Page 36 of The Shape of Monsters
“But Setka lives in the garden, with no family.”
“Many father-seeds were donated to this one’s designer, and Father worked hard to redesign Setka when the other designs failed again and again. Father said the inaccuracies of design were compounded in every iteration.” She reaches back and touches her tail, skimming her claws along the ridged scales, eventually pulling the end around into her lap. She strokes the crooked part with a soft smile. “Made some things worse when Father tried to fix them.”
Lyric knows that at the end of the Apostate Age, when the Holy Syr and Maimeri the Great unraveled the Moon-Eater and established Aharté’s Holy Design, they destroyed all designs that were not self-sustaining. Monsters, chimeras, unbalanced architecture, disastrous flora. The cloud whales were the first to go, with their impossible bulk. There were people, too, who required constant aid to alleviate the pressure of gravity on their misdesigned limbs or to keep their hearts beating. But some were so well designed they lived. Their traits sometimes faded immediately, but through the generations some qualities continued on, cropping up here and there: cat-eyes like Iriset’s dead rebel, or spine scales, extrasensory hearing, and even feathers reminiscent of those in Irsu River’s hair. A chimera like Setka might survive initially, but would she be able to reproduce? Should that even be the basic marker of allowance? Lyric clenches his jaw for a moment, then breathes out slowly. He asks, “Where is Setka’s father now?”
“At home,” she says immediately. “Setka ran away when Father said there would be no more experiments. No more improvements. So Father would…”
Lyric waits, though he doesn’t want to hear.
“Reclaim parts,” she says softly.
It’s as bad as he expected. He can’t look at her. It’s one thing to be born into a body and use it, but someone did this to her, created her for experiments, and when she wasn’t what they wanted, they intended to strip her for parts.
“Don’t be sad, Lyric Aharté.” Setka’s hand pats the air over his knee as if she believes she’s not allowed to touch. “Setka is more suited to the gardens! This fruit does not tangle in Setka’s system! No firemoth can burn these hands, and scales are better than leather gloves!” She wiggles her fingers, the claws glinting.
“Setka sounds like a very good gardener,” he says quietly.
“Only for two more nights,” she answers, her whole face turning down.
“After the Night of Chimeras,” Lyric says impulsively, “Setka should become a priest.”
Her alliraptor eyes widen even further. “What does a priest do?”
Lyric opens his mouth, then sighs heavily. He is not impulsive for a reason. “Does Setka know the way to the crater?”
She nods eagerly. “There is already a shrine gate there! Will Lyric make Setka a priest there?”
Torn between amusement and surprise that there’s a shrine already, he says, “Ah, if Setka shows the way, Lyric will attempt to explain.”
The chimera bounces to her feet, nearly stumbling, and dashes away.
The gateway shrine is a simple white wooden gate, absolutely filled with glass bubbles. Three people are already there, one in the process of setting a pink glass bubble with an inner star, while the others kneel around the rim, chatting calmly.
When Lyric arrives, all three shy away from Setka, but Lyric puts a hand on her shoulder and she smiles. She’s nearly as tall as him, and standing in the sun like this, she seems both more monstrous and guileless. Exactly what she’s supposed to be. Lyric takes comfort in that. Setka lives, therefore she is meant to live under Aharté’s will.
“Lyric Aharté,” says a woman with eyes as amethyst purple as sand verbena.
He nods, trying not to look too grim.
“Is Lyric Aharté a god?” asks the person holding the pink bubble.
“No, but Lyric serves a god,” he says firmly. The sun is high, and the moon is barely visible on the eastern horizon. It’s warm, but a constant breeze cools this spread of rock garden. “Listen, and if all want to know Aharté better, follow.”
“The chimera,” starts the person with the bubble.
“Is welcome,” Lyric says firmly. “If people are turned away by Setka’s presence alone, such people are not ready for Aharté’s blessings.”
Though Setka’s claws twitch uncertainly and her heavy tail swings in the dust of the rock garden, she nods.
Lyric looks at all three of the others, meeting their eyes. It’s difficult for him, the rudeness of eye contact instilled in him from before he could speak, but he manages. He’s not the Vertex Seal here, he is the only representative of Silence, and Lyric wonders for the first time if eye contact like this is dangerous only because of the honesty it compels. Or mimics.
Lyric carefully climbs down into the central valley of the crater.
It’s warmer, dusty and red, and he feels sudden balance like he’s been dashed with cold water. Lyric sinks to sit, relaxing into the balance here. It’s as if a little bit of Holy Silence settled where they landed. This is meant to be, he thinks, as he closes his eyes and narrates an eight-count meditation for the listeners. He begins with the north, the ecstatic spark, and walks them through locating andidentifying just that single force inside themselves. He moves east, to rising, the warmth of the sun and spine-straightening sense of courage. Hold that separate, he tells them, feel the urge to float, to stand tall, taller, to be the best version of oneself. Next is the south, flow, the pulse of blood in the veins, the everlasting cycle of breath and the life of water. Finally they move to the west, and Lyric thinks of his sister and her powerful falling force, drawing everything toward her. He speaks of what connects everything to the world, keeps us in our bodies, the feeling of family, of belonging.
“Everything is built of these four foundations,” Lyric says, eyes closed, sweat tingling his hairline from the heat of the noontime sun. “There may be variations, iterations, complex arrays that only The One Who Loves Silence can understand, that the greatest priests and designers hope to know. But everything becomes four in the end. And at every moment in between. The first step to understanding Silence is to recognize the strongest inner force within. Find it, hold it, breathe with it.”
“What is Lyric Aharté’s strongest force?” calls someone.
