16:57, Rotation 303 / 365, 231 AE, 60.34137, 44.21169, Reath

  As the Princess Senjya descended the Celestial Escalator, after having been received by her Mother Empress, she was greeted by the sixteen royal psions that governed all Reath. Amefrid had long been sent packing to Aryss.

  She was dressed in an elegant couture robe of gossamer with long capes flowing along her slight body and into the wake of her passing. It was embroidered with pure gold woven intricate patterns of four cornered clovers, empty petals ensconced within spheres and stars, and for reasons that the Elvans no longer understood, the monogram ‘LV’. The psions dutifully synchronized their reports of the observations of the spirits into her mind, though she did not bother to scry their names. These psions now served her and not her stupid sister.

  With but a thought she gave commands, as she began her administration.

  Restrict all exports of ferrous powder, wood, materials and sundries to the rogue traders. None of it is to reach orc hands.

  Once the last rogue queen on Reath had been slain, and as the rogues had been scattered into small bands, the great majority of them holding on in Aryss where Princess Senjya had spent so many revolutions hunting and exterminating, the Empress decreed that there was no longer any point trying to eliminate those remaining on Reath, so broken and defeated they were. And so the Empress had granted them mercy.

  Clan Amallark was forbidden to trade with the orcan horde directly, but the surviving rogues on Reath were allowed to eke out existence trading goods between Clan Amallark and the Horde, using the permissionless ledgers of the ethereal chains to hold account. It turned out to be a necessary mercy, for the resources of Upper Reath had long dwindled, so thoroughly had the elvans extracted every iota of minerals and organic growth from what fertile lands remained accessible. It was now impossible to mine anywhere touched by the belt of storms.

  But in the thawing, storm protected land of Orca was a rich and untapped source of the metals necessary to produce elvan magicks. While it was possible for elvan dragons to capture asteroids and meteoroids in the void, certain metals were exceedingly rare, and only through the thorough plumbing of the Reathean crust could they be reliably found, and the only earth left unscoured was Orca. They had to send them food, iron, and wood, otherwise the imperium could not get its precious lithium, niobium, and cobalt.

  And now Senjya wanted to cut that trade completely?

  Yedwin Amallark, one of the sixteen psions under Senjya’s command, did not dare protest, but did psionically note that without this crucial trade, the price of ether and bit, the key currencies of the ethereal chains would crash. There would be no point in accumulating bits if there were no reason to use them.

  Senjya giggled. And she mentally prepared a list of specific exports to keep the magick metals flowing. Yedwin could not comprehend exactly why such a bizarre list of commodities should make sense, but Princess Senjya firmly followed the Third Law of Power, and always concealed her intentions.

  “Ah! I’m hangry!” Senjya barked as she strode down the cavernous royal hall of the celestial escalator on her stiletto heels, but it was a jovial kind of barking. Orders made vocally commanded far more attention than those made with thought, and it was truly unnecessary, but instantly a troupe of sixty-four workers and soldiers rushed to her. Really, Senjya just wanted to relish her newfound power.

  Then she imagined things exactly as she wanted them.

  So, she was lifted by two finely sculpted soldiers upon their shoulders – she admired their leanness and how visible their transverse abdominals were upon their naked bodies, wondering which one would give better cunnilingus – and was carried away to the royal dining chamber. She kicked her feet up and dutifully a third soldier caught them on his shoulders, and immediately two workers to each of his side began to massage her feet with ancient Lower Jhiryan reflexology methods.

  “Ahh-” she exhaled in relief as she was carried, and carefully lowered, to her seat. It was an ergonomic throne but of oversized proportion, replete with plush cryptid downed pillows and cashmere draperies.

  Set upon the table were bowls of the rarest fruits long thought extinct, impossible to grow outside of carefully monitored hydroponic systems. Blueberries, strawberries, cherries, and Vyredian grapes, both white and red. Slices of pineapple and watermelon. All delicacies that only the Empress and the Princesses ever tasted with regularity.

  Or, at least, the Princess stationed on Reath. Not the one on Aryss.

  Of course there were the less rare varieties, a giant bowl of mangoes and lychees and peeled pitayas, which were sometimes given to the psions as a reward for their work. Senjya did not care for these, for they were sometimes delivered to her in her revolutions on Aryss by dragonback, albeit freeze dried and rehydrated, and it felt like an overabundance meant to overcompensate. Though in truth the difference was miniscule, in her mind Senjya felt that the moment fruit was frozen it was practically rotten, and though she never considered it, her psionics only amplified her own prejudice so that to her it truly did taste stale af to her. But did it taste much better fresh?

