Sythyry's Journal

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Clue 1: Alzagonde

Alzagonde got beaten up again. This time she was being careful about who she talked to: a Rassimel family who were quite emphatic that they would never, ever take a different-species tofyof, and how they would be furious if their children ever did either. The conversation was quite friendly, and the family gave a number of anecdotes in which transaffection was averted by this or that measure — or sometimes not. (Their best friend is no longer on speaking terms with a daughter, due to the daughter’s Orren tofyof.)

The conversation was also rather loud, and, of course, took place in a dining establishment suitable to the budget of a graduate student.

Afterwards, a half-dozen tofyofs (four cis, two tranff, for those who care about such details) who had been dining together at the next table — the “Peace and Grace Tofyof Club of Hei-Bogom Island” at its monthly meeting — seriously whomped Alzagonde, cracking her skull, and tossing her into the canal.

Our friend Zineng the Guard-Mage apologized considerably, but of course the the legal repercussions upon the Peace and Grace Tofyof Club were going to be of the most limited sort imaginable. A certain Supreme Lieutenant of the Hanija City Guard did call the Peace-and-Gracers to a guard station, whereupon he scolded them for four sentences, thanked them for their treatment of one of those troublesome foreign complicationists for nine minutes, shared brandy with them, and let them go. The Supreme Lieutenant was one of the many Hanijans caught in the blackmail-storm we unleashed.

Phaniet: “OK, boss. I know you’re not going to listen to me, but I gotta say this. We need to get out of here before something worse happens.”

Me: “Well, we can’t leave yet, not until the Prince is disenchanted, and that’s going to take a lot of work on Saza’s part. Many weeks, at least.”

Phaniet: “Right.”

Clue 2: Wingsa

Zi Ri conversations take place in the fireplace, as often as not. Cuddling is often socially appropriate, though, in this case, we were not. Wingsa does not approve of my social status. (Annoying, that: zie doesn’t care a bit that I’m traff, but zie’s in a frenzy of arrogance that I’m the tofyof and not the keeper.)

Wingsa: “When do you expect that the disenchantment will be finished?”

Saza: “Unfortunately, I have never grafted a body-switching ritual.”

Wingsa: “Then it will be a long time…?”

Saza: “Fortunately, Nanggi-Zi left extensive notes.”

Wingsa: “Then it will be a short time…?”

Saza: “Unfortunately, those notes were in a private cypher.”

Wingsa: “And that delays matters…?”

Saza: “Oh, foh! A cypher. Fortunately, I have already broken it.”

Wingsa: “So it will be soon, then?”

Saza: “Unfortunately, the notes are not so helpful. They refer, after all, to a different ritual. I do not wish to swap my own body with anyone’s.”

Wingsa: “So, not very soon, if you must invent a whole new ritual?”

Saza: “Fortunately, the ritual I wish is a routine variation on the one described in the notes.”

Wingsa: “Fortunate indeed, and, I fear to say, one part of the good fortune therein is that you will be able to depart soon.”

Saza: “Unfortunately, I need to do the work, routine or not.”

Me: “Wait … you wish us to depart soon?”

Wingsa: “I merely note that you should depart soon. Hanija does not approve of your antics.”

Saza: “My antics? The disenchantment of the local nobility? The breaking of vast and evil mind-magics? Or, perhaps, my chaste and dignified relationship with my cousin?”

Wingsa: “Not those precise antics.” Zie glared at me a moment. “People — which is to say, citizens — are uncertain about whether you flout or flaunt our tofyof customs, or, perhaps, both at once.”

Me: “Actually, we got a great many people blackmailed, and some fraction involved in that are unhappy with us for it.”

Wingsa: “Nothing of the sort! Indeed my own involvement was only of the most innocent and tangential sort!”

Saza put zir wing over my shoulder preemptively. I wasn’t going to insult Wingsa, really!

Saza: “Fortunately, that saves us any obligation to investigate the matter further.”

Wingsa: “And the unfortunately?”

Saza: “I wasn’t going to add one.”

Wingsa: “Then I shall: though you will not investigate further, a number of other people will surely do so. I may have to leave the city myself for a decade or two, until certain lies and one-seventh-truths are forgotten.”

Me: “You have my most sincere apologies.”

Wingsa: “Not everything in that mind-lout’s notes was true, I tell you!”

Me: “Of course not. Nanggi-Zi’s point was to harm people. Where truth is not useful, falsehood will serve her just as well.”

Wingsa: [almost smiling] “A useful epigram. I might have it painted over my mansion door, instead of leaving town.”

I dipped my head.

Wingsa: “In any case, you should probably leave, as quickly as may be.”

Clue the Third: Saza

After a suitable while, we said goodbye to Wingsa.

