Little Merman: Chapter 7 Updated

The Faroe Doctrine table occupied a turret near the Constable Tower. On either side of the table, benches followed the curved wall. Between the benches, narrow openings provided a view of the beach and North Sea.

Two Anthros stood at the table. Male and female, they had the tall, narrow ears and white-rimmed eyes of dik-diks. A pair had visited the Station for a conference. Rhys assumed that this pair were also married.

Geo introduced them: “Sarai and Neo.”

Anthros used only their first names around non-kin. Lider and Rhys shook hands.

“Lider and Rhys De Santos,” Lider said.

“You are the priests from the Mars Space Station,” Sarai said.

“You recently got married in Rome,” Neo said.

“We were so pleased,” Sarai said.

“Congratulations,” Neo said.

“Thank you,” Lider said while Rhys pondered why so many people felt an investment in a marriage that was not their own.

Geo said, “They are searching for a Siphon, Brae of the RaykJanes’s clan.”

Neo and Sarai clasped hands. They made no other movement but stillness from an Anthros was like a Siphon’s lashing stem. It denoted consternation or, perhaps, ambivalence.

Sarai said, “That young man is on a quest.”

Neo said, “He expressed a desire to connect with his Siphon roots, to embrace the many selves inside him.”

Sarai said, “He wanted one self to be louder than the others.”

Lider sighed, as if he was hearing something he already expected to hear.

Geo said, “One self is louder, isn’t it? The one who speaks, who makes choices. Faroe Doctrine isn’t a Sybil type of thing.”

Lider laughed. He met Rhys’s eyes and said, “Sybil—film in America before the rise of city-states. Not as ancient as Becket. The eponymous title refers to a woman with multiple personalities.”

Lider’s sentience—if not his corporeal body—went back before Mars’s colonization. Rhys didn’t ask how Geo knew the reference. It was like Geo to tailor allusions to his audience.

Neo said, “Faroe Doctrine isn’t about competing wills. It doesn’t negate unity.”

Lider said gently, “Many people fear it does.”

“Because they want a conclusive result,” Sarai said. “But Faroe Doctrine is about living with and listening to all selves, each self’s unique reaction. Unity comes from totality.”

According to Sarai and Neo, at least. Rhys didn’t doubt there were a dozen interpretations of Faroe Doctrine, each claiming to be the “correct” version. But Sarai and Neo were here at Bamburgh Castle, the place where Lady Mairead, an official Catholic Saint, had supposedly once resided (in whatever fortress existed on the site in 500 C.E.). Sarai and Neo were the orthodox face of Faroe Doctrine.

Lider was nodding at Sarai’s explanation. Geo looked as if he was taking notes on definitions of “self” and “unity.”

Rhys said, “Did Brae want a conclusive result?”

Neo said, “Brae wanted—”

He hesitated as if searching for a word or phrase. Sarai watched him, dark eyes unblinking.

“Solid-colored fur,” Neo said finally. “To be flawless, like a single-celled organism. Anthros don’t have a word for what he wanted.”

“A streamlined and smooth self,” Geo said. “A dolphin male, all the nasty bits tucked away.”

Lider gave Geo a quick glance, silverish blue eyes glinting. His mouth set.

“Not real,” said Sarai. “A devised self.”

Rhys said, “But to be ‘one’ is the goal, isn’t it? As you two are. A couple. Two parts in sync.”

He didn’t sound convincing to himself. Lider was usually the one to make such sweet-tempered, person-to-person observations.

“But not alike,” Sarai said. “Trees are unlike. Fruits are unlike. Grass and brush are unlike. Heart and mind, physical and spiritual functions within a sentient body are unlike.”

Neo said, “We strive for oneness because we cannot achieve it.”

Lider said, “For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.”

First Corinthians. Larger-than-life Saint Paul bellowing his thoughts about God and Christ and community while he paced a hut beside the Mediterranean.  

“But the parts of the body don’t always cooperate,” said Geo, their resident devil’s advocate. “Frustrating for anyone who desires oiled gears.”

“Sentient beings aren’t machines,” Lider snapped.

Geo raised a brow. “Not all of us get to experiment with our personas for centuries.”

Rhys shifted, prepared to intervene, but Lider rested a hand on Rhys’s upper arm. Sarai and Neo, Rhys noted, perceived the gesture and nodded in unison.

Lider touches me, so I wait before I beat Geo to a pulp. Oneness as physical interaction. Not an abstraction.

Lider said, “I signed up for a human physical body, not a theory or a manufactured flesh-and-bone vehicle.”

“Unlike Xavier.”

Everybody sighed, as people often did when Xavier was mentioned. Xavier, like Lider, was a now corporeal Cubus. Unlike Lider, Xavier became corporeal within a few years of sentience, almost as soon as he met his mate, a human scholar. Unlike most Cubi, he’d adopted a hybrid Anthros-human form rather than a strictly human form.

Lider said, “Xavier is living with his chosen body. He accepts it.”

“And Xavier isn’t the point,” Rhys said. “Lider picked his form, his self, years before he became corporeal.”

Lider nodded, but he was infinitely fair, so he said, “But, yes, I wavered; I held back. There’s a difference between the imagined and the experienced. Living with a mortal body was the point. I knew how hard it would be. Guessed,” he amended quickly because some aspects of corporeality had proved harder than he or Rhys anticipated. “I guessed how hard it would be. But without a definite form, however messy, how can any future choice be real, be mine?”

Sarai nodded while Neo hummed soft agreement.

Geo said, “You’re assuming choice exists—”

“Geo,” Lider said in a voice that indicated an end to his infinite patience.

“Okay, okay. Actions and statements exist in the here and now unless one gets metaphysical about time, but I can read a room. No metaphysics with this crowd. What about fate? You don’t think you were fated to meet Rhys?”

“Lider followed me,” Rhys said as Lider’s Puck-like face broke into a wide smile, eyes spilling light.

“I chose Rhys,” he said. “Truly.”

Sarai and Neo nodded again. Rhys eyed them and thought he understood why Brae—who came to Bamburgh Castle searching for solace from his broken engagement—left soon after.

Juwal and Phillala and Meke and even Rill described a young man at loose ends. His family described a unrealistic young man and an immature one. Based on his own experience, Rhys could believe that Brae honestly considered Phillala his soulmate. But Phillala was nobody’s soulmate—not yet anyway.

