All-Patron Reward: My Favorite Scenes 4: Polychrome, Castaway Planet, and Phoenix in Shadow

Back in 2008, I was driving home from work and had to pick up a few things. On my way, I saw one of the most magnificent double-rainbows I've ever seen, one which persisted for close to 20 minutes. And at one point it looked like the rainbow came straight down into the parking lot of Westgate Shopping Plaza. 

And into my mind, as a very long-term fan of the Oz series, suddenly popped the image of Polychrome, Daughter of the Rainbow, dropping down into this absolutely different world.

The scene wouldn't leave my mind, and one day I woke up with the entire story in my head; I knew why she was there, where she was going, and everything that was going to happen from start to finish. I also knew it was the most horribly self-indulgent middle-age-crisis Mary-Sueish thing I'd ever contemplated writing, so for a while I said "no, I won't."

However, Polychrome: A Romantic Fantasy had other ideas and literally took my other work hostage; if I didn't write a chapter in Polychrome, I couldn't write anything else at all. My beta readers weren't sure about this new idea either, but I posted it because they were there to see everything I was working on. 

To my surprise... it turned out far better than I had imagined. And at urging from my beta readers and a few Oz fans who saw it, I sent it around for publication. Several publishers considered it, and Tor Books' editor David Hartwell took two years waffling before finally rejecting it. So I decided to find out if  people really wanted to read Polychrome: with the help of Lawrence Watt-Evans, I set up a Kickstarter. 

And it was successful. 

For those who haven't read it, Polychrome is the story of how Oz fell to two of the adversaries seen in the original 14 book series, and how a particular Mortal can help Polychrome to reclaim Oz from the Usurpers.  It was and is very different from most published Oziana; it is not a continuation of the series for children, nor a reimagining like "Tin Man", nor a parody or deconstruction like "Wicked", but an attempt to take Oz seriously for an older readership while retaining at least some of the elements that made Oz... well, OZ. 

As it was a work of love, and some obsession, there are a LOT of scenes in it that I love to death, ranging from Polychrome's arrival on the Mortal World, to Mortal Man Erik Medon's first discovery of the power of being a True Mortal, to of course the multiple Moments of Awesome in the final battle. 

But my favorite scene of all -- envisioned to the music "Super Strength" from Two Steps from Hell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qAMIVytZPw ) -- surprisingly stars neither Erik nor Poly, but Princess Zenga of Pingaree, daughter of Inga and Zella from Rinkitink in Oz...

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I stared at Zenga, who stared back at me, then glanced up, looking at the polished metal descending towards her. I turned to Kaliko. "I cannot leave without your backing, Your Majesty."

He sighed. "So be it." He turned another gem. "The trap is set, the process cannot be reversed or stopped now. The cycle must complete…or you must stop it. So, Erik Medon, Hero of Prophecy, what will you do to rescue your companion in the – perhaps – ten minutes that remain to her?"

I grinned slowly, broadly. "Nothing," I said casually.

I saw both Ruggedo's and Kaliko's jaws drop. "What?" Kaliko managed finally. "You will sacrifice her to…to what? Make some point to me about ruthlessness? What –"

"I will do nothing because I need to do nothing." I looked at Zenga, smiling confidently. "She doesn't need my help to save her."

She stared at me, eyes wide in understanding. "You…you knew?"

"Of course I knew, Zenga. For it was said: in rejecting wisdom, he will gain strength." I smiled even more broadly as she started to stand. "Now show them what a Princess of Pingaree can do."

Kaliko whirled. "PINGAREE?" Realization was written in shock across his face. "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes."

Zenga stood up and placed both hands above her on the polished steel…and pushed.

The subliminal hum turned to a groan of strained levers, valves suddenly finding themselves feeding a pressure that mounted, ever higher. My eyes went to the bracelets on her arms, found one, the one I'd noted when she first joined me, with a centerpiece of a huge smoky-blue Pearl.

It was a battle of two Faerie realms now, the power of the Nome engineers and their magical machines against the supernal might of the Blue Pearl of Strength, the second of the Three Pearls the Sea Faeries had gifted to the rulers of Pingaree.

