few moments freshening up and preparing herself mentally for the upcoming encounter. When the skywhale door opened, she was there, standing in her bucket on the landing arm, the most solemn expression she could summon on her face.

The jungle air was hot and humid and smelled of both growing and rotting biomass. Despite the unpleasant scents, however, this was a good location for the Palace of Ascension, and not merely because of its history. Even had the first Sodalitatis not emerged into a ruined world from the underground bunker here, the emerald rainforest below her, the beauty of the rugged cliffs, and the majesty of the valley beyond the gate were fitting surroundings for the headquarters of the Sodality.

The landing arm settled on the ground, and Rosabella stepped out of the bucket. A man, dark skinned and bald and dressed in strips of Sodality red and gold, stood awaiting her. Young muscles rippled beneath the surface of his skin, and when he took Rosabella's hand, his palm was the perfect mix of roughness and softness.

He inclined his head deeply, then lifted dark, kohl-lined eyes to hers. "Ascend well and swiftly, Ambassatrix. The Palace of Ascension welcomes you. I am Acolyte Muoro Sodalitatis."

A lesser Ortus Gens Utulo, perhaps. Rosabella smiled. "Ascend well and swiftly, Acolyte. I am honored by the welcome."

"I have been instructed to prepare a chamber for you."

"Thank you, Muoro. Will it be in the northern or southern tower?" Rosabella asked as Muoro led her across the platform to the staircase.

"The red, Ambassatrix. Have you stayed there before?"

"No. Only in the northern tower, when I was still an Acolyte myself." There had been benefits to entering the Sodality with a Wisdom already Bound, but entirely skipping ranks of the hierarchy was not one of them. There were limits even for a Maga.

"You will find the rooms in the southern tower more to your liking. They are far grander."

They took a staircase cut into the landing platform's hill down to the entrance to the valley, where the enormous red column that was the southern tower began. The directional designations were only partially accurate since the two towers spiraled around one another, and later generations of Acolytes had taken to naming them by their colors rather than by the relative positions of their bases.

When they entered the vast portal at the bottom of the column, a blast of cool, refreshing air burst over Rosabella. Had she had no SOPHIOS to regulate her bodily functions, she surely would have been sweating like Muoro; as it was, his body glistened, leaving a most attractive sheen on his dark skin.

"The last time I was here, I was welcomed as an Acolyte," Rosabella said as they passed through the antechamber into the Palace's lobby. "Now I come as an Ambassatrix. Forgive me, Muoro. When company is pleasant, I am liable to think aloud; there is little that I crave more than good conversation."

"It is my pleasure to listen, Ambassatrix. It is the least of the functions with which I have been charged," Muoro replied as they made their way to the lift shafts at the side of the lobby of red stone. As they walked, they passed by Sodalitatis of all ranks: mere novices who wore the same strips of attire that the Acolytes wore but without the combined red-and-gold or the jewelry to mark that higher station; Priests of Apotheosis in their long robes and horned headdresses; pregnant Uxori in the maternity garments marking their honored status.

In time, one of the lifts arrived. Rosabella and Muoro boarded.

"I have been instructed to inform you, Ambassatrix, that none of the High are available to hold audience with you."

"Ah." Rosabella's heart sank as the lift spiraled upward.

"However, if you tell me the nature of your supplication, I will pass it onward. The urgency of your request will be taken into account in finding you a place in their schedule."

"For how long are they scheduled?"

"Two years, Ambassatrix." Two years! "As I say, they are very busy. How urgent is this matter?"

"Of the utmost importance."

"It is not simply that one of your Uxori has run off with a bloodless boy, then? Forgive me the levity, Ambassatrix; you appear as though laughter would benefit you." The lift stopped and the door opened into a rounded hallway of vines and crystal.

"Thank you, Muoro," Rosabella said as she followed him. "No. Nothing so petty. But as urgent as my request is, it is just as necessary that I speak of it only to the High."

"I can assure you, Ambassatrix, that anything you say to me will be held in the strictest confidence." Muoro opened the door to a glorious chamber of greens and whites. It was twice as vast as her quarters at home.

An enormous bed that would have been sufficient to satisfy even the requirements of Rosabella's most raucous youthful engagements with Dorsin stood in the center of the bedroom. Beyond it, ruby diamondglass provided a view out into the Valley. Nearer, a fall of water tumbled from ceiling to floor through a hole in the center of a grand vanity set against the wall.

