On Sin-Amuhhu, an emergency session of the Mage Parliament had been convened.

Throughout the empire, Mage Parliaments were common. Every starisle had one, and tradition defined their structure. A Head Mage presided over six Ministers and three Senior Ministers. In lower starisles, such as Deeply Clouded starisles like Humusi or Stricken starisles like Mannemid, the Head Mage was usually a Mystic or High Mystic, although not always.

But Sin-Amuhhu was a Flourishing starisle, and also the location of a Major Artery Gateway. What was more, it was also home to one of the Anunnaki. It was a very important location, and there was no way a mere Mystic or High Mystic could officiate. As such, the Head Mage of the Parliament was a High Archon.

Head Mage Muna sat at the end of an oval table, clad in a simple garment of pale blue cloth, with her curly white hair bound at the forehead with a leather band. Her skin was as wrinkled and cracked as the desert floor a week after a flood. She was old. Very old.

In fact, she was likely one of the oldest living humans, at least on Sin-Amuhhu. She had been the Head Mage for a long time, and there were different opinions regarding why she hadn’t taken that final step to becoming an Anunnaki.

Some claimed she had offended the Anunnaki of the Great Reef, and had been forbidden from making the breakthrough. Others said she’d experienced melam deviation, damaging her chambers of energy and making the breakthrough impossible. There were other rumors as well.

Whatever the reason that Muna hadn’t reached the Anunnaki level, it hadn’t lessened her authority. Her eyes gleamed with intensity, and her voice, though scratchy with age, contained a note of command that was impossible to ignore.

Archon Shabadras had always been afraid of Muna. Not that he feared she would harm him. No, he feared failing her. As the Head Mage, she demanded perfection from the members of the Mage Parliament, and was not tolerant of mistake-making.

Archon Shabadras listened to the news from the Lira starisles and his heart sank.

“Repeat that,” Muna said, her eyes locked on a rotund Archon who sat across the table from her.

Archon Adom was known for his love of food and his network of informants who funneled information to him from throughout the Great Reef.

“Three planets are confirmed lost,” he said. “All of them in starisles subsidiary to Lira.”

“Define ‘confirmed,’” High Archon Muna said.

“Communication lost. Gateways disabled, or at least, impossible to connect to. In two cases, it was after they’d reported Abhorrent activity. In the case of the third…” he cleared his throat. “I suppose that one isn’t confirmed as having been lost.”

No one at the table spoke. Of course, Shabadras didn’t take it upon himself to break the silence.

In addition to High Archon Muna and Archon Adom, there was also High Archon Kingallu, the headmaster of the Sin-Amuhhu Institute of Military Magic. The other members at the table included High Archon Simiak, and two ordinary Archons, Shafika and Lapis The only non-mage present was General Kamaru-Ayyabu. Three mages were away.

The moment of silence stretched out for a bit.

Finally, High Archon Kingallu said, “Muna, at what point are the Anunnaki going to step in? This entire situation is unprecedented. Does the Pontifarch know?”

“I have no idea if the Pontifarch knows,” the Head Mage snapped. “But I have reported everything. The Anunnaki in the Great Reef Assembly know what’s going on. Is the entire Pantheon aware? I have no idea. Have they notified the Pontifarch? I have no idea. Regardless, until we receive orders saying otherwise, we have to deal with this problem.”

The Monad knows, Shabadras thought. As a member of the One Faith, he knew in the depths of his heart that the Monad was the true ruler of the starsea, and that the Pontifarch was a fiction devised by key members of the Anunnaki who opposed him. However, in the face of this Abhorrent invasion, it almost came down to semantics. Why wasn’t the Monad doing something?

“If the Pontifarch and the Anunnaki aren’t getting involved, it says to me that the problem isn’t so big that we can’t handle it,” said Archon Lapis. She looked like a beautiful young woman with bronze skin, but was actually older than Shabadras.

High Archon Muna grunted. “I don’t like making assumptions, but I have to agree with you, Lapis. As far as I’m concerned, we have two issues here. First of all, how the hell did the Abhorrent get here from the Nightmare Cove? Second: how do we repel them, or at the very least, defend against them?

“Regarding the first point, have we made any progress in coming up with new theories or evidence?”

“Yes,” said Archon Adom. “After pouring through reports from hundreds of sources, I haven’t found a shred of evidence to suggest that the Abhorrent made their way up from one of the lower starisles. Take the Humusi invasion, for instance. Only the Stricken subsidiary worlds like Mannemid, Jehannemid, Kartos, and the like were invaded. Not a single of the Barren subsidiary worlds below the Mannemids, Jehannemids, et cetera, suffered the same fate. Not one.

“The previous theory floated about some sort of backdoor Gateway seems… not quite disproven, but astronomically unlikely.”

“What about the obsolete Gateways?” Kingallu asked.

Adom pursed his lips. “I admit my information in that regard is lacking. However, I do have a few confirmed instances of local mages checking old Gateway complexes. Of course, they had no idea what they were looking at. But the locations were clean.”

“What if this whole thing is an intentional misdirection?” General Kamaru-Ayyabu said.

“Doubtful,” said High Archon Muna. “It would require a Gateway Key to pull off something like that. And if they already had a Gateway Key, why would they go to the trouble of launching a complicated plan just to get another one? Besides, if the attacks have moved on to Lira, then could it be possible this entire thing isn’t about the Key?”

“That’s possible, High Archon Muna,” said Adom. “Regardless, the evidence points to the Abhorrent attacking multiple Stricken starisles at the same time. In my estimation, figuring out how they pulled that off is going to inform the rest of our decision-making process.”

“Yes,” Muna said. “How the hell did they do it?”

“High Archon,” Shabadras said, “there is… a possibility. I’m sure you considered it, and I know it’s risky to even say the words aloud, but at this point, shouldn’t we at least think about it…?”

He trailed off as General Kamaru-Ayyabu, Archon Lapis, and Archon Shafika looked at him quizzically.

But the High Archons —Muna, Kingallu, and Siamak— as well as Archon Adom, knew what he was referring to.