The summary: Vae is one of the most awful and dangerously insane monsters on the World Tree, especially to her friends. She is an fearsomely powerful mage. When anyone asks her to help them, she loses all judgment and does something that might be helpful, generally an an overpowered and devastating way. She is quite sad. She is one of my best friends anymore, though I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

The details:

Vae (short for Vaisessasilmin) is a nendrai, one of three known instances of Nendrai lacrymosa. (I got to name her species myself though I consulted with her about it, since I live in Ketheria and people at the heart of civilization heard about my name first. Nobody else had thought to do it when we met her, everyone was too scared.) Nendrai are one of the half-dozen most terrible beasts on the World Tree. They are, in their natural form, bulky bipedal lizardly people with coarse features, some nine feet tall, with very long and agile tails. (Some of them, like Oixe, aren't quite like that, but they're all lizardly and all have those tails.) They have a few minor advantages, like tremendous vitality. If you stab Vae through the heart with a huge enchanted burning copper sword hard enough to kill three mighty Gormoror, she'll grin and speak nicely of your swordsmanship and not even consider dying like any polite prime would.

The scary part of the nendrai is always the tail. They can, at a tail-touch, cast exceedingly subtle and exceedingly powerful spells. There only a few restrictions:

1. Vae's spells have complexity 80 and power 160, or, if Locador is involved, complexity 100 and power 200. For comparison, a first-rate professional sorcerer, like a master smith, might, at the apex of her career, have one or two complexity-30 spells, which she casts at power 35 or so. A spell of complexity 40 is several times as good as one of complexity 30, so Vae's 80s are ridiculous and her 100s are beyond ridiculous. There are plenty of primes ranked as great wizards (and deserving it) who can't cast a single complexity-100 spell, or even an 80. Vae can cast nearly all of them that she can imagine, and she's got a good imagination for such things.
2. Vae's spells must involve Mutoc, the Verb of transformation. She has to phrase them as changes, somehow. This is barely a restriction; she can cast a scrying spell, say, by making a leaf change its appearance to match the scene she is scrying on.
3. Vae's spells must not involve Healoc, the Verb of healing. This doesn't actually stop her from healing herself. She is quite happy to transform a wounded body into an unwounded one with Mutoc. Well, not quite happy, since doing it with Mutoc hurts intensely, and doing it with Healoc is easier (for those who have Healoc) and feels good. A few useful forms of healing are beyond her, like raising the dead.
4. Vae must touch the target of her spell with her tail. This, too, is barely a limitation, given her powers of Locador -- the magic of space and position.
5. (Unlike my spells and those of most people, Vae's spells don't cost her anything to cast.)
6. (Unlike when I try to improvise spells, Vae improvises spells without risking any failure of the spell proper. She can still do the wrong thing -- indeed, she usually does -- but she always does what she intends to do.)

This makes Vae a power to be reckoned with. She's probably not as dangerous as an average city-state in Ketheria -- though we have never exactly tested that, and we hope we never have to -- but she is not far off.

Much to her sorrow, Vae is not exactly in control of her own mind. She was designed by the goddess Gnarn, who rules the art of Mutoc and who is vastly cruel, to be an endless well of troubles for primes. Vae's primary blind spot is being helpful. If anyone is so foolish as to suggest that they need assistance to her, Vae will do something that -- in some interpretation -- might be considered helpful. She doesn't realize she's doing it until she's done it, and it's generally done in a way that's hard to undo. One time, for example, I complained about the rain. She surrounded me with a spell of complete protection from liquids, so that they always ran downhill in a great hurry, and, for Mutoc, "downhill" was always "away from me". That could have killed me of thirst, if my roommates hadn't found three ways around it, and it certainly wasted a bottle of expensive brandy.

After much doom, I made Vae a pair of magic earmuffs. When she wears them, they let her hear normally, except that they muffle things that they think she might interpret as requests for assistance. She can simply ignore that part of the conversation, or teleport off to a safe space and have the earmuffs report what was said, or turn them off altogether. They're not perfect, and they do make conversing with Vae difficult at times, but they cut down greatly on her accidental helping people to their sorrow. She usually wears them when she's with people.

Another lack of self-control is that Vae likes to get things from primes. And the word 'likes' is rather too weak. She got more physical pleasure from me passing her the salt at dinner than she did from fathering her unborn child, and that act was as pleasant for her as it is for most people. Once, some miscreant offered her a bowl of pea soup if she would build him a vast and well-defended floating mansion. It took her a hundred spells -- a hundred of her insanely-powerful spells -- but she did it. For soup. She hates this fact about herself, but she can do nothing about it. Unlike the helpful side, I don't have any answer for her on it. Indeed, it is official Vheshrame policy to exploit this flaw to the fullest.

My official, if officially unpaid, job in Vheshrame is "Ambassador to Vae". I have kept peace between us and her since she claimed our territory as her own territory 125 years ago. Technically, this has entailed visiting her with gifts every three days, and both of us pretending that it's simply an act of tribute between military allies. At various times, privately, I have thought that it was on the edge of rape. Maybe of her, since she doesn't at all like craving it or enjoying it. Maybe of me, since Duke Conturge forced me to do it for the first decade or so and I'm the one pleasuring her.

Also I am one of Vae's few friends and confidantes. Most people are scared of her. With plenty of justification, since she once turned all the Cani outside the city walls for miles around to wheels of cheese in response to a friend's child complaining that 'the Cani are bugging me!'. We managed to turn them back with a few hours' work... but we are lucky that she chose cheese, rather than ice cream, or it would have been a massacre.

Vae hates her arms and legs. When she is sad or in need of a kind of comfort that is largely unavailable, which is often, she turns into a winged snake. I understand this better than most people. Not that I have any such problem myself -- I am quite happy with my body -- but my long-gone long-time lover Mynthë, who was Herethroy, really wanted to be a mammal, and hated her insectile body. (At least Mynthë had the sense to ask me to deal with the problem, not Vae.)

Vae's mate is a female nendrai named Oixe. Oixe is a large six-legged three-headed nendrai with brazinion scales. She's not quite the sorceress Vae is -- she rarely gets better than complexity 50, which is still insanely complex. Her spells are more powerful than Vae's though. And she's far, far better in a fight. On their first date, they had a huge fight to determine which one would be the boy. Vae lost. Vae was thus male (via an easy Mutoc spell) whenever they met, and, when they were trying to concieve, male full-time for many years. I think that, once their child is grown up and Oixe can endure the company of other nendrai again, they get to have another fight to determine who's the boy next time 'round. In any case, Oixe lives a very long way off. Even Vae, whose Locador spells are mighty indeed, needed to teleport several times to get there.

(She's not wholly deprived of all contact with Oixe. They write each other love-notes several times a day and send them skipping across the World Tree with devastating Locador spells. They are thoroughly in love, after all. Still, Gnarn, in her infinite cruelty, has managed to come up with a way to reproduce that appears to hurt more than the Zi Ri way.)

When Vae cries, which is often, her tears are jagged blades of glass that force themselves out of her eyes. She then has to heal herself in order to be able to see again. With Mutoc, which hurts intensely. I have offered to make her an eye-healing talisman, so that it won't hurt, but she always refuses it. She doesn't like crying, and prefers to punish herself for it. We have had this conversation about once a week for a century now. I think there is a very practical aspect to it though; I think it adds tiny increments to her vitality.

In any case, I haven't seen Vae with arms and legs since Oixe laid their egg. Vae writes love-notes to Oixe with a pen in her snake's mouth. Vae is miserable, and a miserable nendrai is dangerous beyond words. Getting Vae away from Vheshrame seems like my civic duty, and giving Vae something to think about and enjoy seems like my duty as a friend. So, she'll be on vacation with us.

Strayway, really this time [Vheshrame; 18 Trandary 4385]

Strayway is my new sky-yacht.

I had been planning to buy a used sky-yacht of some fairly ordinary design, probably birdy or dragony. I was going to paint it blue as a minor concession to vanity. Not quite my own shade of blue. I'm not that vain.

I made the mistake of mentioning this at dinner in Castle Wrong.

Everyone:"We gasp in horror, Sythyry! Such a tedious ship would not fully express the crucial message, of Behold! Here comes a mighty yet deviant wizard! Your sky-yacht must be a gaudiness -- a spectacle -- a wonderment -- a flamboyance supreme!"

Me:"I suppose so..."

So I got an ordinary transvective skyboat, used, and started doing nighttime enchantments on it. Some illusions, some transformations, some other things, and some rather tricky Locador stuff.

Strayway is now in the form of a seven-armed silver and amber candelabra, with seven burning candles in its radially-symmetric spirally arms. The body is a big silvery vase, some fifteen feet tall and ten in diameter (Don't worry, it's much bigger inside.) The vase depicts certain selected standard and ordinary scenes from mythology and history which, while undeniably standard and ordinary artistic themes, if taken together, might suggest a certain interest in some topics which I am in fact interested in. A bouquet of greatly magnified flowers sprouts out the top -- or, rather, a greatly magnified illusion of anything placed in the centerpiece vase on the high table of the Grand Dining Hall inside. I plan to stick with flowers. Strayway is drawn by three three-headed antelopes made of green glass and green copper and green emerald, with scorpion tails ending in lampy gems. (Yes, of course they breathe fire. (Yes, it's real fire. Why would I make fake fire?))

Everyone:"Oh, no, Sythyry ... you didn't!"

Me:"Um, actually I did."

Everyone:"The Doom! The utter and highly characteristic Doom!"

This sort of thing is why wizards get a reputation for being eccentric. Wizards are not actually eccentric. Wizards simply listen to their friends.

(But I didn't dare show her in public for a decade after that.)

Some notable features of Strayway include:

1. The hull is plated with real silver. Not a lot of real silver, but not such a little either. I have a somewhat complex arrangement with the Smith's Guild about how much metal I can create. (Most members of the guild can create as much metal as they can. As a skilled enchanter, I can make a talisman which creates unlimited amounts of metal to sell. As a loyal and honorable Smith's Guild member, I do not create unlimited amounts of metal to sell. ... but I still have the talisman, and I can use it for things which I promise not to sell for a thousand years. Actually it's not unlimited creation, just a pound and a half a day, but it was enough to turn a thirty-year full-time apprenticeship into a three-year afternoon-only one.)
2. The doors are not evident from the outside.
3. The candle flames are real fire. They are provided with braziers for burning nice woods, and fireproof cushions for lounging, if one is inclined to sit in one and meditate or watch the landscape without much company. One of them has a lectern which renders books fireproof, in case one wishes to read.
4. The Grand Dining Hall is pretty grand. I was trying to see how long I could make one room be, and ... it's about three-quarters of a mile long. And thirty feet wide.
5. I did an extremely poor job with the interior geography otherwise. The interior is best thought of as being divided into eighteen regions (corresponding to the eighteen space-expanders I installed). Within a region, geometry works as one might expect: if one goes through a door from one room to another, walks ten feet, and goes through another door into the first room, one ends up about ten feet from where one started. This is unlikely to be true if one crosses between regions, and one can get thoroughly lost while one is building it, and have to spont Go Home to escape from one's own sky-yacht. I installed a regiment of signposts and maps. That still proved insufficient for me to find my way around. A certain part of the delay in actually leaving for the vacation is the necessity of constructing and providing guides.
6. Accordingly, each room has a sentient, mindful item of furniture, capable of giving directions and other useful advice. The Grand Dining Hall has one by each door.
7. The pilot's room is an utterly standard and ordinary any-species sort of control room. It is not one bit rococo. I did not modify it, except to add a scrying device. Oh, and I replaced the quick-escape device. The original Strayway (which was called something tedious at that point) had a one-use teleporter for escaping from danger. (She got into danger, got badly clawed up, teleported away, and got sold second-hand.) I can do better, and I did do better. And my "better" even works with all the other Locador on the yacht ... though we shouldn't use it too often.
8. The pantry is provided with a device that prevents foods from spoiling. It does not prevent them from aging, though, so we can make our own cheese and wine, if we want.
9. I didn't make any animata or other mindful servants, though. I thought about it, of course. One rarely sees an eccentric wizard without an animated floating teakettle with seven leather whips as tentacles, or something like that, where a less skillful nobleman would hire a Khtsoyis porter. I decided that -- as with Castle Wrong -- I would rather bring friends and people from my community along, especially ones who have trouble getting jobs elsewise.

There's more, of course. I have been tinkering with Strayway for two dozen years or more, in my spare time.

Travel Preparations [Vheshrame; 19 Trandary 4385]

When a mighty and influential wizard seeks to travel, there are many, many preparations to be made.

Actually, it's not so much the "mighty and influential wizard" bit as the "travel" bit. Even if this trip turns out short -- two years, say -- I will still need a fair bit of luggage and accompaniments and sundries and whatnots. Also, I will end up bringing a fair number of impedimentia, memorabilia, regalia, penetralia, dementia, catatonia, gene and so on.

Jyondre points out that it is possible to do laundry in Srineia. I somehow do not find this encouraging for how much I will have to bring.

Actually, it's not so much about what to bring as who. If I were a mighty and unencumbered wizard, I would have a very simple who-to-bring:

However, I am a mighty and influential wizard. Or, to be more precise about it, an influential wizard. By my family's standards I am a credible beginner of a wizard. Which is pretty good -- my half-sibling Hezimikkinen isn't a wizard at all; I have far outstripped zir already in magic. On the other paw, zie more or less rules Vheshrame except when we've got a very strong duke, and I am patron to a mere fifty-odd people and lose popularity contests inside my guilds, so I won't claim very influential either.

But I am patron to fifty-odd people at Castle Wrong and environs, and some of them are quite odd indeed. Indeed, I really can't leave some of them behind for even a couple of years, not if I hope to see them again when I get back.

Grinwipey

Case in point: my Khtsoyis friend Grinwipey Snudthanks-Elps. Grinwipey doesn't technically live at Castle Wrong, but he might as well. He is, in my technically sophisticated opinion, the best seamstress in Vheshrame. He has a gift with the needle. When he embroiders jellyfish on a tunic, passing Orren feel hungry; and when he embroiders daggers, they check to see if their fingers are bleeding. I have been studying needlework for a century and more; it is a substantial part of my stock in trade; but Grinwipey exceeds me considerably, after only a few years study. As a senior member of the Couturier's Guild, I was his sponsor. We had a terrible political struggle to get him in: he was excluded on three votes, and only by dint of substantial bribes did he manage to squeak in on the fourth.

No matter. Grinwipey's productions cannot be sold within the city. Anybody rich enough to buy them is sophisticated enough to know who made them, and, thus, sophisticated enough to refuse to buy anything made by a Khtsoyis.

He sells some garments abroad -- far abroad, like in Aradrueia. The merchants who transport them get a substantial share of the profit.

Mostly, he works for me. Of course clothing to be enchanted must start off as the best clothing that can be made (unless, of course, it needs to be something other). Honestly, most of the time that degree of perfection is unnecessary, but I do want people to think of my works as beautiful and stylish, as well as powerful and effective. And when a particular and insanely fussy design is necessary, who would I have do it but Grinwipey? There is nobody who can embroider a glove with a pitcher full of arrows, using thread of stinging nettles and brazinion, like Grinwipey. Besides, he can heal his tentacles as he sews the nettles, Khtsoyis-style.

So, last year, we had a conversation that went sort of like this:

Me:"I'm planning to go on vacation."

Grinwipey:"Yeah, you go to the pond and get fobrulated by all sorts of Orrens and stuff, I stay here and do all the work."

Me:"A bit further than the city pond."

Grinwipey:"How far do you need to go to find a whimmy-jimmy swimmy big enough for you?"

Me:"Small enough for me, maybe? Srineia."

Grinwipey:"Aww, what in the name of Mircannis' gobbleblossom is Srineia?" (He is generally rather cruder when trying to sell a dress to a count or something, but we are old friends, and he tones down his vulgarity considerably for me.)

Me:Explain, explain, explain.

Grinwipey:"So this ain't no little trip of you jump in Vae's yamabloonie and pop off there for an afternoon?"

Me:"No, probably a year or two." (Which was my thought at the time. I am now thinking of longer.)

Grinwipey:"Well, you have yourself a sparrow-doodle of a fun time, Sythyry, 'n don't worry yourself about me, 'k? Khtsoyis are tough, we don't get ground down."

If he were here and not under my protection ... Hezimikkinen would probably intercede for him the first time as a favor to me. The second time, maybe not. The third time, well, you can only call on half-sibling ties so much. I probably wouldn't be away for a week before he had gotten kicked out of the guild, if not exiled from the whole city.

Me:"Exactly. Want to come?"

Grinwipey:"Why in the name of Hressh-Huu's squooshy vortex do you want a shoggy with you? If this is some way to get into my pants, you lose, lizard girl. I ain't got no pants." (Grinwipey is not the least bit traff.)

Me:"Oh, I'm probably going to end up doing some business there too. I'm bringing my whole workshop. That includes you." He pretends to be polite to me. I pretend I can get him to do what I want.

Grinwipey:"I'll check with the missuz."

She said no. But that was some time ago. The missuz is no longer his missuz, and, indeed, now counts as one of the people who would encourage him to leave town, on any pretext, or no pretext at all.

Lithia

Lithia is sort of the other side of the problem.

Lithia is really my fault. Not that I cast the spells myself -- not that I have the spells, and for a good reason. Targeenniss is a Rassimel woman; Pleensy is an Orren man. Like many of my friends and associates, their love transcended both species boundaries and common sense. Unlike many of my friends and associates, they decided to unite their flesh in a child, rather than, say, asking a male Rassimal friend to sire a child on Targeenniss on Pleensy's behalf.

I didn't know. They didn't discuss it with me.

They did discuss it with each other. Anyone with any education knows that The Ritual of the Fertile Union isn't very good for the child. But they decided that their Transcendent Love, probably augmented by my magic, would take care of any little problems that arose.

So they got an karcist from the Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen to cast it for them. (Pleensy had borrowed two graces of Mircannis from my workshop to pay for it, too, though Targeenniss and I didn't find that out 'til much later.)

By the time that Lithia was born, Pleensy had done the traditional Orren trick of swimming off back to a riverbank fishing village somewhere. Targeenniss was no longer terribly confident in the powers of Transcendent Love to get her through to the birth, much less anything else. We had to invoke the powers of a Pretty Good Midwife for that. (I'm not a good midwife. I've had all the Healer's Guild classes in it, but I'm simply not big enough for the physical part, and, um, rather too liable to curl up in imagined pain at the thought of reproduction. Or at least wince at a bad time for encouraging the mother.)

And of course Targeenniss didn't mention who the father was to me until it was no longer concealable, after Lithia was born.

Lithia is a shifter hybrid. Lithia switchs back and forth between Orren and Rassimel, every hour or two. The transformation is painful; she says it feels like pinching her finger in a door, only all over, if she isn't using numbing spells. Staying in one shape for too long is even more uncomfortable, though. We don't numb that pain though, since staying in one shape for too too long can be fatal.

Some people say that it is a mercy that the constant transformations are rather bad for her body. Based on Healer's Guild books and some tests, I estimate that she will probably see her 40th birthday, but probably not her 45th. [25 - 30 Earth years.]

She's thirty now.

Targeenniss hasn't been the best mother to her. Targeenniss has confessed to me that she sees in Lithia her own stupidity and blindness; that she has condemned Lithia to a short and terrible incarnation for no better reason than her own obsession. Targeenniss has, in fact, contrived to spend nine of the last thirty years away from Castle Wrong, leaving Lithia to be tended by me and my other associates.

(Castle Wrong has, at any given time, two or three dozen people who cannot live in their proper place for more or less time. Mostly they are variations on doomed traff love stories. They come to me, for every traff cafe on the branch knows about Castle Wrong. I help them as best I can, which often is by providing them a safe and comfortable place to stay, with people who understand, and a job. Often the job is inside of Castle Wrong. I paid quite well to tend young Lithia. No baby is exactly easy all the time, but Lithia was the most miserable one I have ever dealt with, hurting so much so often.)

Targeenniss:"I hear you're going on vacation."

Me:"Sooner or later. Sooner, I hope."

Targeenniss:"A long vacation."

Me:"Some years."

Targeenniss:"Do me a kindness ... or, if I don't deserve a kindness, do one for my daughter."

Me:"What, does she still want to go to Vheshrame Academy?"

Targeenniss:"Not that favor. That won't do her any good." (Since Lithia would die a few years after graduating (among other reasons), nor Targeenniss nor the Academy nor I are particularly eager for her to go there, though I have sent some other children from Castle Wrong.) Bring her with you. She'll get to see the world, and enjoy a great deal.

Me:"Before world and enjoyment are ripped away from her." I no longer glare at Targeenniss about Lithia, but I cannot be wholly kind to her any more.

Targeenniss:"And she can't stay here; it's not safe."

Which is also true. Most primes consider shifter hybrids to be perversions of the natural order and the divine plan. It is hard to argue with this, since, when the topic has been mentioned to them, the gods also consider shifter hybrids to be perversions of the natural order and the divine plan.

The main disagreement is about where the blame lies. My opinion is that it is Targeenniss and Pleensy's fault, plus the fault of the ritual mages of Oorah Thrassen. Theologians generally agree that it's Gnarn's fault, as the dominant goddess of the ritual and a major force for cruelness in the universe; the ritual needed to exist for consistency, but did not need to be so easy. The popular opinion is that it is somehow Lithia's fault: shifter hybrids are everyone's both-females, and deserve every punishment for what they are.

It's not really safe for Lithia to be seen too much in public. In particular, she shouldn't be seen shifting in public. When I'm around and active, she gets some protection as the ward of the nendrai-taming wizard. When I'm away, well, "ward of the wizard who will probably back in a couple years or so" isn't nearly as much protection.

Besides, I am more next of kin to Lithia than Targeenniss ever was.

Me:"I should be glad if Lithia travelled with me."

Targeenniss looked relieved. It is much more convenient for her this way.

Targeenniss:"I'll go tell her straightaway, then, that she'll be going away."

Targeenniss can't be wholly kind to Targeenniss any more, either.

Srineia [Vheshrame; 22 Trandary 4385]

The Treasurer of the Smith's Guild stared at me over his long black muzzle. "I beg your pardon, Master Smith?"

"I am trying to pay my guild dues, Master Smith. If you are incapable of accepting them, you should resign your guild post and go back to making crude glass knives full-time." The Treasurer and I have been feuding for some twenty years, for various reasons, ranging from stupid (I flirted with his mate at a formal guild dinner) to intensely stupid (I tried rather vocally to get someone competent elected as treasurer in the last election, and failed). I am not recording his name because I do not want to encourage anyone to think of him very much.

"I am quite capable of accepting guild dues, Master Smith. I am simply not used to payment quite this far in advance," he said.

"Master Smith, your powers of foresight are an excellent match for your powers of accounting," I noted.

He glared at me and lashed his tail. Insults are rarely lost on Cani. "Master Smith, one might almost be tempted to treat this so-called 'payment of your dues' as some attempt to bribe or otherwise influence our honorable Guild."

"Yes. I am attempting to bribe or otherwise influence our honorable Guild to keep me as a member in good standing while I am away on vacation. Wicked of me, to be sure."

"But, paying your dues a century in advance?"

I breathed a little needle of fire at nothing in particular, to point out what species I am, and how planning a century in advance makes sense for me.

He jumped back. "Our accounting system only goes three years ahead!"

"It is you, not I, who claimed that you were an adequate treasurer," I pointed out.

He bristled. "You have something in mind. What if the guild dues go up over the next century? You are planning to underpay, Master Smith!"

"What if the guild collects interest on my advance payment? That should cover the increase and then some, Master Smith!"

He groaned. "Well, at least you will be gone for a century."

"Only a few years, I think, but planning ahead is often worthwhile."

"I advise you to travel longer, Master Smith! A pity to waste your century's prepayment of dues. Stay away long enough for me to be dead by the time you return, a state which I prefer to your presence," said the treasurer.

"Alas, Master Smith, that your stock of glass knives are too crudely-made to permit you hasten your transition into that state which you prefer!" I commiserated. He just sneered at me.

Zistacarri, his Rassimel apprentice, asked me, "Where are you going?"

"Srineia."

"Where?"

I explained to her. I shall explain to you as well.

Srineia

Eleven world-branches down from the top of the tree (that is, on the twelfth ring of world-branches) is a ring of six branches; Srineia is the northmost of these. It is fairly newly colonized. I think that the oldest city on it, Eigrach, is younger than I am. It is still a frontier branch in many ways -- though Eigrach and Bephengy and Heleshario do boast some fairly high culture, including, crucially, plenty of excellent restaurants.

The Language: Srineia was colonized from several places, including Araldy on Aradrueia. The Srineian language thus isn't too far from Ketherian. Castle Wrong is conveniently provided with a Srineian exchange student Jyondre, who has been giving us lessons in Srineian. Yerenthax got the best of those lessons, which is how Jyondre ended up in Castle Wrong in the first place. (Jyondre is an Orren boy, and Yerenthax is a Gormoror girl, and their liaison is Highly Inappropriate.)

The Waters: Merklundum, the god of water, is a sleepy beast, and leaves the management of quite large and important aspects of his element to his angels and elementals. The water elementals of Srineia are particularly playful. So the branch is blessed with a variety of exotic aquatic features, like a braided river, some impressive waterfalls gracing otherwise flat terrain, and an exceedingly deep lake with a restaurant at the bottom. As a consequence, Orren are plentiful in Srineia, and, yes, that has something to do with my choice of destination.

The Monsters: This topic is quite important to Vae, since she will be intruding on someone else's territory. The dominant monster of Srineia is a chromodon named Shadrate. Vae has already sent a messenger, and gotten permission to vacation there for a time. There are, of course, lots of other monsters there, even on the flat upper side of the branch; the place is not very civilized really.

The Cuisine: Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored fish! Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored crustaceans! Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored insects! Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored spices! Dull-colored and strongly-flavored cheeses!

The Treasure: I expect I will want to collect a variety of whatnots useful in Aquador enchantments. Not that I do that many Aquador enchantments, but some, and it's never a bad idea to plan ahead. Jyondre says that some adventurers in Heleshario have recently found a Glory of Hren Tzen, which would be endlessly useful for me: I do do Sustenoc enchantments in great numbers. So I shall see if I can do some shopping.

I don't entirely know if it rates a two-year vacation all by itself. If not, I shall go somewhere else, or return home. I haven't had that much freedom of choice in ... ever, maybe.