Did Sarai and Neo underscore Brae’s failure? He was young enough to perceive others’ happiness as purposefully hurtful. Faced with a seemingly perfect couple, soured on romance, did he go looking for unity within himself?  

Rhys said, “Where would Brae go if he wanted to, uh, purify his messy bits?”

He was thinking religious cults, but Geo said, “Some companies offer medical procedures, chemical genetic manipulation.”

Lider hissed—a rare demonstration of fury—while Rhys thought, Wade. Wade and Kloptik Pharmaceuticals.

Hermes: Chapter 7

Hermes was nearing twenty when he recruited Ven. Jes-Jer insisted. They were tired, they claimed, of Hermes’s “conservatism,” by which they meant Hermes selecting male humans to become male gods and female humans to become female gods.

“Such tunnel-vision,” Jes-Jer proclaimed. “So highbound by tradition.”  

Jes-Jer had recently reluctantly appointed a Demeter. Agricultural gods tended to “steal” followers and offerings (theologically, not literally since robbing altars was prohibited, one of Eros’s immutable rules). Popularity-wise, systems based on farming favored gods who blessed farmers. Since the farmers made up the bulk of Olympus citizens, Jes-Jer had to concede and get a Demeter.

They turned next to recruiting the Aphrodite/Venus. And they wanted to “make a change.” Hermes suspected they wanted to prevent a goddess of love joining forces with a goddess of soil and vegetation. They didn’t want to risk a possible Kore.

“Male. Young. Spiritual. A pacifist. Love should be inclusive and uncombative. Yes?”

Goddesses of love rarely lived up to those adjectives, but Hermes took Jes-Jer at their word. Ven, originally Val (“My mother adored Val Kilmer”), was what Ares called “Seattle stoner.” He had a mass of auburn-tinted curly hair that fell into bright dreamy eyes. He dressed in loose t-shirts and hemp sweaters over cargo pants. He didn’t smoke pot, not any more, at least. And he didn’t seem to abide by any particular philosophy. He was entirely mellow.

“You want me to—what?” he said when Hermes made his offer. “Yeah, okay.”

Of course, Ven—Val—had few ties to the other world. Hermes might be taking Jes-Jer at their word but he never made his selections idly. He knew Val’s parents were dead. He knew Val wasn’t close to his extended family. He knew Val slept with men and women, which Hermes figured would be a useful proclivity for a god of love. And he knew that Val had recently lost a friend to drugs and was looking for a way out of grunge culture. Olympus was an option.

World of misfits—that’s us.

* * * 

Ven was in his temple, the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in the other Portland. Like that church, the temple stood behind the museum, which served as a conservatory and art college for Athena and Apollo, and across from Asclepius’s hospital. When Hermes entered through the always-open double wooden doors, he glanced into the chapel at Ven’s overflowing-as-usual altar. At least three couples were whispering together in the pews.

Hermes turned to the left into a warren of dimly lit, warm, and unfrightening corridors that smelled faintly of cedar. He reached the courtyard between the church and the monk-like apartments. The apartments were less austere than historical monks’ quarters. Ven’s presence allowed visitors to relieve their pent-up sexual desires. Hermes had his own apartment there, one with a lock that Ven nicely didn’t point out was useless against Ven’s authority.

Ven and Ares sat at a picnic table underneath the courtyard’s huge oak tree. Ares was a dark-haired muscular man of average height and weight and indeterminate age. The Bruce Willis of Olympus. The kind of guy who looked good whether he was relaxed and reasonably well-dressed or beat-up and bleeding.

He was coifed at the moment, in shirtsleeves at least.  He and Ven were lovers though at the moment they were discussing Ares’s soldiers’ needs and whether spouses and significant others should accompany longer expeditions.

“Not entirely safe,” Ven said.

“And runs the risk of dividing their responsibilities,” Ares agreed.

Ven looked up and smiled as Hermes neared. Van had the unnerving gift of creating instantaneous “warm and fuzzy feelings” (as Kouros called them). But Hermes never took emotions—positive or negative—as an impetus for intelligent action. Hermes had seen citizens undone by their affections. He’d seen how close Hades and Kouros came to being undone by their relationship. Hermes would never go down that soap opera path.

Still, needs were needs and Ven helped Hermes siphon off his strongest, hormone-induced wants. Hermes tried to stay on Ven’s good side as much as he could, especially since his bargaining tended to annoy Ven in the first place.

Hermes said, “Do you know what happened to Eros, the Eros before Kouros?”

“Are you supposed to ask about gods who left?” Ares said, one leg propped on the bench.

 Jes-Jer did not encourage discussions of prior gods—a reminder of non-continuity—but Hermes figured his current mission overrode Jes-Jer’s paranoia. He was doing exactly what they asked. He shrugged.

Ven said, “You would know better than me about the previous Eros.” He cocked his head, bright eyes fixed on Hermes’s face. “Hermes visits the other world.”

“I’ve never looked for Eros,” Hermes said. “And you have your own spies.”

Every god did. No gods had access to the other world’s internet—even Apollo used Hermes to maintain his “web page”—and only Hermes could transverse the worlds’ boundary and keep his short-term and episodic memory. But information, like myths, leaked. Humans brought news when they arrived on Olympus. They shared information with the gods. The information they didn’t share, the Charites picked up with their listening devices.

Ven said, “I hear Eros works on Wall Street now. Something like that. He found his Psyche.”

“Does he remember Olympus?”

“Not exactly. Part of him was always there. Constantly reborn. Constantly waiting. Don’t ask me,” Ven said to Ares’s raised brows. “I’m not a metaphysician. Some gods are appointed. Some are gods from birth—they only have to be recognized. Eros, the previous Eros, was that type. He was the first god, the one who found this world and set up the rules.”

“The theology of a sociopath,” Ares muttered. He studied Hermes. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking for hounds?”

Information didn’t just leak. It crossed Olympus in a heartbeat.

“Can’t find any. One of Hades’s pet monsters thinks I should search for Enkidu.”

“Wild man from Sumer?” Ven said.

Ven was another one whose 1980s Renaissance-Man education had included mythology.

“Enkidu was exiled to the other world,” Hermes said.

Another cocked eyebrow. Hermes knew he’d revealed himself with exile, but Ven didn’t comment.

He said, “Eons ago, I suspect, when the gods used names like Ishtar and Enki.”