And that was merely the bedroom. There was a whole chamber for recreation: a sizable pool and a smaller tub filled with mineral water for the complexion, a massage table, an entire orchestra's worth of musical instruments set into niches, and a number of oddly-shaped devices that would have caused Rosabella to blush had she been capable of feeling shame.

Her curiosity thus satisfied, Rosabella turned to her guide. "I do not doubt you, Muoro, but I did not announce my journey here earlier, and I made this decision for a reason."

"You felt that there would have been a danger to doing so?"

"I trust few, Muoro, and my tidings are important, perhaps dangerous. I dare not share them even with you. But I will thank you for your kindness in showing me to my chambers. I have never before been honored to live in such luxury."

Muoro bowed but did not move from the door. "As I said, Ambassatrix, listening to your conversation is the least of the tasks to which I have been set."

At last it dawned on Rosabella. "You are to be my personal retainer, then?"

"Just so, Ambassatrix."

The idea was so absurd that Rosabella could not help but laugh aloud. "Forgive me! I must seem utterly provincial to you. In my Chapterhouse, there are many servants, but it never occurred to me to claim one entirely for myself."

"Nonetheless, I am at your service. What would you have of me?"

A strong, handsome servant at her beck and call--that was a temptation in which Rosabella did not dare indulge. She had taken her oaths to Dorsin, whether or not he would accept them, and she would keep them. "Two things, Muoro."

"Name them."

"If I am to be staying here for a day or two, or a few weeks, or perhaps two years, it would behoove me to have a change of clothes. If you would be so kind--"

"It is done. And the other?"

"Simply go and inform the High of what I have told you. A matter of such grave importance that I, an Ambassatrix for twenty years, one who has never before disturbed the High for any reason, avoided sharing it via Synapsis, shortsphere, and even the loyal ear of their retainer Muoro." Rosabella thought again of the words of the ancient inquiry study and the silver desert lying beneath her anomalous Synapsis with Oralie. "Make no mistake: it could upend life on Tellus as we know it. The High must be made aware."

"Very well. I shall do so."

"And then rest yourself. Do not trouble yourself on my account; I am used to looking after myself." But Muoro was already gone. Ah, well. One thing was for certain: the mineral bath was enticing enough that had it been a woman, Rosabella would already have fallen into her arms. She stripped, tugged her hair free of its elaborate bindings so that it swept freely across her back, and lowered herself into the bath's warm and gentle embrace.

The jets and eddies of water massaged her flesh, driving her body to a state of simulated motion, and Rosabella sank into her sleep-fugue.

She half-dreamed Monika, an Acolyte she had known during her few months in this place when she was much younger, and whom she had not considered for decades. She dreamed the way that Monika had convinced her to sneak past the gate into the Valley, how the weapons systems had immediately come online and held the two women motionless at gunpoint until the Defenders of the Pass had arrived, verified the identities of the Acolytes, and given them a stern talking-to. Rosabella was utterly certain that that error of judgment had delayed her rise to the Ambassadorship by at least three years.

Monika had been a friend, not a lover, and a good one, destined for the priesthood. In Rosabella's dream, the sliver-faced woman raised her hands and her voice and performed the Rite of Binding for a blue-skinned girl trapped in a vibrant green cocoon...

Muoro's voice startled Rosabella awake. "Ambassatrix."

She looked around, blearily considered the water. How long had she been in here? The sunlight streaming in through the ruby diamondglass at the end of the room gave no hint; thanks to the window's tint, it was simply red, red, and more red.

"I have done as you asked, Ambassatrix," Muoro said.

Either she'd been dreaming for some time or Muoro was an exceptionally speedy worker. He stood behind her on the tile mosaic, hands crossed behind him. "If you would be so kind as to bring me a towel," Rosabella said as she rose from the tub.

He offered a fibrous towel as she stepped from the bath. The man truly had come prepared.

"Thank you." She leaned over and squeezed the water from her soaking hair, then took the towel and wrapped it about herself. "And the garments?"

"Awaiting you on your bed, Ambassatrix."

"If I had a thaler for every time I heard those words, Muoro, I would be a rich woman."

Muoro smiled, though it did not reach his eyes, and spoke the one set of words that Rosabella, despite all of her hopes, had not expected to hear. "Dress quickly. The High will see you."

#

29 Tumbling Blooming, 1886 CE

Edge of the Wildlands, South of Acerbia

The skywhale on the other side of the clearing bore the mon of red smoke on a shimmering black background. That didn't surprise Eztli; the Smoking Mirror was the symbol of the Princeps' house. Not the man, but the office. When the Milintica bloodline had controlled Gens Nxtlu, it had been their banner; now that Eztli's branch controlled the principality, the symbol belonged to them instead.