Passengers and Crew [Vheshrame; 23 Trandary 4385]

I would expect it of the Orren.

We have any number of Orren around Castle Wrong. I cannot precisely take credit for it, and I have not at all taken advantage of it in many years, but we do have quite a few Orren here. It's not particularly a surprise that, say, Inconnu comes into the parlor while I'm meditating in the fire and asks to come with me. He is suddenly and deeply in love with Calla. Calla is a Herethroy co-lover who has lived in Castle Wrong for a decade. Calla is coming as the second cook, and the Herethroy cook since Herethroy can't eat meat and so we need a vegetarian cook too. Calla has been planning to come for well over a year.

Me:"Does Calla return your love?"

Inconnu:"Zie doesn't know yet."

Me:"That is not, initially, a very good basis for a relationship."

Inconnu:"I want to woo zir!"

Me:"You realize that you're going to change your mind in a few weeks?"

Inconnu:"That's not true! Jyondre and Yerenthax have been a couple for years! Are you saying I'm worse than Jyondre?"

Me:"Well ... it might not work out with Calla, and you might change your mind. And where will you be then?"

Inconnu:"It will! I won't! And ... um ... I'll be somewhere pretty exciting?"

Me:"Well, I did offer to pretty much anyone in Castle Wrong that they could come along, so you can. But we're leaving in four days. Can you be ready?"

Which is a silly question. Inconnu left his family home on three hours' notice, and has very little by way of possessions.

Inconnu:"Yay! Yay! Can I work in the kitchen?"

Me:"That's between you and the kitchen staff."

Anyways, that's not particularly surprising.

I didn't expect that Zascalle and Thiane would do the same thing. Though rather less goofily charmingly.

Thiane:"Zascalle and I have talked it over, and we would like to come along on Strayway."

Me:"What about your children?"

Thiane (Cani woman) and Zascalle (Rassimel woman) have two young Rassimel boys, Feralan and Ochirion. They are actual honest-to-gods Rassimel, with no ritual magic involved in their conception. I believe that Este helped out with Feralan; I am not sure about Ochirion.

Thiane:"They will return from the voyage much better educated than they would be if they had stayed at home."

Zascalle:"And I will tutor them, and Quendry too."

Me:"Oh, dear. Quendry is coming?"

Thiane:"It is only natural that Quendry should come, since his mother Arfaen is."

Me:"She didn't mention that to me. The last I heard, Quendry was living with Arfaen's ex-family."

Arfaen divorced her Cani spouses a few years ago, but not before she had become Quendry's mother. Quendry mostly lives with his father and his dozen-or-so spouses, in a longhouse across town.

Thiane:"We just worked it all out with her. We're telling you now."

Me:"... Right."

So I interrogated Arfaen. We had a two-hour conversation, with witnesses and other assorted evidence, but it amounts to this:

Me:"You're bringing Quendry?"

Arfaen:"I need to get him out of town! Away from his father! Quendry is never allowed to have affan in anything! Quendry must not be raised as the runt of the pack!"

Cani live in big families, which you can call packs if you like. Status is very important: at any given time, one Cani holds affan in each topic. The affan-cook is in charge of cooking; the affan-singer, in charge of singing. Cani children must be allowed to have affan in things now and then -- among other children at least -- or they grow up warped in mind and spirit.

Me:"Are the enough Cani coming on the trip for him?"

Arfaen:"Myself, Phaniet, and Thiane. All adults, but we know what to do. It will suffice, or at least, it will be better than back in the longhouse. I hope we get invited to stay with our clanmates on Srineia now and then, which will be better."

Me:"Right then. Is taking him along legal?"

Arfaen:"No. Will you help him?"

Me:"Yes, of course."

If I had any sense, none of these people would be on board. But then, if I had any sense, there would be no Castle Wrong.

Direct and Indirect Tourism [Vheshrame; 24 Trandary 4385]

Everyone knows that wizards have their specialties. Corpador and Herbador, the magic of animal and vegetable materials, are the most generally useful, and anyone who has taken a highschool magic course can do at least something with either of them. Illusidor (illusions and images) can be amusing; Aquador magic (waters and liquids) can save a good deal of effort carrying water at about that age; Pyrador (fire, light) is useful in dark places and times, if the darkness is either the hard-to-see-in sort or being bothered by monsters. Airador magic is good for manipulating scents (very useful if Cani are about), or weather (if one is very good). Smiths naturally learn Durudor magic, for metal and stone and such, but it is so much harder (and metal and stone so much rarer) that it is of little use to anyone but experts. Locador magic, space magic, is quite practical really, for teleporting and making small spaces larger, but it is not popular. Tempador, time magic, gives more time, which I find invaluable but most people seem to find disturbing. Spiridor magic is good for making animated servants of various sorts; you will surely see Vae doing some of that, for she loves it; I do it now and then as well. Magiador magic concerns magic itself: to break spells, for example, use Magiador. Mentador magic is mind-magic, and is outright wicked. I am allowed to use it, circumspectly, but most people shouldn't and more decades go by without me using it than with.

(I do a lot with Locador, Tempador, and Magiador. People call me a "deep mage" for that. It's an informal term that means that I use the more obscure corners of magic. It's a useful specialty; it can provide more space and more time, which are always at a premium. That's not actually why I'm a deep mage though. Those are the Nouns that help me protect myself from Vae.)

Those are the Nouns. People can specialize in Verbs, and some do, but it's generally less common. Creoc is for creating things (and Herethroy). Kennoc is for information (and Orren); but, like the Orren, it is never perfectly reliable. Destroc is for destruction (and Khtsoyis and Gormoror), and none too popular. Mutoc is for changes (and Sleeth), and is exceedingly useful, as Vae demonstrates constantly. Ruloc is for control and manipulation (and Cani and Gormoror), and just as useful. Healoc is for healing (and Rassimel), and of much more limited scope. Sustenoc is for sustaining, making spells perpetual (and Zi Ri), and can be worked into a wide variety of situations if one is determined to -- as I generally am -- but it is not, by itself, all that helpful.

Those are the specialities that one thinks of first. The 7+12 gods that rule the Nouns and Verbs are connected to your magerium, willing to be of assistance in exchange for cley. There are other specialties. Your average highschool-trained mage has a dozen pattern spells grafted to her magerium: a dozen routine but useful things that she can do magically. A sorcerer might have a hundred. A wizard might have a thousand. (I don't.)

(Oh. A "mage" is anyone working magic, much in the way that a "washer" is anyone washing anything. Mages are more common than washers, I think: everyone probably washes something, oh, three times a day? I have no idea really; I could be writing through my wings here. But most people will probably cast half a dozen spells a day. A "sorcerer" is a skilled mage, a professional and then some; the top quarter of the Healers' and Smiths' guilds are sorcerers. The exact definition is imprecise: one is a sorcerer if one is generally described as a sorcerer, or if one can call onesself a sorcerer without inducing tittering in actual sorcerers. A "wizard" is a skilled sorcerer. Again, the definition is informal. My famous grandparent Glikkonen was the first wizard on the World Tree. I showed zir my one and only impressive trick a few years ago. Zie wanted one for zirself, and we made one together, and after that zie referred to me as a wizard to my half-sibling. So I'm using the word now; who am I to dispute with Glikkonen? Or, alternately, who am I to refuse the best recommendation and advertising in the universe? It's not entirely comfortable, but I am trying to get used to it.)

Spontaneous magic is child's magic. (Vae, in this regard, is a cosmic terror of a child.) You don't need to spend hours taking a spell out of a box and sticking it to yourself to be able to work magic: you can just tug on the relevant gods and throw a bunch of cley at them and hope something vaguely like what you want works. If you're moderate in your needs, adequate in your skills, and careful in your casting, it often does. If not, not so often. And even for experts it still goes wrong occasionally, and a great number of people who die in childhood are killed in spontaneous magic mishaps. I haven't sponted a spell in a decade, which is fine.

There are more obscure styles of magic. Spellbinding is hardly obscure anymore: it's the art of caging a spell in a stick or something, so that the spell goes off when the stick is broken. Or a myriad variations on that. Very useful indeed. Ritual magic is almost the opposite: an insanely complicated, heavily layered spellcast, often with massive effects. I am adequate at ritual magic; I studied it a dozen years for the sake of one (1) ritual spell. (Actually the gods don't like ritual magic very much.) Spellweaving is like spontaneous magic, only more so: very complex, very delicate spells that take hours to cast.

Everyone thinks that my specialty is enchantment. There are a few varieties of enchantment, but I mostly work in Greater Enchantment: concocting fancy spells as integral parts of devices, to that the spells can be cast without cley, an unlimited number of times. (OK, they're usually limited to a few times a day, but the devices last indefinitely.) One can do a great deal with enchantment: the city walls which can keep even Vae out are enchanted, for one useful example, and skyboats like the Strayway are piled with enchantments too. They can be quite practical. I am writing this with an enchanted pen that I made in school: a very simple bit of magic, but I still use it a dozen decades later. My very first one, a pitcher that pours out fourteen gallons of real water once a day, is still at use in the kitchen.

And everyone is right about my speciality. My specialty is enchantment. I am supporting Castle Wrong and Strayway and everything by making and selling a few devices a year. A single talisman paid for all of Castle Wrong, four large homes and their grounds, plus refurbishing them and furnishing them and more. (A while ago, the duke protected himself by various bound spells. A rival used Magiador tricks to neutralize them, and managed to get away with the duke's diary, much to the ducal humiliation. Now he protects all his bound spells with my talisman, and it would take a mighty wizard indeed to neutralize them with Magiador tricks. Or someone equipped with a counter-talisman that I have not made yet, but might, if Vheshrame politics called for it.)

Enchantments take a long time to make, even for me; I am busy for some time each morning working them. I keep pretending that I will stop while I'm on vacation, but the habits of a dozen decades are not so easy to break. I am loading my whole workshop into Strayway. Besides, I have an excellent trick here, which I might explain sometime.

But everyone is also wrong about my speciality. My speciality is needlework.

Specifically, the making of enchanted clothing.

Which leads inevitably, if long-windedly and obliquely, to the notion of indirect tourism.

(An apology for that. It has become clear that many people reading this are not primes -- if I use the word "monster" for you, please remember that "monster" and "non-prime" are essentially synonyms in my language -- and are unfamiliar with the peoples, gods, sorceries, silverware, and so on of the World Tree. So I am trying to explain more. Never fear! I will run out of topics sooner or later.)

Livery

The entire crew of Strayway will be wearing livery. At least, when people are working, they will wear it. When they are not, they can wear whatever they wish. But all the Cani will wear it generally, and Kantele and I as well, so I daresay people will wear it most of the time. Besides, it's sharper clothing than most of the crew have otherwise.

Insignia: The crew voted to take something imposing, something that says "We are the entourage of a Zi Ri wizard, so beware!". Thus: a shield-shape (for Hren Tzen, the Zi Ri creator god), with a bas-relief (sculpture, for Tenmen, the Durudor god and god of smiths) of a heraldic Zi Ri (for me) with a crest of blue feathers (for me) holding a book (for Iraz Varuun, goddess of Magiador and thus of wizards). Anyone who can read the iconography will either be impressed, or, more likely, be so educated as to be blase about the whole thing. For best effect, the insignia medallion will be made of brass and have sapphire-chip feathers, to say, "... who is so insanely rich and powerful that zie can waste metal on a mere belt buckle." (I suppose I was going to buy the create-brass spell at some point anyways, I suppose, but I had put it off a few decades.) Everyone gets one of these. Most insignia will be made of goldy-colored Sir Glass.

(Sir Glass being glass that has been "knighted" by a Sustenoc Durudor spell and is quite hard to break.)

Hat: Hats are essential. Dark blue-green, more blue than green, felt hats, short-brimmed, short and flat-topped, with a band of golden ribbon shot through with real gold wire, and a blue feather that -- despite many assertions to the contrary and at least one attempt by Inconnu to pull one out -- does not come from my wings. The ribbon is alight with small golden flames. Obviously-illusory golden flames, we don't want to alarm anyone, but quite visible and smellable nonetheless. Scented very faintly with arcthorieth incense, scathnard incense, and hot yulexion metal, to match the gods of the insignia; but not too much, which would be cloying. The Strayway insignia -- either the insanely expensive brass version, or the far cheaper ivory and glass one -- may grace the center of the hat. And by "grace" I mean "embarrass me every time I see it."

Vest and Sash: The same shade as the hat, of course, and plentifully supplied with shining gold-rimmed glass buttons. The skirt of the vest is fairly low, below the tailbase in bipeds. A golden sash, rather like the hat-ribbon, loops around the vest -- but it's part of the vest, because there was general objection to wearing separate sashes. (The Orren were uniformly sure they'd snag on things during Wild Rushes.) The sash has a scaly or feathery pattern on it, and the scales or feathers flow around the wearer, upwards over the chest and downwards on the back. The vest has two side pockets, and three inside pockets which are harder to pick and have been expanded by Locador spells. Those who cannot wear a vest wear similar ribbons. (Note to self: I need to sew a pocket in a ribbon and put way too much Locador in it, so I actually have a pocket for the first time ever.)

Caftan: A crisp white short caftan with modest lace at the collar, wrists, and waist. The caftan comes to the knees. Under the sash, it looks rather like a white shirt plus short skirt. It is tailored fairly close to the body. It is slit from mid-back to hemline for the tail. Those who cannot wear a caftan, don't.

Belt: A belt of chimeront leather, dyed in tight speckles of blue and green -- matching the hat and vest where they overlap, but visible individually in places, and altogether white in places. A brass buckle, optionally topped with an ivory copy of the ship's insignia, renders the belt insanely expensive too. I can replace the brass at the cost of a cley, but not the chimeront leather. Pouches of matching leather with matching buttons will be worn by people large enough to wear them.

Tights: There has been considerable debate, but we have decided, tentatively, on very dark blue-green (nearly black) tights, with decorative knee-buttons matching the vest, and stripes of gold ribbon down the sides of the legs. I refuse to spend magic on these ribbons until it is certain that we will keep the tights, or what. I can't wear tights in any case, so they are optional for everyone.

Slippers / Boots: Slippers or boots, of leather that ought to have matched the blue-green we used elsewhere, except the dye lots didn't, so they're just a shade off. (Grinwipey says they did, the horse leather just absorbed the dye differently than cloth or chimeront leather did.) At some point I'm going to do something about that, some day when I'm feeling exceedingly precise and don't mind collecting everyone's footgear for a few hours. The same buttons as elsewhere.

Eyes: Those who wish to change the color of their eyes are encouraged to choose shiny gold. I am doing so, but, due to a belated streak of conservatism, only the pupils.

Indirect Tourism

I was lavishing money on the silly insignias anyways. And enchantment doesn't actually cost me very much, unless it's getting in the way of orders, and I don't have (or want) enough orders to keep me busy all the time anyways. So seven of the insignias are a present for Vae. A crucial sort of present, as they will keep her happy on the trip without requiring anyone to commit a crime deserving of multiple execution.

Seven of the insignia are sense-linked. Anyone wearing one of them and knowing the proper controls can scry on any of the other insignia. They provide: sight, hearing, smell, taste (if you dip the insignia into something -- silly, but magically convenient), magic sense, and two of Vae's cryptic senses that I can't understand or perceive myself but can transmit via an Illusidor scrying spell.

Oh, and the wearers can speak to and caress each other remotely, as well. The former is obviously quite important. The latter was largely accidental, but I'm sure someone will make use of it.

So: Vae can wear one. (I, of course, will wear another.) The other five will be on assorted volunteers from the crew, who will be given extra hazard wages for the day and required to go enjoy the cities we visit with them.

So Vae gets to experience the cities of Srineia. Indirectly, to be sure, but far more than a monster is generally able to experience a prime city.

I'm reasonably sure that these devices are legal, even if a nendrai is using one. The nendrai didn't make them, after all; I did. But I did place five courses of Opacity on them. Most people won't even be able to tell that they're magical. Just in case, really.

Embarking Kidnapping [Vheshrame; 27 Trandary 4385]

Windigar flew Strayway to the Halflight Gate, which is much more convenient to Castle Wrong than the actual port. We trundled to the gate with seven cartsful of afterthoughts, including:

1. A goodly supply of fresh fish, meat, and produce. We will generally buy food locally when we stop each night. We realized last night that we need to start doing that today, not tomorrow, or we'll be scrounging for tonight's dinner.
2. A final box of Academy Bakery poptaloops: little sticky buns with a dot of sweet bean paste on top. Arfaen is a passable baker; but I will miss Academy Bakery.
3. Quendry, officially there "to see the ship and say goodbye to Mommy Arfaen and Mummy Mellilot". Quendry's father was supposed to pick him up at noon precisely.
4. Inconnu's clothing and personal belongings.
5. Half the contents of the Ghreptic Bookstore. Hops was going to procure some books for reading while on the ship, but zie was prevented in doing so by a gaggle of Herethroy porters which zie got into some sort of silly fight with. Tingula volunteered to do it in zir place, but Tingula got rather Orren about it. So, last night, Windigar, Lithia, Kantele, Phaniet, Calla, Blenny, Zascalle, and Jyondre took a remarkably large amount money to the Ghreptic Bookstore, and returned with a remarkably small amount of money and a remarkably large amount of reading matter.
6. An official apology from Hezimikkinen that zie is not coming to the bon voyage party (last night), but zie will see me shortly in any case. This is reasonable. We are reasonably friendly as Zi Ri and half-siblings in the same city go; but a few years apart will do wonders for our relationship. Also, Castle Wrong's parties are not necessarily the sort that Hezimikkinen likes to be seen at. (Zie has come to several of that sort, but in disguise. Zie may even have spent more time partaking of them than I have, since I generally don't do anything interesting at them.)
7. Some clean laundry.
8. Some flowering plants, in pots. It Was Decided By Those In Power (which doesn't include me) that being indoors all the time on the trip was Far Too Dismal, even though I included a great many windows, and so we Must Have Flowering Plants In Pots. So, we have Flowering Plants In Pots.

Vae

Vae, of course, met us outside the gate, in the gazebo where she has met me every third day for a century. She was an immense beast that morning, towering over the gazebo, festooned with spikes big and sharp enough to intimidate Yerenthax. She towered monstrously over Strayway. She was holding a tiny basket covered with a blue checked cloth in her left forepaw, and wearing a huge set of fuzzy earmuffs.

Me:"You don't have a lot of luggage, unless that basket is larger than it looks."

Vae:"Not a bit larger, I am afraid, Sythyry. Not so many things do I wish to bring with me. The bracelet with the sliver of Oixe's egg is here. The healing talisman you made for me is here. The pictures of Greenspikes and of Strenata are here too. And what truly matters in life, save memories of friends, and sorcerous defenses? If anything important is forgot, I shall trot back and get it."

And she can trot back and get it. I can't, nor can any reasonable person I know. She travelled further to meet with Oixe.

Me:"Fair enough! How were you planning to get into the yacht, though? You're rather larger than it is."

Vae flicked one of the doorways with her tail. It stopped being a little hole in the side of the candelabra that was somehow big enough for primes and carts to walk through, and became a little hole in the side of the candelabra that was somehow big enough for anything, no matter how big, to walk through. I stared at it nervously, but it didn't break.

Me:"I'm not sure that that's a good idea; there's a substantial Locador enchantment on that already." Which is silly to say; Vae can see such things better than I can. "If you're going to do that regularly, I'll make some alternations."

Vae:"Not again shall I do that until I return in the Strayway to my home!"

Vae curled her tail around herself, and became a six-inch-long serpent, bright blue and green striped, with four pairs of dragonfly wings, wearing a tiny set of fuzzy earmuffs. She zoomed over to me and coiled around my foreleg.

Windigar:"Vaisessasilmin, I do hereby formally invite you to come as a passenger upon Strayway, and sail the skies with us, hither and yon, trunkward and outward, rollward and roll'gainst, beneath the eyes of the creator gods, until our paths do part us."

Vae:"The I do accept this invitation, to be your guest and passenger upon Strayway, and to abide by all your orders as we fly, until our paths do part us."

Me:"You have been reading historical romance novels, have you not, Vae?" Because nobody makes a formal invitation to a skyboat anymore; it was archaic a century ago.

Vae:"The novels that you brought me over the months and years and decades are the novels that I read! The blame for my historical romances falls fully on your back, Sythyry."

Windigar:"It is a nice bit of ritual, nonetheless."

Phaniet:"Besides, it's never a bad thing to get a promise of good behavior out of the monsters. Even if they can't keep it."

Vae twisted appearance around herself so we couldn't see her crying. But anyone who knows Vae knows that there were daggers of glass ripping her eyes behind that illusion.

Later, in her cabin, I asked her, for the hundreth time, "Shall I tune your earmuffs so you don't hear that sort of thing any more?"

She shook her tiny head, and denied me for the hundredth time. "Not a bit! The I barely even notice it anymore, and the tears and their healing are good for me."

Quendry and his Brothers

Quendry's father did not choose to come in person to collect Quendry. Perhaps he does not like nendrai, or skyboats, or Khtsoyis seamstresses. Or perhaps he had better things to do. So he sent two of Quendry's not-quite-brothers, Cani boys a few years older than Quendry. I am not quite sure of their names, so I will call them both Broon.

They sort of wobbled around Strayway a few times, looking for the doors. The doors are not obvious. They are not exactly concealed, but they are part of the bas-reliefs on the vase, so they are not quite obvious either. Also, they look too small for a mouse to creep through, much less a whole prime. They're actually quite easy to find -- look for the holes with the most Locador magic on them. I should probably figure out how to install locks at some point; but at least our cryptic defenses are capable of keeping out two young Cani boys.

Finally Broon, or perhaps Broon, shouted at the antelopes, "Hey! Let us in!"

Windigar, deep inside the yacht, spoke into a shell that made his words loud and thunderous outside: "Turn right, walk straight at the wall, and you're in."

So they did, and wound up in a sort of cloakroom, panelled in grey leather, with pegs on the walls and a roaring fire, and a pool of steaming water in the corner for a quick bath, and nobody around.

They called out "Quendry? Quendry? Arfaen? Consort-of-Arfaen?"

Nobody answered. This is because almost everyone was on the other side of the yacht, busy with all sorts of last-minute tasks. Only Windigar and I, in the control room, could hear them.

Broon and Broon wandered around, noses to the ground. I can't smell very well myself -- I do fine for a Zi Ri, but that's nothing compared to a Cani -- but I imagine that the smells in Strayway must have been a bit confusing. We've had a hundred workmen in here over the last month.

After a while, they were thoroughly lost. It was time to be cruel. I flew out of the control room, straight for them.

After a while, I was thoroughly lost, too. The talking furniture wasn't much help, since they didn't know where Broon and Broon were.

So I missed the actual takeoff.

A third of an hour later, maybe, I caught up with Broon and Broon. They had gotten to one of the spare pantries, and were having a quick impromptu lunch of spiced sausage and hard cider. Spiced sausage from The Farm on Ghaln-Yastrou Park, which costs three lozens a pound [$30/lb, and food is generally cheap on the World Tree. -bb], at that.

"Excuse me," I said, because one always should be polite to people that one is about to be horrible to. "You are stowaways on my ship, and you are eating my most expensive sausage. I cannot permit this." Which is all technically true, even though I knew better.

"We're not..." started Broon, or, perhaps, Broon.

"But you are, indeed, and you should not be, for you are flying away from your homes while you are doing it. You must go back home now." I said, and teleported them to the Halflight Gate. I am not so good at agressive Locador spells as Vae is, but one does not need to be.

(Our first plan was to have Vae send the supposed intruders off, perhaps teleporting them rather further away, to Daukrhame or some such. It is the sort of thing a cruel and wicked monster would do, after all. But, first of all, I don't want to train Vae to be cruel and wicked any more than her own nature and natural upbringing requires, which is rather a lot. And, second, the kidnapping is about 1/3 my responsibility, with 1/2 going to Arfaen and the remaining 1/6 being spread around the ship; and I ought to do my own dirty work.)

And that completes the kidnapping proper, I hope. We'll be some cities away before we stop again, and Quendry's father will have no idea where to find us. Arfaen has written him a letter -- I have seen a dozen drafts of it -- explaining the situation in terms that do not actually admit to any wrongdoing or admit that there is any blame anywhere in the situation. It is just an unfortunate mistake, in her letter, but one that will not be corrected. We will send it to him from somewhere or other tonight, and then keep flying.

And, by the time I got back to the control room, it did seem quite dirty indeed. Arfaen had explained the situation to Quendry -- there had been a change of plans, and he, Quendry, was going to come with her and Mellilot and me and all on a long and wonderful trip. Quendry is young, but not stupid. I could hear him howling for his father and his pack.

His father who treated him wrong, in a way that Quendry even now might never recover from. But his father who had given him a place in the pack -- even though that place was "omega", the least of all -- and Cani love their packs, even when they are otherwise awful to them.

I'm pretty sure that we did the best thing for Quendry: for his growing up as a Cani healthy in mind and spirit, and even for his treatment over the next few years. But oh, the howling!

Bon voyage.

Snootloose, part 1 [somewhere over Choinxeia; 27 Trandary 4385]

Three hours later, Mellilot tapped on the cockpit door. "Sythyry? There's something you might be able to help with, if you'd like. About Quendry."

"What is it?" I popped out, leaving the wholly capable Windigar driving the antelopes.

"Quendry's upset about missing his rag doll Snootloose. He's upset about a lot of things, but he's never gone to sleep without Snootloose before. Could maybe you get Vae to zap Snootloose over to Strayway?" she asked.

"No, for about seven plus twelve reasons. Mostly we are not asking Vae for favors; it always somes out badly. Don't even think of that. She'd probably turn you into Snootloose or something!" I explained calmly. (By "calmly" I mean "flapping my wings so much that I lost feathers.")

"Oh, no... don't do that ... we'll figure out some way for him to go to sleep ... I just thought I'd ask ..." she said.

"Don't give up on Snootloose. Let's try something else," I said.

So we tried something else, after we tracked him down.

Me:"Rheng, you're a thief of sorts, among your other skills, are you not?"

Rheng:"We are outside any city now? I am an expert thief. We are inside a city? I know nothing of any stealing."

Me:"Could you go to Quendry's longhouse and steal Snootloose?"

Rheng:"Quendry is the howling boy of the whole world; I go to escape his howling. But what is Snootloose?"

Mellilot:(explain, explain)

Rheng:"For this expedition, I demand the hazard pay!"

