GYPSIES & ETOCRETANS

HELIOPOLIS, Agenor

- a 38-year old avowed anarchist (in 1938); was one of those along, as a 20-year old, on the Godling Guild’s Summoning to the Vale of the Visionaries in 1920; is a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and the founder of the still mostly unheard of Black Rose of Anarchy;

- born in the first few minutes of the 20th Century; Abe Ryne considers him the singly most dangerous man in the world, mostly because he effectively controls the Zeross Shipping Empire and can therefore use it to fund his revolutionary activities;

- Agenor has possession of the Olympian Tantalus, which contains the Goods and Glories of the Olympian Gods and Goddesses;

- Etzel (“Count Molech”) Sangati is his sworn bloodbrother (they have pledged never to do the other harm and to avenge any harm done to either of them);

- under the tutelage of Magister Mandam (the revitalized Mithrant Brotherhood’s actual Pope) he has achieved the 6th Level of Cave Mithraism, that of the Heliodromus or Sky Magician;

- betrothed to Argiope (“Bright Face”) Zeross, a Summoning Child he intends to marry a year from now (January 1938) when she turns 18;

"The discharges bounced off his shield and suit of silver armour as the goatskin caped, brilliantly glowing man advanced ... He levitated, towards the roof of the warehouse. No, not levitated. Flew, -- on winged sandals!"

-- from 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

Top of Page

KINESIS, Alexandros

- supranormal who came to be known as Pluman; a master of Earth Magic, which meant he could control Solidium/Stopstone;

Alexandros pounced. With his gloved hands, both of which were now glowing almost as brightly as the silver armour, he grabbed the other man's shield by its edges, pressed it against his chest, and, as if it was silly putty or a thin sheet of tin, caused it to wrap around his upper body.

-- from 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

- the son of Olympias nee Sangati and Philip Kinesis; brother of Megaera become Zeross; husband of Roxanne nee Heliopolis; father of Romaine; a Mithrant Persian, the apprentice of his great uncle, Magister Joseph Mandam;

- conceived and thereafter considered a deadringer for Alexander the Great;

Olympias figured her eldest child had the makings of a new Alexander of Macedonia. [F]igured her son could rule [the world].

-- Hulga Faust to Medea Annulis, from 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

At that time -- as it still was in some quarters -- eugenics were all the rage and, Rhea [born Sangati always of the Ararats] admitted [to Wolfgang Shekmet, 1938's Emperor Mammalian] with a straight face, she was in the process of breeding a new Alexander the Great. Huh?

Didn't you know the Macedonian conquered the then-known world not so much because it was there but because the Delphic Oracle had foreseen him having a short life? Shekmet allowed he had. Well, claimed Rhea, what Alexander was really doing was scouring the world for a way to prevent not just his early death but any death. His army just tagged along for the rape and pillage stuff.

Anyhow, the story was that he found it. Although where he found it had never been determined, it apparently worked too. So, how did he succumb to the common cold or whatever it was that killed him? He hadn't of course. He had, like Jesus Christ three hundred odd years after him, faked his death and was probably still alive.

Which meant, Rhea postulated howsoever many more than twenty or thirty odd years ago now, that Jesus had probably found it too.

When he came of age her new Alexander -- Alexandros Kinesis, her grandson by Olympias -- was going to follow Great's path to greatness almost literally. And if he didn't find it, well, she had accounted for that possibility too. Her twin brother, Joseph Mandam, who desired the same thing, had long had his eyes on a certain as yet too young to marry girl named Mary and ...

Wolfgang Shekmet may have been a homicidal maniac but he was no fool. He figured eugenics made about as much sense as euthenics, which is to say none at all. He'd have no truck with any of this nature versus nurture nonsense. Was a big fan of history, however.

Christ had his missing years -- at least eighteen of them, from twelve to thirty -- but Great's life was pretty well documented. So he studied Alexander's wanderings; his footsteps, as it were. Studied them as intently as any podiatrist. Also as it were.

