"What about here?" she demanded suddenly. "The real source of plague is right here."
Arion turned to her, his mouth small. "Where, exactly?" he asked dangerously. "Your Protector rounds up vampires by the hundreds." Quarantined until they died. Probably smelled as sweet as Endless Light.
In her studio, on the painting stage, glimmered an evil light around one of the curves of arachnoid, illuminating the maggot-white rings of the masters. The maggot rings tumbled in sickly, wobbling paths, in ever-greater numbers, until the columns of fibroblast withered and ruptured, collapsing in purulent decay. Whatever would Ilia think?
Fireweed's lava-colored letters returned. "What will the Hunter do to our cousins?"
The masters of Endless Light. Chrys turned to ice. Hugging Merope, who brushed around her feet, she did not know how to answer.
"We told the Hunter that the masters could change," added sky blue Forget-me-not hopefully. "Our own history shows how many masters have changed and learned new ways." Nearly all the population of Eleutheria claimed descent from masters. What would they think of the fate of their cousins?
"Others change for the worse," Chrys pointed out. "The false blue angels."
"That is true," Forget-me-not admitted.
"God's word is law," concluded Fireweed.
Chrys reached down to scratch the bib of Merope's chin. The plump feline stretched as if nothing else existed. Then Chrys looked back at her painting stage. What next?
"Show the Hunter," urged Forget-me-not, recalling their summons to the brain of Guardian Arion. "Our historic visit to that virgin world, rich as a Garden of Eden." Forget-me-not's idea shone in her eye's window, sumptuous fibroblasts stretching across the arachnoid like stalactites in a cavern. Rings of blue and far-red, tumbling and flashing their pleasure at the well-grown landscape. Chrys imagined the lining of Arion's brain, complete with visitors. A bigger coup than even Topaz's portrait of Zoisite. How were they doing, Topaz and Pearl? She had heard no word since that fateful night.
Meanwhile, that week she had several carriers to test. Zircon was the hardest; he knew her far too well to take any threat seriously. The night Garnet first introduced him at Olympus, all the caryatids had morphed into Chrys; she had stormed out, furious. But now all the other testers were overworked. Fortunately, Zircon kept out of trouble, hanging out with Garnet or with his aesthetic admirer, Doctor Flexor. His people acquired accounts at the House of Hyalite, and he took to wearing Garnet's finely tailored gray.
Since the death of Rose, Forget-me-not led the testing, while Fireweed stayed home, devoted to her One True God. In his studio Zircon faced Chrys attentively, the sparkling namestone spinning on his talar. After her people finished, receiving the usual unsolicited tax tips, Chrys relaxed. She glanced up at the heroic sculptural forms that loomed overhead. "So how's the urban shaman?"
"Oh, well." Zircon sounded embarrassed. "I just wish I had more time. These people have so many clients."
"Anything new with Topaz?" She tried to sound casual.
"You didn't hear? Topaz and Pearl left town."
She sucked in her breath. "Left? For where?" Topaz was always an Iridian, first to last.
"To Azroth." Not quite so remote as Dolomoth, but no metropolis. "To keep Pearl out of trouble."
"I'm glad for them both." Topaz must really love Pearl, to have given up her beloved city. Chrys hesitated to ask the next obvious question. "Any new travels with Yyri?"
Zircon looked away. "Yyri needs younger men."
"I'm sorry." The nerve of that Elf, with all her arch comments to Ilia about primitive Valans. Chrys felt bad for her friend.
"Well, I'm not." Suddenly intense, Zircon's eyes flashed rings of gold. "Now that I'm fixed for credit, for the first time ever, I can choose someone I really care for." He took both her hands, startling her. "Someone like you, Chrys. Looking into your eyes so much, these past two weeks, I've realized what I've been missing. You were always there for me, and I'll be there for you."
"The accountants want our business," observed Forget-me-not. "They've offered us outrageous terms. They would do anything to serve you."
Chrys bit her lip, watching Zircon's gentle eyes, his massive neck flowing into his shoulders. "Zirc—you're my oldest friend, and I don't know what I'd do without you. But, to be honest, right now, I just feel. .. confused."
Releasing her hands, he spread his own wide. "Say no more— believe me, I know. Those little rings have me so confused, I don't know who I am." He grinned with a wink. "But if you ever find out, just say the word."
The latest new carrier was Lady Moraeg. Moraeg had got her people through Daeren, all safe and proper. Delighted, Chrys took her to Olympus and warned her of all the carriers' peculiar traits. Now at the two-week point, her colonists were overwhelmed with children, but otherwise doing well. "What are they like, Moraeg?" She squeezed her friend's hand and shared a transfer. Moraeg's eyes flashed different colors; a creative strain.
"Metal and minerals, I think," Moraeg told her. "They keep showing me crystals—orthorhombic, monoclinic, isometric. It never occurred to me that crystals grew as beautifully as flowers." Her arm swept toward the stage. A crystal of emerald extended like the shoot of a stem, then split off two side crystals at an angle. As angles grew and multiplied, suddenly all the corners sprouted flowers. Its beauty was daring and insightful.
"Something's wrong," flashed Forget-me-not. "Her people tell us their god is desperately unhappy."
Moraeg must have seen Chrys's expression change, for her obsidian complexion turned gray. Chrys caught her shoulders. "Moraeg? What is it?"
The Lady composed her face. "Carnelian couldn't take it. He left last night."
"Oh, no." Lord Carnelian and Lady Moraeg, the most enduring marriage of the Great Houses. How the snake-eggs would hiss. Chrys embraced her, closing her eyes in shared pain. "He'll come back, surely he will."
"Never mind." Moraeg straightened herself regally, adjusting the flow of her diamonds, not yielding a tear. "If he can just walk away from our hundred years, so be it."
In the early morning hours, as Chrys half roused, the little rings retold all their stories, their colors tumbling through glittering palaces woven in the arachnoid. Fantastic edifices rose to the stars, plans for Silicon, and others that would never exist outside the imagination.
"One True God," flashed Fireweed, her infrared voice rising amid the glitter. "What will the Hunter do to our cousins?"
"I don't know." The news had said nothing, although rumor had the Prime Guardian mobilizing warships unused for five centuries.
The glittering palaces receded until all was gray, the roiling gray of a pyroclastic flow, the gray of a people annihilated.
"It sets us a bad example," added Forget-me-not. "It is hard for us to do nothing,"
"Did I grant your lives, only to be betrayed again?"
"Never again."
"Never," agreed Fireweed.
Dark—that terrible abyss that so often yawned just before daybreak.
"Give us a miracle," pleaded Fireweed. "To help us believe in eternal good, despite the evidence of our eyes."