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| Friday, May 18th, 2012 | | 12:48 pm |
Götterdämmerung
Mirrored from Sythyry. “Sythyry. What was I to discover to make my revenge complete?” demanded Thefefy.
I opened the door to one or another of my ridiculous parlor collection and beckoned her inside. “Well, and what did you discover?”
She clapped her hands once, and it was a regular or garden-variety clap. Twice, and thunders fell upon my parlor, and the glass candle-holder broke. Thrice, and the sound was as of world-branches being torn. My furniture became splinters for three parlors around, and my body was shattered as under a baliff’s mace, and the transformation spell upon the goddess was broken as well.
I came back to life a moment later, from a Heal the Awful Wound, with Thefefy crouched over me, dripping brandy into my muzzle. I glared at her. “If you want to kill me again, you can do it with your hands again. You don’t need to drown me in brandy.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. One does not get an apology from a goddess every day, though arguably one should. “I was simply trying to get my shape back.”
“Ask the person who transformed you!” One does not get to snap at a goddess every day, though arguably one should.
“I didn’t want to bother you!” she whined.
“Well, you did. Now I am going to take a nap in a time bubble. Stay here and muse upon the five days we spent touring hither and yon and interviewing people, a little of which is recorded in my diary for the reading pleasure of extradimensional monsters, and a lot of which is similar to that and not recorded. We will talk more when I return.”
* * * ← those asterisks hide a long nap and a lot of healing spells, and, if you must know, a rather desparate possibly-the-last-time with Arfaen, in case Thefefy got upset or careless again.
“Well, what did you learn?” I demanded of Thefefy. We had moved to a less blasted parlor.
“I am not sure.” She is not a very clever deity, though I suppose if she once got a smart idea, the next one would be smarter, etc.
“What do you think of the World Tree? Nicer than Heaven? Or not as nice?”
“… Not as nice. I can’t see why you want to stay here,” said the goddess, after some of the deepest thought she may ever have subjected herself to.
“Well, I got kicked out of the other universe I got to visit,” I said. Thefefy herself had done the kicking. “But the question is — which universe is better-crafted? The nice one, or the not-as-nice one?”
“The nice one, of course. What a silly question,” said Thefefy. (This is, incidentally, the wrong answer, but I was not going to correct her.)
“So, did Mircannis condemn you to her miserable hell, or her nicest heaven?”
“Heaven, Sythyry. You know that.”
I glared at her. “And she herself is staying in …? Her nicest heaven, or …”
Thefefy scratched her head. “Uh … her miserable hell.”
“So who is getting the better treatment?” I insisted. “The one in heaven, or the one in hell?”
“What a ridiculous question! The one in heaven of course,” snapped Thefefy. “Oh. Wait. That’s me, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is, Thefefy. So why is Mircannis staying in hell?”
Thefefy scratched her head again. Since the second time is much harder than the first, chips of quartz and gold came away under her clawtips. “I don’t know. Why?”
“She our goddess of healing. She fixes things.”
Thefefy scratched her head again, her blunt claws left huge wounds in her scalp, bleeding a peculiar divine ichor. (If I could just puzzle her one more time, she might scratch her own brains out … but that probably would not defeat her.) “What are you getting at, Sythyry?”
“She utterly screwed up her attempt to make the World Tree. So she’s staying here to fix it. It’s not a nice place, you saw that yourself. Why would she want to stay here when she could be in Heaven? But no, she’s here. And if you kill her for good, you’ll be just depriving her of her own idea of hell. The people you’ll really make unhappy are Simmerene and Pirly and Luchitali and everyone you saw — the people she’s fixing the World Tree for,” I said. Rather quickly! There was an error of logic or theology in every sentence, and I didn’t want her thinking too deeply about it.
“… oh.”
“So if you go killing her all the way, …” I demanded.
“I’m not getting revenge for an insult, is what you’re saying? She didn’t insult me, and even if she did, she’s torturing herself here,” said Thefefy, sounding a bit baffled.
“Exactly! You understand!” I chirped.
“But don’t worry!” said Flokin, who had taken the form of a quilted bathrobe and manifested in the fireplace. I presume it had been spying on us all along. “One mistake like that, or a thousand, and you’ll still be far smarter than me.”
“I … guess I’ll be on my way then,” said Thefefy, still a bit baffled. She picked Flokin out of the fireplace and put it on, and was gone.
“Well, that was easy. By which I mean ‘apparently possible and it might have worked’,” I said to myself, as a prelude to a much-needed utter physical and emotional collapse.
“Yup!” said the coppery-furred cat with malachite-green eyes, also from the fireplace, which was just a cat. I checked. “Mircannis says ‘Thank you’ and that you can keep the chalices you stole from her.”
“Oh, good,” I said. “Tell her ‘you’re welcome’.”
“Now, if I had any manners, I wouldn’t go rewarding someone by giving them something they already had. Fortunately I don’t have any manners, or I’d wind up giving you this,” said the cat. It batted a little copper hazelnut at me, which hadn’t been there before. One glance revealed it as a mighty Grace of Flokin. “So as it is I’m just going to sit on your tail until you apologize.”
“Apologize?” I had to ask.
“I was so looking forward to having a fight with her. It would have been fun! She’d lose more and more each time! Now I’ll need to find another excuse,” said the god. It closed its eyes and curled up on my tail.
What is one supposed to do under such circumstances? I petted it until it fell asleep, and, between one scritch and the next, it vanished, leaving only a circle of char on my parlor floor.
I took several days off, mostly with Arfaen and Saza, and an afternoon with Pirly, who is worth his price. They all thought it was just a vacation, a celebration that I had outwitted the very dangerous goddess. Not really. I just wanted to get a few more experiences and/or farewells before she figured out the fast talk and came back.
But she didn’t, or hasn’t yet. | | Friday, May 11th, 2012 | | 8:22 am |
OOC: poll on google forms
here is the poll. I want to see how to do polls that aren't LJ-specific. I will figure out how to post results at some point. | | 8:09 am |
Arms and the Taptet
Mirrored from Sythyry. “Where is this place that you have brought me?” asked Thefefy.
I pointed at the sign, but perhaps Thefefy cannot read Ketherian. “Tea-Sung’s Polyspecific Cafe. It’s one of the few places on the World Tree where primes and non-primes specifically come to socialize.” We pretend that that’s all that they come here for. In fact they come for (1) Tea-Sung’s friends’ potions, which are weaker than most taptet potions but much less risky, and (2) the occasional prime/nonprime romance. (1) is illegal by Vheshrame law, which does not understand the “much less risky” clause. (2) is illegal by Vheshrame law, and makes most of us — including me — quite uncomfortable. But we treat it the way that nicer cities treat transaffection: we tolerate it as long as it is not too blatant, and don’t actually punish people for it, though we do not grant them such common courtesies as letting them live together or hold hands in public. I try not to think logically about the topic very much; it is too depressing.
But the point of this visit was not to depress me. It was to depress Thefefy. So we entered, and made our way to the pit, and Squedge (a mherobump) and Luchitali (a taptet) made space for us.
“Who’s your friend, Sythyry?” asked Squedge.
“Call her Thef,” I said. Thef[efy], in Herethroy shape, grunted greetishly at everyone. “I’m trying to show her something about how non-primes are treated on the World Tree.”
“What, whole thing?” said Luchitali.
I pondered the question. It would certainly answer Flokin’s charge to me, to drag Thefefy on an endless sightseeing quest, but I am not that inclined to respect a god, or to annoy one, in that order. “I’m afraid we are merely starting with Kismirth, and, perhaps, ending without having left Kismirth.”
“What you want to know Thef?” said Luchitali.
“I want to know why Mircannis has reserved all goodness in life to herself, while leaving stranded in boredom and suffering!” proclaimed Thefefy loudly.