Years later, long after Joseph had his Mary and they had their Jesus, as well as a Barsine -- which no doubt not coincidentally was also the name of one of Great's wives -- Shekmet discovered that Alexander too had his missing bits. Particularly, it turned out, just after he conquered Egypt.

Hey, he thought to himself, Christ had been in Egypt, hadn't he? As an infant, fleeing from Herod's sanctions against newly born boys, true, but there was no reason to suppose he didn't go back there after he had that tantrum in the Temple. Didn't that Jesus's Joseph have relatives there?

Moreover, if you're going to be Forever Young, shouldn't you be Forever Lovely? So, who was the most beautiful woman in Antiquity? Helen of Troy of course. And wasn't there some story she spent most of the Trojan War safely in Egypt? Was indeed -- Richard Strauss had even written an opera about the Egyptian Helena not so very long ago; in the late 20s truth told, this Barsine informed Sorciere. Sorciere did not approve of operas, especially if they involved horses.

Who was the second most beautiful woman in Antiquity? No question there either. It was the one who wooed Julius Caesar then Marc Anthony. Where did she rule? Where else? And what about the Queen of Sheba?

Thus, claimed Barsine, he developed this theory that somewhere in the general area of Lake Victoria, in the vicinity of the source of the Nile River, he would locate Cleopatra's fabled bath. Locate its waters at least. And, like the Hag of the Volsungs, Shekmet thought they would prove to be the Stream of Life, nothing less than the Fountain of Youth.

... from "Tympanic Memories", the 4th chapter of 'The Vampire Variations'

- there's more on the machinations of Alex's mother and grandmother to breed him as a new Alexander the Great such that he could locate Cleopatra's Bath and the Elixir of Eternity here;

Top of Page

KINESIS, Romaine

see also Doc Defiance, the Gypsium Man;

Top of Page

KINESIS, Roxanne nee Heliopolis

- a Summoning Child who became an Afrite a couple of years after puberty;

- a self-teleporter; originally thought of as a Living Ghost, which was her original codename; once her abilities were better understand, she became the supra known as Slipper;

- wife of Alexandros Kinesis, by whom she had Romaine Kinesis; probable mother (in 1953) of eventual Cosmicaptain Dmetri Diomad (Vetala's Soldier {?} come 1980) by Demonites Zeross, the 3rd Olympian; sister-in-law of Megaera eventually Zeross, the 2nd Olympian, and sister of Agenor Heliopolis, the first Olympian;

- Agenor’s much younger sister; born on the same day as Argiope (“Bright Face”) Zeross, her brother’s fiancée, and Laodice (“Lao”) Atreides, two other Etocretans in Rome with her in 1938, Rox is a spooky-looking Summoning Child now married to Alexandros Kinesis and the mother, by Alex, of a 1-year old child, Romaine, who is still in Greece being attended to by Lao’s parents, Clymene (“Mystery Might”) born Catreus (Agenor and Roxanne’s maternal aunt) and husband Pelops (“Pops Polyps”) Atreides;

- Hot Rox is a Lovely Lady Afrite partially trained by Memory of the Angels; one of those who swam in the Totem Pool (what they thought was Cleopatra’s rejuvenating bath) back in late ’35, early ’36 and, consequently, she is the real reason brother Agenor got into the Olympian Tantalus;

"Then [Agenor's] sister was beside him again. She clutched his wrist and his whole arm vanished, -- though he could still feel it; [Rox] ... going into her disembodiment, living ghost routine."