Me:"You're going to a very civilized city to steal a used rag doll. What risk could there possibly be?"

Rheng:"I am Rheng; I am the thief supreme. Yet, what if I am discovered?"

Me:"You might have to pay ten times the value of the doll. I'll pay you back in advance." and tossed him a lozen.

Rheng:"I am Rheng; I am the thief supreme! There is no coin large enough to repair my reputation, if I steal the rag doll!"

Me:"Here's a bound Veil spell, and two good teleports. Think you can avoid getting caught?"

Rheng:"I am Rheng; I am the thief supreme!"

Me:"Go, then, Rheng." We made arrangements to pick him up, and other arrangements if the first ones failed.

Choofing [Somewhere over Choinxeia; 27 Trandary 4385]

As a sign of how utterly important and crucial I am to the success of our mission and the well-being of all on board, I would like to note that (a) I wasn't there, and (b) I didn't even find out about it 'til afterwards. All conversations are made up -- I mean, all conversations are usually made up to some degree, but this time I didn't even hear the original.

Zascalle brought her children Feralan and Ochirion to see Quendry, in the kitchen. The boys knew each other; they were playmates when Quendry visited Castle Wrong. Arfaen got Quendry to stop howling long enough to say hello.

Quendry:"Hello." [Howls more.]

Feralan:"Hello, Quendry. What are you good at?"

Quendry:"Nothing."[Howls more.]

Feralan:"That's a pretty funny noise you're making there, Quendry." Quendry just looked mournful, so Feralan continued, "But I've got affan in funny noises."

Quendry:[crying more]"You mean I can't howl any more? I can't help it! I can't stop howling! Nobody can help me stop howling! I am going to howl and howl!" [does so.]

Feralan:"Quendry, if you want to keep howling, you're going to have to choof me to get affan in making funny noises."

So Arfaen talked Quendry into choofing Feralan. Technically, that doesn't make sense. Feralan is Rassimel, not Cani, so he's not really choofable, and can't really hold affan. But close enough.

Feralan:"OK, we're going to have a funny noise contest. Whoever makes the funniest noise, wins."

About half the crew of Strayway, including all the Cani, were there watching, and were deemed to be adequate judges.

Feralan:"All right, here's my funny noise. Bloop-bloop-bloop!" He wiggled his hands and ears.

Quendry:"Bloop-bloop-bloop? Oh! Bloop ... Bloop ...!" He suddenly grinned, and shouted, "Bloop-boop POOP!"

And that caught the press of concerned adults by surprise, and several of them burst out laughing. Which, of course, they were planning to do one way or another anyways, but it was genuine.

Ensemble:"Bloop-boop poop! Bloop-boop poop!"

Feralan:"You win, Quendry! Everyone thinks that's the funniest sound!"

And, apparently, it is the funniest sound.

Quendry went bouncing around. "I have an affan! I have affan in funny sounds! Bloop-boop poop!"

My Role In The Matter

I was in the sorcerous library, discussing Matters of Grave Magical Importance with Vae (tiny six-dragonfly-winged snake, today) and Kantele (old Rassimel woman, generally). Specifically, we were discussing where Phaniet was, and guessing, wrongly, that she was getting some well-deserved private time with Este. Vae was a bit embarrassed. Kantele was not easy to embarrass when she was a young girl, and now she is an old woman and utterly shameless.

Thiane ran through the door. "Bloop-boop poop!" Thiane rarely uses such language.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Bloop-boop poop!"

Vae raised her head. "Oh! The diarrhea is upon you, and you know not the way to the toilet! The couch is the one to ask, not me!"

The couch proclaimed, "The third door on the left, painted a delicate and quite restful green color. I have no biological processes myself, but I am sure that the qualities of the room are most extraordinarily suitable for them! But hurry! The situation is urgent! Matters will quickly come to a head!" It squeaked agitatedly. "Rush, rush, zoom, zoom! I wish for no accidents upon my embroidery!"

We calmed the couch and the nendrai down, in that order, and interrogated Thiane.

"No, I'm just fine. But Quendry has affan in funny sounds, so you're going be hearing that one a lot." She explained, and Kantele and I rejoiced, and then we explained it to Vae, who didn't quite get it but flapped her wings happily anyways.

A commotion occurred outside. I looked out the library door. Half of the crew was parading down the corridor, Quendry leading, each one holding the tail of the one in front, chanting "bloop-boop poop!".

"Come, my mystical companions! We have important work to do!"

Vae didn't join, though. She is having a vacation from arms and legs, and in her serpentine form can't hold the tail in front of her and chant at the same time. She'd have to use some magic for one or the other. She muttered something about not having enough cley left (she can use cley in the usual way, but her insanely strong magic doesn't use cley). I think she didn't want to see who would dare hold her tail, and was making the first excuse that came to mind.

But it was a fun parade, twisting around in hallways that nobody has ever visited before, winding this way and that, and chanting Quendry's funny noises. We got lost, of course, and introduced ourselves to a long series of chairs with embroidered cushions on our way back. And Quendry was happily in charge of the whole adventure.

(I really must explore the whole of Strayway sometime. I built it in a convenient way, with created elementals doing most of the work; but I doubt that a tenth part of the ship has been seen by prime eyes yet. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the elementals had installed a swimming pool somewhere, or a jelly fountain or small conifer forest.)

In any case: bloop-boop poop for the win!

A Hundred Lessons in Srineian [Vheshrame; various past dates]

Jyondre has been teaching everyone how to speak Sriniean.

The vocabulary isn't hard. It's rather like Ketherian, mangled a bit in some pretty regular ways. Thiane has a bag on her leg; Sriane has a baglo on her legro. Grinwipey uses a club; Srinwipey uses a clubb. Sythyry casts a spell; Srythyry casts a spell.

The status markers, though. I will never get the status markers.

First of all, there are two kinds of status: social status and historical status. So, the children of the original colonists are important in the language in ways that the unhistoried never can be, even if the unhistoried are heroes and nobles.

Second, they use status markers everywhere. Actually they don't, but they can.

Social status:

Historical status:

You can tack either or both markers on pronouns, so you can quite economically say "I -- an educated hero -- ask you -- a noble of newcomer ancestry -- to remove your(still noble and unhistoried) foot from my (still educated and heroic) tail." People only do that when they're really trying to make a point of status. Which you might do if you were high-status and trying to domineer someone, or low-status and trying to get a favor from someone.

Names can get one marker as a suffix.

Jyondre:(to the class)"So how would you refer to the Zi Ri?"

Inconnu:"Sythyry-nobo"

Jyondre:"Oh, great staring gods, no, no, not that!"

Inconnu:"Why? What does it mean?"

Jyondre:"It's a rather nasty word for a rather pleasant activity, and I don't think Sythyry is physically or emotionally capable of it anyways."

Me:"I am not utterly unskilled at pleasant activities."

Jyondre:"Well, this one is strictly cisaffectionate."

Inconnu:"Oh! Sythyry would never never never do that!" [He wriggled at me, which is nice to look at. But I am not taking lovers among my clients. That is simply not appropriate.]

Me:"Back to the language lesson, please."

Thiane:"Sythyry-nob"

Jyondre:"Exactly!"

Me:"Well, it's not quite a current title. Duke Conturge confirmed it over a century ago, but his successors have not done. They were more worried about Castle Wrong, and less about Vae. It's a species title, so they don't exactly need to confirm it, but ... I don't actually use it much. And it's just 'Esquire', which isn't a very big title anyways. If I'm trying to look like an important and respectable citizen these decades, I use a title like 'master-smith' or 'master-healer'."

Thiane:"Then Sythyry-unhi."

Jyondre:"No, you always pick a higher title if there is one. If zie's unhi -- and all of you are unhi -- use a social status title."

Thiane:"Sythyry-low?"

Jyondre:"No, no. Sythyry-edu, remember the -edu title?"

Me:"It is Sythyry-low, actually. I never finished the Academy."

Jyondre:"You didn't?"

Me:"I was spending too much time with monsters and lovers and things. So, Sythyry-low, or Sythyry-unhi. She's Thiane-edu, though."

Jyondre:"But you're the wizard, aren't you...?"

Me:"Yes."

Jyondre:"Oh, dear. It'll be very confusing to have Sythyry-low as the wizard and Thiane-edu as a subordinate. It could be troublesome in polite society."

Thiane:"I can be Thiane-low."

Jyondre:"No, no, no! Never give up your status markers!"

Me:"Should I do the jivu ceremony before we go?"

Jyondre:"Impossible, impossible! You know nothing of the jivu. And it cannot be done in Choinxeia."

Me:"What should we do?"

Jyondre:"Maybe Sythyry could be more assertive about claiming nobility, and everyone could call zir-nob as Sythyry-nob?"

Thiane:"Whatever makes sense"

Tingula:"Couldn't we just speak Ketherian altogether?"

Me:"Or use -dono and -huh for each other all the time?"

Jyondre:"No, no, you must know each others' history if you know each other! Everyone would know you were lying! No, the calling of nobility is best."

So we're going to pretend I'm really a noble, instead of the vaguely sort of as-long-as-nobody-is-pushing-anything only-really-inside-Vheshrame-city-limits kind of noble that I really am.

Thiane:"Wait, didn't you say professions plus history markers could be used as titles? So zie could be Enchanter-unhi Sythyry."

Jyondre:"Zie can't call zirself that, though. It's gauche for the unhi to use professional titles for themselves. And it would emphasize that zie's unhi."

Me:"Nobody would expect a tourist from Ketheria to have historical status, would they?"

Jyondre:"No, but ..."

Thiane:"What do Ketherian tourists do?"

Jyondre:"We don't get very many Ketherian tourists. You're surely not the first, but, well, you are the first that I-edu-jivu have heard of."

Inconnu:"Wait, are there really 144 pronouns? Twelve choices for species, times three markers for status, times four for history?"

Jyondre:"Nope. Three hundred and eighty. There are five choices for social status (nob, edu, low, plus 'huh' if you don't know and just leaving it off), and six for historical status (colo, hero, jivu, unhi, and 'dono' and nothing). Don't worry, they're regular. Also they're not used very often."

Inconnu:"Then why are we learning them?"

Jyondre:" Because they help you understand the twenty pronouns that you actually do use. Which don't use the suffixes, they're just different. They're for things like 'a prime of low status', and 'a Rassimel of colonial descent'." He later admitted that the twelve usual Ketherian pronouns are used too -- those tell species, but don't have any status markers.

Everyone but Jyondre: "Can we please fall over and die from the confusion and overwhelmedness?"

Jyondre:"No! Not until I cover verb forms!"

Everyone but Jyondre:"Merciless foreigner!"

(And, if you really want to know, there are a few verbs that can only be used by certain statuses. Nobles can say 'want-nob'; everyone else just says 'want'. (Actually the contrast is more like 'kippliwere' and 'want'. You wouldn't guess that the words had anything to do with each other.) And there are a few other verbs that can only be used about certain statuses. So I, as a person of low social status, would carry-low (or 'gleddah') a load, but if someone tried to say that educated Jyondre or Thiane would gleddah a load, they'd get beaten up or even mocked.)

Inconnu:[In Sriniean]"Sythyry must be our porter! Zie-low will gleddah all our luggage!"

(Much laughter. I would fit inside anyone's suitcase; I cannot carry such large things!)

Adjectives and adverbs are safe though.

Everyone but Yerenthax:"We will speak only in adjectives and adverbs! Truly! Wonderful! Truly wonderful!"

Jyondre:"Understandable?"

Everyone:"Unlikely! Greatly unlikely!"

Jyondre:"Socially-acceptable?"

Everyone:"Scarcely! Heinously scarcely!"

Jyondre:"Then the lessons will resume until morale and syntax both improve."

I am not going to write my journal in Sriniean though!

[And, as usual, the translation will be into normal English, and status markers will be handled elsewise. -bb]

Return of the Sleeth [somewhere over Choinxeia; 27 Trandare 4385]

The last flames in the sun flickered out at the traditional hour. It is pleasant to fly in a sky-yacht with giant burning candles around it; we bring our own light. Also we can be seen from tens of miles off, which would be a problem if we were pirates or city guards or adventurers or something. Fortunately we are tourists.

In this instance, we are tourists who are trying to meet one of our number, outside the little village of Goldenprallow. We were fairly sure that he was there, since we (Thiane, Vae, me) had seen a flicker of Locador, looking more or less like mine.

We hadn't decided on a specific spot to meet, just "near Goldenprallow". But, how hard could it be for a Sleeth to spot a giant floating candlabra in the night?

And it was fairly urgent to find Rheng, or at least, Snootloose. Quendry was exhausted, and crying in his mother's arms, and refusing to go to sleep until Snootloose was his once more. This had disrupted the kitchen considerably, since Arfaen was supposed to make dinner, and couldn't. Calla had graciously agreed to cook; but we are not proceeding towards getting organized. I suppose I shouldn't expect half of Castle Wrong to be very organized, even if we are living in a yacht now.

We circled around Goldenprallow a few times, slowly, listening for the roar of a Sleeth. No roar, no Sleeth, no Snootloose. Also no dinner for Windigar and me in the cockpit.

Two-third of an hour later, on the third time around Goldenprallow, a shout from the ground.

Ground:"Ahoy, the candelabra!" Ground was not a Sleeth. Ground was a Herethroy wearing armor and carrying a three-handed sword. We decided to be polite to Ground.

Me:"Ahoy, the ground!"

Ground:"What are you doing?"

Me:(explain, explain, explain)

Ground:"Well, you're scaring the village. Could you please make your way to the city skyport, and come back to Goldenprallow tomorrow if you need to?"

Me:"No, we're trying to meet a Sleeth here so the Cani boy can sleep. "

Ground:"Dern cryptic Zi Ri!"

Me:(explain, explain, explain)

Ground:"That's, um, very noble or something of you. Could you please stop circling the village, and land, or something that's not quite so spooky?"

Me:"Certainly; we don't want to annoy the natives. I apologize to them, in fact. Do you have any idea where the Sleeth might be?"

Ground:"No, I'm afraid not."

Rheng:"The Sleeth is here in the bushes these last two hours."

Me:"Why didn't you say so the first three times we were here?"

Rheng:"I am eating a spare gazelle."

Eventually we sent the knight back to Goldenprallow with a barrel of reasonably good wine by way of apology, and landed, and let Rheng aboard.

Me:"Did you get Snootloose?"

Rheng:"I am the thief supreme! Snootloose is in my left saddlebag."

Arfaen:"Wonderful!"

Quendry:"Snootloose!" [falls asleep instantly and has to be carried back to his cabin.]

Rheng:"And in my right saddlebag is the true prize of your desiring, rrai!"

Me:"Snootloose is also in your right saddlebag?"

Phaniet:"Has the nendrai been up to her tricks again?"

Rheng:"Rrai, you are the funny Zi Ri! Open my saddlebag, and behold!"

Phaniet did, running her hands through Rheng's backfur. Rheng stretched luxuriously. One must always wonder who is doing what with whom in Castle Wrong Strayway.

Then she opened the saddlebag, and stared.

Phaniet:"Great googly-eyed gods. There's a tail in here."

Rheng:"Do not exaggerate! In my saddlebag is only three-quarters of a tail!"

Me:"Leftovers from your dinner?"

Phaniet:"Hardly. A Cani tail, male, young adult. He ate garlic sausages and cabbage for lunch, probably at a cheap lunch-house by the public pond. He was very worried -- how long were you stalking him, Rheng? No, he's not scared, just worried. Angry, too."

Rheng:"Close enough for a Cani nose."

I can't smell. (I mean, I can smell, but not the way a Cani or a Sleeth can smell.) So I looked at the brown stripes on the tail. Many, many Cani have brown stripes, but who would Rheng want to maim?

Me:"Is this Quendry's father's tail?"

Rheng:"Close enough for Zi Ri eyes. You may now reward me thoroughly."

Me:"I didn't ask for his tail."

Rheng:"You employ a Sleeth, you employ the Thief Supreme! You do not ask. This is important! When you are in court, you must say, 'I do not ask for his tail! Give me the mind-spell of truth, I say it again, I do not ask for his tail! It is all the fault of the Sleeth!' But the Sleeth is the thief supreme, the Sleeth cannot be found."

Me:"Well, we're not going to court over this."

Rheng:"Rrai, no, we are going to Srineia instead! As we fly we will know that revenge is done! He crimes and wickeds at Arfaen, at Quendry, at Mellilot, at you! Today, he weeps because of crimes and wickeds! He would tuck his tail between his legs in his shame, but, somehow, he cannot!"

Me:"I think that rescuing his son from him was enough revenge. Besides, I didn't ask for this tail and I don't want it. I'm going to have to spend several cley to send it back."

The first cley was for Fresh Meat, which wards off spoiling. And the first complication there was, what power? It's a lot harder to reattach the thing while the spell is in force, and the more power, the longer the spell lasts. But my fellow master-healers at the Healers' Guild know what power I use, and they will think strangely of me (and that I am apologizing badly) if I don't do it as well as I can. So I did it the ordinary way (full power), and hoped that he didn't actually need it for a couple more weeks.

Tomorrow morning we're going to have to stop by some city or other, and send the tail back by post. With an apology, probably some incense. Arfaen will have to pick it out, and Rheng will pay for it. Probably from future wages. If we were on a schedule, we'd be off the schedule.

Me:(an impassioned lecture about how we should not take revenge for every insult, because we are traff and otherwise wrong, and would have to constantly fuss with revenges.) With most people I would take an ethical argument, not a practical one, but ethical arguments with Sleeth are not always very useful.

Rheng:"I do not see the problem. That is a good way to live!"

Me:"We get so many insults that we could spend every moment and then some on revenge, and still not get finished"

Rheng:"Stalking the Cani, biting off the tail of the Cani, these take one minute or two! You spend much more time waiting for me to finish my dinner, rrai!"

Me:(gets distracted, complains about that too.)

Rheng:(looks unimpressed.)

Fortunately he has no enemies in Srineia, so he won't go biting tails off there.

Pastorale [over Choinxeia; 1 Hispis 4385]

Nothing exciting is happening today! I hope!

I have finished my morning exercises (I seem unable to break that habit, even if I am on vacation). Now I am sitting in the flame of Strayway's starboard candle, being fireproof, writing lazily in my fireproof journal with a spell because my favorite pen is not fireproof. (I should do something about that.)

I am watching the scenery.

Down below is Choinxeia. Even I don't usually see it like this. We are somewhat over a mile up, by my request. I rarely fly this high with my own wings. The last time I did I must have been thirteen, adolescent, and utterly upset with ... I can't remember who or what. I don't think I was sightseeing in any case.

I can see both edges of the world-branch from here. Choinxeia, like most branches, is some fifty miles wide, and ... I don't even know how long. It's still fifty miles wide fifty-seven thousand miles out, I happen to know, and so are its side branches.

It's not perfectly flat on top. It's hard to tell from up here, but it's dished: lower in the center, almost a quarter-mile higher at the edges. Also it's tilted towards the main trunk, a lot less than that: maybe a mile's drop in three hundred miles.

And oh! Here's how you can tell it's dished! That squirming silver line is the Omblou, the main river of this part of Choinxeia. You can see it wiggling this way and that, but trying to stay towards the center of the branch. Of course it can't. The branch is combie over here. That means that there are dozens of short thin crosswise mountain ranges, running almost from edge to edge: ridges in the underlying world-bark. The Omblou can't go over them generally, unless there's a surprise valley or an energetic river spirit, so it makes little horizontal lakes on the outward sides of each range, and then spills over on one side or the other, pouring towards the main trunk as best it can.

It's wonderful territory for Orren, since it's full of lakes; but it's not very good land for anyone serious. Or at least not for big fields of wheat and lentils, and vetch for the cattle. If I remember the map properly -- and I am not going inside to look at it! -- we are over Ulmarn. The figs from Ulmarn are the best on Choinxeia.

Or I could look outward, away from the main trunk. Choinxeia is a very wide fifty miles under Strayway, but off in the distance that same fifty miles isn't very wide at all. I'm reasonably sure that that dot is home, is Vheshrame, but at this distance it's just a dot. It might be Daukrhame, or a small mountain. The branch wanders outwards, pops out side branches here and there, zigs lazily, zags just as lazily.

The sun is nearly straight outward along Choinxeia today. (That's part of why we chose to leave yesterday -- the sun won't be in our eyes as we fly. Or behind the main trunk, leaving a big shadow stripe, which is nearly as distracting.) In case you're from a different world where the sun is, I don't know, square like a star or something: our sun is a big crystal globe that rolls on a track in the lower part of the sky, eighteen degrees up from the horizon. It rolls around the whole sky in twenty-seven days, which we call a "month". [The actual word sounds more like "sunth" in Ketherian. -bb] Flokin, our brainless but hard-working fire god, lights it every morning, precisely at dawn.

(That is not an oxymoron. Dawn is frequently defined as the time that decent people get their cley restored, and it is somewhere between An Interesting Coincidence and A Highly Symbolic Gesture On Some God's Part that the world gets its main light restored at the same time of day.)

As I said, the sun is a crystal globe full of fuel. Flokin lights it at dawn. It must be a rather large globe, for the flame takes a long time to spread to the whole of the sun -- it takes precisely nine hours. Which is quite confusing when you think about it, since on some days (like today) the fire moves very fast at first; it has already covered seven-eights of the globe, and if it continued at that rate, it would have filled the whole globe by the second hour after dawn, not the ninth. It's going to slow down soon though, or, if it doesn't, it'll be the first time in 4385 years that it hasn't. Other days, it might barely have spread at all by this time, or even by half an hour before noon, but then it rushes to get the rest of the way.

At noon, the sun is full of fire. Immediately the flames start to die out. Sometimes quickly at first, sometimes slowly, but it always takes exactly nine hours to go all the way out. (After which we have nine hours of solar darkness in which to best admire our gaudy night sky, or sleep, or enjoy the company of members of the appropriate species, as you see fit.)

Yes, of course the sun drips sometimes, or flares up huge flames that scorch the lower stars until some elementals or something goes and polishes them. Doesn't yours?

Or I could look trunkward. "Trunkward" being one of our cardinal directions, viz., going towards the main trunk. Ketheria is the ring of nine branches at the top of the main trunk; it is where the primes were first created, 4385-4380 years ago, and the most civilized place in the universe. (Srineia, far outside Ketheria, is wild and strange and exotic, making it an excellent place for a vacation.)

I don't think Ketheria is going to be the top ring of branches for too much longer though, as Zi Ri ought to measure time. The World Tree has grown a lot since the first days, and the main trunk now stands hundreds of miles above Ketheria. Presumably it will sprout another ring of branches at some point. That shouldn't bother me -- more land to live on is a good thing, after all -- but it seems somewhat of a shame that Ketheria stop being the top of the World Tree.

(The other cardinal directions include: outward, which is away from the trunk. Rollward, which is the direction the sun rolls, and roll'gainst, which isn't. We also have 'north', which is the direction towards Reluu. Oh, I suppose I should mention the other big feature of the daytime sky. Our seven creator gods, Hren Tzen and Reluu and so on, sit in the middle sky. Reluu is usually a spiky silver crown, sometimes with Cani eyes or even a whole face. Hren Tzen is a Zi Ri with four bright rings. And so on. We're not so lucky as to have them stay there -- or, I suppose, to only be there -- but there they are, in case we wanted to forget who made the place.)

The main trunk, like the sides and bottoms of the world-branches, are covered with shaggy horizontal trees, huge vines the size of rivers, swaths of moss as big as city-states, and the occasional vertical desert of bare world-bark. It's possible to live in the Verticals. Many people do, but they're as likely as not to be Sleeth (who can get around easily there) or Gormoror (who enjoy a challenge). Lots of monsters do -- mainly because we have driven them off of the Flats and taken their lands and their treasures for our own; they would rather not live there. Most primes would call this a good thing. Vae and her non-prime friends aren't so sure. I call it an inevitable thing, and try not to fuss to much about who, exactly, it is good for.

Looking down, there's the ring of branches below Ketheria ... three hundred and some miles down? More than that? I can't remember exactly. Then the one below that, a bit further, and the one below that. They start getting a bit hard to see at the fifth one. We're going to the twelfth.

But first we're going to stop on the skybridge.

(Historical aside. There are three sensible solutions to the fact that there's not very much land to live on in inner Ketheria. These are: (1) use massive amounts of Locador to make more land; (2) colonize other branches; and (3) build more land in inner Ketheria. All three have been tried. (1) scares people more than it should, though it should scare them somewhat. (2) is very popular, except with the denizens of the branches we colonize. (3) is our next stop.)

I think it started out as a ring of wooden bridges around the main trunk, connecting Craitheia to Remseia to Aradrueia to Dentheia to Choinxeia to Braxeia to Mrasteia to Yistreia to Hybraeia to Craitheia. But we -- and by "we" I include two grandparents of mine, but it was before my parents were hatched -- expanded on the bridges. Now they're three-quarters of a mile wide, and fifteen stories deep or more. Made of wood mostly, with some rather substantial enchantments to keep them levitating in the right place. Not one enchantment -- that would be a bit big, even for my famous grandparent -- but, I should imagine, a separate enchantment for every quarter-acre or less. Lots of work for lots of enchanters.

It could be done without all that work. It could be done by spells, rather than enchantments. But spells can be broken by mistake once in a while -- or on purpose, for that matter. Enchantments can be, too, but they are considerably harder to do anything about. And if you're building cities, you don't want them falling down out of the sky whenever some child gets an exceptional spont cast to block her brother's insect-creation spell. Or, more seriously, whenever something gets a bit odd in the Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen, where you're invoking three of our nastier gods on a regular basis. There's often a bit of stray magic that needs breaking after that sort of ritual, I should think, and best if breaking it doesn't break your city too.

And Oorah Thrassen, our ancient (and generally successful) enemy, is our next stop. I will finally get to meet some of the sorcerers I have been contending with for the last few decades. It should be fun.

Playing at Nobility [over Choinxeia; 2 Hispis 4385]

They are Up To Something.