“What you all right Thef?” asked Luchitali, sympathetically. In Urdwinian (she comes from Urdwine Tausc, and has not quite learned Ketherian perfectly) she asked me, “Am I utterly confused, or is it not the case that Lenhirrik, not Mircannis, was the source and originator of the Herethroy?”
“The situation is complicated in the case of Thef, for whom all simplicities are complex,” I said. Thefefy stared at me, trying to work out if that was an insult. It was, I suppose, but she didn’t get it. I smiles at the nonprimes. “But, speaking of suffering, tell us of the fate of monsters on the World Tree!”
“It not so nice Thef!” said Luchitali. “We not get good-good!”
“Oh, speak Urdwinian!” Thefefy snapped in that tongue. “I’m not here to get babbled at!”
Luchitali got up and performed a ritual curtsey to the goddess. “You are acquainted with the tongue of poets and of thinkers, of scholars and great drinkers?”
“Yeah,” said Thefefy. “Now talk.”
“I saw my first massacre when I was five years old. My mother and I were out of our holes, gathering dascinoti roots to make a potion to cure the griddishaw…”
“What’s a griddishaw?” asked Thefefy.
“It’s not a thing a Herethroy would ever need to worry about. It’s a taptet disease. It makes our antlers sprout long spines or needles. Eventually the needles grow to touch the sufferer’s skull and impale her ears. They don’t grow into the brain, which would be fatal. Also they make one’s head dangerous to approach, depriving one of affectionate nuzzling and head-butting contests alike. But the spines are innervated, unlike our antlers, so snipping them off is terribly painful.”
“Idiot!” snorted Thefefy.
“I beg your pardon. If I have offended your noble primeship, I withdraw the description and shall remove my noxious monstrous self to another table,” said Luchitali. She glared at me, as if to say, leave your prejudiced assh*le friends at home when you come here. I know that look from bringing the wrong guests to traff cafés. I have even used it myself.
“Eh, not you. Creator god. Leaving a rough edge like that in the world,” said Thefefy. “Stupid mistake. Stupid god.”
“It was not a mistake. There are thousands upon thousands of illnesses like that,” I said. “Gnarn and Accanax, in particular, are a pair of quite inventive demiurges, and their tastes are cruel.”
“Huh,” said the goddess, evidently trying to think about that.
After a moment I said, “But the massacre?”
“Forty cyarr, veteran warriors of the cyarr wars, berserkers every one, stamping down the road where Herethory farmers travel. Four prime heroes of moderate reputation. The final result was never in doubt. The heroes were going to let one cyarr escape to tell the tale, but they saw us watching from a hilltop, so they killed him,” said Luchitali. “And the thing of it was — the cyarr weren’t even hunting primes. Sometimes they did, but not this time. They were going off to the next cyarr kingdom over, to raid a cyarr city and kill cyarr children.”
“Why?” grunted Thefefy.
“Revenge. The other kingdom had done the same to theirs a month before. Anyways, they thought they were being clever, cutting through prime lands. But they got cut instead.”
“And remember about death on the World Tree. It’s much more of a final end than you are used to,” I said. (I had given Thefefy a long discussion of the topic the previous night. (This scene is, in fact, on the third day of Thefefy’s visit, and (like the previous scenes) an excerpt which conveys the style of the tour.))
“Huh. I thought Mircannis said it was going to be primes vs. non-primes,” said Thefefy.
“It’s everyone vs. everyone,” said Luchitali, spontaneously, for which I later made her a gift of a very nice linen tablecloth. | | Wednesday, May 9th, 2012 | | 12:48 pm |
| | 7:41 am |
In The Brothel
Mirrored from Sythyry. “Oh! The wizard Sythyry and a guest! A most unusual visitation! What sort of service would you like, O Zi Ri? We should be delighted to provide anything!” asked the receptionist.
“I’d like someone who can tell stories well. Someone who can complain well, actually,” I said.
“Species? Fur color? Gender? Amatory specialties?” she asked.
“Just complaints,” I said. “We’ll be paying full rates for just conversation.”
The receptionist picked a dozen cards from a file, with sketches of nude and delicious people of several species exhibiting some non-conversational attributes, and arranged them on the purple wood counter for us to see.
“Pirly’s free?” I said.
“Pirly is not free. He is pricey! But he is available now, perhaps because he is pricey.”
Pirly was duly acquired, for a pricey price.
Pirly’s office is about what you’d expect from a prostitute’s place of work. It has two chairs. We gave one to Thefefy and the other to Pirly, and I curled up on the mantle. Thefefy sat down wrong — I believe she has never seen a wooden chair before — and got up and tried again, more forcefully than before. The chair shattered. We put her on the bed instead.
“So! What would you like to talk about?” asked Pirly. “Or do?”
“Tell this Herethroy, who is called Thefefy, about your job. Especially the parts that you don’t like,” I said.
Pirly giggled. “Oh! It’s all vile and disgusting! I have to submit bodily to strangers every day! Strangers of every species! Including Herethroy, like this! Sometimes I have to go down on my knees, like this, and lift their skirts, like this, and …” Poor Thefefy looked rather perplexed, and somewhat exposed.
I shook my head. “Don’t demonstrate.”
“Oh, this is just talking? No problem!”
“It’s an interview, not a pleasure-job,” I said.
“Awww, I never get to do a Zi Ri!” whined Pirly in his cutest voice. To which I am supposed to respond with, “Are you available tonight?”, which he never is.
I didn’t say that. “Please, tell Thefefy about the worst part of being a transaffectionate prostitute on the World Tree.”
“I can do that!” he said. It took most of an hour, and is approximately the story of his that I retold.
Thefefy was duly horrified. “So you know who you are copulating with?”
“Not very well. They’re nearly strangers to me. Well, I have some repeat customers — lots of repeat customers — and they’re almost friends,” said Pirly, who had forgotten to complain about a job that he actually is quite fond of.
“But you know which is which?” said Thefefy, waving her antennae in agitation.
“Not really. They rarely use their real names. I know Sythyry of course!” said Pirly.
“Even the Elfimel know who they are copulating with,” I said. “By name and history.”
“Indecent! Horrid!” wailed Thefefy.
“Just part of life and lust on the World Tree,” I said. (One of the better parts, actually, but let’s not mention that to Thefefy.)
“I find this displeasing,” said Thefefy.
“I’m sorry! Would you like to talk about something else? Or perhaps a whiffy-tangle?” said Pirly.
“A what?” asked Thefefy, who was not familiar with the intimate uses of a Herethroy body, much less current Kismirth slang for them.
“Thank you but no, Pirly. Thefefy, it’s time to go to our third rendezvous,” I said.
Pirly pouted at me, and whispered, “But she’s not even a little satisfied!”
I whispered back, “I want her as upset as possible!”, and teleported my guest away from the perplexed prostitute. | | Sunday, May 6th, 2012 | | 3:00 pm |
OOC: Bard will be talking
Mirrored from Sythyry. I’ll be on a panel about self-publishing in Suffern NJ
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 7:00 PM
Suffern Free Library
210 Lafayette Avenue
Suffern, New York 10901
More details here.
This is the suffern-free library, folks — the only library in the world that ain’t got no suffern! | | Friday, May 4th, 2012 | | 8:24 am |
Visitation the First: The Kitchen.
Mirrored from Sythyry. “Before I take you to Namie — don’t scowl, goddess, for that is her name — I shall take you to see certain sights of the World Tree,” I told Thefefy.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because there is something you must discover, Thefefy. You shall see it for yourself, and it shall make your revenge complete,” I said. I rather hoped that it would be work out that way.
“I have waited a hundred thousand cycles, and my plots shall not be complete for many more. I have the time. You are sure that it is essential?” said the goddess.