-- from 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

Top of Page

ZEROSS, Aristotle

born 1943 on Aegean Trigon; codenamed Ringleader as of 1960, also Kid Ringo from roughly 1948 until 1955;

The Last of the Supranormals; that is to say the last supranormal those within the upper echelons of the Alliance of Man and the Soviet Supra Supreme knew re-became active circa end-April 1960 (along with the rest of the King's Own Crimefighters, he'd been deactivated end-December 1955; except, that is also to say, he also remained manifestly alive); evidence that he remained active lasted until early December 1980, when he was apparently killed on Centauri Island by Crystallion (Crystal St Synne - 1960's Strife);

[Recall: Other than need-to-know, top dog military men, certain select heads of state and the occasional Witch Superior like Morgianna Sarpedon, no one else alive on the Outer Earth could remember, if they ever knew, that supras even existed from roughly early 1938 until late 1980;]

The central character in ' Ringleader's Revenge'; played a major role in both 'The Trigregos Gambit' and 'Helios on the Moon'; also appeared in 'Centauri Island' and 'The Weirdness of Cabalarkon' ; one of the so-called Gypsium Triumvirate (the others being Romaine Kinesis and Kadmon 'El Draco' Heliopolis);

Mother: Megaera nee Kinesis (the second Olympian); Father: Angelo (the first Ringleader so codenamed); Brother: Demonites (the third Olympian); Sister: Oriani eventually Ryne; First Wife: Belificent nee D'Angelo; Second Wife: Melina 'Illuminatus' nee Sarpedon, the High Illuminary of Weir in 1980; Daughters (all by Melina): Persephone (Percy), Helena (Paree) and Athena (Tina);

NOTE 1: The mouse-over for the graphic to the upper left of this entry reads: "Alexander III by Benjamin West, scanned in from a postcard bought in Edinburgh in 2003 then adjusted by Jim McPherson on PHOTOSHOP, 2007"; another image, albeit one using somewhat more of the postcard plus some additional PHOTOSHOP trickery, can be found here;

NOTE 2: The mouse-over for the graphic to the upper right of this entry reads: "Image suggestive of a Young Harry Zeross, photo taken in Brasilia, Brazil and altered by Jim McPherson, 2007". I took the picture that forms the basis for this graphic in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, in 2007. I spotted the painting in the Circulo, which I believe is officially known as the Museum of Honestino Guimaraes. My notes indicate it's called 'Ora, Legge' and that it's by Eduardo Carrera.

NOTE 3: The titular text reads: "Ringleader - The Second So Codenamed". The rest of it reads: "Aristotle 'Harry' Zeross married while still a teenager in 1960. Faceless Strife ensured he didn't stay married for long!" More details re this statement can be found here. Additional entries on Faceless Strife can be found here and here.

Top of Page

ZEROSS, Megaera nee Kinesis

sister of Alexandros Kinesis; mother by Angelo Zeross (the 1st Ringleader) of Demonites (the 3rd Olympian), Aristotle (the 2nd Ringleader), and Oriani eventually Ryne;

one of the snake-loving (Ophidian), Ophirant-trained Female Furies of WWII; the other two were Electrocretan and Nemesis -- although, initially, Artemis 'Sagitta' Zeross become Hyperenor was Nemesis while the likes of Medea, Mata, and Argiope acted as Furies/Erinyes in their own way;

Count Molech (Etzel Sangati, whom she considered her uncle even though his parentage was disputed) bit off one of her fingers (and her wedding ring with it -- the Ring of the Nebuland), thus rendering her 4-Fingered Meg, in the summer of 1937 on Aegean Trigon;

name means Grudge or Jealousy, hence Hellion-Grudge; has an eye-stave as of early 1938; also called Meg-Aura because, not long after acquiring it, she effectively becomes a living eye-stave; later became Olympian II and, with her brother, joined the King's Own Crimefighters; only gave it up when she became pregnant with Oriani;

ATREIDES, Ariadne

ATREIDES, Laodice

- incomparably beautiful Summoning Aged Female Furie known as Electra, Electric Lady & Electrocretan; daughter of Pelops and Clymene (Mystery Might) nee Catreus Atreides, their Grey Baby, who looks a lot like Athena nee Kinesis Ryne did when she had the twins, Loxus and Magda; has a lightning rod that, when it's not a lightning rod, has to be fed!

