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pH-Webworld-- Story Synopses --Heliodyssey
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11. Helioddity: "Jesse Does a Jesus"
Eden's right. How do you keep a gaggle of mostly teenage supras alive on a luxury yacht full of armed men, and more than a few armed women, most of whom are Normie and Norma Normals and already terrified of what they see these primarily Summoning Children doing on a daily basis? And even if Diomedes Aremar's crewmen and Theodore Mayhew's mercenaries don't start picking them off, how are you going to keep them quiet once Charan's Ark reaches Cairo? Sounds like a job for an old-time witch, one skilled at redaction or mind-editing. Jesse can use Anthean Agates to get about between-space and access Witch Shelters. Ginny can use them for lots of different purposes, which is why the Great Man codenamed her Living Agate. Unfortunately, neither of them is any good at mind-work and, pretensions aside, none of the older women onboard, not Eden, Berchta, nor even Memory, can claim any old-time talents. (Jerry's step mom, Marea Murray, might but we'll have to wait for that same other book for confirmation.) Other thing is, -- how do you keep them from killing each other? Gentleman Jervis Murray slipped into Wildman Dervish Furie mode and almost whacked off Air's head. Would have if Aires hadn't gone all airy just in time. Neither Will Tombstone (Kid Cemetery) nor Murray-Furie (also the Werewolf in Shorts) have any love for Jess. Was, for example, Furie who crushed Jesse's casts, with his hands still in them, in Odd-10. If he hadn't Will might have shot him. Truth told no one seems to like Mandam. Not even Thalassa, who's already taken to sleeping on her own again. Which is part of the reason why he's switched his attentions to Tanith von Blut. 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. Brunhild's pissed off he didn't take up with her and by now she seems to have recollected she, Burning Hell, once had Torches for Arms. Hadrian apparently talked Tanith into stripping for him, which annoyed Magus Maxius, ex of Memory, all to hell. Oh, and Tombstone, the guy who's so good with bullets, did have that drunken fling with Burning Hell back in Rome, didn't he? Then there's the great killer himself, John Sundown, who hates Germans, even if they aren't card-carrying Nazis, and hasn't much use for their lackeys, the 3-Dees, either. He and Memory ("Codename Circean"), who hates killers, especially hates killers who kill rats she transferred into body and soul, have a verbal go at each other. The topic? More so than anything else, -- what to do about the eagle, unless it's a Griffin, that's still following the Ark. They aren't the only ones having that conversation. Ginny, reprising her role as General Gemstone even if she's been labelled Living Agate by now, is also trying to get a few of the supras into agreeing what to do about it. Although they're her old comrades from the Shootout in the OK Colosseum, Murray, Tombstone, Aires, Thalassa and Max, they aren't calling themselves the Sorority of Sausages anymore. For some reason they're now going by a different SOS, namely the Society of Saints. Thinking the griffin-eagle Granny Garuda, the solution they come up with involves the unerring Tombstone (aka, also, Kid Killjoy) sleep-darting Granny then having Airealist bring her in so Sundown can finish neutralizing her with his exclusion zone, just as he did Airhead in Odd-10. First, though, they have to recruit John Sundown, objectionable Codename Cheyenne. Which they might have done had not, as usual, Codename Bloody Nuisance got in the way. Seems Jess has convinced Tanith to go into his cabin. Whereupon, out of an agate, he produces the Treasury of Aesgard, one of the Twin Tantaluses he took off Fisherwoman back in Rome after he shot her and fin-winged Delphi. Not having Ringleader's signet rings, the keys to opening the Tantaluses (among other things), Jesse can't get into it. He hopes Tanith can. And maybe she could, except someone gets into it first. Through between-space.
And maybe he should have. Because, to quote Tanith, that's sure as excremental material what Argiope, the bright-faced Garuda, does to Jesse later on that night: Crucifies him in the Ark's rigging! Top of Page12. Helioddity: "The Wishing Hell"One could be forgiven if you looked at the opening few pages of Odd-12 and thought I'd put up part of the opening chapter of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' by mistake. Which I did, though not by mistake. What we have here, among the usual other things, is a much fuller version of the adventure some of those on the Ark and Aegean Trigon, among other places, had in the Northeastern Congo two years earlier, late in December 1935, early on in January 1936. There are a number of reasons why we're revisiting that episode in their lives. One is because it's never been told in this kind of detail. Another is because Barsine Mandam was there then and is now among those lost in the same vicinity. (The Ark is heading to Africa such that, after connecting with other modes of transport, those on it can join the search for Barsine and the ones lost with her.) A third reason, and there's more than just three, is because, well, we'll get to that momentarily. Barsine's twin, even though they look nothing alike, is Jesus Mandam. As recounted in Odd-11 he's dead. Rather, his corpse has been cut down from the Ark's rigging after he was crucified therein by Argiope "Bright Face" Zeross, who's wearing Granny Garuda's regalia and is presumably still following the Ark, albeit between-space. So how can he not be dead? Why are so many of those on the Ark, John Sundown and Mnemosyne D'Angelo to name just two of them, so adamant Jesse be given a chance to do another Jesus. Here's a snippet of the argument. Abe Ryne, Jesse's uncle, is challenging the others' insistence he doesn't let the ship's doctor do an autopsy on his nephew's body. The first speaker is Memory of the Angels.
