Hermes: Chapter 4

The first time Hermes visited the dead, he went with Merc. Olympus then was based around Chicago; the city of the living included the metropolis and the surrounding neighborhoods. Lake Michigan was the entrance to the afterlife; the Door Peninsula housed Hades’s realm.

Merc and Hermes took a steamer. The time period was the late 1980s but the Zeus and Hera back then liked historical additions—not real ones, of course, but history cleaned up, non-smelly, and functional. They’d already begun to make concessions on death to their followers. Community leaders could trade off death with other citizens, which meant more poorer citizens died, no matter how much Zeus and Hera bleated about fairness.

Merc and Hermes watched the current dead from their spot by the pilothouse. A few soldiers. A few elders from families who still accepted death as a natural consequence. The others were urchins and vagrants—not working poor but unstable ones.

“Do they know what they signed up for?” Hermes said.

Hades’s realm wasn’t as dangerous as it became before the Chaos. It wasn’t as pleasant as it was now.

Merc shrugged. “Some of them are being punished by Zeus and Hera. Some of them offered to come. In both cases, their families will get ‘blessings,’ goods in thanks for their sacrifice. We deliver the goods.”

They were a we by then and within months, Merc left Hermes to ride the steamer alone.

* * *

Hermes stood on the patio of Kouros’s temple, which resembled the Whole Foods from Portland, Maine, only the entrance was in the thrust-out atrium’s outer wall rather than to the sides.

Kouros was inside at the altar discussing the distribution of offerings with two of the Charites. One of them, Peitho, gave Hermes a wave and called, “I’ve got an equipment request for you.”

Hermes liked Peitho. He was a minor god and one of the few deities on Olympus who made formal requisitions in paper rather than behaving as if an off-hand remark at a party was enough to send Hermes scampering to the other world.

The Charites mostly worked for Hephaestus, so the equipment was probably a soil mapping machine.  Henry Thebley from the Woodston estate had mentioned how useful one would be, and Peitho had taken up the cause. The gift or blessing would merit careful monitoring. Gods could use technology from the other world. Citizens not so much. Henry Thebley was a citizen; his family did mining.

Of course, the gods who did have late twentieth century technology didn’t know what to do with it. Ven—that 1980s product who looked like a twenty-five-year-old hippie—kept forgetting about the computer Hermes got to help him track dating as well as separated and married couples. Apollo used his computer to promote his social media image in the other world. The Charites, at least, used up-to-date phones and trackers to spy for Hermes. Hades had computers in Tartarus, but he and Kouros relied on the judges, minor gods, to enter information and update programs. They were both far more interested in hands-on work.

“I’ve got news from Hades,” Hermes told Kouros as the younger man sauntered over.

Kouros was and looked about twenty-odd. Hermes was well over forty by now but looked about thirty. Kouros still made him nervous. He was a few gods rolled into one (not Jes-Jer’s choice). He was also reserved to the point of taciturnity.

And he was currently on Olympus rather than with Hades, the season being mid-spring. He’d returned from Tartarus a month earlier. Hence the overflowing offerings on his altar: gratitude for winter snows that filled the wells, for Kouros’s return, for good soil and healthy plants.

On Olympus, Jes-Jer controlled weather. But the farmers still thanked Kouros first.

Kouros said, “How’s Hades?”

During the spring and summer, Hades and Kouros saw each other mostly in meetings. They couldn’t make physical contact—not unless they wanted to create sleet and snowstorms on the mainland during non-winter months. But they were in love and all that. Hermes actually “got” their mutual desire to see each other. He knew that Kouros, like him, used Ven’s temple to work off his libido in the lean months.

So he didn’t say snarkily, “Missing Hades already?”

He did say, “Much as usual. He wanted you to know that Jackson Mills moved on. Jessie Collins now occupies the house at the far end of Island Avenue—your terminology—and Banji is still trying to set up a beekeeping operation.”

“I’m not sure Elysium can generate enough flowers when I’m not there,” Kouros said.

He leaned against one of the stone stanchions that bordered the steps to the patio. He had a rangy build and looked lanky despite being the same height as Hermes, who looked, he knew, sleek and muscular. Kouros ran a hand through  tangled hair that he grew long these days, possibly because Hades liked it grown out. The loose curls were dark like Hermes’s but less styled. Hermes couldn’t afford to look like a windblown slob.

Hermes said, “Banji says some bees live in caves--they might be induced to use the greenhouse flowers.”

“Huh,” Kouros said, which was practically a shriek of excitement from him.

Kouros gazed out over the field where citizens set up booths in the summer; the fruit trees and gardens that Kouros tended personally; and the long stretch of common land broken by a stream that various families and singles could cultivate for their use. While he was on Olympus’s peninsula, there wasn’t much he could do about Elysium (above ground) or Tartarus (below ground), even if he had the time. But he liked to get updates about Hades, and Hermes figured he should keep powerful people happy.

“Thanks,” Kouros said finally. “I’ll leave a message in the Annex for Banji.”

The Nekromanteion Annex in Hermes’s temple, he meant. Kouros sent messages from there to the dead and to Hades. And he wrote letters for Hermes to deliver to Hades. Despite being younger than Hermes, he made Hermes feel like a brash technology-obsessed twerp.

Hermes said, “You see any dogs on Elysium—other than Cerbie?”

To his surprise, Kouros looked uneasy. He rarely showed worry or rage or sorrow. Neither did Hermes, of course, but Kouros seemed to think that showing such emotions was a waste of time, not a matter of self-control.

He said, “Pets don’t really show up on the island.”

“Okay.”

“People ask about their pets,” Kouros said. “They don’t like the answers.”

Hermes couldn’t help but grin. “I can imagine. Not a change Hades is willing to make?”

“He probably would—but not right now—”

Kouros shrugged then, and Hermes nodded. Right now, Hades was sticking to natural law to determine the rules of death: people died due to illness, accident, infection, end-of-life physical failures. The moment Hades started to make exceptions, Jes-Jer would point to his hypocrisy or inconsistency or whatever and demand the right to make exceptions for their followers.