Top of Page

ATREIDES, Pelops

ANNULIS, Amos, Doctor

ANNULIS, Apsyrtus (“Cousin Scatterbrain”, “The Absurdist”)

- Summoning-aged son of Medea born Tauri and, probably, Jason Annulis (Medea believes his father was Ulysses Heliopolis, Belus’s brother, Agenor and Roxanne’s uncle, who was one of those who died or disappeared during the Summoning);

- Currently lives on Aegean Trigon with Angelo, Argiope, Demonites and Megaera born Kinesis Zeross (Meg is Scatterbrain’s cousin);

- Was with Mama Medea, Aunt Mata, the Mandams (Magister Joseph and his Summoning-aged twins by Mary Magdalene nee Ryne, Jesus and Barsine), Clymene Atreides, Sedon St Synne, Mnemosyne D’Angelo and a number of the Etocretans currently in Rome, on the Alexandros Kinesis-led expedition to Africa in search of Cleopatra’s Bath (the Fountain of Youth) in late 1935, early 1936;

- In love with fellow Summoning Child, Laodice Atreides, who lives on Trigon with parents Clymene and Pelops Atreides and calls him Cousin Scatterbrain even though they are not closely related by either blood or marriage;

- Friendly with fellow Summoning Child, Argiope “Bright Face” Zeross, who also lives on Trigon with Angelo and Megaera Zeross (Angelo is Argiope’s brother);

- Knows a great deal about Mediterranean mythologies but very little else.

Top of Page

ANNULIS, Jason, Doctor

HYPERENOR, Nester

The Silver Arrow Assassins were Nester Hyperenor and Artemis nee Zeross. Together they had one son, Thaddeus. He grew up to be a better shot than either of his parents.

Following family tradition, he sent silver arrowheads to his contracted targets.

... from "The War of the Apocalyptics"

Top of Page

HYPERENOR, Thaddeus

- son of 1938's Silver Arrow Assassins: Artemis ('Sagitta') nee Zeross and Nester ('Sagittarius') Hyperenor; presumably became the System Seer and, thereafter, the Silver Signaller codenamed Sharpshooter (or Shoot); one of the Trigon Spartae (El Draco's Dragon's Teeth in ' Ringleader's Revenge');

- in War-Pox, Cerebrus only suspects Thaddeus Hyperenor is the System Seer codenamed Sharpshooter; as he can't help realizing, however, there would appear to be a minor problem with this suspicion:

Except for one thing, Cerebrus would have bet money Thad was this Sharpshooter fellow. Together with Kadmon [Heliopolis] and four others, all of whom were familiar to him from as early as the years he spent on Trigon with Headmistress Mannering from roughly ‘43 to ‘46, he was killed when Trigon, the Aegean island that figured so strangely during the Secret War as a haven for supranormals of any allegiance, sank in 1968.

Islands of course didn’t ordinarily sink. They might blow up, like Krakatoa did sometime in the early 1880s, but, aside from Plato’s fabled Atlantis, they didn’t sink. Yet this one evidently had. Even more distressingly, Trigon sank when an Alliance of Man bomber dropped its load on the same outcropping of Gypsium that Harry Zeross, properly codenamed Ringleader, used to fashion his miraculous rings.

... from "The War of the Apocalyptics"

- for his part, Shoot scoffs at the notion he might be Thad:

The room was empty but there was a wicked slash through Sapphire's Silver, her suppo­sed­ly impregnable body armour, and all but one of her artificial agates were gone. Five sealed envelopes lay on the bed. They were individually addressed, one to each of them, using their codenames. Inside were separate messages and airline tickets. As one, after slitting them open, the five Signallers blanched.

With the apparent exception of Sharpshooter, who had no other name any of them knew, the tickets were made out in their real names. With the one exception of Sapphire’s ticket, which was for Houston Texas, where she was going to be going to school come January, the ultimate destinations were to where each of them was born. Which, again with the exception of Shooter, only System could have known since Signallers were not allowed to discuss their private lives. The date for the first legs of their flights was December the Fourth, 1980. Today!

“Fucking mind reader,” cursed Spartan.

