Mirrored from Sythyry.

Later that afternoon, I cornered Namie in her bedroom. She had a messy pile of old clothes in one corner that she slept in, a few cushions, a closet full of the monochrome cloaks that she wore when she had to wear anything, and not much else. One perpetual light spell; apartments inside of Kismirth have no windows, and I don’t think Namie can afford candles. No art to soften the stark white meng walls and ceiling and floor. As un-Heavenly a place as possible.

(And yes, whenever anyone talks seriously about killing gods, the matter is immediately referred to the nearest available wizard, in this case, me. Or, if there is no wizard to be found, one gets the nearest available fur-stylist or puppeteer. The results are equally good.)

(And no, I can’t remember anyone ever discussing deicide in any sort of serious terms before.)

Me: “You want to kill Mircannis, the goddess of healing.”

Namie: “Yes! She must die! The sooner the better!”

Me: “What happens then?”

Namie: “Her wickedness is revenged upon!”

Me: “Wickedness is such a gelatinous term. She’s one of our nicer deities. Still, leaving aside the practical matter of how you can manage deicide, do you know what killing her will do?”

Namie: “Wizard, you are a child compared to me, a snidlet with of a tiny fraction of my age.”

Me: “And the reciprocal of a tiny fraction of your education! You didn’t even know what a ‘child’ was until seven years ago. Whereas I have studied theoretical theology with Ghulmannis himself!” Afram oa Ghulmannis being the first professor of theoretical theology I remembered; he was an adequate teacher and an adequate scholar, but nobody famous. I could trust that Namie had no idea of that.

Namie: “Well, I daresay you’re going to stay here until you tell me, or chase me through the corridors and avenues shouting theological theory at me. So talk.”

Me: “For one thing, it will deprive all that lives on the World Tree of healing, for as long as she stays dead.”

Namie: “A pregnancy-length without healing? That is nothing! I sometimes go for that long without the slightest injury!”

Me: “You’re being heartless and foolish. The World Tree is a violent place; accidents are frequent. Actually I have no idea how long she’d stay dead. Probably for just an instant. Perhaps forever.”

Namie: “What, she is so ill-liked that her sisters wouldn’t re-enbody her?”

Me: “I don’t think that creator gods reincarnate each other by pregnancies, the way you did in Heaven. I have no idea how they do it, if at all. We’ve only seen one god die — Hressh-Huu — and she’s simply a very large air elemental, more different from a creator god than you are from a pigeon pie. Mircannis resurrected her in an instant, and a good thing too or everyone would have died from lack of air.”

Namie: “I do not care about such things! Mircannis must die for creating a Heaven as her private torture chamber! When she returns she will be more considerate!”

Me: “She’s one of our nicest deities. And if we started blaming deities for everything that’s wrong with their worlds, what are we hoping for? Are they to stop creating worlds unless they’re perfect? We’d have lots fewer worlds then. And besides, everyone thinks that your world is an attempt to be perfect.”

Namie: “My world is a perpetual swirling of psychological and philosophical stagnation!”

Me: “Why don’t you try to figure out what a perfect and endurable and wonderful universe would be? Then see if a couple World Tree natives agree with you — one prime and one non-prime, say. You might ask Vae as the non-prime. She thinks about that sort of thing a lot, and, if anyone in Kismirth were able to help you fight a goddess (and nobody is), it would be Vae.”

Namie: “Now you’re trying to get me killed and buried and un-resurrected and away from your twispy little goddess.”

Me: “Well, no. If I were trying to kill you, I’d just do it.” Which is utterly untrue! I do not kill my friends, clients, acquaintances, siblings of friends, fellow primes, or anyone else I take seriously. Even if, say, they betray me and embezzle everything I own.

Namie: “You are the very tail of Mircannis! So awful and rude!”

She turned and buried herself in sleeping-cloths, and refused to come out or talk more even when I poked her foot with a claw. At which point I seemed to have a choice between actual violence (such as pouring a cup of water on her and on her bed, or, as a later resort, breathing my candleflame breath barely-weapon on her exposed toes) or retreat.

Me: “I cannot imagine how Namie could be a threat to Mircannis. Namie is very quick with a dagger, to be sure, but she has no magic, and in any case all magic comes from Mircannis herself or from her friends and relatives. Nor, I think, is there anywhere on the World Tree a dagger which could hurt her. Indeed, Mircannis is not even reachable without considerable travel. So the main danger seems to be that Namie will hurt herself in some extravagant attempt. I could give her a bodyguard.”