Calla prepared lunch today. That's wrong, to begin with. Arfaen is supposedly the chef for breakfast and lunch, and Calla for dinner. (I presume that Arfaen is busy taking care of Quendry somehow today, and they will get back to the planned schedule soon. (Well, not 'back' since they haven't managed to do it yet.)) It's not that wrong, since Calla is one of the better chefs anyways. It does mean that lunch came out more vegetarian than I expected, since Mellilot was Calla's main sous-chef and other assistant, and neither Herethroy is very good at cooking foods they can't eat. But everyone but Rheng should be perfectly happy with: ground groundnut soup; leek tarts with gorgonzola; carrots and pears poached in wine; garlic risotto topped with little truffle-flavored custards and peppercream sauce, and some quite reasonable grilled eel from a store in Vheshrame for those who eat eel; and cinnamon chess pie with spiky fans of molten sugar paired with cucumbers pickled with mustard-seed to cut the sweetness.

This is rather fancier food than we generally ate at Castle Wrong. Not that we ate badly back home. But there the problem was feeding some fifty or seventy-five people, mostly very hungry from (1) long days of physical labor; (2) long days of bliss with someone they weren't generally allowed to enjoy bliss with outside; (3) youth; (4) misery; or (5) something else. Oh, and they paid it -- which is to say, contributed something towards it, either money or effort usually. Most people who lived in Castle Wrong for any length of time didn't want to feel like total freeloaders. (A few didn't mind being total freeloaders. After a bit, the rest of us didn't want them to be, so we made them do something, too.) So the food tended to be more towards the cheap, tasty, comforting, and nutritious.

Also, in Castle Wrong, people showed up to eat at all sorts of random times. One of the cooks' main jobs was to be sure that there was always a cauldron of lentils and rice or some such ready for when a half-dozen starving wrongfolk showed up at no particular time, and half of them having just been kicked out of their family homes for loving the other half too visibly, as happened one memorable afternoon. Or, say, a lizard sorcerer who got disorganized about zir day's work and zir time-spells, and showed up an hour after breakfast, so ravenous that zie could eat a whole egg and a half-cup of porridge. Which happened several times a week at one point, until I learned to bring a few spare meals to my workshop.

Since everyone is on vacation -- since everyone is on my vacation -- we are trying for "tasty, luxurious, and nutritious". "Cheap" is not so much of a concern. There's a substantial box of amber in a back room of Strayway. If that starts to run low, I will make a mighty talisman to sell. Any Healer's Guild chapter or city guard is going to want a Heal Truly device with unlimited uses. (Not just Heal Once, which can only be applied to a patient once each day, but an honest-to-gods Heal Truly.) I'm quite good at that enchantment, as I have needed quick cash more than once before, and as a Guild healer with dues paid a century in advance, I can get away with making and selling it.

So, poaching in wine, and truffles, and cinnamon chess pie. And five-course luncheons, with everyone eating at the same time except for (a) the children if they don't want to sit still that long; (b) the cooks and waiters of the hour; (c) the Sleeth; (d) the pilot, and (e) anyone who doesn't want to. So far nobody is (e), but it's only the second day.

((d) means that I'll either miss one meal a day so that Windigar can attend, or, when we're in civilized territory, we can stop Strayway somewhere and both of us dine.)

This is a rather long voyage. Even with the antelopes and a good pilot, Strayway rarely will go faster than ten miles an hour, and that for only as Windigar or I are working. So we have to entertain ourselves and each other. Putting on three or four feasts a day should help with that. Many of us enjoy cooking, and nearly all of us enjoy eating, so it'll be a constant source of boredom-deflection. I hope.

Which is a long-winded explanation -- I would say that I have become long-winded in my less-than-utterly-youthful age, only, after I read some of my old journal, I am pretty sure I was hatched wordy -- for the suspicious behavior I observed this evening.

Tingula:"I don't generally like pears, but these are quite nice."

Hops:"Waiter! My wife wishes another poached pear! Be snappy about it, and none of the pears poached in meagre wine!" (They're not married in any real sense, of course, but we are casual about usage of such words in Castle Wrong, at least when the cisaffectionate are not about. Grinwipey and the children evidently don't count.)

The waiter of the evening is Inconnu. Nobody talks that way to Inconnu. I am surprised that any of us talks to any other of us that way -- in Vheshrame, we were somewhere between 'informal' and 'polite' generally, and insults were discouraged. I will admit that I occasionally wish I could order Inconnu around that way. I can't, though. He has been known to get sarcastic when someone else tells him what to do, or even at a hint that someone else might even have a better idea for what might be good for him to do than he does.

Inconnu:"Yes indeed, m'lordre. It will be as m'lordre commands. No cheap wine ... indeed, we shall use the most expensive vintage for you that we use for any of our esteemed and highly honored guests. Not even the terrible and fearsome nendrai shall have better-wined pears than you!"

Case in point: he doesn't even know how to pronounce "m'lord". Not that he'd be saying that to me in any case, but obviously he's never said it to anyone.

Hops:"My wife!"

Inconnu:"Your wife, yes, your wife shall get the pears, absolutely!"

Hops:"See that you do, or I shall have you flogged with the keelhaul!"

Inconnu:"I shall see that I do, or I shall flog myself with the keelhaul for m'lordre's pleasure!"

I ... hope that's flirting. Or maybe I hope it's not flirting.

Umbers:"Can I help?"

Zascalle helpfully kicked Umbers in the leg. At least, I hope that's what that sort of muffled bump from under the table was.

Inconnu:"May I please be allowed to bring the proper comestables? If punishment is necessary, anyone or everyone shall perform it, as m'lordres find most suitable."

Vae thrummed her wings fretfully and flew around her bowl of pears and carrots a few times. She sits at a separate table. Some of the crew think that is because she is too dangerous to sit next to. (Ridiculous! She is too dangerous to be in the same skyboat as, altogether.) Actually it is because she eats as if she were a hefty and substantial nine-foot-tall lizard, even if she's currently a six-inch-long snake with six dragonfly wings, and that means she needs a very large place setting.

Me:[quietly] "Vae, if you'd like to talk, I don't mind excusing myself for a bit."

Vae:[putting up a spell that turns her words and mine into small porcelain bells painted with scenes of Sleeth kissing.]"The lesser foods, the dull bitter foods, I can eat those if it will bring peace with your friends."

Me:[with a tinkling of freshly-created bells] "I don't know what they're talking about. Everyone's eating the same food on this trip; all the omnivores at least."

Vae:[tinkle] "The worse wined-ones, though; those are the ones I could eat. Not the one who needs the best wine am I. The extra enjoyment already comes to me from the service; nothing more do I need." (She hates that extra enjoyment. I don't know what to do about it, other than have nonprime waiters for her in some for or another.)

Me:"I don't even know what they mean about that wine. I'm sure that all the pears and carrots were poached in the same leather cauldron at the same time, in the same wine. If they really did some with bad wine and some with good, I'm going to speak to Calla. The food's supposed to all be good.."

Vae:"And perhaps she made one batch with bad wine before she noticed it? And should she cast them out the window onto the lakes and mountains below us, uneaten? The backup dish they could be instead, for if anyone should be so very very hungry as to need it!"

Me:"I suppose that they could. Not that I can imagine anyone who's spending one day per day on this voyage being hungry. Calla's serving a lot of food. Anyhow, this is supposed to be as egalitarian a flight as possible. If anything, you get the best treatment; you and Lithia."

Vae:"The kindness that is, yes, but not the needful kindness."

Maybe bringing primes and monsters on the same flight wasn't such a good idea after all.

Hops:"Hey! What are all these bells with cissy stuff on them doing here all of a sudden? Waiter, if this is your idea of a good centerpiece, I'm going to have you knouted 'til your fur falls off."

Inconnu:"M'lordre, I do not know the provinance from whence they came, but we shall discover their provider and apply the most condign and recondite punishments."

Vae fled the room in a buzz of wings. I had to track her down -- she'd gone to her cabin -- and bring her a large tray of the rest of dinner. And assure her that, if anyone was going to punish her, it would be my job to, so she doesn't have to worry about killing one of my friends in response to him trying to punish her.

At least she's not crying this time. That would make her pears all bloody.

Scolding [over Choinxeia; 2 Hispis 4385]

So if I'm to pretend to be noble enough to get the "-nob" suffix in Srineian, I need to practice. Or, if I'm to be an effective patron for a pile of socially-inappropriate friends and clients, I need to practice.

So I asked Quendry -- who is, of course, the Supreme Assistant, and has been running around the inhabited fraction of the ship wagging his tail a great deal and only howling a little bit -- to collect Hops and Inconnu for me, one at a time. I sat in state in the fire in a parlor (we really need to name more of the rooms on Strayway, don't we?), and wished that I had thought far enough ahead to put the fireplace higher up. It's hard to be intimidating to a well-over-six-foot-tall cricket-morph when one is a cat-sized lizard sitting in a fireplace on the floor.

Scolding Hops

Hops looked harried. She was wearing her livery, and twitching her tail this way and that, and walking on four feet but sometimes shifting to two feet and then back to four. It is particularly hard to be intimidating to a tall and brawny cricketmorph when she keeps thumping her black and red striped midlegs on the floor not two feet from one's muzzle. Retreating further into the fireplace -- which I did -- does not make one appear any more impressive. (I've always been particularly afraid of Herethroy feet. They are better armored than most people's feet, and I have twice had my paws broken by Herethroy stepping on them. That is really why I was in the fireplace.)

Hops:"What is it, Sythyry?"

Me:"I'm afraid I'd like to discuss that incident at lunchtime, with you and Inconnu."

Hops:"Oh, I thought you wanted something fetched. I am on duty now, you know."

Me:"No, not that. Quendry is on duty too."

Hops:"I don't see that what Inconnu and I choose to do to amuse ourselves is particularly your business."

I haven't been listening too much to wrongfolk gossip lately. I didn't know there was anything amusing going on between Hops and Inconnu. But, I reasoned, Inconnu is known to be fond of Herethroy -- he is pursuing Calla, after all. Hops is known to be fond of Orren, calling herself married to Tingula. And Herethroy are legally forbidden to be monogamous -- a law that we break at Castle Wrong, like many others -- and Orren usually aren't monogamous either. So it's some sort of lover's spat that spilled over. Or maybe Hops is just proving to Tingula that she likes her better than Inconnu. I've seen that sort of thing before, in cases of permitted adultery.

Me:"I'm sorry; I didn't realize that. Still, could you manage to do it in a way that doesn't upset the nendrai?"

Hops:"I did it in a way that didn't upset the nendrai. Hops upset the nendrai, not me."

Me:"Well, you were being obnoxious to Hops, and he was obnoxious back to you, and Vae got caught in the crossfire."

Hops:"So, we're not allowed to be obnoxious to our friends on this trip, is it?"

Me:"Not that, exactly. Just cut down on the nendrai jokes."

Hops:"Can't do that. At zero already. Besides, you need to talk to Phaniet more than me, for what she said when Vae came on board."

Me:"I did already."

Hops:"So: you called me in here 'specially to tell me to continue to do what I'm already doing, right?"

Me:"Um ... well, yes, pretty much."

Hops:"Can I get back to doing it?"

Me:"Yes. Sorry to bother you."

Scolding Inconnu

Most of an hour later, Inconnu bounced into the room.

Inconnu:"Hi Sythyrs! What's up? What's great?"

Me:"I'm afraid I'd like to discuss that incident at lunchtime, with you and Hops." (Since that wording had worked so well with Hops.)

Inconnu:"Oh, that was great!"

Me:"Making the nendrai upset is great?"

Inconnu:"No, not that part! If I've got to wait on people, it's so much more fun if I get to talk like a cross between a Darraden's waiter and a half-daft Academy professor!"

Me:"Yes, but you shouldn't bring Vae into it."

Inconnu:"I guess not. Vae's not waiting tables or anything."

I can follow Orren non-sequiturs as well as anyone can, and defend Vae better than most.

Me:"Vae is earning her passage in other ways."

Inconnu:"Like what?"

Me:"Minor things like protecting the yacht from sky-monsters. But getting the nendrai away from Vheshrame, is the biggest part."

Inconnu:"'Getting...'? That's great, Miss Sythyroid!"

(I wish he wouldn't call me that.)

Me:"Anyhow, she got upset at your little barb."

Inconnu:"Hey, how'd she do that? I was careful! I didn't say I'd treat her any worse than Tingula. And I didn't! There's only one pot of pears and carrots, and everyone eats out of it or they don't get their poachies."

Me:"Well, she thought you were going to. And she thought she deserved it."

Inconnu:"She's a monster! She'd know better than me!"

Me:"Yes, but she's a guest here, and we are being hospitable to her. For one thing, we want her to continue to do her main job of keeping the nendrai away from Vheshrame. For another thing, she isn't that much less acceptable than Lithia, say, or Hops, and those two aren't that much less acceptable than you or me."

Inconnu:"Well, I didn't mean to make her sad ... I'm going to go apologize to her!"

And he was out the door before I could say "Wait."

Well, I certainly can't catch up with an Orren in a wild rush. I poked at my insignia. «Vae, are you there and wearing this?»

«The place of honor it has between my middle wings!»

«There's a crazed Orren coming to try to apologize to you. Could you let him? And try not to do anything much to him for it?»

«The Inconnu that would be, already knocking at my door?»

Apology

(So I watched them, on the theory that, if there were any trouble, I could deal with it better if I knew what had happened than if I did not. Also, of course, I am nosy and eavesdroppy.)

Vae:"Hiio, Inconnu!"

Inconnu:"I'mheretoapologize! I'mveryverysorry! I'meversosorryyou'reamonster! I'msorryallover!"

Vae:"I, too, am sorry I'm a monster."

Inconnu:"OhnoIdidn'tmeanitlikethat! ImeantI'msorryIservedyoutehbadpears!"

Vae:"And did you serve me the bad pears? "

Inconnu:"NobutIshouldhaveservedyouthegoodones!"

Vae:"And were there any good ones?"

Inconnu:"Ohyesallthepearsweregood. NotthecarrotsIhatecarrots. I'msorryIservedyoucarrots!"

Vae:"Not a bit do I hate carrots."

Inconnu:"ThenI'msorryIservedyoupears!"

Vae:"Not a bit do I hate pears either!"

Inconnu:"ThenI'msorrybutIdon'tknowwhatI'msorryfor! ButI'mreallyreallysorry!"

Vae:"The apology you offer to me is the apology I accept."

Inconnu:"Ohthankyouthankyouthankyou!" He blinked a few times. "Ididit! I'malive! I'mstillalive! IinsultedthenendraibutI'mstillalive!"

Vae:"The life and the unharmed are still upon you! The congratulations are in order!"

Inconnu scrambled off, out of insignia-sight, chanting "I'malive! I'malive! Yeah!".

Vae said to me, «The apology is accepted; the Orren is unhurt; the monster is once again defeated.»

«Are you unhappy?» (Because she usually is.)

«Not a bit! Would that all my defeats were this easy.»

The Final Insult

Quendry wandered back to the parlor. "Hello, Aunt Sythyry! I am still working! Is there anything I can do for you or get you now, because I am the Supreme Assistant!"

"You are indeed the Supreme Assistant. Do you still have affan in Funny Noises?"

Quendry hopped on a chair. (Yes, hopped. Bouncing on the cushion on one foot.) "I do! I have the affan! Bloop-boop poop!"

"Could you be supremely assistantly and go make funny noises at Inconnu for me?"

Quendry bounced around almost like an Orren. "I can! I will making funny noises all over him!"

The Scores

This is why Zi Ri do not run the World Tree.

A Veggie Dinner in Granniston [Granniston; 2 Hispis 4385]

I was going to pilot Strayway during dinnertime tonight. But my incessant and excessive use of mighty sorceries has rendered my natural rhythms unrhythmable, so, halfway throught the dinner hour, I was ravenous.

(In case your native magic system, unlike mine, can actually make you hungry, I must point out that what I said is utterly ridiculous. I could cast spells until I could cast no more -- which is about sixty spells or so, and would take about eleven or twelve minutes -- and I would be no hungrier nor more exhausted than when I started. So what I said is entirely and utterly preposterous, or would sound that way to a prime. Nonetheless it is true. I will explain at some point.)

So, I parked Strayway over a convenient pond.

And then I looked out to see whose convenient pond it was. Two overdressed Herethroy youths looked back at me.

Me:"Ahoy, Herethroy on the shore! May I ask whose land this is?"

Herethroy:"Ahoy, the ... is that a skyboat? This is Granniston, owned by Baron Grannis. Who are you?"

Me:"I am Sythyry, a wizard of Vheshrame. May I anchor my skyboat here for an hour?"

Herethroy:"Sorry, don't know you. I'll go ask Mommy."

Other Herethroy:"Don't bother, it'll be the whole hour to find her and get back here. You may stay here an hour, if you wish, O wizard. Or over the public pond over there. Why do you want to stay over a pond anyways?"

Me:"Thank you! Because it's out of the way generally."

So I got to go to dinner afterall.

At Dinner

I did not make a grand entrance into the dining room. I usually don't. Except occasionally in Castle Wrong, where the door was too big and heavy and stuck for me to open by myself, and I sometimes would have clamour outside of it. The doors in Strayway are mostly lighter and not yet sticky, so I just slipped in, and took over Ochirion's plate as he abandoned it to go off and play with Quendry.

Which was an excellent opportunity to watch Inconnu from across the room.

Inconnu:"Hops! Hops! Come here this instant, you lazy sluggard!" He was at a table with Windigar, Jyondre and Yerenthax, all three of them looking dangerously amused. (Yes, dangerously. Three Orren and one Gormoror, remember.)

Hops:"M'lordre, I hasten to obey despite having all four hands full of delectable viands and potent beverages!" Which was true, at least if one considers barley-water to be potent. Perhaps it was spiked with something.

Inconnu:"Hops! Do I detect a note of disparagement in your voice?"

Hops:"Inco...M'lordre, I certainly hope you do not detect one, because, if you did, I daresay I should be sent to the brig and, um, be forced to wear nothing but brigandine."

Windigar:"Do we even have a brig?"

Yerenthax:"Och, I've got a brogue!" (She doesn't.)

Hops:"Then listening to it would be a fitting punishment for disparaging you, if I had been, which I wasn't."

Inconnu:"Well, as soon as you have finished your so-called other duties, I order you to go to the pantry and get me some more butter! And none of that awful horse-milk butter you brought last time, either. I want the best butter!"

Hops:"Very well, m'lordre. You shall have butter fit for a wizard!"

I promise, I wasn't offended at that, not a bit. But I did have to fly over and talk to them.

Me:"Inconnu? Why are you taunting Hops like that?"

Inconnu:"Ack! It's Sythyry!"

Me:"Yes, actually."

Inconnu:"Windigar! You said zie was piloting!"

Windigar:"I thought zie was. Sythyry, who's flying the yacht?"

Me:"We're probably plummeting over the edge of the branch. Or perhaps parked over the famous pond of the famous Baron Grannis of Granniston."

Windigar:"Well. If you think your automatic guardians are sufficient to keep the baron's forces off, and if you don't mind getting a bit behind schedule, you may join us at table."

Me:"The schedule's pretty sloppy anyways, and the baron's children seem friendly. Hops? Could you do me the kindness of bringing me Ochirion's leftovers?"

Hops:[returning with the butter, then looking rather alarmed to see me.]"Um ... Sythyry?"

Me:"Yes?"

Hops:"What are you doing here?"

Me:"Trying to eat dinner. Failing, too, it seems."

Hops:"It's not about you! Really!"

Me:"Well, Ochirion was finished with it."

Hops:"Not the dinner..."

Me:"Oh, you are speaking of your mysterious feud with Inconnu? I am glad that it is not about me. I do wish that you and he would keep it private though."

Inconnu:"Sorry! Sorrysorry! Sorrysorrysorry!"

Windigar, Yerenthax, Jyondre:(Considerable laughter)

Me:"... what?"

Yerenthax:"It's not a feud."

Me:"Hmph! I am then sorry I did not recognize the sweet squeaky sounds of true love in their horrible threats and insults at each other!"

Inconnu:"Wellnonotreallypleasedon'ttellCallaanywaysyet"

Yerenthax:"Not that exactly either. They are playing at being nobles when it's not their work shift, and being downtrodded servants when it is their turn."

Windigar:"It's 'downtrodden'."

Yerenthax:"It's both,they're so miserable."

I sort of covered my head with one wing. "It's a game?"

Inconnu:"Well um yes sort of but not really because it's just a game."

Hops:"It's just a game. Nothing in it should give you any offense for the institution of nobility."

Yerenthax:"But they weren't sure, so they didn't want to do it around you any more."

Me:"I don't really care. Just don't upset the nendrai with it any more."

Inconnu:"See!Itoldyouziewouldn'tmind! Andyouweresoconvincedofthedoomthatyouhadmeconvincedtoo!"

Me:"And certainly don't do it around foreigners. Especially if they're real nobles. They might get offended somehow."

Hops:"And out come the complaints and restrictions and exceptions."

Me:"I'm trying to keep everyone safe!"

Hops:"Scared little lizard!"

Jyondre:"Fetch me another tankard of foaming barley water, aged a thousand years in the ancient cellars beneath our noble vessel the Strayway!"

Hops:"Immediately, M'lordre, or perhaps somewhat sooner if the tankards are clean."

Couch of Woe [Over Choinxeia; 4 Hispis 4385]

It seemed far and away the best course of action, at that point, to sit in a very small parlor with a very big window and peer at the landscape zooming past. Windigar had given the antelopes their heads, and, I believe, some dried apples stuffed with chili peppers, and Strayway was rampaging across the sky at perhaps fifteen miles an hour. (I can't get her to go that fast.) I didn't want to distract Windigar too much when he was doing that.

Lithia was sitting by the window when I got in, sketching clouds and the world-spike over Ketheria in a thick notebook, looking very Rassimel and serious. She waved her tailtip as I flew in. "Good morning, Aunt Sythyry."

"And to you too! What are you doing?" I said.

"Nothing someone else couldn't do better," she said, and flipped the sketchbook closed. "I think the couch in that study back there is upset."

"I can't help pick it up," I said. Which is, in retrospect, not true. I could manage it with a simple little Ruloc spell -- that's not wizardry, nearly anyone could do that. But each of my spells costs one cley, and I only get so many cley a day, and I can do a great deal more with one cley. So I don't use magic for such things in the morning, unless I'm trapped under the couch or something. (Late at night, with my cley getting erased and replenished in a few hours, I am more casual.)

"It's not flipped over. It's distraught. It asked me to stuff it in the fireplace," she said.

"Heavens. I didn't know they were capable of that much emotion," I said.

She shrugged. "Well, you built it. Maybe you need to adjust it or something."

Which isn't exactly true. I built three gadgets which would render furniture intelligent, and added them to the mix as the interior of Strayway was crystallizing. It's a new technique -- the whole crystallization of houses I mean -- and I suppose might have some imperfections in it. I only vaguely understand how it works.

"I hope not. I don't know how to adjust it."

So we went to talk to the couch in the study. It was a large couch, a horseshoe round the fireplace, big enough for six Herethroy if they liked each other. Or alternating Herethroy and Gormoror if they were traff, I suppose. It was upholstered in tapestry fabric with blue roasts surrounded by baked carrots and turnips. It was rather ugly.

"You! You refused to grant my dying wish!" squeaked the couch.

"It's not your dying wish if you don't die," said Lithia reasonably. "And I don't want you to die."

The couch whined, "Destroy me, burn me, hurl me into the flaming chasm and let me become the floating ashes of peace!"

"I won't do that. Why on wood do you want such a thing?" Lithia asked.

The couch wailed, "The universe is a cruel and wicked place. The front door is calling to me, calling and calling. It seeks to lure me outside, so that I may pash myself into a broken heap on the ground below, and endure in sorrow and rain there forever."

"But you're sessile. You couldn't get to the front door -- you can't even get to the fireplace right in front of you," I pointed out. "Besides, the front door isn't sentient."

"The antelopes hate me too. They mock me. They flick their tails to me and show me their nether parts," continued the couch. "They are the demigods of Strayway, and they despise me."

"Well, the nether parts are because they're facing away from the yacht, so when you look out the window, that's the side you see," explained Lithia, quite sensibly.

"The chandelier! It brays how when it is lit, it will drip hot wax upon me, and the sting thereof shall be my eternal pain!"

I looked at the chandelier, but it wasn't intelligent either.

"I think you're making most of this up, couch," I said.

"And my very creator despises me and sides with my enemies against me! Oh, I have no friend in the entire universe, from port to starboard, from bow to stern, from sub-basement to observation deck! No friend, no ally, no consort! Deliver me to the embrace of the flames, merciful Rassimel!"

(to be continued...)

[Over Choinxeia; 4 Hispis 4385]

So, there I was, having a fight with a couch. Not a bite-and-breathe kind of fight, which I might have won on account of the couch being unable to move and rather flammible. An emotional tearstorm kind of a fight. I'm usually terribly outclassed at those, except with Vae, even when I'm the one crying. (That's probably the real reason I haven't dated anyone for decades.)

The couch had just said, "And my very creator despises me and sides with my enemies against me! Oh, I have no friend in the entire universe, from port to starboard, from bow to stern, from sub-basement to observation deck! No friend, no ally, no consort! Deliver me to the embrace of the flames, merciful Rassimel!"

I tried to use logic. "I don't despise you. I made you because I need you." That usually works, with created beings.

"But you do not! You have never asked me to do the slightest thing, never! Me, who would, if it were set on coasters, roll the entire length of Choinxeia if it would save you the inconvenience of crossing the room!"

I used more logic, because I am a very foolish lizard. (Actually, because it often works on Vae, who is the person usually crying at me.) "That would take a long time, rolling a hundred thousand miles."

"Behold! Again you scorn me! I offer the vastest effort -- vaster than I am capable of, vaster than any couch has ever done for any prime before! And what do you do? A spurn, a scorn, a fleer, a flout! You make it nothing! What must I ever do to win your good regard? What? Must? I? Ever? Do?

"Remind me to be a lot more accurate with Spiridor spells," I snapped. Technically, the spell giving the couch its unwanted life is a Spiridor spell. A beautifully-cast Spiridor spell will make a living thing that is eager to do what you want. (Actually I think I got that part right. The problem is patience.)

(Technical aside. The other problem is permanence. I don't make many permanent mindful servants, so I had kind of forgotten: they tend to get eccentric over time. Usually "over time" is decades. But that's for spells cast the ordinary way, not with the crystallization technique.)

Which reminded me, a bit too late, of the first rule of tearstorming emotional combat: zie who snaps at the other one first, loses. The couch started wailing, "Mismade! I am mismade! I am a botchery! A disaster from my time of first fabrication! A doomy, doomy failament! Alas! I envy the very firewood: immediately useful, soon destroyed!"

