Reality's Plaything 4: Savants Ascendant
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“I would agree to be responsible for such enforcement,” Idun said.
“Hold up,” Megan said. “We don’t want the Shael Dal working at cross purposes to this.”
“Why would they?” Marna said. “Aren’t Gaea’s problems the Protectorate’s problems? Wouldn’t she be like your main client? She is Eternity and you get your power from her.”
Gaea leaned over and peered at Megan with a raised eyebrow, obviously curious as to how she would answer.
The rainbow winged air maiden cleared her throat. “Well, Koass makes policy, I just communicate and enforce it.” She looked up at Gaea and winced. “Eternity never really asked us to do anything before. Koass knows about Gaea and the two of them have a sort of tacit agreement…” She scrubbed her forehead.
“Yes,” Megan answered. “It’s not too much of a stretch to foresee with some of your family married to some of our family what might happen if certain goals diverged. That is one clash none of us want to face.”
“But Gaea,” Megan said. “You—”
The air-maiden sighed and nodded. She shook her head.
Daena sat up out of the cradle of Janai’s lap, rubbed her head and looked around. She drew a breath. Looked up at Gaea and smiled. He had been a while had seen a genuine smile on the girl’s face. The auburn-haired girl scooted back, draped her arm around Janai’s shoulder, and relaxed her head against the princess. Janai ran her fingers through the girl’s thick hair.
Seeing Daena with Janai made something click in him.
“Mother,” he said. “I know this matter with Chyrith is important, but there is one other thing that happened to us that you should know about.”
“We met another garmtur, and he, well—he was more powerful than all of us put together.”
“That’s right,” Wren said, snapping her fingers. “Kell.”
“He kicked us to the curb,” Ziedra said. “It was pretty scary.”
“He did something to Daena and disappeared.”
“So, it’s a mystery to you too,” Wren said. “That’s scary. The guy comes out of nowhere, kicks all of our arses, and just disappears. He seemed to know all of us too.”
Gaea said.
“Just a few days ago,” Wren said.
Her brow furrowed. She turned to Marna.
“Yes?”
Marna shrugged. “We can design at the helix level or at the micro structure level. Affinities take a little more work but we can usually get them adjusted within a few tries unless they are really unstable.”
The Vatraena narrowed her eyes. “Of course, it would be simple unless there were some radical elements of the design.”
“Mother, why are you asking about a body?” Wren asked. “Who would the body be for?”
Gaea leaned down close to Wren. She looked around the group as if confiding a secret.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Avatar Plan
« ^ »
The audience with Gaea changed me in more ways than I can name. That plethora of differences burgeoned from a single thing. I no longer questioned who and what I was. I knew the name the great mother gave me at the beginning of time, Kumiko Danai. The name humans gave me, ‘Daena’, was a shortening and a corruption of that original name. After talking with Wren, I learned an interesting fact; that through a magic I cannot imagine, that the parents of savants somehow give their babies a name close to the original name they had from their lives in the beginning times. It is just one of the miracles that savants sometimes too easily take for granted…
—Kumiko Danai “Daena” Sheento,
Ward Prodigal of Malan
In the wan blue light of the other realm Bannor blinked. Perhaps they had been out of time too long and he was hearing things. The all-mother, the creator of everything that he knew had made a statement that seemed too stunning to contemplate. As he looked around, he realized he must have heard correctly because the other savants had the same startled incredulous looks on their faces. He had come to understand that for a being of cosmic power, Gaea had something of a queer sense of humor. She had to have been joking—a body?
Wren who was clinging to the all-mother’s arm looked up at her with surprise. “Mother, is that possible?”
Gaea looked over at Wren.
“Well, yes, but I’m, uhhh, smaller than you.” She gestured to the sky and swung her arm around to include the vastness that seemed to spread into infinity. “Isn’t all of this—you?”
Gaea rubbed her stomach and gave Wren a hurt expression.
Wren coughed. “Not exactly.”
“In Starholme,” Wren said with a nod. “I remember, but you were only able to stay for a short time.”
Wren frowned. “I’m sorry, Mother. I never should have asked you to do that.”
Gaea pressed her broad lips to a line. She bent a little and looked in Wren’s eyes.
Marna was staring at Gaea. “You would trust me to make a body for you?”
Gaea looked at Marna sidelong.
Marna sniffed. “Well, it is an intriguing prospect…”
“I think it would be wizard for Mother to have a body,” Ziedra said. “Easy access to hugs.”
Gaea raised an eyebrow.
Vanidaar looked up at the all-mother. “How do you get inside the body? You can’t turn yourself inside o
ut. So, bringing it here is no good.”
“She has a place where she can manifest in Starholme,” Wren said. “A portal made to commune with her.” She looked up at Gaea. “Right?”
“So, I get to go into Starholme Prime as well?” Marna said with an arch expression. “When do we start?”
“You already know it, no point in trying to conceal it,” the elder Kriar admitted.
Bannor glanced over to Megan. The air maiden seemed to have developed a tick, and she rubbed her forehead like it hurt.
Gaea seemed to notice her expression.
Brow furrowed and wings starting to droop she didn’t look up. “Is there any danger to you as an avatar? Any repercussions?”
A vein seemed to pulse in Megan’s forehead. “Pantheon lords have died because of the loss of an avatar they were occupying.”
“We just established that you dying is a really bad thing.” Her voice hardened. “You take a third of Eternity with you.”
