Guinevere Lacrimae

Guinevere Lacrimae
Meta Information
Author	Peter
Genre	Science fiction
Characters
Setting
Locations	Theia San Annadonia Eos (epilogue)

"Guinevere Lacrimae" (Latin for "Guinevere's Tears") is the penultimate book of the Ascendancy saga, taking place immediately where The Flavros Project leaves off, focusing on a mysterious "portal clock" and its relation to the enigmatic Twelverealm Gateway Offering. The main characters are Wisteria, Camellia, Isla, Sakura, Samnsonite and Ruby.

Synopsis

On the planet San, immediately following the events of The Flavros Project, Wisteria confronts her estranged mother Camellia. Having arrived here investigating Sakura's last known whereabouts - a cave located in TERAPRO - she presses Camellia for information on Sakura's location, only to find out that Camellia got here the same way that Wisteria did. Camellia explains that she arrived hours prior after being stranded in the cave where Wisteria just came from, although she had arrived in said cave from her home planet Doria, leading them to find out that the destination of the portal keeps changing, but always leads back to the cave on Theia. A few hours later, they witness Isla fall through the portal and arrive on San, who claims that her fellow operatives were "right behind her", revealing that it shifts in destination at midnight.

Back on Theia, Samnsonite and Ruby are tasked to assist Isla in finding Wisteria, who had disappeared searching for Sakura. They discover the portal and enter it, arriving on the tropical world of Ankhes. They do not find Isla, who is still present on San, but find the rest of her team, who must have entered the portal immediately after midnight. Meanwhile on San, the others corroborate Camellia's testimony with the disappearance of Sakura and the arrival of Isla, deducing that Sakura must be located on the world prior to Doria, given that Camella did not see her arrive. They realise they must wait at least a week for the portal to reach that planet again if it were to act like a clock.

Back in the Theian cave, Samnsonite and Ruby discover two new worlds, Logos Minor and Kemiya, both of which (and including Ankhes) boast substances never seen before, and which promise to reinvigorate scientific innovation at TERAPRO through their applications. Ruby describes each of these as being akin to an "offering", and after establishing contact with the group on San, begin communicating their findings.

Meanwhile, Sakura had awoken on the planet she found herself upon, which she later finds is called Annadonia. The purple grassland planet was home to a humanoid species that worshipped listanworms - psychic beings that allowed entry into the Otherworld, a memoria realm within the Noosphere. There, she learns that the planet is trapped in a Kessler syndrome-like asteroid field that prevents space travel out of the Otherworld, and that exiting the Otherworld is strictly forbidden due to fears of a certain "she" who plans to seize the power of the listanworms to ascend to godhood.

On San, Isla discovers that the coordinates of the planets Samnsonite and Ruby have discovered are highly suggestive that the end coordinates of the "portal clock" are actually shaped like a clock, meaning that they can predict all future locations including Annadonia, where Sakura is. Isla triangulates the coordinates, while Wisteria and Camellia journey to Annadonia to rescue Sakura. In the ensuing days of their travel, Samnsonite and Ruby have explored and retrieved artefacts from the next four worlds, meaning that the portal is due to shift to Annadonia soon.

Wisteria and Camellia arrive on Annadonia and find a way to enter the Otherworld, where they reunite with Sakura. She explains the situation on the planet to them, but are interrupted by the locals who are preparing for the ritual to prevent the "Twelverealm Gateway Offering." They realise that the eponymous gateway is the portal clock, and deduce that the "she" the Annadonians fear is a sentient being behind the portal clock, which must have terrorised the Annadonians for much longer than expected. They prepare to escape the planet as the portal opens, with Samnsonite and Ruby providing assistance. Camellia sets up a plan to distract the locals long enough for the others to escape by making a run for the portal. Wisteria and Sakura escape on the ship whereas a gravely wounded Camellia only barely makes it through the portal.

As the ship ventures through space back to Theia, Isla discusses on call a pattern in the molecular analysis of each of the planet's substances - an implicit suggestion of intelligent design. When Isla leaves the call to get back to research, Black Opal and Ruby contact those on the ship and begin to unravel the truth - the portal clock was created by the destruction of the Flavros Project, and that its energy (sourced from the Diamond nurseries) had been scattered across time and space, explaining the paradox of the portal's presence on Annadonia.

They suggest that each "offering" from the planet is one of the twelve components described by the Annadonians in the Twelverealm Gateway Offering, and that if they were to be brought together as Isla described, then the sentient being behind the portal would come alive. The retroactive nature of the Annadonian belief makes them distrustful of it, but Sakura convinces the others to trust the testimony of the Annadonians, emphasising that the gateway offering must be stopped. Taking inventory, Samnsonite and Ruby note that Camellia had brought back artefacts from the missing two planets between San and Doria during her time in the cave, meaning that the listanworm plus Doria's own offering are the last, and must be hidden to stop Isla from inadvertently unleashing an unstoppable power. Unbeknownst to them, Isla receives a copy of the listanworm's molecular structure, completing a digital form of the offering and unleashing a devastating hack on her cyborg body, almost entirely overwriting her consciousness with the "she" that the Annadonians feared, calling herself "Guinevere."

With their plan in place, Isla arrives at TERAPRO and immediately senses that the others have figured out the truth. Under Guinevere's control, she begins slaughtering guards and collecting the offerings, with the others powerless to stop her rampage. She reveals her plan - by uniting all of the present offerings with the Dorian offering, who is revealed to be Camellia herself - she can resurrect the dead. Although she refuses to explain, this is done as an act of vengeance for Amesidian's mass killing of the Diamond Kaphi that collectively formed Guinevere's consciousness when they were channelled into the digiverse prism that Sapphire threw into the Flavros Project that caused its destruction. Despite the group's resistance, Guinevere kills Camellia and absorbs all the offerings, completing the ritual and disappearing, leaving the group to watch in horror as Lazuli, technically a soulless "dead" being, inexplicably fades away.

In the epilogue 54 years later, it is revealed that Guinevere's machinations led to the creation of the planet Eos, which absorbed the memoria beings of the afterlife and made them corporeal again. Guinevere rules as its suzerain, rebuilding a utopia with the 142 billion souls that she revived. Tormented by loss, Black Opal commits suicide with the Sceptre of Discernment in an attempt to reach Eos and reunite with Lazuli - news of which reaches Guinevere, who remarks that interesting things are yet to come.