“It is. And I must first disguise you as a Rassimel — ”
“No! Never shall I take the shape of the constructs of my enemy!” she roared.
“Rightie-o. How do you feel about, let’s see, Pararenenzu?”
She frowned. “A fool, a jokard, a packet of tinsel-covered candy!”
“Um … Virid?”
Thefefy smiled for the first time. “Ah, sweet Virid. We danced together on the surface of a burning star for a hundred years.”
“Then may I disguise you as a Herethroy?”
“That, dear Sythyry, would be entirely fitting.”
Kitchen!
The first stop, of course, was the kitchen — Arfaen’s kitchen. I blame this on residual fever, or, perhaps, panic.
“Simmerene? Could you explain to this visiting person, who is clearly a Herethroy, what you are doing here?” I asked.
Simmerene wagged her tail. “Hi! I am cleaning chub beetles!”
I nodded. “Could you describe it in more detail — a lot more detail — explaining just how unpleasant it is? In case my guest, who is clearly a Herethroy, is uncertain of just how unpleasant it is.”
Simmerene wagged harder. “A Herethroy would never have cleaned chub beetles in the ordinary course of events, I suppose. What are you, sir? A writer of romantic mysteries set in kitches, questing for a realistic atmosphere? A restauranteur, considering opening a non-vegetarian one for all species?”
“A god,” grunted Thefefy.
Simmerene giggled merrily. “Oh, you’re an investor in new restaurants!”
“Close enough!” I proclaimed. “And an incognito one at that.”
“Well then. Cleaning chub beetles is one of the more unpleasant jobs that shows up in any fine restaurant that I’ve worked at, and Arfaen’s is one of the finest. A lesser establishment, sir, would not bother cleaning them this way! It would simply cast them into boiling water, then peel the shells off! Much faster — it is how most meat-eating people eat their chub beetles, after all. But it leaves a certain intestinal flavor. And, speaking as a carnivore, the intestines are not the nicest bits of the beetle! Indeed, while you have surely never tasted an intestine yourself, you are doubtless familiar with their function and their less-than-pleasant product…”
“I’m not,” grunted Thefefy.
“Thefefy is the sort of investor who hires other people to poop for her,” I said, so seriously that Simmerene giggled.
“Well! Let us simply say that the intestines of chub beetles are not as nice as the rest of them. Actually, I can demonstrate!” She picked up the bowl of raw chub beetle intestines and fanned it towards Thefefy and me. We both winced.
“Foul,” grunted Thefefy.
“Yes, foul. A typical restaurant, or grocer, will starve the beetles for a day beforehand, so that the intestines are fairly clean. A fine restaurant will feed them on aromatic herbs for a day, which keeps the beetles plump and flavors their flesh, and then remove the noxious parts. Which is what I am doing. Observe!”
Simmerene picked a live walnut-sized beetle out of the trap-jar. She tossed it into a beaker of tarragon-infused vodka, and waited the half-minute for it to stop struggling. Then she plucked it out, shook it off, and crushed its brain with the heel of a toasting-fork. She made five careful cuts in the shell with a glass-edged knife, and shook it; the shell came off in two halves, one of which carried the legs with it. Another delicate cut exposed the guts, and a careful scoop with a thin glass spoon scraped them out. She tossed the rest of the beetle into a bowl of tarragon-infused white wine.
“And that is that, good Herethroy!” said Simmerene.
Thefefy had turned an alarming sort of blueish-purple. “Nasty!” she proclaimed.
“It is nasty,” I said, “But it, and a thousand chores like it, are part of everyday life on the World Tree.”
Octagons, the Elfimel who works for Arfaen, came into the room with a basket of edible (and delicious) tubers. “Hello, honey! Hello, Sythyry! Hello, Herethroy!”
Thefefy stared at her. “Are you the Elfimel who hates Mircannis?”
Octagons shrugged. “No. Are you the Herethroy who asks odd questions of girls trying to earn their rent?”
I cocked my head. “Wait, you can’t tell them apart either, Thefefy?”
“Not very well,” grunted Thefefy.
Octagons yelped, “That’s Thefefy?”
“Yeah,” grunted Thefefy.
“I won’t go back!” proclaimed Octagons. She put down the tubers and picked up a beetle-knife.
“Octagons has a name here, and clothes, and a local wife,” I said. “These, together with a certain mental derangement — shut up, Octagons! — count for more to her than the joys of Heaven.”
“Don’t care,” grunted Thefefy. “She can stay. What are you trying to show me?”
“I am showing you that, in this world, everyone must work for their living, and some of the jobs are quite foul and unpleasant.”
Thefefy took another sniff of the beetle guts. “Yeah. Got that. So?”
“So we are going to need to see another place too,” I said. | | Sunday, April 29th, 2012 | | 11:29 am |
| | Thursday, April 26th, 2012 | | 9:01 pm |
Fever Dreams
Mirrored from Sythyry. Gods do not generally apologize for anything.
Flokin: “You’re going to have to heal yourself in a minute, but don’t do it yet.”
Me: “Why not?”
The parlor caught flames again, only this time the flames were made of manes, like horses’ manes, and I had to braid them all, but I couldn’t, because they weren’t solid.
Flokin: “If you do, I will have to make you sick again.”
Me: “Why do you want me sick at all?”
Flokin: “I don’t want you sick. I need you healthy! So don’t heal yourself!”
I was running around the parlor frantically, trying to catch the horses, except that it was in the execution-chamber in Hanija where I had been beaten until my wings broke a couple decades ago, and my first lover Ilottat was there explaining to the judge (who was also there) about how I should be given extra wings to make the punishment something closer to sufficient.
Me: “Then why shouldn’t I heal myself healthy?”
Flokin: “I need to talk to you first!”
Me: “I’m loopy and hallucinating from the fever!”
I told Ilottat something about how not giving me extra wings because I couldn’t eat all the ones on my plate already. They weren’t even cooked; they were raw, looking as if they had been hacked off of Saza and my ~mother~ and tossed on a piece of bread. Curst hallucinations!
Flokin: “Well, the other choice is sending you smoke signals. Or burning little words on the bed, or something. This is better, I get to tell you more lies.”
I was back in Applied Theology class, listening to Vae lecture about how gods always lie to you when they’re telling you important things that you absolutely need to know. Thefefy was pounding on the classroom door, every blow harder and louder than the one before it, and very quickly she was joined by Boomstarter the Khtsoyis drummer, and the two of them started breaking the classroom door down to the tune of “Bonnie Come Over For Oral Sex”. Which wasn’t even written until fifty years after that Applied Theology class, I know, because the Orren who wrote it was my houseguest when he wrote it. Curst hallucinations! Not enough that a god was lying to me, but I was obviously lying to myself.
Me: “Lie away! I am looking forward to adding an amusing footnote to the next theology textbook.”
Flokin: “Anyhow, Thefefy’s here on a mission of revenge and murder. She’s upset that Mircannis put her in a silly little universe and abandoned her there.”
One other note from theology class: (1) Fever is a Pyrador substance, as well as Corpador, and hence in Flokin’s domain. (2) Fever dreams are an aspect of fever. (3) So, if Flokin wants to have a bit of a private chat with you, it might do so in a fever dream.
Me: “Namie too. No. Octagons. Folded? I can’t remember.”
All three of the Elfimel came into the room, with burning torches in their hands, and started to beat me for ignoring them just like their goddess.
Flokin: “Maybe even all of them. We could be in for some war among the gods, with the Elfimel’s almighty powers of cookery and same-species copulation matched against Mircannis’ almighty powers of … does Mircannis actually have any powers?”
Retrospective: (1) Mircannis, being one of the greater gods, has plenty of powers, many of them attested heartily in the literature. I doubt that there is anything I can do better than she can, except, perhaps, get myself in trouble. (2) Flokin, being one of the lesser gods, frequently must be involved in these powers, and surely knows about them. (3) Gods lie a lot.