Namie: [muffled] “I will knife any bodyguard, piercing them to death!”

Me: “That you won’t.”

Theological Considerations of Deicide

Me: “… And that’s the full story, Arch-Preceptor Lenske, save for whatever details I have forgotten.”

Lenske: “A story indeed!” He is the oldest mortal Rassimel I can think of having met lately; his fur is quite white. Maybe he bleaches it to match his robes. His ecclesiastical rank entitles him to wear a wooden crown carved with cherries, which he does does with grace and aplomb.

Me: “What should I do?”

Lenske: “Clearly you should prevent this Namie from killing Mircannis.”

Me: “How…?”

Lenske: “I would not dream of trying to teach you wizardry. However, given the power gap between the two, anything you do, up to and including using the fullness of your abilities to help her kill Mircannis, will prevent Namie from killing Mircannis.”

I disentangled that a bit.

Me: “So, anything I do will keep Namie from killing Mircannis?”

Lenske: “Precisely.”

Me: “This does not leave me much more advised than before.”

Lenske: “What have you done so far?”

Me: “I have imprisoned Namie in the Supremely Slow Sector, so that three months of our time is just one day for her. She is guarded by a floating silver Khtsoyis golem of admirable power, which watches her constantly and — in principle — keeps her out of trouble.”

Lenske: “What if she stabs it?”

Me: “She has done, several times. The automaton repairs itself though, more quickly than she can stab. Also it takes her knife away whenever she stabs it.”

Lenske: “An estimable precaution!”

Me: “Still, a temporary one. In the long term — which is now eighty-one times as long as it might be — what should we do with her?”

Lenske: “Sadly, I lack useful advice. If you had imprisoned the goddess Mircannis herself, or even one of her angels, I should be happy to tell you more. Namie, though, is outside the scope of my theology.”

Me: “She is a creation of Mircannis.”

Lenske: “As am I. Nonetheless I do not feel moved to kill my creator. You must look elsewhere for advice.”

See sythyry.livejournal.com for a poll about advice

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Afterwards, Simmerene lay with her muzzle between Folded’s breasts, exhausted. Folded petted her ears. “If this is what body-play with a Cani is like, I wonder that Cani do anything else!”

“Well, I was pretty inspired. I’ve never been like that before. You two are beautiful and glorious to me. You’ve got just what I like best, and lots of it,” said Simmerene.

Octagons spread her huge ears. “I’m glad you enjoyed it! But what does beauty have to do with body-play?”

“Don’t you find yourself extra-excited when you’re with someone beautiful?” asked Simmerene.

The two Elfimel blinked at each other. Octagons turned back to Simmerene. “I’ve played that game a million times, give or take, but this is only the fifth time with someone who didn’t look just like me and like everyone else I knew.”

“Except Thefefy,” added Folded. “She didn’t look quite like the rest of us.”

“I never pleasured with Thefefy,” said Octagons. “Not after the first thousand cycles or so, anyhow.”

Simmerene petted one of her favorite parts of Octagons. “Who is Thefefy? I thought you said nobody had names in Heaven?”

“Oh, Thefefy wasn’t a somebody like the rest of us. She’s the goddess of Heaven,” said Folded. Simmerene looked baffled, so Folded continued, “You’ve got a lot of gods. We only ever had four, counting Mircannis the creator, and Thefefy was the only one who stayed for long.” She tapped Octagons on the muzzle. “You — how is it you never pleasured with Thefefy?”

Octagons giggled and flapped her huge ears. “You can call me by name here! Thefefy isn’t listening. Anyways, I didn’t like her. She kept us trapped in Heaven, and wouldn’t let us change anything or have names. Mircannis made Heaven the way Mircannis wanted it, said Thefefy, and even if Mircannis wasn’t there anymore she, Thefefy, would keep it just so.”

“Why did Mircannis leave?” asked Simmerene.

“Heaven was pretty boring, even for the gods who made it. We think her other projects, like the World Tree, were much more interesting,” said Octagons. “I think so to! I like it here much more!”

