Secondary Characters, by Family
or Place Associations, who feature most prominently in the Heliodyssey
Quintet, as set in 59/1938
| Always Ararat | Of
the Angels | The Family Dre'Ath | On
Charan's Ark | In Rome | Various
Mandams | The Cheyenne Connection | On the Head | |
Always Ararat
| Rhea Ararat Sangati | |
- also known as Rhea Sangati; born in 1860(?); parents unknown but believed
to have been Magister
Joseph Mandam's sister, possibly his
twin; polyandrous, had Olympias
Kinesis by Azrael
Sangati in 1888, Mata Avar
by an unknown father (presumably Sedon
St Synne) in 1900, and Medea
Annulis by Aeetes Tauri in 1904;
- thought to have been mother of Etzel
Sangati (b: 1905) by Bleda Sangati; somehow connected to Master Devas,
Pyrame Silverstar
and Nergal Vetala;
never aged after having Olympias
born Sangati;
some believe Barsine Mandam
stole Nergal Vetala from Mama Rhea at the moment of her conception
or birth; that Norma, the Deadly Druidess
who killed Celestine D'Angelo
in 1923, was Rhea aging again;
- initial affiliation: Anthean Sisterhood; became co-superior (along with
Leonora D'Angelo) in 1895 when Kyprian Somata,
the then Master of Weir, withdrew from the Outer Earth; also associated
with Athenans, Hellions, Korants and Ophirants; presumed to have died during
Summoning of 1920 but could have been Norma
in 1923, though not Miracle
Maenad in 1938;
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"
"Would that I had the opportunity
to know my mother as you did. What I most remember about her was that
she was beautiful, -- one who never aged, so I'm told. What I am offering
you is based on her recipe, for want of a better word. Considering she
was nearly sixty when she was murdered,
I would say that is a strong recommendation for my proposal."
-- Medea Annulis to Hulga Faust, from 'The
Moloch Manoeuvres'
"Rhea was a regular Kala of the Hindus.
She murdered and ate her many husbands. Murdered and ate any baby boys
she bore but for the last, -- if Etzel is hers, which I doubt very much.
Bathed in the blood of infants she slaughtered. Conducted hideous initiation
rites for post-pubescent maidens. And, if they failed to pass the menstrual
mustard as if were, she would cut them apart and bathe in their blood
too."
-- Hulga Faust to Medea Annulis, from 'The
Moloch Manoeuvres'
"Whatever else she may or may not have
been, Rhea thought men were cattle, those who took everything and gave
nothing back."
"Other than shit and sperm," Medea qualified,
not that she necessarily disagreed with the Volsung matriarch"
It begins
with Memory of the Angels killing Daemonic
Rhea. That happened right here in Rome back in 1923, when she was 14
years old. Rhea, who was going by the name of Norma in those days, deserved
it too. Only the day before, down south in the Antheans' Pompeii Shelter
at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius, Rhea/Norma kidnapped two year old Baby
Virginia from the Ants' refuge
and had not only murdered but mutilated then immolated Memory's oldest
sister, Celestine D'Angelo. So why didn't those
with Rhea-Norma retaliate, kill Memory as easily as they did the Celestial
Superior?
"Clymene
[born Catreus become Atreides] personally knows Miracle Maenad, Corn
Queen of Apple Isle, Sedon's Human Eye-Land, on the other side of Trigon's
Kore Gap. And who is she, other than an acolyte of that mysteriously
missing Master Deva, Divine Coueranna, myrionymous Kore herself? Mystery
Might suspects Miracle's Rhea Ararat, the unaging mother of the late
Olympias nee Sangati then Kinesis,
Mata now Avar, Medea
now Annulis (who, after being driven off the Outer Earth by Sorciere
and Granny Garuda in the later stages of 'The
Moloch Manoeuvres',
has taken refuge on Ap Isle), and the recently deceased Count Molech
(Etzel Sangati)."
-- from the teaser to 'Helioddity'
Mata
and Medea
are gypsies. Their mother was the long dead Rhea,
nee Ararat,
become (Mrs Azrael) Sangati, who may have been Magister
Joseph
Mandam's [twin]
sister. M+M's
older sister was Olympias,
born Sangati, become Kinesis, but always Ararat, who was last seen alive
during the Simultaneous Summonings of 1920.
-- from the synopsis to 'Baltic Nightmares'
When Pyrame
Silverstar humanized
the Memory Entity they – rather, she – took on an approximation
of Rhea [nee Ararat
Sangati], yes, but it was actually an approximation of Machine-Memory’s
possible template, Mnemosyne D’Angelo, who [not only was still
alive but who] did look somewhat like Rhea
had. Equally so, the real Rhea, and the real
Barsine, bore a distinct resemblance to Nergal Vetala, albeit without
the fangs, sallow complexion, third eye, distinctive greenishness and
thumbs on the wrong hands.
"You already
knew Barsine was a reborn Vetala?" asked Jesse.
"We kind of had to know, didn't
we," Akbar acknowledged. "Her mother was Olympias by then
Kinesis but initially Sangati."
"As in Azrael Sangati, Count Molech's
uncle?"
"Yes. While Olympias' mother was
..."
"Rhea Ararat, Azrael's wife."
"And Old Joe's twin sister."
"Who I might have come back as,"
piped up Tethys again. "Had I not been still alive in '88."
"When she died giving birth to Olympias."
Amazingly enough, young Mandam found himself following them without
too much difficulty. Must be the air in here, he figured. The air of
the Head, that is. The air in the tavern was appropriately dank, musty,
and very nearly impossible to breathe.
"Of course," he carried on,
just to show how well he was following them, "Rhea was born with
Vetala inside her, which explains how she stayed alive long enough to
bear Mata, Medea, and probably Etzel Sangati, Count Molech, by a variety
of different men including Azrael's brother, Bleda."
"Oh, I know who her men were,"
offered Tethys. "One thing I'm not altogether sure about, though,
is whether Rhea had Medea or Etzel. They were born too close together
for her to have had both of them, that's for certain. Myself, I think
it was Etzel but I guess that's neither here nor there any more."
"The vampire
in both '95 and '20 was Rhea/Vetala I presume."
"Actually, no. Vampires are infertile.
Even if the only thing that kept her going was the Nergalid, Rhea had
kids into the mid-zeroes. Had she turned herself before then even Vetala
couldn't have walked about in the daylight, ate normal food, make love
and bear children. Same goes for Barsine."
Akbar took his cue and finished up what
Tethys began. "'95's Vampire Prime was Azrael whereas, in all likelihood,
'20's initial bloodsucker was Brother Bleda. They turned themselves
after impregnating any number of future Maker Mothers."
"I gather the Sangatis had the same
father but different mothers."
"Would appear so. Azrael was seven
years older than Bleda."
"Appear? In all likelihood?"
"Sharp as a tack, your boy,"
noted Tethys.
"As a vampire's fang, more like,"
smiled the much more massive Kronokronos.
Rhea Ararat's her-story was largely recounted in Mole-6
whereas her fate was recounted in Mole-8;
there's a note as to the identity of her father here;
there's an entry on the false notion that Rhea was the Miracle Maenad
who conceived, but didn't give birth to the Trigon
Triplets here;
|
Of the Angels | Celestine D'Angelo | Dolores
D'Angelo | Leonora (nee Tedesco) D'Angelo
| Diego Rivera | Sophia
nee St Synne | |
D'ANGELO, Celestine
Huh? Who?
How? What,
other than just about everything, is so special about her?;
well, as a child she once had a cat named Bast;
As if in answer to her question, Mnemosyne
and Virginia touched each other on their nearest shoulders. Between
them shimmered the ghostly figure of an evanescent woman of indeterminate
age whose hair was silver and whose body, such as it was, seemed composed
of a rainbow. Even though most thought her dead for a decade and a half,
when Sorciere was still in diapers and Fish barely out of them, Hush
and the other two fully conscious Antheans instantly realized what,
rather who, this was.
It was the spirit, the ghost, the soul
self, of the famous Celeste Mannering, of the Celestial Superior --
arguably, as many members of the Sisterhood believed back then, of Flowery
Anthea herself. Forever detached from her own body, which had been hacked
apart and immolated by the demonic Druidess, the one Memory had known
simply as Norma, in 1923, this was all that was left of Celestine D'Angelo!
see also Witches, the Celestial
Superior; Gloriella
D'Angelo Dark, Michael, Leonora, Raphael,
Dolores, and Mnemosyne
D'Angelo; Virginia
('Ginny') Mannering,
Pandora ('Hush') Mannering
and Sedon St. Synne; Norma
the Deadly
Druidess;
D'ANGELO, Dolores
- also known as Sister Sorrow, in 1938 she's the apparently childless,
Anthean Mother Superior who helped raise Virginia ("Ginny")
Mannering at request of Abe Ryne circa 1929/30;
- knows nothing about the Inner Earth of Sedon's Head, where Master Kyprian
Somata is the Whole Earth's Anthean Mother Superior;
-
while growing up once had a black cat named Bast, the same name niece Claudia gave her cat during 'The Moloch Manoeuvres';
- as per here, the Little Trickster (probably Pandora 'Hush' Mannering) thinks the Elemental Twins, Aires and Thalassa D'Angelo, two high level supranormals Hush helped train ca 1937, were Sorrow's kids by either Charan Noah Ryne or his son, Loxus Abraham;
see Witches, Superior
Sorrow, Diego Rivera, Thalassa, Aires, and various other relations
listed under D'Angelo;
D'ANGELO, Leonora
(nee Tedesco)
b. 1865, d. 1920; wife of Michael D'Angelo; mother of Celestine,
Raphael, Dolores, and Mnemosyne
D'Angelo; co-Superior of Anthean Sisterhood along
with Rhea Ararat
from 1895 until 1909; possible connection to Meroudys Artha, one of Dand
Tariqartha's faerie children, and Eden
Nightingale, Abe Ryne's first wife, has
never been demonstrated undeniably; reportedly once had a cat named Bast;
RIVERA, Diego
- husband of Dolores nee D'Angelo, foster father of Virginia
Mannering;
St SYNNE, Sophia become D'Angelo
- born in 1906, the daughter of Sedon
St Synne and Louise nee Riel; acknowled sisters: Cybele,
who disappeared along with their mother in the Himalayan Valley of the
Visionaries during the Godling Guild's Summoning of 1920, and Crystal, one of many half-sisters but the only one their father acknowledged;
- Sophia not only
survived the Summoning (pregnant with Anita), she was still alive and
evidently well in 1980; consequently appeared or was mentioned throughout the epic 'Launch 1980' fanatasy trilogy based on the original phantacea comic book series;
- mother by Raphael D'Angelo of, in order, Anita (Nita),
Peter (the supranormal version of Demon Land), Claudia (Cloud, had a cat
named Bast at
the start of 'The
Moloch Manoeuvres'),
Leandro (Amoeba Prime), Gabriel (Klarion - possibly the supra version
of Djinn Domitian,
Mithras's main male Heliodromus at the time of 'Feeling
Theocidal'), Gloriella
(Radiant Rider), Marcello
(at least officially), Tereza,
Anna Maria, Belificent
and John Paul (Bloodfist); adoptive mother of the Terrible Twins (later
the Elemental Twins) Aires ('Airhead') and Thalassa ('Sea Stuff'), both
of whom were Summoning Children like Nita;
- very devout Roman Catholic reputedly gifted with Prayer Power; she
became the living receptacle of Faceless
Strife during the tail
end of 'Helios on the
Moon', which was set in 1980:
“Wisdom of the Angels is so spiritual, so intrinsically good, I doubt even the epitome of Discord can corrupt her.”
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
- also appeared, most prominently, in 'The Moloch
Manoeuvres',
which was set in 1938, and 'Ringleader's
Revenge', which was set in 1955,
1960 and 1964/5;
|
The Family
Dre'Ath
"Angus Dre’Ath was a seventh son; Maxwell Dre’Ath was his seventh son; his third, and last, by Gilda. The Dre’Aths’ Mama Goldie was named thus because of her brilliantly aureate hair. They also had a daughter, Elaine, who was once married to Jock Maxwell – the same now retired, but as cantankerous as ever, aging Scotsman who had been living with Gilda’s sister, Bonita, since shortly after the death of her husband, Jungle Jim Galvin, in 1939. Jock’s sister Elizabeth was Bruce’s mother.
"The, for-the-sake-of-clarity, first and second generation of the Clan Dre’Ath did not long survive the War; eldest son Sean, Elizabeth nee Maxwell’s first husband, did not last even that long. However, with the exception of Nathan, Angus and Gilda’s second son, all the seven remaining Dre’Aths or half-Dre’Aths had children who were still alive. In fact, all of them had been at Harry’s wedding in April 1960."
... Headmistress Virginia Mannering to Kadmon Heliopolis and the Zeross Brothers, Demonites and Aristotle, from 'Ringleader's Revenge', an unpublished web-serial set in 1964/65
|
DRE'ATH, Angus
- one of the founders of the Godling Guild;
- a seventh son who, if you include the 4 Skullians, fathered seven sons; that made Maxwell the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son;
========
Not that the patriarch mentioned him by name but one of [the failsafes he had up his sleeve in order to deal with the trickster] was Dr Angus Skullian. He had an amazingly precise photographic memory. As was no longer much of a secret, he’d inherited it from his father, Mycroft, the deaf Skullian.
(Angus Dre’Ath had four Summoning Aged sons, by four different women, none of whom were his wife Gilda nee O’Ryan, Bunnie sometimes Maxwell’s sister. The elder Dre’Ath, who was named after a Celtic love god and acted the part, claimed their mothers were fay-fairly-stunning sisters whose last name was Skullian.
(Hush could have told him, and probably did, that, first of all, they were fucking faeries and that, second of all, that wasn’t their surname. It was where they were from: Skullian = Skull = Head = Sedon’s Head. She wouldn’t have let him remember what she said, though.
(Even proper Godlings like good old Angus – the Godling Guild being the precursor to today’s Alliance of Man – couldn’t be trusted with the truth about the Hidden Headworld ...)