Eztli's own skywhale, parked behind her, was marked with the same image.

What did surprise her was the red image of a snake eating its own tail in the center of the mirror. That marked the skywhale as belonging to her uncle, Magus Princeps Tlalli.

He'd sent the command by Synapsis for her to meet her here on the outskirts of Nethress lands, but she hadn't believed it would really be he who showed. An intermediary, surely. Perhaps Magus Dux Xalotetl, another uncle, a famed bootlicker, ambitious without the self-respect necessary to see his hungers through to their conclusions.

Not the princeps. That boded either well or ill for Eztli; she wasn't sure which. As did the fact that her princeps had not informed her why he wanted to see her in person.

"The princeps has spared no expense," Eztli observed quietly to Txaxan as they strode across the clearing. The princeps had brought an entire century of Stigmatized warriors--strong, armored, and/or with additional limbs--with him, and they fanned out in a semicircle from his skywhale. An honor guard?

Or a guard for Eztli? She was not in her uncle's best graces these days.

The grass tickled at her bare ankles; she wore a traditional Nxtlu dress, not a skinsuit. Likewise the scents of fresh lowland forests tickled her nose: wildflowers, acorns; even the distant smell of a plum orchard, which her SOPHIOS picked out as the wind gusted.

Txaxan nodded but said nothing. It was pointless to try to engage the lanky inquirer in conversation. Eztli walked the rest of the way in silence.

The legionnaires didn't raise weapons as she approached. That was a good sign.

"Maga Ductrix Eztli," called Tlalli's familiar voice from above. The doorway at the skywhale's landing-leg joint was open, and Tlalli leaned from it.

The princeps didn't even lean like a normal man. His body language bespoke both total relaxation and total control. He stepped into the bucket at the top of the leg; it contracted like a half-pipe esophagus, lowering the bucket to the ground.

Three dozen slaves, both men and women, in simple white tunics and loincloths knelt and spread their long hair on the ground for him to use as a carpet. Eztli knelt likewise, acutely aware of her own full head of hair.

She had kept it long because Rosabella adored it that way. "A woman with short hair is like a woman without breasts," she used to say. "An unfortunate victim should she lose them naturally, but what woman would choose such mutilation of her own accord?"

Over the past year, she had considered cutting it off, but as a Ductrix in her own right, Eztli didn't need to worry about the mockery of her betters. She had no betters.

Except for one, whose bare feet came to a stop at the edge of the carpet of hair.

"Rise," the princeps intoned. Eztli nodded and did so.

Tlalli wore the hooked nose of their bloodline with grave dignity and grace. He was shorter than Ilhicamina had been and not thickly built, yet his presence had a gravity that Eztli's mad brother had never managed. His forehead was the color of xocolatl, and he wore a ringlike crown of pure gold inset with square pieces of obsidian. His chest was bare, his muscles perfect, his lips sober, his eyes dark and considering.

Eztli reached out and took his hand, kissing it. "O, wisest of us," she said, "your servant hears and obeys."

"Mmm." The princeps could even sound regal when he grunted. "Walk with me." He walked past Eztli, and the servants sprang to their feet to follow after him.

Unlike the warriors, they were of every shape and color. Some of them were of Nxtlu stock, with dark skin and black hair; others were pale. A pretty young man who kept his blue eyes downcast had chestnut hair that reminded Eztli of Ductrix Senrii.

But it was the flame-haired young woman, a slip of a thing, who caught Eztli's eye, reminding her of days gone by.

Eztli paused long enough that her princeps stopped and turned back, his dark eyes glittering as he waited for an explanation.

"You brought a lovely collection, uncle," Eztli said, hoping it would cover up her shock. The words tasted sour in her mouth. Why?

Had she spent too long surrounded by Generosi Nethress, who found slavery distasteful? They had never been able to provide Eztli an adequate explanation for their opposition to slavery, so why should she care that a girl who could have been Rosabella's cousin was among this crowd?

The princeps flicked the fingers of a regal hand dismissively. "I traveled light. Come, Ductrix." His voice brooked no argument. Eztli fell in after him as he glided into the open field. Without prompting, Txaxan took his place a few feet behind them. The slaves and legionnaires also followed, though at a distance that would allow their conversation to be private.

A breeze rustled the grass and scattered wildflowers of the meadow. And Eztli's hair. "The winds of change," the princeps observed. "One day, we will conquer even the breath of Tellus itself."

"As you say, princeps."

The meadow rolled down at a gentle grade. The princeps pointed toward a spot near the horizon. "Tell me what you see, Ductrix."