“I don’t,” said Folded. “It’s too much for me. All the people! And if I annoy someone, they’ll remember it for always and hold it against me! And it’s all about who is prime and who isn’t — and I’m not!”

“But you can make friends here!” said Octagons.

“You couldn’t in Heaven?” asked Simmerene, a bit lost in the conversation.

“Well, you never were sure that you were talking to the same person. We all liked each other most of the time, and we didn’t usually have much of consequence to talk about. But every once in a while … Well, once someone said she’d meet me by the eighth silver pyramid for a game right away, but she wanted a drink of water on the way. She didn’t know I could watch her from the pyramid, and see that she didn’t get a drink, she just went over and lay on the side of the fourteenth pyramid for a nap, and leave me alone. You could break any date or appointment you wanted, and usually nobody could tell it was you who did it. This time I was watching and I knew it was her. I ran down and bit her in the leg! Then I made a point of being as bad to her as I could, until the bite-marks healed. Like we’d be pleasuring, and I’d stuff a spiky fruit in, and run away while she was trying to get it out.”

“She was a friend?” asked Simmerene, baffled.

“No! She was the closest relationship I had with anyone for a hundred thousand cycles. Then Namie gave us names, and we used them for a little while in public, and I actually made friends with Folded and a few others. Then Thefefy made us stop using names. Most of the Elfimel did stop. A few of us kept meeting in secret and letting each other know who we were — Folded would bring along a folded leaf, and I’d have a few octagonal berries,” said Octagons.

“We’re still friends! The only reason I’m not back in Heaven now is, I’d miss Octagons too much,” said Folded. “And I don’t trust the demon to get me back, of course.”

A third Elfimel stomped out from behind the peach curtains. “You are an inconstant one, Folded!”

“Hallo, Namie,” said Folded.

“You should not go back to Heaven! You must stay here and help me kill Mircannis!” said Namie.

Simmerene, overwhelmed with the monstrousness of the situation, fled.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

After the soup was stirred, bowled, and set in abayance, came the cutlets stuffed with crab and peas. After the cutlets stuffed with crab and peas came ten thousand carrots braised in butter. After ten thousand carrots, there were asparagus cheese rolls, in which a stalk of asparagus is rolled in a thin slice of potent and perilous cheese. (Arfaen notes that the cheese is, in fact, a very sweet and calm mozzarella sort of thing.) And after the asparagus cheese rolls, there was the end of the day’s work.

“And, if you can face more asparagus cheese rolls and braised carrots, you could come with me to the Fucked-*P Firefly,” said Simmerene.

“That sounds like food!” said Octagons agreeably.

The leftovers from Arfaen’s kitchen had not quite made it to the Fucked-*P Firefly, so the two helped themselves to an assortment of curried cauliflower, cashew-and-gerbil stew, cold cheese pancakes, and eggs scrambled with beetle scraps.

“What’s the food in the Heaven of Mircannis like?” asked Simmerene.

“Oh, some places have fruit, and some have sandwiches, and so on,” said Octagons. “There’s not that much variety. We didn’t cook, at all.”

“You’ve learned a lot about cooking though!”

Octagons smiled. “Heaven has plenty of food and sex, but it’s missing some things. There’s usually not much purpose to anything we do. Here, I’m making soup — and Arfaen cares that I do it right — and the people who eat it care too. And you’ll never realize the wonder of having people eat food that I make until you’ve lived a hundred and eighty thousand cycles without ever doing truly anything for anyone else.”

Then she had to explain what a “cycle” was — Heaven was shaped like a ring of nine rooms, with the residents meandering around the ring (always in the same direction, not for any particular reason, they just started out that way and never had any reason to change it), and once around the ring was a cycle. So a cycle might be a few hours, or a few months, and so Octagons has no idea whether she’s younger than the oldest primes, or older, or if the question even makes sense.

Then: “Food and sex, is it?” asked Simmerene.

“Food, sex, board games, dagger-fighting, singing about how much we like Mircannis and the other gods, swimming or bathing, dancing in fountains, excreting, resurrecting, and self-torture for when all the fun things get to be a bit too much.”

Simmerene planned her approach for an instant. (Some people say that Cani are the most lustful of all the prime species, and certainly even the sweetest of Cani — like Arfaen — can get stuck in a very horndog mode. I think it’s a design feature, by Reluu, to keep the largish group marriages happy.) “Do you have a wife there?”