Lithia flicked her tail. "You've got a point there."

"Kind Rassimel! You understand! You, alone in the cruelly-constructed universe! You alone have heard the language of my heart!" squeaked the couch.

"Stop pestering Lithia," I told it. "You're a perfectly fine piece of intelligent furniture. We're still sort of exploring Strayway, and there aren't so many of us here, so you haven't had any visitors yet. I'm sure that you will, and I'm sure that you'll give good directions."

The couch ignored me. "Mistress! Sweet Rassimel! What, oh, what is the woe that troubles you now?"

Lithia whined. "Don't worry about it, it happens from time to time to me. I'll live. For a while." The natty black and white stripes in her fur were deliquescing, slipping away into plain brown. "Actually, may I sit on you? I sometimes fall over if I'm standing when I change."

"May you? May you? My queen -- if you were eighty thousand tons of jagged metal, you could sit upon me! You could fall upon me from the height of the Silver Moon -- I would be crushed to splinters happily for you, to save a single scratch on your nigh-invulnerable hide!"

Lithia curled up in the curve of the couch, eyes squeezed shut. She crammed her tailtip into her mouth and chewed on it, which she says helps to take her mind off the shifting itself. I'm used to watching it, and more. I used to hold her when she was an infant, and clean her up and give her a bit of babywine afterwards.

The couch is not used to shifter hybrids, not that it's used to anyone. It squealed, "My mistress, my mistress! Wizard, you must save her! A horrible thing is occurring to her -- her, my only friend in the universe forever!"

I was rather annoyed with the thing. "I've done what I could, long since."

"O, cruel Zi Ri, to leave her to writhe and die upon my cushions!"

"She's not going to die there."

The worst of the change had passed. Lithia was scratching her now-Orren face and arms with blunt now-Orren claws furiously.

Being a surrogate-parental sort of person towards her, I had to warn her, "Careful, Lithia. You'll cut yourself, and you'll rip your clothes." Because, you see, her sleeves were rather tight; she's nearly a foot taller as an Orren than she is as a Rassimel.

She glared at me. "I know how to handle a shapeshift, Sythyry. I've done it a thousand times."

(A thousand times? She's thirty years old. At 243 days a year, and 27 hours a day, and about one change an hour, she's shifted some two hundred thousand times. And she's got some sixty or seventy thousand more to endure.)

But she did unbutton her sleeves, and adjust her vest and skirt so they lay properly on her Orren body. Grinwipey makes her clothes with much care. She doesn't generally need to go change outfits with every shift anymore.

"I know. I just don't want you to rip anything," I said.

"I'll be fine, Sythyry." She poured over the back of the couch, and back to the parlor to get her sketchbook. "Couch, may I sit here and draw for a while?"

"Mistress! If there were ten thousand of you, and the fur of each one were ten thousand pairs of sharp snipping scissors, you all could sit upon me! So great is my love for you that I would gladly be snipped to bits in an instant of a twinkling, to cushion your ten thousand posteriors even for the briefest instant!"

Lithia laughed. "I don't change that much, just Rassy to Orren and back. How about, I sit here for an hour and draw?"

"Mistress --- nothing could give me a greater joy than to serve you in whatever way I am capable of. As furniture, as a guide ... When the assassins come, I beg that you hide behind me, so that my stiff wooden structural elements may shield you from their poisoned arrows!"

Phaniet poked her head in at the door. "Goodness. Are we expecting assassins, Sythyry?"

"No, but you never know what might be lurking in the far reaches of Strayway. I probably should have been a bit more conservative when I made it," I admitted, conceding a technical disagreement that we had been disputing for some months.

"Yes, you should have," she said.

Lithia peered at me with big brown eyes. "Could I have some privacy to sketch, please?"

"Certainly you can, Lithia," said Phaniet. "I need Sythyry, or at least, I need a spell or two."

Thoroughly defeated by my assistant and my furniture, I slunk after her to keep bits from falling off my new and far too complicated sky-yacht.

The Road to Oorah Thrassen [5 Hispis 4385]

The following conversation has happened four times in the last two days, with four different people. The words were, of course, exactly the same every time, down to the intonations. I have transcribed them precisely, which is easy, because I have heard them so often.

Someone:"My lover, if I have one, or a companion otherwise, informs me that we're stopping at Oorah Thrassen."

Me:"Yes, for a few days."

Someone:"My child or children, if any, find this to be a terrifying prospect! I admit to considerable fear myself!"

Me:"Why?"

Someone:"I have not the slightest idea! It could not be the ancient emnity between Oorah Thrassen and our dear native city of Vheshrame, which has been the cause of a bouquet of parti-colored wars over the last several centuries."

Me:"We haven't been at war for a few years though. And not as much at all since, well, they mostly won the conflicts of the last century."

Someone:"But surely they are all taught in elementary school that the only proper treatment for Vheshrame natives such as myself is to disembowel me and use my carapace for a cradle for their children, should I happen to have a carapace, or to flay my hide off and tan it and use it for a cooking pot otherwise!"

Me:"Well, yes, I'm sure they are, but like schoolchildren everywhere they pay no attention to their lessons."

Someone else:(snickers.)

Being thus comforted on one point, they produce another one.

Someone:"Nor could it be the fearsome reputation that the Oorish wizards and the utterly alarming and murderous Gormoror Verticals-tribes who are their allies."

Me:"Nor? Oh, you're still listing things you're pretending not to be afraid of, just like the three people ahead and/or behind you."

Someone:"Well? Are you good enough a wizard to ward us from all of their spells and evil plans?"

Me:"No."

Someone:"Perhaps your tame nendrai is sufficient to the task, then?"

Me:"I'm sure she could protect herself."

Vae:"If I were present, which according to Sythyry always or never happens in these conversations (I'm not sure which), I would vehemently declare that I would protect the whole of Strayway at need."

Me:"In this situation, need is not very likely. My grandparents would get rather upset if Sazandigraa and I hurt each other."

Someone:"Relying on the terrible but incompetant wrath of Glikkonen is no great protection!"

Me:"And Yylhauntra and Verehinga and Myrihaaveinen, and Caathestaa if zie were still alive."

Someone:"Wait, all of your first-generation Zi Ri ancestors?"

Me:"Yes, in fact."

Someone:"But how can this be?"

Me:"My geneology is [(Yylhauntra & Caathestaa) & Myrihaaveinen] & [Glikkonen & Verehinga]. Sazandigraa has about the same grandparents, just arranged differently: [Yylhauntra & Glikkonen] & [Myrihaaveinen & (Verehinga & Caathestaa)]."

Someone:"So you're relatives?"

Me:"Geneologically speaking, I think we're the same person."

Someone:"But relatives make the bitterest enemies!"

Me:"Bitter like fine kathia, my friend. Bitter like fine kathia."

Being thus thoroughly and inexorably reassured on the second point, they must find a third reason to dread.

Someone:"And the central role and terrible prominence of the Temple of the Dark Trinity -- which is, after all, you observe, dedicated to their best guess of the three most fearsome of our collection of noxious and doomsome gods."

Me:"Well, it's only Gnarn, Iraz Varuun, and Accanax. If I were picking a Dark Trinity, I'd got for "Here", Flokin, and Iraz Varuun, the way they do in New Kottarnu."

Someone:"But Gnarn made the Sleeth and the nendrai!"

Vae:"If I were present, I would hiss and whisper imprecations and execrations towards my unbeloved and cruel creator goddess. And, as I may, in fact, be present: 'The wicked-enough one is Gnarn, for my taste.'"

Someone:"And Accanax made the Khtsoyis!"

Me:"And a Khtsoyis made your livery. Which I must say flatters your elegant and so-characteristic-of-your-species figure!"

Someone:"No flirting please! This is serious!"

Me:"I don't think the gods are any more or less likely to show up in person outside the Temple of the Dark Trinity than inside of it. If you avoid the main altar room, you should be as safe as you usually are."

Someone:"Well, of course I thought of all these explanations of why I should not fear this leg of the voyage already. They can't have anything to do with it at all. I expect it's the weather. Those clouds look as if they might fall on the skyboat and break it at any minute, or they would, if they were made of brick. "

Me:"Fortunately, they are puffy moist foggy things, almost alarmingly identical to every other cloud on the World Tree."

Someone:"That is comforting, Sythyry. Indeed, I am so comforted that I am going to indulge in a large chalice full of our most recreational brandy, strewn about with calming herbs and sprinkled with lavender perfume."

Me:"A pleasure to be of service to you."

Sazandigraa [7 Hispis 4385]

The sun was full of fire, but we couldn't see it. There was a main trunk in the way. Seen from, I think, two miles away, the main trunk is an impressive towering wall, extending forever up and forever down, or it might as well. I ought to try to describe it more, but a hundred thousand poets have done so already, and some of them actually have some skill, so I won't.

We hadn't quite gotten to the skybridge when Sazandigraa came charging over to us. Sazandigraa drives a charming but quite conventional chariot through the sky: a white gazebo or tholos with ivy twining its pillars, drawn through the air by three immense pure-white geese. It's fast, though: faster than Strayway.

The geese honked in unison, "Ahoy, the Strayway!"

I teleported (from lunch) to the cockpit, and told my antelopes to roar back, "Ahoy, the Ice Gleam!"

"May I come over?" zie called.

"Of course! Please do!"

"Well, where do I come in? You've got any number of doors on that yacht."

"I'll meet you in the air!"

So I wasted another cley -- and it's only about noontime -- teleporting to the middle air between the skyboats. Sazandigraa did the same, and we hooted at each other and embraced in a tangle of wings.

Sazandigraa:"Coz! It's good to finally meet you in person, after all those letters and all those wars!"

Me:"Yes, indeed. May I invite you aboard the Strayway, wherein there is excellent brandy, and a slightly-in-progress and distinctly Herethroy sort of lunch already in progress?"

Sazandigraa:"Thank you! Let's go!"

Which gave me a chance to look at my closer-than-a-cousin. Today, at least, zie is more avian than I am. We both have feathers -- our line does run to feathers -- but zie has a beak, a rather elegant hawk's beak, looking carved out of blue malachite. Zir feathers are brilliant red on the back, shading to a white so white that it actually glows in the centers of zir wings. Zir flanks are azure, and dusted with glowing squares that suggest the forms of the stars. Zir underbelly switches back to red, with light-drinking pools of blackness right under the bright spots on zir wings. (I don't know what zie looks like without all the cosmetic spells. But then, I doubt zie knows what I look like without mine.) Zie wore only two ribbons, one of which contained a small arsenal of sorcerous weapons, and the other of which matched zir red feathers beautifully.

Sazandigraa:"Coz, it is every bit as gaudy as you said it would be."

Me:"Well, if I can't coat my skyboat with silver, what can I coat?"

Sazandigraa:"I heard that one of our half-cousins had just the same thought. But zie got the idea of coating zirself."

Me:"That sounds unwise. The last time someone did that, zie nearly broke a branch of the tree off." (Referring to a relative who, for reasons that probably seemed sufficient at the time, turned zirself into steel and grew to a truly monsterous size.)

Sazandigraa:"Exactly. It was one of Steelwings' children."

Me:"Metal styling must run in their family the way feathers do in ours."

Sazandigraa giggles like bubbles in brandy.

Sazandigraa:"Did you really populate the entire vessel with the transaffectionate?"

Me:"More or less."

Sazandigraa:"I hope you'll tell me which ones I should offend early, to avoid extraneous flirtations? I have made a solemn vow not to take any more mortal lovers."

Me:"I didn't bring anyone who particularly fancies Zi Ri. Not that I know of, in any case. If your assistant comes over, he may get a few looks he should be prepared to ignore."

Sazandigraa:"Really? Who, then, is your lover on board?"

Me:"Well, nobody."

Sazandigraa:"You've left someone back in writhing Vheshrame? A recent breakup?"

Me:"It's not writhing. And I've been rather single lately ... two decades or so."

Sazandigraa:"Another surprising choice for you! One of many, and none more surprising than staying in Vheshrame in the first place."

Me:"It's my home."

Sazandigraa:"Which doesn't mean you need to stay there. Inihithre is my home, and I make sure to spend a year there every decade. It took you more than a century to get out of Vheshrame even once."

Me:"I've been busy."

Sazandigraa:"When I say, I've been busy, I generally mean I have better things to do with my time than the insipid and tedious task you wish me to do, or something ruder still."

Me:" When I say it, I mean that I've just recently managed to get the nendrai to come with me, so I don't have to stay in Vheshrame and make sure she's peaceful. My main job is being the ambassador to Vae. Greater enchantment is just a little hobby for my spare time."

Sazandigraa:"Ah, the famous Vaisessasilmin has come here? She is perhaps the originator of these extremely creative -- and, now that I inspect them, Mutoc-based -- scrying spells?"

(I had rather intentionally not brought my scrying insigna. Wearing something that says "I'm a Zi Ri wizard!" when one meets one's far older and far more wizardly cousin seemed a bit too arrogant.)

Me:"Yes, that would be her."

Sazandigraa:"Mighty Vaisessasilmin, please forgive me for a moment, but I must obscure your attentions..." Zie did something with Destroc and Illusidor and Magiador. "I imagine she can claw her way through that if she wants, but it should take a little while."

Me:"She could also look out the window. Half my crew is."

Sazandigraa:"Just a quick question, at which I beg your honesty and mean no insult -- does she regard me as an enemy? For we have batted at each others' countries with spells several times."

Me:"You and I have done that too, and we're not enemies." [I am trying to be obscure and oblique in the good Zi Ri style. I meant, "no, not enemies". Sazandigraa knows the good Zi Ri style perfectly well, and evidently understood me.]

Sazandigraa:"You and I, dear coz, are coz and coz. I don't think I'm the least bit related to Vaisessasilmin, not unless one of our grandparents was telling some rather drastic -- if wholly understandable -- lies."

Me:"I daresay you would have noticed. For that matter, I daresay I would have too: your powers of Mutoc, while utterly worthy of a member of the family, are not drastically unusual."

Sazandigraa:"I must ask -- the rumors are thick in Oorah Thrassen. There are other kinds of relative than relatives by blood."

Me:"Vae's mate is a very nice three-headed monstrosity named Oixe. If either has been unfaithful to the other, I haven't heard about it, and I am Vae's confidante as well as her handler. I will admit that Vae is my oldest friend, and that I one of those who lusts after other species: but only primes."

Sazandigraa:"That is probably just as well. I shall endeavour to correct the rumors, if I hear them. So, to summarize: this shall be an ordinary visit with an enemy wizard and a nendrai, uncharged with particular hatred or peculiar love?"

Me:"I imagine that is enough danger for one day!"

Sazandigraa:"You will be staying for more than one day, or so I hope!"

Me:"Not here! In Oorah Thrassen, yes."

Sazandigraa:"Well, it's obviously not enough danger for the whole visit. Will you come to the Temple of the Dark Trinity with me?"

Me:"I should hope so!"

A Round of Introductions (Or Something) [7 Hispis 4385]

Mostly they went very politely.

Me:"Este, I'd like you to meet my long-lost cousin Sazandigraa. Saza, please meet Este, who is the Supreme Repairiste of That Which Is Splintered Assunder."

(Yes, we are on thusly informal terms already.)

Este:"It is my honor to meet you, Lord Sazandigraa."

Saza:"And it gives me great comfort to know that, should aught be splintered assunder in my dear coz' mysterious voyage, a Rassimel man of skill and dignity will be on hand to swiftly desplinter it."

See? It's not actually all that hard to be polite.

But sometimes this happens. Saza was sitting on Ochirion's shoulder, having just been introduced to the lad.

Me:"Grinwipey, I'd like [interrupted]"

Grinwipey:"I know what you'd like best, but my fudd-whucker ain't getting anywhere near your zoozoo."

Me:"That's not [interrupted]"

Grinwipey:"So I'll give you what you'd like second best, and me I'd like first best. Got my clubs right here, got your cousin right there. Ochirion, throw that lizard inna air, and we'll have some three-club music in whango-jango time!"

Me:"Grinwipey, I don't want [interrupted]"

Grinwipey:"Hey there, red and feathery! What kind of flowers you like on your burying shroud? I'm a good embroiderer, me! Lay you out like that pretty pretty pancake!"

Me:"Grinwipey, please [interrupted]!"

Saza:"Ooh, duelling time already? Sythyry, your champion is a veritable stallion of eagerness for a fight!"

Me:"He's not my champion, he's my seamstress!"

Grinwipey:"Ain't for Sythyry, 's for my uncle Eggnoster!"

Me:"What?"

Grinwipey:"Hey, red lizard, let's get shing on a wing and see if your blood matches your fluffies! You're brave enough to burn Eggnoster from the comfort 'n privacy of your very own lab while some snoofly little bit froddles you. Are you brave enough to go up sparrow-and-clam with me, right here right now?"

Saza:"Well, are you brave enough to spin the fancy keys with me?"

Me:"You don't have to accept that [interrupted]"

Grinwipey:"Sure as I can piss'n'whistle! Snaggardly little frosty-pet of an Oorish wizard!"

Saza:"Quite all right, coz. I won't hurt him very much, and then we'll get back to the proper etiquette with the rest of your crew."

Grinwipey:"It ain't gonna be this me that's hurting from cramming my good tolly-crack-up up your sweet little pishlet!"

Saza:"Quite so, my good squid, quite so." Zie produced a pair of ivory chopsticks from zir arsenal. "Whenever it meets your convenience, you may feel free to avenge your dear uncle."

Me:"No! Fighting! On! The! Yacht!"

Grinwipey:"This won't be so much a fight as it will be a pudding dance."

Phaniet:"No pudding dancing on the yacht!"

Me:"Grinwipey, stop that at once! Saza, I must apologize!"

Saza:"Well, coz, if you must, I suppose you must, but, seeing as I really did kill his uncle twice or thrice, I feel that I owe him a chance for similar treatment if he wants it."

Me:"You what?"

Grinwipey:"He gave my uncle the cacking pan and the churns! Couldn't statter for months afterwards, could poor old Eggnoster!"

Saza:"One pass at arms, my good squid, and that will be the end of the matter between us."

Grinwipey:"One pass at arms, you pus-crusted bustard, and that will be the giffering end of the matter! And of the tightness of your sphincters too!"

Vae:[whispered by a spell] "Not a bit was I teaching Grinwipey his manners, I swear it!"

Me:"Grinwipey! You didn't tell me you had a mortal enemy in Oorah Thrassen! 'specially one of my relatives!"

Grinwipey:"What you don't know, won't shuffle your duffle! Or maybe it will, haw!"

Saza:"When you are ready, my good squid."

Grinwipey:"That would be just ... about ... now." He curled a tentacle under his livery, and pulled out a club with a distinctly illegal spell on it .

Saza:"Oh, my. This could be bad."

All Black Sheep Here [7 Hispis 4385]

Grinwipey had an intricately-carved spiked club, with a spell of mild oblivion on it. Anyone struck by it would forget (I estimated) the last three or four minutes, unless they resisted the spell. And it wasn't a terribly strong spell: any reasonable adventurer could fight it off, probably, or anyone willing to spend two cley for those memories. It wouldn't have worried me -- or Rheng, say -- that much as a weapon, and shouldn't have worried Saza either, I didn't think.

Grinwipey:"Yah, so very bad. Hey, you wanna know what's the one thing worse than me having a club with this Accanax-bootering forgetty spell on it?"

Saza:"I suppose I should find out."

Grinwipey:"Spiggin' right you should -- spiggin' right you will! The one thing worse is, m'aged mother has one too, and m'dear auntie in Inihithre also got one. 'n they're way-the-vootsies out of range of anything you've got."

Saza:"Well then." Zie put zir chopsticks away. "May I surrender now, please?"

Grinwipey:"Sure, and I think you ought to buy Uncle Eggnoster a nice bit brandy to cheer him up after what you did to him."

Saza:"I see. How nice a bit of brandy?"

Grinwipey:"Let's say, a hundred and seventy thousand lozens worth."

Saza:"That's quite a bit of brandy."

Grinwipey:"He's got a lot of forgetting to do, does poor Uncle Eggnoster. As do we all. Gotta forget those curses you put on him, and how unhappy they made him. Gotta forget about these forgetty clubs too, don't he? Only he doesn't want to use them on himself."

Saza:"Still..."

Grinwipey:"Aww, you look like you're startin' to appreciate the inconvenience 'n sorrow you put our family through. Seein' as that is rather what we're after -- the appreciating I mean -- I think we can appreciate the inconvenience you might have trying to get all that brandy shipped to Vheshrame. So we'll make you just appreciate the inconvenience. You don't have to buy the brandy yourself. You can just send the lozens to the Bank of Teleportin' Hexagons, and we'll do the actual acquisitions."

Saza:"I don't have that much money."

Grinwipey:"Well, I ain't about to ruin your family reunion by dickering. You don't want to look mingey and poor in front of your young cousin here, do you? We'll take it in kind."

Saza:"I suppose you will."

Grinwipey:"Some shoggy'll be in touch in a few days. Okie, that's all the pudding dance! Now go enjoy the reunion, spaggot!"

Saza turned to me, zir wings shaking. "Sythyry, may I speak to you privately for a moment?"

"Of course."

Zie popped us into a spare universe. "I need your help. And I suppose I owe you an explanation."

"If you want, Saza."

"I do. So you know the real story. Your Khtsoyis might embroider a bit."

"That is his job. Not blackmailing my relatives. I am going to point that out to him."

Saza shook zir head. "I suppose zie's got a hobby too. Or a tentacle in the family business, it sounds like. Anyhow. You're an enchanter, right?"

"You know I am," I said.

"I never got much into that. I tried a bit, but I hate getting up at dawn every day. Don't know how you and Grandparent manage it. I'm in the family trade of course, but not that end. Ritual magic." (Ritual magic is the art of casting exceedingly complicated spells that often exceed the bounds of what magic is supposed to be able to do. It is useful, but not terribly well-loved: by primes or by god.)

"I have noticed that. You generally defeat me with ritual magic," I said, which is roughly true.

"And I've got four households in four cities to keep up. Which takes a good bit of cash. And ritual magic is a spotty trade these decades: sometimes there's plenty of call for it in a year, and sometimes there's not. So sometimes I take work that's not really very good to do in cities."

"Like putting forgetfulness spells on nicely-carved wooden clubs?"

"Like mind-tying the Traitors of Tauvane, three hundred ... no, nearly four hundred years ago," Saza said. "It was a wicked end to a wicked business in all ways. There was a bit of an uproar in Craitheia about it. I won't try to justify what I did, but I lived in Tauvane at the time, and my house was one of the ones that burned, and my friends were some of the primes who died. Our grandparents didn't approve of the mind-tying ... lots of people didn't approve. They made me vow never to use Mentador ritual magic again."

I flicked my tail against the bumpy floor of the spare universe. "I suppose that those clubs were yours, then?"

Zie drooped. "I'm afraid so. I needed money; I usually do. A Khtsoyis chieftan from Dlesty -- that's a country thousands of miles away on Choinxeia -- commissioned them from me. He wanted someone far enough to be untraceable and unproblematic at home, his messenger said, and of course the clubs would be far enough away to be untraceable and unproblematic for me. And the price was very good."

"It could be very good indeed, if Grinwipey's uncle was going to get it back as blackmail."

"Get it back and more. I still have four households to pay for. I'm going to have to work my wings off, and scare up a lot of business," zie said with a sigh. "I hate having to work more than two or three weeks a year!"

"If I hear of anyone wanting ritual magic, I'll send them to you," I said. "I'll write to the guard in Vheshrame on your behalf, say."

"That will be a help. But there's the favor I need to ask."

I tilted my head, and wished my crest didn't sway when I did that. "What favor?"

"Can you get your people not to talk about this? A dozen of them must have seen it. If word gets back to Verehinga, I'd be better off cutting off my own head."

"I will do what I can. There were eight people in the room, and six of us are traff and used to keeping secrets. And if Grinwipey were going to tell Verehinga, he'd have done it already. For that matter, Ochirion is used to keeping his mother's secrets. I'll let them know it's important."

"Thank you." Zie twisted zir tail. "This is not how I wanted to introduce myself to you when we finally got to meet."

"Nor me. I didn't know I had your enemy on my yacht. I'd have left him at home."

We apologized to each other for a while more, and then he popped the miniature universe and precipitated us back to ordinary reality. I stopped the full introductions, though. Phaniet, Vae, Saza, and I retreated to my laboratory, and did our best to discuss inconsequential and pleasant things. And offer soothing teas -- not brandy -- to my dismal cousin.

Aftermaths [7 Hispis 4385]

Sythyry vs. Sazandigraa, round 1

Me:"I am tempted to evict Grinwipey, if not outright execute him."

Saza:"I don't recommend executing him, coz. Executing his uncle did not work very well for me."

Me:"I'm entirely within my rights to evict him from my ship. In mid-air."

Saza:"I beg you to reconsider, coz. It is rather important to me that everything appear as normal as possible. I should very much dislike anyone asking questions such as, 'Why did Sythyry toss zir client and expert artist out of the skyboat all of a sudden?'"

Me:"Evicting a foulmouthed Khtsoyis is hardly that unusual."

Saza:"Though how you had managed not to notice that he was a foulmouthed Khtsoyis before now is somewhat of a mystery."

Me:"People may dismiss it as a lover's quarrel. I'm sure they suspect me as it is."

Saza:"I should prefer the pretence of utter and complete normality. And not for the sake of your reputation, coz. Though I do appreciate the offer of a sacrifice."

Me:"OK, nothing that awakens outside suspicions. I am going to go yell at him."

Because I am so very, very good at yelling at people.

Sythyry vs. Grinwipey

I confronted my evil Khtsoyis in his bedroom.

Me:"That wasn't at all appropriate."

Grinwipey:"Neither's torturing a poor honest shoggie just doing his job. Neither's making those Gnarn-nuggering mind control spells."

Me:"You have an acute sense of justice, then?"

Grinwipey:"Nothing cute on a shoggy."

Me:"Stop acting cute, then."

Rather to my surprise, he did.

Grinwipey:"My point being, when my aged mother found out I was going out of town with you 'n the grail-tail for a few years, 'n visiting your relatives on the way, she comes up with a helpful little errand I can do. I'm just her messenger, is all. And just your seamstress."

Me:"Well, do you have any other messages or errands or ... anything else I'm going to be unhappy about when it happens?"

Grinwipey:"Nah, nothing I expect you'll be unhappy about. One more message, though."