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
For more on the Skullians see here and here;
DRE'ATH, Bruce
- father: Sean;
- mother: Elizabeth 'Becky' nee Maxwell
- uncles: Jock Maxwell, Nathan Dre'Ath, Maxwell Dre'Ath, the four Skullians
- aunts: Elaine (Dre'Ath) Maxwell,
- sister: Baby Betty;
- appears primarily in story sequences set in 1980 onwards
DRE'ATH, Gilda
DRE'ATH, Elaine (Maxwell)
- daughter of Angus and Gilda, their eldest child, once married to Jock
Maxwell, mother of Dinah and Dana; although mentioned earlier, doesn't
appear until 'Coueranna's Curse';
helps mother Gilda run the Dre'Ath's North Sea hospice, where the 4 Skullians
live and work;
"If only a real little girl hadn't
been kidnapped in Scotland by, presumably, a bunch of changeling Selkies,
faeries all."
========
"There are three Dre'Ath grandchildren.
Elaine, the Dre'Aths' eldest and only girl, had two of them, twins,
by Jock Maxwell, who's among those still searching for the Galvin-Shekmet
party lost in Africa
toward the end of December 1937. Their names were Dinah and Dana.
"Elaine and Jock were divorced after
Dana died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), what in '38 was commonly
referred to as Crib Death. Dinah, a blonde, ordinary girl around seven,
lives with her mom at the Family Dre'Aths' North Sea hospice, which
Elaine runs on a day-to-day basis. Sooth said again, as always in these
synopses, Kore-12
opens with Dinah having a vision of her long dead twin.
"... Elaine thought faeries were
targeting Dinah, the same as they didn't just target dead-Dana around
six years previously. They got Dana then. Left a magicked stock of wood
in her crib, didn't they?"
-- from the synopsis to 'Fear Dark'
========
DRE'ATH, Rebecca ("Becky") Elizabeth
nee Maxwell
- sister of Jock Maxwell, wife of Sean Dre'Ath, mother of Lilabet and Bruce;
DRE'ATH, Elizabeth
(best known as Lilabet; also referred to a Baby Betty in 1938 serials)
- daughter of Becky nee Maxwell and Sean Dre'Ath;
-
born in 1937;
- brother: Bruce
-
grows up to become a Cosmicaptain who was apparently killed during the Launching of the Cosmic Express;
DRE'ATH, Maxwell
- also known as Magus Maxius; son of Angus and Gilda nee O'Ryan Dre'Ath;
- sister: Elaine Maxwell (mother of Dana and Dinah by Jock Maxwell, before
they were divorced);
- brothers by Angus and Gilda: Sean and Nathan; brothers
by Angus and his 'faerie' wives: the four Skullians, Homer (blind), Jubal
(crippled), Gregory (mentally challenged), & Mycroft (deaf); as such is
the Seventh Son of a Seventh son;
"Unaware of the confrontation going
on in the Grey just beyond the family villa, Mnemosyne
D'Angelo has taken seventeen year old Maxwell Dre'Ath to bed. It's his
first time but for Memory of the Angels, well, she's an Afrite, a Lovely
Lady, a worshipper of Aphrodite.
She considers love, make that love-making,
an offering to the Great Goddess. What she does not realize is what
young Dre'Ath's Summoning Heritage has granted him, -- the ability to
turn innate supras into actual ones."
DRE'ATH, Nathan
Megaera nee Kinesis Zeross wasn't misnamed after all. Her given name
is the same as one of the three Female Furies [the 'Eumenides'
{a euphemistic name meaning, in Greek, 'the kind ones'} or the 'Erinyes'
{their correct and most common name, meaning 'the angry ones'}]. Four-fingered
Meg's given name means 'Grudge'.
Meg fully intended to confront Nathan
with his crimes [a rape and a {consequential} homicide] before they
[his parents, Angus and Gilda] arrived. That way she would have him
sorted out before she took him away, -- or killed him, which she was
also prepared to do, if he or his parents ignored her allegations.
She wanted to give him a chance to confess his guilt, freely and without
coercion, in front of his parents and the rest of his family. Count
Molech may have been a charlatan, a phony, a Melancholy Magician or
whatever, but he did not deserve the fate that befell him. Nathan
did.
========
"Shooting seals does not a legend
make, mate," said Wildman Dervish Furie [Gentleman Jervis Murray's
codename when he's in his 'Werewolf in Shorts' mode.
"Yeah? Take a closer look, gruesome."
Nathan Dre'Ath was proud of himself. He bent over the Selkie's corpse,
dug his fingers into the bullet holes, and began to pull away its skin.
Underneath it, as dead as the seal appeared to be, was a human being,
a man covered with red hair and powerful muscles; a man, he had to admit,
who did look a lot like him.
"That's Fear Dark, brawn-for-brains.
I just killed a living nightmare."
-- from the synopsis to 'Apis Isle'
DRE'ATH, Sean
- firstborn son of Angus and Gilda nee O'Ryan Dre'ath; husband of Becky
nee Maxwell, father of Lilabet and Bruce; brother of Elaine,
Nate and Max; half-brother of the 4 Skullians;
Sean Dre'Ath did not stay at the
Hotel for the Alliance's final session. He took a cab back to the D'Angelos'
villa. Felt so bad about letting himself be sucked in by Ginny's wiles,
not to mention her fetching eyes, that he wanted to try to explain his
misbehaviour, to put it mildly, to his wife, Rebecca Elizabeth nee Maxwell.
========
"As capable as Nita [Anita D'Angelo]
was at nearly everything she tried, she needed help with the children.
Three at once, Gloriel, Aranyani, and Marcello, plus a crying baby and
a couple of potentially volcanic parents, were a bit much.
"Becky Dre'Ath suddenly slumped
forward. Something blew out the back of Sean's left shoulder and upper
chest. Blood, gore, and slivers of bone covered her, the kids, the playpen,
the toys, even the walls. Something else came out of the air -- no,
out of little Aran!
"Some
one! A silver streak! A quicksilver-quick shriek of a horrible-headed
or hideously-helmeted harridan all in silver and wearing Quicksilver's,
Mercury's, talarial winged boots! With silver snakes slither-struggling
out of its, her, silver scalp only to end up going nowhere!
"Then certain things were not there
any more. The quicksilver killer, Sean Dre'Ath, and most of what passed
for her mind; her precious but, as was no secret, ever-fragile sanity.
Don't scream, Nita told herself. She did not need to, -- the kids did
it for her!"
========
"The female of the two Silver Arrow
Assassins, Sagitta aka Artemis nee Zeross Hyperenor, brings Sean Dre'Ath,
what's left of him, into the Nebuland tent set up within the ancient,
remarkably still-mostly-standing Roman Colosseum. Turns out it wasn't
her who put him into his misery however. In fact, she's the reason he's
still alive. Alive, that is, unless Count Molech kills him for despoiling
his intended, Virginia Mannering, earlier that day."
SKULLIAN
- the four Skullians are Homer (blind), Jubal (crippled), Gregory (mentally
challenged), & Mycroft (deaf); their father was Angus Dre'Ath; conceived
during the Simultaneous Summonings of 1920, as revealed in 'The
Volsung Variations' their mothers were faeries who died nursing them; counting them makes Maxwell Dre'Ath the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son;
- also in 'The Volsung
Variations' Hush
tells their stepmother, Mama Goldie, that among those she travelled to
fairyland with were "four feeorin half-breeds capable of much more
than just doing Max's bidding";
That Mycroft 'Mickey' Skullian, a deaf-mute,
brought Helios's message to Memory [of the Angels], and used Max's voice,
tells you something of what's happening to the 4 Skullians
since the return of their youngest half-brother, Maxwell 'Max' Dre'Ath
(Magus Maxius) to Scotland.
Max, the master of all the tellies, as
he described himself when he called himself Telemax and hooked up with
the Sorority of
Sausages in the revised
version of 'The Moloch
Manoeuvres', is making
the blind see (Homer) and the deaf both hear and speak (Mycroft). As
for what's he's working on with the other two, Jubal, who's so leg-crippled
he's confined to a wheelchair, and Gregory, who's a simple-minded near-giant,
guess what?, we'll have to wait for a later chapter to find that out.
... from the synopsis to 'Scattered Brains'
========
Homer, father of the weak-eyed Signaller known as Selene (after a much later, as in post-Mnemosyne, Greek Goddess of the Moon), was only blind when he used his external eyes. When he used his mind’s eye – his pineal gland, some said – he could “see for miles and miles and miles”, to quote The Who’s hit single from a dozen years gone. He could also save and later on project what he saw on a wall or screen or some such.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
see also here
|
On Charan's Ark | Candace nee Dugas Aremar | Diomedes
Aremar | Dr Raul Creel | Hadrian
Dis L'Orca | Immanuel Dark | Camille
Dugas | Andrew 'Droid' Dulles | William
Tombstone | |
AREMAR, Candace nee Dugas
- wife of Diomedes Aremar, the Ark's skipper; older sister of Camille
Dugas, the Supra Saint code-named Clair du Lune ('Moonlight'); presumed
mother of James Aremar, captain of the UNES Liberty in 1980;
"The Ark's 'mom' isn't the chief
cook and bottle washer but she does oversee the chief cook and makes
him wash the bottles."
AREMAR, Diomedes
- the Ark's skipper; husband of Candace nee Dugas; presumed father of
James Aremar, captain of the UNES Liberty in 1980;
CREEL, Raul, Doctor
- Ship's doctor, Charan's Ark circa 1938; father of Paul Creel, physician
on Centauri Island in 1980;
DARK, Immanuel
- in 'The Volsung
Variations' (Volvar-2,
properly entitled "Faerie
Fight"), Dark is described as the Domdaniel-deviant;
there's more on him here;
"Berchta von Alptraum (born Faust
always Volsung) is Brunhild's mother and Tanith's aunt. She's brought
with her the bastard, Sigurd Lancz, whom she believes is her child by
Donar Lancz. Sigurd is the only other preteen aboard besides the Ryne
children. In addition to Brunhild, Tanith and Sigurd, Berchta's more
or less responsible for Dark, Dulles and Dis L'Orca. That's because
Dark and Dulles's fathers work for Berchta's husband, the Baron, while
Dis L'Orca, whose parents were killed during the Spanish Civil War,
lives at the Baron's Hamburg home."
- or, as Hush [born Pandora
Mannering] characterizes him to Mama Goldie [Gilda nee O'Ryan Dre'Ath]
in VolVar-1 :
"A Lightray Lancelot with a contrary
surname ..."
- there's a gold-mining box referring to Dark, who's still alive in 1980,
here; see also Gloriella
D'Angelo Dark;
========
Tanith von Blut didn’t want to
be left out. “If I’m going to have to traipse off with a
Society of Suicides led by a silliness-spouting Sister Shark [Fisherwoman]
and with a bunch of teenagers no older, or not much older, than me,
including a French girl calling herself Moonlight and a Brit calling
himself Dark Brilliance, shouldn't I get a codename too?”
“That’s Brilliant,”
Immanuel Dark objected. “Mister Brilliant to you.”
“Brill Brit sounds better,”
giggled Camille Dugas, whose codename did mean
moonlight. “Sinister Shark isn’t bad, though.”
-- from the synopsis to 'Aegis-Jesus'
========
- as Mr Brilliant, Dark was a charter member of the SDL (Supranormal Defence League), which was founded by Jesus Mandam, as the Conquering Christ, in the very early Fifties;
-
also a member of the King's Own Crimefighters
and the King Conquerors; at one time or another, acted as field leader for both groups;
- Brilliant had his very own Great Fall in February 1953:
Spoiler Alert
For a while in the late Forties, Immanuel Dark – Brill Brit’s real name – acted as field leader for the King Crimefighters. Much younger eventual wife, Gloriella or, more commonly, Gloriel D’Angelo was arguably its most powerful member. He later joined the Supranormal Defence League and the King Conquerors.
Turned out his Mr Brilliant persona was a distinct entity, one Gloriel humiliated then, thinking him Lucifer Incarnate, justifiably immolated while both were airborne — justifiably because he’d killed her beloved brother Gabriel, the supra codenamed Klarion, early in 1953. Doc Dark, clearly no longer brilliant, survived the fall but never walked again.
... from "Harry on the Head", the unpublished sequel to the 'Aspects of an Amoebaman' web-serial
========
DIS L'ORCA, Hadrian
- presumed father of Salvatore and Garcia Dis L'Orca; also
appears during 'Ringleader's Revenge';
- after the Spanish Civil War, during which his parents were killed, moved into the Baron Tyrtod von Alptraum's Hamburg home where he was effectively adopted in the family:
"Berchta von Alptraum (born Faust
always Volsung) is Brunhild's mother and Tanith's aunt. She's brought
with her the bastard, Sigurd Lancz, whom she believes is her child by
Donar Lancz. Sigurd is the only other preteen aboard besides the Ryne
children. In addition to Brunhild, Tanith and Sigurd, Berchta's more
or less responsible for Dark, Dulles and Dis L'Orca. That's because
Dark and Dulles's fathers work for Berchta's husband, the Baron, while
Dis L'Orca, whose parents were killed during the Spanish Civil War,
lives at the Baron's Hamburg home."
========
- also known as the Hypnosis King and, secretly, the Grand Inquisitor; he survived the Secret Wars
Hadrian Dis L'Orca ... had been a respected
psychiatrist then a Spanish diplomat under Franco ...
========
D-Brig knew Garcia’s father Hadrian, yet another Summoning Child, from the Supra Wars, when he sided with Generalissimo Franco in his native Spain. They didn’t like him, aka the Hypnosis King, also the Grand Inquisitor, but never managed to nail him for collaboration with Axis devils during WWII or the Rache after it.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
- longtime associate of Major Milo Mind, with whom he is often credited with inventing Amnaesthetics in the late Forties, wrongly as it turns out
DUGAS, Camille
- a French-born and initially strictly French-speaking Summoning Child;
younger sister of Candace become Aremar; as a member
of SOS, the Sorority
of Sausages, from 'The
Moloch Manoeuvres', her codename was 'Icicles for
Arms'; later, as part of SOS, the Society of Suicides,
she decided to change it to 'Clair du Lune', meaning 'Moonlight';
- in 'The Volsung
Variations' Hush
says of Camille that she thinks of her as a "moonbeam matter-slinger
... a lunartic, a Loon-Arctic, since she gives cold shots an entirely
new meaning";
"Sea's twin, Aires, has been busy
himself, bedding Camille ("Icicles for
Arms") Dugas. Which leads to an unexpected development on her part.
As Ted Mayhew puts to the Great Man: "We've an airhead in the hold."