Now the smile was on Zenga's face, a sharp and savage grin. Her arms went taut, her whole body rigid, and I could see the muscles standing out on her shoulders, her biceps, her legs, muscles smooth and perfectly sculpted from a warrior's training, her eyes shining with the elation of this single moment. The descent of the huge ceiling slowed, stopped, as delicate veins began to stand out on her temples, and she bared her teeth wider in a smile that was half-snarl. Then she gave a low growl and shoved.

That hydraulic ram – built to crush anything ever made with millions of pounds of force – backed up. Underfoot there was a screaming and the floor rocked, distant echoes of thunder rumbling down the corridors and through the Kingdom of the Nomes as – somewhere below – steam and water engines, magically powered, overloaded, exploded with backpressures never imagined even by their engineers. A warrior's joy at the power in her hands transfigured Zenga, and for a moment I couldn't take my eyes off her; she was for that instant nearly as beautiful as Polychrome, but in a wild and untamed way that made the breath catch in my throat.

The ram suddenly split in the center and jammed, motive force fading and material no longer up to the impossible stress. Zenga dropped her arms and stepped forward, shackles snapping as though made of cobweb, drew back her fist and shattered the transparent enclosure with a single punch, scarcely pausing in her stride to the huge doors that were the only thing now separating her from the Throne Room. Her delicate coffee-colored fingers found the seam of the doors, jammed themselves in, and both arms pulled… and with a screaming moan of tortured metal, the doors flew open, half torn from their hinges.

I turned back to Kaliko. "Well, Your Majesty? Admittedly, I didn't follow your script. But I prefer to write my own."

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After the success of the Boundary series, Eric Flint and I discussed possible follow-ons, including one I kind of wish we'd been able to do (the first discovery  of the Bemmies' FTL travel capability). After a while, we settled on doing a novel of castaways on an alien world. This has been done before of course, but what we wanted to do was make it as hard-SF as we could and set it on a very different world - a water world indeed. 

I had to regretfully back off from using one of the recently-discovered worlds that might have thousand-mile deep oceans, for several reasons -- the most telling of them being that I had a hard time convincing myself that the nutrients for an ecosystem to support life could make their way from the planetary core, through miles and miles of red-hot yet solid ice, and thence to the surface. But there was still plenty of room for Planet Lincoln to be very alien indeed...

We wrote Castaway Planet Lincoln (later shortened to Castaway Planet) as a juvenile, somewhat similar in tone and effect to one of Heinlein's juveniles, with modern elements of course. There are a lot of fun scenes in this book, but in this case I don't have to think long to figure out my favorite: young Sakura Kimei landing their crippled shuttle, LS-5, on Lincoln, the first humans to land on this bizarrely alien world -- a landing that, itself, contains the first hints of the most alien element of all...

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As she sat down for the third time, she saw her timer alert go to yellow. Sakura took a deep breath and raised her voice. "Everyone please make sure you're strapped down right, it's going to be a rough ride even if there's no trouble. Mom—I mean, Captain, can you check for me?"

"Hitomi is secured. Melody, tighten your straps just a bit, honey."

Melody's muttered, "What a pain…" brought a quick smile to Sakura's lips.

"Caroline?" asked her mother.

"Secured, Mom."

"Harratrer?"

Whips voice was very matter-of-fact, showing how tense he really was. "All hold-downs fastened, all secure."

"And I've already made sure I'm locked down," said her father.

"All secure, Sakura. Don't worry about us now."

"Yes… Captain."

Focus. Eyes on the instruments and controls. Find those points!

The target location came into view again, the last time before—hopefully—they landed. Get the angle… clouds starting to cover the one, but no problem, I can see through the clouds with radar anyway… radar painting them… designation…

The guide app considered, blinked green. It now understood the geometry. "Caroline? I've got the estimates. Can you make sure everything's right?"

"Of course." A pause. "I make our first de-orbit burn as being in eight minutes, fifty-two seconds from … mark."

"Checked," Melody said.

This is it. Sakura knew that re-entry and landings were the hardest part of spaceflight. "Eight minutes, twenty seconds to burn on my mark… mark," she said. "It'll be about one gfor eighteen seconds. We'll have lowered our orbit and me, Caroline, Whips, and Melody's apps will track our reactions to the first fringes of atmosphere, verifying their models of the planet's atmosphere and the performance of LS-5, before we do the final de-orbit burn which will last for a few more seconds and drop us low enough, to about eighty to ninety kilometers altitude, for the atmosphere to do the rest of the work. That's when it's going to really get rough, but we might feel a little something before then."