Octagons laughed. “Oh, there is no marriage in Heaven. We don’t even have names; it’s heretical to even try to figure out who each other are. Imagine marrying someone, and then not knowing which of the eight-hundred-ninety-nine others you were married to!”

“You have a name though, don’t you, Octagons?”

Octagons nodded. “I was a bit of a rebel there. A few of us picked names and used them in secret. ”

Simmerene said, “So you’re a refugee from Heaven? From a horrible world of endless sex and food and games and sex?”

“It wasn’t a horrible place. Just a bit bland.”

Simmerene inevitably asked, “How do you feel about the World Tree?”

“It’s a lot more interesting! And a lot more exciting. I don’t fit in terribly well.”

Simmerene circled her target a bit more, saying, “Do you have any lovers here?”

Octagons missed the subtlety. “My sisters Folded and Namie, certainly! It’s a bit strange, calling them by name out loud … but we live somewhat as we did in Heaven.”

Simmerene kept her disappointment invisible. “What species are they? I didn’t see anyone who looked like you in the kitchens.”

“Oh, they don’t work at the kitchen … they don’t work at all actually. Folded finds Kismirth overwhelming except in tiny doses, so she mostly stays home. Namie has her own plans, which I think are stupid, but she’s determined,” said Octagons. “You look like you’re done eating — Come visit! I’d like Folded to meet some more primes!”

Simmerene hopped up, and the two paid for their food with a modest handful of terch. “Have you had any prime lovers, Octagons?”

“Only three,” said Octagons. “I’ve mostly been doing other things. Like cooking!”

“How did you find them?” asked Simmerene, as if innocently.

“The Orren man was very, very strange. There are no males in the Heaven of Mircannis, so I’m just not used to the body like that. I kept reaching for his chest to be nice that way, and finding nothing there! Or trying to put a finger inside of him, like I have done many hundred thousand times with all my lovers, and there’s no way in. The females were nice though!” Octagons’ tone was utterly commonplace.

“What appeals to you in a girl, Octagons?” asked Simmerene.

“Oh, a particularly artful arch of the tail, perhaps. We never had clothes in Heaven, since clothes would tell us apart. I was always partial to watching my sisters lift their tails and dive into the water, and sometimes when they came out I’d share sex with them.”

“What do you think of Cani tails?” asked Simmerene. She flipped her tail up this way and that.

“Pretty!” chirped Octagons, without taking the bait or even noticing that there was bait to take. “Your fur is all light, and you’ve braided it. Mine is so heavy and fluffy it sometimes feels like a club, especially when it’s wet. But here we are at my home!”

Simmerene followed Octagons through the door, into one of the I-have-no-idea-how-many suites inside of Kismirth. “It’s so … so … peach, in here.” Octagon’s front door opened directly into a parlor of sorts, and the sorts were peach sorts: canopies and tapestries of peach cloth, folding over peach cushions.

“That’s for Folded. It reminds her of home, and makes her feel comfortable,” said Octagons.

“Sister? Octagons? Come to me — I’ve been alone all day!” called a voice from behind a curtain. Octagons pushed the curtain aside, revealing a thoroughly nude Elfimel splayed out on a massive pillow.

Octagons shed clothing and sat by her, touching her in ways that Simmerene thought usually would require privacy, or at least a quick check of Folded’s mood. Folded responded without any particular embarrassment or hesitation; evidently the attention was not unwelcome. Simmerene’s ears drooped, and the Cani girl noticed that she, herself, was not immune to embarrassment, nor to jealousy, nor to reflected lust.

“We follow the customs of Heaven in here, like I said. Come join us if you like!” said Octagons.

Simmerene’s ears flattened completely, and her tail brushed the floor. She almost fled, for the situation was too strange. But she noticed, hardly for the first time, the intense and monumental feminity of the two Elfimel. She kicked off her shoes and scrambled over to bury herself in it.