“You could ask the Fates to intervene,” Hermes said, not because he would ever do it—he would never ask a favor of those batshitcrazy women—but because Hermes considered it his job to remind people—other gods—of what they wouldn’t do either.

“I’m still paying off their last favor,” Kouros said.

Hermes allowed himself a smirk. Kouros gave him a look that Hermes knew wasn’t deliberately reproachful but made Hermes want to apologize anyway.

He didn’t.

He said, “I don’t mean pets though. Dogs—as in hunting dogs from history. Or myth. The hounds that a previous Artemis may have created when she punished a bunch of assholes.”

“They would have been turned back into humans when they died.”

“You know that for sure?”

“Sort of. Hades says when he arrived in Tartarus there were a bunch of pigs running around Cushing Island—you know, where the dead soldiers guard the evil dead. Hades finally figured out they were humans and got Jes-Jer to put them back to their ‘natural’ state. And he did a full inventory. If he’d come across other humans-as-animals, he would have got them switched back too. Jes-Jer were more agreeable then.”

Hermes said, “These young men attacked and killed their friend. Maybe Hades thought they should be punished.”

“Did they kill as humans or dogs?”

“As dogs.”

“Well, then—” Kouros shrugged.

Demeter might present herself as an advocate of “isn’t nature lovely and sweet” wonderfulness. Kouros, her adopted son, was more into “nature red in tooth and claw.”

Hermes said, “They were frat boy voyeurs. Maybe Hades decided they deserved to remain dogs.”

Now, the look Kouros gave him was almost amused. Hermes looked like a frat boy; he knew that.

Kouros didn’t comment on Hermes’s looks. He said, “Hades isn’t like that.”

Hades wasn’t. But Hermes allowed himself to look skeptical—while reminding himself that Kouros wasn’t the type of god to eviscerate him the next time they found themselves together on Tartarus.

“The dead move on,” Kouros said, which Hermes also knew. “Hades believes they move to another place. Another group of gods. Or God. Or Goddess. Or a triumvirate. Osiris. Isis. Horus. He believes in natural law. He also believes he will have to answer for his treatment of the dead. Not to Jes-Jer.”

Kouros’s voice was fond. Hermes was fairly sure that Kouros believed in little except Hades.

Hermes believed in himself.

“So no hounds on Tartarus?”

“Not when Hades arrived. It’s possible they got out into the tunnels, got to Earth or the other world. You might know better—”

They studied each other. Kouros was new to Olympus and young and irritatingly unworried about his status or rivals. He was the first Kore or Persephone in decades; he had plenty of followers, and he had inherited the role of Eros when the previous Eros left. He wasn’t afraid to mention Hermes’s past.

“I don’t know better,” Hermes said flatly.

A long pause, then Kouros shrugged again.

“Judge Rhadamanthus may know something,” he said, turning back to his temple. “She’s updating our records. She could help.”

Little Merman: Chapter 3

Lider said, “Imagination isn’t automatically a negative quality.”

Rhys gave him a slow smile. They were on the bullet train between Northern New York Territory and New Amsterdam. They sat side by side, knees and shoulders touching. Around them, the train’s transparent ceiling and sides showed off flashes of landscapes. Small towns. Bridges. Trees full of seasonal multi-colored leaves.

A momentary pass through a tunnel threw back their reflections: forty-year-old Rhys—dark hair (a little silvered now), dark eyes, a straight nose and wry mouth in a fawnish face, one that Lider (and others) called piratical. Thirty-ish Lider, red-brown hair above a sharp-cheeked face and firm tapered chin. Elvish, made more so by the temporary dimness. 

Yet entirely corporeal. Lider was a Cubus, a being formed from neutrinos. Though his sentience went back two hundred years, he hadn’t begun his path to corporeality until he met Rhys, about ten years earlier. He became fully corporeal after he and Rhys returned to Earth from the Mars Space Station. Rhys could lift his husband’s hand and brush his husband’s knee. He could, should they enter another tunnel, dip his head to kiss Lider’s neck.

Lider would give a pro forma protest about PDA—Lider did that—but he wouldn’t mind.

Lider said now, “If I couldn’t imagine a future with you, I couldn’t have tagged you.”

“That was faith, surely.” Rhys was only faintly teasing. He might be a full-blown married priest and a Monseigneur. Lider was the true believer.

“The two connect. The ability to think there’s more—more to come, more to be—aligns with the ability to imagine what that more could be.”

“Seems to me, Brae wasn’t imagining so much as trying to force an outcome.”

“But his desires started with…want, I guess. But the ability to imagine a want beyond food and sleep is a decent definition of sentience.”

Still smiling, Rhys slumped on the bench. They were in a general passenger carriage. They both eschewed VIP treatment, despite Vatican-embossed passports. The current carriage was sparsely populated, being mid-day. Commuters relied more on the shuttle between Albany and New Amsterdam.

Lider and Rhys liked trains. A train ride was a chance to lay out a problem, order what they’d learned. The shuttle wasn’t much shorter than the train anyway. With the train, they could board and sit and talk rather than stand in endless lines.

Lider, Rhys had been amused to note, was no better at standing still as a corporeal human than he’d been as a half-visible Cubus.

Even now, he unconsciously tapped one foot until Rhys set his foot on top of the tapping one. Lider gave him a half-lidded glance that lit up all Rhys’s insides.

Rhys said, “Do you think the RaykJanes are holding Brae somewhere?”

“No. I think Meke would have contacted us. Loyalty to his clan doesn’t go as far as undermining the Diplomatic Corps.

Rhys hummed agreement.

“We should still check,” Lider allowed. “Different cultures and all that. Siphons may not see their behavior as particularly unacceptable. Skirting the line. Not crossing it.”

“Agreed.”

“After we speak to Phillala.” Lider sounded resigned and Rhys grimaced. Neither of them were fond of cases that involved relationships-gone-bad, which was, Lider once pointed out, just about all of them.

We should find ourselves a jewelry heist to investigate.

Lider pulled up a biography of Phillala on a plastic sheet. It included a head shot—a smiling young woman with a heart-shaped face of arched brows and glittering eyes. A snub nose above bowed lips created a slightly incongruity, the fairy queen effect toned down to make her more relatable.

