{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/atdra/prelude",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/atdra/prelude",
  "publishedAt": "2019-10-20T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "\"Sic transit gloria mundi,\" said the one beneath the black cloak.  The\nfabric was nightworm silk, fine, glossy, and blacker than the darkling\nnight outside. From the slits in the stone walls you heard the wind\nmutter, and it was louder than the murmurs inside the room.\n\nStabs of moonlight came in from those slits, cutting soft patches out\nfrom the shadows. Even still, the black cloak was in utter shadow, but\nnot the six others to whom he spoke.\n\n\"So slows the pulse of the earth.\" The reply came from a yellow cloak\nbeside him, of course it did. Only that bird had the wit and tongue to\nmatch, always.\n\nThe one across from him, a white cloak, spoke now, rattling in his\nthroat and saying, \"Slows? It stops. We've ripped out the hearts of the\nearth. It is a corpse now, or will be.\"\n\nBeneath the black cloak, he shifted and its extent seemed to be\nexpanding, playfully, mirthfully --- even as the edges blended\nindiscernibly with the darkness and any motion could have been a trick\nof the light, a dance of the shadows. His face would have told you; but\nhe was masked as well as cloaked, they all were.\n\nIn reply black cloak said, \"What is every corpse but the food for new\nlife? With the hearts we can fledge a new world. Our new world.\"\n\n\"Always with the moribund metaphors,\" White muttered.\n\nBeneath the yellow cloak a wing twisted, some gesture of interruption.\n\"If we're building a new world, first of all we should free the slaves\nand grant them a say in the order of things.\"\n\nBlack cloak seemed to bring two wings together over his breast; but a\nsmile couldn't be seen.\n\nAll the while, the bird who was under a violet cloak had been fidgeting,\nas if the garment itched, as if she wished to tear it off and tear off\neveryone else's and be rid of these theatrics.\n\n\"Really?\" she said. It was the first word she spoke this meeting.\nYou could tell by the short silence after, by how she bounced\ndemandingly forward, that she wished it could be the only word. Just a\nverb slap, slapping some sense into these playacting fools.\n\nBut she followed it up, she had to. She said, \"We're fucking\nscholars. Fledgling fucking scholars. We've barely a dozen scrolls\nwrit between all of us. And only two of us --- if that many --- have\nthe gilded robes at all. We could hardly make a book, let alone a\nworld.\"\n\nUnder a blue cloak, at least, there was a twist she suspected was a head\nspun in agreement. White merely cawed sharply, affirmation or just\nacknowledgment.\n\nBlack, though, was shaking in anger, that much she could tell from a\nlook to his dark corner. Or it had just been a particularly intense\ncloud which passed before the moon.\n\nWhite spoke. \"She is right. We're like hatchlings dressed as ghosts.\"\nThe eyeholes of his mask --- through which you saw a gleam of silver,\nhis eyes --- passed over Yellow and Black. \"Which of you had this\nstupid idea?\" It had to be one of you. He didn't say it, but all had\nheard it.\n\n\"I had thought,\" --- Yellow speaking --- \"that it would serve to get\nyou, get us, in the right sort of attitude. Sworn rebels about to\nupend society. Dark conspirators plotting the fate of kings and\nproles.  Secretive wizards meeting for a ritual to seal it all.\"\n\n\"Rebels, conspiracies, wizards,\" Violet croaked. \"Really\ndemonstrating seriousness and maturity fit for building a world.\"\n\n\"Ambition, imagination, a little humor,\" Black was jumping to the\ndefense before she'd even finished, cutting her off. \"Are these things\nyou'd want absent from the rulers --- from your world?\"\n\n\"Interesting slip, there.\" White had the tone and the words that seemed\nto cleave.\n\n\"Shut it, shut it, the both you.\" Someone who hadn't spoken, who'd\npatiently, silently, waited --- a green cloak, bigger than all the\nrest but not taller. Deep voice, but she spoke quickly. Eyes like\nstars.  \"Look at it, we're already here in the cloaks --- and it makes\nEythe smile, clearly it does. All of us are friends here.\"\n\nShe waited. No one said anything.\n\n\"So act like it,\" her quick voice slowed just a tad for this. She\nlooked between the black cloak and the violet one, expectant.\nApologies, or at least gestures at apologies, were in order. There was\nat least enough respect and dignity remaining between them that she\ndidn't yet coax them out like a stern parent.\n\nBlack spoke first. \"She's afraid, is all. Of the power we've unearthed\nand now wield, and the great, terrible things we could do with it.\"\n\nStillness, utter stillness after the brazen words of the cloaked\nspeaker. There was, faintly, the smell of bloody lunch from the breath\nof someone with mouth agape.\n\nHe followed it up with, \"In all fairness, I am afraid too, I should\nhope we all are --- it's what caution starts with. But, I for one\nhave enough trust in my, uh, friends.\"\n\nMore stillness, more silence.\n\n\"So,\" she in the blue cloak started, \"we're just going to move on as\nif that didn't even happen, and hopefully this festering mess of a\nmeeting stops being a waste of time.