Then Nightingale and the Baroness saw
Loxus, Ted, Diomedes, Leonardo Starrus, and a few of their men go
down below guns already drawn. They followed; were caught up short
by what they saw. Almost as if she had a magnet embedded in her cranium,
Camille Dugas, the Summoning Aged younger sister of Captain Aremar's
wife, Candace, was apparently adhering to the metallic roof of the
hold by her skull!"
... from the synopsis to "Supras Awakening"
========
"Aires D'Angelo dumped Camille Dugas
after she went all air-heady on him and took up with Memory, his Afrite
of an adoptive aunt."
DULLES, Andrew
'Droid'
"Berchta von Alptraum (born Faust
always Volsung) is Brunhild's mother and Tanith's aunt. She's brought
with her the bastard, Sigurd Lancz, whom she believes is her child by
Donar Lancz. Sigurd is the only other preteen aboard besides the Ryne
children. In addition to Brunhild, Tanith and Sigurd, Berchta's more
or less responsible for Dark, Dulles and Dis L'Orca. That's because
Dark and Dulles's fathers work for Berchta's husband, the Baron, while
Dis L'Orca, whose parents were killed during the Spanish Civil War,
lives at the Baron's Hamburg home."
TOMBSTONE, Will
"Will Tombstone, Grave's Head, Kid
Cemetery, was one supra who did not have to shoot straight. All he had
to do was pull the trigger. His bullets went wherever he wanted them
to, -- even around corners."
-- from the synopsis to 'Dragon Joe'
|
In Rome - January 12-14, 1938 | Djinn | Mesmer Hent
| |
DJINN
sometimes addressed as Heliodromus; see also
Ghoster;
"He was odd too, this fellow Etzel
addressed as Djinn. Dressed like one as well, in a turban and silken garments,
as if he was a genie straight out of Aladdin's lamp or a Persian Magus
..."
========
"Sangati's be-turbaned manservant,
a huge Turk or Arab who looked like he should have no shirt on and a scimitar
in his waistband ..."
========
"When you consider Airhead and Sea
Stuff are on Charan's Ark steaming across the Mediterranean to Egypt
right about now, all the supra-plotline threads are finally knitting
together. Are just a couple of more to add. One of them is Pyrame's
other idea about how to keep Helios away from his parents-to-be.
Heliosophos believed his first ever identity,
the one he did not so much assume as was given during his first lifetime,
was that of Kadmon Heliopolis, the son of Agenor Heliopolis and Argiope
nee Zeross. In order to protect Agenor and Bright Face Silverstar
hoped to hide them in Djinn's Nebuland.
Was not a bad idea. The Heliodromus of Lazareme
had a reputation as an accommodating devil. However, besides the fact,
as the Master pointed out to her, she was in no position to put her
idea into practise, there were some problems with Pyrame's plan. One
was that Djinn may have lost his protectorate on January the Fourteenth
on the Outer Earth.
Another's who Djinn's hanging around
with nowadays. Scum-coming tuna-tune-soon, the Redstripe Rockfish return
of ...
Dugong-don't Mississippi-miss it!
-- from the synopsis to 'Old King Kad'
========
"Delphi and I aren't exactly fishtail-fans
of yours, Djinn. Among other things you tautog-tattooed us onto your
anchovy-arm and, after we got away, you thornback-threatened to parboil
Delphi and serve her to us for diamondback terrapin dinner. Besides,
even if we were deadhead-heading the same direction, why would I trust
a double-dogfish-dealing devil? Everything I've been tentacle-taught
goes agate-against guppy-gobbling-gabbing with, let alone triton-trusting,
a damn devazur!"
Shortly thereafter, the Heliodromus of
Lazareme says to Fisherwoman:
"Then you have heard more than me, deva-daughter.
Though I doubt [Anti-Patriarch] Cain is capable of being raised anew."
As it happens, if Ulysses Heliopolis,
5938's Taurus of Apple Isle, is Heliosophos, the Male Entity, which
he apparently is, and if in his first lifetime he was Cain, Slayer of
Abel, which he might have been, Djinn could be wrong about that. Could
even be wrong about Fish, Scylla Nereid,
being a deva-daughter; that is say about her being a deviant.
Then again, in both cases, he might
be right. Fish certainly is not wrong when she calls Djinn a devil.
He is a Master Deva, a third generational devil and a damn devazur,
as she also puts it.
========
Dancing with devils occurs on Aegean
Trigon.
"What is it, mistress?" [Djinn
the jinn required.]
"Open your damn eyes, Ghostie,"
Fisherwoman exclaimed, suddenly
no longer fishifying. "All three of them! The omphalos is surrounded
by stepping stones. And we're inside its Circe-Circle."
They started appearing off the agates
around them: two by two, man and woman, holding hands: Clymene and
Pelops Atreides, Roxanne and Alexandros Kinesis, Angelo and Megaera
Zeross, Artemis and Nester Hyperenor, -- though they were undeniably
in Sagitta and Sagittarius mode now --, and, lastly, Agenor Heliopolis
with Sorciere, Solace Sunrise.
Agenor was holding Sorciere's hand
but he was also holding a gun to her temple.
========
HENT, Mesmer
- the Dutch-born supra code-named Mr Attraction; in 'The
Volsung Variations'
Hush refers to him as "Mister-Mesmer
Attraction-Hent from the Force-Firm of Hither Thither & Hold";
"Unfortunately for Apsyrtus Annulis,
Laodice Atreides is leaning toward Mesmer Hent, a Dutch-born Summoning
Child she first met a couple of years before on Crete, which was when
and where Mesmer's parents were killed caving. Now as good as an adopted
von Alptraum, he too is staying on the estate with the Volsungs."
-- from the synopsis to 'Baltic Nightmares'
========
|
Various Mandams | Mary Magdalene nee Ryne Mandam | Barsine
Mandam | |
MANDAM, Mary Magdalene nee Ryne
- born 1900; died 1933 in a ship off Cyprus that was heading towards
the Alliance of Man's gathering in Rome to discuss the Summoning Children;
- twin sister of Loxus
Abraham Ryne; parents: Charan Noah Ryne & Athena
nee Kinesis;
-
definite mother of Jesus Mandam by Magister
Joseph Mandam;
believed she was Barsine's mother as well, though Jesse looked more like
a Ryne whereas Barsine looked more like a Kinesis; in other words, her
twins looked nothing alike;
- sickly most of her life; deeply religious; many suspected she was a
natural born witch but old Joe refused
to allow her to get any proper training;
see also Lamia, Lamiae,
and a gold-mining box
from 'The Volsung
Variations' here;
The Magdalene died giving birth to Thea.
She wouldn't be a lamia if she hadn't. That Thea's was a phantom pregnancy
and the Magdalene had herself a phantom midwife,
that was detailed in VamVar-1.
If a phantom pregnancy and a phantom midwife don't qualify her as one
of the world's weirdest wraiths, I'll eat my weird-writer credentials
-- with salt!
Jesus Mandam may have been her Summoning
Child. So too might have been Virginia Mannering. Even though she looked
somewhat like her mother, Athena born Kinesis, Barsine Mandam probably
wasn't her daughter. Beyond that I don't care to comment at this time.
========
MANDAM, Barsine
Barsine Mandam is, dependent on who's doing the talking, Jesus Mandam's
identically aged full-sister or half-sister or absolute non-sister. Although
brought up as his twin, there are many who believe they had different
mothers and possibly even different fathers.
- another lookalike for Rhea Ararat
and, until we discover what's become of her in 'Coueranna's
Curse', she's mostly
regarded as just one of a number of those who went missing in the Congo
around the Winter Solstice of 1937;
- a Summoning Child born on Christmas Day 1920, the same day her half-brother,
Jesus, was born to Mary Magdalene nee Ryne and Magister
Joseph Mandam; brought up
as Jesse's twin sister even though the Magdalene believed she did not
belong to her; a talented photographer.
- if she wasn't the Magdalene's daughter then her mother may have been
one of those who died giving birth nine months after the Summoning of
1920; was with Magister Mandam and others in the Eastern Congo when they
discovered the Tholos Tomb for Pygmies and its link to Cleopatra's
Bath in very early January 1936; was one of those lost around
Xmas 1937 on the Galvin/Shekmet expedition to the Eastern Congo in a quest
for the Fountain of Youth;
- plays an important role in 'Coueranna's
Curse' and is a central
character in 'The Vampire Variations';
various nicknames include Barstool (because she enjoyed the good life),
Sandbar (this from Fisherwoman), Sunshine (from her father) and Bat-Bait
(which she coined herself because Athenan
War Witches realized she was an incarnation
of Nergal Vetala and, as such, Janna
Fangfingers and
her vamps were after her);
"There are a surprising number of
candidates for Count Molech's attentions. One is Barsine Mandam, Magister
Joseph Mandam's
Summoning-Aged daughter, whose mother may or may not have been the Magister's
wife, Mary Magdalene born Ryne, who died ever so
mysteriously at sea in April 1933. (And if Barsine's mother wasn't the
Magdalene, was therefore unknown, she, the real mother, could have died
giving her, Barsine, birth, couldn't she?)"
========
"Barsine Mandam's the vampire!"
Valfreja Volsung could not believe her mother's words.
"Potential vampire, Freya,"
Hulga [Faust, always Volsung] corrected her. "Etzel Sangati, Count
Molech, was only a potential vampire, recall."
========
-
the above quote, from Kore-1,
proves prescient; Barsine was born with Nergal Vetala, the vampire in terms of the PHANTACEA Mythos,
inside her; hence her rather unlikely survival after as per here;
The
real Barsine bore a distinct resemblance to Nergal Vetala, albeit without
the fangs, sallow complexion, third eye, distinctive greenishness and
thumbs on the wrong hands. So, had he [Young
Death] seen [through
Abe Chaos in Berlin] Barsine with Vetala unmistakably shining through
her or had he seen Vetala shining through some other, and otherwise
unknown, shell of hers?
========
- Donar Lancz, the self-proclaimed
Teutonic Templar, asks himself much the same question when, later on in
'Coueranna's Curse',
he encounters the man with the solitary name of Abaddon's companion at
Castle Nightmare, a beauty calling herself Norma (also no last name):
And what about this Norma? Who was she
really? Lancz had two thoughts on that as well. They were not whether
she was devil or angel; human or something entirely else. They were
not whether Norma was her real name or not. He was sure she was no Norma.
What he could not decide was whether she was Rhea Ararat or her Summoning
Child of a niece, the daughter of Olympias nee Sangati Kinesis. He was
pretty sure it was the latter.
Was pretty sure she was Barsine Mandam.
========
|
The Cheyenne ("Human Beings") Connection | Shaman Manitoulin | Louise
nee Riel St Synne | |
MANITOULIN (Shamanitoulin)
A Cheyenne Medicine Man who rescued the infant Sedon
St Synne at the Battle of Little Big Horn and raised him alongside Louise
nee Riel (who eventually became Sed-son's wife and the birthmother of
both Sophia become D'Angelo and Cybele St
Synne). Years later Shamanitoulin, as he was nicknamed, also raised John
Sundown and Solace (Sorciere)
Sunrise. He may have been Sorciere's father by Louise.
As
a Wayfarer in the
Weird he could send himself psychically to Sed-son, Lamia
Lou, Sundown and Sorciere. He figured prominently in 'The
Moloch Manoeuvres', which was serialized beginning
in 1996, and appears quite extensively in 'The
Vampire Variations', which began its serialization
in 2006;
Three-quarters of a century old or damn
near, the sightless man was quite the sight. Wiry rather than frail,
he was also steel-grey rather than steel-eyed due to the fact his eyes
were blindfolded with a leather strap. His lips were rouged; a blood-red
third eye was outlined inside a black triangle in the centre of his
forehead; and black and white stripes not unlike chevrons were drawn
on his cheek.
He was dressed in white buckskin leggings
and moccasins, a sleeveless buffalo cloak or 'star blanket'
with the fur turned outwards, and a buffalo hat or 'issiwun'
with the horns pointing up. Although he wore a multi-layered, multi-coloured
beaded necklace across his chest, his perhaps surprisingly muscular
arms were bare; had animalistic or fetishistic symbols etched up and
down them.
While he was not about to wrassle a bear
or outrace a deer anymore, he still looked capable of climbing his native
Rocky Mountains, if not exactly running up them as he did in his youth.
He had a leather 'wampum pouch' filled with not even Sorciere
knew what strapped about his waist and carried what he called a Speaking
Stick. It was quite grotesque, a spear with the severed head of a huge
raven impaled atop it and black feathers collaring underneath it.
========
- there's a Serendipity and phantacea entry re another horny head, Manitoulin himself, here
"Manitoulin's
a manatee." [Sorciere (Solace nee Sunrise) said to Barsine Mandam
on the coast of Ophir-Moorset in mid-Balek 5938]
"Actually I'm right here."
The Blind Shaman, at least his spirit self, noticeably minus his crow
head crowned Speaking Stick but otherwise much as he appeared in the
Gypsium Shelter, was standing on the beach grinning happily.
"And Horny Head's her own self by
the way. Her name too. Also isn't all manatee. Or narwhal for that matter."
"Has some faerie blood in her,"
said Sorciere. "Can shift shapes. Quite the beauty, isn't she?"
Bump must have been worse than Barsine
thought. Had addled her senses. She thought to swoon. Didn't bother.
Not because it would give Vetala an easy out either. Didn't want to
waste the time. Much more interesting being conscious right now. Wouldn't
want to miss that. Barsine had never seen a unicorn before.
Let alone one walking out of the sea.
========
ST SYNNE, Louise
(Riel)
Manitoulin's adopted daughter, a Metis born
of unknown parents in an unspecified year, Shamanitoulin brought her up
alongside Sedon St
Synne, whom she eventually married and by whom she evidently had two
daughters: Sophia eventually D'Angelo
and Cybele (Apple Isle's Miracle
Maenad from as early
as 5938);
"Another mystery
that's solved is the identity of Sorciere's parents. Dad was Shaman
Manitoulin, Wayfarer in the Weird, -- the Cheyenne Medicine Man who
raised both her and Johnny as well as, going back to the 1870s, none
other than Sedon St Synne, the father of Sophia now D'Angelo and, if
only possibly, of Cybele St Synne, the person who brought Strife out
of Big Shelter.
"Mom, as Sorciere had long felt,
was St Synne's wife, Louise nee Riel."