A captivating face if one went in for that sort of thing and ignored the hint of flippancy in the curled lips.

Rhys had a bio of Brae on his sheet. He glanced down at the head shot. Kyz was right. Brae was a beautiful young man. “Like a model,” Lider had said when he first saw the image, and he’d thrown Rhys a half-smile. Lider was kind enough to think Rhys was that handsome.

Rhys thought Brae looked rather like a medieval saint, the ones who were a step away from throwing themselves into fire or being shot full of arrows.

Was Phillala’s confidence—or what passed for confidence in a nineteen-year-old—the quality that drew Brae to her? Did Phillala offer a kind of harbor, safety, to Brae?

Did Brae know what he wanted? At nineteen, Rhys thought he wanted a partner, a future in business, and opportunities to travel. He’d minored in religion—that interest was always there—but he’d pictured himself attending board meetings, drawing up plans for life-altering medications related to cloned replacement organs.

Lider had a point about imagination. 

Only, within six years, Rhys was on his way to being a priest. He thought marriage was off the table. He was a Celibate With Exceptions priest, which meant he could engage sexually at designated time with Vatican-designated partners or at Cubi-Human Clubs. Nothing more profound. And then Lider came into his life—his dreams, at first, quite literally—on Rhys’s way to Mars.

I’m married now, but not at all to the person I imagined. And it didn’t happen the way I thought it would. I’ve traveled but far farther than anywhere on Earth or even the Moon.

Maybe faith was what filled the gap between imagination and reality.

Rhys said, “Does anyone have any reason to hurt Brae? Physically? Is he the villain in someone else’s story?”

He had to ask, and Lider was ready to answer. They had investigated murders as well as an attempted assassination.

“No,” Lider said. “He spent a few months at his clan’s company. Most Siphons do at some point. He started a degree in History—partly through tutors, partly on an actual campus. He’s a decent writer, produced a few articles on Siphon mythology. Some friends from college, but they speak about him more like an associate. Someone they met. Liked. But not close. No confidants.”

“What mythology did he focus on?”

“Medieval. Mermaids as sirens. Rarely seen. Difficult to approach. Amoral. His writing makes the usual connections: mermaids as symbolic water deities, possibly related to Siphons but not necessarily. He also dives into Faroe doctrines: Siphons as mixed entities. Colonies of nectaphores make a Siphon many beings at once.”

“So maybe he did go the religious route.”

“I reached out to Melody RaykJanes. She lives in the kingdom of Mercia. Frankie suggested her. Melody agreed to contact the clan associated with the Faroe Islands.”

“If he joined a cult—” Rhys began.

Years of sharing his head and his dreams with Lider had their effect. For Lider said—

“—that would be a tremendous relief.”

* * * 

They arrived at Grand Central, the name a holdover from when New Amsterdam was New York City. They collected their belongings, and Rhys tried not to be distracted by Lider’s charming clumsiness at picking up items and slinging a duffel bag over his shoulder. Lider was still accustoming himself to corporeality. He no longer shimmered at the edges; he was entirely solid. But his awe at strolling, at lifting packages, at touching surfaces reminded Rhys of why he became a priest in the first place.

We honor the Being who gives us so much pleasure.

They entered the concourse—trains to New Amsterdam communities further south; trains to New LaGuardia, where one could board shuttles for Europe or shuttles for the Moon. They strode through the crowd—families, business-oriented folks, Siphons, Anthros, tails tucked over their arms, the odd sidewalk preacher and busker. Lider sighed happily. Lider liked being one of a crowd, liked his supposed anonymity. Rhys supposed Lider had accomplished that end, but Lider’s unique self was endlessly non-anonymous to him.

They’d crossed nation-states when they entered New Amsterdam, so they paused at Customs and extended their passports for review.

“Rhys?”

Rhys glanced in the direction of the query and felt himself slow, pause, the way he did when startled.

Wade stood on the officially New Amsterdam side of Customs.

Rhys’s ex.

Hermes: Chapter 3

Hermes was nineteen when Artemis arrived on Olympus.

After the Chaos ended and Eros reopened the gate to the other world, Jer-Jes and Hades arrived first. They replaced the prior gods, who had called for them before departing. Those gods lost followers and had to leave. Their fault but at least they kept Olympus going by arranging for replacements. If Hermes hadn’t despised them for nearly ruining a good thing, he’d have been grateful.

Hestia (Hal) and Poseidon (Posey or Poloma) arrived a year later. Some humans did that, found their way to Olympus as they pursued rumors and dreams and half-memories spoken about by from others. Jes-Jes appointed Hal and Posey as the god of the house and the god of the sea. The role or title mattered, not the biological sex.

When Hermes recruited Athena, Apollo, and Ares at Jes-Jer’s request, he stuck to conventional expectations. Jer-Jes next chose Demeter from one of the newest arrivals. They had put off appointing an agricultural god, someone who could compete with their authority. Demeter was flighty and easy to distract with mangled pseudo-intellectual theories, though in recent years, she’d proved plenty smart at shoring up support.

Hermes recruited Hephaestus and Ven, also at Jer-Jes’s request. Ven was Venus or Aphrodite and male since Jes-Jer insisted on “diversity...the world has changed, Hermes.”

He knew better than to take them seriously. What they wanted was carefully constructed change and difference—nothing too radical or random, nothing that might actually challenge their authority. Opportunities for speechifying. Nothing actually outside-the-box.

They were not gods who took risks. They almost didn’t appoint Artemis, who asked for the position.

That day, Hermes was summoned to city hall. Passing into the inner room—the “boardroom,” he called it to himself—he found Jes and Jer circling a slim woman who stood without flinching, hands in pockets of a long coat. She was quiet, undefensive, her posture and expression elements Hermes only pretended to have. To this woman, they were natural.

“She wants to be Artemis,” Jes said, and Hermes understood that he'd been called there to be an audience, and Jes-Jer began a monologue about the candidate’s qualities.