Eztli called on her SOPHIOS to enhance her eyesight. "A village, uncle."

He nodded. "The Nethress dogs claim this land for their own, yet their serfs name it Highkirk and call themselves free men. Who is right? Adonists and Amricians? Or a dying bloodline of weak Magi?" He stretched out an inverted hand, palm facing the sky. "Or does this land belong to someone else entirely?"

"It is ours by right, uncle," Eztli said. The General Principles of Gens Nxtlu declared their evolutionary superiority over other bloodlines. Why did the words ring hollow?

They seemed to ring hollow to the princeps as well. He turned those unblinking, unforgiving eyes on Eztli and kept them there far longer than she felt comfortable with. "Is it? If those serfs performing their dead rituals no longer had a purpose, would you still be so fast to lay claim to this ground? If Chimeras overran that little hovel, would you spend the life of a single legionnaire to reclaim it? If deserts of silver sand swallowed their herds, poisoned their powertrees, and consumed their crops, would we still fight to claim their land?"

Eztli waited.

The princeps folded one palm over his other arm and clasped his wrist in a slow, deliberate motion. "You did well to negotiate peace with Nethress. We could not afford for them to spread word of your brother's mad plans."

"Thank you, uncle."

"And your second has done well, too."

Eztli's mind skipped. "My second, uncle?"

The princeps glanced back and nodded. Txaxan went to one knee and put his hand on his heart.

"He has done well where you have failed since," the princeps said.

Eztli's heart began to pound. "Please, uncle. I don't understand."

"We commanded you to turn your attentions to discovering the plots of our foes," the princeps said. His voice neither rose with agitation nor fell into threats. Calm and even, it terrified Eztli. "Instead, you sent us designs for new beasts of burden. New screens. New data storage mechanisms."

"From the Libraratory--" Eztli began.

"--which was your cover, Ductrix, not your duty. You failed even to send us records of pre-Pandemic weaponry which we might use to defeat those who would resist our claim of Imperium." The princeps stepped closer, so that Eztli could smell his musk. There was an undercurrent of pheromones there, a residue from what had evidently been his frolicking with his slaves before she arrived.

It reminded Eztli of Ilhicamina's attempt at seducing her. She swallowed bitter bile.

"What is worse, you did not even report your...interface with the dead-end. The anaesthetized anomaly."

"Anomaly?" Eztli asked. The princeps's eyes narrowed, and Eztli suddenly realized of whom he spoke. "Yaotl," she whispered.

They knew about Yaotl. They knew that the cousin who might have been Eztli's betrothed had Chimerized, yet somehow kept his faculties. They knew that he had come to her to pass on his important work to her to continue after he died.

After she granted him the rest that his Chimerized body would never allow him to take.

What else did they know? Did they know of the steel Heavenwhale that she had discovered buried beneath endless tons of Acerbian marble and onyx? Did they know of the untranslated data that she had stolen from that ancient vessel before its power gave out entirely?

"Yaotl." The princeps nodded. "When Txaxan informed us of your aberrant behavior, we found ourselves concerned that your proximity to Nethress was corrupting you. We considered contingencies."

Eztli glanced back at the hundred legionnaires waiting a respectful distance away. She couldn't defeat all of them. She might have been able to escape them, but she probably wouldn't be able to escape her uncle. One did not rise to the principality of Gens Nxtlu with a weak Symbiont or a weak mind.

Contingencies. He had considered the possibility of her running. Survival meant riding this out.

"Txaxan has done what he could to mitigate the damage to you."

"He's been sharing information with you this whole time." The princeps had wanted Eztli to spy, and he'd placed his own spy right next to her. How could she have been so blind?

"Do not be angry at your assistant," the princeps said. "For all his ambition, he has a twisted sense of loyalty to you."

"I wanted to turn away our princeps's wrath," Txaxan put in.

The princeps held up a hand. "Tell me truthfully, Ductrix Eztli. If you had found ancient technologies during your most recent assay, would you have sent them to us without a second thought? Or would you have taken your time, analyzed them, decided which would be the least likely to be deployed against your...Nethressian compatriots, and kept the rest back?"

He was talking about the Chimera nest within the amber structure. "We found nothing there," Eztli said.

"You found nothing there. Had you discovered what Txaxan discovered, would you have given it to us?"

Eztli had to bite back the response, That would depend on what it was.

The princeps nodded gravely. "Then it is well that it was Txaxan who ransacked the storage, rather than you. You see my predicament, Ductrix. You have done great works to protect this family, but you have also undermined our chances in the coming storm."