In some ways it was Simmerene’s favorite fantasy: her particular weakness, available in vast and eagerly compliant quantities. In other ways, there was less erotic tension than in any of her previous encounters. Whenever their mouths were free, the two Elfimel chatted about the day — what Octagons had been cooking, what Folded has been dreaming of — without any particular acknowledgment of desire. Perhaps there was no desire, or not as Simmerene felt the honeyed knout of desire that day. There certainly wasn’t any sense of urgency. At most there was curiosity: the Elfimel were as unused to Cani bodies as the Cani to Elfimel.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Arfaen, wearing the official kitchen pinafore on the off chance that she actually got to do any cooking that day, was sitting on her throne. It’s not very regal as thrones go. It’s a five-legged stool with a spinning seat, on a Herethroy-high truncated pyramid of a platform in the middle of the main kitchen. (We do not let space go to waste. It’s not a solid platform; it is full of spare pots and stoves and useful-but-not-that-useful tools.) From there, Arfaen can oversee about a quarter of what goes on in her domain.

Simmerene looked up to her and wagged her tail. With her ears set just so and the fur of her face lying like that, it clearly meant “I am scared and would like to talk about something, but it’s not an immediate problem.”

Arfaen spun the stool to face her. “Good afternoon, Simmerene. What’s disturbing you?” She held her ears and whiskers in that special angle that clearly (to another Cani) indicates “I am busy and important, and you are but a peripheral member of my pack, so I will pay attention and be helpful but, unless the situation really calls for it, I will give you only so much of my time and attention.”

“It’s that woman you set me working with…”, said Simmerene. The careful closing of an eyelid and twitching of a cheek said quite obviously, “She’s a nonprime, a monster, from another universe. How do you expect me to work with her? How do you know she won’t turn into a spiky tentacled horror and kill us all and spoil the soup?”

“Octagons the Elfimel, yes,” said Arfaen. She quirked two fingers in that gesture which has clearly hinted, “She certainly is an alien and a monster, but she is a para-prime. If you treat her as a Rassimel, you will not find yourself too disappointed. I personally have visited her home universe, and know her history and her powers.”

“You know about her?” asked Simmerene. She dipped her muzzle and opened her jaws a touch, as if to say, “How monstrous is she? Do I dare to work near her?”

“Oh, completely,” said Arfaen. She stretched one leg in that angle that connotes, “She is perfectly safe. I do not fear to work with her, and neither should you. Please make the attempt. If you really can’t manage it, I will find you another job; but do make the attempt.”

(Arfaen, by the way, says that I am utterly exaggerating how Cani communicate, and that everything but the most straightforward emotional content was done with words. She was there, and I was not, so how could she possibly have it right? Also, she claims that she told Simmerene about Octagons beforehand. But who do you trust — me, or Arfaen?)

“Thank you!” said Simmerene, wagging her tail in that precise rhythm which says, Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you! Oh, by the way, I accept your affan in this situation! Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!” (Arfaen says that this translation is about right.)

Arfaen smiled. “All is good now?” The lolling of her tonguetip indicated that: “While I know the situation is actually perfectly fine, I understand that you are a skittish person, and out of respect for your personal troubles and insecurities I will take care of you as necessary, but you must make the effort.” (I am sure that Arfaen would say that this translation was spot-on, if I were to show it to her in advance, which I am not.)

Simmerene leapt a bit. “All is!” She turned around and scampered back to the soup-stove.

Arfaen glanced at Simmerene as she walked off. Simmerene was wiggling her rump in the traditional way in which Cani say, “I have a Thing for the Rassimel women with expansive bosoms, and this Thing extends to Elfimel at least, if not actually all sorts of para-Rassimel, though I believe Octagons and her sisters are the only para-primes of any sort in Kismirth.”

“I wonder how that will end up?” said Arfaen to herself.

“Forgive me, Octagons. Arfaen said you’re fine and trustworthy and safe,” said Simmerene, and took up her fan again.

Octagons smiled. “Oh, excellent! I was hoping I was!”

Simmerene smiled back, and brushed the steam away from Octagons’s sweaty face.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

The Plan

I’ve got another few Sythyry stories written, and a couple more to write, to bring that story cycle to a pleasing but doomful conclusion.

But Sythyry’s City isn’t what I had hoped it would be. I had intended Sythyry’s City to be standalone, so that you didn’t need to have read Sythyry’s Vacation in order to follow it, but it’s totally not. I had intended to focus on people other than Sythyry, but I’m not doing that terribly well either.

So, after Sythyry’s City, I am planning to write a different web serial for a while. Something, perhaps, about a small and writey and genderqueer dragon in a large and peculiar and gourmet world with a cast of interesting supporting characters. A new dragon, a new world, a new cast, and a lot more like the way Sythyry was when zie started zir diary.