She certainly had the right look. Not that flawless almond skin; high cheekbones, arched brows over dark eyes that gave nothing away; bow-shaped lips were a requirement but a goddess should draw notice and command respect. She could hunt and shoot, which Jes-Jer wavered over. They didn’t seem sure whether they should applaud “old-fashioned” violence in a woman or condemn it. Or fear it.

“She will help Ares fend off the monsters from the North,” Jes pointed out.

The Artemis listened to it all calmly. Hermes listened to Jes-Jer, watched Artemis with his own expressionless face (contrived, in his case), and thought he’d never encountered someone so magnificent.  

* * * 

He admired Artemis at her temple where she was training youngsters in self-defense. Some of them might become her Votaries; some might go work for Ares.

The temple was near where Reiche School was in the other Portland's West End. When Olympus moved to Portland, Hermes immediately explored that city, learning all of its districts and roadways. Olympus copied bits and pieces. It imposed older buildings on copied landscape. But the copying was like students copying and pasting A.I. The gods didn’t always know what had been brought over. Hermes disliked being surprised. He now knew Olympus better than all the gods except, possibly, Kouros.

Artemis’s temple was not the school. It was bits and pieces of the older Maine Medical Center—faded brick with turrets and a cupola. It looked Gothic. Artemis was the goddess of the hunt. She was also the goddess of pregnant women, which Hermes didn’t entirely understand since she was one of the virgin goddesses and fulfilled that requirement. In any case, most of the pregnant women she helped visited what Ven called “the Pump Room” in a square-like building a few blocks away. And most women on Olympus either gave birth in their homes, helped by Hestia, or in Aesculapius's hospital.

Artemis stepped back to study her students. Hermes went to stand beside her.

“Watch your footwork, JJ,” Artemis said without raising her voice, and JJ adjusted.

Hermes didn’t speak. He didn’t with Artemis. He never needed to cajole her or remind her or outmaneuver her. When she wanted something, she asked. When she didn’t, she said so. And she never lied.

“I don’t do relationships,” she told Hermes practically the same day they met.

He didn’t care. He never wanted Artemis to change.

“So?” she said when her students took off, full of energy, not at all cowed at being taught by a goddess though they gave Artemis full bows. That was something else Artemis could do—attract immediate deference without eliciting fear.

Hermes said, “You use hounds?”

“Hunting dogs. I’ve thought about it. But no. They take a great deal of training. I would need an assistant.”

Hermes added Assistant for Artemis to the list in his head. Assistants were “minor gods,” also appointed by Jes-Jer. The current matter created an opportunity for Hermes to bargain with them on Artemis’s behalf.  

“Do you know of any—other than Apollo’s greyhounds?”

“Other than Hades’s slobbering greeter?” Artemis smiled faintly. “No. Not alive.”

“Dead?”

Artemis turned towards her temple and beckoned Hermes to follow. They entered through the doorless porch. The atrium held the standard altar. Passages as complex as those found in a multi-decades-old hospital weaved into parts of the temple behind the altar. Hermes followed Artemis down a corridor that resembled something from a 1930s asylum: dusty tiles; doors on either side. Artemis wasn’t much for décor, at least not in the outer areas.

She turned into a passage that went off at a sudden angle before appearing to turn back on itself. She entered a room that Hermes had visited before Artemis was appointed. (He had checked out all the temples, even Jes-Jer’s, before all the new gods arrived. He regularly scouted most of them. But not Artemis’s.) Back then, the room was a sunroom. It looked out towards the distant bay, though the view was partly masked by trees.

When Hermes visited, the sunroom was empty aside from a worn couch and a wooden table. Now, the worn couch was pushed against the wall. The room held a number of chairs facing a short podium. There was the same table covered with stacks of papers, and a water bubbler that Artemis requested several years ago.

Artemis said, “You remember Jodie Thebley? She did research on Olympian lore before she died.”

“She got Jes-Jer nervous.”

“Waste of their time. Jodie was conventional. She wouldn’t have reported anything that damaged the gods.”

“Except remind citizens that gods are temporary. They exist only due to citizens’ offerings.”

“She didn’t research the Chaos. She went back further.” Artemis picked up a slim volume from one of the stacks. “You know how some tales come from the other world and some tales originated here.”

“Sure.”

“She thinks that the tale of Actaeon originated here.”

She handed Hermes the volume. He skimmed the pages, written in Josie Thebley’s unexcitable script:

Actaeon was a young hunter with a pack of friends. The story is that he pursued the Artemis. She refused him, but he was convinced that persistence would mean more to her than respect for her status and her adherence to virginity. He entered her domain, which at the time spread across the West End. There, he and his friends made themselves at home around a small pool. When Artemis came to bath, the friends were insolent while Actaeon continued to press his suit. The tale goes that Artemis transformed the young men into hounds who turned on their leader, Actaeon, and ripped him to shreds.

 “Serves the guy right,” Hermes said, and Artemis hemmed agreement.

She said, “It might have happened. The earliest gods also used natural law but it was—what’s the term Kouros uses?—textbook, the natural law as understood at that time, which included spells and magic.”

“What happened to the dogs? Did they turn back into humans?”

“There aren’t any notes on that. In any case, human or canine, they would be dead.”

Hermes had been afraid of that.

Little Merman: Chapter 2

Kyz Los Nares lived nearby. She occupied a maisonette in the oldest part of Schenectady. The area was throwback Nostalgia—winding cobblestone streets and brick houses—but ancient features occasionally popped up, including the Gothic First Reformed Church. Not as old as it appeared but older than anything else.

The maisonette included a full pool in its front room and a canal to the Mohawk River. Siphons needed water the way humans required vitamin C. Not every minute of every day. But regularly, for survival and for health.

Kyz answered the door on two legs but signaled that Rhys and Lider could paddle their legs in the pool while she coyly altered in an attached jacuzzi-sized tub. She dove over the side into the larger pool with barely a ripple, her stem slicing through the water; her head emerged. Through the rippling surface, Rhys and Lider would make out the bright-green stem surrounded by tannish nectophores.

Kyz brushed back damp short hair. “Mum and Dad said you want more information about Brae.”