Saza: “You know, it’s not so much that we can’t take Rastomil away from Nanggi-Zi’s tower as that we can’t take him away from her corpse. Well, all four of them need to stay near-together until they’re disentangled. So…”

Within the hour of Wingsa’s departure, we had our Expert Moving Crew — mostly Feralan and hCevian, though most of the Strayway crew got involved — stripping everything valuable or magically significant out of Nanggi-Zi’s tower. Starting with the corpse (magically significant). I’m sure that’s legal. Either Saza owns it (as zir fee for zir wizardry), or some or all of Nanggi-Zi, Kethji, Noshi, and Rastomil do (and they’re all coming with us, some of them voluntarily.)

Would you like to buy some of the evil devices of a horrible mind-wizard, cheap?

I am considering making two unusual districts in the perhaps-to-be-made city. Let's call them Fast Town and Slow Town --- no, the Quick Quarter and the Delay District. The Slow Slum, I hope, is not appropriate.

In the Quick Quarter, time runs nine times faster than outside. One could enter it after breakfast in the regular world, enjoy a full day's worth of whatevers, sleep it off, and leave it at lunchtime in the regular world. Or, one could spend a year in there writing a book, and only the month of Trandary would pass in the regular world. I expect this to be popular with many sorts of people, such as vacationers; we will need to have excellent recreations available within, among other things.

In the Delay District, it runs nine times slower than in normal reality. I don't expect this to be as popular as the Quick Quarter, but if one is working in the Quick Quarter and one does not want to age unduly, one must spend some time in the Delay District.

I could also produce a Quite Quick Quarter and a Doubly Delayed District, eighty-one times faster and slower, for those occasions in which one needs to do a year's worth of work in three days, or ... well, the main use I have thought of is, to wait out an unpleasant term painlessly, such as a statute of limitations, or wait for a rich relative to die. Or, perhaps, if one is under a curse fatal in eighty-one hours, one could go there and hope that the relevant wizards and healers (me, I suppose) could work out a cure in a year -- but this is quite unlikely, since most curses go by days (viz. dawns in the real world) and not by hours.

As far as I know, no other city has such amenities, though certain rooms in certain wizards' manses or ducal palaces work that way. Most people rarely if ever get to have access to time manipulation.

How might you take advantage of one or more of these regions?

What sorts of amenities should we provide in them?

What perils and troubles and problems might arise from them?

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Alzagonde, of course, got into trouble. She could not simply quietly accumulate data about transaffection in Hanija; she felt obliged to do something about it. In certain ways one cannot blame her; a Rassimel cannot easily give up or hide an obsession. In certain other ways, one wishes to blame her quite heartily.

She was hard at work on the thesis that Hanijan-style transaffection is a form of prostitution in which the rich and powerful sexually corrupt the poor and innocent. (Which would seem to be to be pretty much a universal constant — it gives the rich and powerful something to do, after all, and if they weren’t doing that, they’d probably be off doing something much worse, like passing laws regulating other people’s private lives.) Proving this thesis requires interviews with tofyofs and other Hanijan people. Alzagonde has no interest in disproving this thesis; she is not doing that kind of research.

Including, in this case, Guwim Tujawepa. I did not actually meet Guwim, but I imagine her as the brawniest brown beetle that ever braised broccoli. The brawny brown beetle part is attested to by several witnesses, as are her plentiful assortment of shell-markings. The braising broccoli is not. She is a stevedore, not a chef. What she does on her own time may reasonably be imagined as “private”, and may well involve broccoli in ways which I must leave to your imagination.

Alzagonde discovered Guwim’s interesting little family situation by reading the public records of registration of toffitudes. Guwim had three co-daughters, all of them quite handsome. All three of them had, within the last year, become tofyofs. Alzagonde had interviewed Womwo-Nei and Sefhu already, though Ekuna refused to talk to her.

I need a table already:

Alzagonde accosted Guwim at her favorite pub, the Sign of the Crossed Fornacles. She (Rassy) stood her (Hery) to lunch and drinks if She (Rassy) could ask her (Hery) a few questions about herself and her family. “Well, ask away, you foreign complicationist,” said Guwim.

“So, first of all, let me see if I have the right of it,” said Alzagonde, and summarized the table above.

“Yeah — what’s a foreign complicationist want to know about my co-daughters anyhow? Got your snouty-eye out for a pretty little cosi to take away to Foreignland where zie’ll never be seen from again?”

“What? Great Galloping Gods, no, no such thing! I am not the least bit transaffectionate! Any husbands or wives I take will be Rassimel, every last fur-strand of them!” exclaimed Alzagonde.