“Gods can take on any names,” Ares said. “So long as the names are ones the previous Eros approved, names that existed before he left.”

“Sure, but they take the names they know.”

Hermes said, “Enkidu could have descendants.”

“And you think the previous Eros would know?”

“He would have forgotten,” Ares said. “Only the Hermes remembers.”

“He’s the only god who goes back that far.”

And the only god from Olympus still alive in the other world. Gods who went back reverted to human. The previous gods—the ones who left at the time of The Chaos—had died from illnesses and accidents since they left. 

“You said the Eros who left found his Psyche,” Hermes said. “He is still drawn to Olympian-matters.”

That idea came from Humbaba, but Hermes had no problem stealing other people’s ideas, so long as they didn’t find out. And he figured Humbaba was right. The gods connected to The Chaos—the ones who played with nature’s laws and lost followers and had to leave—died stupidly, as if the inability to understand cause and effect followed them out of Olympus. Too fast driving on ice. Too careless use of drugs. Too much indifference to train signals. 

Not Merc. Merc hadn’t been stupid.

Ven said, “Okay, I do have information. The Charites tell me that Eros goes by Billy now, works in crisis management—”

Ares snorted. “Paying off his sins.”

Ven grinned. “He knows Terry Nicholson.”

Ares whistled. “The chap who came through the tunnels and met the Fates?”

“Yeah. So, I’d say you were right, Hermes. Those from Olympus find each other.”

Like Hermes and Merc. Despite being an ex-god, Merc still knew how to make savvy trades. 

Merc died anyway. The other world was a cesspool. And now, Hermes had to go there.

Little Merman: Chapter 6

Meke settled into the space Juwel vacated, legs crossed.

He said to Lider and Rhys, “Bamburgh Castle is holding a seminar on the Faroe Islands, including Faroe Doctrine. If you go there, you’ll meet up with Geo Aslund.”

Geo Aslund was a Siphon from an exceedingly aristocratic and wealthy clan. Wealthy enough that like Meke, he could have accepted a token position in his family’s company and spent his days hanging out in the equivalent of a men’s club.

Meke became a diplomat, Geo a translator. He usually worked with Anthros, those who preferred their kin group’s language to the Common Language. Geo was highly specialized and he was greatly in demand—which was in keeping with Geo’s personality.

“Is Geo a devotee of Faroe Doctrine?” Rhys said.

He couldn’t imagine Geo believing in anything much except himself. When Geo visited the Mars Space Station over a year ago, he’d attended a few Masses. Afterwards, he’d discussed the connotations of “Lamb of God” and “resurrection” with Lider, how to make the terms clear to his clients. He would have shown the same focus—and probably did—attending a meeting on the maintenance of air ducts. Geo’s job was his focus.

Meke said, “Geo? No. But the primary proponents of Faroe Doctrine have expanded their, ah, denomination to include all sentient species.”

Lider frowned. “Not an exclusively Siphon experience then.”

“Faroe Doctrine does originate with Siphons,” Meke pointed out.

“But applying it to humans and Anthros and Cubi would water it down somewhat.”

Rhys smiled. Lider believed in things being distinctly themselves: True pluralism. Let differences exist side by side. For those differences to exist, believers had to avoid reductionist abstraction. Catholic doctrine should be Catholic doctrine. If one claimed to believe it, one should be able to recognize it.

Rhys didn’t disagree. But sentient beings were fully capable of compartmentalizing their beliefs: exclusivity alongside diverse membership; cultural celebration alongside accusations of cultural appropriation. A sentient being could applaud an act and get offended by its outcomes in the same moment without feeling hypocritical.

Nevertheless, Rhys said, “Does Brae see Anthros and humans as spiritual companions?”

“He isn’t bigoted,” Phillala said quickly.

Lider met Rhys’s eyes. Rhys nearly shrugged. Brae could want a Siphon-exclusive experience and not be a bigot. He might simply wish to “go deep,” a phrase familiar to Siphons, humans, Anthros, and even Cubi.

Would Brae admit such apparently narrow needs?

Rill muttered, “Geo’s ego would give Brae’s ego a bruising.”

He’d returned to the carpeted area and now perched on the sofa arm near Meke. Meke laughed and set his hand on Rill’s knee. Geo, Rhys remembered, had been the RaykJanes’s choice for Meke, a mate they set deliberately in Meke’s path. According to Lider, who talked to people about that type of thing, Rill had never felt threatened by Geo. One could still resent the sudden appearance of an ex in one’s lover’s life. Rhys deliberately didn’t look at Lider.

Juwel said mildly, “Geo is very accomplished. But not with numbers,” she added, and Rill flashed her one of his rare smiles. She smiled back and strode away.

Apparently, Juwel RaykJanes was confident that Rhys and Lider wouldn’t harass Phillala, not any more than Phillala harassed them.

Meke said contemplatively, “Brae isn’t confident enough to show off an ego.”

Phillala murmured agreement.

So did Rill. He said, “Geo knows where he belongs in the universe.”

 * * *

Geo was a slender man slightly taller than Lider. He was somewhere between Rhys and Lider in age and he was handsome—not in the same way as Rhys, with worldly wear, or as Lider, with that hint of otherworldliness. He was almost shocking in his good looks, the kind of good looks that sent up red flags to people wary of grifters and con men. Bright, direct eyes of cerulean blue. Tan skin that didn’t blush or pale. Styled brown hair with blond highlights. The flare of blue-green along his hairline indicated membership in the aristocratic Aslund clan.

Good looking enough to be dismissed as empty-headed until one noted the way the upper lip thinned and the eyes slightly narrowed when Geo teased someone.

Or until Geo opened his mouth. “Is Brae the Los Nares in absentia from RaykJanes’s marriage wrangling? I’ll ask around. But I just arrived at Bamburgh Castle. From Greenland.”

Greenland contained the primary political association of Anthros on Earth, an assortment of kin groups under a single queen. An Anthros prince had recently been officially presented in an international event that required a stampeding herd of diplomats and translators.

Geo said, “Meke left for New York about the same time—rushed home to his number-crunching weever fish.”

Lider said, “Aren’t weever fish dangerous?”

Geo grinned like a shark. “Sure. They bite. Have you talked to Rill?”

Which meant that Rill might be one of the few people to best Geo in an exchange of barbs.