“Pretty stupid mind reader, if you ask me,” said Shooter as he tore his ticket in two. “Thad­deus Hyperenor has been dead for a dozen years.”

... from "The War of the Apocalyptics"

Top of Page

MELICERTES, Talos

PELORUS, Idomeneus

Sicilian born; father of Rathegar;

Top of Page

PELORUS, Rathegar

son of Idomeneus Pelorus; one of the Trigon Spartae (El Draco's Dragon's Teeth in ' Ringleader's Revenge');

Sangati, Echion

father likely Etzel Sangati, a Blood Beast Prime; mother Tanith von Blut (the silver Volsung), the supra self-codenamed Silverhair but also called Cousin Constellation; presumably became the System Seer and, thereafter, the Silver Signaller codenamed Shelter;

SIAN, Alorstro

SOLDAKIS, Tisiphone

Summoning Aged Female Furie known as Nemesis (a name also given to eventual Freespirit Nihila at the tailend of the 500-year long Goddess Culture, aka the Mad Goddesses' Middle Sea Matriarchate, circa 1500 BC);

UDAEUS, Capnan

son of Dicta and Daphne Udaeus; brother of Krista; one of the Trigon Spartae (El Draco's Dragon's Teeth in ' Ringleader's Revenge'); presumably became the System Seer and, thereafter, the Silver Signaller codenamed Styx;

UDAEUS, Daphne

UDAEUS, Dicta

UDAEUS, Krista

ZEROSS, Angelo

Wife: Megaera nee Kinesis; Sons: Aristotle & Demonites; Daughter: Oriani; Sisters: Artemis "Sagitta" become Hyperenor and Argiope "Bright Face" eventually Heliopolis;

"I have the keys, Agenor. I am the Ringleader. And I would lead us all to safety."

"I have no use for pacifists like you, Angelo," stated Heliopolis.

-- from 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

see also: The 1st Ringleader

Top of Page

ZEROSS, Argiope

Bright Face; younger sister of Angelo and Artemis Zeross; Summoning Child betrothed to Agenor Heliopolis in 1938;

ZEROSS, Artemis

One thing was never in dispute, though. Demonites, Harry and Oriani Zeross's paternal aunt, anarchist Angie’s somewhat younger sister, was the Silver Arrow Assassin who damn near killed him [Cerebrus David Ryne] on March 15, 1939.

... from "The War of the Apocalyptics"

Top of Page

ZEROSS, Demonites

The 3rd Olympian

ZEROSS, Oriani

REMAINS OF THE THOLOS GHOST HOUSE IN OLYMPIA, GREECE (+ a double-clickable webshot of an Aleutian Island shaped somewhat like a tholos or beehive ghost house)

As an aside, it added howsoever-smugly; as Sundown or Raven’s Head could also have told him, if their memories hadn’t been redacted; in 1943 the Japanese fought fiercely to keep possession of Damnation Isle. And why do you suppose they did that? Funnily enough, geography provided an indicator as to the answer.

Tholoi were circular, beehive-shaped structures found all over the ancient Whole Earth and well into the modern era. Even today, their equivalents could be found in places like church steeples, bandstands and suchlike. Often called Ghost Houses beyond the Dome, underneath it they were better known as Guest Houses for the Gods, devils that they were.

And, hint, hint, D-Isle was shaped like just that, a tholos, wasn’t it. The Japanese must have realized a way to traverse the Dome lay somewhere on it: probably around its highest point, the stopped-up crater of an extinct volcano like so many, perhaps all, of the Aleutian Islands. Had he not been so frazzled from more than a decade of breathing out there’s insipid air, he might have too, the moment he saw it.