  She took a small bite of a fresh, juicy, sticky, dripping mango.

  Mm. That’s better. She thought.

  But she was also distinctly underwhelmed. She thought it would taste sweeter than the frozen ones they sent to Aryss.

  Whatever! Simply having them freshly available only made the sumptuous spread all the more spectacular. With a wave of her hand, she allowed the sixteen psions to each pick one, and only one mango or pitaya. She forbade them from eating the lychees for she felt pimples looked unsightly on her psions. The lychees will go to the lesser workers. The psions took their allotted gratefully and then slipped away to their shared eating quarters.

  And then Senjya popped a blueberry into her mouth.

  “Mmmm!” her neck craned back in joy and her pigtails with blue and pink ombré ends bounced as she rolled the treasure about with her tongue, before gently popping it upon the roof of her mouth. The tartness! The sweetness! She could almost cry with how delicious it was, for she had not remembered tasting such a jewel since she was but a broodling. She licked her lips.

  And before she knew it, she was hungrily devouring all the varieties laid before her, far too quickly to truly appreciate just how wondrous of a privilege she had to even taste but one. The many workers and soldiers who stood diligently by looked upon her feasting with what envy and hunger they were psionically permitted to experience, and their stomachs growled.

  Several workers poured her various wines, one to pair with each dish.

  But this was only the amuse-bouche. A line of workers now marched toward her with silver platters:

  A fine borscht accompanied by bruschetta,

  A ratatouille with real taurian butter instead of seed oil replacement,

  A jellyfish and cultured oysters bouillabaisse,

  And just before the gnocchi with real cream sauce to fill the Princess up, was the pièce de résistance!

  A true steak prepared from cryptic taurus!

  Orcan and elvan alike had all thought the last taurus had perished, their species to be classified as cryptid, and not just cryptic, meaning only exceedingly rare, as opposed to extinct. But the Empress had ensured that a few protected beasts of the wagyu lineage, secretly guarded by a legion of knights, were allowed to range within a field protected by a plexiglass dome hidden on an Tunedenic island, and finished with grains, would be available for her and her most precious two daughters.

  But mostly for Herself. The Goddess, who was vegetarian, could not live without her cheeses.

  And, functionally speaking, only the daughter who was home. The thought of sending the precious meat all the way to Aryss – dragon cargo space was far too dear when even fresh water was not guaranteed with rogue attacks on the ice mines – was laughable.

  Senjya gasped when the worker laid the dish before her. It went without saying that she had never tasted this forgotten delicacy – beef – before. It was something that even Amefrid had only tasted just once in her life.

  This was surely a welcoming gift to Senjya from Mother, to congratulate her on the beginning of her new administration.

  It was only one hundred grams, dry aged to perfection. Seared so delicately as to ensure a fine, even coating of caramelized Maillard reaction crust all along each side of its surface, even along the trim.

  So carefully did she cut a slice that she made sure to dilate her perception of time as she did it, even as the meat fell apart effortlessly to the knife. Oh, it was glorious. Senjya could live in that moment forever. Well maybe more the moment right after. The anticipation drove her delight ever higher. She took a generous whiff and gently placed it on her tongue. It practically melted apart in her mouth, the well marbled fat rendered, the flesh itself a precise medium rare.

  Oh, she was in heaven!

  She sank deeper into the dining throne.

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  And then a worker brought her a cup of coffee as a digestif.

  True coffee! Not the synthetic kolas, although in truth Senjya was a bit of a fiend for Amallarkean miruvor back on Aryss. She knew that Amefrid could drink as much of it as she liked, but this would be her first time. She had dreamed of the rotation that she popped her coffee cherry.

  It reminded Senjya that she had work to do. She brought the steaming, black drink to her lips. She tried to savor the bitter notes, but alas, being a bit of an acquired taste but with so few of the beans grown that an elvan could scarcely acquire it, she could only feign a sense of satisfaction. “Mmm…” It was supposedly the closest thing left to the extinct cocoa bean, but not even the Empress herself could remember what that tasted like.

  The natural caffeine lifted her out of her post meal comfort, and her perceptions sharpened.

  The way before her lay clear and vivid.

  Now she was the heir.

  She reviewed her plan. She would weaken those bloody orcs, destroy them from within, set them against each other.

  First, the introduction of incredibly destructive narcotics would sow ruin in their supposedly harmonious society.

