No Resting Place

Decades later, the God-Descended City had an artificial lake, connected to the sea, and it held within it both an underwater city and a place where trilobite men bred their young.

It resembled, in some ways, the Sacred Well of the old God-Given City, though far larger than that well had ever been.

In the lake dwelt several enormous bizarre shrimp. Lassoes tanned from sea ferns were fastened about the bodies of these lords of the ocean, and several tall, powerful trilobite men, bone spears in hand, rode them into fierce combat across the water.

"Up!"

"Charge!"

As they shouted their commands, the great ocean beasts beneath them seemed to become extensions of their own bodies, moving exactly as their riders willed.

Bone spears thrust and struck, while the two great pincers before the bizarre shrimps' mouths clashed against one another. The blood of every trilobite man watching the battle ran hot, and they roared and cheered.

Before the lake stood a magnificent throne, its high back carved with ornate patterns. Upon it sat a crowned figure, surrounded and guarded by the crowd, watching these young trilobite men clash and struggle against one another.

Nearly all of them were Yesael's descendants, and holders of wisdom ability.

Over the decades, no small number had come to possess wisdom ability. A rare few had awakened it through their bloodline, but most had received it through the Bestowing of Power passed down within the royal family.

As the trilobite royals aged, they would bestow their own power upon their descendants.

These descendants naturally lacked the good fortune the second generation of the Royal Bloodline had known, when the divine had granted them outright a mythical life such as a fusion monster. The older generation had not yet entirely passed away, so no one knew when a fusion monster might be inherited at all, let alone whether their own turn would ever come.

And so some sought another path, going down into the sea to tame and master bizarre shrimp, or other creatures.

Through this they gained certain special capabilities of their own, whether formidable combat strength or some other useful skill.

As the display drew to a close, these tall, powerful trilobite royals climbed up onto the shore of the lake and knelt beneath the throne.

"You have all done well."

"Fearless, brave, and skilled in wisdom ability."

"Worthy indeed of the blood of the most ancient king, and worthy of your standing among the royal family."

The second King of Wisdom, Yesael, rose to his feet and leveled his scepter at them.

He called out each of their names in turn. "By my authority as the King of Wisdom, I grant you the title of Priest of God."

From this moment on, these young scions of the royal family had truly become priests.

Apart from the King himself, they now stood at the very summit of power within the Yinsai Kingdom.

"Great King, we shall hold to our faith in the divine forever, and forever submit to your rule."

Yesael was overjoyed. One outstanding figure after another had emerged among the younger generation, and it made him feel his Yinsai Kingdom growing ever stronger and more prosperous.

He thought to himself, "Send these young ones out to other places, and they would surely build several more cities. The Yinsai Kingdom would grow larger still."

Throughout the city ran broad canals, spreading in every direction like rivers. To the trilobite men they served much the same purpose as roads.

Yesael rode his fusion monster, Nini, leading his guards along the canal toward the royal palace. All along the way, everyone who saw him dropped to their knees in reverence.

Looking down from above, one could see the great roads thick with crowds and marketplaces.

Along the streets, some sold salted, dried fish and sun-cured fish meat, others fresh Ancestral Fish and other catches pulled from the sea.

Still others sold all manner of bone tools, and bone plates, bone bowls, bone knives and bone spears were to be seen on every side.

All these bone tools came from trilobite men who had died, though the Yinsai Kingdom evidently held few taboos about it. Only those trilobite men of noble blood were given proper burial.

The God-Descended City differed from the God-Given City in more than one way. Most obvious of all was the tall stone wall raised along the city's edge.

The wall divided those within the city from those without into two ranks. Within it dwelt the powerful and their servants, almost without exception, and anyone entering the God-Descended City from outside was made to pay a tax.

This was a law settled upon after the second King of Wisdom, Yesael, had himself established the Yinsai Kingdom's legal code and issued its own currency.

Beyond the city walls lay villages large and small, where merchants who worked for the powerful gathered in throngs, along with laboring craftsmen and fisher-folk who raised the catch.

Along this coastline, one magnificent city after another had risen by the sea, and by now the Yinsai Kingdom possessed seventeen of them.

Society had grown far more complex. It now had not only a system of power divided into many more tiers, but every manner of trade and profession.

Counting every village both large and small, the population of the Yinsai Kingdom had swelled to several hundred thousand.