For all Rhys’s own sardonic tendencies, needling conversations made him tired. He gave Geo a raised eyebrow. Geo’s shark smile quieted to something more neighborly.

“I can ask around about Brae,” he said. “But the castle is full-up for the conference.”

They stood in the west ward of Bamburgh Castle. Behind them loomed the clock tower. Ahead was the path that led to the restored St. Oswald’s Gate. To the right was a low wall edging an open sky, blown clear by fresh breeze from the North Sea.

Geo said, “Brae is a devotee of Saint Mairead then?” Bamburgh Castle was a jumping off point for the pilgrimage for Saint Mairead, the first Siphon Saint.

“Faroe Doctrine,” Rhys said. “Brae expressed interest in its ideas.”

“More Catholic zealousness.”

“Faroe Doctrine isn’t Catholic doctrine,” Lider said.

“Not officially,” Geo agreed. “But it has Anthros and human Catholic adherents. What people do with their personal theologies—”

He shrugged, which more or less summed up Rhys’s attitude towards religion. But he wasn’t going to bond with Geo over, well, anything. He and Lider had agreed years ago that Rhys as priest should keep his agnosticism to himself.

Geo said, “I suppose you checked out Brae’s initiation temple?”

“It’s been thoroughly scouted,” Rhys said. “We sent agents to follow up. But it seems to be the one place everyone has thought of.”

Lider said, “We’ll hear if he shows up in the Great Lakes Duchy.”

Geo nodded. “So you think he came here to drown his sorrows in philosophical meanderings?”

Drown was a pejorative with Siphons. Lider frowned.

“You use ‘philosophical meanderings’ when you translate complex doctrines to your clients?” he said, and Rhys couldn’t help a laugh.

Lider sounded much the same when he scolded a young parishioner for using “unimaginative expletives.”

Geo grinned. “Depends on what I am translating. Not everyone pulls their punches. Take separate the wheat from the chaff.  Is that like separating deep water from shallow? Or salt water from fresh? Or polluted water from good?”

“Why insist on a single analogy?”

“I thought the object was to communicate successfully to an audience. Of course, metaphors don’t work for everyone.”

Lider and Geo could go on for hours about language and meaning and intent. Rhys said, “Does the castle have a list of attendees? Siphon attendees specifically?”

Geo considered, then set off up the road to the castle wall. They passed under the arch and trekked up the road to the gatehouse; they turned abruptly to mount stairs to the walkway that was lined with people and tables.

Rhys gathered that the conference that weekend was a general celebration of the Faroe Islands. One table offered an excursion to the islands. Another sold statues of Kópakonan, a representation—some believed—of Lady Mairead. Another touted storytelling sessions of Faroe Island myths.

Faroe Doctrine had a table of its own.

Hermes: Chapter 6

Hermes was near ten when the previous gods departed. He still rode the steamer with the dead who disembarked and wandered Elysium.

And then one day, shortly after Jes-Jer’s arrival, Hermes encountered a man on Elysium’s dock. He was near six feet with a compact, lithe build, closely-cropped hair, and the kind of silvery eyes that looked almost detached from his face.

“I’m the new Hades,” he said. “What can you tell me about his place?”

Hermes told Hades what he’d learned from Merc, who had already departed Olympus: how the dead took a boat once a day to Hades’s realm after paying a toll; how the realm had different areas, including a place where monsters emerged. He said nothing about his own duties to the god of the dead, though Hades figured out those.

Hades moved the violent dead off Elysium to a nearby island. By that time, Olympus was using Portland, Maine for its blueprint—a “new start,” Jes-Jer proclaimed—and Elysium was Peaks Island. Hades started to map the underworld, including the parts that led to other possible worlds. He recruited dead soldiers to corral the monsters.

These days, Hades sent food to feed the monsters, which kept them off the mainland and freed up Ares’s soldiers for duties other than monster-killing. It was a way for the dead on Elysium—who helped raise the food—to help the living.  

“I can’t stop the monsters coming,” Hades said once without apologizing because Hades believed in letting the world function as it was designed. “But they do have a shepherd.”

Hermes had met the shepherd. He was about to meet him again.

 * * *

The “shepherd”—Humbaba—sat beside a gate (built by Hades) at the end of the narrow path that split from the main underground corridor. Humbaba had a man’s barrel-chested body and a huge bull head with the requisite curved horns and a large snout. Pointed teeth showed when he smiled. “A minotaur,” Hermes said the first time he saw Humbaba, but Hades said no, said Humbaba’s tradition was older. “An aurochs bull,” he said. “But later myths—the Cretan bull, the Minotaur—may be related.”

Hermes didn’t ask if Humbaba was that old or if Humbaba had borrowed the name from legends, like most of the gods in this world. Hades had been a Catholic priest once upon a time before he became a god and got himself a boyfriend. He had ideas about connections between religion and myths and God. But Hermes didn’t go in for metaphysics.

At Hades’s request, Hermes drove the golf cart to Humbaba’s gate. He disembarked and unloaded bags of meat from the attached trolley. Humbaba bellowed without leaving his low, curved seat. Two serpents as round as sewage pipes glided between the open grills. They snagged the bags with their tails and dragged them away.

“Anything for me?” Humbaba shouted despite Hermes being only a few feet away.

Hermes was no fool. He handed over high-end truffles to Humbaba—the non-chocolate variety from the other world. Humbaba sniffed them and seemed to grin wider. Hermes deliberately didn’t wince.

He stayed a few feet away, casually leaning against the smooth rock wall. The tunnels “copied” over when Olympus changed cities. Perhaps they were smooth due to time, the stones worn down from various large creatures moving through the tunnel over millennia.

“You have dog-like monsters in there?” Hermes said, using his chin to point beyond the gate.

“Hellhounds?”

“Sure.”

“No. The mainland has wolves.”

“These would be hounds from mythology—like Actaeon’s friends.”

“Ah—that version of the tale. There are so many. In the oldest I know, the dogs were never human but poor beasts forced to turn on their master.”

“Killers,” Hermes said, trying to imagine Humbaba as a rescuer of dogs fresh from blood sports.

Not that Humbaba would tame and coddle them. He would set them on any monster who broke Humbaba’s code of conduct. Humbaba was like Hades. He controlled the monsters rather than changed or eliminated them.  

No Xanax in this underworld.