Flokin: “Probably not, or she’d be doing things herself rather than sending her poor overburdened (but obnoxious and febrifacient) fire elemental to do it.”
Me: “You have my symapthy.” That didn’t sound right. “or sythpymy” That sounded too much like me. “Symypsy.”
I said this largely because Arfaen had just conscripted me to skin a nearly endless sequence of cats for her world-famous cat casserole (which I was feeling very guilty for never having heard of before.) Most of them still alive, and all of them just cats. I checked.
Flokin: “Not too much sympathy! Now I am making you the one in charge of Thefefy! You and you alone must save Mircannis from the wrath of that shiny metallic deity over there!”
Me: “Why don’t you do it? It’s hard to imagine me winning a fight that you could not.”
Flokin: “Mircannis doesn’t want her killed. Not even hurt!”
Me: “Why not?”
Flokin: “I didn’t ask, but I think she forgot to pay Thefefy her last seven billion paychecks.”
Me: “So what am I supposed to do?”
I was obviously supposed to fight off the giant tick-demon who was making eyes at Arfaen, but I couldn’t, because I had accidentally wrapped myself up in the +4 Purple Plaid Overcoat of the Elder Gods and I would fall down the stairs if I tried to spread my wings. Terrible situation. Curst hallucinations.
Flokin: “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Me: “Then how…?”
Flokin: “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Heal now!”
I obviously wasn’t going to get any good answers from it anyways, and the rasp-beaked penguins were about to eat my eyes and my collection of antique Herethroy mallets, so I healed myself. The fever and all the hallucinations went away. So did the secret conversation with Flokin. The quest, of course, did not. | | Monday, April 23rd, 2012 | | 8:26 am |
Too Many Fire Gods
Mirrored from Sythyry. The cat’s head in one corner acquired a traditional cat’s body, and was whole. The cat’s body in the other corner became a bright-orange Sleeth with a triple serpent for a tail, and vast rippling sheets of flexible amber for wings.
Everything that had a temperature in the room did honor in its own way to the God of Fire. The wooden floors, despite some quite good fireproofing spells, blazed fiercely, showing how they would be so glad to burn if Flokin only wished it. The air rippled with heat-currents, so that I could barely see across the room. The ewer of water on the mantle boiled and blazed. The silver pin in my head-feathers glowed as if it were in a forge’s furnace, the colors of melting and liquifaction.
Flokin (the large one, in the Sleeth body, since the god seemed amused to be at two different places in my parlor) sat on its haunches, and flicked its snakey tail once, twice, thrice. The adoration of nature ceased, and all things became as they were since the beginning of time — or the afternoon anyhow.
Flokin (the small one, in the cat’s body) hopped lightly onto Thefefy’s shoulder again. It was just a cat. I checked again. I also remembered the frequent but terse and ill-explained admonition from many theologocial books that it was impossible to detect the least bit of magic or abnormality from Flokin, no matter what shape it took: just another one of the eccentricities of that peculiar deity.
“Hi!” said Flokin, the body that wasn’t pretending to be just a cat. One might expect a god to have some dignity, some gravitas. One might expect this less after spending a few minutes with Thefefy, but she had a sort of thunderous presence, as if each word were much more important than the one before it. Flokin mostly sounded ditzy, like your most offensive stereotype of a bubbleheaded traff Orren.
(It might actually be traff. There are rumors of intimacies between various gods and various mortals now and then, Flokin included, and of course none of them are the same species as any of us. The reports that give actual details of how the sexless god of fire is intimate with a mortal are simply pornographic fancies, and poorly-written ones at that, I am sure.)
Thefefy scowled at it. “Why are you interfering? You said you wouldn’t interfere!”
“I didn’t interfere! It’s perfectly normal for a cat to claw your face after you rend it apart!” chirped the fire god. Well, the native fire god. I guess they both are fire gods.
“That’s not how it happened — you scratched me first,” grumbled Thefefy.
“I wouldn’t know! I wasn’t paying attention!” protested Flokin.
“Then why did you scratch … oh, never mind. There’s no getting sensible answers out of you,” said Thefefy. “Sythyry! I demand that you yield unto me that single and solitary Elfimel who hates Mircannis!”
“What for?” I had to ask.
“I shall grant her power upon power, I shall scour the universes of light and darkness for might to supply unto her, she shall become a god-queen of such terror and such splendor that none shall stand against her! Then against Mircannis she shall take her revenge — I shall take my revenge! And afterwards I shall grant her all things, yea, even a name!”
“Well, she’s got a name already; she’s named Namie,” I said, rather woozily, because I didn’t want to think about wars of the gods, and alien gods coming to the World Tree to kill our gods — or dread Flokin, the All-Devourer, conspiring with her in some sort of a Fire Gods’ Treason Club, or whatever it was doing.
I really, really, really didn’t want to think about that. The very thought of the thought was making me ill. My head swam, and I burned with fever. As I fainted I thought, (1) this is a ridiculously fast onset for any nonmagical disease I know about, and I’m a doctor, and (2) this is not going to look overly polite to either god, either. | | Friday, April 20th, 2012 | | 9:15 am |
Angry Goddess
Mirrored from Sythyry. “Well, speak to me of the offenses you consider us to have committed against you. We shall call forth one of the excellent mediators of Kismirth, who are renowned to the tips of the world-branches for their fairness and their insight, and we shall have them practice their art. The solution shall surely satisfy you,” I rather babbled. I’m not actually much of one for the revenge of gods.
Her cat was just a cat. I checked.
“What?” she grunted.
“Mediator. Will suggest revenge and work out details,” I explained.
“I do not want this ‘mediator’,” she said with considerable disgust. “I want revenge.”
“I don’t suppose I can stop you,” I said. “Still, you should consider a mediator. With a mediator you can get a revenge that will thoroughly and precisely satisfy you. Without one, you are liable to come up with one which makes you unhappy later on.”
She frowned her crystal lips. “You are babbling — what is this that you are babbling?”
The cat, which was just a cat — I had checked — reached up and swatted her in the face. Its copper claws scored the immortal invulnerable stone of her cheek, and the winds whistled out, blowing gusts of iron filings. She rubbed her cheek in irritation, and the wound abated.
She turned upon the cat — just a cat! I checked! and I’m good at detecting magic! — and snatched it off her shoulder. She shook it thrice, and twisted its head off, and tossed the head into one corner and the body into the other.
It is rarely, if ever, a good sign when a goddess is angry enough to kill her pet cat. It is, if anything, an even worse sign if you have somehow annoyed her enough to cause her to kill her pet cat.
It would have been an excellent time to run away. Except that flight from Thefefy is approximately impossible; when she runs, each step covers much more distance than the previous one, and eventually she will catch you. I was hoping against hope she’d be satisfied twisting my head off a few times but leaving me alive afterwards, and take just her chalices back.
All things burst into flame. | | Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 | | 9:43 am |
Kismirth Against The Gods, part 2
Mirrored from Sythyry. The intruding goddess was a tall and chubby Rassimel in shape, with a very long neck and hypertrophied female attributes. She was a sculpture of quartz and silver and gold. The flames in her eyes were twin suns of rage, and the smoke of her tail coiled far over her head like a serpent ready to strike. She wore a mighty iron helm worked with nine-knobbed rings, with a pair of vast iron horns that did not do well by my ceiling. In case it’s not obvious, she is a goddess with a huge portfolio — seen from one angle — covering Airador, Pyrador, and Durudor. Her twin swords were sheathed, which is good. The last time she had come visiting she chopped a hole in the front door. She had a bright orange cat on her shoulder, which was even better; if she is picking up local animals for pets, she can’t be too angry.