Me:"Care to show me in advance? Your other choice being to float back to Vheshrame."

Grinwipey:"Can't really show you in advance, just ain't possible."

Me:"Then you'd better ... [interrupted]"

Grinwipey:"Aw, I don't mean to smutter your butter, Sythyry. All I'm sayin' is it's a message to you, 'n I can't properly show you before I show you, now, can I? "

Me:"I suppose I must genuflect before the altar of logic. But what is this message?"

So Grinwipey floated over and flipped a box open. Two bottles of excellent brandy, a box of excellent meditation incense, and a set of green ribbons. Underneath, a cloth reading: With Supreme Apologies. -e -g

Grinwipey:"'-g' is me."

Me:"Apology or no apology, I am still responsible for you, as your patron. If you involve me in any more plots against my relatives, I will ... prove harder to blackmail than Sazandigraa. I don't have any secrets bigger than the occasional crush that I don't do anything about."

Grinwipey:"Sure, me 'n m'aged mother 'n m'uncle and all are quivering all our tentacles at the thought of your wizardly wrath." He shook a few tentacles to make his point more plausible, though I didn't much believe it. "I'll be good as groundnuts from now on. Good as poodle-shagging groundnuts."

I didn't much believe that either, but ... I am trying to take care of him, out of regard for his art at least. And of course I can't evict Grinwipey without risking getting Sazandigraa's story revealed, if nothing else, and that's Sazandigraa's call.

Sythyry vs. Saza, round 2

Me:"It's hard to discipline a Khtsoyis who is holding blackmail materials on you, but I have done what I could do. Rather, what I could do without actively causing you trouble."

Saza:"I appreciate that."

Me:"What approach shall we take?"

Saza:"We shall pretend that it never happened. I am expecting to pay a great deal for this pretense. I want to get my money's worth."

Me:"Very well. We'll continue with the visit as originally planned?"

Saza:"That would be for the best."

Me:"May I help with the payment?"

Saza:"I would take that as a great kindness." Zie finished zir brandy. "I suppose it is time to go see what other surprises lurk amidst your crew."

Me:"None, I hope."

Which was an utterly vain hope, given my crew.

Surprises

Quendry:"Uncle Saza! Uncle Saza! I maked you a wonderful sprize!"

Saza:"Sprizes are always wonderful, and so I thank you, Quendry Arfaen's-son." In a thousand years I suppose one learns the art of concealing one's emotions and being polite and cheerful in public.

Mellilot:"He worked all morning on it."

Quendry:"And I taked a bath, and I baked a bread rolls, and I shaked a rattle! That rhymes! It rhymes three times!"

Saza:"That rhymes too."

Quendry: [dancing around the room wagging his tail.] "A rhymes, three times ... some limes! All primes!"

Vae:"Not all primes, truly, but most."

Mellilot:"Quendry, the surprise."

Quendry:"The surprise!" He picked up a rather basic red cloth ribbon to which some glittery things had been attached with glue. "Here! This is your special Strayway wearing ribbon! Everyone will let you on the yacht when you are wearing this ribbon! It is special! This is you on the ribbon!" Saza looked rather like a picture of a squashed spider. "This is mommy!" Arfaen was an armless shape with an immense tail. "This is Ochirion!" Ochirion was a few tangled circles. "This is a talking couch!" It had some corners, in any case.

Saza wrapped it around zir neck as best zie could, getting glitter on zir feathers

Saza:"Why, Quendry, thank you. This is absolutely the best surprise I have received today."

Which was very true.

Sythyry vs. Saza, round 3

We were curled up together, politely, in the fireplace in my cabin to sleep. This is conventional manners for Zi Ri, I might note, and should not be mistaken for what it might mean if, say, two Rassimel were curled up in bed together, or two Sleeth. Even if I had been cisaffectionate, Saza was hardly in a receptive mood, much less a proceptive one.

Saza:"Sythyry, I am afraid that what I am going to say is unjustified, but I must say it. If I learn today that you were involved in this blackmail, I will forgive you, this year or this century as befits the circumstances. But if I learn about it tomorrow, I will never forgive you at all."

Me:"Fair enough. There's nothing to learn though. It was a surprise to me. If Grinwipey told me anything about it, he did it with such a slanty cant that I can't understand it."

Saza:"You've been taking rhyming lessons from Quendry, haven't you? I believe you. But if you are lying, I will be as unkind as I can arrange."

Me:"I had nothing to do with it. If you want to be sure ... do you have a truth-spell?"

I asked that with more than a little trepidation. Offering to allow zir to use mind-magic on me is somewhere between terrifying and disgusting. Even asking the question makes clear that zie is a mind-mage, which, though true, is not really a point I want to emphasize today.

Saza:"Yes, I do, as it happens. I'm very sorry. If I don't use it now, I am going to worry about it forever."

Me:"Saza, I would rather trust your sorcery than give you extra trouble. Coz."

So zie did. I stared at the spell to make sure it was Detect A Lie, which it was. It's not as hard for me to tolerate such things as for most people. I'm used to Vae casting mind magic on me, and breaking my ribs, and all sorts of things that are not acceptable in polite society. Somehow I've managed to be friends with her. Somehow I will manage to be friends with Sazandigraa as well.

Me:"I told you the full truth of what I knew and when I knew it; Grinwipey concealed it from me altogether, and I had nothing to do with it."

Saza:"Thank you, coz"

After which I had a sobbing cousin in my wings and fireplace, for rather a long time. There are no further interesting details, though.

Wizards of Oorah Thrassen, part 1 [8 Hispis 4385]

We (the Strayway) have been flying a bit slower than we expected, mainly due to stopping a lot when both pilots were elsewise busy. So we (Phaniet, Vae, Saza, and me) were running late for our scheduled luncheon with the wizards of Oorah Thrassen. Which, naturally, meant hopping into Saza's conservative flying gazebo, prying Strayway's antelopes off the gazebo's geese, and charging at top speed to a spot in the middle air off the skybridge. Watching the sun roll out from behind the main trunk at exactly noontime was part of the aesthetics of the meeting. I'm pretty sure there are some Rassimel involved.

Kzip la Hish was already there. La Hish's skyboat was an even more conservative two-masted boatish thing, gleaming green. La Hish herself was also somewhat gleaming green, having dressed in shiny silk that roughly matched her airship and would not have looked out of place if she were working in a bank. Under the silk she's a very unremarkable-looking Rassimel woman with squirrel styling.

Otresto arrived just barely on time. No skyboat for him -- he doesn't have one. (And, of course, it Would Not Do for him to get a ride with anyone else.) He flew straight from Oorat Thrassen on a sentient wind spell. He's a Rassimel man with ridiculous lavender and crimson fur, and wearing an insane and traumatic confection of leather, ribbons, disks of five kinds of metal, and a draping velvet cloak. I think his clothes weighed more than Saza and I together. Despite that, they left his entire front side naked. They would not have looked out of place in ... um ... total darkness, I suppose.

Everyone:Introduce, introduce, introduce. Now shut up to watch the sun come out.

(OOC: Sorry, sick this week, so writing is slow.)

Some Parts of the Gathering were Devoted to Pleasure [8 Hispis 4385]

La Hish:"My goodness! I don't know precisely what I was expecting the famous Vaisessasilmin to look like, but I was not expecting quite so many and so colorful of butterfly wings! You seem like an insectile sort of blossomary!"

Which Vae does, today. She's a yard-long length of glittering blue and green chain, with a serpent's head at one end, and as many butterfly wings as she can possibly cram onto her surface.

Vae:"Thank you!" She can't blush, having no fur (though I use feathers to much the same effect), but she turned the air around her into a shower of tiny asterisks, spiralling downwards, which served much the same purpose.

Saza:"Yes, indeed. Few primes are nearly so willing to devote their very bodies to the purposes of art..."

Otresto:"I should not say that no primes do so. Though I, myself, prefer clothing."

La Hish:"Dear Otresto, if your clothing is a matter of art, it is a message of chaotic woe to the entire universe."

Otresto:"From behind only!"

Saza:"But why, dear Otresto, do you want to present a message of chaotic woe to the half of the universe that is behind you?"

Otresto:"My dear Sazandigraa, it is the central credo of the Temple of the Dark Trinity. Whereof I am now ecclesiastical chieftan."

Me:"That seems rather an important job ... but, why is it called 'chieftan'? The word suggests the warlord of a brutal Gormoror hill tribe."

Otresto:"If you had ever attended a meeting of the ecclesiastical störmgething, you would be surprised at the gentleness of the word. None so vicious as the devotees of the dark gods, disagreeing over a fine point of the wording of some minor and probably incorrect prophecy!"

Saza:"So, what happened to Nangbang?" Turning to me and Phaniet, zie explained, "The prior chieftan."

Otresto:"Nangbang is currently lying in a shallow grave in the hills of Mrasteia."

La Hing:"My word! Do I hear that you confess to killing dear Nangbang and concealing his body?"

Otresto:"Nothing of the sort. He is enjoying a period of a very immediate form of study in the more applied aspects of the theology of Accanax. I daresay he will stop short of actual decomposition, though his fur may take a few months to recover its proper lustre."

Phaniet:"What's he doing for air?"

Otresto:"Breathing through a reed, I should think."

La Hing:"Goodness gracious! Is this ordinary behavior for the ecclesiastical side of the Temple?"

Otresto:"Heavens of Staring Gods, no. How can you even ask such a question? Usually the live-burials are done in coffins full of dirt, inside the city proper. Quite a nice break from ordinary life! Would you like to try, Sythyry?"

Me:"I'm afraid that I am not currently such a devotee of Accanax as to require that sort of religious observance at the moment."

Otresto:"You won't be joining the störmgething for the course of your visit?"

Me:"I'm afraid not."

Phaniet:"Could I? I think that a day or two buried in a coffin in the Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen sounds quite relaxing. The skyboat's still a bit unsettled."

And Some Parts of the Gathering were Devoted to Business [8 Hispis 4385]

We were eating snails and drinking brandy, of course. What other food and drink are suitable for discussions of commerce and treason?

Saza:"I remember that flock of flaming geese you sent against us in ... 4338, was it?"

Me:"4335. I remember the year acutely; the war distracted me from my Smith's Guild studies."

La Hish:"Very nice work, I must say. I tried to destroy them with jets of water, but they didn't mind it a bit."

Me:"Which is the point of fire geese, instead of something more natural like fire cats."

La Hish:"But of course! And when they landed on the skybridge deck, they left a proper goose-mark of scorch."

Me:"And a plum pudding, of course."

La Hish:"Delicious pastry products do seem to be your signature in battle, O mighty wizard of Vheshrame."

Me:"It's how I was introduced to the art of wizard-wars, when the duke commanded me to get Vae here to teleport a breakfast box to everyone outside the city walls."

Otresto:"Ahem. Oorah Thrassen's retaliation was not a masterpiece of the art. It was due to an uninspired and now-departed colleague, who did not appreciate the subtleties of battle."

Saza:"Ah... those were good wars."

Otresto:"They were indeed. Very profitable."

Phaniet:"I'm not entirely sure that they deserve the name of 'war'."

Otresto:"How could they not? There is diplomatic discord; soon, there are mighty acts of sorcery, and then one city (generally Oorah Thrassen) has won and the other (generally Vheshrame) has lost. If that is not a war, what does it lack?"

Phaniet:"Blood, for one thing."

Otresto:"Pah, don't be ridiculous. What point is there in assembling heroes to fight and sometimes die? The age is past in Ketheria where a half-dozen warriors, no matter how mighty, could storm a city and destroy or conquer it. Now is the age of great magic. A flight of fire geese, carrying perdition rather than pudding, would wreck the sky-bridge. And if Sythyry can manage the one, zie can manage the other. So we must respond with ... with ..."

La Hish:"We turned all the bees in Vheshrame Mene into glass for the space of two minutes."

Me:"A good deal more devastating than providing pudding."

Phaniet:"Why?" She is technically clever, but sometimes not as devious as she might be.

Me:"If they can turn them into glass -- a rather challenging substance to manipulate -- they can also turn them into fire -- and thereby burn up all the crops and orchards and forests in Vheshrame Mene in a moment. Plus, of course, it would kill all the bees, so even if we did rescue the crops, they'd be hard to pollinate."

Phaniet:"... oh ..."

Saza:"Those were good wars. We should have another war, and sooner rather than later."

Me:"With Vheshrame?"

Saza:"With Vheshrame, or with any other suitable partner. I am not in a position to be fussy."

La Hish:"Ah, more gambling debts?"

Saza:"I have achieve a great mastery of the art of indebtedness. I no longer need to gamble to find myself greatly in need of money. Nor, even, do I need to spend a terch to do so. And that's the last I shall say of the matter, save that I do need money."

Me:"I'm afraid that Vheshrame is not in a position to oblige you at the moment. The city is neither as rich nor as powerful as it once was, and our concerns are closer to home."

Saza:"Except for your concerns, which seem directed at vacation on Srineia."

Me:"I am not Vheshrame. I am simply from Vheshrame."

Saza:"You and the honorable nendrai... [interrupted]"

La Hish:"The mighty nendrai."

Saza:"Is that the proper title?"

Vae:"The better title for us it is, truly. Not always are we honorable."

Saza:"I'm sure you are more honorable than most!"

Vae: turned the air around her into a shower of fluttering pink semicolons, by way of blushing.

Saza:"Now that's a fetching emotive gesture!"

Vae:"Not am I to be fetched though!"

Saza:"A mere pleasantry. In any case, you and the honorable Sythyry ... zie is honorable, isn't zie?"

Me:"As honorable as anyone of our lineage can be!" (Which certainly sounds like we share certain obscure and doubtless occult secrets. In fact, we do share one: our lineage likes to make obscure pronouncements that make it seem that we share occult secrets.)

Saza:"Well, we mustn't talk about that today." (See? Zie knew exactly what I was talking about.) "In any case, once the two of you return from your vacation, couldn't you manage to talk the Duke of Vheshrame into another sorcerous assault upon my poor, misguided, and utterly vicious country?"

Me:"I will, at least, mention your interest in the topic to Hezimikkinen."

Saza:"No, no! Better that it comes entirely from you!"

Me:"I think that the ducal budget for extravagant gestures at distant nations is rather low. Especially distant nations who have, on the whole, sent us home with our tails tied in knots."

La Hish:"Now, now, I wouldn't say you've done that badly. The plum pudding was excellent."

(Which is a tacit acknowledgment that Vheshrame's display of power was actually beneficial -- or at least delicious -- to Oorah Thrassen, while theirs was wholly menacing to us. While we didn't win the exchange, we were ahead for style.)

Otresto:"Well, if we can't start a war with Vheshrame -- and while their wizard and their nendrai are on vacation, we can't -- and if you're in such a Flokin-petted hurry to have a war -- who should we start one with?"

Me:"Maybe one of the Aradrueian cities? Lenkasia would probably make quite an excellent competitor."

Saza, who was about to sip zir brandy, choked and sputtered. La Hish stopped in mid-snail. Otresto looked distinctly, even incandescently, unpersuaded. Lenkasia has one of the best magic academies anywhere, with a dozen wizards -- several of whom far exceed anyone in the gazebo. Oorah Thrassen has the Temple of the Dark Trinity, a mighty center of priestly power; but Lenkasia has an actual goddess.

Me:"Ah! You don't simply wish to indulge in a wizard-war; you wish to win!"

La Hish:"Well, yes."

Otresto:"It's not strictly necessary of course."

Saza:"But we generally get paid a bonus if we win."

La Hish:"And of course we're less likely to get hired for the next one if we lose."

Otresto:"For some reason, duel-wars are still quite popular."

Saza:"And the Gormoror hill tribes produce some superb champions for duel-wars."

Me:"They do indeed." The Gormoror hill tribes allied with Oorah Thrassen are mighty and frequently-victorious. The Gormoror themselves are fierce and courageous, and the wizards of Oorah Thrassen have given them many mighty talismans over the years. They are rarely defeated in duel wars. Which, like wizard wars, don't quite deserve the name "war"; they are, in many cases, more of a bloody sporting event with consequences for international diplomacy.

La Hish:"Still, once you return, please do talk your Duke into declaring war on us. It's as much for your benefit as ours."

Me:"I'm sure it is." Which she can take as a 'yes' if she likes, but I don't mean it as one.

It may be callous of me to abandon my cousin in such a financial doom -- and my associate Grinwipey being responsible for that doom -- but I don't think that wizard-wars happening entirely for the benefit of the wizards are really appropriate. If we're going to expend vast amounts of time, money, skill, and cley on some spectacular workings of magic, why not on things that do some actual good?

(To which the standard answer is "What are city walls, water systems, and skyboats, if not things that do some actual good?" But there are surely other things too ... but the tricky part is to find something new to work on that won't step on the tail of some guild or other.)

Or, for a different dimension of callousness: Enchantment provides me a constant income. If the wealthiest people in Vheshrame aren't buying magic items, then I can (and do) make cheaper items for less wealthy people. I have made lightcasters, water-movers, fireproofers, salt-strainers, bread-speeders, and all manner of assorted tools and utilitaria. It is, on the whole, less dramatic and less imposing (and less expensive) than ritual magic. The effects of a complexity-5 [unimpressive] enchantment are no greater than my customers could achieve on their own with a spell they bought at the neighborhood store -- the difference being that an enchantment doesn't cost cley and a spell does. Which is a serious difference: being able to create five gallons of water at the cost of one cley is useful to save someone a trip to the well or fountain; being able to create five gallons of water every two seconds all day long can have a rather greater cumulative effect. But it is still the same spell that the housemaid can cast.

Ritual magic can do much more than other magic of the same complexity. It takes only a few minutes or hours to perform, rather than the weeks for enchantment. But nobody is going to go to a karcist to buy something cheap and practical. Ritual magic is for emergencies, for wizard-wars, for producing slow catastrophes like Lithia. A karcist charges hundreds or thousands of lozens per cley -- and sometimes it's worth it.

If Saza were willing to get up before dawn every day, money wouldn't be a problem for zir.

For that matter, zie could probably do a respectable business with bound spells, except that is beneath a wizard's dignity, since bound spells are sold in country fairs and market squares these years.

Or, for a third dimension of callousness: I don't like being called upon to help my cousin in ways I can't talk about even once, and starting a wizard-war would be a second variety.

Ah, well. The snails and brandy were superb, in any case.

The Judgment

I am displeased with:

1. My seamstress;
2. My cousin;
3. My fellow wizards

Though I don't see that complaining at any of them is going to do any good.

Conjuring in the Dark Trinity [10 Hispis 4385]

Saza and La Hish all but begged me to consecrate a few things in the Temple of the Dark Trinity. They were hoping I'd be making weapons to use against Oorah Thrassen in some upcoming war against them.

I'm not that organized though. And I'm used to losing wars against Oorah Thrassen, so I'll probably just use the lesser but still generally adequate temples of those gods in Vheshrame, if it comes to that.

The Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen is: Gnarn (goddess of Mutoc and the Sleeth, and Vae's creatrix); Iraz Varuun (goddess of Magiador); Accanax (god of Destroc and the Khtsoyis and Gormoror, and Gnarn's younger brother). For those keeping records, we have enough good candidates to make a whole separate Dark Trinity with some left over, so don't be too surprised about any variations you may hear of.

And it so happens that I have a project involving all three. Something I've wanted for most of my life, in fact. A tool to destroy (Destroc) spells (Magiador), but focussed on Mutoc spells in particular.

Which is to say, a tool for betraying my oldest friend.

Construction

I filled up eleven pages in my work notebook fussing about whether it was better for me to sew the tool myself, or have Grinwipey do it. Me, because it's often better to make the things you enchant yourself, and I'm a pretty good seamstress, and because I'm still quite annoyed at him. Wipey, because he's far better than I am, and because it's good to get Khtsoyis involved when you're working with Accanax, and because I should either make peace with him or firmly not.

After doing lots of math, the last point made me decide. That, and by then I'd wasted so much time doing the math that I needed the extra tentacles helping anyways.

So we chatted a bit while we were working.

Grinwipey:"So, you going in to that myther-fiddling temple?"

Me:"Yes, of course. I generally do my own consecrations."

Grinwipey:"Y'know, I wouldn't just walk into the place of power of a snaggy-wing like that Saza cozza of yours. If I could walk, I mean. Just sayin'."

Me:"What do you think zie might do to me? I've shared meals and fireplaces with zir. You zie's pissed at -- and I am too -- but zie's not particularly unhappy with me."

Grinwipey:"Just 'cause you're the lickety-waffle wiz of Vheshrame." He finished embroidering a shattered draconic eye on his end of the ribbon, and showed me. It was ... not beautiful, but perfect.

Me:"So? Zie wants a wizard-war with Vheshrame. Vheshrame needs a wizard for that ... even one that uses breakfast foods."

Grinwipey:"Huh? Oh, hah ... you think 'lickety-waffle' is about breakfast foods? Sythyry, you're as naive as a virgin on hogo-pogo night." (Yes, I am. I don't know what hogo-pogo night is either.) "Nah, zie ain't gonna hurt you, but I bet zie fixes up something t'take your edge off."

Me:"Zie's not going to hurt me. Really."

Grinwipey:"Well, if zie twunks your bunks with a fash of funk, don't say I didn't warn you."

Me:"I won't." Because I have no idea what that means either.

The Simple Consecration

I am not consecrating it to Gnarn -- I only get one Noun and one Verb, and the Verb is Destroc. But there is a polite little ceremony of introduction which I did do. It almost never does anything, and, in this case, it didn't do anything. But it's good to see the Temple for the first time somewhat before you do a heavy consecration ceremony.

The Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen started out in a spare lumber shack, used when they were building the sky-bridge. The first priests held informal services there, and were rather surprised at how attentive the gods were to them. They didn't want to tinker with success, so the heart of the Temple complex is the old lumber shack. The outer buildings are rather more imposing; they're the sorts of edifices you'd expect from a temple of [some of] our most wicked gods. Towers topped with fanged Sleeth skulls and vast glass crystals and writhing tentacles, and all that sort of tourist stuff. There's a public temple that's all black marble and dripping candles and wailing invisible choirs and suchlike doom. But that's for worship, not for work.

The true heart of power is the triangular altar made of some warped skybridge floor boards and three old wooden crates, in a dusty mostly-empty space. Seven crude clay lamps burning rendered mherobump fat float haphazardly on one side. (I don't think that they kill the mherobump for their fat; I think they buy mherobump corpses in the mherobump ghettoes of the nearby Choinxeian cities.) The decorations are sparse and undecorative: coils of rope in the corners of the room, a scattering of dead flies, the junk of some tools for enchanting floorboards to levitate.

A Great Priest of Iraz Varuun was waiting for me, so wrapped in incarnadine gabardine that I couldn't see zir species or gender for sure. Orren I think. He(?) burned sacred scathnard incense and set thirteen densly-written books around the altar, and silently invited me in with a wave of the blue-green flags on his wands.

I offered a miniature book bound in mnenorzion to the goddess, in which I had copied my old diary entry about the first time Vae had nearly killed me with a friendly helpful spellcast. (Yes, I used one of my own quills to write it, and another one as a bookmark. No, I didn't write it in my own blood.) The topic was chosen carefully: an explanation about why I want to break Vae's spells in particular, an emphasis that I don't want to destroy Vae herself, and an apology for making a spell-breaking item, which is not Iraz Varuun's top preference.

I prayed -- which mostly consisted of a lecture on fine points of the enchantment, which Iraz Varuun appreciates -- for most of an hour.

And that worked fine. The goddess's attention fell on me for a second and a half, like a very hot and peppery scrying spell, and that was that.

+30% on Enchantability, which is a quite respectable result for a consecration with a Noun God. I had made plans assuming +25%, which is more typical for this sort of thing in the Temple of the Dark Trinity. The extra can go for extra power, which is always useful.

That's how it's supposed to go.

The consecration to Accanax was nothing like that.

Putting the "Dark" in "Dark Trinity"[10 Hispis 4385]

The Invocation

Nangbang, recently freed from his subterranean nap, and wrapped in black robes so that we could not see his dirt-dulled fur, did the same sort of introduction that the Great Priest of Iraz Varuun had. Nolotham incense instead of scathnard, and he ringed the altar in five black iron daggers instead of thirteen books, of course.

My offering was a small hezarion brooch in the shape of a dagger, with a tiny drop of a ruby at the pommel, stabbing a coiled serpent. I am a smith in good standing, so I am allowed to make this sort of thing. But I am not very good at making large things -- a proper dagger would have been not much smaller than myself. I have done that, as an apprentice smith; but I prefer doing jewelry.

And I prayed for a while, which, for Accanax, had a lot of Gormoror war-poetry, and chants of glorious spellbreakings. I am not much of a Gormoror bard, but, in theory, one does not need to be.

And then, between the words "and" and "then" in the Lay of Ghonbodak Gharbos, most of the world fell away -- in the sense of "someone very big and very strong and very intangible grabbed me and hoisted me off".

Euphagy

Coloration: Take a jet-black cow, without a single light hair. Kill it at noontime. Sew a few strands of silver thread into it. Leave it in a hot place until midnight. Now look at the hide -- from the inside, with your eyeballs pressing up against the flesh-side of the skin. Yeah. That color.

Scent: The bouquet of composting love letters. Yeah. That scent.

Magic Sense: In his heart, he had the dismal sparky traces of a spell cast to lance boils on the cheeks of a Cani boy who has not been able to sleep for three days from the pain. In his exostructure, he had the bitter leaden traces of a spell to break the free will of a cyarr warrior. You surely have cast both of those yourself, or know of them, do you not?

Sound: When he spoke, his voice was like the death-cries of legions of ticks and lice. When he was silent, his silence was the silence that comes when the ashes of the forest fire are cold. You know, those sounds.

Texture: When he embraced me, his touch was like the breath of predatory crabs who have recently dug up the new graves of elderly Herethroy scholars to feed upon their recently-dead flesh. I'm sure you're familiar with how that feels.

Taste: I didn't taste him. You might not have done, either.

Shape: I'm not really sure.

Clothing: Not sure of that either.

"Oh, hello, Euphagy," I said. I wasn't alarmed by the sudden presence of an aspect of a god, or one of his greatest angels (modern theology is uncertain about which he is). This is not a particularly unusual reaction to finding onesself in the sudden presence of a god. We have, of course, known the gods since roughly birth -- or before, for those who have lived more than once. So a normal first reaction to them is as to an old friend.