\" She had taken up speaking,\nbriskness in her voice, and some heft. She looked to each of the\ncloaked figures, Black, White, Violet, Yellow, Green, and Grey,\nmeeting all their eyes, and willed them seriousness. Not dramatic\nwhimsy, and not the false seriousness of a sniped complaint. Real\nseriousness. \"Let's ignore the theatrics, and get to the hea---\"\n\n\"No,\" White said quickly, voice almost strangled.\n\n\"Yes,\" Yellow was chiming in. \"Let's ease our excited pulses, and get\nto the---\"\n\n\"I said no,\" there was some unevenness to his voice; laughter implied\nlike light beaming forth through cracks.\n\n\"I don't see the issue,\" said Black. \"Perhaps we're all still hot from\nthe digging, but we should cool our blood. After all, we've struck a\nrich vein today, and we should discuss it before it circulates, as it\nwill in a beat. Really, I'd love for us to get to---\"\n\n\"What part of seriousness don't you understand? Isn't this exactly the\nproblem?\"\n\n\"Fine, fine. No fun at all.\"\n\nYellow cloak was still clicking in his throat, and the rest had some\ntwitch of reaction, but Green was looking around quite bewildered.\n\"Get to the what? Now I want to know.\"\n\nShe looked to Black, who would not say. Nor would Yellow. Blue too,\nremained silent. Green's bright eyes stared at the white cloak a long\nmoment, compelling, before he finally decided he would have to\ncomplete the thrice interrupted sentence:\n\n\"We should... get to the heart of the matter.\"\n\n\"Hearts, rather.\" Yellow was smiling; he had to be.\n\n\"Absolutely insufferable, both of you.\" And White's mask was\nfluttering where he puffed out air.\n\nBlue was looking between white and yellow, but decided it was just a\nfriendly snipe. Her gaze swept the room. The cloaks which everyone\nwore billowed or draped widely, cut just short enough a single\nstanding leg could be seen emerging from each's shadows.\n\nBetween the single leg (almost a stalk) and the colored cloth that\nhung over them (almost a bell), you could see in their visage\nsomething of the slaves who strive in Antenora, hefting from the sea\nvast blocks of the frozen blood of the earth or acting as tireless\nservents in every city from mountainpeak to oceandepth.\n\nIt was almost intentional.\n\nAround them, the room was bare, as demanded by he under the black\ncloak. The stone of the floor still was scuffed where tables were\ndragged out, the color of the wall brighter where paintings or shelves\nhad once been. Yet still there were cobwebs, and in the corners and\ncrevices, barnacles and urchins and anemones and other sessile things;\nfor the slits had no glass, and plankton floated in and could not\nfloat out.\n\nAfter everything else, the one thing that could not be removed was the\nblinking and beeping machine, a great spellweaver, whose softly\nglowing screen became the ambience of the room.\n\nCentermost of all, there was a table, empty now but not for long.\n\n\"What's taking the servants all this time?\"\n\n\"It's probably the weak, useless medusae.\" White cawed,\ndisdaining. \"If we could afford more amoebae they'd have carried the\nload here before we'd even landed.\"\n\n\"If we could afford more amoebae we wouldn't have to meet in a dank\nroom with cobwebs and barnacles.\"\n\nYellow prodded black. \"Did you, well, tell them that they could come\nin?\"\n\nHe in the black cloak paused.\n\nThen came a sigh, and an invisible swallowing of pride, and then he\ncalled out, high, sharp, three notes, and it was then that the latch\nwas tried. It turned smoothly then stopped with a clack and wouldn't\nopen.\n\nQuickly Green was saying, \"I think I must've locked it behind\nmysel...\"\n\nBut she trailed off seeing that from the gap below the door, a black\npsuedopod covered in eyes, was emerging and climbing palpably the\ndoor, before latching onto the inside handle with a squish and letting\nitself in.\n\nThe door slid open first of all on a ghost snail shell, an ashen white\nspiral with faint soft lines of yellow blue dancing as decoration.\nBelow, at the shell's mouth, there exuded the retracting pseudopod\nwhich had opened the door, and a sextet of stiff black pseudopodia\nwhich upheld the shell and its denizen, each ending on soft, suckered\npads.  And there was a final appendage everted behind it, thicker than\nall the others.\n\nNothing else of the amoeba could be seen; the rest of the black\nweltering mass sat tucked snug and modest inside the cracked and\nbulging shell.\n\nBeside and behind the amoeba were a half dozen slave medusae like a\nsquad of floating jellyfish, each of which had a grasping tentacle\noutstretched.\n\nBetween the grasping tentacles and the amoeba's thickest psuedopod,\nthey lifted the object which he in black had requested.\n\nIt was chest no bigger than any of their heads. Were it laying on the\nground you'd expect to kick and watch it roll; but your bones would\nbreak before it ever would move. Amoebae had the strength of\nmountains.\n\n\"On the table, right there.\"\n\nThe high piping voice of the amoeba echoed him, \"On the table, sir.\"\n\nThey sat it there and the stone of the table cracked and the legs\ncrumbled under it. Black ",
  "title": "Oh, the Worldly Glory Goes"
}