The cat was just a cat. I checked.
“Hello, Thefefy,” I said.
“Sythyry,” she said.
The last time I had seen her, my associates had tricked her — one had annoyed her into a fight, while others robbed the greatest treasures of the Heaven that was her universe, and others rescued a few of the blessèd spirits who were her charges and whom she compelled to an endless cycle of assorted minor enjoyments and pleasantries. Sort of like a Kismirth without (1) names, (2) different species or even genders, (3) Arfaen’s superb gourmet touch, (4) death, (5) exits, (6) various other things, some of which we are better off with and some which they are better off without.
“Welcome to Kismirth, mighty goddess,” I said. Politeness may or may not count. If Octagons and Folded and Namie know much — and they were her compulsory and well-treated guests for unknown aeons — Thefefy rarely stands on ceremony. But I am well-read in theology, and most gods do care.
Her cat was just a cat. I checked.
“Yes,” she said.
I inspected her in surreptitious ways. Not surprisingly she was a terrible tower of thaumaturgy, a mountain of menacing magic. In Heaven she had been inexorable, unbeatable in any sort of physical or magical contest. Even Vae, who is far and away the deadliest creature in Kismirth, could do nothing against her there, and she brushed my best spells aside like so much tinsel. And of course she had already gotten inside of Kismirth’s mighty walls, which, I thought, she shouldn’t have been able to do without me noticing it. On the World Tree, far from her Heaven, she was moderately diminished. If everyone with any substantial power on Kismirth assaulted her together, I guessed, we might perhaps be able to injure her, if we were alarmingly lucky.
Her cat was just a cat. I checked.
“To what do I owe the surprising occurrence of your visit?” I asked. We had stolen mighty relics from Heaven, three chalices full of the blessings of Mircannis — the goddess who had created that Heaven, and abandoned it for the World Tree. I would sorely miss them; they were wonderfully useful tools. With them, I had restored the dead to life, I had healed wounds to mind and spirit that no mortal artifice could have helped unaided, I had built devices which healed the wounds of space itself, and I had reattached the pulled-off antenna of a farm-girl on her birthday. But they were just things, and I would make do without them.
Or did she want the three escaped Elfimel? Denizens of her Heaven, whose fate was an eternity of light enjoyment, cooperative board games, public lesbian cisaffectionate sex, and broccoli-and-cheese sandwiches miraculously created for them in silver pyramids. I didn’t have much to do with the Elfimel, who generally kept to themselves and to their local wife Simmerene. But the Elfimel are people. I struggled to think of a trick I could play on her to get her to depart without the Elfimel. I would fight her if necessary, but that would not be fun.
Her cat was just a cat. I checked.
“Revenge. I’m here for revenge,” she said. | | Saturday, April 14th, 2012 | | 10:33 pm |
Kismirth Against The Gods: 3 Oix 4403
Mirrored from Sythyry. Once in a while, generally by mistake, or even without realizing it, I defy some of the gods. The current defiance is of Hressh-Huu, the great and whistly queen of the air, who rules the climate with a sceptre made of pure elemental silliness. She’s not terribly malicious as gods go, but she’s not exactly gentle or nice. She enjoys making the month of Oix be extremely hot or extremely cold or extremely ridiculous.
But she does not do so indoors.
Nearly all of Kismirth is indoors, except for some promenades, and some piers, and some pavillions, and some petunias in pyroclastic pergola-pots, and, I suppose, a paladin or two.
Which means that it was already the third of Oix before I even actually noticed that it was Oix.
Which is a bit of a shame, really. It’s a hot Oix around here, and being a bit of a pyrotechnical lizard, hot Oix is a treat for me.
Well, and the other reason it’s a treat is that the Orren all strip down to nothing much, and go swimming all the time, to keep cool. Always worth watching … but there’s not much of that in Kismirth. I visited the Sinking Pond of the Elegant Azure Tiles, and watched the Orren cavort in the heavily-sculpted water park I crystallized for them out of the stuff of unformed madness. They were having fun, but it wasn’t so different from last week when the weather outside the city was mild as milk and meek as a mink.
Which made me realize, I’ve pretty much built Kismirth as a fortress against several of the gods. Hressh-huu’s ordinary duties and devastations cannot touch us here. Flokin? We’ll be having no accidental fires; even my seven-winged burning thing, that fearsome metrophage from a crueler era, cannot bite our walls. Merklundum? No river runs through Kismirth, no lakes to sink or swell, though our own plumbing could clog and cause a bit of a stinky floodlet, if we’re not paying attention. Lenhirrik? The plants that grow here grow by our labor, in window-boxes and magicopontic gardens that germinate and fruit by great effort. We might get a mold problem after a floodlet, if we’re not paying attention. Kvarse? We do not have rats. That should be underlined: We do not have rats. I’ve never heard of a city without rats.
No, the gods we should be worried about are the subtler ones. “Here”? Oh, yes, “Here” is here; we’ve got more space distortion than any seven other cities of Ketheria, even if one of them is the origami-folded New Kottarnu. Does that hideous black-chitinned god rub his hands together in his secret lair (viz. anywhere) and plan some dimensional ruin for us? If so, his spawn hCevian is unaware of the matter; hCevian thinks that “Here” is generally amused by us. Iraz Halix? We’ve magic a-plenty; we are an exhibit for what wizardry could do for everyone, if we let it. If theology is any guide, Iraz Halix loves us. Shax Shay Shaz, Birkozon, Iraz Varuun, Tenmen? I don’t know why they should care about us at all.
I was sitting in a fireplace in a parlor (a sign that I am favored by “Here” is the great plentitude of parlors all about me) meditating upon these matters, and upon other deep mysteries — such as where to take Arfaen out on a date — when a goddess appeared unto me, and the fury in her eyes. | | Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 | | 9:19 am |
The Vepri Strike Back
Mirrored from Sythyry. Verhump stepped back to the podium. “I would like to thank this sclud wizard Sythyry. Zie has pointed out quite clearly why every serious Vepri should read volume two of Fixing the Future, not just the introduction to volume one and a few popular pamphlets.
She opened a copy of volume two to a page she knew well. “In section 2.8c of volume 2, we explain some important details that are often omitted in popular renditions of our work. We use ‘generation’ as a shorthand, a mere approximation of the longer and more precise but less mellifluous phrase ‘effective generation of origination’. Both the chair and the Vepri tests indicate, in fact, a perfect measure of spiritual development, or, if you prefer spiritual degredation — when they are applied to cooperating subjects.
“Note that last phrase — ‘cooperating subjects’. We do have tests that can accomodate lies, using imperfect information and behavioral observations to detect spiritual development. But these were not the tests applied in this case! We used precise tests, suitable only for use with truthful subjects! These subjects lied — they even lied about their species! Their evidence should be no more acceptable than the spewings of any other liars! No wonder the test results were wrong!
“Furthermore! It is clear that both Sythyry and Sazandigraa are exemplars of a terrible state of spiritual development! They reveal all the flaws of the sclud! Their effective generation of origination is the current generation — they are as glate as it is possible to be! For most species, when one says ‘third generation’, one means the generation born late in the first century. Not so for Zi Ri! These Zi Ri, hatched recently, must be considered to be of a generation suitable to the year of their hatching.
“They are hardly the optimes of the third generation that they present themselves as! They are scluds through and through. Their actions prove it! Sythyry is the leader of a vast shitfest of perverts! Sazandigraa is a dealer in wicked mind-magics!
“So, when in their scludditude they come here and spew forth lies and stupidities, I bid you — read section 2.8c of volume 2, and learn to wave away the thin but stinking miasma of their words with the truth!”
The legeriators and functionaries fulsomely applauded her. There didn’t seem to be much point to staying around and, say, arguing that the Chair didn’t do anything like what she said it did. Probably section 3.9sh would explain that away too.