That’s today’s plan anyhow.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Kitchen Romance

Octagons, when nude, is the gaudiest person in Kismirth — or one of three, anyhow. She is brilliantly colored. She is not the only brilliantly-colored person in Kismirth: I am an intense blue, for one, and some Herethroy are shiny metallic greens or crimsons that put every non-insect to shame, even Octagons. Octagons, and her … let’s call them sisters … are the only people in Kismirth who change color without any effort or conscious will on their part. By a divine design (and yes, Octagons, personally and directly, was created by a god), the colors are always quite beautiful. But they are different every hour or two, or, if one is paying attention to detail, every minute or two.

Not that she worked nude in Arfaen’s vast kitchens. Herethroy could in principle, and I suppose that Khtsoyis might if Arfaen ever hires one, which she has not yet done. Some Zi Ri might — not me, for I have feathers that might get into the stew. (And yes, I sometimes work in her kitchen when things are rough.) But Octagons wore the standard garb that Arfaen insists be worn by everyone with loose fur or feathers: a fairly tight white pinafore or jumper sort of a thing with medium sleeves, waterproof tight silk gloves, and a tight cap. And, yes, everyone in the kitchen wears that, even Arfaen, except for one (1) Herethroy woman who loads the finished dinners on carts and hauls them off, who is allowed to work naked by virtue of (1) not coming in contact with the actual food, and (b) having no fur or whatever, and (γ) she hasn’t worn clothes for thirty years and is not about to start now. We get some strange people here.

Simmerene … I have not seen Simmerene nude, nor am I likely to at this rate. She is a youngish Cani woman with spotted dingo styling, and a Craitheian accent. She came to Kismirth with her styling, her accent, an oversized overcoat, and a collection of minor lacerations, contusions, and the occasional burn. Arfaen gave her some spare clothing, a spare room, and a spare job in the kitchen. This is none too unusual.

Their first conversation took place over cream of beetle soup. Lots of cream of beetle soup: a huge leather cauldron, being heated over another cauldron of water as a gigantic and slightly improvised bain-marie. Octagons, as the more experienced cook, got to stir the soup, with a wooden spoon that could have served as a respectable canoe paddle. Simmerene’s job was to spell Octagons if she tired, or to fan the steam away from her. (Not feeding the fire! We do have some wood stoves, but they’re for food that benefits from the smoke.) This left a lot of time for conversation, for it takes most of an hour for that much cream and pureed beetle-flesh and roast garlic and pureed peppers and seven secret spices to come close enough to a boil but not there yet.

“Why’d you come to Kismirth, Octagons?” asked Simmerene, because she was bored after nine minutes of fanning.

“I’m a refugee. The wrongfolk rescued me, and I’ve stayed with them,” said Octagons.

“Oh, that’s so sad. I’m a refugee too sort of. Refugee from what? Were you getting persecuted because you look … I mean, because of how long your neck is, and how big your … um, your ears are, and how you change color?” Simmerene’s eyes were a bit glued to Octagon’s chest, as they had been for a while. Octagon’s chest is, in fact, distinctly worthy of attention by those who attend to Rassimel bosoms, especially those who appreciate monumentality in their mammality. (While I, myself, do appreciate Rassimel bosoms, I find them intimidating when they are larger than my entire body.)

“Well, from a spare heaven that the goddess Mircannis made. It was a place of physical and emotional luxuries, but very bland compared to the World Tree,” said Octagons.

Simmerene wagged her well-wrapped tail. “I haven’t had a bland life so far. I’m hoping for one here.”

“I don’t think it’s bland here! It’s urgent compared with that heaven. I never worked there — never had the challenge of stirring the soup and someone actually caring if I let it burn,” said Octagons.

“I suppose I don’t want to disappoint Arfaen,” said Simmerene. “Getting fired wouldn’t be good for me, if I want to make a living in Kismirth.”

“If you’re desperate, you could always go be a waitress at the Fucked-*p Firefly, or a prostitute,” said Octagons.

Simmerene fanned at Octagons. “I don’t want to be a prostitute.”

“It sounds like an easy job for a prime,” said Octagons.

“You say that like you’re not a prime,” said Simmerene.

