Sythyry's Journal

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.

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.

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!

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.

In this quiz we probe the depths of evil and wickedness in your heart.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.