“Saza? Should we explain to her that she’s put you in a generation a thousand years after you were born?”
“Sythyry, you can’t seriously imagine that they care what we say, can you? This isn’t about a scientific theory, and never was. It’s just about putting a modern mask on a power grab,” zie said.
“I suppose we had to give them a chance to be honest but wrong,” I said.
“Shall perhaps we leave before the lynching starts and the massacre becomes necessary?” said Yylhauntra, rather louder than was necessary.
So we left in a loud crash of Locador.
The Aftermath
“Well, that was useless,” I complained.
“Silly little optimist!” said Saza. “Expecting a bit of truth to swish away such a cloud of privelege and pomposity. We’ll just have to take a bit more active an approach, that’s all.” | | Sunday, April 8th, 2012 | | 11:03 pm |
The Presentation of the Results
Mirrored from Sythyry. “Our analysis produces the facts,” said Verhump. “Bluelark is an optime, of the eighth generation, and a person whom you can trust. Rainboat is a glate, born for the first time not many decades ago, of the hundred-and-thirtieth generation; a person of wicked and criminal tendencies, and surely headed for gaol and an early grave.” Yylhauntra had insisted on addressing the Legeriat of Draffmoug immediately afterwards, and a dozen bored legeriators and several dozen even more bored functionaries lounged about, trying to pretend to pay attention to zir.
“Interesting, interesting,” said Yylhauntra. “Is there any question or uncertainty about this diagnosis?”
“There is not,” said Verhump. “If you believe yourself to have contrary evidence, you must examine the contrary evidence for flaws and failure. The methods of the Vepri are perfect.”
“Grandchildren, it is now time to explain the situation,” said Yylhauntra to “Bluelark” and “Rainboat”.
“With pleasure, honored grandparent!” we said, and broke a pair of Cloaks of Another God. “Rainboat” was Sazandigraa, and “Bluelark”, of course, was me. The sudden crack of intense Destroc Magiador, the sharp taste of spells breaking, and the surprising appearance of three Zi Ri on the podium, woke up a great many legeriators and functionaries. Even the Duke came out of his closet to see us.
I spread my wings (yay, wings) and levitated, rampant, above Verhump. “I am Sythyry: a Zi Ri wizard, grandchild of Glikkonen and Verehinga, and of Myrihaaveinen and of Tnirvakuovvka who was the child of lost Caathestaa and of the great Yylhauntra who is here before you. My full geneology is well-known and carefully attested in many living memories, even to the firstmost of days. And there is never a doubt about Zi Ri parentage. This is Sazandigraa, whose grandparents and great-grandparents are the same as mine, though through different couplings. Geneologically speaking, we are pretty much the same person. We are both of the third generation of Zi Ri measured the short way around, or the fourth the long way around.
“Yet, somehow, the infallable methods of Verhump herself have perfectly and infallibly placed me in the ninth generation. I don’t even think there are any ninth generation Zi Ri. And, even more remarkably, they identified Sazandigraa — third-generation Sazandigraa — as hundred-and-thirtieth. They could hardly be more wrong, save by an excursion into the hideous realm of complex numbers!
“And furthermore! I am a wizard, an expert in enchantment, granted my title by Glikkonen zirself. I have inspected Verhump’s ‘Chair of Spiritual Origination’ in detail, watching it as it operated. It is in no way a device to reach into the past to determine one’s generation of origin. It determines one’s spiritual purpleness, and how much of one’s spirit is actually flesh or plant material. Rather different, rather unlike what the Vepri methods call for!
“I hereby proclaim the utter vacuity of the Vepri. The so-called science and theology is utter nonsense, incapable of distinguishing one end of time from another. The philosophy is based on the vapors of clouds and Khtsoyis-farts, and is pernicious and worse than useless. And any political system based on it is surely based on a rotten, stinking worse-than-nothing.”
And I sat down next to Saza and Yylhauntra, bristling with a Holocaust-war’s worth of magical defenses. I had some sense of how popular that speech was going to be, right in the heart of the Vepri. The audience stirred and muttered, clearly expecting some sort of excitement. | | Friday, April 6th, 2012 | | 9:30 am |
The Laboratory of the Vepri
Mirrored from Sythyry. “We employ several means of determining what generation someone is. The first to be used was this chair,” said Verhump. The chair in question was certainly a terrible tangle of enchantments. “Once we had some data about generations and behavior, we were able to validate Doggerly’s philosophical treatises almost to the word, matching behaviors to generations of origin with perfect accuracy. That let us devise tests that do not use magic at all, but which still give precise results. At times individuals — generally scluds — are unwilling to take these tests, or to answer truthfully. The degree of their scludditude can be fathomed in other ways, with some slight uncertainty. The second volume of my magnum opus Fixing the Future gives all the details of the testing methods. It has never been found wrong. You have read it, have you not?”
Yylhauntra shrugged. “The first volume was technical and — forgive me — occasionally obscure. I did not get to the second. A personal visit was preferable.”
“Of course, of course!” said Verhump. “Well. I shall administer the question-test to Bluelark, while Rainboat sits upon The Chair Of Spiritual Origination, and then the two shall have their roles reversed.” “Rainboat” and “Bluelark” indicated their assent to the plan.
“Now, Bluelark. Have you ever wished for the dawning of a new day, for reasons that have nothing to do with illumination? What reasons were they?” asked Verhump.
“Well, yes. I wanted more cley,” said “Bluelark”.
“H’m,” said Verhump, making notations. “Do you enjoy telling people latest scandal about your associates?”
“I always present everyone’s foibles in the best light possible! Unless of course they have somehow managed to make themselves my enemy,” said “Bluelark”. This was duly recorded.
“Do you browse through skyboat schedules, or dictionaries, or lists of child names, just for pleasure?” asked Verhump.
“My interest in such things is purely technical!”
“Very well,” said Verhump, and the interrogation continued through a list of similar obtuse questions.
Then it came time for “Bluelark” to sit in the Chair of Spiritual Origination. She privately checked to make sure the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan was in her pocket, not that there was the slightest chance it could have gotten away from her without her noticing.
The chair was a suitably elaborate thing. Big carved loops of wood, with inlaid rune-enamelled plaques of copper and brazinion, ocular gemstones, hunks of glass, and an assortment of similar occult-looking items, encircled the head of the full-sized person sitting in it. Cryptic runes had been embroidered on the arms and back. When “Bluelark” sat in it, it puffed the scent of ancient, exhausted herbs. Oddly, few of these were things that one might expect to help a Kennoc Spiridor Tempador enchantment. They were mostly of value in Corpador and Herbador work, or not for enchantments at all.
“Ready? It will take some moments, and, of course, do not resist the magic,” said Verhump.
“Bluelark” was a touch nervous about not resisting some unknown and eccentric spell being placed on her. But she had come with a goodly selection of defenses and investigations, so she sat down without complaint. The chair did its thing. Its “thing” was, indeed, a big pile of Kennoc.
There was actually a nontrivial Kennoc Spiridor Tempador effect, which determined, in an overly complicated way and with an excess of power, how large the subject’s spirit is in a certain spiritual dimension, which would be degree of purpleness if the spirit were visible, which it isn’t. Most of the spell, though, was a somewhat murky and Illusidor-obscured Kennoc Spiridor Corpador Herbador spell, which determined, with massive power, just how much of your spirit was composed of flesh, and how much composed of plant material. The answer would generally be “none”, though one might imagine a person being merged with a Corpador or Herbador angel in the way that Feralan was once merged with a Locador demon, so it’s not completely impossible for some part to be.
Clever enough! There aren’t many people with the depth of magic analysis (or the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan) to tell the difference between one complicated and blurry Kennoc Spiridor spell and another. The Chair certainly had plenty of power, which one might think would be helpful for peering back in time. With two enchantments it might also seem complex enough to do so.