Here's the start of that third reason:
Even though she was no more of an old-time witch than her, Eden chooses Memory. And, lo and behold, who do you think somehow gets the Anthean Agate embedded in Aran's bracelet to work such that she's far-speaking from the Ark to four-fingered Meg, who's on Aegean Trigon, shortly thereafter? Of course Memory's stroking that cat named Bast at the time. Is still stroking the cat, Eden being the only other one in the cabin with them, when Meg comes through the Weird into that selfsame cabin on the Ark. Whereupon we get the rest of the story of what went on in the Northeastern Congo back in January 1936.Which is also when we learn the fullest reason yet as to why no one should be doing anything to Jesse's body until a full three days pass. Also learn why Cleopatra's Bath, which they were looking for in late '35, very early '36, may not have been just the Lake of Life, the Fountain of Youth, if it was even that; why it may have been as aptly named the Totem Pool or the Wishing Hell. The initial speaker is Eden Nightingale. She's responding to something Megaera born Kinesis now Zeross has just said.
Look out Ark! Look out Argo! Top of Page13. Helioddity: "Re-Enter the Horny Ghost"That's how I ended my last synopsis. 'Ghost Ship Ahoy!', -- that's how I'll begin this one. Let me be perfectly clear from the outset: The Argo came out of the Olympian Tantalus. It's a ship, a trireme with the requisite skeleton crew row, row, rowing their infernal tub not so much out of Hades, though Hades is on it, as between-space from Aegean Trigon. It, repeat, it is not our titular horny ghost. Neither is Roxanne once Heliopolis now Kinesis ("Hot Rox"), though she has demonstrated her Afrite tendencies as recently as Odd-8 and does have those rather disturbing Living Ghost talents of hers. As for the 're-enter' bit in the title, that might be not quite right. She's been on the Ark for a while. After all Mnemosyne D'Angelo, Memory of the Angels, managed to activate the Anthean Agate she used to far-speak with Megaera born Kinesis become Zeross ("Four-Fingers") in Odd-12 and Memory's no old-time witch. Huh? Who? How? What, other than just about everything, is so special about her? And why is she called the Horny Ghost? Believe me it's not because she has horns; she doesn't. {Besides, that's been a running gag in 'The Damnation Brigade' story sequences for the longest time and no one likes a self-plagiarist.) It's because she still loves doing what fauns are best at doing! Which is only part of the reason she, I'll call her Cel-Spook, has been hanging out in Memory of the Angels, Lovely Lady Afrite that she is, off and on for the better part of 15 years. Been hanging out in a lot of other people as well. Last we saw of her, toward the end of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres', Cel-Spook was residing within Valfreja Volsung. (Whom we'll get back to in that other book I started referring to awhile ago.) Not satisfied with all the links I've provided? Want some more? Well, everything you need's in Odd-13; just a matter of reading it, isn't it? Still, say it isn't up anymore, you might find the following, heavily edited excerpt edifying, as in illuminating, in the celestial sense. The conversation is between the Great Man, Loxus Abraham Ryne, and Living Agate, whom he's already realized is somewhat more than just his potential niece, sister or even, heaven forbid, daughter. Who can say for sure, eh? Not her, and that is for sure. At least it is for sure if she was simply Virginia Mannering. Which she isn't!
Just by the by, unless it's bye the bye or buy the buy, the kiss is how she, Cel-Spook, redacts those on the Ark. (Did mention above how the Ark could do with an old-time witch, didn't I? Did indeed!) As should by now be obvious, she didn't just kiss the Great Man. Which, if Ginny is at all related to Ryne, is of course the ultimate 'oh-oh'. Which leads us to the ending of Odd-13.
