Chapter 2 — The Gods Look On

Beneath the platinum vault of the highest Sanctum, divine authority poured down like the abyss of the cosmos itself.

Before Astra and Umbra's debate could reach any conclusion, two immense supreme forms coalesced beside the platinum pillars on either side of the hall.

These were Jupiter, God of the planet Jupiter and wielder of judgment and supreme authority, and Saturn, God of the planet Saturn and master of time and rigid order.

Jupiter was clad in battle-armor forged of thunder, his eyes bursting with the blinding gold of stellar fusion. He lowered his gaze to the faint glimmer on the Astrolabe's chart that marked Tartarus, his expression arrogant and cold, as if regarding a speck of dust.

"Enough argument, Astra."

Jupiter's voice detonated through the Sanctum like a great thunderclap, setting the myriad threads of law shuddering:

"Tartarus's karmic fuel yield has fallen ninety-two percent across the last thirty epochs. The faith and resources it provides are not even enough to offset the cost of maintaining its gravitational orbit. To the Divine Court, that world has become a net-loss liability."

Astra paled, her clear voice edged with anger. "Jupiter! Those are tens of billions of living mortal souls! They are not entries in a ledger, and certainly not assets to be hedged away and struck off at will!"

"Before the operating law of the Divine Court, any individual, any world, is at root karmic fuel that keeps the LinBoo Astrolabe's aegis running."

Saturn, who had been silent, now spoke. His voice was hoarse, dull, carrying the dead stillness of uncounted ages:

"Out in the outer Void, the erosion of Khaos — primordial Chaos — grows daily more rabid. If we disperse the Sanctum's computing power to preserve one worthless, dying mining world, and a rift opens in the aegis, all three thousand star-realms of the Astrolabe will face annihilation. Abandoning Tartarus is the decision most aligned with the interest of overall order."

Within this vast and stern divine system, enthroned above all gods and ruling the entire Court and its myriad star-realms, was Jupiter the God-King. Beneath him sat the Divine Court's cabinet of ten planetary gods, holding supreme secular authority.

Above the platinum Sanctum, independent and suspended, stood Astra and Umbra — the twin deities of light and darkness, incarnations of those primal laws — maintaining the Astrolabe's physical turning and its judgments of life and death.

Below the cabinet of planetary gods ran two parallel, mutually independent power-centers: the twelve Constellation Lords, who held military command and great fleets across the twelve star-realms (such as the Aries Lord, the Leo Lord Nemea, and others), and the twelve House Ministers, who governed the Court's internal politics and administration (such as Narcissus, Minister of the First House, and Hecate, Minister of the Eighth).

And at the very bottom of this layered machine came the low-order divine messengers, who patrolled the star-realms and projected divine awe on the planetary gods' behalf.

As for a mortal world like Tartarus, stranded at the edge of the star-map, before the Court's vast and cold four-tier hierarchy of power, it did not even merit a second glance from a single low messenger. The life, grief, and struggle of mortals were but rounding errors, to be discarded at whim, in the gods' grand arithmetic.

"You care only for your 'stability' and your 'hedging'!" Astra clenched her fists; her platinum robe snapped in the surge of divine power. "You pen mortals inside written fate-tracks, drain them of emotion and faith, yet deny them even the basic dignity of living! Is an 'order' built on exploitation not the greatest tumor of all?"

"Order is everything, Astra." Jupiter gave a cold snort; his divine eyes blazed with lightning. "Mortals are foolish and weak. Without the laws and orbits we set, they would destroy themselves in endless chaos and infighting. Servitude and constraint are the only ticket by which they survive Khaos's threat. Put away your meaningless tears, and play your part as the God of Light — go soothe the masses, and do not let this ordinary asset-liquidation spiral into panic among the lower star-realms."

With that, the great phantoms of Jupiter and Saturn dissolved, leaving only the long-unsettled afterwash of divine majesty within the platinum hall.

Astra stood alone at the center of the empty Sanctum, filled with a helplessness and desolation beyond words.

She drew a slow breath and closed her eyes, casting her awareness toward another star-track deep within the Astrolabe.

There, a fate-star representing Orion the demigod radiated an unnatural red light. According to the Divine Court's ledger-divinations, Orion — born of mingled mortal and divine blood — carried a dangerous factor that could break the established fate-tracks. Jupiter had long since marked him in the books with a "death-omen star," preparing to erase him when the moment came.

Gazing at that rebellious star flickering with difficulty across the black star-tracks, a flash of resolve crossed Astra's eyes.

Behind her back, unseen, she drew forth a thread of light impossibly faint. That thread crossed layer upon layer of higher-dimensional space, like a thin golden veil, and settled softly over Orion's fate-track, forcibly masking the signal of the death-omen star above his head.

This was her first hidden act of resistance, as the God of Light, against the cold rules of the Divine Court.

Even if this faint shelter could not alter the vast dead-end; even if it would draw Jupiter's suspicion — she could not bear to watch every soul that dared defy fate be silently crushed beneath the Court's iron heel.

And at that moment, deep beneath Tartarus, light-years away, the molten gravity-storm, no longer to be contained, began to howl.