(Double-click to enlarge image in a separate window)
|
After Crossing-Over to the Hidden Headworld
| Tom-Tiddly Taddletale | |
Taddletale, Tom-Tiddly (once Tammuz Rhymer)
- a fairy type that looks like a blue-skinned version of the Male Entity (Heliosophos), hence also Thrygragos Lazareme as he seems himself in mirror, albeit without the third eye;
- coats Tammuz Rhymer of Dukkha in the later Heliodyssey Seirals
- father by Morgianna born Nauroz by then Somata of Tsishah Twilight
========
Howsoever paler it was today, Tsishah’s skin colouration was now as it had been at birth: light, celestial or sky blue. Fish took it as a hopeful sign that her eyes remained a richer blue, a royal blue, just as her father’s had been once he, Tammuz Rhymer, human troubadour, was sprinkled with Tom-Tiddly’s ash and became the latest Taddletale, faerie troubadour, aka – and not just to teenage Morg, either – that ash-hole.
... from 'Acquiring Nihila', a possible entry in the open-ended saga of 'Wilderwitch's Babies'
========
|
|
Secondary Characters, by Family or Place Associations, who feature
most prominently in the Launching
of the Cosmic Express Story Sequences, as set in late 59/1980, and its continuation, 'Wilderwitch's Babies' | On Centauri Island | On
WORLD's Trawler | In Aka Godbad City | In
Hadd | Onboard the Cosmic Express | On the UNES Liberty | Living in New Weirworld | Living in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon | |
On Centauri
Island
[Gypsium] was ... found on two other dinky, tri-peaked islets: Easter Island, in the Southern Pacific, far off the west coast of Chile, and much smaller Centauri Island, off the coast of Maui in the Hawaiian Archipelago.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
| Paul Creel | Adolph "Dolph" Dulles | George Hannibal | Dr Connie Lindquist | Roderick Paraja | Dr Hiyati Samarand | Demios Sarpedon | Yataghan Sentalli | |
CREEL, Paul, Doctor
- staff doctor, Centauri Island; known friend of O. J. Maxwell; son of Raul
Creel, physician on Charan's Ark circa 1938;
DULLES, Adolph (Dolph)
- born in 1953, Centauri Island Associate Head of Security, often thought
to be the son of O. J. 'Big Max' Maxwell;
"Adolph Dulles came to work on
the Island two years earlier after graduating from the Houston Academy
of Man. Now twenty-seven, Dolph had been raised by Jock and Bonita Maxwell,
Max's foster parents, -- might even be Max's bastard --, and was now Maxwell's
right hand man.";
========
- once freed from the Entities' stasis beam while in Lunar Trigon, Constantin Thanatos declares:
"I’m sure Max [OJ Maxell] does since he as much as accepted paternity for my son, even though Jock Maxwell was the real father. I’m the supra once called Amoebaman.
“That’s right. The real life bodybuilder, the one who could split his body into many bodies. Split his mind into others’ minds as well. Which is what I’m doing now inside Rom. Max would tell you that when Leandro D’Angelo was killed he left behind seven distinct individuals. Initially we all had abilities similar to Leandro’s but they wore off. Something like seven years later, one of us, Barb Black, had Adolph Dulles.
“She wasn’t the only one of us with children, of course, but seemingly Dolph is the only one who has inherited any of our abilities.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
HANNIBAL, George,
Lawyer
- one of Alfredo (Alpha Centauri) Sentalli's untouchables,
the Fatman's lawyer and financial adviser; possessed of the devil named Elephantine Ganesha;
- evidently a lot more than just Connie Lindquist's friend;
"He controlled the purse strings,
or thought he did at least. Kinesis wanted the stars, Hannibal offered
him the moon, and Centauri signed for the sun.";
========
LINDQUIST, Doctor Connie
- one of Alfredo (Alpha Centauri) Sentalli's untouchables,
the Fatman's personal physician and performed much the same function, as
head of the medical team, for the members of the Express's crew;
- often possessed
of the devil named Aphropsyche Morningstar (APM All-Eyes) when she was beyond the Dome;
- despite being
APM's ofttimes shell, she's an Althean, not an Afrite;
- see also here
========
Antheans, as Hush was and Connie had ambitions to become if she ever had a daughter – right now she was only an Althean, named after Lazareme’s female healer, Amal-Althea – were notoriously resourceful.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
PARAJA, Roderick
- one of Alpha Centauri's untouchables,
possessed of the devil named Djerrid Ruin (Byron's Green Man);
- as per "Helios on the Moon", Paraja is a homun being (homunculus) 'developed' specially for Ruin in Samarand by Yati's biomages;
- a rather iffy shot of someone who might represent him is on pHanta-pHlickr here;
"Big Max was so relaxed he fell
asleep while waiting for the monorail to take him to the subterranean
launch pad. He was awakened by one of Centauri's Untouchables,
an East Indian Engineer by the name of Roderick Paraja. Like Dr. Samarand,
Yataghan Sentalli, Connie Lindquist, George Hannibal, Demios Sarpedon,
and maybe as many as seven or eight others on the Island, the fatman
never allowed him to check their credentials. Of course he had clandestinely
tried anyhow. And had come up with sweet baby zilch!
"As he opened his eyes to regard
Rod, he suddenly had a glimmering of why that was. For the briefest
second he spotted a third eye closing on Paraja's forehead!"
SAMARAND, Doctor
Hiyati
- one of Alfredo (Alpha Centauri) Sentalli's untouchables on Centauri Island;
- Project Centauri's overseer; his primary contribution was the Solidium Sheathe that was supposed the Cosmic Express as it escaped Earth's atmosphere (which it never did);
- along with Big Max, Yataghan Sentall and his Fatman of a father, Dr Samarand is depicted in Phantacea Phase One #1 here;
- as for what made him an untouchable, that's here;
- Appears in "Janna Fangerfingers" , the mini-novel concluding 1000-Daze, in "Nuclear Dragons" , formerly 'Centauri Island', "Helios on the Moon" , the Phantacea comic books and both "Phantacea Revisited" graphic novels;
========
" ... chain-smoking oriental; Samarand
was Project Centauri's overseer ... the fatman's personal 'scientocrat',
-- an odd word coined by Sentalli
to explain Samarand's role as both supervising scientist and chief bureaucrat.
Alfredo was only interested in results; technical details he left to Kinesis
and Samarand. In their years together, they rarely spoken outside the
work site but, on the job, they got things done."
========
Even Yati, the Dragon of Byron, but for his third eye still appearing to be Project Centauri’s human overseer, Dr Hiyati Samarand, came out of Samsara. In all likelihood he wouldn’t be humanoid for very long. And this dragon, while presumably not nuclear, was no mandroid. He might actually have eaten Hush alive.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
There are a number of shots suggestive of Samarand on pHanta-pHlickr. One of the best is here, though he doesn't look much like this in the comics. Another is here, which is directly applicable to a comment made by Hush Mannering in "Helios on the Moon" .
SARPEDON, Demios
- an Inner Earth Summoning Child born in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon;
- twin brother of Melina become Zeross;
- first came to the Outer Earth in 1938; as such he occasionally appears in the Heliodyssey web-serials;
- there, during its Secret War (or Wars) in the Thirties, Forties and Fifties, codenamed Blackguard then the Ace of Spades;
- exiled, along with wife Morgianna, from the Weirdom of Cabalarkon once Saladin (born Nauroz but called Devason) won the Challenge of Weir in 5950 and became its Master;
- even in 5980 YD still considered Saladin Devason’s chief rival for what passes as Cabalarkon’s throne and the Weirdom’s Mastery; as per "Goddess Gambit" wife seems to thinks she's at least as worthy of the co-Mastery;
- does not appear in 1000-Daze but mentioned in it; suggestion is he’s sympathetic to Alpha Centauri, Centauri Enterprises and the Corporate State of Greater Godbad’s plans for the Inner Earth;
- as per the 'Centauri Island' web-serial then "Nuclear Dragons" , one of the Fatman's Untouchables;
- as per the 'Trigregos Gambit' web-seria, its revision andl then "Goddess Gambit" , he joins the battle for Hadd alongside the forces of the Living in Tantalar 5980;
- possesses what is reputedly the oldest eye-stave in the world (Morgan Abyss, the Death’s Head Hellion, had it in 'Hellion'); it's so old it manufactures its own eyeorbs'
========
Before coming here Golgotha had given Demios his own personal eye-stave for purposes of protection. He’d kept Dem’s – reputedly the oldest, pre-Earth stave left on the planet – for purposes of multiplication.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
- Zebranid Lepers are his followers more so than Morg's;
- directly descended from the Sarpedon underclass who, as revealed in Hellion, are inclined to worship Thrygragos Lazareme since they see him as the Male Entity.
SENTALLI, Yataghan
- solitary son of Alpha Centauri (born Alfredo Sentalli on the Outer Earth) and Emeralda
nee Plantagenet, one of a number of supranormals in that family;
- unacknowledged half-sister Kirin Tethys (born of Ukemoshe Tethys in 5953)
- later becomes his father's bodyguard on the Outer Earth's Centauri Island and one of the Fatman's untouchables; - as for what made him an untouchable, that's here;
- somewhat dim-witted and, like his mother, greenish-skinned;
- on the Inner Earth of Sedon's
Head he commonly uses the surname of Montressor because he was raised under that name in Dukkha, in the north-western part of Sedon's Moustache, aka the Forbidden Forest of Kala Tal, during the Godbadian civil war;
- husband of Janna St Peche-Montressor;
- during Yataghan's encounter with the Indescribable Mr No Name in "Nuclear Dragons" , Damon Goldenrod, one of Thrygragos Byron's Secondary Nucleoids, was possessing him;
========
Yataghan hadn’t been brought up as a Sentalli or even as a Centauri. He’d been brought up by surrogate parents whose last name was just that, Montressor.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
======== |
On WORLD's
Converted Trawler off Centauri Island
WORLD = The Worldwide Organization
with the Right to Life and Death
The so-called Worldwide Order had its heyday in the Sixties. After a rather public debut – a kidnapping-double-murder in April 1960 – it went underground. Reliably reportedly, it thereupon spent a couple of years beefing up its war chest by leasing out its expertise and providing communication links to criminal associations such as the Triads and Yakuza of South-East Asia and the Mafia of Italy and the Americas. Its tentacles were soon everywhere and its ambitions became grandiose.
A blanket organization dedicated to extortion, terrorism, and, ultimately, conquest, at its heart proved to be a bunch of unrepentant Nazis, Japanese supremacists, and transglobal megalomaniacs. The patriarch’s Alliance of Man set up AMERICA largely to deal with WORLD; thought it eradicated by 1970. Rumours of its continuance persisted, however.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
| Lady Guillotine | Daemonicus | Salvatore
Dis L'Orca | Major Milo Mind | Crystallion |
|
CRYSTALLION, born Crystal St Synne
- father: Sedon St
Synne; mother: Corona Power; acknowledged half-sisters: Sophia become D'Angelo and Cybele St Synne; has many other half-sisters including Mata Avar, Sapphire Lancz, Praxitheia (Queen Bee) Faerieflight and Hush Mannering, as well as, possibly, Aranyani Nightingale, the first Meroudys Maenad and Ramona Avar;
- as St Synne's daughter, probably born with a caul covering her head;
-like every daughter of a Sed-son, prone to affliction (possession) by the so-called Strife Virus (Kore-Discord);
- Crystal appeared primarily in the Ringleader web-serials set in 1955 and 1960 (during the latter of which she exhibited a teenage crush on Kadmon Heliopolis);
- as Crystallion, appeared primarily in "Nuclear Dragons" but, as per here, puts in something of a repeat performance during "Helios on the Moon" :
========
Crystal St Synne was now Crystallion. The Old Baron, Tyrtod von Alptraum, was not so much Steltsar as Sharkczar. Neither of them had much left of their original humanity. She now referred to herself as a ‘technopomp’, a name she adapted from ‘psychopomp’ since she was more a technological horror than a psychogenic one. She was also more a maker than a carrier of the dead, though her nuclear firedrakes did carry Hell’s Horsemen.
A striking-looking child, she had grown into an attractive teenager. Her mixed blood – her mother was racially Japanese while her father was half-French, half-Ainu – looked to give her tremendous beauty as an adult.
Unfortunately, shortly after sisterly exorcists got Strife out of her in ’65, at the age of nineteen, her life started to fall apart. She began to lose weight at an alarming rate. Her skin jaundiced. She became palsied. Her mother, Corona Power, had been in Hiroshima when the Americans dropped the A-Bomb. Even though Corona didn't become pregnant until the next year, some sort of belated reaction to its thoroughgoing irradiation might have had something to do with Crystal’s condition.
After the ordeal of being 1965’s Strife, she deteriorated rapidly. As Headmistress Virginia Mannering, who had virtually raised her since Corona (birth-name: Takeda Mikoto) withdrew to Hiroshima a dozen years earlier, and ex-Superior Sorrow (Dolores born D’Angelo become Rivera) were forced to admit, the young woman was beyond the help of even the Superior Sisterhood.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Her mother’s beginnings as an enhanced half-life, added to the fact that her father, Sedon (once Satan) St Synne, was biologically normal, made Crystal at least three-quarters human. Her tellurian quarter made her akin to an earthborn daemon. Which explained why she could hold onto Osiraq, a possessive devil, rather than the other way around.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Steltsar could and did save her but at the cost of what little humanity Crystal had left. As he was rebuilt, she became something that could be rebuilt; became Crystallion — an altered, almost Jungian animus who lived in a radiation-containment suit. Her helmet looked like a Japanese demon’s mask.
She amounted to a homunculus, a homun being. In consequential collaboration with All of Incain, who held onto them both since the time of the Death’s Head Hellion, her makers adapted Crystallion specifically to house the atomic elemental named either Osiraq or Tammuz by Illuminaries of Weir during the course of Hidden Headworld’s fourth millennia.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
In certain mental meanderings into the philosophical as opposed to scientific field of cosmology during medieval times and earlier, psychopomps were supernatural beings who conducted souls safely to the afterlife. Equally often they were described as mystical horses that shamans rode to the underworld in order to commune with spirits or retrieve the souls of the sick.
Technopomps had horses, too, but they weren’t mystical: they were nuclear dragons. And Hell’s Horsemen didn’t ride them to the underworld.
They used them to send others there!
