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.

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.