Even in the days when the first King of Wisdom, Redlichia, still lived, no one would have dared imagine such a thing.

In this respect, at least, Yesael had surpassed his father.

Yesael returned to the palace, where several powerful officials of the Yinsai Kingdom were already waiting for him at the gate.

"My King, the legal code has been compiled anew. It stands now to the south of the palace."

This was also the reason he had hurried back.

Yesael leapt down at once from the back of his fusion monster Nini and hurried south after the officials in his excitement, a great crowd trailing close behind him.

The legal code was one of the most important achievements of his entire life.

This was already its seventh revision, and he felt certain it would be the last.

In his eyes, it was a code of law without flaw, perfect in every way.

The code was carved upon a stone tablet standing outside the palace, written in the divine script that Redlichia had once compiled.

Yesael stood before the stone tablet and touched the script his father and God had made, pride shining in his eyes.

"Father, I have not let you down."

All the way back to the palace, and until he sat once more upon his throne, his whole body seemed to float among the clouds.

Yesael was lost in the glow of his own glory.

He had built more than a dozen cities. He had created the legal code. He had expanded the Yinsai Kingdom.

He had accomplished what even his father never had. He had built a great nation, and become a king whom all men praised.

In his Wisdom Palace, Redlichia had kept his tablets of divine script. Yesael kept there instead the legal code he had compiled himself, its walls carved with the epic of his own past adventures.

Today he was overjoyed, so thrilled he could not contain himself.

Again and again he rose from his throne, pacing about the palace, gazing upon these records of his own past deeds.

Suddenly, someone came running in.

"My king, the Grand Princess is asking to see you."

Yesael's face changed at once.

Yesael hurried to another city and entered a building much like the sleeping chambers of the old God-Given City.

Within, an aged trilobite woman was waiting for him.

Yesael let out a breath of relief, and his hurried steps slowed at last.

"Sister, what's made you want to see me so suddenly?"

Yesael looked upon this sister of his, whose face so closely resembled their mother's, who had once taken him to catch fish in the marshes, who had once led him deep into the sea on adventures.

It was she who had made his childhood so complete, she who had given him the seed of daring and the courage to seek adventure.

To Yesael she was not merely his sister but an elder who was, in every way, like a mother to him.

The Grand Princess looked somewhat sorrowful, her eyes fixed always on the far side of the sea.

He asked her, "Sister, is there something weighing on your mind?"

The Grand Princess turned to look at Yesael, and in her eyes surfaced a gentleness just like that of the Queen of old.

"My King, tell me, can we still go back to the God-Given Land? Can we still see father, and God?"

Yesael answered without a moment's hesitation, "Of course!"

"I am still the King of Wisdom."

"The Crown of Wisdom sits upon my head still. None of what happened has ended the covenant between God and the trilobite men."

"So long as we atone for our sin, we will surely return to the God-Given Land once more."

Yesael did not notice it himself, but his tone of voice and the look on his face had come to resemble Redlichia's very closely.

Light kindled in the Grand Princess's eyes, and she smiled as she looked upon her younger brother.

"Then all is well."

"Then all is well."

The aged Grand Princess let out a long, deep breath, as though some knot within her heart had finally come undone.

"If one day you are able to return to the God-Given Land, my King..."

"Take my bones back with you! Bury me at our mother's side!"

"I... miss her."

Yesael put his arms around his sister. "Don't fret. There's plenty of time yet!"

"When the time comes, we'll go back together, and we'll see mother and father together too."

Yesael had not been back in the God-Descended City long when, a few days later, news arrived.

The Grand Princess was dead.

At the news Yesael shot to his feet, then sat back down again in a daze.

His sister's words came back to him once more, and with a start he found the fear and confusion hidden deep within his own heart.

However high the glory he had won, however great the deeds he had achieved.

None of it could hold back the helplessness and confusion within him, still less could it dispel the yearning every trilobite man felt to return to the God-Given Land.

And the fear of having been forsaken by God, the sorrow of having been driven from that paradise God had promised.

Their will and their spirit had lost any place to rest. They were like a band of wandering ghosts drifting to the very ends of the earth and sea.

Deep within his heart, Yesael was no different from any other trilobite man. He too could never stop longing to return to the God-Given Land.

In their eyes, only that place was truly their final home.