People for the Ethical Treatment of Scluds: Hating Kismirth part 3

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Chiver was truly in a bad way. His beatiful black fur had been carelessly hacked off much of his body, leaving him looking largely scrawny and shrivelled. Except for his belly — a touch round most of the time, for as a restauranteur’s partner he ate quite well — which was hideously distended. He looked up at Niia, whined a bit, and vomited prodigiously at her feet.

“Oh, no, this is terrible! What happened, Chiver?”

“They … raped me with wooden pipes … and … filled me with gushflush,” gasped Chiver. A bout of diarrhea seized him.

Niia crouched by his side, and tried with all her cley and all her Rassimel connection to the Healoc god to cure him. It did no good, or not much. Chiver mewled, “It hurts, Niia, it hurts…” Which it surely did. Gushflush in its nicest and most medical form is a vicious mixture of emetics, diuretics, and laxitives. A spoonful is a mediocre but cley-free way to purge poisons out of a victim in a hurry — though, more often, used as a legitimate alternative to a public whipping in some cities. Chiver had been given a more potent version, laced with chilis and horseradish so that all of his bodily emissions would be painful, and a Sustenoc spell so that they would continue for some long time.

“Praline! Go get a healer!” said Niia, and she held her stinking lover despite the filth. “Chiver, what can I do to help you?”

“A pail, get me a pail, there’s another wave coming up soon, ” he moaned, and vomited again. Niia handed him a kitchen towel to wipe his mouth, and a chalice of water to lap.

“I’ll do that, Chiver,” said Niia softly. She carried her beloved to the pantry of her cafe, seated him on a dutch oven and gave him another to vomit into, and did her best to see to his needs, and to lessen his great suffering. He mewled gratefully to her.

Inside the cafe, some patrons noticed that the last chef had run off, and left the restaurant in despair of getting their food. Some other patrons smelled the aggressive stench of Chiver’s effluvia, and left the restaurant in disgust. Some others caught a glimpse of Chiver’s condition, and knew what it meant, and left the restaurant for political reasons or simple caution. When the healer came, not a single patron was left.

The healer glanced at Chiver, and spread her antennae. “I can do nothing about this.”

“What, nothing? Maybe you’re not skilled or clever enough to cure it, but you can surely come up with some anaesthetic spells. Or at least something to put him to sleep ’til it wears off!” snapped Niia.

The healer shrugged her four shoulders. “I heal disesases and injuries. This is a punishment for some serious offense. Ameliorating its symptoms would make it less of a punishment, and, thus, require its repetition or more. I will do nothing about this.”

Niia bristled. “A punishment? What court has condemned him to this? What mediator has agreed to it? What crime is he being punished for?”

The healer sniffed. “Being an uppity and resistant glate, if I interpret the signs properly. Being a sclud.”

“What, you think he deserves this? You think anyone deserves this sort of torture?”

The healer flicked her tailtip. “I think that any optime would find it utterly appropriate for persons of late generation who refuse the instruction of their predecessors and betters.”

“Tzantschalffer! What is this nonsense of scluds and optimes? You know us! We are friends — companions in the Choulano Sky-Racing Club! Why, not three weeks ago, we tied for fourth in the aerial race!” protested Niia.

Tzantschalffer shrugged. “At the time, I did not know your generation of origin. In any case, a bit of piloting boats in the same sky is hardly a close or dear friendship. You and your cheap little rented sky-dinghy have no real call on me.” A bit too late, Niia remembered how proud Tzantschalffer was of her skayak of gleaming crimson lacquer, matching her carapace, and how displeased she was that Niia and Chiver had, by skill and luck, made a far inferior rented craft be its equal.

“You are a spot of decay on your noble guild!” snapped Niia. “You condemn where you should assist! Get out! But first — your payment!” She took the dutch oven Chiver had been using as a chamberpot, and flung it into the healer’s face.

“And that will make your situation become wailingly worse!” snapped the healer, and stormed to the kitchen to wash her face in the basin there, and to splash the befouled water all about.

* * *

Seven truly unpleasant hours later, Chiver had managed to get all of the gushflush out of his belly. Niia cleaned him up as best she could, and wrapped him in a tablecloth and an apron. The dinner-hour of the cafe was ruined. The kitchen was in poor shape, as all the staff had run off without doing any cleaning, with cauldrons still boiling on the fires — cauldrons which were now solid with charred goulash. The pantry was even worse, as Chiver had been there for most of the time. Nothing in the pantry was fit for use as food, or should not be.

“Your poor cafe,” whispered Chiver. His throat, and elsewhere, was scored and scoured raw by hours of puking chili-laden gushflush, and he could barely talk.

“Don’t worry about my cafe,” said Niia. “I’ll get it cleaned, I’ll get it going again as good as new in a few days. Let’s get to home, and get you to bed, and face our troubles fiercely on tomorrow.”

* * *

But when they got back to their apartment, they discovered that someone had broken the door in, scattered straw all about, and set it ablaze, so that nearly all they owned was ash. The walls had been carefully fireproofed, though, and the adjacent apartments were unharmed. There was no comfort for them there, either.