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
see also here and here
|
DAEMONICUS
"Meanwhile, off the coast of Centauri
Island, lurks a huge fish packer flying a Japanese flag. It is no ordinary
fish packer, however. It is also more than just a spy vessel. It is
the base of WORLD, a Sixties' terrorist organization reorganized by
Salvatore Dis L'Orca to destroy the Express moments after it is launched;
that is, before it reaches escape velocity. Dis L'Orca, though, is just
the titular head of WORLD, which stands for the Worldwide Order with
the Right to Life and Death. The real mastermind is a conceivably non-human
and certainly supranormally gifted three-eyed abomination who calls
himself Daemonicus."
- from the synopsis to "Mind
Tap"
While that turned out to be something of a red herring
(I did say conceivably), a certain never-remembered devil did turn out
to be long distance pulling Daemonicus's strings; he also, when he appeared
to anyone as anything other than 'a
mass of darkness with a pink face and two many fingers, with too many
joints on them, on two pink hands', looked a great
deal like this description of WORLD's Daemonicus:
"Appearing out of nowhere came
the swirling, ectoplasmic shape they had come to fear as Daemonicus. While
rationally it couldn't be there, the brimstone stench, the way it made
one's skin sweat and itch, the way it made one's ears ring and hair stand
on end, the way it made one's bowels tighten, made one want to kneel down
and pray for forgiveness, -- all were unmistakable. The hellacious, incessantly
smiling wraith was there and it was terrifying.
"With a flat-topped mitre that completely
covered its hair and neck, it looking like a clean-shaven Greek Orthodox
bishop. Its black raiment, so typical of that priesthood, reinforced
the image. Facially, the creature had dramatically boned, starkly pink
skin, thin, purplish lips upturned in a perpetual rictus grin, gleaming
bright teeth, two hollow, white eyes, and a third one, just above the
bridge of its nose, about where its eyebrows almost met. It was slender
but strong-looking, with extraordinarily long fingers and nails as thick
and as sharp as claws. Its robe had pockets and was held together by
a glowing sash. From its neck dangled a pair of shrunken skulls that
also glowed. When it was in a coercive mood, both men had seen it produce
and play a glowing pan-pipe."
as per the above quote, in 1980's 'Centauri Island' Solomon Mandam had hold of his
form for quite some time (until their thought-mother, Lady Guillotine, sorted them both
out, Sol's twin sister Balkis simultaneously had hold of Faceless Strife);
Sedon St Synne (as Judge Warlock) had hold of his
form in 1938's 'The Volsung Variations';
|
DIS L'ORCA, Salvatore
- son of Hadrian, brother of Garcia;
- nominal head of WORLD in 1980 (real leader: Daemonicus);
"Salvatore Dis L'Orca was a Spaniard born
in Equatorial Africa in the early forties. A vain man, he sported a black
and silver-etched goatee and moustache. Thin-lipped, with jutting cheek
bones and a down-turned nose that looked, in silhouette, like a shark's
fin, his forehead was somehow scrunched forward. The outer edges of his
bushy eyebrows arched sharply upwards. He parted his hair down the middle
and his greying forelocks were deliberately combed to resemble a set of
stubby horns.
As always, he wore tinted glasses. Those who'd seen his
unshaded eyes described them as two blood-soaked orbs with tiny, pinpoint
pupils. As was his habit, he was dressed formally, like the Spanish Don
he was, in a tightly-tailored, red matador's jacket, side-striped, equally
red pants, a white, flowery shirt and a string tie. He walked with a bad
limp, due to the fact that he had a clubbed right foot. To help him along
and, equally importantly, to add to his image as a man of power, he carried
an opera cane, complete with retractable blade.
"Although his late father, Hadrian Dis L'Orca, had been a respected
psychiatrist then a Spanish diplomat under Franco, Salvatore made, and
squandered, huge amounts of money privately, as a dealer in contraband.
He worked for anyone who paid enough, -- and certainly Daemonicus paid
more than enough for what he had to do. Most of his colleagues figured
he was a brilliant junkie. In truth, he was addicted to heroin, the
primary good he smuggled around the world."
========
|
Lady Guillotine (presumably Countess Ramona Avar)
Erech Ryne’s mother Ramona nee Avar really was a countess. Rather, she became one when her father Zygion (the Axis supra codenamed Count Viper) died in the midst of two wars, the worldwide conflagration and the Secret War of Supranormals.
Years after WWII ended, long by then Countess Avar almost certainly assumed the identity of the Queen Conqueror. That being the case, it could only have been a short term nom de guerre since it eventually turned out her supra-side was none other than Faceless Strife. Except, during those selfsame Supra Wars, which began in 1938 but didn’t end until late 1955, no one realized it. And, if she could be believed, that included Ramona herself.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
- at some point in time, presumably before she married Abe Ryne in the early Fifties, Ramona had a relationship with Major Milo Mind
========
|
MIND, Major Milo
"Milo Mind was a major but not in India,
not like his father and grandfather before him. At the beginning of the
Second World War, Mind postponed enrolling in medical school and enlisted
in the British Army. During the retreat to Dunkirk, he was captured and
spent the rest of the war in various POW camps. At least that was the
official version. There were those who claimed he collaborated with the
Nazis in some of their most insidious experiments. He was cleared of those
charges after the war and went on to become a famed neurosurgeon, the
best in the world. The late forties and throughout the fifties, when he
worked for Loxus Ryne as part of the Alliance of Man, were his glory days."
- longtime associate of Hadrian Dis L'Orca, Salvatore's father, with whom he is often credited with inventing Amnaesthetics in the late Forties, wrongly as it turns out;
- also claims to have invented the mind-tap implanted in the head of OJ "Big Max" Maxwell prior to the start of 'Centauri Island';
|
In Aka Godbad
City
| Ferdinand Niarchos | Gomez
Niarchos | Janna St Peche-Montressor | Jordan
Tethys | |
NIARCHOS,
Ferdinand
- son of Gomez;
- eventual
governor of New Iraxas, the petroleum-producing, north-easternmost
province in the sub-continental territory of the Corporate State of Greater
Godbad, in 5980;
Weird Ferd, as he (Jordan Tethys) shamelessly,
sometimes to his face, thought of Ferdinand Niarchos, wasn’t the
result Gomez’s post-terminal tumescence. Couldn’t be. He
was in his late thirties or early forties and Gomez hadn’t died
until 5964, not much more than 16-years ago now. Tethys wasn’t
so certain about Weirdo’s own children; the ones he acknowledged
as his. To the best of his recollection none of them were even in their
mid-teens.
Yet Ferdinand sure had a
lot of them for a fellow who wasn’t even married. Then again,
since when had marriage, any more so than monogamy, been a prerequisite
for being a dad?
======== |
NIARCHOS,
Gomez
- Inner Earth Summoning Child who became Alpha Centauri's factotum sometime prior to the Godbadian Civil War in the Fifties;
“Ferdinand Niarchos
is outside and he’s brought word from his father,” Janna St Peche-Montressor, Centauri's daughter-in-law, announced.
Now this was almost as interesting as the story he’d been telling
the Fatman, thought the legendary 30-Year Man (Jordan Tethys). Ferdinand’s
father, Gomez Niarchos, was dead. He had, however, survived death as
a Dead Thing Walking. Fortunately for his friends and relatives, Gomez
was a Sangazur-animated Dead Thing rather than a Haddazur-motivated
zombie.
There was a substantial difference, in all senses of the word ‘substantial’.
Sangazurs were symbiotic. They actually preserved a corpse’s living
intelligence, their in-life individuality. In other words; in return
for a body to call their home they as good as prolonged a person’s
lifetime. On top of that, there were on record occasions when they,
the Sangazurs, preserved a person’s fertility.
========
Gomez Niarchos was a Godbadian hero. He was also the Fatman’s man in Valhalla; dead man in Valhalla, put better. Still fertile dead man in Valhalla, put even better. The Governor was called Weird Ferd in part because he had so many children, especially for a supposedly gay guy married to a gay gal. Not many knew that most of the children belonged to Gomez, post mortem. Obviously Young Death was one.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Top of Page
|
ST PECHE-MONTRESSOR, Janna
- Alpha Centauri's
daughter-in-law; Yataghan's wife; mother of Gudran Montressor, Alpha Centauri's lone grandchild in Tantalar 5980;
- born on or around the Summer Solstice 5953 YD, probably in the Principality Dukkha, on west coast of Sedon's Moustache;
- a Lovely Lady Afrite as well as an Athenan War Witch; Tethys nicknames her JPM because, as witness her twinkly eyes, he knows the highborn Byronic, APM All-Eyes, often occupies her:
“To a New Year,” toasted Centauri, after twinkly-eyed Janna filled their glasses ... (That she was also trained as a Lovely Lady Afrite didn’t prevent her being trained as an Athenan War Witch. Never forget Cupid’s parents were Love and War, she always said when someone asked her about the seeming dichotomy.) “To even Better Days.”
========
And a very pulchritudinous
physicality it was too, rivalling that of the incomparable Harmony Unity,
as always admired the 30-Year Man [Jordan Tethys].
“You’re fired,” Centauri snapped.
“Fired?” repeated Janna St Peche-Montressor.
She appeared confused, somewhere between shaking and smirking. Of course,
if APM All-Eyes was inside her, her uncertain-sounding response might
be attributable to Byron’s Venus. A devil’s proper reaction
when his or her Great God of a father says you’re fired is to
spontaneously combust. Which would be a terrible waste of all that pulchritude.
========
The High Priest ran all right, straight into the arms of … What was her name? Right – Janna something or other; something or others. She had two last names. She was Superior Sarpedon’s replacement as the War Witches’ just that, Superior.
Something like that anyhow. Hadn’t someone mentioned she was pregnant Devauray (Saturday) night, after Rings brought them to Sraddha Isle? She gathered up Holgatson as if a laundry bag of filthy brown robes, tossed an agate in front of her and stepped them both out of sight between-space.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
see also here;
|
TETHYS, Jordan
- also known as 'The Legendary 30-Year Man', 'The Legendarian' and
'30-Beers';
- claims to be a recurring deviant, meaning he gets killed only to come back with his personality and memories in tact; meaning also one or both of his parents were
possessed when he was conceived circa 4000 YD (Year 0 AD) by the Lazaremists
Rumour and Titanic
Metis (Wisdom of Lazareme);
- has Rumour's Tvasitar Talisman, a Brainrock quill, which he uses in a variety of ways, including drawing himself as well as inanimate objects and those who give him permission anywhere on the Hidden Headworld; can do the same thing beyond the Dome but only once he's gone beyond Cathonia via All of Incain or some other method;
- nicknamed 30-Beers due to his deviancy-condoned, daily consumption of beer, mostly pilsners and preferably from the Dinq, Doinq, Danq Cavern Tavern on the northeast slopes of the Diluvian Mountain range not that far from the Gypsium Wall, Sedon's Hairband;
- dies but comes back inside the bodies of his mortally wounded or terminally ill children or grandchildren, who immediately regain their health but whose personalities he supplants, becoming dominant; consequently, in what amounts to a conceptive or, more commonly, procreative imperative, makes sure he has many children during his many incarnations;
- hates coming back inside one of his daughters or granddaughters
not just because giving birth hurts but because it's easier for a
man to have offspring than a woman; men don't need a nine months'
pregnancy for one thing;
- one of his female incarnations, Ukemoshi 'Ukulele' Tethys, whose first name sometimes appears as Ukemoshe, had a daughter Kirin who was born in 5953, father Alpha Centauri; apparently they were both drunk when she was conceived, although Ukemoshi was a triplet and both her sisters, Katatribe (Azama) and Yomikuni (Shikonie) had a daughter born on same day, 22 Azky (June), the Summer Solstice of 5953; more on the Tethys Triplets here;
- for many generations he was the half-son, half-daughter, half-grandson or half granddaughter of Wintry Moira, aka Dame Chance and Fata Fortuna, as well as the luscious Lady Luck;
- some say he was a devic suicide known as Rumour of Lazareme; others
say that Rumour was kidnapped by faeries circa 4000 YD, that he thereafter
became a faerie and that his dust renders mortals Tomcat 'Squirrelly' Tattletail (who so bedevilled Datong Harmonia, the Unity of Balance as well as Panharmonium,
prior to
"The 1000 Days of Disbelief" , wherein their story will be properly told I'm sure);
- some say his fairy god lover was the Master Deva Wintry Moira (aka Chance or Fata Fortuna, Lazareme's
Luck), whom he rescued from Cathonia, by drawing her out of it, prior to
"The 1000 Days of Disbelief" ;
some also say that Lady Luck had to be possessing all of Future-Jordy's
mothers; that if she wasn't then he couldn't come back inside of said
children or grandchildren;
- appears throughout PHANTACEA
Mythos Print Publications:
- also appears in the web-serials:
- 'The Trigregos
Gambit', until he flees to Tympani, the Isle of the Undying One;
- 'Helios
on the Moon', wherein he returns to Aka Godbad City just in time to, sort of, save the day;
- 'The
Weirdness of Cabalarkon', wherein he reacquaints himself with many old friends and at least one old enemy; and
- 'Psychodrama',
wherein his latest 30-Year lifetime may – all too predictably, as well as painfully – end prematurely (all of the above are set in 19/5980 or '81);
- plus, at least one of his earlier
incarnations also features in 'The
Volsung Variations',
which is set in 5938;
- We learn in Volvar that this incarnation of Jordan Tethys
married a non-mantel woman living in Temporis
by the Tsukyomi Tornado; by her he had triplet daughters: Ukemoshi,
Katatribe and Yomikuni, all of whom appear in Volvar and
some of the later web-serials;
- As also noted here, Ukemoshi Tethys (Sister Jordan) appears in
"Harry on the Head" , an unpublished sequel to the 'Aspects of Amoebaman' web-serial set in 5960;
- Katatribe and Yomikuni are among the upwards of a thousand Good Fellows following Kronokronos Susano Mikoto around the Head in search of the Trigregos
Talismans from roughly 5945 until late 5980; they're the ones stalked by Rakshas Gatherers of the Dead in, most notably,
"Goddess Gambit" ;
- Also in Volvar Young
Joseph Mandam alleges Jordy was Magister
Mandam until the
Simultaneous Summonings of 19/5920; if true then the original Joseph
Mandam was Jordy's son or grandson;
========
"Jordan Tethys was a hardened
man in his late forties. He wore a scruffy checked jacket, an open-necked
tee-shirt underneath, blue jeans and sandals. On his head was a peaked,
tweed cap, pincushioned with feathers. His face was lined, particularly
around the mouth, the eyes, and his forehead. He was white but his
skin was brownly tanned, like old parchment. Understandably so. Tethys
was a street person. He liked it that way, sleeping under cardboard
boxes, spending most of his time outdoors. He also had a scar, which
he never talked about, in the lower part of his forehead, just about
where his eyebrows would have met if they kept growing. It looked
more like an incision that had never quite healed than anything else.
