The Land of Origin

Inside the temple, Shelly stood obediently before a great mythical conch shell set into the wall, watching through its glowing surface the countless strange creatures within it. A flowerpot rested in her arms, and in it grew a single golden, cup-shaped flower.

The scent of this flower seemed to delight her.

Yin Shen had set her to looking after the flower, and so she held the pot always in her arms, breathing in its scent.

All at once the flower in the pot stirred. Its golden cup-shaped body split wide into a gaping, blood-red maw, and it lunged and bit at Shelly, letting out a hiss that chilled the bone.

Hiss!

This, at last, was the flower's true face. It was some strange form of life caught between animal and plant.

But Shelly did not move at all as those fangs closed on her face, as though not the faintest hint of danger reached her. Only her green eyes moved. They had been perfectly still until then, and now they turned like a pair of glass marbles and came to rest on the flowerpot.

Darkness spread outward, and a terrible shadow reared up behind Shelly. The aura of a mythical being that stood at the very top of the food chain settled over everything there.

The savage, drooling flower wilted on the instant and dared not stir again.

As it turned out, in all this world she alone reigned as the most terrifying king of monsters.

This was the Sun Cup Flower Yin Shen had created, remade at random by fusing it onto a seafloor creature called the Ancient Cup as its base.

He meant to create more plants like it and set them all across this island, to see which ones would survive natural selection in the end, and to lend a little more of the color of life to this dull, wild landscape.

Only here on the island of the God-Given City could they grow, he guessed. Past its shores they could not withstand the force of the radiation. In this age the sea alone was a true paradise for life.

The miracle of the trilobite men belonged to the trilobite men alone, and to no other form of life.

And deep inside the temple, Redlichia knelt before the altar and chattered on and on to the divine about everything that had happened since his sons and his two daughters came home.

He spoke of the gifts they had offered him, and of how dearly he had loved them, even though he had made light of it all in front of his children.

Not one of the feats they had achieved out in the world escaped him. Redlichia could recount them all, and he knew besides just how the people of the God-Given City talked of their deeds and their adventures.

His children's achievements gave him more pleasure than his own great triumphs ever had.

"Yesael has built a city hardly smaller than the God-Given City itself. They say there is a tower in it, too, one that climbs straight up off the seabed and out through the water. A full hundred meters."

"Yesael has drawn up a code of law as well. I mean to build upon it and make it whole, so that it governs not Yesael City alone but the whole of the Yinsai Kingdom."

"Ense has done well too. He is good to his people, and plenty are willing to go over and join him. The city he built falls only a little short of Yesael's."

"I used to worry that power in their hands would make them arrogant. That they would lose their way."

A smile spread across Redlichia's face. "Now it seems..."

"My children are far finer than I ever imagined."

Below the altar, the devotee poured out words without end.

Atop the altar, the divine listened in silence and said not a word.

Whether he had already drifted into sleep, or whether the divine's awareness had already soared off into some distant sea of stars, no one could say.

Inside this temple, Redlichia was an entirely different man from the one he was outside it.

In the God-Given City, he was the King of Wisdom, lofty and unreachable.

Dignified, cold, decisive.

But in the temple he was only God's firstborn son.

He kept nothing from God. Like a child he laid bare his joy, his delight, his sorrow.

At last the endless chatter drew toward its close. Redlichia lifted his head to gaze up at the divine's shadowy form, and longing shone out of his aged eyes.

"O Great God Yinsai!"

"At last I can stand before You and declare it with pride..."

"Redlichia has founded a great nation. Just as You hoped of me, I have raised up the world's first civilization of wisdom."

Here Redlichia's words took a sudden turn.

He grew more agitated, as though some wish, some dream he had kept hidden in his heart for years, were about to come true.

"But this is not enough. It is nowhere near enough."

"I have not only founded a great civilization. I must also fulfill the promise I made to You."

At this moment the divine within the temple heard those words and stirred at last, his awareness seeming to come back to this world from some realm entirely elsewhere.

Yin Shen's gaze fell upon Redlichia, and he shook his head with a rueful laugh.

"All these years, and you still haven't forgotten?"

Kneeling below with his head tilted up, Redlichia laughed in turn.

"That was my vow to God. How could I ever forget?"

Yesael and his elder brothers and sisters had waited a long while inside the Wisdom Palace before the King of Wisdom finally entered the great hall, his attendants guarding him on every side.

Yesael studied his father closely. The Great King of Wisdom of former days was young no longer, far more aged now than he had been only a few years before.

His frame was tall and imposing still, but it had begun to stoop.

Crowned, leaning upon his scepter, he climbed step by step up to his throne and sat down.

"You have all come."

Yesael and the others knelt at once and cried out to the King of Wisdom.

Redlichia raised a hand and bade them rise. His gaze passed over each of them in turn, and then he broke into laughter.

"Good!"

"Good."

"You have all done well."

"Ense City is well built. I hear a good many nobles mean to leave the God-Given City and go over to you."

"Yesael, that stone tower of yours, I will go and see it myself when I have the chance. I want to know whether it truly is so tall, and so finely made."

"And..."

Whoever's name he spoke broke into a smile.

When Redlichia had finished, his expression turned serious at last.

"I have called you here today for one matter."

"God granted us the sea and the earth alike. We have set foot upon the sea already, and still we have not found the continent."

"God has given us everything. We must fulfill what He hopes of us..."

The King of Wisdom's gaze sank into memory and thought. He seemed to drift back once more to that shore of many years before, where the sound of the waves had gone echoing on and on.

The divine had come here from beyond the universe, across time and across the ages, and he had brought the miracle of wisdom and life with him.

Far off, a land rolled away and away to the edge of the sky, and he himself had crawled up out of the warm sea water to come before the divine.

"That is where I was born, and it is where God descended."

"We must find that place. There we shall build a city, in the very place where we began."

"Which of you is willing to go in search of the continent and the Origin Site?"

Yesael had long had his eye on this. "Great King of Wisdom, where does that boundless land of legend actually lie?"

Ense inclined his head. "Great King of Wisdom, are we not moving a little too fast?"

"The Yinsai Kingdom has only just been founded, after all, and our own domains are barely settled."

"Is there truly any need to go searching for the continent now?"

Redlichia did not press them to do as he wished, and he did not reveal just where that continent truly lay.

He only said, "If any among you is willing, come to me."