“What’s that? Herethroy aren’t good enough for you? You damned foreign fluffy-butts are all alike, too stuck-up for a good beetle!”

Alzagonde is somewhat used to this. “I have nothing but the greatest regard and respect for my fellow primes, the Herethroy. I simply have no indecent designs upon you.”

Guwim glared at Alzagonde, waving her antenna. “Are you saying something about what I have indecent designs on me?” She shook a fist in Alzagonde’s face. On her brawny arm was a low-grade dye-inlay or tattoo of a Canimorphic Cani phallus equipped with very a generous Rassimel bosom, squaredancing with a full trio of Heremorphic Herethroy genitalia. Some of her other tattoos are less describable, or, at least, my witnesses refuse to describe them.

Alzagonde did her very best to ignore — nay, even to miss — the indecent designs. “Excuse me, ma’am. I simply mean that I shall not be offending the honor and dignity of your co-daughters.”

Guwim frowned. “Are you saying one of my co-daughters has got something on her?”

“No, just that they’re all three tofyofs, and I want to understand how you taught them and what, if anything, you would have done differently in bringing them up.”

“I brought ‘em up to use anything they got to their best advantage. And what’s that mean but they gonna be tofyofs? They’re co-lovers. They ain’t going to take up a woman’s job on the docks, not my co-daughters. Sure, they could go around sewing cloth or cooking food for a couple lozens a day, there are plenty of bad jobs where they gotta do lots of work for the sake of some fancy fully-folly fumbergines who don’t care a bit about them and will cheat them sure as garlic is in my groin.”

Alzagonde was a determined sort of researcher. “Or, perhaps — did you do something differently for Sefhu, the one who’s a tofyof to a Herethroy, than you did for Womwo-Nei and Ekuna?”

Guwim was a determined sort of fool. “And now are you accusing me of some sort of unfairness? I’ll tell you what, you stripey-wipey foreign complicationist. Have you ever been a mother? Have you ever had three co-daughters all at the same time? What do you know about how to treat your children fairly? I ask you — can you know anything at all about it?”

Alzagonde tried a different tack. “Or did you notice anything different about the three of them? Maybe Womwo-Nei and Ekuna were a bit less moral than Sefhu, or a bit less demure and self-controlled?”

Guwim arose. “I said you could buy me lunch! I didn’t say you could go insulting my co-daughters! They’re all good girls — better than you, you louche foreign complicationist!”

“Yes, but the two that are in transaffectionate tofyof-ships are…”

Guwim silenced Alzagonde with a heavy punch to the muzzle, followed by a double-fisted belly blow, and then, I believe, a kick to the ribs. The two of them, assisted by a mighty Herethroy waiter, agreed that Alzagonde should leave the Sign of the Crossed Fornacles as quickly as possible.

There was some disagreement about whether this departure should be land-based (Alzagonde’s opinion) or aerial (the Herethroy opinion). A compromise was quickly reached, in which Alzagonde flew a short distance, with some assistance from the Herethroy, and then skidded and tumbled for a somewhat longer distance. Unfortunately, a stout-timbered wall disagreed with both horns of the compromise, recommending that Alzagonde prefer commotion to motion.

Guwim clapped the waiter on the back and went back to her lunch, laughing.

Aftermath

I finished binding up Alzagonde’s ribs in herb-rinsed white cloth. “I wish you’d stop offending the natives.”

“You wish I’d stop figuring out how to keep people from turning out like you!” snapped Alzagonde.

“What do you have against wizard-healers who cure their passengers for free?” asked Phaniet curiously.

“You know what I mean!”

“I do. Is it working? Have you figured out how to prevent transaffection, or remove it, or any such thing?” I asked politely.

“I know one thing. I know right from wrong,” snapped Alzagonde. “And I know the gods agree with me!”

“The Creator gods do — or did, at the time of creation, anyhow,” I had to admit. “Probably because they wanted to make sure primes multiplied without distraction — which they did. Some of the Noun Gods are, if anything, traff themselves. And none of the gods are living on the World Tree trying to be people, anyhow, so I don’t see why their opinion matters.”

“It’s a matter of morality and dignity!” proclaimed Alzagonde.

I rather expect I’ll be writing that on her grave, at this rate.

[This isn't about real-life gay marriage. The issues, traditions, physical conditions, and theology are all very different. Sythyry wants to discuss this, though I told zir it was potentially flammible. -bb]

And then there's the perplexing and troublesome question, of what sort of marriages to allow in the city.