"Little
strands of twisted hair wormed out from underneath his cap. They might
have passed for rat's tails but Centauri knew better. They were the
severed tails of tee-tees, a talking rodent indigenous to the area.
And Jordan Tethys could read their braille-like squiggles, ridges,
dips and gaps ... translate then tell tales out of tee-tee tails."
========
Jordan Tethys' tale, his rendition
of his own personal history as opposed to the tales he told to make
a living, was one of the most bizarre Jess had ever heard. As near as
he could make out, this Legendarian also referred to himself as the
Thirty Years Man for a very good reason. He lived no more than thirty
years in any given lifetime but Death never claimed him as it did others.
In
terms of oblivion, neither did reincarnation. For he did not reincarnate
as such. What happened, Tethys explained, hardly ever slurring his
words as he did so, was kind of like a transferal of consciousness.
His body died, yes, and it didn't come back, no. However,
his mind never died. Instead it found a new home, a new body, usually
one about twenty years old by then and of either sex, though more
often than not male. In doing so, his entirely displaced the previous
occupant's personality.
It wasn't a kind of psychic murder, he cautioned. Or even
possession in the daemonic sense, he was quick to add. The spirit,
the soul, the very essence of the dying person did die. Or did whatever
dying folks do when they leave their body.
However, the spiritually now-abandoned body recovered, albeit
with a new mentality, -- Jordan's mentality. This was great for the
former occupant's loved ones but Tethys had learned not to hang around
too long after his apparent recovery. His personality was simply too
dominant, too distinctive.
Was pointless to pretend he was someone he wasn't; even if,
as often happened, had apparently happened in this case, that someone
was one of his predecessor-bodies' own children.
========
"Jordan Tethys, the
legendary 30-Year Man, being able to draw someone, anyone, anywhere
against his or her will? Can't be! Unless of course something else happened
to Jordy (aka also 30-Beers) during 1920's Simultaneous Summonings;
something that we don't know about as yet. Might the fact he asks Tanith
(by now code-named Cousin Constellation) to call him Pictor or Painter,
after a constellation in the southern hemisphere, mean it's her, not
him, doing unto Herr Hel Helios what Helios wanted to do unto her?"
========
Tethys seemingly takes a couple of books off after his travails in "Goddess Gambit" . However, as already noted here, he's back at it near the end of the 'Launch 1980' story cycle:
Nihila found the recurring deviant, Jordan Tethys, at his favourite table in the Cavern Tavern. (It had been his favourite table five hundred years ago, too. Even on the Head some things never changed.)
The grizzled Legendarian, he with the tee-tee tails pasted onto his mostly bald head underneath his cap and whom devils tended to call Author, was absently doodling in a sketchbook – his famous splotch pad. Was doing so with his glowing Brainrock quill; what had been brother Rumour’s power focus until he vanished as Phantast Thanatos’s Crimson Conspiracy ran its mass murderous course most of two millennia gone.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
The 30-Year Man's own version of his 'true' story goes something like this:
According to the once-a-devil version of his origin, Rumour was driven mad by Phantast Thanatos (the dream-weaving brood-brother of the Thanatoids of Lathakra) and cut out his third eye; hence the Legendarian’s scar tissue. According to Tethys’s account, shortly after his first birth faeries stole him out of his crib, leaving a glamorized log in his stead. Devic daddy Rumour promptly went after him, whereupon his fay kidnappers consumed him completely.
It took Baby Tethys twenty years to find his way out of the faerie mound or knoll (as correctly called a ‘knowe’, ‘sidhe’ or ‘shee’, among many another term, and not just on the Inner Earth). In part because he used, and thereafter kept, Rumour’s power focus or Tvasitar talisman, a Brainrock quill, to facilitate his getaway, he managed to avoid recapture for fully thirty years, to the day, of his initial escape.
Relentless faerie trackers finally hunted him down, again. This time, though, they got hold of Rumour’s quill before he could use it to draw himself elsewhere. Defiant to the end, he reputedly willed himself dead rather than allow himself to be forcibly returned to the knoll.
Remarkably, a few years after this first death he found himself consciously in control of a twenty year old man’s body. Thirty years later, again to the day, that man – his own son, no less – died, this time of altogether natural causes. When the pattern was repeated, albeit in his granddaughter, he realized he’d become some sort of supranormal deviant. (The mortal offspring of possessive devils were always called deviants on the Inner Earth.)
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
The Tethys Triplets (Temporis-born samurai version), one of whom became a Quill Tethys in the 5950s, were down to two by the time of "Goddess Gambit" but there were still three in 5960 when their daughters were about to be Trigregos-tested by Hush Mannering:
Hush knew it was Yomikuni under the helmet and all that bamboo plating because she was the biggest of the Tethys triplets. Also knew it was her because Yomi favoured an armour-piercing spear while Katatribe preferred a pair of daggers with shorter side-stilettos sticking upwards out of their hilts. Before she traded it in for a feathered quill, Ukemoshi used a curved blade that was as dainty as it was deadly.
... from "Harry on the Head", the unpublished sequel to the 'Aspects of an Amoebaman' web-serial
========
The notion that Tethys's animus is a Fatazur is dismissed in "Wilderwitch's Babies" , the 2016 continuation of the Damnation Brigade saga:
Some believed his animus – what had kept him going, usurped lifetime after usurped lifetime, for going on two thousand years – was a Fatazur named Guardian Angel Jordan. In this scenario he wasn’t a deviant as he claimed. (Fatazurs had the same father he said he did, Rumour of Lazareme, but their devic mother was Lady Luck, aka Wintry Moira, rather than Metisophia, Wisdom of Lazareme, who was the high born who first told him she was his mother.)
It wasn’t too likely; was in fact most likely impossible, since he was welcome in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon and azuras were even easier to suck into a Utopian prison pod than their Master Deva progenitors. Besides, there was something not quite right about an avowed sybarite like Tethys having any sort of guardian angel in the Christian sense.
========
In the same multi-part novel, Tethys resists pressure to use his Brainrock quill to assist the machinations of Alpha Centauri and Demios Sarpedon calculated to replace Saladin Devason as Master of Weir:
“None of it’s funny. You know my limits. I can’t draw Sal out of the Weirdom without his permission and I won’t, for reasons non-violent, draw you nor your wife’s statue into it. As I’ve repeated so many times it might as well be my mantra, I may draw the occasional conclusion but I shy away from drawing contusions.
========
There are plenty more quotes re the Legendarian, particularly as he appears in 'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' epic trilogy, here;
|
In Hadd | Garcia Dis L'Orca | Thartarre Holgatson | Auguste
Moirnoir | Golgotha Nauroz | Xibalba | |
DIS L'ORCA, Garcia
- daughter of Hadrian, sister of Salvatore;
- Morgianna Sarpedon's underling in Hadd during 5980; as such, until something happened to her in "Goddess Gambit" , fieldleader of the Athenan War Witches;
========
Spoiler Alert
She was on her feet, both of which worked just fine. In fact, despite having her heart ripped out of her chest the night before by a Berserker Bat, all of her worked just fine. He knew that because he’d been animating her until a few minutes ago. Death, as he’d had many an occasion to say, becomes her.
... Young Death had always said Garcia was a capable girl.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
|
HOLGATSON, Thartarre Sraddha
- High Priest of the brown-robed priests and priestesses of Sraddha
during the 1980 novels
and story sequences, in particular 'The Trigregos
Gambit'; also appeared during the PHANTACEA comic book series, where he showed up on the back cover of pH-6;
- likely mother: Barsine Mandam; father: Holgat, a High Priest of the Sraddhite Warrior Monks in the early 5940s;
- all male priests take Sraddha as their middle name; all female priestesses take Janna as their middle name; priests and priestesses alike shave their heads;
- the Smiling Fiend speaks
through Thartarre in 'Sedon's
Stooge', which is preserved online;
Spoiler Alert
Thirty-five years earlier, when Thartarre was still a child, Nergal Vetala cost him his right arm below the elbow. The Brown Robes’ Curia-appointed High Priest, whose dark skin betrayed some of the same Utopian blood his heroic father had, now wore a sword-like prosthesis in its place. For him it was as much a weapon as a reminder of what she did not just to him but to his dear mother, yet another one once well-known to the fledgling Society of Saints of the late Thirties and subsequent war years.
Even though he, wielding the Amateramirror, had actually done the dread deed, the monk had always figured the former Irache-Nergalid Fertility Goddess bore ultimate responsibility for killing their beloved Bat-Bait, as Fish still sometimes referred to her Outer-Earth-born friend. (His father, her husband, died taking her out later on that same horrible day. Unlike Nergal Vetala, though, he never came back.)
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
|
MOIRNOIR, Auguste
- also known as the Voodoo Child, Young Death, the Black Death and Hush's Gush;
- Kyprian Somata, the Master of Weir in 5938, refers to him as an Abomination; clearlly shares the belief he's not a Tralalorn-devolved Utopian at all; that he's little more than a Mariamnic Trickster
- as a trickster, be he a faerie or a devolved Utopian, his most borderline
useful trick seems to be a knack for possessing and thereby animating
the dearly and not-so-dearly departed;
- he doesn't call it 'raising the dead' because,
unless they're already occupied by Sangazurs or Vetalazurs, they
don't stay raised once he abandons them;
- there have been at least a couple of exceptions to that, however;
the most widely chronicled in the web-serials
thus far is Berchta von Alptraum's Sigurd Lancz (who's more likely a son of Etzel Sangati than Donar Lancz);
- in those cases he's apparently managed to provide them with an enduring
life force; that is to say, without him having to stay inside them,
somehow providing them with an animus of their own;
- the secret of how he does that was revealed in 'Sister
Grandmother', the short story contained in
"Forever
& 40 Days - The Genesis of PHANTACEA" ,
which can still be ordered;
- as for why he's often referred to as Hush's Gush, the answer is there's
a reason for the oft-repeated line first heard in 'The Moloch Manoeuvres':
"Killing the disgusting little peckerhead is like giving him a free
airline ticket!"; as per here,
it isn't just freshly killed dead things he can thereby get to via between-space
either;
- the Male Trickster appeared in most of the 1938 novels and story sequences
(notably 'Coueranna's Curse',
wherein he briefly became a vampire, and 'The Vampire Variations',
wherein, as per below, he woke up inside of
Abe Chaos, a devic suicide);
- over twenty years later, as per here and here, he contributed
some of his usual, howsoever unwholesome, yet both useful and highly
significant, tricks to the overall murderous mayhem coursing through 'Ringleader's Revenge';
- in 'The Trigregos Gambit', unaged as
ever, he served under Thartarre Holgatson as
the Brown Robes' Chief Revenant;
- like his female counterpart, Young Life (Hush Mannering), he claims
to be a devil-cursed, perpetual 7-year old who has been 7 since he turned
17 and fathered his second child, a daughter this time, who was born
on Mithramas Day 5920 Year of the Dome (YD);
- in that version of his-story
he was born Augustus Nauroz, the only son of Ubris Nauroz and Chryseis
nee Somata, the daughter of the then Master of Weir, Kyprian ("Copperhead")
Somata;
- by Pandora Mannering, Augustus was the father of Saladin Devason and Morgianna become Sarpedon;
- as per immediately below,
the Demon Child (Tralalorn, a fairly major character in
"Feeling
Theocidal" )
either killed or devolved (as in faerie-dusted) Augustus and wife
Pandora in Morg's birth room on Tantalar 25, 5920;
========
The following BLOCKQUOTE comes from the first chapter
of the 2002 Revision of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'
Elsewhere,
in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon, as Augustus Nauroz Somata, heir-apparent
to the Mastery of Weir, looked on proudly, his young, ever-whimsical,
but nevertheless strong-willed wife was giving birth her second child
in a year. It was a girl this time but it was only one.
One too many, said the Scythian entering
the birth room completely unannounced. With her was her apparently seven
year old sister-daughter, a child with two different coloured eyes and
otherwise jet black, silver-streaked hair.
"Devolve her! Devolve them both, Tralalorn!"
The apparent child, this Tralalorn,
suddenly had a third eye. She obliged this apparent mother of hers,
this seemingly Rhea of the Ararats, who had also developed an extra
eye just as suddenly.
An instant six or seven year old himself,
Augustus charged the two devils. The Scythian materialized a moon-sickle
in her left hand. Sliced it through the neck, shoulder and chest of
the on-rushing Master-In-Waiting.
'Thus die all who defy me!' whatever-she-was
shrieked archly.
Whether he died or not, Augustus was
no longer there. And neither was his corpse!
========
Much the same version is recounted in 'Pyrame's Progress', a thus far unpublished aspect of the open-ended saga entitled "Wilderwitch's Babies" . In this version the true identity of the Scythian (Rhea Sangati) is revealed.
In 5919, she again left the Mnemosyne 3-Thing a one-thing, the Mnemosyne Machine, and took herself and her demon into the witches’ centuries-bred, intended mom Pandora Mannering. At the same time Granddaddy Sedon went into their intended dad, Augustus Nauroz, Kyprian’s grandson. Instead of Triplet Goddesses, the result was a new Sed-son, Saladin Devason, the current Master of Weir and just possibly the last sedon, small case, residing on the Inner Earth.
Undaunted, early the very next year – though still late 5919 in most of the Hidden Headworld – Master Kyprian, the Celestial Superior and her ‘Nubian’, Kyprian’s son-in-law, Ubris Nauroz, issued the Summoning of 19/5920. Pandora and Ubris’s son Augustus had a girl this time. But only one – Morgianna nowadays Sarpedon.
Counting their lucky stars – so to speak – that it was only the one, Pyrame and Trala made certain neither of them would ever have another child. By sprinkling transmogrifying faeriedust sprayed out of Trala’s power focus, the White Dwarf, over them both, they render the pair of them thus far perpetual seven year olds.