  Then, of course, there would be the hard part. Senjya was no fool. Trade would collapse at first, now that she was in charge, and indeed it would mean a crash in the price of ethereal assets, not just the empyreal bit, but also fixed capital assets that had been linked to the chains by non-fungible tokens. For although the Princesses concerned themselves with that which would please their mother most – slaughtering the rogues and containing the orcans – the more humdrum mundanity of the elvan bureaucratic machine incurred far more psionic load than the edges of the blades.

  Millions of elvans were involved in the work of dragon breeding and care. And hundreds of millions more, though aided by the spirits, were needed both to take care of the great forests – one of the last bastions of hope against the still encroaching Catastrophe – as well as to till what little arable land was left, after every other acre was used for growing essence mutated trees, as after all each of these elvan mouths needed to be fed. And these elvans had to be hatched from millions of brood mothers. The Aryssal brood mothers needed protection from rogues, Protorcan encampments needed protection from orcs, so many millions more soldiers were necessary. More than were necessary. Soldiers used idly, performing tasks that were meant for workers, and the Goddess commanded her flock of psions to get more proactive with their deployment of their capital.

  These elvans conducted the commerce of their lives entirely through the ethereal chains. It was how noble Amallarkean workers could rise in the clan, perhaps even become psions themselves. Old Amallarkean workers and old soldiers, should they be lucky enough to live that long, were offered a pleasant retirement for their services across the parts of Tuneden and Jhirya that remained habitable, enough land to grow some wheat and some tubers for a retired elvan polycule household or platonic commune.

  Such was the onus of responsibility for the Administrator of Reath, but Senjya, new to the post, did not grok the gravity of her role. If anything made Amefrid hesitant to act, it would be these so-called middle elvans, neither vassal, nor Princess, nor Queen, nor Goddess. Your perfectly average normal elvan being.

  All formal elvan property belonged to Clan Amallark now, but not all of it belonged to the Goddess. Her own children would revolt at such despotism. And so, Senjya knew that crashing the price of the bit would mean great suffering for her sisters. The poor Amallarkean workers that stood dutifully by their clan would see what little wealth she had accrued in their service destroyed. There would be no doubt the rogue traders would also cause great grief. They would be the ones who had the most to lose.

  But she had cleared it all up with Goddess Mother. It was a necessary bullet to bite. Crack a few eggs to make an omelet, that was one that all the egg sucking posh psions in the Strata used - she absorbed as much psionic chit chat as soon as she landed. Big Sister must keep an eye on those who love her. Though it would mean strangling the empire’s own development and sowing great discontent, Senjya had learned in Aryss that the hard decisions were the ones that needed to be made with haste. Go hard or go home. It would only be temporary chaos. She was certain that once the orcs were starved of resources and divided by poison, the Imperium would easily outlast the Horde. And Goddess Mother agreed.

  At the opportune moment, she would commit to the final blow.

  A ground invasion of soldiers, properly supported by dragon’s breath this time, would sweep through Orca. Razing Orca would be out of the question, the unleashed forbidden fire would be the death knell of Reath, which was why despite its ever-lingering threat, it did not happen. It would be mutually assured destruction.

  But capturing Orca? Pristine and perfect? Ripe for elvan colonization and mining?

  Mother would finally be truly proud of her, ridding Reath of the orc pestilence once and for all. Finally, all the orcans would be under elvan control. They would be bred in cages, their eyes cauterized out to prevent regeneration, their limbs regularly crippled. What the elvans would need from them, they could extract freely. And then, when Mother finally passed – even if it should be millenia from now – she would finally ascend herself.

  Her apotheosis.

  And then the realms would all bow before the God Empress Senjya Amallark.

  Empress Senjya. It had a nice ring to it.

  She had never dared think such things before, but now it was all but inevitable. She only had to wait. What she dared not think, however, was exactly how Goddess Mother would die.

  This is it, she thought.

  She snapped her fingers to another nearby worker, who promptly passed her exactly what she was thinking of at that precise moment. A Tunedenic tobacco cigarette. The spirits crawled to the end of it and ignited it for her, and she took a rich drag.

  As she exhaled, she thought:

  This is the life.

  Meaning that it had been hand crafted by workers to fit the exact specifications of her frame and to exacting detail of her desire, so that no creature in the realm possessed a garment uniquely like it, a luxury that once was only afforded by the most elite of Godlike Beings. While Amefrid had many such garments made for her, this was Senjya’s first. Haute couture could not exist on Aryss, when scarcity had already made it difficult just to keep every colonist fully clothed.