Octagons’ huge ears went flat. “I’m not. The wizards and scholars call me a para-prime, like a prime but from another universe. Made by the goddess Mircannis to people her heaven.”

“Our goddess Mircannis?”

“Yes. Ours too, but it’s the same person.”

“That’s a bit scary. I’ve never worked with a monster before.” Simmerene rather shrank back.

“I’m not very dangerous! Arfaen knows — she’s Sythyry’s consort, and she knows.” said Octagons. She applied herself to stirring the soup. She had had this conversation a hundred times. Usually it ended badly, or at least not well: with a hurried nervous departure of the other, and no return.

Which looked like it was happening this time too.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

The two most likely times for a teleport gate disaster to occur are: (1) the first time that it is used, and (2) some time other than the first. We took especial precautions on (1). We wanted to take especial precautions on (2), but, by definition, any precautions we take on (2) will be our normal precautions, so we were semiotically unable to.

Chief among our precautions was our choice of a place to visit. Gawsoch Gawsond is the Wild and Scaly Llezcaryg’s floating palace of glass, conveniently located on the other side of Choinxeia from Kismirth. (And conveniently the original example of several of our favorite technologies.) The W⅋S Llezcaryg is probably more powerful than all of us put together, and has a muddle of friends who are probably our equals or so. And, just as important, there’s not a city there, just a floating palace. Fewer innocents to get massacred if things go terribly!

Kismirth of course has a vast number of innocents to get massacred if things go terribly wrong. For this reason, the teleport gate there was, for that event, on The Count of Mounting Crisco. [The actual name is ruder than I am willing to print. It is a private skyboat of one of Kismirth's more flagrant, and fragrant, members. -bb] The gate back was on the sky-barge Ravelling Jenny. We could still see Kismirth in the distance, at night.

We drew lots for who would open the gate the first time. This is a wee bit of glory, and a wee bit of danger. Unsurprisingly, Phaniet won. (Unsurprising? It wouldn’t have been surprising no matter which of the nine people in the lottery won.)

Very surprisingly, the gate from Crisco to the outward pier of Gawsoch Gawsond opened up just as naturally as if it had been doing it every day from the beginning of the world. The gate from Jenny to the inward pier of Gawsoch Gawsond opened up just as naturally as if the world had always had a quick way from there to there, only somehow nobody had noticed it.

Vae had pre-cast a dozen spells of mutatory investigation. The pillar of purple fire would have instantly become a bear thumping on a huge drum on the slightest sign of injury to the universe. The cauldron of live seven-headed serpents swimming in yogurt broth would, if anyone came to visit from another dimension, instantly become a missile full of considerably larger and more intensely spiced serpents. And so on. No such event happened; the pre-cast spells remained in their latent and comforting state. (“Comforting” if one is a nendrai, I suppose.)

hCevian had few preparations to make. He sparkled blackly along the gate, prodding at the fundamental structure of the universe with his many and orthogonal spikes. Everything seemed solid.

The rest of us inspected the spellcraft with our own senses, much less exotic, and with our assorted devices, also much less exotic. We have spinning crystal lenses to watch. We have ivory wands, which curve increasingly sharply as space is more and more damaged. We have glass tubes of colored fluid, which might boil frantically. We have a huge wooden gong-drum, which will produce massive and resounding thumps should anything be amiss. We have fine wires of gold and of brazinion, in amber bulbs, which writhe and twist in response to even the most minor spatial untowardnesses. And we have abaci and meters which count interesting events, such as people walking across. Everything seemed reasonable.

So we drew lots again, eight of us — Phaniet’s victory having excluded her from the drawing — and Saza won. “Tell all my lovers I thought of them fondly in my last instant!” zie cried, and dived into the gate, rather the way that one dives into a pond which one has been told is pleasantly warm, but which one suspects of actually being icewater if not downright frozen solid.

And of course zie was nowhere to be seen after that.

However, rejoiceful fireworks were to be seen from Ravelling Jenny.

As noted, this story has no plot, conversation, intrigue, alliteration, or even doom. Everything seemed to be going exceedingly well, just as the Space Seminar had calculated at its most optimistic. So we installed the two long-range teleport gates on long piers extending from Kismirth, on opposite sides. (To provide even less doom — I am writing this nearly a year after it happened, and, to date, we have had only one (1) extradimensional intruder of godlike power and transcendant malice, and that wasn’t the gate’s fault.)