========
As Thartarre Sraddha Holgatson's
Chief Revenant in 5980 Year of the Dome, he's primarily responsible for
occupying and, indeed, overwhelming the Ambulatory Dead, whom the Brown
Robes enslave when they don't use them to heat their monastery. It isn't
just Hadd's Dead Things he can occupy, however:
"Oh, it's just you," recognized
the Devalord of Temporis [Dand Tariqartha, in 5938 YD]. "What're
you doing in there, you little fay fuck? He isn't dead."
Augustus maybe Nauroz, the black-as-midnight,
apparent seven year old trickster, complete with tattered opera outfit,
short shorts, and half-crushed top hat, wafted out of the near-giant's
body [that is, Unholy Abaddon's body] and came solid. He lit his ever-present
cigar in the tent-flames and exhaled into the old, as in old-looking,
devil's face.
"Trying to get a decent night's
sleep, grampus. Not much in the way of safer places for that than inside
Uncle Abe, wouldn't you say? And, as for being dead, he's close enough
for my purposes."
While thusly employed as the Sraddhites' Chief Revenant in 5980, Young Death greets Harry Zeross (Ringleader) as per here
========
On the Outer Earth during the Secret War(s) of Supranormals, the bizarre wight now occupying him, body, soul and mind, was known as Auguste Moirnoir, the Black Death. He was a trickster, like his fellow forever seven year old ex. The cigar-puffing, so-called Voodoo Child actually had powers, for want of a better word.
And a job — as the Chief Revenant on Sraddha Isle. His duties weren’t so much to raise the Dead since, in Hadd, many were already risen, as command them. Which he was good at (especially internally), albeit only two or three at a time, enough for a work crew.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
“So there is,” agreed a samurai Dead Thing, recognizable as one of Mikoto’s two thousand. He walked into the tent flanked by a half-dozen male and female Brown Robes. “Perhaps I can be of help.” The zombie collapsed. Out of it stepped a superficially seven year old, black-skinned Voodoo Child.
It was Young Death (born Augustus Nauroz, son of Golgotha’s template Ubris, father of Saladin Devason and the reckoned late Morgianna long Sarpedon). Well over thirty years ago – for two, more than forty years ago – on the Outer Earth, the Brigade members knew Thartarre’s chief revenant as Auguste Moirnoir, the Black Death.
He was wearing black, shin-high pants, hot-weather, open-toed sandals, a glossy golden smoking vest but no shirt, a black waist coat and a top hat. All his clothes looked new, Godbadian-made, mostly because they were — he had a fat closet.
... The Voodoo Child gave the Brown Robes the go-ahead to cart the dead samurai downstairs for disposal. As they bent to their task, he lit a cigar. No one bothered to tell him smoking was bad for his health. Now one ever did. Why bother? Young Death killed himself – or had others do it for him – in order to get about through the Weird.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
NOTE: The mouse-over behind
the Male Trickster collage reads: "Collage
made up of various images suggestive of Young Death, the Male Trickster;
prepared by Jim McPherson, 2007, using his own photos as well as images
taken from Web"; I took the long-serving shot of
the adult skeleton in Playa
Del Carmen, Yucatan, Mexico; I took the shot, through glass, of the 3
similar-looking black characters wearing top hats and red/yellow loincloths
at the British Museum in London, England; the rest of the images are from
the Web, though I've a picture of the baby half-skeleton taken a the Museum
of Anthropology in Mexico City; the text along the side reads: "Auguste Moirnoir as Young Death"; the rest
of the text reads: "The Male Trickster"; return to collage
========
|
NAUROZ, Golgotha, Black Skull Face
- Utopian clone of Ubris Nauroz (Young Death's reputed father), who was supposely 'grown' at the turn of the 60th Century of the Dome;
- lost 5950's Challenge of Weir to Saladin Devason, his template's grandson;
- appeared in many of the web-serials as well and the epic 'Launch 1980' fantasy trilogy;
========
The wyvern developed Golgotha’s face. The 80-year-old clone (‘Black Skull Face’ due to the fact he was so thin his head did resemble a skull with a Utopian male’s skin covering) didn’t have to grin. He did, though, in satisfaction. The Wyvern of the Weird gave him a thumbs-up. Or what passed for one since, being a proper wyvern, it didn’t have arms or thumbs as such. It did have expressive talons on its paws, however.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Almost everyone liked Harmony. As a result of his experiences with her in the Faerie Garden, OMP-Akbar even liked Nowadays Nihila. Golgotha didn’t. For Utopians, all devils were their enemy. He did, in all likelihood, recall what she did to eyeorbs yesterday, however: Blew them apart with bolts of self-generated chain lightning replete with her integral superabundance of Gypsium Godstuff.
The ground began to rumble. Was that her way of saying ‘get lost, Trinondevs, or get dead’?
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
|
Xibalba
- Summoning Aged son of Lamechlan, who became a vampire during the Simultaneous Summonings of 19/5980 in Nikaya after siring him on an unidentified witch who died giving him birth;
Here's a snippet of a conversation between the Pauper Priestess (Pyrame Silverstar), who has only recently been decathonitized, and Yama Nergal (King Harvest), the Mithradites' Reaper. It takes place in the radioactively ruined former city of Grand Elysium, what's nowadays known a Pettivisaya, the City of Wailing Souls:
“Don’t tell me Xibalba has come back. Now that would be astonishing. He may be a Summoning Child but, to the best of my knowledge, Summoning Children are mortal.”
Xibalba was one of a set of twins born to Irache chief Lamechlan and his wife (who died having them and thereafter became a Lamia or Night Hag), nine months after the Simultaneous Summonings of 19/5920 ended. Lamechlan was one of number of presumably ordinary men and women who became vampires during the Summonings. When last Pyrame came across him he was calling himself Night Owl to his wife’s Night Hag.
“I wouldn’t know. But if Xibalba was a Cattail Irache – and his name sounds he might have been – then I can tell you that the Free Iraches and the Brown-Robes they consider invaders of their land have agreed to bury the hatchet. They’ve joined forces with the Godbadians to oust Janna Fangfingers and her cadre of vamps from their position atop Hadd’s food-chain.”
“That is a change. Usually Free Iraches and Sraddhite Warrior Monks only bury hatchets in each other’s heads.”
... from 'Pyrame's Progress', a possible entry in the open-ended saga of 'Wilderwitch's Babies'
- an Irache Blood Priest akin to those found amongst the Maya of classical times; as such conducted sacrifices that often resulted in fresh zombies for Haddazurs to occupy and cause to ambulate;
- seems to have travelled widely but by 5980 his bodiless, but still aware, spirit haunts Ire, the Free Iraches' settlement in Northwestern Cattail, south of the Gypsium Wall; there connected to two of Tsishah Twilight's offspring by Mani-Balam:
Neither his [Teoti's] presence in Ire (anger), how his father [Jester Jaguar] treated him, nor his [Tsishah Twilight] mother’s between-space presence there, let alone what she was about to release her [Shad] demon to do, went unnoticed. No matter what their names meant – Zama was Mayan for ‘dawn’ while Skaga was an Outer Earth, Northwest Native term for a shaman – they were Trouble Incipient.
As for their ghost, he was just waiting for the Samarandins to fashion him a new homo.
... from 'Pyrame's Progress', a possible entry in the open-ended saga of 'Wilderwitch's Babies'
========
|
Onboard the Cosmic Express
| Xerxes Alchaemid | Ahura Mazda | Viraf Mazda | Colonel Avatar Sol | Anon Sasarian | Inanna (Enan) Sasarian | Mikelangelo Starrus | Nidaba Starrus | |
SASARIAN, Anon
- aboard Mik Starrus's cosmicar (#2);
- husband of Enan;
|
SASARIAN, Enan
- aboard Mik Starrus's cosmicar (#2);
- sister of Nidaba Starrus; wife of Anon Sasarian;
========
"I’ll have some more of this excellent juice," requested Enan, Anon’s wife being Nidaba’s sister. She had no interest in being drawn into a religious discussions; not now, not when hypothetical gods of ancient mythologies had proven themselves definite devils of modern age reality here on the Moon.
(Enan was short for Inanna. Hubby Anon didn’t approve of it for a very simple, if superstitious, reason. Inanna was yet another Sumerian Goddess, that of sexual love, fertility and warfare. Mnemosyne instantly liked her, however; all the more so when she pointed out that Inanna’s nominal mother was Sin, a Moon Goddess the same as Titanic Mnemosyne, who was more famous as the mother of the Muses by Olympian Zeus.)
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
|
SOL, Avatar Colonel
- overall commander of the Cosmic Express;
- strong suspicion that he's really Lon 'Tiger' Tiecher, one of Kadmon Heliopolis's Trigon Spartae; if so, then his parents were Yehudi Cohen (the Untouchable Diver) and Scylla Nereid (Fisherwoman);
-
presumably became a System Seer and, thereafter, the Silver Signaller codenamed Solar;
========
"He’s the Silver Signaller Solar, the one who went by the name Avatar Sol on Centauri’s island. You know who that is.”
Helios nodded.
“You want me to rescue him?”
“Who’s possessing him?” Memory told him it was one of the Atomic Triplets: not Equinoctial Autumn nor Equinoctial Spring, Cautes or Cautopates. No, it was Solstitial Summer, Novadev, the one who didn’t make it to the time of the Death’s Head Hellion, circa 800 AD Outer Earth Time. (Not that Master Morgan Abyss lived let alone, probably, ever visited out there.)
He shook his head sadly.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
|
STARRUS, Mikelangelo (Mik)
- born in 1943, a member of AMERICA in the late 1960s; designated Cosmicaptain of Cosmicar Two;
- the Dual Entities refer to him as the Trigon Terminator after the events on Aegean Trigon in October 1968;
========
Thirty-seven year old Mikelangelo Starrus, captain of Cosmicar Two, could hear his wife yelling at him through the circuitry of his space helmet. He tried to respond but the pain was too great. The worst migraine he’d ever experienced hadn’t been this bad. And he’d had some royal doozies, especially after he dropped that bomb on Aegean Trigon and, moments later, it wasn’t there anymore.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
“The Trigon Terminator is going for the Tooth, Kadmon. It’s too late to prevent Tiecher from going critical but I might be able to hold it off long enough for him to take them both out at the same time.”
“Vengeance is beneath us, Mnemosyne. You know my precepts.”
“I have just determined that Mikelangelo Starrus is possessed by Lord Order.”
“Do it then. And hurry!”
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
For the first time since Sunday Mikelangelo Starrus opened all three of his eyes. Nidaba reacted in fright.
Dominated by voices within his head – his own, Lord Yajur’s, and one other’s – he suddenly realized what he could do. He became akin to a five-pointed star: head, one point; arms, one point each; legs, the other two points.
He apprehended the peril of the Godchild, cut himself through the cosmicar’s hull, fused it shut with his next, virtually simultaneous move, and blazed towards the hole.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Starrus was a test pilot, something in which his somewhat-similar looking ‘host’, James Aremar, had also dabbled. Also like Aremar, Starrus was thirty-seven. Unlike his host, though, he had seen more than his share of combat. Bracketed by his years in AMERICA were two stints in Vietnam, first as a non-national volunteer until ’65, then flying for Air America, a CIA-run operation in South-East Asia during the early Seventies.
Thereafter he’d gone on to Project Centauri, what New Century Enterprises (NCE) advertised as a privately-sponsored astronaut program. He would have been Cosmicommander had not Avatar Sol showed up and won over Alfredo Sentalli, the main money man behind the Express. (Abe Ryne, whose father Charan founded NCE at the turn of the century, retired in 1955.)
‘These things happen,’ his mentor, O.J. Maxwell, consoled him. ‘So does shit. But you don’t roll yourself in either feeling sorry for yourself.’
His mother had been a Swede who moved to Toronto Canada, where Starrus was brought up, after giving birth to him in Northern Italy.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Starrus ends up on New Weirworld, where he encounters, among others, Ubi the howsoever humourously (as in deprecatingly), self-proclaimed Ubiquitous Uncle Universe:
Ubi came through with a miniaturized version of the Virtual Reality device. Thus Starrus was able to walk around the Utopia apparently the same size as everyone else. His actual reality was completely different, though. A levitation gadget was supplied such that he could be part of his enlarged image.
Perhaps fittingly, he took up the area where a human’s heart would be. On Earth an avid reader with, some might say, esoteric interests, he began to think of himself as precisely how he was described in the Courtroom of the Visionary; as a homunculus, a comparatively minute man that folktales speculated was contained in the spermatozoon or ovum. He refrained from shortening that to homo, though.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
|
On the UNES Liberty
Construction on the Liberty began in mid-1978, some six months after satellites started to detect beams of some sort incoming from the Moon. It was built in total secret; much of it only pieced together in ‘Earth-Shadow’, the region of outer space occulted by the planet from the moon. Like Project Centauri, it was jointly funded by all the nations of the Earth.
Unlike the Cosmic Express though, its components were largely manufactured in the USSR. Also unlike the Express, it was a shared-technology venture. Gypsium, at least the technology developed by Professor Romaine Kinesis and his associates, belonged exclusively to New Century Enterprises and did not figure into its design. Neither did Solidium, in many respects its counteragent.
The Liberty was conventional in every way — except it had never been done before. Then again there had never been aliens on the Moon before.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
see also here, under Jesus Mandam
| James Aremar | Doubleman Sean Smythe | |
AREMAR, James Captain
- the no-nonsense captain of the UNES Liberty, chosen by Loxus Abraham Ryne, the 80-year old head of the United Nations Space Council (SPACE = The Society for the Prevention of Alien Control of Earth);
- born in 1943, the presumed son of Diomedes and Candace Aremar from the 1938 web-serials;
========
Despite the fact that he was barely thirty-seven, James Aremar was a steel grey, no-nonsense veteran of AMERICA.
Squad leader of the task force that was supposed to take out the leadership of the Black Rose in ‘68, the total disappearance of the tiny but nonetheless substantial Aegean Island of Trigon was the fright of his life – what caused him to go grey in the first place. Thereafter nothing fazed him, which was why he had been Alfredo Sentalli’s first choice to become Commander of the Cosmic Express.