“Are you concerned about your brother?” Lider said, which was not the question he and Rhys had intended to ask. But it was like Lider to establish emotional connections and background.

“Not as much as Mom and Dad. Not at first. The RaykJanes aren’t unreasonable. You know, marriages for business reasons are typical with Siphons. Even with Los Nares. And they involve negotiations. That’s natural. Mum and Dad can be rather plebian. The RaykJanes won’t hurt Brae. In fact, they will likely get him a mate from one of the families in their network.”

“So you think the RaykJanes have Brae locked up—isolated?”

Kyz frowned, arms slowly churning the water, a habit of relaxation, not necessity. Siphons used their stems to remain upright, and they could breathe underwater. The “colonies” of zooids that melded legs into stems carried out many functions.

Kyz said reluctantly, “Brae has been gone awhile. I assumed the RaykJanes would come forward before the breach of promise suit stalled. It doesn’t look good for them—Brae’s disappearance. Now—”

She trailed off and flicked her stem, so she was propelled backwards in the pool.

“How did Brae meet Phillala?” Another Lider question. He didn’t add, as Rhys might have, Your mother said you introduced them.

Kyz said, “I’m engaged to a Sohm. Not my parents’ choice—they see Sohms as parvenus—but Sohms have a connection to the RaykJanes now.”

Rhys caught the faintest grimace from Lider. Los Nares resided in that uneasy strata of society whose members were more aware of proprieties than the classes above and below them. Rill Sohm was partners with Meke RaykJanes, true, but Rill and Meke had challenged family expectations—on both sides—when they got together.

Keyz tilted her head to gaze at the atrium’s skylight, “I pop down to see Jax, my fiancé, every few months. About six months ago, Brae and I stayed a weekend in New Amsterdam. Jax is a cousin—equivalent anyway—of Rill Sohm RaykJanes, and we ended up at some RaykJanes’ shindig. Phillala was there.” 

Keyz kept her eyes on skylight, short curls brushing the water’s surface. In deference to Rhys and Lider’s sensibilities, her chest was a smooth expanse of glittering scales.

She said, “Phillala is vivacious. I guess that’s the word. Attractive. Outspoken. Honestly, I wouldn’t have said she was Brae’s type. I guess she thought the same.”

“But they got engaged.”

Kyz didn’t quite roll her eyes.

“Nineteen-year-olds. And Siphons often stay home until marriage. I didn’t, but I’m engaged, and I have a position in the company business. Brae wants to do something different. I think he likes the idea of diplomacy. Meke ReykJanes went into the General Diplomatic Corps.”

“Meke still networks for his family,” Rhys aid.

“I know. I don’t think Brae understands exactly what Meke does. I think he met Phillala and thought she was what he wanted with the life he wanted. Have you heard of that human fairy tale, ‘The Little Mermaid’?”

Rhys said, “Not all Siphons are fans of the story.”

Lider muttered, “Rill isn’t.”

Rhys carefully held in a grin. Meke’s mate Rill was one of those Siphons who took advantage of temple connections to reach his own goals. He was apologetic in a way but he would never indulge in anything so self-defeating as regret. Or bad planning.

Kyz said, “The Little Mermaid collects a marble statue and places it at the center of her garden. She admires it every day until what the statue means, what it represents, becomes a longing.”

“An imagined life,” Lider said.

“I guess. Brae wanted the life that Phillala offered, the kind of life she seems to inhabit. She’s totally comfortable with all her privileges, you know.”

“What did she want from Brae?”

Lider didn’t sound snide but curious. Lider could do that.

“Brae is—honestly, he’s beautiful. Male beauty. Dark eyes. A firm jaw. Slender and muscular. He looks like a prince out of a nineteenth-century painting.”

By which, Rhys assumed, Kyz included the remote beings of Edmund Dulac and Maxfield Parrish. Though maybe she was thinking more of sturdy N.C. Wyeth protagonists.

“He’s quiet,” Kyz said rather hopelessly.

Quiet but intense, Rhys gathered. He caught a quick glance from Lider’s dark blue eyes. Lider was intense and insouciant.

“She broke the engagement over a month ago. We tried to get Brae to come up here, to stay with Mum and Dad or me, but he insisted on staying in New Amsterdam. And then he went to the Great Lakes Duchy. We haven't heard from him since.”

“You searched for him,” Rhys said.

“Yes. I went to his initiation temple. To other temples. To Los Nares in the area. I can give you a list. Temple officials have his name in case he shows up at one.”

Kyz had started the conversation with a matter-of-fact lack of anxiety. Now, her stem churned the water, a much more accurate indication of a Siphon’s mental state.

“Do you think he would try to undo his orientation?” Rhys said.

“Give up women for men? I’ve known Siphons who tried—but, you know, it only truly works with teens within weeks of their initiation ceremonies. Brae underwent his two years ago.” Another lash of the stem. “Mum and Dad’s idea—mimicking clans like the RaykJanes. I initiated with my fiancé, a sweetheart initiation, which is far more common with Los Nares. But that’s the point: sweetheart initiations are common. Mum and Dad wanted better. It wasn’t just taking Brae to that party that gave him unrealistic ideas.”

Yes, some blame there. And guilt. On both sides. Rhys didn’t even nod. Lider was the one who was good at resolving issues of remorse connected to condemnation and sin.

And Lider said gently, “No one knows for sure what has happened with Brae. But it sounds, ultimately, like he made a deliberate decision to disappear.”

“Yes. I suppose. He’s not a practical person. Maybe that’s just the way we see him, you know. Dreamy. But I’m not sure the alternative is better, if he intended to marry Phillala so he could live off RaykJanes’ wealth without making his own contributions.”

“Siphons aren’t opposed to practical marriages.”

“No. And maybe a purely practical reason would be a relief. Brae seemed to think he was getting a whole new existence with Phillala. Too much imagination,” Kyz said decidedly.

Rhys said smoothly, “We will find him.”

Lider didn’t frown but he bent his head forward, red-brown hair shading his eyes. He didn’t have much of a poker face. Rhys knew what he was thinking. Rhys was thinking the same.