“Did you know Actaeon’s dogs had names?” Humbaba said. “Arcas. Melampus. Syrus. They mourned Actaeon’s death. Goddesses are so cruel.”

“Goddesses like Artemis?”

“She’s a parvenu. Older goddesses turned men into beasts. Aruru. Ishtar.”

“Sumerian mythology.”

“Did Hades teach you that?”

Hermes shrugged.

“No dummy, that man,” Humbaba said. “All gods and monsters must be based on the mythology that crosses between this world and the other. It’s one of the rules—the real rules, the unbreakable ones that Eros made, the ones not even your so-called head gods can alter.”

“I knew that,” Hermes said, not entirely lying.

Eros’s original rules were basic: Gods couldn’t steal each other’s offerings. Hermes was the only god who could pass between worlds and not forget Olympus. Gods’ roles couldn’t be usurped. And Zeus-Hera couldn’t invent new ones.

If they could create their own gods and monsters, they would have done so long before they had to appoint Kouros to his current position, long before they had to go searching for a replacement for Adonis.

Hermes said, “You say a Sumerian goddess transformed a man into a beast. What type of beast?”

“Enkidu. Aruru formed a beast-man man to befriend King Gilgamesh. But Ishtar or one of her priestesses extracted from Enkidu a promise that he would kill the king instead. Gilgamesh had insulted Ishtar in some manner.”

“Dead king.”

“No,” Humbaba said, his voice soft, incongruous with the face’s mass of muscle and bone and teeth. “Enkidu befriended Gilgamesh. So she punished him.”

Hermes didn’t shiver. He didn’t show weakness around anyone except, occasionally, Ven. But he reminded himself, Here is why you always watch your back, you never give anyone an opening, why you prove yourself indispensable. The gods could be random, untrustworthy, cruel.

Humbaba said, “After Enkidu and Gilgamesh traveled together, fought my namesake together, after all that—”

“Ishtar killed him.”

“Worse.”

Hermes frowned. A respect for myth was (another) shared interest between Kouros and Hades. One or the other had told him about Enkidu. Or Ven had during one of his rambles on sex and love in the ancient world.

He said, “The boar of heaven gored Enkidu, didn’t it?”

“And Gilgamesh mourned his friend’s death. He roamed the world—he even met the original man with the big boat—until he discovered the entrance to the underworld. He called Enkidu forth.”

A search for the underworld sounded to Hermes like a dozen stories people had told him over the years. He nodded.

“In some versions, Enkidu was unable to fight free of the underworld’s hold. In others, he and Gilgamesh exchanged gossip about where their friends ended up. Is he happy? Is she happy? All versions agree that Gilgamesh didn’t get the answer he ought. No version tells the entire truth. Ishtar was not pleased that Gilgamesh was able to find Enkidu. She exiled him.”

“Can he be found?”

Cord

“The gods of love might know. The laid-back one who currently serves as Venus. Or the one who left. Not his replacement. That boy cares about little more than Hades and his precious farmers.”

That boy was Kouros. Hermes had to agree about Kouros’s single-mindedness, the desire to do one job very well.

Hermes said, “You don’t think Eros—the previous Eros—left behind any memories?”

“Would that boy care? Grain yields. Manure. Even when he last delivered food last time, he asked me about monsters’ dung.” Herme’s tone was exasperated and impressed.

“And Eros—the Eros who left—wouldn’t remember?”

Ven

Humbaba lowered his head, rather like a bull charging, and Hermes forced himself not to wince at the level gaze.

“You know better,” Humbaba said. “They all forget except you. But they are still drawn to Olympian matters. They still dream of us.”

“But would the Eros who went back dream of where Enkidu is in this world?”

“You won’t find Enkidu here. The goddess exiled him for sure. For real. Worse than any wilderness or underground passage. She sent him to the other world.”

Humbaba was right. Exile to the other world was worse.

Little Merman: Chapter 5

Juwel RaykJanes sat beside Phillala RayJanes on the second-floor of the family’s company. They weren’t in a formal office, at least, but in an atrium filled with chairs and couches and scattered plants. The east wall was a full window looking out on the Hudson River. Phillala and Juwel did not invite Merke and Rill to accompany them to the no-doubt building-length pool on the ground floor or one of the jacuzzi-size pools outside each office suite.

Phillala was a bright collection of movements, like fish fins catching light as they near the surface of a lake. She greeted Rhys and Lider with a wide smile, not a hint of discomfort.

Juwel was a composed woman of sparse elegant bones. She leaned back in the divan, legs crossed. She wasn't Phillala's parent—the relationship fell into the cousin category—but as a CFO in the family company, she bore all the authority of the RaykJanes's name.

She didn’t interrupt Lider as he aquired information from Phillala, but as Meke once said of his mother, Juwel RaykJanes could run a board meeting from the ocean floor.

Lider learned that Phillala was attending college. She helped the family company in the marketing department. She was hoping to go into the theater. Not as an actress. Costuming. She recently worked on a Lloyd Webber-Aristophanes production. "Classics," she said. Rhys would swear Lider’s eyes twitched. Phillala was speaking as if 1400 years didn't separate the two artists.

Everything older than 300 years old blurs together, Lider once said. Even for Cubi.

“Is a career why you broke your engagement?” Lider said, his tone friendly, interested.

On the other side of Phillala, Juwel turned her head and gave Lider a level stare.

“Not really,” Phillala said. “Brae was totally supportive of my goals. We just weren't on the same page, you know.”

Lider paused. He said gently, “Did Brae feel the same?”

Phillala seemed to consider. Rhys couldn’t image that the question hadn’t been posed to her already—not with the breach of promise suit looming—but perhaps never in Lider’s way, as an exercise of imagination. She had likely answered dozens of questions about what Brae said and what she said and what happened after that. Not many that rested on the query, What was going through Brae’s head?

“He was upset,” Phillala said. “And, you know, our break-up was sad. We were both sad. At first, I told him we needed to spend time apart and then I told him it wasn't going to work. I don’t blame him for anything,” she said quickly.

Frankly, if Phillala’s reporting could be trusted, she had done a better job of ending an incompatible relationship than Wade had. Wade had blamed Rhys’s character and Rhys’s wants and Rhys’s mindset for their dissolution.

Why did he come to meet me and Lider?

Lider contemplated Phillala, head slightly tilted. Rhys reminded himself not to besottedly stare at his husband’s slightly creased brow, the lips scrunched sideways in thought.