"Okay, Sakura," said her father.

She watched the countdown tensely. This much, at least, she could automate, putting a simple timer in line with the engine controls. Still, she poised her hands over the actual controls in case it didn't work. A few minutes later, the main engines roared to life, pressing them into their seats with a full gravity of pressure. Sakura watched, ready to cut the burn off if it didn't stop of its own accord, but it shut off exactly on time.

Maybe it was her imagination, but in the minutes that followed, she thought she felt phantom quivers, twitches in the big shuttle, as the very outermost fringes of the atmosphere began to touch on this intruder from a distant solar system.

This was one of the sticky parts. The problem with a de-orbit and re—entry was that there was a very narrow band of re-entry angles—slightly more than one degree, in this case—between the extremes of striking the atmosphere too sharply and burning up like a meteor, or literally bouncing off the atmosphere back into space. They had to hit this exactly right, because there were also limits to the g-loading they could take, and what the thermal protection system (TPS) on LS-5 could handle.

"Reconfigure for re-entry, Sakura. We want as blunt a profile as we can get," Caroline reminded her.

Fortunately, LS-5 could shift between multiple design configurations; landing, it looked not terribly different from the original Space Shuttle, a boxy airframe with stubby wings, but it could transition from that to a sleeker hypersonic configuration, a lower-speed, wider-winged subsonic craft, and even reconfigure for vectored thrust as a VTOL aircraft. She made sure the shuttle was in the first configuration. "Locked into re-entry mode. TPS shows all green."

After a lot of checking and re-checking, Caroline and Melody finally agreed with Sakura on the landing calculations, and put the guidance data into her guide app. "This is it, everyone. We're landing!"

Hitomi cheered, Melody said something like "Finally!" and Whips sent her an image of thumbs-up, a gesture he was incapable of really making himself.

"This won't be fun at the beginning," she said, looking over the stats. "We've tried to figure the easiest re-entry we can manage with our configuration, but we'll have some moments above 4.5g."

Whips twitched. She couldn't blame him; for Bemmies, 5g was just about the limit because they were originally water creatures, and they were so much larger than the average human. "How long?"

"Only a few seconds. Mom?"

She saw her mother check the restraints and Whips' medical readings. "I think it should be all right, honey. Aside from his hydration issues, Whips is in good shape. Just try not to tense up against it too much, Whips; your internal shift-plates need to flex with the pressure, not try to fight it."

"Okay, Dr. Kimei."

Everyone else settled back into their seats. Sakura swallowed hard, then took the controls firmly in hand. She couldn’t let go now until they landed, really. The guide visualization counted down the seconds and projected a simulated view for her, with a generated guide path. It couldn't control anything for her, but it could help her know when she was going wrong—and she would, inevitably. But with these apps, she'd probably know in time to fix the mistake.

"Full de-orbit burn in three, two, one… now!"

The second burn finished, and then there was no doubt that atmosphere was touching LS-5. A faint vibration and a rumble, and Sakura sealed all ports, making sure the TPS was in place and showing green. "Re-entry beginning. We'll temporarily lose most sensors in the next few minutes, lasting until we've slowed down to a few Mach numbers."

Breathe. Calm. Hold the controls firmly but not tightly, guide the ship. Don't react quickly! Fast maneuvers will kill us.

The manual controls transmitted more strain, more buffeting vibration as the rumble from outside rose to a frightening crescendo and the hull sensors showed that LS-5 was careening through the atmosphere like a meteor, blazingly hot, but the vibration was less than she'd expected. Deceleration crushed her down, but she forced her hands to stay rock-steady, even though her heart was racheting itself into ever-faster beats. Yellow along the guide path and she restrained her panic, forced her hand to move the tiniest, most controlled bits. Green again, and they were holding to the original calculated glide pattern as though running down a set of tracks.

Hitomi gave a series of yelps as the deceleration peaked, forcing them into their harnesses with more than four times their own weight. Whips burbled something in the Bemmie native language and she wanted to reassure him, but she didn't dare take her eyes from the guide display or hands from the controls.

At least if it screws up here it'll be fast…

But now the pressure began to ease, and she felt a smile starting as the temperature sensors showed they were past the peak.