Let me cite the best case for restricting marriage to same-species that I can. Each species has its own standard and stereotypical pattern of marriage. Cani marry in packs of a dozen or so. Herethroy, with three sexes and unequal numbers, have an intricate arrangement of intersecting triads. Rassimel tend to find a single soulmate, sometimes two, and mate for life. Orren are usually married to two or three people at a time, with a divorce or new marriage every year or two. Zi Ri establish long-term occasional liaisons with a few conspecifics: one year together, eight years apart, say. Gormoror marry in violent heterosexual pairs. Sleeth mate with whom they feel like, and do not marry. Khtsoyis do something gross, I'm sure.

Anyhow -- given this -- how could a Rassimel marry an Orren, say? If the marriage were in Rassimel style, the Orren would not be able to endure it for long. If it were in Orren style, the Rassimel would soon be plunged into despair at the inevitable breakup.

To which there are, I think, two responses:

1. That is only true in stereotype. Some Cani certainly prefer pack marriages. Some -- my own keeper Arfaen -- never found that comfortable, and prefer an Orrenish or (if I must be honest) even a Sleethish style of living. Phaniet has a Rassimel-style [quasi]marriage with Este and seems to prosper in it, though I think Este the Rassimel is more comfortable with the small-for-Cani size of it.

   So, should a Cani with a Sleethish marriage style --- or one not described by any prime species --- be compelled to marry as a Cani? It will not work well!

2. So what? Even if it were true -- true generally, or true in a particular instance --- why should people not be allowed to do things against their nature in this regard? Even things that are likely to end up badly? We do not, for example, forbid the fighting of duels --- we do not forbid gambling, or drinking to the point of sickness and inevitable hangover --- we do not forbid the making of investments that might fail --- we do not forbid a thousand other ways in which a person might risk a greater or lesser disaster. Marriage is a voluntary act (pace the arranged marriages common in certain social strata, which are, in any case, always cisaffectionate). If it goes bad, the victims are the ones who chose it in the first place. So by what rationality do we forbid this one out of the many?

Anyhow, the argument about whether to allow cross-species marriages is more or less irrelevant. If the wrongfolk found a city, cross-species marriages will be allowed in it, and we shall see how that works.

The practical question is, what sort of laws should govern marriages? Ideally the same laws would apply to huge Cani pack marriages and Rassimel couples, to crystalline Herethroy and fluid Orren matters --- and of course to all the combinations.

And, there is the question of tofyofs and prostitutes. I certainly don't want the part of the tofyof laws that forbid all body-play outside of a marriage or tofitude. On the other hand, it is quite likely that the city will be a tourist spot, and that a significant part (let us be realistic) of the tourism will be the sex trade -- probably more of it cross-species than usual. I want to have some laws that protect the workers in that profession. What should those laws be?

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Hanija doesn’t have ordinary, proper broadsheets. Instead, it has a small sort of handbook or magazine, usually of twenty-four pages, printed on every even-numbered day of the month, and sold for rather more than one might expect a proper broadsheet to be sold for. The bindings on the news-magazines are terrible, as one might expect from a news-magazine written and published in a frantic hideous hurry. Oddly enough, the research and the writing is not terrible; it’s actually pretty decent. If you can read Hanijan, of course.

Zineng (né Guard-Mage) can read Hanijan fluently. (I can too, at the rate of a sentence every three minutes, which means that I only bother with the news-magazines when, um, someone who can read Hanijan fluently tells me I ought to.) He — in his official capacity as the Hanijan Guard’s Liaison upon Foreign Wizards Now Disenchanting Assorted Hanijan Citizans (LUFWNDAHC) — stopped by to chat, as he does every day or two. “Did you see what Embarrass the Embezzling Official said about your friend Sehkidi?” Sehkidi being the judge in my tofyof case.

“Alas, I am afraid that I neglected to steal a copy of Embarrass the Embezzling Official this morning. I thought it was a spell, you see, and I was so disappointed when it turned out to be a news magazine that I didn’t even think of buying it,” I said. It does sound rather like a spell. “Also, I do not befriend everyone who tosses me in a wet and stinking dungeon cell. You are somewhat of the exception. I don’t believe I’ve even seen Sehkidi since my public beating.”

“Well, it doesn’t come out today. Yesterday’s did a bit of a three-club rhumba on him, though,” said Zineng. “He is accused to taking bribes in several canal-leakage cases, and favoring his brother-in-law many legal circumstances.”

“Pity I didn’t know that a few weeks ago. I’d have bribed him to let me off,” I said. This got me a frown, for Zineng is quite the devoted civil servant.

“He’s not the only one,” said Zineng. “Judges, guild heads, princes, legislators, master-surveyors — all of them accused of any number of crimes, and all the accusations come with a fine leather briefcase full of evidence, summarized in the nicest calligraphy I’ve ever seen in anonymous accusations.”

“Simply accusations, is it?” asked Phaniet.