Later that afternoon, The W⅋S Llezcaryg personally stopped by, to (1) congratulate us on our amazing construction, and (2) request that we turn it off so that the gangs of delighted and space-crazed youngsters would stop running through it and through zir glass palace. Which we did. We even remembered to turn off the “out”-gate first, and leave the “home”-gate on for a while, so that the D⅋SC youngsters got back to Kismirth.

Talujjan and I enjoyed a rather spectacular night together that night, and by “together” I very much mean “together”. Then he departed for parts unknown the next morning — starting by taking the Talujjan Gate to Vheshrame — and, despite a number of well-written leaves sent his way, has not graced me with more than five sentences in that nearly-a-year-after-it-happened.

Flaenstra’s story is not nearly so cheerful. Or perhaps it is! Perhaps Glikkonen cheerfully realized how horribly unprofessional and inappropriate she was behaving, and the two of them cheerfully agreed that she would no longer work for zir, pursue zir romantically, or encounter zir in any way. It could have been cheerful, pleasant, and morally edifying, for all I know. Flaenstra is currently living in Kismirth, where the Smith’s Guild is easy to join. She does not speak with me. Either she doesn’t much like Zi Ri any more, or she thinks I will write about her again.

The shorter-range but still quite respectable gates are mostly constructed and installed. We are still trying to work out schedules and sites, but lots and lots of people are coming through Kismirth now. This is largely a good thing.

Anyhow, as the fact that I took several years to write this quite important story down, and that I chose to emphasize whatever crumbs of doom I could find more than the serious technical achievements of our gang of deep-mages, suggests that I am going to have to find more doom soon.

Don’t worry! I will!

My translator was saying there was some sort of controversy about sluttishness on one of the worlds it comes from. Perhaps my point of view is simplistic, but the following quiz expresses my calculus fairly well.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Naming

Phaniet picked me up by both wings, and all but threw me into the fireplace. “OK, lizard. What’s this I hear about calling it the ‘Talujjan Gate’?”

I picked myself up with all available dignity, and sat on a comfortably burning log of arken-wood. “Talujjan offered to waive his fee in exchange for giving it that name. It seemed like an excellent deal.”

Phaniet frowned. “Where, precisely, was he when he made this offer?”

“We were having a private discussion,” I said. I never lie to Phaniet.

“A detailed discussion?” she asked.

“Rather detailed,” I admitted.

“And where precisely was your tail, in this detailed discussion?” she asked.

“… out of the way,” I had to admit.

“So our glory-seeking Orren wizard seduced you and got you to give him the biggest dose of glory? Sythyry, some days you’re simply made of soft taffy. Anyone can twist you around their finger without half trying,” said Phaniet.

I sputtered, “That’s not true!”

“Right, it’s not true. That wasn’t a finger he was twisting you around,” said Phaniet.

I bravely and diligently attempted to bury myself in ashes, because that was true. “But the other long-range gate will be the Feralan Gate.”

“Not the Disastro Gate? … I do see your point there,” said Phaniet. We hadn’t been able to persuade Feralan to change his all-too-appropriate last name. “So you’re putting your new Orren playmate in parallel with your apprentice. Let it never be said that you lack the traditional Zi Ri powers of perplexion!”

“Well, Talujjan wants it, and without them we wouldn’t be able to do it. And having a famous and powerful artifact named after him will surely help Feralan’s reputation,” I said.

“That’s not all Talujjan wants … And hopefully the famous and powerful artifact will inspire a good reputation. I still don’t trust it not to rip a hole in the universe or some other such treat.” (We have had this discussion several times. There’s no good reason to fear that, unless we and all the spare wizards and scholars who checked our work missed something huge. (Well, I admit that I too am afraid of it — not for any good reason — but because the tradition of space magics going wrong is very traditional, and very well established in history and fiction.))

Phaniet frowned. “And the other gates?”

“Every one of us who wants, gets a shorter-range gate named after them. We’ve got more gates than people on the project. I don’t have plans for the rest.”

I did not mention asking my offworld friends for names. She might not approve.

We need names for teleport gates! Chances are these names will be spoken many times a day by people giving directions. (Some tiny chance, which we have made as small as we can, they will be spoken with horror for centuries.)

After this poll is polled, we will have another poll to vote for names.