As the temperature continued to fall, Sakura finally caused the forward shields to be retracted. They were around Mach 5 and dropping, heading towards their destination. The three points should be coming into view soon.

As the speed fell to that of normal atmospheric craft, Sakura triggered the mode shift from a re-entry configuration (minimal surface area, all-refractory surfaces with ablative covering) to that of a high-speed aircraft, larger wings, multiple control surfaces, more capable and responsive. "Activating atmospheric engines," she said. Jet intakes opened and Sakura felt the vibrations as the nuclear reactor heated the incoming air and hurled it out the back through jet turbines. Great! All engines were operating just like they were supposed to.

LS-5 now tore through the sky at Mach speeds, fast but far, far slower than it had been. "Atmospheric re-entry complete—guys, we're a plane now!"

A rippling, pained sigh from Whips. "Thank the Sky Above. That hurt."

She shot a glance at her mother. "Is he –"

"Just some strains, Sakura. No injuries. Just focus on flying."

Below her, green and brown with occasional splotches of brighter color streamed by. "We're over the target continent. Expect to see our landing site any minute. Transitioning to subsonic flight."

The third configuration deployed larger wings, gave her more control. She tested this new setup. It responded just like in the sims. Maybe she could do this after all.

A bank of clouds was moving in over the target region, but that shouldn't be a major concern, Sakura thought. She had infrared and radar to penetrate the clouds, and it didn't look like a big storm. The long-range radar located the tip of the continent, built up an outline picture of a gently sloping section of land coming down from the small mountains she was approaching, a section of land narrowing to a narrow tip with a nearly circular lagoon—like a gigantic arrowhead with a huge hole punched through the tip. Beyond the lagoon was a narrow, triangular section of the continent and then the sea. To either side were two smaller islands.

Her guide program recognized the three points she'd designated—the triangular tip and the other two islands—but, oddly, showed yellow for the correspondence. Sakura didn't understand that. She could see clearly it was the same group she'd chosen. She re-designated, the display went back to green, and the guide path solidified.

There were no flat landing fields here. She’d have to go to VTOL configuration at the end, which made her a little nervous. That was the hardest mode to control and she maybe hadn't practiced that one as much as she should. Still, she only needed to hold it together for a few seconds, enough to get them down.

She was grateful—so very grateful—that everyone else was staying calm and quiet. They didn't need to see her worry. And she couldn't do this with Hitomi screaming or worrying in her ear.

Gingerly she tested the controls as she began the final approach. They were exceedingly responsive—almost too much so. She nearly spun LS-5 out before getting a feel for the ship's performance. Fortunately, Hitomi took it as a fun stunt rather than thinking something was wrong.

Then the two island key points went yellow again. "What the..?"

"What is it, Sakura?" asked Caroline.

"Lost lock on two of the guide points! That makes no sense. It's just a geometric relationship." She swallowed, forcing the acidic bile that was trying to rise from her stomach back where it belonged. "No… no problem. We're close now, I can tie the display to the radar and focus on where we're going." A glide path calculated to the nominal surface appeared, guiding her like a pathway. It was a lot better than nothing, telling her the right ratio and where she needed to think about changing modes to land.

Suddenly the ship bobbled, jolted; there was a rattle from the forward viewport. Storm… entering the fringes. That was sleet or something. Radar showed it shouldn't be too bad, though it was larger than she'd thought; it would be raining for a while.

To visible light, it was dark gray outside, and at this altitude mostly fog and rain; hints of terrain, maybe trees or something, began to appear as they descended, but if she'd been relying on eyesight she would have panicked. But LS-5 wasn't limited to visible light; in infrared and radar, the clouds and rain was practically gone. Wind might still push on the craft, try to distract her, but it couldn't blind her, and that was the important thing.

LS-5 bucked slightly, but she was getting a real feel for the controls, and she saw that she was staying pretty close to the middle of the glide path. Radar showed they were approaching the target area, clearing the higher ground in their path, dropping—

Just about there. She could see the lagoon up ahead. Final mode change time, to VTOL. Changeover initiated…

Suddenly a gust of wind struck LS-5, sent the shuttle swaying sideways through the air, just as the mode conversion began. The jolt made her pull a little harder than she intended, but the shuttle's dynamics had already changed. Desperately, Sakura shoved the stick back and sideways, trying to compensate, even as she heard the sergeant bellowing not fast, not fast, don't overcompensate!