Lider said to Juwel and Phillala together, “Do you have any idea where Brae is?”

Juwel sighed softly. Rhys didn’t doubt that question had been asked of various RaykJanes a dozen times in a dozen different ways.

But no decent investigator wouldn’t ask the question. A decent investigator never assumed what ground had already been covered.

Phillala said, “He said he was going to the Great Lakes Duchy. He wanted to speak to the priest who led his ceremony. Or to his initiator,” Phillala said, sounding utterly blithe about her ex-fiancé having slept with another woman in order to be a male who preferred sleeping with women in the first place.

But of course, RaykJanes were not so plebian they confused marital fidelity with temple rituals. They didn’t go in for "sweetheart" initiations.

Rhys wondered if Brae did. Was he as conflicted as his parents and sister seemed to be—scorning RaykJanes’s morality on the one hand while copying RaykJanes’s social mores and performances on the other?

Rhys said, “Did Brae, ah, want to undergo another initiation?”

“He couldn’t, could he? I know a Siphon who tried and it didn’t take. Brae didn't say he wanted to do anything like that.”

Juwel RaykJanes had tensed. She relaxed at Phillala’s entirely curious and pleasant tone, then gave her relative a contemplative stare. Most sentient beings expect some degree of reflection or remorse or uncertainty after an upheaval.

If Phillala had felt more uncertainty, had waited, giving Brae time to realize that she and he were incompatible—

Would he have? Before the wedding?

Phillala said, “He was more religious than me. He told me all about his initiation ceremony, including the priest’s speech. I barely remember what my priest said. But Brae could quote his.”

And yet Brae’s parents and sister suggested that Brae was not susceptible to the offerings of a cult.

Lider said, “What did Brae quote?”

“Stuff about Siphon natures. Initiation is the product of unsullied choice based on one’s pure intent. That kind of stuff.”

Both Rhys and Lider stiffened. Lider might be more spiritual than Rhys, more interested in transcendent and godly matters. Neither of them cared for arguments based on purity or pursuits of same.

“Protestants,” Lider tended to mutter over parishioners’ OCD efforts to capture righteousness through good thoughts and good acts. Original sin, to Lider, was a release from constant perfectionism. You can only be as good as a moment requires. You will screw up.

Phillala said, “He said stuff about Siphons not being human, having their own needs and sea-based natures. Embrace the multitudinous ‘I.’” She shrugged. “I’m not interested in philosophy.”

Juwel RaykJanes said in her soft voice, “Faroe Doctrine.”

Rhys and Lider nodded. Faroe Doctrine insisted that Siphons, with their zooids—that shaped stems and legs, that allowed for breathing both under and above water—were inhabited by multiple “selves.”

Lider said, “Being multitudinous hardly guarantees purity.”

Juwel said, “Don’t all beliefs in the abstract tend towards utopian visions?”

Rhys laughed. She gave him an arched brow.

“Eden,” he said.

“Or space,” Juwel said, her eyes moving beyond Rhys.

Juwel RaykJanes’s son Meke and his partner, Rill stood on the edge of the carpeted meeting area. Faintly smiling, Meke stood easily, hands in pants pockets. He appeared the most ordinary Siphon in the universe—ordinary height, ordinary handsomeness—and he spoke like that too, unless one listened carefully to what Meke wasn’t saying. Rill, equally dark-haired, slightly shorter, stood beside Meke, eyes on a pile of plastic sheets in his hands.

Meke said, “My mother thinks I’m an idealist. But I ran off to the Mars Space Station for something other than a pure self.”

Juwel snorted. “Idealism comes in many forms.” 

Rill matched Juwel’s snort and mirrored her smirk. Meke’s smile widened. Meke was a romantic at heart. And he loved his family. He wanted his lover and his mother to get along.

Perhaps that made him an idealist. But Rhys thought that Meke had searched for Rill on the Mars Space Station with his eyes wide open. He ended up being a decent diplomat. But Rill was his primary objective. And Meke took Rill as he found him. An idealist without blinders on.

Where does that leave me with Lider?

Phillala said to Meke, “Brae admired you. He wanted to do what you do—bring people together. Uh, harmony and all that.”

“He wasn’t too happy about my failures,” Meke said calmly. “Or what he perceived as my failures. Aim for 90% compliance—get 40% if I’m lucky. A success, in my book. Brae was, ah, disillusioned by unscripted imperfections.”

“Diplomacy without actual hard work,” Rill muttered.

“Or an inability to face reality,” Juwel said in support of Rill.

She stood and moved to the side of the carpeted area. She and Rill glanced over his plastic sheets and murmured about customer demographics.

Juwel had opposed Meke and Rill’s relationship initially. Rhys assumed her objections ended when she realized her new son thought more like Juwel than most other people in her family.

Except Rill loved space, wanted to live in space. He was on Earth with Meke to ease his admittance into the family but only temporarily. Hence, Juwel’s acerbic comments about space being another Eden.

Would Meke and Rill compromise? Would the man who pursued love across a nine-month mission return with his lover to the Mars Space Station? Or would some other solution arise? A move to the Moon perhaps?

Whatever Rill and Meke decided, they were obviously taking the long-road, giving themselves time. Didn't everything eventually “come out in the wash,” a phrase that Siphons considered somewhat crass?

Maybe tragedy was simply the inability for a person to wait.

Was Brae somewhere waiting? Or had Brae gone and done something tragic?

Hermes: Chapter 5

When Hermes became Merc's companion, the primary gods were already playing with Olympus's rules and not only for death. They touted any “improvement” that made life easier and more comfortable for citizens. No rain on days when followers preferred sunshine. No burning sunshine after followers complained about sunburn. Fire heated food for barbecues. It didn’t set houses alight even when a candle tipped over.

Then The Persephone departed. Zeus and Hera’s followers had blamed her for the snows that occurred whenever she went to Tartarus.

Except the lack of snows, the droughts, became too much. Zeus and Hera began to sacrifice an Adonis, a citizen willing to bargain his life for his family’s improved standard of living. Every six months, then four months, then two, Hermes shared the upper deck of the steamer with a gaunt, blood-smeared man who watched the shore pass by with hollow eyes. Hermes hoped Adonis made a decent bargain for so much suffering.

He doubted it.

Idiot.