Comments

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiousity, does the Vepri movement have any notable presence in Kismirth?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

There are certainly people who agree with its basic tenets about first-generation people being superior: that is a respectable philosophical position and not utterly without physical evidence. If there's any particular Vepri organization, following all of the dubious-or-worse magic theory and such --- or the abhorrent means of social control --- I have not noticed it. It's largely a Creithian phenomenon.

What we do have is a solid contingent of Creithians who moved here rather than endure Vepri rule: many hundred at least, and more coming every week. They don't all stay of course, but many do.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

that is a respectable philosophical position and not utterly without physical evidence

The same could be said of the idea that primes were only meant to be with primes of their own species. Just because some idea is popular doesn't make it right.

What we do have is a solid contingent of Creithians who moved here rather than endure Vepri rule: many hundred at least, and more coming every week

And how many of them are still adherents of Vepri, and just think the Creithian Vepri movement has been a failure because it was infiltrated by too many persons of late generation, and that it would be perfectly fine if real optimes (like them, naturally) had been in control?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The same could be said of the idea that primes were only meant to be with primes of their own species. Just because some idea is popular doesn't make it right.

That too is a respectable philosophical position and not utterly without physical evidence. Neither position is given primacy in Kismirth though!

And how many of them are still adherents of Vepri, and just think the Creithian Vepri movement has been a failure because it was infiltrated by too many persons of late generation, and that it would be perfectly fine if real optimes (like them, naturally) had been in control?

I have not spoken to anyone who admits to thinking that. Perhaps people who think that don't want to mention it to me. But I don't think many Vepri think that the Creithian Vepri movement is a failure. It controls a dozen cities, after all.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

What of the Vepri "incorrectly" declared to be glates thanks to the evil sclud conspiracy that has been attempting to subvert the movement? You might want to make sure they're not just moving to Kismirth in hopes of starting the "true" Vepri movement and doing it "right" this time.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed any such people. But I'm not really about keeping people away from Kismirth based on what they think. If they set about starting any sort of Vepri party themselves, and behaving badly, we will surely deal with them suitably.

[Bard asks Phaniet, who says that she's having eyes kept on a half-dozen such people already, and has sent one pair of spies and provocateurs back to Choulano. -bb]

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

[Good, I'd hate for this section of the journal ending with Sythyry waking up one day to discover shi's no longer in control of Kismirth, and having to flee for hir life while the insurgents massacre the traff population]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[What makes you think it won't?]

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

[I never said it wouldn't; I just said I'd hate it]

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

[Please don't do that...I don't think that would be an appropriate conclusive tone to the story. It'd leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I might be unable to continue reading sythyry if you do that.]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[And what makes you think there'll be any more Sythyry stories after that?]

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

[And that would make me even *more* sad...]

[foomf.livejournal.com]

What have your various gods done when approached about this particular movement?

After all, it seems that they created a number of monsters in order to force primes to recognize and bond with one another, and this is a rather strongly destructive movement with respect to that goal. Or perhaps this was all part of a godly bar bet - seeing how long it would take before the natural arrogance that arises from being special (Prime) becomes self-aggrandizing to the degree that it starts to create hatred and strife sufficient that the primes would wipe themselves out, or just become so weak through "special" inbreeding that they fall easy prey to monsters.

While in general I find the majority of your gods to be meddling, sadistic jerks, I still hope that they will come up with one or two spectacularly appropriate monsters for the Creithian Vepri.

Here's the problem as I see it: your people have not been told how precisely reincarnation works, though you seem to know it when it happens. You have no direct evidence that soul Aleph, a first-generation Gormoror soul having reincarnated as an adventurer for six lives, retains any special qualities over soul Omega, a newly minted Rassimel soul who has become immortal, and thus lived a long life as an adventurer for the same period as Aleph's sum of lives. You have no direct evidence to say that the souls of the originals were in any way better than the current ones, or that the gods haven't chosen to make a number of souls of different qualities for specific purpose.

This alleged superiority of first-generation souls is not the same as being of a recent generation. Were that the case, the Zi-Ri, who reproduce slowly enough, and have very long lives, would have a much higher ratio of "high status" souls; were the Zi-Ri made in the same numbers, or larger numbers, so as to have as high a turnover? I suspect not.

You point out quite reasonably that first-generation PEOPLE were superior in many ways. This does not mean that the RECYCLED SOUL of a first-generation person would be a superior being when bound up to a new body and mind, and a new magerium woven thereby.

It comes down to the fact that they have no way to prove their claim, and while I'd love to assert that it's only spreading because they're being rendered stupider than usual by mentoc magery, I am afraid that it doesn't require magic to get people, especially proud people who have nothing in particular to do with the source of their pride, to flush their reason down the euphemism.


The only ones who can answer this unequivocally are your gods.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I don't know that any gods have been directly interrogated about the Vepri. We tend not to do that; most of our gods are utter liars.

As for the rest -- honest scholars have little evidence on these matters, leaving them up to dishonest scholars to speculate. Some of these dishonest scholars now rule in the Trench.