... from "The War of the Apocalyptics"

Top of Page

DIAGRAM OF A TYPICAL THOLOS GUEST HOUSE (+ some double-clickable webshots of a couple of tholos-like domes taken in Hiroshima Japan immediately after the A-Bombing of August 1945)

Top of Page

EXTERNAL SHOT OF THE TOMB OF AGAMEMNON IN MYCENAE, GREECE (A Cyclopean, Tholos-style Ghost House spotted and shot on the Peloponnesian Peninsula in 1995 as it features in the PHANTACEA Mythos)

Mycenae, 1916

The Scythian was easily twenty years older than the Sicilian witch and a good decade the Metisse's senior. Was also much more highly skilled. Had to be wearing a Serpent Splendour, a seeming that gave her the look of a woman in her late twenties and therefore around the same age as the elder Angelic. The vampire of 1895, the one slain by the Italian-Sicilian when she was not much older than her baby sister was now, had been her first husband. Its brother was her current one.

A wanderer of both the weird and the wonderful, she was a one-time rival of the two Sicilians' mother; was, like Leonora, a Sister Superior of the Antediluvian Sisterhood before a bout of madness Antheans diagnosed as maenadism led to her disgrace. Supposedly approaching seven years sane again, possibly as a direct result of having the girl-child with her, her abilities were undiminished; might even have been ameliorated by the experience of losing then recovering her mind.

As such she could have come from literally almost anywhere. The last time she had written to either of them it was from the Altai Mountains of Southern Siberia, from a place she called Pazyryk. Neither of the other women had heard of it before; could not find it on any map. The former Godling described it as having something to do with the Mongolian-born Temuchin, who was better known in the west as Genghis Khan.

Fifteen hundred years before the Great Khan began his decades of brutal conquest, it may have been a far-flung outpost of the Persian Empire. Long, long before that, however, it may have been the birthplace of what eventually became the Chinese race, -- after Anthea's Ark landed atop Mt Ararat and humanity's great diaspora of approaching six thousand years ago began in earnest of course.

And Ararat was Mama Rhea's matrilineal last name!

-- from the first chapter of the 2002 Revision of "The Moloch Manoeuvres"

Top of Page

SHOTS OF AN ORDINARY THOLOS TOMB SPOTTED AND SHOT IN CRETE, 1996

“No Zerosses in any phone book I checked,” Wilderwitch responded, tit-for-tat half-sarcastically. “Figured if I popped all the way to Greece, you lot would be icicles by the time I got back.”

(Even though the signposts spelt it ‘Ziros’, there still was a town on the Aegean Island of Crete named after Kid Ringo’s long ago become far-flung, but historically highly influential, ancestors.)

... from "The War of the Apocalyptics"

“What would you make of these maybe manmade Tholoi if they aren’t?” Drek indicated a number of queer looking, ornately designed and lavishly decorated, circular structures in a half dozen of the sketches. More pinkish than reddish, some of them perched precariously on even bigger balls or globes possibly meant to indicate teleportive gaps or holes through Cathonia.

“Tholos just means beehive,” Melina appreciated, almost – given the seriousness of Drek’s allegations – avoiding referential ironies. “Except, if those things were built by bees then the humans screwing those raspberries there weren’t the only ones on this honeydew-ergot of yours.” Almost, but not quite!

... from 'The Thousand Days of Disbelief'

Webpage Last Updated: Spring 2010

Ordering Information for PHANTACEA Mythos novels, mini-novels and e-books

Downloadable order form for additional PHANTACEA Mythos Print Publications

Current Web-Publisher's Commentary

Jim McPherson's Worldwide Email Address -- jmcp@phantacea.com

PHANTACEA: THE WEB SERIALS

Website last updated: Spring 2012

Phantacea Publications
(James H McPherson, Publisher)
74689 Kitsilano RPO
2768 W Broadway
Vancouver BC V6K 4P4
Canada

Welcoming Page

Prime Picture Gallery

Main Menu

Websites featuring, at least in part, Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos

Phantacea Publications: http://www.phantacea.com

Jim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos (pH-Webworld): http://www.phantacea.info

pHantacea on pHacebook: http://www.facebook.com/phantacea

Jim McPherson's pre-2010 Travels: http://members.shaw.ca/jmcptimps

Jim McPherson's post-2010 Travels: http://members.shaw.ca/jmcp1749

Top of Page