  The initials of the Godlike Louis Vuitton, patterned upon lost relics. It looked quite tacky. And yet it denoted status so the pattern persisted. It was befitting, for Clan Amallark had relation to the Godlikes known as the Arnaults.

  Iron Fertilization was a process by which orcans could trigger big algal blooms to harvest for their aquaculture, Zahul’s lifeblood. Unfortunately, it would disrupt the algal nutrition on the other side of the oceans, where the elvans lived.

  The key metals being lithium, niobium, cobalt, hafnium, and zirconium, but even more important than those were gynous orcan bodies for extraction, the necessity of this resource kept a secret only to those elite psions under direct command of the Empress herself, and the two Princesses. Any rogue traders involved had to be slain immediately afterward, lest the secret be uncovered.

  In summary, a specific list of narcotics, especially various opioids and methamphetamine. But she forbade cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, the ergot fungus, and ketamine. Nothing that could be considered medicine. The replacement commodities would not make up the enormous shortfall.

  While it was possibly pseudo-magick, in the Jhiryese folk biology, lychee gave the body great [热气], or ‘heat energy’, which supposedly led to the formation of pimples. Elvans too believed in myths. The spirits thought it was more likely that the higher sugar content of the fruit led to inflammation.

  A malbec, a moscato, a merlot, a chardonnay, a cabernet sauvignon, and finally to polish it all off, an ice wine riesling.

  Traditionally this dish was prepared with fish, but all the fish had died as the oceans acidified, hunted to extinction by the Godlikes, or engulfed and digested by masses of jellyfish.

  In truth it was the elvans themselves who culled nearly every living taurus, for their methane emissions were deemed forbidden fire.

  The Goddess, who was supposedly vegetarian, simply could not find joy in a life, endless though it was, without her cheese. What was wine without cheese? But over time even her incredible assortment of cheeses had ceased to make her as happy as they once did.

  But certainly not vegan, as the Calletheans were. Though by necessity, rather by choice. She understood the real reason why Dannelle fled to Phyros. The hothouse thesis was just her fear mongering, and a bluff to conceal her true reason.

  Which didn’t make her vegetarian at all. Veal calves had their stomachs sliced open for the rennet.

  She didn’t like it, which only solidified the Goddess Mother’s conclusion that Ami was an ingrate.

  Coffee beans were incredibly hard to grow on Reath, the thin belt of land that held its ideal climate ravaged by storms.

  Guarana, which was able to survive much more robustly on Protorca than the coffee bean, was the chief ingredient of the ‘better’ miruvor.

  Pun completely intended.

  Only Amefrid remembered what it tasted like.

  Unproductive intercourse. Only designated drones could activate cocoons.

  Cunnilingus.

  Specifically, the cunnilingus. The First Elvans were radical feminists, and by all measures, they really did swish the net on this one.

  It stood to reason that if a psion was assigned excess soldiers and told to think of something to do with them, the psion would have the propensity to invent the need for violence where none existed. What’s the point of a weapon that isn’t wielded?

  Senjya dared not even think the secret, improbable as it was that one of her psions could scry it. Not only would Goddess Mother end her on the spot, but Senjya fully understood that if everyone knew the secret of the immaculate conception, it could fundamentally damage the psyche and morale of the elvan race as a whole. And when it came to psionics, psyche and morale were everything. If the elvans could no longer see themselves as the divine and rightful inheritors of the Godlike Beings and began to see themselves as parasitic monsters, then would the brood mothers even be willing to labor for their Queen anymore, knowing the truth of the cocoons? Even more disastrous would be if the orcans knew.

  Goddess Mother had been scrying, and she noted that she had better keep a closer eye on Senjya. This ambition was unnerving to the Empress. And yet, at the same time, exciting. Maybe Senjya would figure out the Rite.

  The Goddess’s body, more spirit than flesh, was in fact effectively undying. No decay was permitted. But undying did not mean immortal. The only way the Goddess could die was by force. She had to be killed, her body destroyed, her spirits disintegrated, and what little organic brain remained left to rot. But the Goddess sought the only defense against assassination. It was simple. She simply had to make a copy of her mind, finally transcend what little was left of her original, organic body: create what was called a simulacrum, sometimes also called a horcrux, or phylactery. It hadn’t been done before. Become unto a spirit. A lich. Her True Apotheosis. For how was it possible to destroy something that could be reproduced? When there was always a backup copy, deletion was impossible, just like a transaction on the ethereal chains. But she hadn’t quite figured out how yet. Lichdom remained firmly within the realm of theoretical psionics.