Leaves blew between the two of them as the princeps turned to legionnaires. Was Eztli's life forfeit?

No. Only one of the legionnaires stepped forward, and he held no weapon, merely a lacquered box as big as Eztli's palm.

The princeps took the box without a word, and the legionnaire stepped back. He opened it as he turned to Eztli. "The fruits of your labors in that vineyard," he said.

On a pile of velvet bedding within the box there rested an inch-long beetle. Its wings seemed gray at first, but then they fluttered, catching the sunlight and sparkling like silver-dusted twin rainbows.

"You have our gratitude, Txaxan, for bringing this finding to our attention," the princeps said. "And you have our gratitude, Eztli, for exploiting the blood of the Last Era girl, leading the assay, and making its discovery possible."

Staring at the ugly creature, Eztli wasn't sensing gratitude.

The princeps picked up the creature between thumb and forefinger and dropped the box unceremoniously to the ground. "Hold still," he commanded, stepping behind Eztli.

"What is it--" Eztli asked as the princeps jerked her neckline down along the spine and pressed the beetle against her back there.

Everything.

Eztli's mind fell through a black sea studded with green and blue and silver stars into a sulfur-stinking lake of gleaming molten rock.

She saw sickly veins and branches studding cavern walls.

She heard snorting monsters shuffling in the dark.

She felt Ductrix Senrii's hand in her own.

She saw two suns hanging above a silver desert.

And then she heard a voice. Connection established. Provide password: hypostasis.

Eztli blinked. She was kneeling on the ground. Her mouth was open, her throat raw. She'd been screaming.

Sweat beaded her forehead. She looked up at her uncle, who loomed over her. His mouth was moving; what was he saying?

"The password," he said. "Confirm the connection."

"I don't--"

"The password!"

"Hypostasis," Eztli croaked.

The princeps nodded and stepped back, motioning to Txaxan. Hands gripped Eztli beneath her arms and lifted her to her feet. She wanted to slap Txaxan away, to tell him off, but she could barely balance.

"What did you do to me?" Eztli asked.

The princeps gazed down the slope again. "The site you ransacked seems to have been a Synapsis routing center. The technologies there were related, and incorporating them into our Tools was simple enough. Permanent Synapsis, Ductrix. As long as that insect clings to you, your Symbiont will remain in contact with us.

"Like a tick, its head is in you, and like a tick, the head will remain if you try to remove it.

"Unlike a tick, its head contains a fragile neurotoxin sack. Do not attempt to pull it out."

Her feet having finally firmed on the ground, Eztli raised a shaking hand and reached behind her. Txaxan let her go. She touched her spine between her shoulder blades.

The beetle, half-embedded into her skin, fluttered its wings.

Eztli bent over and vomited onto the grass.

The princeps did not seem to notice. "Txaxan can only do so much. He does not have the access you do, Eztli. This way, we will know you are holding nothing back, and we will know if you are slacking in your duties."

Eztli wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and was about to stand back up, but the princeps got his hands on her shoulders first and forced her upright. "We will see everything," he said. "We will hear everything. We will know the touch of every pleasure-slave you take and feel every snore rippling through your body.

"You, Eztli, are to watch the Nethress beasts, lest they prevent us from doing what is necessary. You, Eztli, are to interface with the Generosa from the Last Era and ensure that her unique abilities and accesses are turned to our use, rather than Gens Nethress's. You, Eztli, will do your duty. Are we understood?"

"Why not just kill me?" Eztli whispered. The beetle fluttered, its legs scraping against her spine, and Eztli had to fight down another convulsion.

"Kill you? When a tool loses its sharpness, we do not break the tool. We sharpen it again." The princeps patted her on the shoulders. "We will be watching. You are dismissed, Ductrix."

He left her hunched over in the field as he went back toward his skywhale. Txaxan put a hand on Eztli's back.

She jerked away from it, spun, and pushed past Txaxan. "Princeps!"

He stopped.

"This hatred earns us nothing," she called. "Nethress aren't plotting against us. We have no need to be seeking new ways of killing them!"

For a brief moment, Tlalli seemed to slouch with exhaustion. It passed. "I have no fear of Nethress," the princeps said. "The storm that is coming is far larger than they are, and Tellus must be united. A tiny crack in the bone can cause the leg to collapse. With the leg broken, the body falls, and when the body falls, the silver sands swallow it up." He paused. "I will not let Nethress be the crack in Tellus's leg."

As the princeps's skywhale lifted off, Eztli remained in the field, thinking on her uncle's cryptic words.