“Well, we haven’t had time to track down a twelfth part of it yet, but not simply accusations. Every bit of evidence we’ve been able to confirm was correct. And the accused know it, too. Sehkidi packed a rucksack full of jewelry and lozens, and left town in a rampaging rush before noontime. Great lords and notables are tottering and falling like candle-pins, Sythyry, and it’s all your doing.”

“That it is not. I didn’t know a thing about Sehkidi, I swear it — I’ve been too busy with this disenchantment business — you know it, you’ve been here with me quite often.” I was actually worried, though. I can stretch a minute quite long, and Zineng knows it.

“I’m not accusing you of doing it yourself,” he said.

“Do I have to find alibis for everyone on board, then?” I asked.

“No, no, it’s not that. I know perfectly well who is responsible, and it’s not you: it’s Nanggi-Zi. She left some nice treats for all sorts of people, to be delivered if she ever chanced to be killed or incapacitated or inconvenienced. A sort of posthumous gift, arranged to try to discourage the city from ever letting her become posthumous.”

I protested, “She’s still prehumous! Well, the part of her that’s in Jagraton’s body is. Her own body is a touch dead. But that’s not my doing — it’s been dead for years and years.”

Phaniet nodded grimly. “Well, thank you for the warning. We’ll hurry as much as we can on the spellbreaking, and leave the city immediately afterwards.”

“No we won’t!” I squeaked indignantly. “We’ve endured weddings, imprisonments, and mind-wizards here, and we’re not going to be chased away by a bit of blackmail! Besides, I don’t think there’s anything we can be blackmailed for. All the worst things are public — maybe too public.”

Zineng fidgeted with his tailtip. “Actually, Phaniet’s right.”

“What? Why?”

“We — which is to say, Rastomil and Jagraton, but it’ll apply to us too — started a chain of events which lead to lots of blackmails and lots of secrets getting spilled. Someone, sooner or later, will decide that it’s our fault, or that we’ll be good scapegoats for something. Do you want to display your incompetence at politics some more, Sythyry? Or shall we get home and start building our new city?” asked Phaniet.

“We’re not going to get chased out of here!” I insisted.

But of course we will.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Dear Coz,
I’ve come up with a bit of a problem involving some greater nobility, some Mentador, some ritual magic, and some long-dead wizard or other, and I was wondering if you could help me out. You see, there’s this Prince of Barency — Prince Rastomil, I think you’ll remember him as the exceedingly princely sort of fellow who filled out a waistcoat with a vengance. He seems to look better in a bustier just now. And the body with the waistcoat we have to keep unconscious, or the long-dead wizard will get annoying and uppity. Anyhow, yes, it’s Mentador ritual magic, but it’s an entirely proper use of it, since it’s putting a prince back in his proper body. Even our garumphious grandparents can’t gargue and gargle too much about it — it might even be a bit [g]redemptive even, ’cause who but you could fix this prince to right?
I remain
Y^r loving and doomed cousin,
Sythyry

And I sent along a copy of many diary pages, and a lot of technical details.

And right back in the next post:

Dear Coz!
What a treat and a surprise! I am so tickled that you’d have a prince horribly enchanted and imprisoned, just to make an excuse for me to visit! I am delighted to accept! But is there anything you can do to make the situation more dire? I have come up with a bountiful new crop of creditors, and I should be ever so happy to crop the crop. Either in the snippy or the whippy sense of ‘crop’, I’m not too fussy.
I remain
Y^r loving and penurious cousin,
Saza

To which I could but answer:

Dear Coz,

I should be utterly delighted to manufacture a diplomatic incident between Barency and Hanija, the one of them whining about how they used to have a prince and now he’s a raddled — if not downright addled — noblewoman, with no resemblance whatever to the royal family of Barency. Hanija will probably whine right back about how he wasn’t so much of a “prince” as an “embarrassment”, and how he has been rendered utterly unsuitable for marriage, just as Barency requested. Barency will surely explain — but I surely need say no more. Sometime in the diplomatic discussions, I’m sure that they would forget to hire you — spending, instead, the same money on having a remote war. Perhaps, if you were lucky, they would catapult your creditors. So of course I heartily recommend you convert them into effective and delightful missiles as quickly as possible.
I remain
Y^r loving and incoherent cousin,
Sythyry

To which the reply was rather more explicit…

Dear coz!
I’ll be there as quick as my traditional-but-boring geese can pull my traditional-but-boring gazebo! If you choose to interpret this as an unseemly urgency that I “commiserate” with your “calliope”, or, perhaps even that I be permitted to “encypher” your “enamel” — as some Zi Ri do to other Zi Ri! — please be aware that I am replacing the actual words with some harmless and unrelated ones and that what I actually want to do with, to, about, above, and beneath you is quite different and quite [un]remarkable.
I remain
Y^r loving and loving cousin,
Saza