I continued being not alarmed for nearly two-thirds of a second. First reactions last only so long.

Then, on remembering that he was either a fraction of a god or one of Accanax' supreme servitors -- it seemed the thing to do to start with some flattery, to show I knew somewhat about him. "Hail, O Minister of the Quadrangles of Ruin, He In Whose Mouth Scorpions Are Destroyed With Mirrors, Great Catabolist of the Lanterns of the East, Hail!"

I shut up quickly when I realized I was quoting from De Heptarchia Mysteria. Or, probably, misquoting from De Heptarchia Mysteria, given that I haven't read it since my abortive attempt to get an undergraduate degree over a century ago. And De Heptarchia Mysteria is somewhere between whimsical and wholly made up in the first place. (I mean, who calls the seven creator gods the "Heptarchy" anyways? It's not as if they rule anything.)

The darkness who devours all things made known to me that I was the creation of the god of an opposing Verb. [Sythyry's creator god rules Sustenoc, the Verb of sustaining. -bb]

I cast The Infinite Grenade, which created a large spiky nut, detonated it in a shower of spikes, healed it back together, only to have it detonate again a few seconds later, and again, and again. One does not ordinarily cast attack spells at either a fraction of a god or one of a god's senior angels, and especially not attack spells that are mostly intended for packs of animals in caves. But this spell demonstrates that the three opposites of Destroc -- Creoc, Healoc, and the one he was complaining about, Sustenoc -- can cooperate with Destroc to produce a clever form of destruction. Which Euphagy seemed to take in stride, if he has legs, which I am uncertain about.

The darkness who devours all things made known to me that the god was aware that I was proposing to construct a device to thwart a champion of his sister -- the god's sister.

I'm afraid I did not react with particular bravery.

The darkness who devours all things interrupted me in mid-whimper and made known to me that the god was pleased. Pleased with my designs. Pleased with my treatment of his champion. Pleased with the destruction I would surely leave in my wake.

I got a quick glimpse of the world as seen from a god's point of view: the dome of the sky showing its curve like a roof overhead, the whole top of the World Tree a flat plate of streaky green underneath me.

And then I was back in the Temple of the Dark Trinity at Oorah Thrassen.

I didn't bother finishing the Lay of Ghonbodak Gharbos. Nangbang and I closed up the consecration politely but quickly. It had already succeed, probably too much.

Aftermath

Nangbang:"We wasted that on a mere foreigner? We do not get such divine attention three times in a year, most years!"

Saza:"Lucky lizard! That's never happened to me!" (To which the answer had to be: "Of course not. You don't consecrate magic items, which is the only time it happens to anyone.")

La Hish:"Well, you certainly must fight us with it when you get back from vacation! Whatever this 'it' may be!"

Otresto:"Ah, so you get to make your first divine relic? Congratulations!"

Phaniet:"So how good is it?" (I'm not sure. Regular techniques do not necessarily apply.)

Kantele:"Are you all right? You look a bit wobbly." (This was back on Strayway, a few hours later.)

Vae didn't say anything to speak of. She did take her true form, which is a tall-by-full-sized-prime standards lizard with an exceeding long and flickery tail, and let me curl up against her belly for a long long time. With her terribly dangerous tail around me, and her clever sharp claws brushing my feathers. A monster who can challenge great cities without worry, and all she was doing was protecting and comforting me.

Comforting me from making a weapon against her, as she well knew. (We had discussed it beforehand.)

Not that it was too much comfort. In the face of the gods, we are kittens who have not yet opened their eyes. It was just one kitten comforting another.

On Defeating Vae [12 Hispis 4385]

The original plan for this part of the trip was to write another pastorale, about how the Main Trunk looks as Strayway slowly spirals around it. Maybe later.

I realized that something was wrong immediately upon waking up this morning. Skyboats shouldn't list. (Waterboats shouldn't list either.) Strayway's floor in my smaller and cozier bedroom (where I had been for a day and a half) was tilted, ten or fifteen degrees. And what had woken me up was Kantele and Arfaen having a dominance contest just outside my door.

Kantele:"Sythyry is the master of this ship! Zie has just worked a great and terrible enchantment!" (Technically, I worked a great and terrible consecration. I still have to do the actual enchantment. Which is to say, I don't have the actual spellbreaker yet, just a strip of god-petted cloth that will make a fearsome spellbreaker after I'm done with it.) "Zie needs zir rest!" (Which had been true when I went to sleep, certainly.)

Arfaen:"My son is magnified with doom and trouble! The situation is miserable and dangerous! Our supplies of food are running low!"

Kantele:"Sythyry will conjure greater doom and trouble upon you if you wake zir up! You only see the gentle lizard, but zie can be terrible with torments!"

Arfaen:"We have already had the terrible with torments!"

Which didn't sound particularly good.

Me:"Good morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. I actually have no idea what day it is, much less what time." My wizardries have certainly scrambled any sense of time for me.

Kantele: [instantly professional and secretarial.] "Mid-afternoon on the twelfth of Hispis."

Me:"Oh, that's not too bad. Why are we running low on food? Didn't you buy some in Oorah Thrassen?"

Arfaen:"I did, but for a normal crew, not such a one as we have now!"

Me:"What, did we pick up more people?" I am not always so clever after I've slept for a day and a half.

Arfaen:"No! The monster cursed Quendry!"

Me:"Vae did? Or are we dealing with some other monster?"

Arfaen:"Vae, yes, your pet nendrai."

So we went to have a look at Quendry.

Highly Magnified Cani

Quendry was a rather imposing eighty-some feet tall. Vae had helpfully wrapped some Locador spells around him, so that he could crouch in the corridor. But he still towered over everyone else. He stuck his tail between his legs when he saw his mother, and knocked Yerenthax over with it.

Me:"Oh, dearie."

Quendry:"Please make me back to right, Aunt Sythyry!"

Me:"This would be much easier several weeks from now, but I will do what I can."

The Easy Approach

This rarely works, but once in a while it does, so it's worth trying. Vae was in her true shape -- a tallish and ill-favored lizard, with arms and legs and no exotic wings. That's never a good sign.

Me:"Vae, could you please make Quendry his usual size again?"

Vae:"Oh, there's a sorrow on me, Sythyry, but your earmuffs didn't tell me what you said. And shall I take them off?"

Me:"Yes, if you would be so kind." She did, and I asked her again.

Vae:"Not ever in the world would I take back that present, and sweet Quendry so dearly wishing to be big!"

Me:"Oh, he did, did he?"

Vae:"The truly! The big enough to beat his brother in a wrestling choof when he gets back home, is what he wants, and he is that big."

Me:"Well, he didn't mean that big. He just wanted to be an older boy. Which will work better if he does it the natural way."

Vae:"Hah! Sythyry, the I understand now! Upon you is the thought that I have helped someone to their sorrow again!"

Me:"Exactly. You have done."

Vae:"But no! The exact thing he needs is the spell I have put on him!"

Me:"Well, why's he wailing and whimpering then?"

Vae:"The surprise! The many of people are waily and whimpery when they first get their gifting! The desired it may be, but the achievement thereof comes with happy tears!"

Me:"Those aren't happy tears."

Vae:"Sythyry, Sythyry, Sythyry! The knowing is on me fully when I do a good and desired thing, or when I do a terrible and abhorred one."

Me:"Yes, and you're right about a twelfth of the time."

Vae:"And this is that twelfth!"

Me:"Besides, he's so heavy he's making the skyboat list."

Vae:"The skyboat needs its fixing from you, then! Not so Quendry!"

So we argued for another third of an hour about it, but Vae was unconvinceable. One of the flaws in her psyche is that she can rarely understand that one of her favors is actually a doom, at least, not before it's been taken care of.

Vae:"The rightness is mine this time, and never shall you persuade me otherwise."

Me:"Well, if I take the spell off, and Quendry wants it back, you can put it back."

Vae:"The day seven years ago with the escaped bishop it will be!"

Seven years ago, Vae teleported a bishop of the Vheshrame countryside off to Mrasteia. When I heard about it, I managed to bully Vae into popping us there and trying to retrieve him. It turned out that he was actually there on purpose, surprising his long-ago linguistics professor (and, I gather, lover) on the occasion of his hundreth birthday. Vae doesn't always cause terrible troubles; sometimes she does just precisely what is most needful and helpful. (I suspect that this is part of her creator's evil design. If Vae were always doomy, or enjoyed the doom, we'd treat her rather differently. As it is ... you can't decently kill a cooperative, compliant and (when she is capable) repentant nendrai for kindness, can you? (If you can kill her at all, which would be a challenge for, say, the full powers of Oorah Thrassen.))

Me:"If it is such a day, you shall have a fine apology from me."

Vae:"The apology I await eagerly!"

Me:"Don't be so eager. I haven't made the spellbreaker yet. It'll take me hours and hours."

Vae:"The hours are cheap; you can spare them!"

Me:"You won't do it yourself as a favor to me?"

Vae:"The fool's errand is the errand you can perform by yourself if you wish! Not a bit will I come along on it!"

Which is what usually happens, but I had to ask.

Spellbreaking the hard way

For my own amusement, as much as anything else, here's how I broke the growth spell. Note that it was over twelve hours work for a quite competent wizard to break a spell which took Vae two seconds to concieve and cast.

The Problem: Breaking spells is hard in general. The most straightforward way requires a counterspell of about four times the power of the spell being broken. The other straightforward way, which is somewhat harder, requires only three times. That's about it for straightforward ways. Vae's spells are typically have more power than mine. I have tricks that she does not, and can exceed her power somewhat if I must: by ten or twenty percent, which is not nearly enough. So I have to do more work.

The Initial Examination: I stared at Vae's magnification carefully. She hadn't been exerting herself, so it had her usual -- overwhelming -- power, but no extra.

The Preliminary Weakening: A while ago, I made myself a hammer of lead and hezarion which weakens spells: a variation on a theme of Gnaw the Whining Spell. I brought forth this hammer and started whomping on Vae's spell. The first blow chipped off a satisfying quarter-or-so of the magnification's power. The next few did nothing at all. That is typical: it is generally the case that casting a modification spell twice gives the greater of the two modifications, not their sum. The sixth blow dinged the magnification a touch more, and the eleventh a little further. After twenty I gave up. In principle, the hammer can do an unlimited amount of damage to a spell. I daresay I could hammer on this one for a thousand years and still not cut its power in half. Still, the quarter-or-so is worth my effort. It makes the later steps much easier.

The Loosening: The next step is a spellweave to render Vae's magnification less firm in its attachment to reality. Spellweaving is a technique for constructing very elaborate, very weak spells, precisely tuned to the needs of the situation at hand. It is also a fussy topic, requiring (in this instance):

1. Drawing a circle around Quendry, which is harder than when he is right-sized. On a tippy skyboat, yet.
2. Making a syntopic model of the spell out of ivory, and systematically causing its ivory limbs to be held together with screws, and then loosening those screws.
3. Trying to keep Quendry still. Keeping a young child sitting in a magic circle for six hours as you do boring things is not so easy.

The Displacement: I have another magical implement, which looks somewhat like an egg beater and somewhat like a horse with far too many wings. When suitably applied, this implement can persuade a spell that it isn't quite cast as intended. (It works better the looser the spell is.) In this case, a vigorous whirling with its wings persuaded the spell that it was supposed to have been cast on a doll stuffed with Cani fur, rather than on an actual Cani, and that it was only placed on Quendry by mistake.

The Rededication: Another spellweave. This time, we persuaded the magnification that it only should work on dolls stuffed with Cani fur. We conveniently provided such a doll. Quendry had a great deal of fur, for use in the stuffing of it -- and Quendry's fur was particularly appropriate, since we could also intimate to the spell that it had been cast on Quendry by a quite natural mistake. Quendry was still under the magnification spell at the end of the second spellweave, but the magnification spell was looking quite mis-cast.

Getting Quendry to sit still for another six hours was not terribly easy. He was hungry; Strayway isn't set up for feeding such a large person. He was bored: his usual passtimes aren't suitable for someone of his current size. He was tired: we drew the circle big enough for him to sit in, barely, but not to lie down. (My workroom is only so big.) He was scared. He was ashamed.

The Transferrence: A fancy spell cast on a spell (such as the magnification) which is applied to the wrong [Corpador] target, for moving it to the right target. This phase I used to do as a third spellweave, but I actually bought a copy of the spell to do it straightaway seventy years ago, so this part is easy. When it works, which is about two-thirds of the time.

And that was that. Fifteen cley. A very long day's work for a quite skilled mage.

And one further problem: there is now a eighty-some foot tall doll stuffed with Quendry-fur in my workroom.

Aftermath

Quendry was suitably fed, bathed and put to bed well after his usual bedtime. Arfaen curled up with him.

Me:"Well, that was a pain and a half."

Vae:"Oh, no! And was I wrong, or was I right?"

Me:"I'm afraid Quendry is much happier being small."

Vae:"The so very sure was I I had the right of it this time!"

Me:"Not this time. But don't worry about it. It's good practice for me."

It is unfortunately very important to forgive Vae intensely at this point. If I try to make her feel guilty (e.g., trying to get her not to do it next time (which is beyond her powers)), she is likely to try to make amends. Which is usually worse than her first misdeed.

Vae: whimper whimper whine whine apologize apologize cry cry

Me: pet pet comfort comfort forgive forgive heal heal

Vae:"And when will you make the artifact to ruin my boons?"

Me:"Soon, I suppose. I don't know how long it will take." I have never enchanted a divine relic before; the situation is not fully or even adequately described in my coursework; I am rather intimidated.

Vae:"If I could, I'd keep you from needing it between now and then."

But we both know how unlikely that will be.

While the Wizard Slept [12 Hispis 4385]

I was either asleep at the time, or disenchanting Quendry, or both, so I didn't see any of this. All I know about it is rumor. The Mural of Civic Virtues and Vices in Daukrhame portrays Rumor as a monster with two heads, vast ears stuffed with parsley and music boxes, vast mouths with flapping tongues. Its body is a mechanical sausage-grinder, though.

The scene: lunchtime on Strayway. Two dozen liveried wrongfolk are sitting at four tables, as a handful of their compatriots serve them a wonderful vegetarian feast. Few if any of them are fretting about the continued absence of their patron. More of them are fretting about the continued absence of meat. (Arfaen, whose job it is to provide a wonderful omnivore lunch, is busy with Quendry and me.)

Inconnu:"Umbers, dear sweet Umbers, after the last of the blueberry tart has vanished into the tart and non-tart alike, would you care to come with me deep into the bowels of Strayway, where many delights await?"

Umbers:"Are you sure those are the bowels you'd like me to ... never mind that."

Inconnu:"No, no, no-no-no! I didn't mean that! This was just an offer of a walk, you see! A walk, an explore, a peregrination sort of thing! Not an attempt to satisfy any carnal urges!"

Umbers:"Oh? Why not? The color and texture of my carapace displeases you?"

Inconnu:"No! Not in the slightest! I greatly admire the interplay of middle brown and reddish-brown on your smooth and only occasionally spiky thorax!"

Umbers:"So you are trying to take advantage of me."

Inconnu:"No, really, I'm not planning any sort of insidious or untoward situation!"

Umbers:"Oh, you don't like my reputation. I can understand that. You're better off associating with the Khtsoyis."

Grinwipey:"Hey! I don't want Inconnu trying to oogle me prandies! And he sure ain't gonna give me the wrip-wrap in some distant parlor!"

Inconnu:"I wouldn't do that!"

Umbers:"Why not? You call yourself traff, don't you?"

Inconnu:"Well, yes, I do.... I am!"

Grinwipey:"I ain't! He tries anything, I'll whopple his head 'til he turns tail, and his tail 'til he looks like a beaver!"

Inconnu:"I won't, I won't!"

Umbers:"Maybe you're not really traff."

Inconnu:"I am! I just don't want him to beat me up!"

Umbers:"Feeling a bit cowardly today, Inconnu?"

Inconnu:"No! I'm brave! I just want to be brave in the exploring kind of way."

Umbers:"Oh, you think there are dangers in the inner rooms of Strayway?"

Inconnu:"Oh, yes! Terrible dangers! Strange perversions of space and time which Sythyry's experimental spells caught up!"

Umbers:"And you wanted to bring me among the terrible dangers without warning or defense."

Inconnu:"I'd defend you, sure as eels is eels!"

Umbers:"Between the Zi Ri and the nendrai, eels might well be parasol demons back there."

Inconnu:"I'll fight them off! I'll stretch their stretchers, I'll rule their ferrules, I'll sprong their springs!"

Umbers:"A battle sure to lure me onto the nearest divan, legs spread wide."

Inconnu:"No! ... um ... or ... yes... or ... maybe."

Umbers:"Of course, the divan would probably start talking to us. What would you do then?"

Inconnu:"I'd stuff artichokes in its armrests!"

Umbers:"Oh, you don't like an audience when you conduct your flirtations?"

Inconnu:"No! The purest privacy, the utmost discretion, the strictest seclusion -- this is my watchword!"

Umbers:"Which is why you've been discussing this with half the crew around, so loudly that Zascalle is covering Ochirion's ears."

Inconnu:"No! This was merely an invitation to ... to ... "

Umbers:"Something you'd rather that Calla didn't find out about?" She waved a forehand towards the kitchen.

Calla: [coming out of the kitchen with a tray of grilled leeks] "What shouldn't I find out about?"

Inconnu:"Nothing happened! Nothing happened at all!"

Grinwipey:"And if'n anything had happened, he'd be a clubpuddle on the floor like the dashitzie."

Calla:"I see. Have a leek, Inconnu?"

Inconnu:"Oh! Yes! I love the sleek and elite leek!"

Calla smiled and patted Inconnu's head.

The Analysis

Rather afterwards, my devoted staff investigated the event, so that I didn't have to do it myself.

Jyondre:"Why did you turn him down, Umbers?"

Umbers:"I turned him down?"

Yerenthax:"He clearly wished to indulge in such pleasures as mammals may share with insects! Due to your teasing, such is not possible with you, nor with Calla!"

Umbers:[wiggling her antennae] "I don't think Calla is very much jealous. But he'll have better luck pursuing zir if he pursues just zir."

Jyondre:"Does he have much chance with her at all?"

Umbers:"I don't know. Calla is unfailingly polite to me, but she thinks she'd be better off associating with the Khtsoyis."

Yerenthax:"Did you do something dishonorable that the rest of us should know about?"

Umbers:"Kantele knows my life's story; I told her when I came to Castle Wrong for refuge. It's not a very proud story in spots. I didn't break my sword word, if that's what you're after; I promised to do some unsavory things for some bad reasons, and I did them, and I'm trying to have nothing to do with that sort of person or situation anymore."

Yerenthax:"There is a measure of honor in that!"

Jyondre:"So -- were you trying to save Inconnu's honor or attention for Calla? Or trying to put him off? Or trying to lead him on?"

Umbers:"Nothing like that. Just trying to get him into a Wild Rush. Didn't work, even."

Waking [13 Hispis 4385]

Prophetic Dream

I was awakened the first time around midafternoon the next day by a tremendous magical occurrence. Locador, it was, with Spiridor and Kennoc, and a tremendous weight of Mutoc. I decided, foolishly, that Vae was probably just trying to find the bathroom or some such thing.

I went back to sleep, and dreamed that Flokin (in the form of a three-headed bright-orange Sleeth) came to talk to me. "I lost a big and flamey-red silk handkerchief," It said. "It's right down there." It pointed at a vast patch of rippling red cloth that must have covered half a city-state on the world-branch below. "I want you to go find it."

"It's right there, isn't it?" I asked it.

"Yes, but I can't find it," the god said. "That's your job."

I would chalk this up to dreams being confusing, but actually it's theologically correct. The fire god is that confusing too. It says so in all the textbooks.

"I do hope I don't have a fever," I told the god. "All the textbooks say that the only dreams you talk in are fever dreams."

Then another magical occurrence occurred to me. This one was just Mutoc and Locador, but it was quite loud, and woke me up again.

Assassination Attempt

I opened my eyes. I had somehow slithered out of the fireplace in my sleep, and was lying in a frighteningly undignified position on the dingy yellow hearthrug. It was a stylistic calamity, for my feathers do not at all go well with dingy yellow.

Floating in the air above my head were seven dull brown levitating ceramic mugs, their handles tied together with butcher's twine. One of the mugs had an intricate wooden spoon in it.

I quite diligently and sensibly breathed fire at it.

"Hey! And why are you breathing fire at me?" it demanded, blocking the flames with a thoroughly complicated spell that teleported them a hundred miles away. "Careful of the spoooon!"

Oh, dearie, I thought to myself. I've just tried to attack the fire god.

"I didn't know that that was one of your forms," I said apologetically.

"The I just got a spoooooon!" chirped the cups. "So I wanted to be some cups to go with it!"

Oh, dearie, but slightly less dearie than before, I thought to myself. I've just tried to attack the nendrai.

"I thought you were Flokin," I quite cleverly remarked.

"And why are you trying to destroy the fire god's carved wooden spoon?" she asked, quite sensibly.

I remembered my dream. "Do I have a fever?"

"Yes, the you certainly do," she said. "Not another explanation for your behavior or your hallucination-like reasoning can I imagine!"

Chase Scene

"I'm not quite sure I believe you. For one thing, you didn't actually touch me to see if I felt hot," I said, rather crossly. I don't much like being woken up by nendrai pretending to be fire gods, you see.

"The acting-fevered is all on you, Sythyry," said Vae. "Not any need to actually touch you have I."

"No, I really want to know if I have a fever," I said, and rolled over and flew off. "Phaniet? Phaniet? Where are you?"

Kantele looked up from her desk. I imagine she was putting some papers in order, not that she ever lets papers get out of order. "Phaniet is in the solarium ... well, one of the solaria off that way, I think. Enjoying the view and a vigorous discussion with Este."

"I had better not interrupt her then," I said.

She curled her tail. "Este would surely appreciate the interruption." She grinned. "What, you miscast a spell and now there are cups following you?"

"No, that's Vae, being more than usually inexplicable. You can help. Do I have a fever?" I landed on her shoulder and pressed my neck to her nose.

She felt me with nose, tongue, and fingerpads, those being the main furless parts of her body that are suitable for touching her employer. "You do not have a fever. Why?"

So I told her about the Flokin dream. Vae buzzed around overhead, clinking together impatiently.

"Sythyry, that is a true manifestation of Flokin," she said.

"Oh, dear. I didn't really want to go questing," I said.

"Oh, it's not your manifestation of Flokin. It's from Bettangour's Tales of Gods, part of Yuzu's story. You read it to Lithia when she was four. It happened three hundred and twenty-nine years ago."

I blinked foolishly at her.

"As your personal secretary, allow me to recommend that you have a chalice of kathia before you attempt any sort of rational thought or purposeful activity," advised my wise secretary.

"The important advice is this!" clattered Vae. "Without such enhancement, I fear for the safety of my precious, precious spoon!" She wrapped the spoon in six-plus-twelve defensive spells.

Barroom Brawl

They abducted me to the galley. Mellilot seethed leaves and spices, and filled a child's-size chalice for me, and an adult's-size chalice for Kantele, and ... "Vae, would you like some kathia?"

"The yes, the yes!" Vae can't easily refuse things that primes offer her.

"Um ... which cup of you should I pour it in?"

Vae turned back into a ugly, large lizard. "Not in me, not in me!"

I drank two and a third child-sized chalices -- I ought to have had an adult chalice, come to think of it -- and tried to make sense of the day. "OK. That wasn't the fire god. Flokin doesn't use Mutoc Locador spells."

"Not Flokin, not Flokin. The two nendrai who are dear to you use Mutoc Locador spells! And very sweet they are today! See? A spoon!", said Vae.

"Very well ... what about this spoon?"

Love Letter [13 Hispis 4385]

Vae flickered excitedly from one shape to another: a tree whose branches were snakes, a cloud with glaring purple eyes, an obsidian statue of a Herethroy, herself. "The love letter is what Oixe sent me!"

"Oh, that's great!" I said. "You've been missing her all over the ship. That's the wooden spoon, I take it?"

"How did she send you a love letter? She's hundreds of thousands of miles away, and from what you've said, she's not very good at teleporting," asked Phaniet. (Magic geeks are, of course, aware that even Vae, for all her ridiculous Locador power, can't teleport from Ketheria to Oixe at once. And Phaniet is the geekiest magic geek aboard Strayway.)

"The special envelopes I gave her when I saw her last, when she was gravid. They do the teleporting, not my mate!" chirped Vae.

"Have you read the love letter yet? How do you read a wooden spoon?" I asked.

"The I've read it, the I've read it, the dozen times have I read it!" Vae became an abstract violet spiral, then a barrel labelled "Pickled Mushrooms" overflowing with serpents, than a purple cloud generously adorned with sprigs of lavender, then herself. She held the spoon out for me to read: the bowl filled with pastry crust, with letters branded on it.

Dear Vaisessasilmin. The I miss you. Not boring is tending our egg. The vast dungeon I am building. The traps, the tricks, the dooms. Not much can I tell you. The I would like to be able to. Not a bit can I though. If you find any medium-sized monsters who want a dungeon to live in, send them to me. The nights I curl up around the egg. The very safe I am keeping it. The pictures I have sent of it -- 0.38 millimeters already long is our daughter! Not yet do I know what species she will be. The eyes I think are yours. The love and battle with you I miss greatly. After our daughter is grown, the hunting trip together we must go on, for we never got around to that. The I love you. -- Oikusanghlirxat

"The picture of the egg she sent! The mate of mine is very clever and devious! The things she shares with me, are more than a guarding nendrai usually can! See, see!"

I looked at the spoon, but the crust had vanished. "Where?"

Vae bounced, becoming a bowl of boiling grass, a flaming chair, herself. "The left ornament on top of the spoon, that is the picture!" The spoon had three ornamental knobs, each with a tangly Illusidor and Mentador spell on it. I don't much like Mentador -- and that is an unusually tolerant attitude towards it -- but for my friend's sake, I put my paw on the left knob.

And was greeted with a very vivid view and very vivid memory of Oixe herself. I'm pretty sure it was intended for Vae and only for Vae. I can understand why Vae might be pleased to read (or experience) this part of the letter, though I am not generally one to look lecherously on lizards. Especially not my friends' lovers.

As I attempted to recover my usual composure and coloration, Vae said, "Not your left, I mean. My left."

This time I pointed at the knob with a somewhat trembly claw. "This one?" The spells on all three knobs were the same, in the same way that the same ink and same paper can be used for a fairy tale, a distinguished jeremiad, a work of pornography.