Megan’s jaw dropped. She stared at Gaea, throat working and hands twitching.
Around the circle, others were starting to twitch a little too.
“I—” Cassandra said. “I was thinking this was a wizard idea right up to ‘oops, Eternity gets blown to dren’.”
“Yeah,” Tal rubbed the back of his head. “I mean I am all-over that thing about you taking a vacation with the kids ‘n all. I’m just a little uncomfortable with the idea of you falling off a ladder and fifty-trillion critters get wiped out.”
Gaea rolled her eyes.
“The point remains,” Elsbeth said gripping her staff. “If you manifest, it gives us a single very vulnerable point of failure. There are magicks to kill the host through an active avatar. You know that.”
Gaea waved a hand.
“Saw that one comin’,” Tal murmured.
“We aren’t going to talk you out of this are we?” Megan said.
Gaea shrugged.
Megan massaged her forehead. “Koass is going to have a fit.”
“I foresee—much—babysitting,” Tal said with a sigh.
The air-maiden looked to Marna. “Maybe you could be persuaded to not help her?”
“Megan,” she pointed to the King and Queen. “They just obtained their own subnet. A subnet not bound to the Fabrista. They don’t need me to do this. They have ample incentive,” she swung an arm to Bannor and Sarai, “to go along with whatever she wants. Better to be dragged along and make sure that body is really hard to kill.”
Gaea folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.
“I still think this is going to be wizard,” Ziedra said with a grin.
Loric who was sitting with Cassandra and Desiray stood up. “Great-mother, our clan is favored by your family. Wren and Ziedra, troublemakers though they be, are prized by us. We will help as we always have.”
The green mother nodded.
“Mother,” Damay said. “This is actually quite exciting.”
“Mother,” Wren said. “I’m going to need the key to the house or we can’t get in.”
Wren wiggled her fingers. She looked over to Loric’s white-haired wife. “Hey Des, think I have enough energy now to work this thing?”
“You’re funny,” Desiray answered.
Desiray stood up and bowed.
Wren nodded.
The dark-haired savant clapped her hands. “Sweet. New magic.”
He bowed his head.
Gaea looked to Marna.
“Yes, I would like for my daughter and Corim to come along.”
“He’s over there splitting at the seams wishing he can go so hard it’s giving me a headache.” Marna tilted her head, eying Corim and then looking to Dulcere. “He’s something of a chronicler and it will be good to have a Shael Dal be witness to this—” She glanced to Megan. “They would insist on having someone there anyway.”
“Uhmm,” Daena said, standing up. “Does that mean I have to go?” She looked to Janai and back to Gaea.
“I’ll come with you,” Janai said. “You need to go.”
The auburn haired girl seemed uncertain. After a moment, she nodded. “Okay, if you’re coming, I’ll go.”
Gaea scanned the assemblage. She bowed.
“Mother, how soon do you want to do this?”
That riveted the group. Eyes widened and jaws dropped. Several people leaped to their feet and there was a profusion of words and thoughts.
“Mother!” Wren let out. “That was an important detail to leave out!”
“Uh, yeah.”
“No,” Marna said.
“Mother, I do have one dumb question.”
“How are we going to fit you in one of those tubes? They aren’t that big.”
Gaea grinned.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Starholme Prime
« ^ »
After an audience with Gaea, so many things in the “real” world just seem trivial.
—Kalindinai T’Evagduran,
Queen of Malan
Gaea let them go and the huge group reappeared in the council chambers in Kul’Amaron just as th
ey left it. To Bannor’s eyes it didn’t seem as if a single instant of time had passed since they departed. Time might not have passed but everyone was profoundly affected as a few people fell to their knees and others gripped their hair.
“Damn,” Megan growled. “I must go to Koass immediately. Tal, you’re in charge.”
“Aye,” the burly warrior rumbled in response.
“We will go get what we need,” Marna said, she turned to her daughter. “Dul let’s…”
“Stop,” Quasar said. “Eclipse and I will escort you. The Daergons are waiting around every corner.”
Marna raised an eyebrow. “Quasar? You—protecting—me?”
The jeweled Kriar frowned. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder toward Bannor. “You should bring the dread-beater too. Just in case.”
“That’s a good name for you, Bannor,” Wren laughed.
He rolled his eyes. “Let me get my axes and armor.”
“Here.” Quasar held out her hands. In a flash, all of his equipment was stretched across her arms. “Anything else?”
He blinked and took the armor and weapons from her. “Uhhh, no.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Need me to dress you too?”
“That’s okay,” he answered. “I’ll dress myself, thank you.” He placed the stack on the floor and started strapping on the pieces. Sarai started assisting.
“We’ll make preparations to go,” Loric said.
“Desiray,” Marna said. “Can I impose upon you to come? We can put the items we need into your cloak straightaway.”
The white-haired woman looked to Loric who nodded. “Sure.”
Wren looked around. “Thanks everyone for coming, I hope it wasn’t too upsetting.”
“It sure wasn’t boring,” Dorian said, putting an arm around her husband. She swallowed and let out a tremulous breath. “I’m going back to my rooms and hyperventilate now.”
“Child, I really must learn to stay away from you,” Gabriella said. “You are bad for my heart.”
Arm in arm with her mate Cassin, Sindra ducked close to Wren, looking down at her from the woman’s sky scraping height. “Fun as always. We even managed to avoid getting yelled at. That’s a plus.”