Oh, dear. There could be some problems…

Dear coz!
The logistics of doing what, in fact, I actually want to do beneath, above, about, to, and with you are going to be a bit remarkable. When you arrive, I must remember to tell you how it was that I got married, and how I got my wings smashed for adultery.
I remain
Y^r loving and doomed cousin,
Sythyry

Zie didn’t reply quite instantly, but when zie did, zie was wrong:

Dear coz!
I suppose I shall find some way to say very little about Wingsa. There is no great love between zir and myself, for reasons which are as tawdry as they are outdated. In any case, I must apologize for introducing you to cisaffection, if you so quickly hurl yourself into marriage with the first Zi Ri you meet! I suppose I shall find some way to say very little about Wingsa. Best if you do not show zir this letter.
I remain
Y^r loving and astonished cousin,
Saza

To which I had to reply instantly:

Dear coz!
Wingsa has nothing to do with the matter! Zie does not approve of my marriage. I am Arfaen’s tofyof now and for the next seven years. Which is an absolute impediment to any sort of activity such as you allude to within the next seven years, within the boundaries of Hanija Mene. And I suppose it would be polite to ask her permission if you and I should somehow chance to take a trip to past or future, or some other part of some universe or other.
I remain
Y^r loving and overcomplicated cousin,
Sythyry

Saza is, of course, Saza.

Dear coz!
I am much relieved that you continue in the rakish and eccentric style that I have grown to love, admire, and dread. I can hardly wait to see what new calamities await us in Hanija!
I remain
Y^r loving and comparatively direct cousin,
Saza

If I help construct a city -- especially if I expect to depend somewhat on visitors and visitations -- I'd like to have some exotic and wonderful attractions.

One such attraction is a Fire Garden. There are a couple of others around, so they're not quite unique; but if there are three on the World Tree I haven't heard of the third. The other two are, in effect, statues of formal gardens constructed entirely of flame, and planted and populated with plants and animals as are suffiently fireproof. So, one might have a topiaried tree made of fire, with a living epiphyte growing on it. The first two are intended only for Zi Ri. If I make one, I will include protection spells aplenty, so that anyone can visit it and even touch the flames.

So that's one idea. My friends and advisors have listed some dozens of other ones -- but they are all very conventional people. O readers and commenters, you come up with the most remarkable concepts! What sorts of exotic attractions would you suggest for me?

Mirrored from Sythyry.

[Today's entry delayed on account of some horses and pie and things. -bb]

[This is not part of a novella, just travelogue. -bb]

First Day is, of course, the first day of the new year. It is also the anniversary of the day that the Herethroy and the Sleeth got created, so it is very much a Celebration of Primeness sort of day. Back home, that means a rather bumptious and sometimes ribald sort of festivity. Hanija is a lot more dignified about it.

They have parades. Parades, in a city of canals, are not a simple matter. They involve floats. These floats actually, literally, float. Not in the usual way, with levitation spells, either. They float on boats.

Which would work a lot better, I think, if Hanija did not have a thousand and seventy beautiful and decorative — and rather low — bridges. Well, there are some canals which have only high bridges: the Canal of Shippingness, the Rufjith Canal, and the four canals around the Ietunudaro make for a very nice route for masted boats, and, hence, tall floats.

But for most of the city, the bridges are numerous and low. And pretty! It is a rare bridge which does not have square pots of flowers spaced regularly on it, and a little shrine sort of thing in the middle. (The shrines are not generally religious ones. Lots of them are devoted to some civic virtue — my favorite cafe is across the Bridge of Linoth and Sapei-Yobung, which has a very pretty little shrine to Behaving Respectfully To Those Of Lesser Rank Than Onesself. Some are to some particular person, which I think usually is someone who paid for the bridge. Or sporting teams, or, in one particularly egregious case, the addition of the letters “-f” and “-ng” to the Hanijan alphabet, which in the Bad Old Days used the same symbol for “-th” and “-f”, and for “-ng” and for “-m”, and there was Much Woeful Confusion. One could not tell a tofyof (“tofyof”) from an adjective meaning ‘growing in the style of a mushroom or fungus’ (tothyof). Now the situation is clearer, in most cases, though I leave my own out of it.)

This means that parades going on most canals have to be low, and flattish, and altitudinally deprived.

So, we sat on the Bridge of Linoth and Sapei-Yobung, on the shrine to Behaving Respectfully to Those of Lesser Rank Than Onesself, and watched. I sat on Arfaen’s shoulder, with my head respectfully lowered, as befits a tofyof in the presence of zir keeper. Arfaen picked up bits of grilled liver and fish on teethpick, and fed them to me. I believe that the spirit of the shrine would have been pleased, if it had been real rather than metaphorical, which it was not.