"The that one!"

So I stretched out my paw and touched the that one. (I still don't like Mentador, even when it's not slithering lizard lust into my mind.) Vae and Oixe's egg is a dangerous-looking thing, cute and cuddly as a durian fruit, with alert brazinion needles on its spikes. It was surrounded by obscuring spells: Oixe was apparently able to show us the egg itself, but not anything that might hint at its location or defenses.

Then the memory shifted, giving us an Eyes for the Small-ish view of the slowly-growing embryo. A tiny curled thing, mostly tail even this early, wriggling happily in a vast-to-her bath of eggyolk. Her face was barely developed: a quickly-sketched curve of jaw, a tiny bubble of a face.

"I think she does have your eyes," I told Vae. At least, I didn't see any evidence to the contrary.

Vae wriggled delightedly: a blazing spear, a leopard with piecrust wings, a tower of books inhabited by aerial shrimps, a pulsating vortex of light and heat swirling with cartoony heart-signs, herself.

Extreme Assistance [14 Hispis 4385]

Arfaen made breakfast this morning -- smoked fish stew with poached eggs for those who like flesh, which I do. (We should get Arfaen to cook more often. It is, after all, her official job on board.) Kantele was teasing Tingula about ... growing a carapace, I believe.

Ochirion came dashing into the galley. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Windigar says we're going to crash! On an island!"

"Is Windigar in the control room?" I asked him.

"Yes, he's there!" chirped Ochirion. "He told me to come and tell you!"

"It's not an emergency then, or Windigar would have called me. Or done something himself, more likely," I said. He's a better pilot than me.

Ochirion was adamant. "It's an emergency! It's an emergency! The island is swimming at us! We're going to crash! Oh, no!"

"That's pretty unusual, Ochirion. Islands don't generally swim in the sky," I pointed out.

"This one! It's swimming and swimming! Windigar showed me! I saw it swimming and swimming!"

"If Windigar is stopping to show you the sights, I don't think we're in trouble very quickly," I noted, sensibly.

"We're going to crash on a swimming, swimming island!" he insisted.

"I suppose I should check with Windigar," I admitted. "For I truly do not understand what you are trying to tell me, Ochirion."

I let him lead me back to the control room, and opened the door that only Windigar and I are legally allowed to open, and flew in. Windigar and Feralan were looking at the far-viewer.

"Ochirion tells me we're going to crash on a swimming island, Windigar," I said.

"Pretty much right," said Windigar. "I'm not planning to crash exactly though. Take a look."

I took a look. Then I turned to Ochirion and said, "My apologies! You are pretty much right!"

Inistella [14 Hispis 4385]

Ochirion stared at the far-viewer. "Is it an island? Windigar said it is an island. Does an island have sails? Is it a ship? Windigar did not say it was a ship. He said it was a island. He said it was a star island. But it is not shaped like a star! It is shaped like a kite! Why did he say it is shaped like a star? A star is a pentagon or a hexagon or a square!"

Windigar laughed. "I didn't say it was a star island. I said it was an inistella."

Inistella are very big kite-shaped glittery-scaled people. They are far too big to live on branches; they live in the open space between them. They do have sails: two above, four horizontal for the one chasing us. They often have passengers, or even colonists.

"Oh! Why is it an inistella?" asked Ochirion.

"I imagine it was born that way," said Windigar. "Unless it was a pestery Rassimel boy that Vae turned into an inistella."

"Did Vae do that? Oh, no! Is it Feralan? Did Vae turn Feralan into a star island?"

I had to inspect it. "No. It's not transformed; it's a real inistella. My question is, why is it heading for us?"

Windigar cocked his head. "I was hoping it's friends of yours."

"I don't know an inistella, or anyone living on one," I said. "And often ulgrane or other sky monsters live on them. You stay here, Windigar -- you too, Ochirion. If it looks at all dangerous, take Strayway away quickly. If that doesn't work ... don't attack first." We have various reasonably good escape tricks, and various reasonably mediocre weapons.

Sometimes inistella take prime passengers; sometimes ulgrane or other sky monsters. They make wonderful floating pirate bases. For one thing, they are rather dangerous warriors on their own: they are big enough and strong enough to crush nearly any skyboat.

"Right," said Windigar, and poked around with the far-viewer to find good places to teleport to.

"Where are you going?" asked Ochirion.

"I am going to find Vae," I said. "She is far and away the most dangerous thing on this ship, and I'd rather make sure she's awake before the fight."

"Why is she asleep? It is not time to sleep!"

"I don't know that she's asleep. I just want to make sure she's awake and aware."

"She's a where?", asked Ochirion.

"I don't think she is," said Windigar, "Maybe Grinwipey offered to pay, but I don't think she took him up on it."

"Ochirion said 'where'. Just for that, you get to explain your joke to him. In age-appropriate terms," I thundered (in my usual unimpressive hissy little voice.)

I flew off as quickly as I could, and gathered our defenders: Vae, Rheng, Yerenthax, Grinwipey, Kantele, Phaniet, and me. Only Vae and maybe me really count for much at a distance, but if we're boarded by ulgrane, the others can do a great deal.

Nycathath [14 Hispis 4385]

A black giant spread its black wings and leapt off one of the houses on the inistella's back, flying far faster than I could. "What on wood is that?" whined Phaniet, who has never been much of an adventurer outside of the laboratory and the bedroom.

"He is a nycathath," said Rheng. Phaniet did not look greatly enlightened. "He is the large Cani with wings -- he is the bat-giant. In his armor, with his vast metal sword, he is a warrior greater than us, greater than our nendrai."

"I don't see weapons or armor," said Phaniet.

"He creates them with a spell," explained Rheng.

Phaniet shuddered. "So he's a terrible wizard too?"

Rheng snorted. "He has only one spell. But it is a very good spell. Our wizard and our nendrai together cannot match it." (Which is literally true; it is a spell of a dozen aspects, most of which Vae or I can exceed. Just not all at once.)

"Ahoy, the skyboat of the wizard!" shouted the nycathath in a voice of grand drums.

"Ahoy, the nycathath and the inistella!" shouted Yerenthax, nearly as loud and nearly as deep.

"May I come to you and land on your deck? For dire need is upon us, and a great sadness has come to us, and primes shall die if we do not act and act soon," said the nycathath.

"The primes here are my primes! If you kill even one of them I shall slay you with a variety pack of a thousand assorted pre-death and two thousand post-death torments!" hissed Vae.

"Not your primes shall die, but my primes!" proclaimed the nycathath.

"Hostage situation," I hissed quietly to Rheng and Grinwipey. "On my signal, you two zoom over and rescue whoever you can."

"Aw, I can't rush any faster'n a Herethroy humpin' a hat," grumbled Grinwipey.

"Hold on to Rheng. Teleport if you need to."

"You may land," said Yerenthax. "And deliver to us an explanation of your misdeeds."

The nycathath folded his wings, and landed on the balcony. (Strayway's balconies and decks are retractable, and generally kept inside, but fighting through windows is sometimes awkward.) "In brief: five Rassimel philosophers and their families dwell with us. Before yesterday, the most of them fell asleep, one by one. They will not wake; we cannot rouse them. They take neither food nor drink. We fear for them, that they will die."

"Plague ship, is your inistella," I said.

"But these are Rassimel: they are prime, they are the spawn of the healing god. What plague could touch them? It is we who suffer diseases, not primes."

"Actually there are four contagious diseases for primes: one for Rassimel. The symptoms are, first, unaccountable sleepiness; second, a deep sleep from which there is no waking; third, death," I said, in approximately the words of the second lecture of my Diseases and Maladies class a century before.

"What can be done?" demanded the nycathath.

"A routine Healoc spell can heal it," I said. "Nobody dies of it unless they're very unlucky, and quite careless to boot."

"Then bring your luck and your care to the back of mighty Doöaru, if you can, that our companions shall not die!"

"Aw, what a load of licorice-iced pony cupcakes!" said Grinwipey. "What is this, Stupid Catch The Traveller Trick Number Three? You're all like 'We've got this little puggly trouble and we're too stupided in the brain because we've been phelping each other front and back all day like a bunch of doik-fundered puffies, but you get to help us, you lucky wicky plucky vundervoips.' And then we get over there and -- Ooh, pissgargling surprise! All the dying Rassies are really a bunch of duffer-luffing ororosti! And you're all like, Oops, terribly sorry, natural mistake mister, I'm so fuddled from my erotic anaphoresis activities and skoonerdonking that of course I mistake strings of floating eyeballs for furry raccoon boys. Now I gotta kill you.' Sheesh, nycabuster. If you're gonna do a sponge-pounding trap on us, at least do one I didn't have heard of when I was three."

Plague Ship [14 Hispis 4385]

The nycathath was rather nonplussed by Grinwipey's outburst. "Forgive me, but I don't understand." (I didn't understand a lot of the words either, except 'anaphoresis', and that didn't make sense the way Grinwipey was using it.)

"You're trying to lure us over for the old murderburger 'n flinch flies, sure as the dashitzie," explained Grinwipey.

"I beg your pardon?"

Rheng smirked. "You plan to bring us to the back of the Doöaru inistella. Then you kill those who go there. After that, you come back here and kill the rest of us. The profit? A very nice prime sky-yacht, even if the inistella cannot fit inside it."

The nycathath flapped his wings. "I intend no such iniquity!"

"Precisely what someone who intended such an iniquity would say!" noted Phaniet.

"My companions have a point. To wit: why would five wise Rassimel philosophers be caught unawares by the plague?" I asked.

"Who would expect that contagion could come to us, so deep in the sky?" asked the nycathath. "And they were tired for some time before; perhaps they were not aware of their disease, or perhaps they were too tired to understand the peril that they were in."

"Hoi, snoofter-doofting bat boy, I ain't been churfing my scruffles all night. I understand what peril I'm in," said Grinwipey. "And if'n you don't give up that chuppy little pot of turd-lard story of yours and at least come up with something interesting, I ain't even gonna give you the gun-blundered time o' day."

"Then I shall demonstrate my bona fides in terms that cannot be denied!" thundered the nycathath. He leapt off the balcony, his wings booming as they smashed the sky.

"One does pick up the oddest little bits of sky-wrack when one travels this far from Ketheria," I noted, when he was not quite out of earshot.

"Not greatly do I trust the beast!" said Vae, "Not likely is he to remain departed!" She clawed a few splinters off the edge of the balcon, and turned them into massive glass cardinals with razor-edged tentacles, and black Locador spikes crowning from their heads.

"I imagine the next move is for the inistella to try to crush us," I guessed. "Unless they're trying to capture the yacht altogether." I called to Windigar to escape energetically if the star island came any closer than the quarter-mile -- viz. one body-length -- it already was. I don't know how fast an inistella can pounce.

It didn't. The nycathath flew back to Doöaru, stomped into a hut, and came out with a stripey parcel in his arms. A quadrupedal horror bound it to his chest with some sort of spell. The nycathath spread his huge wings and flew leadenly towards us.

Kantele stared at it. "Or we might be wrong."

The nycathath approached, holding something that looked -- as best as we could tell -- like a sleeping Rassimel woman dressed rather informally. It was impossible to determine if she was a philosopher or not at this distance, though. He roared, "Again, I request that I may land upon your deck, and my dear sick friend Kazrie oa Stamps with me?"

"Yes, of course," I said. Vae's glass birds perched massively on the balcony, glaring at the monster -- the foreign monster, not their creatrix, who was busy turning the thready breezes into coiled serpentine distortions of distance, ready to strike at need.

The nycathath landed with a thump, and cradled the Rassimel woman in his arms. "The situation is straightforward and wholly innocent. I do nothing the least bit dishonorable."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what I always say when the guard catches me carrying an unconscious Rassy," said Grinwipey.

I spread my wings to fly towards the woman, for medical reasons. Phaniet grabbed my tail. "Careful, Sythyry. It's probably some trickier trap, like Wipey asked for."

"Right. Stupid of me," I said. I stared at the Rassimel-looking bundle with three senses, and the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan. "It looks like a sick Rassimel woman with a don't-fall spell on her."

"Right," hissed Rheng. "Monster, put the woman down there. Then retreat to the other end of the balcony."

The nycathath frowned. "Prime courtesy has its own distinctive flavor."

"Is that why you consider this 'Kazrie' woman your dear friend?" asked Phaniet.

"She is an exception," admitted the monster.

Vae hissed angrily and lashed her tail, dripping with strange Locador spells. "Not discourteous are my primes! Not happily will I endure their insulting, thou wicked beast!"

The nycathath sat on the far end of the balcony, crossing his arms, crossing his legs, and looking generally quite cross. "I am here as a barely-tolerated guest asking for a favor, and so I shall not investigate in any detail about precisely who is insulting precisely whom. I shall endure insults and worse, for the sake of Kazrie and the others."

Yerenthax and Rheng and some curling intangible discontinuities in space interposed themselves between me and the nycathath. Vae ripped her earmuffs off and stood by my side as I inspected my patient. Or, rather, as I checked her basic life signs (pulse: slow and weak. Breathing: slow and weak. Fur: limp and unlustrous. Temperature: cool, but that might be due to a recent flight. Eyes: closed, and dim and blank when I pried an eyelid open. Urine: unavailable.) I didn't quite remember if there was anything I needed to do about the plague, besides the basic spell. I didn't think so. But I hadn't looked at the topic in over a century.

So I cast Wake from Mircannis’ Endless Slumber in the obvious way. It is not possible to forget a spell, since spells are artificial limbs grafted onto one's psyche. But it is possible how to forget how to use one well, as with any other artificial limb one has not used or even thought about in a century.

She woke up promptly, opened her eyes, and stared at me. "Who are you, and what have you done with my village?"

Healing the Philosopher [14 Hispis 4385]

"I am Sythyry, wizard of Vheshrame, and these are my companions. Your village and your inistella -- Doöaru, I believe his name is -- are over there," I said. "I am a Guild healer, and have just relieved you of the plague." (pulse: strong and quick and angry. Breathing: strong and quick and angry. Fur: still rather limp. Temperature: a bit warmer. Eyes: open, black, flashing. Urine: still unavailable.)

"Is that what it was? I thought it was just a bit of fatigue, maybe from overexertion or too much cold air," she snapped. "How'd I get it, anyways? I haven't been near any new Rassies in months."

I had to dredge up old Healer's Guild lessons for that. "The virulent principle can harbor for months or even years in wine and dried fruit."

"Oh, can it? I didn't know that," she said.

"Yes. It's almost as if Mircannis knew what the Rassimel were going to like to eat when she made them and made the plague," said Kantele. She got a glare from Kazrie for that.

Apology

Yerenthax didn't look away from the nycathath on the balcony, but she did turn an ear to listen to us as best she could. "It appears that the nycathath told the truth, or much of it. I do believe we owe our guest an apology."

Vae hissed, "Not a thing in the world do we owe him! The insults he brings to us, the favors he asks of us -- if not the outright traps!"

Yerenthax looked uncertain, but didn't feel like arguing with an irate nendrai.

Grinwipey said, "Oh, I'll apologize all right. I'll apologize myself purple in the whoon-pleasuring eyestalks. Not that I've ever pleasured a whoon myself, mind you, not with my eyestalks nor any other way. I'll do that right after he proves there's no trap really, and he pays for all the cheen-swiddling wizard's time and cley." His lack of disclaimer about me was notable.

Payment

"Well, I'm much obliged to you for saving my life, O Zi Ri," she said to me. "How much do I owe you? I'd just as soon pay you and be on my way."

I usually charge quite a lot per cley. (There are good reasons for encouraging people to hire lesser mages for the works that lesser mages can perform. (Not all the reasons are selfish. Lesser mages who get practice will eventually become greater mages.)) And we're far from a city, which generally increases the fees of most civilized matters. And this Kazrie certainly wasn't a fellow citizen. And her inistella and nycathath had alarmed my entire ship.

"Let's say, just standard Guild rates for the plague: sixty lozens," I said, because I am on vacation. She winced anyways. "But the actual problem is, if the nycathath is to be believed ...

"Why on would wouldn't you listen to Muot?" she snapped.

"We were uncertain about how much to trust him initially," I admitted. "In any case, he said that all the Rassimel in your ... village? ... "

"Commune," she said.

"... in your commune are unconscious with the plague."

"Oh, great staring gods. Muot, is everyRassy really sick?"

Muot spread his vast ears. "You were the first, Kazrie, but not so long after, each of your conspecifics was asleep beyond waking."

"This is bad, Muot. This is very bad."

"Your kinsfolk are not in great danger," I said. "Or shouldn't be, unless you have a great many kinsfolk there indeed."

"Seventeen. We've got plenty of kinsfolk. What we don't have plenty of is lozens."

Grinwipey laughed. "First part of the air monster scam! 'Here ya go, wizzy lizzy. Cast your super-valuable spells with your super-valuable cley. Give us the big discount rate if you like, make house calls onto a flippin' super-dangerous monster back, but we're not going to lutsy-nutsy pay you anyways. If you don't like that, d'you know what we're going to do? We're going to die at you, like a bunch of sliggety-pokety lustards.'

"Wipey, please be quiet. People don't generally get the plague as a tactical move," I said.

"Quiet is what I am going to not be! You're the boss here. I'll be poached in garlic and spaggering coriander sauce if I'ma let you get cheated like a smipsy thokker!!"

"If I'm the boss here, I get to say what I'm doing."

"You're not that kind of boss," said Grinwipey. Everyone else nodded agreement. They're a bunch of spaggering mutineers, like a (some?) smipsy thokker(s).

"Muot, do you think the perdithorne would be willing to help?" Kazrie asked.

"Madame, they were most extravagantly worried and fretful when you fell ill," said the nycathath.

"May we pay in kind?" Kazrie asked me. "We can offer bound spells."

"You sayin' the boss's spellbinding ain't good enough?" asked Grinwipey. "You're a right jiggy rustybum, seeing as how zie healed you and all, and zir spell bigger'n a toastus-whump."

"All I am saying is that we don't have that much cash, so we'd like to pay in kind," said Kazrie.

"All I'm sayin' is that a Rassy who lives with a nycathath and a perdithorne on top of an inistella ain't a Rassy who you should trust with your life or even your penny-pipple," said Grinwipey. "And I know from the cheats 'n murderers. That I do, Sythyry."

Phaniet lashed her tail. "We can't just let two dozen people die of the plague. Even if they are sky pirates. I don't think they'll be attacking us, even so."

Grinwipey said, "Make 'em go to the nearest Healers' Guild. I don't trust 'em. Can't be more than a gobberdrobbing day or two from here. They got more time than a whore has sluppocks."

Kazrie curled her tail. "The matter is not so simple. Doöaru cannot fly close to cities, and we are not welcome everywhere."

"Pirates. I bisking told you so, Sythers."

Philosophical Village [14 Hispis 4385]

A great deal of discussion was necessary.

The Death Trap

So Vae turned Muot into a sheet of black paper cut in the shape of a bat, with a very goofy face drawn on in crayon. She handed him to Tingula, who is very quick, and set eleven tigers' heads of angry flame dancing around her ready to pounce on the paper. Tingula cast a scrying spell, and I let her watch me.

"I have rarely seen you so aggressive!" I noted.

"If I am leaping into a trap, I may die, but many others will die with me!" Vae said.

The Philosopher's Village

Us: Me, Vae, Yerenthax, Jyondre (who isn't that tough, but insisted on coming along), and Grinwipey.

Jhaafrilya look like little eggs, the size of quail eggs, but they look like they are made of butter and dipped in a blend of crushed roasted spice seeds, sesamum and coriander and cumin and all. So you take a bite of one, and discover that, far from being a ball of solid butter, they are filled with a thick paste which is surely made from dried red peppers, and smoked green peppers, and fermented purple peppers, and surmounted orange peppers, and enhanced paisley peppers, and salted hake, and roasted snake, and condensed lake, and essence of rake, and pureed headache, and mother-of-quake, and consumption greens, and space marines, and runner beans, and walker beans, and jogger beans, and rolling-around-on-fire beans, and driving-the-wax-chariot beans, and, perhaps, chopped up deep fried thunderstruck zucchinis as well. (This recipe is approximate -- I am sure that there are peppers, hake, and beans, and many outlandish things -- but the fact that half the ingredients are wholly imaginary should not deter you from making it yourself and trying it.)

Quite remarkable. I have no idea whether I like them or not. Jyondre certainly does. The Cani have no actual notion of not liking a food, which will serve them well in a cuisine as overwhelming as Srineian can sometimes be. The Rassimel didn't like it, and the Herethroy couldn't have eaten it because of the hake and snake. Vae will eat anything we give her, and like it, of course. Poor Vae.

After lunch, Yerenthax went to take a nap. This is also suspicious. (I specifically suspect her of having been killed harder than I thought the other day, and/or too much pretending not to be quite as bewhompted as she actually is is getting to her.)

Our Third Customer

(I have nothing interesting to say about the first or second customers -- a swordsman and an archer/air mage who came in and had very ordinary first discussions about their preferred weapons.)

Ah, but the third customer was Glekjinga, a dignified Rassimel man of classical raccoon styling, wearing a dignified hat of orange fur half again as big as his head, with leaves carved of some orange wood in orbit around it. I think he was wearing other clothes too. I'm not sure. I could barely take my eyes off his hat.

Glekjinga:"Ah ... excuse me ... if you're not too ... well ... busy? I-hero am Glekjinga. Aiziju sent me."

Me:"Welcome to Strayway, Glekjinga. I'm Sythyry, in case it's not obvious, and this is my assistant Phaniet."

Glekjinga took a look at Phaniet. His tail went so bottlebrush that you could see tiny lightning bolts leaping off of it. "Oh ... well ... I see ..."

Me:"I can assure you that Phaniet is one of the best wizard's assistants to graduate from Vheshrame Academy this century. I am quite pleased that she agreed to work for me."

Phaniet:"Is something the matter?"

Phaniet scribbled a secret message to me: «He's an information mage. One of our scryers?» Her handwriting in reality is small and neat. Her imaginary handwriting is big and loopy and flamboyantly traff, with little and occasionally quite rampant Rassimel marks and Orren marks tucked into the serifs and ornaments.

Glekjinga:"Oh, nothing, really." He kept glancing at Phaniet whenever he thought nobody was watching, though. Specifically, at her bosom (which is unremarkable among Cani bosoms) and her lap (which is unremarkable among the laps of Cani women).

Me:"You do seem a bit ill at ease about something. Before we get down to business, is there something that we could do to relax you?"

Glekjinga:"No -- no thank you."

Phaniet:"Perhaps you would like one of the best Vheshrame surprises. They are really quite delicious. And very filling."

Me:"And quite surprising."

Glekjinga:"Oh, seven dear gods, no."

Me:"You might not expect Phaniet to be the sort of girl to come up with something like that. But she is. He has more surprises that that, even, and much larger ones. If you're very lucky, you might find out."

Glekjinga:"But ... she's a Cani ... "

Phaniet:"After a little taste of my sausage surprise, that won't matter in the least to you; you can be assured of that."

Glekjinga:"I ... I never ... I don't ..."

Me:"Oh, I'm sure that if you can eat jhaafrilya, you'd absolutely adore a Vheshrame sausage surprise. They've got a sort of clove paste on a guntry sausage, then wrapped in puff pastry."

Glekjinga:"... guntry sausage? You mean a real sausage?"

Me:"Well, we do put real sausage in sausage surprise. I suppose it might be more surprising not to have any. Or to have a fake sausage, though, given how sausage is made, I'm not quite sure if it is ontologically permissible for one to be fake. But we're sort of conventional and conservative and ordinary and normal and plain and simple and traditionalist at heart, really."

Glekjinga:"You ... are ...?"

Phaniet and me, unison:"Oh, indeed we very much are."

Glekjinga rubbed his eyes, presumably trying to wipe from them some scraps of seeing [an illusion of] Phaniet, unsuitably modified, doing something or other quite exceptional. "I-hero should dread to meet someone you consider abnormal."

Me:[brightly]"Oh! That would be our nendrai, then! Shall I see if she is available?"

Glekjinga: [Eyes changing color to match his hat.] "I believe she is quite busy coordinating the party ... "

Vae: «Not so much do I wish to meet this man who scries on me and thinks I do such a pornography of a party!»

Me: «I don't know where he got that idea -- the illusions are only to look like primes, mostly us. Well, sort of like primes. I suppose he decided that my Mutoc wasn't good enough for all the special effects.»

Me:"Ah, the party."

Phaniet:"What would a nendrai be doing at a party? Unless it were a monster party of course."

Glekjinga:"I ... perhaps ... "

Phaniet:"Besides, I don't believe we've quite had time for any sort of substantial party for any Eigrachters yet. Except the light collation for the Mayor of course, but our chef managed that, not our nendrai."

Me:"We don't generally ask the nendrai to run minor errands."

Phaniet:"Just large ones."

Me:"Very large ones."

Phaniet: [Arching her chest to best effect, which, honestly, is not all that good.] "Immense ones, really."

Glekjinga:"Quite alarmingly so..."

Phaniet:"Like ridding the ship of sky pirates, say. She's quite good at deeds of violence."

Glekjinga:"I thought she also did ... " His voice trailed off.

Me:"Did what?"

Glekjinga:"... well ... other kinds of ... "

Phaniet:"What, you don't think we can manage to be impressive without a nendrai's help?"

Me:"We're quite well-endowed on our own with skills and capabilities!"

Glekjinga:"I don't want any of that!"

Phaniet: [pouting dangerously] "You don't?"

Glekjinga:"No!"

Me:"Then why are you here?"

Glekjinga:"A ... weapon ... "

Me:"Of course, as you say, a weapon."

Phaniet:"A mighty weapon."

Glekjinga:"No..."

Me:"A potent weapon!"

Glekjinga:"No!"

Phaniet:"A stupendous weapon!"

Glekjinga:"NOOOO!"

Me:"Paid for by the city of Eigrach, if I understand properly, for use in a duel-war over some land."

Glekjinga:"Well ... yes."

Phaniet:"Then you agree to ... participate. In this ... transaction."

Glekjinga: [crossing his legs nervously.] "What ... what ... do I need to do?"

Me:"You must start off by ... explaining."

Phaniet:"Yes. Explain what you ... like."

Me:"What you ... enjoy."

Phaniet:"What you find ... effective."

Me:"What you would like to ... use."

Phaniet:"And how you would like t