* * *

Hades was the more reasonable of the married-dead-gods duo. Hermes spoke to Kouros first because it was the natural next step, and he’d be damned before he admitted how much the younger man unnerved him.

He took the ferry to Tartarus that afternoon. He took the ferry whenever dead were waiting in the glass-fronted ferry building on what Kouros still called the Maine State Pier. With Olympus’s population, deaths averaged approximately one per day, but of course, natural death wasn’t so regulated plus citizens liked to “see off” the dead in communal ceremonies. Hermes usually rode with several dead at a time.

Today, he rode with two: a new arrival, Liam, who’d cut open an artery with a scythe—and was surprisingly uncomplaining of his own stupidity—and an older bachelor, Rupert, from Wiltshire whose neighbors made sure he had the fare. Per Hades’s orders, Hermes supplied the fare for the Darwin Award Winner.

Fred met the ferry with his ever-presented clipboard (the ferryman radioed the names of the dead ahead) and with Cerbie, who greeted all of them with slobbering licks. Liam laughed and knelt down to give Cerbie a good rub. Hermes bet Liam was slated for Elysium and was unsurprised when Fred gestured the cheerful man up the hill to the main street.

To Rupert, Fred said, “Kouros and Hades would like your help with surface greenhouses.”

Elysium—Peaks Island in the other Portland—didn’t experience seasons, not like the mainland. Kouros’s arrival in early November brought winter to both Elysium and Olympus. His departure returned Elysium to what Kouros called a chaparral ecosystem. Chaparral meant Elysium was mostly shrubs and pines in a cool temperature. The dead lived off ambrosia, which was mushrooms grown in cellars, not honey, though Kouros was hoping to eventually provide honey.

Hence, Elysium's above-ground greenhouses. Hades had to feed himself and Kouros and the judges plus the monsters on the other islands. The more he fed the monsters, the more they stayed off the mainland.

Hermes didn’t involve himself with those matters. The issue of monsters was between Ares and Hades. Hermes stuck to his own problems.

“Hades around?” he asked Fred.

Not that Hades could stray far, but he might be on the island that imprisoned the dangerous dead (called Cushing in the other Portland). He might be transporting meat to the islands where the monsters emerged (Little and Great Diamond Islands).

Fred said, “He’s helping test the new snowplows.”

Hermes smirked. “Since he and Kouros insist on producing Nor’Easters.”

“Exactly,” Fred said blandly.

Hermes entered the shed near the ferry. It similar to a bus stop, one side entirely open to the view of passersby. A screen faced the opening. It showed greetings—well-wishes—transmitted from the Neknomination Annex in Hermes’s temple. Citizens could send messages after they left offerings. Today, Hermes noted multiple notes to Rupert: “Hope you got a good place on Elysium. You deserve it.” There was also a scrawled note: “Mnemosyne got the book about avalanche rescues for Athena’s library—quick read—doesn’t lag.”

That last note was from Kouros to Hades. They read non-fiction and fiction books about nature. Avalanches and volcanoes and other natural disasters.

Letters sent through Hermes. Messages sent from the Annex. Occasional meetings on the mainland. Hermes kept wondering if the Kouros-Hades honeymoon would end. When it would end.

The floor of the shed doubled as an elevator. Triggered by Hermes’s weight, it sank through rock to a rest alongside an underground corridor. Straight ahead, a short passage led to what was Tartarus’s original throne room. It contained seats with backs graced by palmettes carved out of the rock. These days, the throne room was filled with tables and printouts from the nearby computer alcove.

Judge Rhadamanthus was present. Judge Aeacus managed the various greenhouses and was likely scurrying about above ground. Affable Judge Minos managed the books and was likely somewhere counting stuff. Rhadamanthus—a tall woman of striking appearance—oversaw the underworld’s mapping. She was the most useful to Hermes’s purposes.

“They aren’t any dogs here now,” she said. “Except Cerbie.”

She scrolled down a tablet (Hermes put in the wireless himself; more stealing from the other world). She frowned.

“How long ago?”

“No idea. Pre-Chaos.”

“We are reconstructing those records from a pile of documents we found deeper in Tartarus.”

Records from the bad dead’s living area then.

“We could use more help,” she added and gave Hermes a pointed stare.

He shrugged. He wasn’t going to mention the possibility of more minor gods for Hades to Jes-Jer. They had begrudgingly appointed the three judges when Kouros gained more powers. “Checks and balances,” they’d loftily stated, which was their way of conceding how much they didn’t appreciate making the concession.

Judge Rhadamanthus sighed and returned to her tablet. Without looking up, she said, “I guess you don’t remember seeing hounds in those years.”

“No,” Hermes said.

“It was a wild time,” Hades said as he entered the throne room.

Hades was a tallish man who appeared about thirty though he was closer to sixty. He kept his hair cropped, so he resembled the clean-cut astronaut from the film space opera that belonged more to Hermes’ time than Kouros’s though Kouros claimed to have watched it numerous times with a foster dad.

Hades was Kouros’s type. Hermes saw the appeal but could never forget that he, Hermes, was barely ten when he and Hades met. Another authority figure. Another person for Hermes to out-maneuver.

Not to mention, it was a wild time, and Hermes didn’t do everything Hades wanted during the years when Hades struggled to bring Tartarus under control. Hades didn’t bring up Hermes’s supposed failures, probably because he knew Hermes would shrug off any criticism.

Hades said, “Fred says you’re looking for hounds, Hermes.”

“Old myth. One of the Artemises changed a bunch of soldiers into hounds and they ripped apart their leader, who had insulted her.”

“Guess the Artemises don’t change,” Hades said and grinned.

“Girl’s gotta protect herself,” Hermes said, fiercely, and Rhadamanthus murmured approval.

Hades’s smile only deepened, and Hermes let himself momentarily wonder if Ven gossiped about Hermes to Kouros, who was mythologically-speaking Ven’s son, and if Kouros then told things to Hades.

My secrets are my own. He wondered if he had time to start a fire or smash a greenhouse or distract Hades with more of Jes-Jer’s regulations. But Hades didn’t talk anymore about Artemis.

Rhadamanthus said, “Any vicious hounds would be amongst the monsters.”

“No. If there were, Humbaba would know.” Hades gave Hermes another sympathetic smile. “Humbaba is better than the Fates,” he said gently.

Hades, Hermes assumed, still saw Hermes as that ten-year-old boy.