Beside us were some of the other couples who were legally allowed to be transaffectionate in the streets in Hanija, being legally transaffectionate in the street. Which is to say, Phaniet was holding Este’s hand very nervously. (Mellilot was off to one side, staying away from her ex-lover Arfaen.) She kept looking around and dropping it when she saw other people around, then remembered that she is legally Este’s keeper, so she took it again. Legality gives one the most remarkable powers.

Oh, and Jyondre and Yerenthax were thoroughly wrapped up together, but that is not so unusual for them.

“When we make our own city, I think we should have higher bridges. That picture of Hrikkak the Mighty looks more like Hrikkak the Squished Flat By Falling Off A Very Tall Building,” said Jyondre.

“Well, that float was made by third-graders,” noted Este. “That may have something to do with how splatted it looks. Still, Jyondre does have a point. High bridges.”

“Why not have flat bridges with Locador transoins underneath them, so that very tall ships can fit underneath them?” asked Phaniet.

Jyondre scratched his head. “Isn’t that a very lot of enchantment for Sythyry to do?”

Phaniet laughed. “Well, it’ll be part of the crystallization effect.”

I looked up. “What am I doing, now?”

Phaniet patted my head. “Building us a city like a good little lizard.”

“I am?”

“You can wait ’til we get home,” said Phaniet, kindly.

I blinked. “Sweet of you to give me that permission. Do I get a say in the matter?”

Phaniet thought about that a minute. “Well, probably you could veto it if you really wanted to. But you don’t really want to, so no, you don’t get a say in the matter.”

I looked grumpy, buried my muzzle in my keeper’s fur, and complained about Cani until my keeper reminded me she’s Cani too.

Yerenthax asked, “Why will we have bridges?”

“To go over the canals, just like Hanija,” said Jyondre.

Yerenthax asked, “Why will we have canals?”

“Because Sythyry will want to attract all the Orren zie can to the city,” said Jyondre.

I buried my muzzle in Arfaen’s armpit and swore off Orren for life for the, um, I think it’s 178th time.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

The Exhortation

Me: “Why in Hren Tzen’s name couldn’t Nanggi-Zi just work out an immortality talisman like everywiz else?”

Wingsa: “I take it you have not looked at her in detail?”

Me: “My medical training, while intensive and extensive and just-plain-tensive, is a bit low on corpse-curing. Especially when the subject has been mummified for years.”

Wingsa: “No — the wizard’s mind and spirit in the prince’s body.”

So I did. Excellent explanation! Nanggi-Zi’s Corpador branch is hideously deformed. I doubt she can cast a simple contraception spell without risking giving herself a second head. An immortality spell would be too exciting for words. Even for some of my favorite words, like “doom”.

Me: “So, those rumors about offending Kvarse are true?”

Wingsa: “I don’t much know and I don’t much care. The effect is the same.”

The Argument

Wingsa, Phaniet, Me: argue! argue, discuss, dispute, dissect… and argue!

Phaniet: “This is getting silly. Does Nanggi-Zi have any notes?”

Well, of course she did. They were written in code or cypher, though.

Me: “Aieee! I know nothing of breaking codes!”

Phaniet: “I have worked on it for two hours, and gotten precisely nothing.”

Wingsa: “Attempting to break a wizard’s code is an exercise in futility! She is brilliant and smart and clever! She will not devise a key which can be broken!”

Jagraton: “This trio of wooden disks that I found near the bookshelf, mounted so that the inner two can swivel or can be locked in place, with common words in Hanjan and the alphabet written on one scale, some perplexing numbers on the second, and the strange marks of the wizard’s code on the third — could it be anything important?”

Me: “Some silly magical tool.”

Phaniet: “Oh, that must be the encoder.” She poked at it for a few minutes, and we could read whatever of Nanggi-Zi’s notes we liked.

Me: “Well-done, both of you!”

Wingsa: “Hmph.”

Magical Details

Then we had to explain to Prince Rastomil and Lady Noshi.

Me: “The mind-swapping spell is fancy ritual magic.” I explained a little bit more.

Rastomil: “While I am sure that, in a certain mood, I would be quite fascinated by the technical details — and I might even understand them! — for today, I would be rather more interested in learning how soon I might get back to my proper body.”

Me: “Well, that’s a hard one. We could simply break the spell.”

Rastomil: “I seem to recall having requested some such service, did I not?”

Me: “Alas! If we did it, your body would be over there, and your mind and spirit over there, misconnected, causing a substantial risk of psychic disunity.”

Rastomil: “I am already having psychic disunity!”