We may not find him. We will find out what happened to him.

Hermes: Chapter 2

Hermes got to Olympus by following the prior Hermes. 

He was five when he followed the lithe man with the creased face away from his guardians or parental units. He had no idea if they had been his biological parents or foster parents. He didn’t care. It was one of those things he never looked up later. 

He followed Hermes out of the other world’s Chicago into Olympus’s copy of Chicago. The gods did that—copied the other world’s cities. It was easier than creating something fresh; easier to use what was already there and then tweak it, change it, revise it, adapt it, supposedly improve it. 

The Hermes's temple back then was the Chicago Board of Trade with its sun dial in a flat granite face. Older Hermes strode inside where he dumped purses and wallets he’d stolen to the side of an altar already heaped with items—the boy had watched the Hermes relieve pedestrians of their belongings, and he handed over the wallet he’d taken. The older man gave him a speculative stare from dark creased eyes. 

“Okay,” he said finally. “I guess you can stay here. Call me Merc.”

The boy chose a corner behind the altar. The next day, Merc or Mercury had him take in items from followers who came to ask Hermes for help with their deals. 

“You have to leave something for me too,” the boy said, and most of them did—some amused, some serious. 

Merc laughed when he heard. “A full altar keeps me a god,” he explained to the boy.

“So we steal from other altars.”

“Unfortunately, stealing for that reason is against the rules. One of the few rules that can’t be changed. Only citizens decide which gods get their offerings. But as the Hermes I can trade other gods’ goods. Lots of citizens leave me all their offerings to distribute. Of course, I take a cut.”

And the boy gained a mentor.

* * * 

Current Hermes went to his temple first. Olympus was based on Portland, Maine at the moment, and his temple was in the KeyBank building that overlooked Monument Square, now a park maintained by Kouros.

Kouros was from Maine and liked it, so the city probably wouldn’t change for a few decades. Jes-Jer were not the type of head gods to rotate cities in any case. Changing cities took more administrative acumen than either of them had. Although buildings often remained the same inside, the settings altered. “Your lives will get better when we move” would temporarily increase offerings from citizens but the subsequent problems would considerably lower them, especially from farmers. 

Jes-Jer would never take the risk. They were currently not entirely in favor with the farmers, who had spent a decade pleading for a Kouros before one was appointed. Jes-Jer tried to appoint a Kouros they could threaten and control. 

Their efforts failed. The farmers continued to pay token allegiance to Jes-Jer. Community leaders mostly fully supported them. But Jes-Jer needed to tread carefully. Their current approach: stock up offerings by promising abstract rewards.

Hermes preferred tangibles. He checked his altar as soon as he entered the temple and spotted a set of tools for Kouros. Most citizens gave goods directly to the gods they admired but a few went through Hermes—for convenience and also, Hermes suspected, to keep Jes-Jer from noticing their preferences.

He also noted a carton of bullets for Artemis—from Ares, probably. He and Artemis were two of the gods allowed weapons: rifles as well as bows and arrows. Ares was a god. He didn’t need to leave offerings, which meant he dropped off the bullets also for convenience. Ares took Hermes’s role as messenger god seriously.

Hermes didn’t complain. He was the messenger god. And thief. And bargainer. And conductor of the dead. The more roles, the more security. He and Kouros agreed on that.

He kept his temple’s décor as classic and orthodox as possible. A marble floor. A marble altar. A screen behind the altar sported red-figure images. Olympus didn't use the mythology of only ancient Greek gods, but Greek gods were the primary inspiration. The images on the screen included a Hermes with winged shoes, a Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle, a Hermes wielding the caduceus. 

Not that Hermes did any of those things specifically. And he dressed in what Ven called “yuppie chic” and Kouros called “slick parvenue”—a loose leather suitcoat over a tie-less collared shirt, skinny pants and combat boots (working on Olympus involved a lot of walking).

Of course, a decade separated Ven from Kouros as nearly twenty years separated Hermes from Kouros. Ven appeared in his mid-twenties, Hermes in his late-twenties. Gods stopped aging, though not all at the same age. Kouros might remain a curly-haired brat for the rest of his life. He might age to fit his various jobs, until he was, say, past 100. 

In any case, Ven was legitimately a product of the 80’s as Kouros was a product of the twenty-first century.

Neither Ven nor Kouros could go back to the other world, however, not without losing their status, even their memories. Hermes could. His clothes were current as was his technology. 

He used his phone—the only being, God or citizen, to have one on Olympus—to open the narrow door behind the screen. He slid through and locked the door behind him. He stood now in his private rooms. Computers lined one wall. His bedroom stood to the right through another lockable door. No windows. He paused at the computers that stole Internet access from the other world and glanced at the trading screens.

He was the Hermes, after all.

He moved on to the computers that stored information about Olympus. Lots of records were lost during the Chaos and none of them had been in digital form anyway. Most gods had computers now tucked out of sight but Hermes could access them. He was the one who set them up.

Knowledge mattered.

None of the extant records mentioned hounds or dogs, except Apollo’s greyhounds and Cerberus. Cerberus was actually a friendly golden retriever who greeted the dead when they arrived in Hades's realm on the ferry. Not the type of dog to join a Wild Hunt.

Hermes glanced at the Internet-connected computers, then changed his mind. He didn’t want to give himself a reason not to visit Artemis. Jes-Jer thought Artemis would know about hounds. Hermes ought to ask her.

Kouros called Artemis “Tariji Hensen as Daniel Day Lewis.” The first name was one of the few popular culture references that caught Hermes off-guard. Usually, he knew them all: slang, allusions, latest news items, movie references. Whatever. No new citizen could surprise Hermes.

When he first heard Kouros’s reference, he looked up information online and had to agree with it—to a point. Artemis was entirely herself. She was also a slender, compact woman with brown skin and arched brows over deep-brown eyes.

Olympus didn’t use race-based terminology—though Jes-Jer occasionally played with the idea, unsure if it would help or hurt them. Hermes supposed the other world would label Artemis in some fashion.

He didn’t care. The other world was a hellish place that corrupted its residents; it was the source of original sin. Artemis escaped it—they all did.