But it was too late now, too late by far. Still moving at well over one hundred kilometers per hour, LS-5 heeled over, slammed diagonally on its tail into the alien soil of Lincoln, performed a spectacular somersault (had anyone been outside to see it), smashed back down and skidded uncontrollably, the cabin inside now filled with horrified screams and curses and cries of pain. Careening onward through the storm, LS-5 carved a trail of destruction straight down to the shore of a storm-lashed lagoon, where it dropped over a sharp incline into the water, flipped, and came to rest, tail-first, with a thunderous crash.

Movement ceased, and the storm roared its triumph.

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Phoenix in Shadow was an interesting challenge for me. It was the middle part of Kyri's adventure, and while that meant that her true problem couldn't be confronted and solved in this book, I still wanted some kind of closure for readers so the book wasn't a cliffhanger. That problem was solved when I realized that this was where I could solve Tobimar's problem, his quest for his true homeland, and make it just as desperate and exciting a challenge as the one we would encounter in the next book. 

Once more there's a lot of cool moments to choose from -- the heroes' first disbelieving look at the paradise called Kaizatenzei, Kyri freeing the children from the parasitic itrichel, Master Wieran's mad-scientist rant, and of course Poplock's brilliant gambit to defeat Sanamaveridion, but I think I'll go with a scene spanning two chapters,  set up by a bit of advice Khoros gave Tobimar at the very beginning of Phoenix Rising, when he was told that in his most desperate moment, a childhood prayer might be his salvation...

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Now she was spiraling in towards him. Periodically she scattered something – her own blood, Tobimar thought – across the circle. "You don't have to do this! You've built something wonderful and powerful and it doesn’t have to be ended this way!"

She reached the raised eight-pointed dais, and for an instant – just an instant – her eyes met his and he saw a moment of uncertainty, of a wish to change the course of things from the one chosen. But even as he saw that, the eyes hardened their gaze. "It will end this way," she whispered as she leaned over him. And before he could react, she snached up one of the daggerlike objects and drove it straight through his wrist.

Tobimar couldn't restrain a scream of shock. It wasn't entirely pain, not yet – that would come later, he thought – but it was definitely shock and the feeling of violation, of something impaling him and holding him locked to the table by gripping his own flesh.

"Tobimar!" Kyri shouted. "You monstrous –" The Phoenix Justiciar gave vent to some astonishingly inventive cures. "When I get free of this –"

"You will never getfree," Kalshae said, a note of surprising weariness in her voice, and impaled his opposite-side ankle.

Now that hurt! he thought, somewhat dazedly, as he heard his own scream echoing in his ears. Through the ankle. Terian and Chromaias, that's agony! He gritted his teeth, knowing now what was coming. The holdfasts on the eight-pointed altar, however, wouldn't let him get away. All he could do was endure.

But for what purpose?

A faint glow was now emanating from the table on which he lay, and he strained his head around to see.

Blood flowed from beneath his impaled wrist and ankle, blood slowly gaining a ghostly azure sheen as it trickled down a complex pattern of channels worked into the stone. Another shock of pain, and a third tracery of blood began to run down the channels beneath his other arm.

Once more he wondered: is there no hope?

As the lightning-sharp agony repeated for the fourth time, this time transfixing his last limb, he looked over at Kyri, and saw her eyes closed, her lips moving in prayer. She's calling on Myrionar, even though she's in enemy hands, and the power is blocked.

He remembered her story then, and Myrionar's words to its last Justiciar: "… believe, and hold, and be true to Justice, and there is a way out for you."

That meant that there was – there must – be a way out for Kyri, if not for him.

But I was sent to her for a reason. And not just to help her against Thornfalcon. It means nothing if I found my homeland and no one ever hears of it. Master Khoros wouldn't have just let me go here to die.

He could feel coldness starting to creep upon him; losing blood pretty quickly through those wounds. But he clung to those other thoughts. Oh, he knew some other people – more cynical about Khoros' motives and approaches – might laugh at him for having faith in the ancient wizard, but Khoros intended them to achieve something, and something that, he was sure, had not yet been achieved.

The light was brightening, and now the Sun was responding, its luminance beginning to shine forth. I can't let this happen. But I'm helpless!