For some reason, Loxus Ryne argued against it. Instead, he had spent most of the previous decade acting as the Great Man’s chief lieutenant, a position O.J. Maxwell had held from just after the Second World War until the late Sixties. Aremar’s reward had been the command of another ship, albeit no mere Vietnam-era torpedo boat this time: the United Nations of Earth Spacecraft Liberty.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Although barely thirty-five when Ryne approached him ten years later, Aremar had no qualms about taking on the Liberty. He was a child prodigy, with a knack for all things mechanical, who had come to the attention of Loxus Ryne and the Alliance of Man at an early age. A natural engineer, the Alliance insisted he take his baccalaureate at the University of Houston in General Humanities. While with AMERICA he completed, by correspondence, a masters degree in Strategic Affairs through the nearby Academy of Man.
As academically accomplished as he became, his gift wouldn’t be denied. He taught himself to fly, even designed the ultra-light in which he trained on the weekends. Once AMERICA was disbanded shortly after crushing WORLD in ’70, Ryne and his advisers, predominantly Immanuel Dark and Virginia Mannering, relented and allowed Aremar to join the aerospace division of New Century Enterprises.
Conditioned by his years in AMERICA, Aremar was an adrenaline-addicted action junkie. He insisted on test-piloting NCE’s most experimental planes, especially ones he’d helped design. On weekends, he graduated from target-shooting and hunting to thrill-seeking, survivalist-sponsored, wilderness jaunts. Once he was lowered naked by helicopter high up in Yellowstone National Park and reached a town, three days later, still naked but wearing the pelt of a cougar.
For a time he dated Jane Ryne but it didn’t work out. Eight years younger than he was, the patriarch’s daughter by Barbara Plantagenet wasn’t nicknamed Tempest for fun. He’d never forget the night she wanted him to share their bed with the other Jade Tempest, James, her twin brother.
‘You’re a regular rock,’ she backhand-complimented him: ‘Unfortunately I prefer my men vegetables. At least they breathe.’
In fact, his mind was almost as rigid as his body was supple. Deeply conservative, he believed strongly in the survival of the fittest. If he worked for the WORLD instead of the AMERICA, he’d have been just as fanatical. For him winning was everything. He didn’t mind stepping on toes but preferred crunching heads.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
Probably only seven or eight people left alive – himself [Big Max Maxwell], his adoptive parents (Jock and Bunnie), Abe Ryne, Headmistress Virginia Mannering, the Antheans’ former Superior Dolores D’Angelo, the little trickster (Hush Mannering), and, possibly, though unlikely, Hiliarti Schroff-Zeross, the Ants’ latest Superior – knew Aremar and Starrus were twin brothers, the sons of two of the most powerful supras ever known.
They’d been kept apart as much they could, given they both worked for AMERICA in the late Sixties, mostly because Superior Sorrow feared proximity to each other would trigger latent supranormal abilities inherited from their never-identified, by other than codenames, parents. That was clearly Mik’s case. Had the same thing happened to Aremar? There was no evidence of it so far, but how could he be sure?
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
|
SMYTHE, Sean (Doubleman)
- one of the seven Psychic Siblings;
========
“If it comes right down to it,” said Smythe, “I know Italian better than both of you.” He didn’t add why that was the case. (Only Abe Ryne and a very few of his closest advisers knew the true origin of the psychic siblings.)
[Whereupon, somewhat later on ...]
... “You might as well know the truth as well. Forty years ago there was no Sean Smythe, no Johann Schmidt, no Joan Smith, no Barb Black. No Double, Treble, Quadruple, Quintupleman. We weren’t septuplets, weren’t psychic siblings. We were a regular teenager by the name of Leandro D’Angelo."
... Sean Smythe explained that, in 1943, he [Leandro], Anita (Nita), Pietro (Peter), Claudia (Cloud) and Gabriel (Gabe) had been exposed to the devil-ray, a device made by their maternal grandfather, Sedon-then-Satan St Synne. He skipped his adventures during the war entirely, noting only that whatever he’d been able to do, he could do no longer. His powers, if that was the word to use, had atrophied.
He was a Norman Normalman again. Only there were seven of him instead of one. He claimed Loxus Ryne and a few others, notably his long-time confederates, the Maxwells and Headmistress Virginia Mannering, knew that Doubleman – back then, a year after the end of the war, Septupleman – was all that was left of the once feared supra ‘Syndicaliste’ (a French word, with an ‘e’) called Amoebaman.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
========
|
Living in New Weirworld
Some one hundred and seventy thousand light years earlier, Weirstar exploded. It wiped out the entire planetary system of Weir, possibly the first and, according to descendents of its survivors, greatest civilization in cosmic history. Its cause was artificial but the nearly insane Entity who instigated the star’s destruction had taken care to move the most progressive society in all of Weir’s worlds to a planet in a relatively nearby star system.
That planet became what to this day its inhabitants still occasionally call New Weir.
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
| Atomaunt | Son-Shine | Star-Baby | The Ubiquitous Uncle Universe | The Visionary of Weir | |
Atomaunt
The Ubiquitous Uncle Universe, his own name for himself, returned home. Atomaunt, his private wife, a physicist and an hereditary Illuminary, was waiting for him.
Like all females in the Utopia, she was white-skinned. Her black or greyish tattoos were trigonometric functions, sine curves and such like. Like him, she was still in work mode: clothes-free and apparently sexless. Not that it mattered one way or the other.
They were mates and, rebels that they secretly were, only they knew she was pregnant. At least so they believed.
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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Son-Shine
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Suddenly alarms blared throughout the Liberty. Red lights flashed. ‘Battle Stations! Battle Stations!’ came the automatically-triggered computer voice in a dozen languages. Aremar stood stark still; glared at Smythe silently: more dumbfounded than, for once, accusingly. Projected on the big screen was an amazing sight.
There appeared to be a grey hole in the blackness of space. A huge shape was straining against what might have passed for a membranous seal from the other side of it. Were it not for its proportionate immensity, it looked like a young, humanoid boy. Two pudgy hands seemed to be strugging to break through the membrane that was holding it back. The cosmicar was comparatively a child’s toy between the enormous hands.
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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There was no first planet per se, there was only Galactic Weir. One could go from one planet to another, one star system to another, and feel completely at home. There were even, his developmental parents further claimed, with no hint of teasing, those among the Ancient Alive who had actually been to all ten thousand worlds.
Come the tenth anniversary of his release from his birth tank, only a year from now, Son-shine would embark upon the traditional Journey of Weir. It would take perhaps a dozen years, touch upon forty to fifty planets, but, by the time he reached manhood and was allowed to begin contributing his genes to the universal pool, he would learn the veracity of their teachings.
So they promised; so was promised every Utopian. And so it would be.
Right now, given the curiosity of children everywhere, he was bound and determined to learn what his uncle was doing in their basement.
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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Star-Baby
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“Where are the children?” [said Uncle Universe.] Utopians didn’t have children per se. They had assignments, ones that were born in Development Tanks and raised by usually 2-person Development Teams
[Atomaunt answered:] “Son-shine’s playing soccer and Star-baby’s on the debating team at programming school. She’s a natural Illuminary. I hate to see her fake her heritage. Hope the Sisters’ will protect her as well as they protected us when we were growing up.”
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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The Visionary of Weir
- see images taken from the Phantacea comic books here
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The judge was the nominal Visionary. Black-skinned and tattooed with the symbols of his office – in his case the letter, or chromosome, ‘Y’ – he would sit blindfolded as he listened to the person or persons making their case or cases. He would take in their arguments with both ears, whereupon he would open both eyes, the horns of the Y, and peer into the future, the shaft of the Y.
As with any prognosticator he would see any number of potential futures. His task wasn’t to see ‘the future’ as such; that even Utopians acknowledged wasn’t possible. Rather, he was expected to ‘judge’ the best possible future and thereafter pass sentence on ways appropriate to attain it. His ruling was made public and almost invariably heeded. At least it was until unforeseen circumstances changed such that it must ‘needs be’ changed as well, sometimes by the same visionary, sometimes by other ones.
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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On the equivalent of Monday the 8th of December 1980, the very day the former Beatle John Lennon was shot down in cold blood, Ubi takes Mik Starrus on a tour of New Weirworld. Ubi's providing the commentary:
"As for Visionaries, they are a highly specialized breed. They have to sleep, that is keep their eyes shut or blindfolded. They don’t even dream, I’m told. Understandably, I suppose. For the sake of their sanity, such as it is. When they open their eyes, they see not just what is in front of them, but billions of things that are possibly in front of them; both immediately and into the far flung future."
"So you don’t sleep so much as benefit from a little shuteye, a bit of a catnap, now and then?"
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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The Ubiquitous Uncle Universe
- Utopians on New Weirworld aren't given names as such so Ubi gave monicker to himself;
- he might have meant it humourously, self-deprecatingly so, as he was anything but ubiquitous; he was an astronomer, however;
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That planet became what to this day its inhabitants still occasionally call New Weir.
There, synchronous with the scheduled launching the Cosmic Express from Centauri Island, another astronomer – this one black-skinned, as were all male, self-proclaimed ‘Utopians’ of Weir – was being called to task in the Courtroom of the Visionary. Also like every other Utopian, regardless of whether they were black-as-night males or white-as-light females, he didn’t have a given name, just a designation.
Completely unimaginatively, his was Mr Astronomer.
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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- he may or may not have been an actual uncle either, but, along with Atomaunt, he was assigned to raise Son-Shine and Star Baby:
Although at home and sound asleep, Universe – or Ubi as his wife, Atomaunt, referred to him in their private moments – was still in his astronomer persona: tall, puffed up and overbearing, with the white tattoos of his profession glinting out of his otherwise night-black skin.
His halo, what looked like the rings of a Saturn-like planet, had slipped over his face and was bobbing weirdly as he snored.
Ordinarily, Son-shine knew him in his at-home persona: still a bit bulbous, due to a non-Utopian predilection for overeating, but with an unexaggerated physiognomy, stubble beard, crew-cut, and wearing clothes (commonly draw-string pants, slippers or sandals, and a loose sweatshirt).
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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- on the equivalent of Monday the 8th of December 1980, the very day the former Beatle John Lennon was shot down in cold blood, Ubi voices (to Mik Starrus) portents of phantacea yet to be:
"Visionaries rarely have second thoughts to go with their second sight but it now seems that ours is seriously considering doing what I suggested in the first place. Which was, and again is, to use the wormhole, assuming we can locate it, as a springboard to your universe. The idea is to help your race wipe out devils. And for you to act as our go-between."
... from "Helios on the Moon", the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
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see images of Ubi and the Visionary of Weir, as taken from the Phantacea comic books, here
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Living in the Weirdom of Cabalarkon
Construction on the Liberty began in mid-1978, some six months after satellites started to detect beams of some sort incoming from the Moon. It was built in total secret; much of it only pieced together in ‘Earth-Shadow’, the region of outer space occulted by the planet from the moon. Like Project Centauri, it was jointly funded by all the nations of the Earth.
Unlike the Cosmic Express though, its components were largely manufactured in the USSR. Also unlike the Express, it was a shared-technology venture. Gypsium, at least the technology developed by Professor Romaine Kinesis and his associates, belonged exclusively to New Century Enterprises and did not figure into its design. Neither did Solidium, in many respects its counteragent.
The Liberty was conventional in every way — except it had never been done before. Then again there had never been aliens on the Moon before.
... from "Helios on the Moon" , the third entry in the 'Launch 1980' story cycle
see also here, under Jesus Mandam
| Thobruck Grudal | Capputis Masterson | |
GRUDAL, Thobruk
- Utopian Summoning Child born in Tantalar or Yamana 5920;
- Melina born Sarpedon's shadow for much of her life;
- Loyal to Saladin Devason, the Master of Weir starting in 5980;
- pictured in Phantacea Five, 1980
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MASTERSON, Capputis
- in "Decimation Damnation" , revealed to be one of Fisherwoman's small fry (Salmon Sal-man), apparently by Saladin Devason, the Master of Weir on Earth in 5980;
- pictured in Phantacea Five, 1980;
- quoted here and here re interdimensional stone gnomes;
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He was, according to Melina [born Sarpedon become Zeross, the High Illuminary of Weir in 5980], a non-born clone named Capputis. She further gave them to understand that, even though he was still in his late teens and had only recently moved up from what passed for cadetship in the Weirdom, he was one of the Master's favourite. One thing he wasn't, this Capputis, was pretty. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
For a clone his skin wasn't even all that jet-black. Facially he was both pockmarked and pimply, simultaneously looking both oily and rough, almost scaly, to the touch. He had an overly large head– a sign of hydrocephalus, water on the brain, [Blind] Sundown recalled Melina telling them at the same time, and probably on the same day, that Ides just meant the middle of the month; that there was noting foreboding about it, this in reference to events out on the border that turned out to be the Master's Dream; his Phantast Folly, as some whispered.
That did not necessarily mean he was mentally deficient, she assured them. In fact, she insisted, he was quite intelligent. He was certainly smart enough to stay away from Utopian barbers. His hair was long, hastily tied back with a strip of leather, tangled and wet. He must have just come from a having a shower because today was the first time any of them had seen him without a loosely knit, toque-like
headpiece, with earflaps strapped underneath his chin, that resembled a Peruvian ‘chullo’ or French Canadian head muff, albeit without the facial covering.
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As befit the occasion Capputis was scrupulously dressed in a spick-and-span white under-gown or djellaba and an off-white, approaching beige, long-sleeved over-gown or djebba. Nice embroidery too, thought Sundown. Stone gnome seamstresses (presumably) could turn out some decent work when someone programmed them properly.
There wasn’t much you could do about his scurfy, even scabrous skin except give it a good scrubbing – preferably with sandpaper and caustic soda – then peel off what came loose. There was absolutely nothing you could do about the hydrocephalic head. Which, its size, Golgotha having delineated the teenager’s newly revealed parentage on the walk over here, occurred to Sundown had more to do with containing his ego than it did water on the brain.
Mel-Illuminatus had once told him how the Master’s offspring were so uppity and unruly most of them were sent to the countryside to be raised. Mind you, upon sober reflection, Capputis had more likely been sent to the ocean side to be raised. Even though he’d been warming to him lately, it was no wonder he’d had such an instinctive dislike for the boy. Even if they'd been allies in Hadd – aside from the aberration she’d become at the end – and many, many times long before that, pre-Limbo, he never much liked his mother either. For a couple of years in the late Thirties, back when he still had eyes of his own, he tended to blame Fisherwoman, Scylla Nereid, for keeping him and Solace apart.
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