He checked on her location before he left the computer room—one of the first “apps” he’d set up his computers to do (after he stealthily placed bugs in various items attached to various gods)—and noted that she was currently at her temple in the West End. 

He headed there.

Little Merman: Chapter 1

“The last anyone heard about Brae, he was in the Great Lakes Duchy.”

Monseigneur Rhys and Canon Lider made suitable hums of acknowledgment. Brae’s father continued:

“He was upset by the broken engagement. Personally upset. Not just because—” 

Sym Los Nares broke off, frowned at his hands, and glanced at his wife, Jyll.

The parents plus Rhys and Lider sat in Sym and Jyll’s home overlooking a river in the ancient city of Schenectady. The main room, like in many Siphon houses, included a sliding panel that allowed easy access to the river. Also, like many Siphon homes, it was a single floor. Beyond one door, at the end of the front room, would be screens and communications that connected the Los Nares to the clan’s company. Beyond the other would be the bedrooms and eating area.

Husband and wife were currently two-legged. Siphons produced their tails or stems when immersed in water. Their Siphon natures showed in the faint shimmer of color along their hairlines: both green, in this case. Siphons often married within clans, a second-cousin type of relationships, though consanguinity wasn’t as much an issue for Siphons as for humans.

Green was associated with a clan that humans would deem middleclass. The Los Nares twenty-year-old son, Brae, had been slated to marry “up.”

Jyll said softly, “The broken engagement was an offense.”

“You have filed a breach of promise suit,” Rhys said.

“Yes,” Sym said. “It has stalled until Brae is found.”

Jyll said, still quietly but the words were deliberate, “The RaykJanes would have reason to keep him unavailable.”

Sym gave his wife a quick, unreadable glance and lightly clasped her shoulder.

Rhys said, “You suspect abduction.”

Sym lifted one hand. “Not to harm. Siphons have a tradition—an old tradition—of ‘circling.’ Anthros do something similar, I believe. An Anthros is surrounded by larger beings. Herded, I think that’s the word.”

Lider said, “The Anthros approach involves direct contact. I understand the Siphon method is more about maintaining isolation.”

“A Siphon is sequestered in a place with access to the deeps. Much to explore but no way to leave.”

Jyll’s hands clenched, the knuckles white. The green along her forehead flared.

“The RaykJanes have many properties,” she said.

Rhys said carefully, “Will the suit be decided against the RaykJanes?”

Lider leaned towards him, shoulders touching. He said, “There would—will—likely be a cash settlement.”

Sym said, “The RaykJanes have the funds.” He sounded resigned.

“You know the RaykJanes took Brae?”

Not quite a statement or a question. No one said, Do you have evidence? Eyewitnesses? A note?

Sym shook his head. Jyll’s mouth firmed but she reluctantly mimicked her husband.

“He was enamored,” Jyll said. “Pillala RaykJanes was his sole focus.”

“A broken heart, then,” Lider said.

“Yes. She threw his heart into a current.”

Rhys said, “A broken-hearted young man may search for a different purpose in life. We checked the manifests for the Moon and for the Mars Mission ships. We’ll request a direct check in all those places.”

Both Sym and Jyll looked doubtful. Brae was apparently not the type to extoll the glories of space travel. 

Rhys said, “A broken-hearted young man may also seek for a cause, a purpose—”

“The priesthood,” Lider murmured, and Rhys gave him a quick glance.

“Has Brae expressed interest in a particular group? One in the Great Lakes Duchy perhaps?”

Another shake of the head. “He underwent his initiation ceremony in the Great Lakes Duchy,” Sym said. “Some Los Nares reside in the area, but none of Brae's friends, not that I heard of.” 

“We paid for an upscale temple,” Jyll said, the soft voice edged with another emotion—defensiveness.

The Siphon temples around the Great Lakes resembled upscale hotels. They were open to all clans but mostly attended by clans of the solid middleclass. Aristocrats, like the Agulhas clan, had private temples. Siphons who fell into the gentry class—wealthy, established, recognized families with ties in many clans—visited older temples.

The RaykJanes fell into the last category, and Jyll said, “The Great Lakes’ temples are better regulated than anything a RaykJanes honors.”

Older temples had been known to accept bribes, to underpay initiators, to overplay clerics, who did very little. A recent scandal revealed that a temple with RaykJanes’ funding accepted money to sabotage an arranged marriage. The scandal didn’t involve the Los Nares, but it indicated willingness by the RaykJanes to patronize temples for their history rather than their respectability.

Not all older temples were so self-serving, of course. But even more upright temples worked with families to arrange deals between clans.

Families from the same class as the Los Nares believed more firmly that initiation—the ceremony where a teen Siphon chose his or her sexual alignment—should be random chance, door A or door B. 

Families like the RaykJanes were less…faithful. 

Both detectives thought, Why did these two families get together? Marriage-wise?

Rhys said instead, “Siphons often return to their initiation temples for vacation, a kind of retreat.”

Especially the Great Lakes’ temples, which resembled spas and had—some of them—branched out to welcome humans.

Sym said heavily, “We checked already. Our daughter, Kyz, traveled there. She went through all the temples, spoke to all the clerics and imitators. Sometimes, broken-hearted Siphons will want to change their alignments. The change occasionally ‘takes.’ But not usually.”

Jyll said, still in that fierce undertone, “We only supported the match because Brae was so insistent.”

“Besotted,” Sym said. “The RaykJanes were interested.”

The Los Nares clan did have money—and corresponding interests with the RaykJanes, who focused on producing food stuffs, including options for Siphons currently residing on Mars. The Los Nares specialized in genetics.

And the Los Nares had clan members on Mars; one couple had once worked for the RaykJanes as sub-contractors. A RaykJanes-Los Nares marriage contract was not unreasonable, not from a purely business point of view. And that point of view was not despised by Siphons.

“How did Brae and Phillala RaykJanes meet?” Lider said.

“Kyz can tell you. She was there.” Jyll’s tone contained both resignation and blame. 