But nothing about the chair’s magic could possibly reveal the soul’s past. | | Monday, April 2nd, 2012 | | 9:01 pm |
Assault on Verhump: 9 Thory 4402
Mirrored from Sythyry. One Zi Ri arrived at the gate of Draffmoug with zir entourage. The Zi Ri was Yylhauntra. Now there’s a name to conjure with, to entwine historians and philosophers and idealistic revolutionaries and prime supremicists. Yylhauntra, the Zi Ri with malachite-striped scales, as bright-eyed and eager as zie was the instant that the peculiar appendage of Hren Tzen created zir back at the beginning. I will give the Vepri this: the surviving first-generation primes are indeed imposing.
I won’t give them the following: the reincarnations of the no-longer-surviving first generation primes are not even known, according to modern theology and magic. Nor, I suspect, do they shine with forty-four centuries of experience and passion.
Yylhauntra announced zirself to the guards at the gate of Draffmoug. In due course a lacquered carriage came from the mansion of Verhump, drawn by four matched white stallions whose toeclaws scuffed the boardwalks. “Verhump is officially a simple philosopher and occasional guest-lecturer,” remarked Yylhauntra to zir unremarkable companions, “but her equippage could not be more honeyed if she were an empress.”
The coachman called back, “Good Zi Ri, O optime, please to note. Verhump is in fact the reincarnation of Wilsamander, of the first-created Rassimel. She is older than even you. What we give her is her due, and barely so!”
“Oh, Wilsamander of the first Rassimel! It has been a while since I saw him last. Perhaps because he had such poor tactics in the first war against the cyarr. Far be it from me to forbid you to honor him, or, as he now seems to style himself, her,” said Yylhauntra.
(But the Cani man called Rainboat whispered, “Was Wilsamander even in the cyarr wars?” To which Yylhauntra whispered back, “no.”)
Confronting Verhump
Verhump has been installed in the left wing of the Ducal Palace of Draffmoug. I rather have the impression that the Duke himself is stuffed in a closet in the smaller and shabbier right wing. In any case, the Duke was nowhere to be seen. Verhump, a shit-brown Rassimel in a robe of rubies, was awaiting Yylhauntra in a small throne room where a parlor would do.
“Yylhauntra! It gives me the greatest pleasure to welcome one of the first generation Zi Ri to Draffmoug!” proclaimed Verhump.
Yylhauntra can, when zie wants, perform a courtly curtsey as devastating as a whirlwind of scissors. “Professor Verhump! I am glad to be here, for quite serious reasons!”
“Your petition for an audience did suggest that there were deep matters which none better than I could assist with,” said Verhump. “Of course, the full powers of Draffmoug may be placed at your disposal, if it is as serious a matter as all that!”
“I shan’t be needing the full powers of Draffmoug. I shall be needing two or three hours of your time. Some might find it self-serving of me to start a Vepri movement in Inihithre,” said Yylhauntra. Verhump’s eyes widened; she had not expanded the Vepri past the cities of the trough, and here was Yylhauntra casually discussing starting a branch in one of the greatest cities of the world! “There is no question about what generation I am, after all. Whoever else may benefit and whoever may not, it is surely in my interests. So I wish to be certain about matters before I begin.”
“Of course! I have rooms and rooms of evidence, of case histories, of historical and philosophical discourses, of theoretical analyses!” said Verhump.
“In fact, I wish to conduct an experiment of my own. I have with me two companions, whose history and morals in this life are thoroughly known and established and known to me. I wish for their generation of creation to be computed by your tools and methods. If you proclaim them glates, when in fact they behave like optimes, I shall not be well-pleased! But if you proclaim them glates and calculate properly their glatish behavior, my course is clear!”
Verhump looked just a touch nervous. “My most able assistants shall be put at your disposal, with careful instructions…”
Yylhauntra frowned, the devastating sort of little frown that suggested that zie was on the verge of ranking your recent suggestion as the stupidest one that zie had heard in the last fifteen or sixteen centuries. “Are you personally unavailable? This is a matter of personal importance to me, that Vepri methods can pick out which one of my companions is the glate.”
Verhump rose from her not-quite-throne and curtsied. “I shall be glad to assist you!” She clearly thought to herself, One more slip like that and it shall be child’s play to ensure the proper answer! | | Friday, March 30th, 2012 | | 12:09 pm |
Philosophical Assault on the Vepri, part 1
Mirrored from Sythyry. From:Sythyry, Kismirth, 14 Hispis 4402
To: Yylhauntra, Inihithre
Dear grandparent,
Perhaps you are unaware of the uses that your honorable and long-historied name and early stories are being put to. The Cities of the Trough are getting overrun by the so-called Verified Primordeals, or Vepri. One Verhump, drawing heavily on the philosphy of Doggerly and nearly as heavily upon your own memoirs of the first days, is coming up with some persuasive nonsense about how early-generation primes are inherently superior to late-generation ones, and, therefore, society should be ordered by one’s generation of origin. Which they claim to be able to calculate based on various behaviors.
I do not dispute the brilliance of the first generation! Your heroics and glories are well-established! But later generations can do nearly as well: even current generations.
For example, you made somewhat of a point that none of the first-generation primes were transaffectionate, that all of them were intimate with only their own species. This has been interpreted by this Verhump as meaning that transaffection is a sign of being of late generation of first birth. (I thank you for telling me that third-generation primes were occasionally transaffectionate, which the Vepri say is impossible. I rather wish you would publish that fact more broadly.)
Yes, transaffection is my personal hobby-horse (and it gives the best rides!). But the Vepri are quite serious about the matter — of generation, not of transaffection. They have been brutal about depriving late-generation people, whom they call “glates” or “sclud”, of their rights, and of their intact bones and unburnt houses and such as well.
A fair number of such people have moved to Kismirth. I certainly appreciate the influx of skilled, congenial, and appreciative immigrants. But I’d rather be attracting them for Kismirth’s own sake, than having them whipped out of their home cities by some vile philosophy.
So I was wondering…
One doesn’t often get interrupted when one is writing a letter. I didn’t this time, but the reply came so fast — the next morning — that I might as well have been interrupted.
From: Yylhauntra, Inihithre, 14 Hispis 4402
To:Sythyry, Kismirth
Dear grandchildren (for I know that Sazandigraa is more likely than not to be found in Kismirth, hoping against hope to get a few scraps of Sythyry’s attention)
I have looked into the Vepri movement. I went so far as to read the whole of Doggerly’s The Cancerous Degeneration some decades ago. A monstrous pile of uncleaned guntry intestines! For my opinion, one generation seems much like another in terms of morality, art, greatness, intellect, or what have you. There may be minor differences here and there, but the trend of prime civilization is upward! Outward! Downward to the hypothetical roots of the World Tree! Crossward to the reaches of wisdom and magic! Bestward, ever bestward!
But I know adventurers such as yourselves! What subtle plan do you have that requires my help? And my own weak assistance, as opposed to the mighty wizardries of your more renowned grandparent Glikkonen? Where shall we meet? What tools and equipments shall I bring? How long will it take? How much will it cost?
Oh, and please forgive me, once again, for siccing that nendrai on you. My intentions were rather the opposite.
Your loving grandparent,
Yylhauntra.
“Well, that was easy,” I said to Saza.
“Yylhauntra has always been rather the philosophical warrior. Zie has principles! In many ways they are unpleasant principles. I do believe zie’d be happy to kill every nonprime person on the Tree, starting with your friend Vae that zie supposedly sicced on you. But this is a matter of primes, and we should be able to work with zir,” said Saza.
I caught zir by the wing and dragged zir into the fireplace for activities which need not be described to anyone who does not happily lounge and squirm around in fireplaces.