Me: “Not like this. This one means you’d die.”

Rastomil: “Ah! I have a wonderful Heal the Awful Wound!”

Me: “Unfortunately, that only works on bodily wounds. A Spirit Reunion might work here, with supreme good fortune.”

Rastomil: “How supreme must this good fortune be?”

Me: “About like leaping off the edge of the world-branch, falling hundreds of miles tumbled about by whirling winds, and crashing into a heap in front of someone on the branch below — someone who is not only able to heal you, but is your one true love of all time.”

Rastomil: “I think I’m on my third ‘one true love of all time’, and all three experiences have been so dreadful that I think I will not risk this one.”

Me: “A wise choice.”

Rastomil: “So, breaking the spell leaves me dead. Not breaking it leaves me a bit Noshi, and, while I do appreciate her body, I would find it awkwards to always be wishing a snack.”

Noshi: “What?”

Rastomil: “Simply a pun, and one that only works in the dialect of Barency.”

Me: “You have the outlines of the problem right.”

Rastomil: “Well … what do we do?”

Me: “Cast the spell again, I think, to put you back in your original bodies.”

Rastomil: “Cast away! I am prepared!”

Me: “Unfortunately there are several problems … do you remember how the spell was cast in the first place?”

Rastomil: “I seem to remember something about a multi-hour mind-rape, yes.”

Me: “Well, that’s part of the casting.”

Rastomil: “Hah! I knew it! Sythyry, wrongest of all the wrongfolk, this is nothing but an elaborate ploy for you to get in my trousers! Well, in Lady Noshi’s trousers, at least, but my mind is the mind dropping them.”

Me: “Well, that brings us to the second problem. I don’t want to swap your body and mine, I want to swap yours around.”

Noshi: “So I would have to endure his embraces again?”

Me: “That is how it works, I’m afraid. The two people being exchanged must be engaged thuswise for the duration of the ritual-cast. Which, from your story, is hours.”

Rastomil: “If I must screw, screw I must. (Why is it that everyone is determined to involve me in carnal congress these days, but, when I am lucky, they want to involve me with someone other than themselves?) Can we at least keep the wizard unconscious for the duration of the act? Bad enough that I have to be intimate with myself — I mean her — but I’d rather that she didn’t get to enjoy it, anyhow.”

Me: “And that’s the next problem. The ritual isn’t written for exchanging any two people, just the caster and someone else.”

Rastomil: “We’re back to you doing me! I knew I wasn’t going to get back to Barency with my Zi-Virginity intact.”

Me: “Well, no. I’m not going to be doing that. For one thing, my keeper would be quite upset. I’ve had plenty of trouble from breaking the tofyof laws here, and plenty of broken bones too.”

Phaniet: “Boss, you’re being silly. Arfaen doesn’t care about that. Your keeper is the biggest slut on board.”

Me: “She is not, that’s Inconnu.”

Rastomil: “Leaving aside that particular badge of honor, who will perform the ritual?”

Me: “The actual question is, who can perform the ritual?”

Rastomil: “Then let us assume that question asked: who can perform the ritual?”

Me: “Currently, nobody.”

Phaniet: “Except for Nanggi-Zi, of course.”

Me: “Whom we do not trust to do it properly.”

Rastomil: “I would not trust her either, actually, somehow. So, taking her away, that leaves … nobody. Why nobody?”

Me: “Well, one needs to be good at both Mentador and Ritual Magic. I’m not. Wingsa says zie’s not, and huffs with considerable indignation when the possibility of assisting is mentioned.”

Rastomil: “What, helping the disreputable foreign prince and wizard is so bad?”

Me: “Being known as good at Mentador is so bad.”

Rastomil: “Well, then, what am I to do? Given that the only choices are (1) death or (2) remaining in this body, since healing me is a great crime and humiliation.”

Me: “Actually no. Did you meet Saza? You and zie overlapped on board for a bit.”

Rastomil: “The other Zi Ri? We exchanged a few words.”

Me: “Zie is a karcist, and already has a bit of a bad reputation for Mentador magic. I believe zie could be induced to modify the ritual to cast it on two people neither of whom is the ritualist. And fixing Mentador-caused troubles is one of the few legitimate uses for Mentador; I daresay zie’d be quite happy.”

Rastomil: “I approve of this course of action! Seeing, in particular, that there are few alternatives short of death or dishonor.”

Other Considerations

(And of course Saza is constantly poor, and we should be able to coerce at least one of the two cities involved to pay a respectable sum for the work involved. Plus, of course, I get to have Saza around for a while while zie’s trying to invent the spell.)

(How zie feels when zie learns I’ve gotten legally attached to Arfaen remains to be seen.)