He felt fury rising in him even as his breath became shorter. They will steal the very power of Terian and use it for their ends – and now that they've reached this point, what will happen to Kaizatenzei itself? This was all a trap, something perfected to bring in and hold one particular target – me – so they could use me as a key to…

A key…

The idea was there, hovering just out of reach. But it made sense, somehow. Terian had given the Stars and Sun to his family. If the artifact of a god could be forced open, even with the knowledge and skill of a twisted genius like Wieran and the power of what he now knew must be a demonlord, then it must be meant to open somehow. There must be some way for those who owned it to activate it, to call upon that power in utter extremity…

And once more, the memory of Khoros, towering above him, face somehow hidden, a mouth with a half-smile beneath the five-sided hat…

Kyri… praying…

And then he remembered.

His breath was shorter now, and sweat stood out on his brow. He was faint and nauseated, but he drew in a breath. Khoros said,"… But when all else fails, you may find strength in childhood prayer …"

That childhood prayer. Said to have been the words of Terian himself, in the days of the founding of their line…

"Seven Stars and a Single Sun hold the Starlight that I do Own," he began, and Kalshae suddenly turned to him, eyes narrowing. Wieran raised his head from where he stood.

"These Eight combine and form the One, Form the Sign by which I'm known," he continued, speeding up as he saw Kalshae start forward. But the demon hesitated, and Tobimar managed a wan grin of triumph. She doesn't dare interfere – her own ritual is in the process of completion too!

"The Good in Heart can Light wield…" he said, and heard his voice echoing out, stronger than he had believed possible. And one tiny change from the prayer, "…The Length of Space shall be MY shield!"

And as the four rivulets of his own blood coalesced about him, the world dissolved in a thunderous blaze of blue-white flame.

Chapter 44.

The detonation of azure-touched argent staggered everyone in the room, knocking Kalshae and Wieran to their knees; Kyri felt the grip on her arms loosened, spun and kicked out, freeing herself, straining against the bonds on her. But as her sight recovered from the dazzling blast, she stopped, staring incredulously.

Standing atop the eight-sided dais was an immense figure, perhaps eight feet tall. The head was shrouded in a nimbus of pure white light, blurring the features so that the only thing that could be seen were a pair of piercing blue eyes and the hazy gold of the hair. A black cape streamed from the shoulders, a waterfall of ebony in stark contrast to the shimmering light that surrounded the apparition, light that coalesced to an ever-shifting sparkle of rainbow about the waist that seemed both source and product of the illuminance that enfolded the figure. Just visible above the crossed arms, a small golden sigil, a sidewise eight, could be seen over the heart.

For a frozen instant no one moved, all staring at the impossible. Within that figure, a shadow within a shadow of light, Kyri thought she saw a smaller figure.

Then the light-shrouded head came up, and the apparition spoke.

"I am the Nemesis of all Evil. I am the Light in the Darkness. I am Terian, the Infinite."

Kalshae's face was salt-white beneath its tan, and she coweredback against the limit of the ritual circle. "You… you cannot be here. You cannot! You made a pact – you all made a pact – with Father, with Kerlamion and all the other gods, that you would not, could not directly intervene!"

Kyri noticed that one – and only one – person in that room seemed unawed by the presence. Master Wieran's face held an expression as of someone given an unexpected and wonderful gift, and even as Terian answered, the alchemist-sage bent over his complex apparatus.

"It is even so that such a pact was made. And even though it was done with malicious intent, to allow that which has now come to pass, still I am bound by that oath. To intervene directly would, by that oath, precipitate a Godswar across the face of Zarathan." The shining figure nodded. "That I shall not allow."

A hint of a smile, sharp and dangerous. "Yet there is nothing in that oath or any other that prevents me from awakening the power that slumbers within Tobimar Silverun, Seventh of Seven; that sleeps within his blood. Within my blood. So it is done, and I have written your ending, as surely as if I had taken up sword against you."

The figure vanished in a rampage of blue-white fire, energy that tore through the room, a storm of actinic fortune that shattered her bonds, stripped the coverings from Poplock Duckweed and Hiriista, and hammered the Unity Guards to the ground.

Now it was Tobimar Silverun who stood on the dais, the wounds on his body shimmering with the gods-fire, sealing, welded by the power of the divine,and the Sun of Infinity was open, its shimmering polychromatic light pouring down upon the Prince of Skysand.