Little Merman: Chapter 4

Wade was a pleasant-faced man with thick curly dark hair and fine mobile lips. He was wearing a long wool coat which exuded expense. He glanced over Rhys and then Lider, both dressed in dungarees and heavy sweaters, and Rhys could swear he looked disappointed.

Rhys couldn’t imagine why. Because Rhys and Lider weren’t in their official garb? Had Wade wanted his meeting with his ex and his ex’s husband to be noticed? A ceremonial encounter in view of crowds?

Possibly. Wade had been like that. He’d objected to Rhys’s “smothering,” but he hadn’t objected to Rhys sporting a well-tailored suit and striding into important shindigs beside him.

I was like that too—only I was more about shock and awe than making a respectable and pleasing impression.

Everybody has to grow up at some point.

Rhys waited for the official at Customs to stamp Lider’s passport. Lider crossed through the gate and moved quickly out of pedestrian traffic. Lider was still somewhat doubtful of corporeals’ ability to move around objects. Rhys followed him closely.

They ended up near the West Grand Staircase at the bottom of shallow steps enclosed by marble banisters. The upper concourse was for show these days and not accessible. They weren’t blocking anyone’s path.

Wade stood opposite. He nodded to Lider who nodded back, his face entirely open, which meant, Rhys knew, that Lider was disconcerted.

Wade said, “I would have thought I merited an invitation to your wedding, Rhys.”

His tone was off-hand, conversational, but of course, that was Wade’s style: to make cutting remarks in a way that suggested perfect civility.

“It was a fortuitous accident,” Rhys said. “Archbishop Tennyson insisted we undergo a public ceremony. Acte gratuit,” he added, and Lider laughed.

And I hadn’t seen you, Wade, in over ten years, Rhys didn’t add.

He’d met with Wade shortly before he left for Mars. It was the second time they’d met since their break-up. Rhys had thought it right to say goodbye formally.

He hadn't thought about Wade much since, except as a cautionary tale, what not to do with Lider in their relationship.

Lider said in his husky tenor, “The ceremony was attended by our fellow travelers. Of course, we were already married by the time I achieved corporeality.”

Rhys fought a smile. Lider didn't sound defensive. He was using his calm “I’m dealing with an obnoxious parishioner” voice. But he might have been marking his territory. Rhys didn't mind.

“I’m happy for you,” Wade said to Rhys. “Marriage always was one of your goals.”

Rhys weighed his response. He had forgotten that Wade told people what they thought and felt and wanted without verification.

Marriage had been a goal for Rhys. Not because he or Wade got along all that well but because by the time he dated Wade, Rhys was desperate to make a relationship work, to get something right, to move forward in one area. He and Wade had similar ways of handling the world, similar ambitions. Rhys figured those similarities would be enough.

He gave up on marriage when he entered the priesthood. Celibate with Exceptions was a concession to reality, to Rhys’s fundamental character. If he’d still wanted to get married, he would have selected “Married Priest” in his initial application.

He hadn’t. He’d placed himself on a track towards becoming an archbishop, even a cardinal. He’d substituted one ambition for another. But then—

“Lider inspired me to revisit that goal,” Rhys said carefully.

He kept his voice even. Contradicting Wade directly never worked. But Rhys had never been able to go along with Wade’s assessments.

Except I did. I wanted to get married. I was willing to compromise. Wade ended things.

“I’m happy for you,” Wade said. “For finding a mate who satisfies your needs.”

Rhys felt Lider’s hand on his arm almost before he could draw breath. They'd both heard the implication. Wade was treating Lider like an optional extra, a blow-up doll, a thing.

Lider said gently, “We appreciate your good wishes. Is this meeting by happenstance?”

Human Lider

Wade focused on him then. They were of similar height, about 1.8 meters though Lider was slimmer—due to age, not just his Cubi nature. Cubi chose an age when they became corporeal. They then grew older naturally. But even after they arrived in the world as corporeal entities, they tended to appear more youthful than their peers. Human aging was difficult to replicate.

Not that Wade looked all that much older. Rejuvenation, Rhys guessed. But Lider was fresh and beautiful and slightly unworldly. And holy, even if he would refute the term.

I suppose it doesn’t say much for my non-petty side that I’m glad my husband is more physically appealing than my ex.

Wade said, “I'm on my way to New LaGuardia. I work in sales for Kloptik, the pharmaceutical company, you know.”

Not an answer to Lider’s question, and Lider slightly tilted his head.

“Ah,” Rhys said.

“I have a significant other of my own now.”

Rhys nodded. The conversation was becoming more and more inane, and he still couldn’t fathom why Wade was there, the guy who dumped him, though by that point, Rhys hadn’t wanted to stay together either.

“I've always been concerned about you, Rhys. But now I see you are well looked-after.”

The hand on Rhys’s arm flexed. Lider’s eyes glimmered. He was amused. His inherent kindliness kept him from smirking (Rhys was too bemused to smirk), but the smirk was there.

Holiness is not the same as naivety.

Lider said coyly, “Rhys sees to all my needs.”

For the first time, Wade looked disconcerted. Then he leaned in.

He said to Lider, “Rhys came to see me before he departed for Mars. Of course, it wasn’t right for us to start up again once the relationship terminated. I left room in his life for someone else. I think my train is about to depart. We’ll catch up later, yes?”

Wade left, not at a rush—he would never be so sloppy—but at a brisk stroll, one hand lifting to wave goodbye. He didn’t turn his head.

Rhys and Lider stood in the sunlight patterned by the grills across the long windows above the staircase. Squares glowed on the slick floor. They touched the shoes and furred feet of passing pedestrians.

Rhys said finally, “He’s gotten more practiced.”

“People do as they age," Lider said. “We learn to mimic ourselves. You realize, he must have known what train you were on.”

Yes, Rhys did realize that.

* * * 

Rhys and Lider left the station. Their first stop was an apartment near St. Patrick’s cathedral. They’d stored clothes and books and other items there before they headed north. They changed now, Rhys into his long cassock; Lider into a suit. Lider was a canon and wore the “uniform” when he helped Rhys conduct Mass. Otherwise, he deferred to Rhys's religious authority.

Because Lider carries his religious beliefs with him while mine are all assumed.

It turned out, their choice of professional dress was better than a way to keep an entitled and confident debutante in line. It was practically armor.

Phillala wasn’t alone.