The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - By N. K. Jemisin Page 0,137

(both). In actual battle she has the unique ability to replicate herself thousands of times over, becoming a literal one-woman army. 5 However, she has also been observed to avoid any gathering of mortals for peaceful purposes, such as holiday celebrations. Indeed, being near religious paraphernalia symbolizing peace, such as the white jade ring worn by our orders highest devotees, causes her acute discomfort.

As the Conspirators are in fact prisoners of war, and we of the family are in fact their jailors, understanding the concept of affinity is essential as it represents our only means of imposing discipline.

Additionally, we must understand the restrictions imposed upon them by Our Lord. The primary and common means by which the Conspirators have been limited is corporeality. It has been observed that a gods natural state is immaterial, 6 thus permitting the god to draw upon immaterial resources (e.g., the motion of heavenly bodies, the growth of living things) for sustenance and normal function. The Conspirators, however, are not permitted to enter the aetheric state and are instead required to maintain a physical locality at all times. This restricts their range of operability to the limits of their human senses, and it restricts their power to that which may be contained by this material form. 7 This restriction also requires them to ingest food and drink in the mortal fashion in order to maintain strength. Experiments 8 have shown that when deprived of sustenance or otherwise physically traumatized, the Conspirators magical abilities diminish greatly or entirely until they have returned to health. Due to the Stone of Earths role in their imprisonment, however, they perpetually retain the ability to regenerate aged or damaged flesh and revive from apparent death, even when their bodies are virtually destroyed. Therefore it is a misnomer to say that they have mortal forms; their physical bodies are only superficially mortal.

In the next chapter, we will discuss the specific peculiarities of each of the Conspirators, and the means by which each might be better controlled.

APPENDIX

3

Historical Record;

Arameri Family Notes volume 1,

from the collection of

Dekarta Arameri.

(Translated by Scrivener Aram Vernm, year 724 of the Bright, may He shine upon us forever. WARNING: contains heretical references, marked HR; used with permission of the Litaria.)

You will know me as Aetr, daughter of Shaharshe who is now dead. This is an accounting of her death, for the records and for the easing of my heart.

We did not know there was trouble. My mother was a woman who kept her own counsel at the best of times; this was a necessity for any priestess, most of all our brightest light. But High Priestess ShaharI will call her that and not Mother, for she was more the former than the latter to mewas always strange.

The elder brothers and sisters tell me she met the Dayfather (HR) once, as a child. She was born among the tribeless, those outcasts who pay no heed to any god or any law. Her mother took up with a man who viewed both mother and child as his property and treated them accordingly. After one torment too many Shahar fled to an old temple of the Three (HR), where she prayed for enlightenment. The Dayfather (HR) appeared to her and gave her enlightenment in the form of a knife. She used it on her stepfather while he slept, removing that darkness from her life once and for all.

I say this not to slander her memory, but to illuminate: that was the kind of light Shahar valued. Harsh, glaring, hiding nothing. I make no wonder Our Lord treasured her so, because she was much like Himquick to decide who merited her love, and who did not (HR).

I think this is why He appeared to her again on that terrible day when everything began to weaken and die. He simply showed up in the middle of the Sunrise Greeting and gave her something sealed in a white crystal sphere. We did not know at the time that this was the last flesh of Lady Enefa (HR), now gone to twilight Herself. We knew only that the power of that crystal kept the weakening at bay, though only within the walls of our temple. Beyond it, the streets were littered with gasping people; the fields with sagging crops; the pastures with downed livestock.

We saved as many as we could. Suns Flame, I wish it could have been more.

And we prayed. That was Shahars command, and we were frightened enough that we obeyed even though it