A romantic young man. An unsuitable choice. Inevitable? Preventable? Go back in time: could Brae or Phillala be distracted into meeting other potential mates? If they were so distracted, might they circle round to each other or to a similar mistake anyway?  

Regrets were pointless but people crossed the line from acceptance to blame anyway. Especially when a child was missing. 

Hermes Book: Chapter 1

The first clear memory Hermes had of Olympus was a fish dying in water.

He had older memories, of course, both from his arrival on Olympus and from Earth. He favored the dying fish memory because it marked a undeniable break from before, from the self before, that thing that couldn’t bargain for its own security.

Instead, he remembered the fish lying on its side—not out of hunger or its natural life’s end.  Because it couldn’t breathe in water. The gods had changed the water to prevent human drowning. And now a fish couldn’t live in it.

This was during the era of the previous gods. Those gods tried to fix death. They wanted to prevent catastrophes, bring about utopia.

The gods now wanted to do the same thing—in a different way.

* * *

Jes said, “We entirely understand Hades’s worries—though one has to note that he is now being influenced by a much younger man.”

Jer said, “Highbound principles get in the way of recognizing painful outcomes.”

“No one wants a repeat of what happened during The Chaos.”

“Though one questions that emotion-laden terminology.”

“But an alternative should be found. Hades’s mate is fairly young. Who knows what he might do next.”

Jer agreed enthusiastically and he and Jes began to issue a series of statements about the mistaken stances of Hades and his “mate.” Hermes couldn’t imagine who they were arguing with since they completely agreed with each other, and Hermes never argued with anybody.

In fairness, they would say all the same things to Hades and Kouros if they were present. Hades would bluntly disagree. Hades’s mate, Kouros would listen and go back to work.

“Not another Adonis, of course,” Jer said and chortled.

“No, no—we wouldn’t want to get anyone jealous.”

“But there are other options. The Wild Hunt, for one.”

“Of course, the Hunt is often associated with Norse myths, but we aren’t so insular, are we, Hermes?”

“No,” Hermes said.

Jes and Jer were Zeus (Jes) and Hera (Jer). Jes was female. Jer was male. They liked to applaud their broadmindedness. Hermes didn’t care what they called themselves. Amun. Waaq. Zojz.

Self-involved idiots.

“The Wild Hunt chases away winter, welcomes Solstice. Spring is coming. A positive myth.”

“Associating the Wild Hunt with ravaging and other unpleasantness is blatant prejudice. It’s a wholesome event.”

Jes and Jer would turn the crucifixion of Christ into an accident with a pen knife. Stigmata? Don’t worry, folks. It is only a pinprick.

Hermes said, “A Wild Hunt needs an Odin.”

He spoke contemplatively—as if he was in complete agreement with Jes and Jer’s enthusiasms—and he produced a concerned look. Jes and Jer immediately began to ramble about their ability to wear multiple hats, be Zeus, Hera, Odin. “If Kouros can do it—”

Hades’s mate, Kouros, was The Persephone and The Adonis and The Eros. And Jes and Jer—who operated as Olympus’s main gods—were irritated. They were always reminding citizen and other gods that they were, ultimately, The Ones in Charge.

They were also afraid of losing more ground to Kouros, who was in his early twenties and scared the shit out of most people, including Hermes.

Hermes understood the need for self-protection, but he didn’t commiserate, didn’t throw himself on their “why don’t people love us more” altar. He didn’t throw himself on anyone’s altar.

The trick with Jes and Jer was to figure out how much of their egos were bound up in their current demands. Was deference his best choice here? A reasoned argument? Would Hermes be able to move on to something else—he was currently working out a deal for paving materials—or would he need to pretend to focus on Jes and Jer’s wishes?

Worse, would he actually have to do something?

“No Odin then?” he said innocently. Not a smirk in place.

“We don’t need him. Only his dogs for the Hunt.”

“Apollo’s greyhounds?”

“No,” Jes snapped, annoyed at the mention of other gods. Hermes kept his expression bland.

Jer muttered, “Not that he would lend them anyway.”

“They should be hunting dogs,” Jes said.

“Artemis then,” Hermes said.

“She will point you in the right direction,” Jes agreed complaisantly. “It is her job after all—to hunt.”

“But not as the Hunt’s leader,” Jer said quickly, and Jes agreed.

“Jer and I manage this world. Our burden. And we need, this world needs, more than one way to create winter. Our responsibility to explore the possibilities, to do better than—to do better.”

Better than our predecessors.

Hermes considered asking, Do the records mention a Hunt?

He refrained.

Olympus was created to be run by gods, and the gods could change. New gods entered Olympus, took on those roles and stopped aging. Jes and Jer, in fact, arrived after Hermes. They evoked the older gods when they needed to parcel out blame. They ignored them when they wanted to claim credit.

Many records were lost during the Chaos. The ones that remained were either in Hades’s computers or city hall’s computers. Jes and Jer’s temple was city hall.

Hermes had access to all those computers—as well as the one he recently got for Ven, who took care of courtships and marriages and what-not. Hermes figured that everyone knew he had access but all of them pretended not to know. Ven might legitimately not care. Up until recently, he’d still been tracking Olympus families with index cards.

In any case, Hermes tried not to remind Jes and Jer about his knowledge. He definitely never reminded them that he had arrived on Olympus before them.   

Hermes bowed slightly. He wondered as he strode out of city hall how long Jes and Jer had searched for something, anything, that could possibly allow them to compete with Kouros. Kouros brought on winter when he left the mainland to live with Hades for six months. He brought on spring when he returned. In a world where agriculture rather than industry was still the primary economic mode, the god who started up spring had a lot of power.

Plus Kouros's so-called death and rebirth bypassed Jes and Jer. Jes-Jer were in charge of appointments and in charge of punishments. In the years after the Chaos, Jes-Jer controlled winter and spring through punishing the Adonis. Not a rebirthed god but a destroyed human. Barbaric, of course. Unnecessary now that Kouros had arrived. But—

Everything for the so-called top gods these days came down to one issue: Jes and Jer didn't want to risk a loss of more power. 

And now they wanted attack dogs.

Not Hermes’s problem what they did with the dogs.