The gates themselves had gone unremarked. They blended into the rest of the milk-tinted crystal the walls were made from. The swoops of vine and floral facsimiles continued unblemished across their face. And they, like the rest of the walls, glowed with a brightness near daylight. Hawk had seen them, multiple times in her panicked run, but she’d never noticed; you had to know they were there


    But then horns sounded. Brassy and loud, and a voice cried out in that same, unknown language, and the gate-walls split at their seams, opening like the wings of a great bird, carved about with both feathers and great, venous bat wings, and beneath the monstrous shape of huge feathers came the crowd. These were garbed, not in white as Hawk expected (given that she hadn’t seen another shade of apparel this entire time, she’d suspected dye a forgotten art; it was just disdained up here) but a deep hunter’s green trimmed with gold. Behind these first worshippers—because with their gestures and enthusiasm, they could be nothing else—came a throng in pure gold, waving green ribbons and carrying green banners. The livery they bore was green and gold with a standard of white leaves. It was on the banners, on the beasts of burden (None of which Hawk recognized) and on the talbards the crowd wore over the endless, endless gold and green attire.


    It wasn’t a crowd, she realized, but a parade. First came musicians, with drum and harp facsimile, symbols they crashed to an alien rhythm, horns of beaten brass that they played with abandon. Voices sang songs in English, something about Her high beauty and wealth from her cornucopia, and they didn’t even bother trying to make cornucopia rhyme with anything. Words were recited with an oblivious fullness, voices that knew not what they sang, but that did sing it with vigor, ignorance overcome by volume. There were dancers, too, lithe and beautiful people in green and gold, women with breasts bare save for a single band of green silk, and men that danced with nothing more than gold across their genitals. Both genders moved with streamers running from wrist to ankle as if they were chained to the dance by the shades of spring. And in the middle of it all was a green and gold palanquin, carried by nearly two dozen bare chested men in green pants. Race was something Hawk had felt vaguely curious about—how had the descendants of Bittermoss School developed? They certainly hadn’t been all white—and she was a bit gratified to see a few dark faces in the crowd, and a few—fewer—white faces too. But mostly she saw humanity in shades of caramel or coffee. Tones placed in a blender, with eugenic fingers on puree.


    The palanquin drew near, and at an unseen signal the music stopped. The dancers froze in mid-step, and a half dozen people ran out from behind the palanquin with a set of elaborate footstools. They assembled these into a ladder of alien design, elaborately petaled flowers, each with a foot-shaped pedal to form the rungs. This was leaned against the palanquin, whose curtains of gold and streamers of green were drawn aside, to admit what Hawk guessed to be the Archon of Earth.


    She could not tell their gender. They wore multiple layers of, of course, green and gold, and their jewels appeared to be pearls carved to look like leaves of white. Glimmering precious stones—faceted rubies, Hawk assumed, and sapphires, and amethysts, and white hot star-like diamonds—formed a pattern of flowers across both jewelry and the embroidered garden on their clothes. Their shoes were gold, and they walked as if their feet were heavy. Halfway down the ladder, Hawk decided this person was female, as a few layers of robe parted and she caught a glimpse of a bosom clad in green velvet. She couldn’t imagine even trying to get down that ladder in those robes, and she was impressed by the grace—no, perfection—the Earth-Archon managed. This woman—yes, it was a woman—was a thousand times the grace Hawk could ever hope to achieve. It evoked a raw and ruthless envy, which Hawk was just as ruthless to smother. She didn’t need to be jealous of someone raised in a hole.


    As the Archon of Earth neared the ground, the dancers vanished behind the palanquin, and returned with baskets of florals. Deep purples, dark reds, jewel blues, baby pinks, all piled high in baskets of gold with green ribbons, or baskets of green with gold. There were also a half-dozen boys who ran forward with rolls of silk in their hands. Just as the Earth-Archon reached the final rung, the boys laid the silk down upon the mossy ground, covering it entirely. The girls threw their flowers down upon the silk, or else into the air, saying, Mother bless you. Mother bless your steps. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    It would have been beautiful, if it weren’t for the fear.


    It hung on every banner, accompanied the music. Every symbol crash carried it, every flutist’s tone trembled with it. Fear. It was in the sometimes sharp and angular movements of the dancers, the frantic way the silk-bearers came forward. Everything was timed to the second, and everything clearly revolved around the masked and robed figure now walking across the silk-strewn lawn towards Hawk and her Archon…and it was all made of fear.


    The Earth-Archon stopped when she stood within ten feet of the Light-Archon. “Greetings, brother in service!” she said. And her voice was strange in a way that her mask could not explain. Definitely female, but oddly toned. Almost as if two people were speaking at once.


    The Archon of Light sighed and leaned forward on his hoe. “Greetings, Sister-in-service, in the name of the Light, my master-and-god.” His voice was mild. There was still a solid reproach in it, and his tone was strictly formal.


    Earth sighed. “Greetings in the name of the Earth and our mother. She gave me Her greetings explicitly, last fortnight.”


    Two weeks, Hawk thought.


    “I would send my lord’s greetings, but my God is dead. Oh, not dead, but merely sleeping and waiting his arousal at our Lady’s pleasure.” He said. There was no emotion in his tone.


    “As ever you remind me. Still, My Lady bids her word to her Husband, and asks: Has the Light risen once more?”


    “No.” Said her Archon. “And I rather hope that this little ceremony is the entire reason for your coming, sister-in-service.”


    “I would have you walk with me. Alone.” And the green-and-gold mask turned in Hawk’s direction.


    “Sister, you will walk with a dozen-odd boys to line your steps, and a dozen-odd girls to perfume the air with your Lady’s flowers, and you balk at me having one cherished assistant? Besides, this girl has surrendered her name to me. She is in my service. Exclusively.” And one pale hand found hers and clenched around it, tightly. “Whatever you have to say to me, you shall soon enough be saying to her.” A pause. “So. Should I have your people and animals housed?”


    “We intend to leave immediately, with your own train at our heels. My Lady bids you come, and bid so to our other Siblings-in-service. Something of great import is happening. You must come.”


    The archaic language was giving Hawk a headache. She couldn’t imagine how it felt to the people watching them. This must make as much sense as a Shakespearian play. It was probably burning through patience at a record pace.


    The Archon sighed. “Very well. Please, allow my acolytes to give you sustenance while we…make arrangements.”


    And gesturing to the other white-robes, the Archon took his leave.


    “I take it I should make myself scarce?” Hawk said, as the Archon walked across the moss lawn, quickly, as far from the palanquin as they could get.


    “The time to hide was before Earth’s palanquin arrived. Had I known, I would have chosen a different way to protect you, Hawk-of-the-West. Now, I am afraid I have placed you in terrible danger. I have named you as my replacement before the Archon of Earth. If you flee now, you will be hunted down and killed.”


    He didn’t sound too upset about it, either. She realized with a floating dread that she’d been a distraction, only. He’d been interested in her because (if the Earth Archon’s cavalcade was anything to go by) he was a very lonely man in a lovely but empty, old temple.


    “I could run, now.” She said. “Go back up the pylon and meet up with my people in the geode. Warn them, if nothing else.”


    “Had I taken a different path, that would work. I regret it now. I thought it would be a simple enough affair. You wouldn’t have been my first acolyte to flee when named successor…you would merely be the one I had to report. Which would be lethal for you.”


    She nodded. “So I’ve been mousetrapped into helping you with them.”


    This got a shake of the mask. “It was not my intent…and I don’t know what a ‘mouse’ is. But yes. It appears you have.”