Afterwards, zie bonked me with a wingtip. “Not that I am complaining in the least, but how much of that was genuine Sythyry interest? I ask because you are not so physical with me every year, and I don’t think you’ve ever been so direct with an expression of interest.”
I enslithered Saza by way of answer, and did my best to distract zir. The answer to zir question was, yes, about 1/9 actual interest and 8/9 guilt for avoiding the matter so much that Yylhauntra had to prod me about it. | | Sunday, March 25th, 2012 | | 11:55 pm |
The Testimony of Heen Sranac
Mirrored from Sythyry. Heen set forth this missive.
The guild-masters in Iluc said I had committed every crime. That’s only in a letter to the guild-masters in Kismirth though. It started when Pumperpriest, she’s the head of the guild in Iluc, invited in the Vepri examiners to test everyone in the guild. Masters, journeymen, apprentices … everyone. “It won’t do to have an optime given orders by a glate!”
So everyone has to answer all their questions. Oh, such questions. “When you wash your face in the morning, where do you pour the waste-water out?” they ask. “Do you smile a bigger smile when a Rassimel buys from you, than when a Cani does?” That’s another one. “When you eat a bun and soup, do you tear off bits of the bun and soak them in the soup?” They ask so many questions, and each and every one of them dead stupid.
And after that they call a big meeting, with nearly everyone there. Well, wouldn’t you know? Most of the masters are optimes. Most of the journeymen are norums — that’s younger than optimes and older than glates. Most of the apprentices are norums too. But Teffimer is a glate, old Teffimer who got into a big fight with Pumperpriest last month. Dahine is a glate, Lippister is a glate, Mocktschiba is a glate, and I’m a glate. Every master that had any sort of quarrel with Pumperpriest is a glate. Fancy that!”
“Well, and there are new laws coming up in Iluc — all through the Trough of Kreischan! We won’t be having optimes ruled by anyone of later generation, and glates can’t command anyone at all! This honorable Guild will be in the first ones compliant with those laws!” says Pumperpriest, and all of the guild-masters who came up optimes say “Hear, hear!”.
“And it’s out with old Teffimer. No pension for him, for he’s stripped of his guild membership, and nothing for eighty years in the guild! He protests, he complains, he sues in the court! But there’s never a trial. The Doippmers come to his house in the night, a dozen thudding tall men. It’s broken bones a-plenty for old Teffimer, instead of lozens, and scimitars slashing through his big closet full of fancy clothes. He leaves away after that, and his lawsuit and everything abandoned.”
“Not that I’m any smarter, me. The guild votes to demote all of the masters who are glates. Dahine’s vote comes up first. I demand to be given a vote about him, for I’m a master in the guild and the laws say I can vote. But no, they say, I’m a glate and not to be allowed. Master? Glate? The optimes beat me out of the room, and it’s not sweet. Then they vote me to journeyman, and prohibit me from any sort of job that has me telling anyone what to do.
“Well, and I sure tell them what to do. I tell them to take their carding-combs and their modelling mannequins and stuff them up their asses! That’s that, though, and I’ve got to get my tail out of Iluc in a hurry.
They don’t like me any more, the guild, and when you write to them about me, they send back a bunch of lies. There’s only one of them that’s even true: I took guild-master secrets with me to a city outside the Trough of Kreischan, me as isn’t a guild-master. And the only reason I did that is, they demoted me and I left the region without forgetting all what I knew.”
The affedavit took quite a while to write. We checked every single sentence with Heen, making sure he throught it was true, and it took a dozen tries sometimes to be sure he didn’t have any reservations about what he’d said.
I cast a morally-dubious spell on Heen, ruling him completely for a moment. “Now, tell us if any of this affedavit is false, and tell us what the truth of the matter is!”
“It’s a lie that I’m not smarter than Teffimer; he’s a dull old man. Thirty years ago he was a silk-needle of wits, but now he’s a knitting-needle, and drinks Khtsoyis tea. The rest is true,” said Heen.
“Thank you, Master-Couturier. My apologies for the need to thus interrogate you, O my brother in this honorable Guild, and I welcome you to the mysteries and honorable secrets of the Guild of Kismirth,” I said. Which was slightly inappropriate — it’s really Eleven’s job to say that first, and we should have voted — but none of my siblings in this honorable Guild complained in the slightest. (Also, not that we have any real secrets. Like the Green Witch village, we’re a guild of scraps: masters from a dozen cities, who have just recently started working together.)
And we performed suitable silly but traditional highly secret and honorable rituals, and made Heen a master-couturier of Kismirth with all the rights and priveleges attendant thereto, and none of this Vepri nonsense.
Plotting
“I really don’t like how the Vepri are behaving,” everyone said.
“But what can we do about it?” asked everyone else.
“I don’t know! But Sythyry should do something,” everyone said.
So I’m going to do something. | | 7:36 am |
Heen Sranac
Mirrored from Sythyry. Heen Sranac was a stout and tall Rassimel man with squirrel styling, wearing an intricately embroidered gown in the latest fashion of Creitheia, just as a master-couturier should. I felt a bit shabby in just my ribbons, which were fine for enchantment in private, but a bit meagre around the guild. We introduced ourselves and exchanged certain secret guild-signs and minor rituals that my oath utterly forbids me to describe because they are too secret and sacred, and, if I were not bound by oath, my literary sense would forbid me to describe because they are too petty and puny.
“Well, Master-Couturier Sythyry, I’m half-glad you’ve come to listen to me, and half-ashamed. But I offered to Master-Couturier Eleven that I’d take a truth-spell to prove my story. It was just a manner of speaking, like, for I’ve never heard of anyone actually going and doing it. But here you are, a wizard too, and now that you’re here to cast one, I’m not going to back out of my word like some numbled lick-splutter,” said Heen.
“Well, this is serious, if you’re asking for a truth-spell. You do know that that’s mind-magic? Which I am allowed by special dispensation of the Duke of Vheshrame to perform lawfully, but even I only do so with the greatest of reluctance and care?”
“Vheshrame? Why’s the Duke of Vheshrame got a say in it?” asked Eleven. “I thought you’d be asking the Mayor for it.”
“Kismirth is a city in the city-state of Vheshrame, Master-Couturier, and we are under the laws of Vheshrame as well as our own. This is an important point, and not to be neglected — though it rarely arises.” I am a bit prissy on this topic! I have been a citizen of Vheshrame since everyone else’s grandparents were children, and I care about it considerably. But many respectable citizens have never even visited Vheshrame, and know it only as a round blotch on the world-branch below us, and have, I believe, confused it with a particularly colorful bacterial infection.
Heen nodded, his wimple flapping a bit. “Yes, I know it’s a mind-spell. I do care a lot to have this all set aright. I’d rather suffer the spell — and pay for you to cast it — than to have anyone think that the Iluc guild’s libel is anything of true.”
“Well then. We shall have the guild-secretary write down your story, and you shall read it and correct it until you are sure that every word is true. Then I will cast one quick mind-spell to verify it. There are two choices. A Kennoc spell which reads your mind — and, being Kennoc, has some small chance of failing. Or a Ruloc spell, which compels you to tell the truth: no chance of failure if you accept the spell, but it is mind-control and no mistaking it. Which would you like?”
Heen flattened his ears. “You’re asking if I’d rather have a thumbtack put in my left eye or my right, Master-Couturier!”
I nodded. “The thumbtack is your choice altogether, Mas… Heen. If you don’t want it, we can use usual investigative processes.”
“Oh, I’ll take it, I’ll take it. And, if it’s really a question of which eye gets the thumbtack, one’s as bad as the other, so I’ll take the Ruloc spell and get the full confidence for no more Mentador,” said Heen.
“A brave choice!” I said. |
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