So, now you know how Odd-13 both began and ended. What happened betwixt and between? Ah, as to that, well, there's all these Black Rose rogues using talismans from the Olympian Tantalus to upgrade themselves into approximations of gods (devils) or demigods (demons) on the Argo. A bunch of them have third eyes. Unless they don't of course. Most of these last would be the Trinondev Warriors of Weir, who came through the Kore Gap in Odd-9 with Morgianna Somata, the Sarpedon twins and their field leader, Golgotha Nauroz. (Recall, as established early on in Oddity, Utopians can't be possessed. Another thing about the Trinondevs in particular is their eyeorbs apparently don't trigger automatically out here. PHANTACEA fact of the matter is, so long as Pyrame Silverstar is around, which she is, humanizing the Female Entity, they don't work as devic prison pods unless she lets them; might not work at all, dot-ditto.) There's also all these guys with guns on Charan's Ark. Even those upgraded to near godhood aren't bullet-proof. Got lots of guns for these guys on the Ark, some of them are real big and most of them fire lots of bullets real fast. Then there's this figure on the prow of the Argo and this particular guy with a gun threatening to blow off Four-Fingers' head on the Ark. The latter'd be the guy with the Ring of the Nebuland on one of his fingers. The figure on the prow? That'd be Djinn-Ghoster. (Which, if you count the Argo Ghost Ship, makes him the 4th ghost in Odd-13. There's also, as already noted, plenty of ghost-makers. Curiously, one of them is not that great killer, John Sundown. Wonder where he went?) Ghoster's a devil, the Heliodromus of Lazareme in case you've forgotten. Which you probably haven't. Might have forgotten another devil there, though. Most folks do unless he decides to make an appearance. Which, other than as darkness-shrouded Hades, he doesn't. So forget about him! Oh, and did I mention Kid Killjoy and his mind-manoeuvred bullet-pellets, his off-shot witch-stones and who, as opposed to what, they contained? A werewolf in shorts, that sunbeam there, the moonbeam over there, pointy-hatted Magus Maxius beaming brain be-numbing ... Oh, do shut up! Can't. Not yet; not before mentioning what Hot Rox rammed into the Great Man's mouth (it wasn't hot rocks) and the Sorceror's Apprentice becoming a one-man, one ship, and one passenger quite severely, wrecking crew. Done yet? Megaera's name means grudge. So? I were on the Ark I'd beware of gypsies and Etocretan Extremists bearing grudges. They might come back! Top of Page14. Helioddity: "Culling the Killers"I were on Aegean Trigon I'd beware of the Argo bearing witch-stoned supras back with it. I wouldn't be quite so worried about what Fish's porpoise-pomp bears within her, though. Make that who, a certain Circean to be precise. Sooth said there could be many a gypsy and Etocretan Extremist in need of Human Memory's moderating influence before Odd-14's over. That's because it wasn't just Mr Brilliant, Clair du Lune and Pointy Hat whom Kid Cemetery shot from the Ark to the Argo just before Abe Ryne captured Ghoster in the Ring of the Nebuland and Living Agate, taking it from the Great Man, hid it between-space. (Might as well know the passenger wrecked as a result of actions taken by the Persian participating in the Mithrant Taurobolium ceremony back in Rome on the Twelfth-Thirteenth was Angus Dre'ath's youngest Summoning Child.) So, who were the witch-stoned supras that came to Aegean Trigon on the Argo? The following BLOCKQUOTE should help you figure that out as well as give you some sense as to how well they get along. Which isn't very well at all.
Stick all of Oddity's sub-plots into the future file for the nonce, its supra-plotline comes down to the here and now of Odd-14. First, just to review, we all know John Sundown's a great killer whereas Air (Aires D'Angelo) and Sea (Thalassa D'Angelo), well, they're one-third of the reason Kyprian Somata, the Master of Weir, was on her way out here, via Kore's Hell, when Cruel Plathon, the Bull of Mithras, um, detained her in Odd-8. A second-third was to track down Strife. (Kyprian doesn't realize the Horny Ghost is still around and has taken upon herself the same mission.) The third-third of the reason was she wanted to retrieve Granny Garuda's panoply. Fisherwoman (Scylla Nereid) and Sorciere (Solace Sunrise), Sundown's childhood bride, whom he's come hither to rescue, as nobly or ignobly as he need be, want the same thing, -- Granny has to have her feathers if she's to have any chance of making like a sunbird and pull a phoenix by rising from her own ashes. They stayed behind on Trigon mostly because they had to be good little witches if they were to have any hope of convincing Argiope Bright Face, should she ever fly by for, say, a change of underwear, assuming Garudas wore underwear, to hand them over voluntarily. They were bad little witches no one, not even Clymene Atreides ("Mystery Might"), who along with Hot Rox brought Granny's body to Master Kyprian in the Weirdom in Odd-3, would help them attain their goal. Of course at the time Fish had Djinn-Ghoster, the Heliodromus of Lazareme, and was willing to assign his services to the Etocretans in exchange for Granny's regalia and, just as importantly, secure Sorciere's free-from-retaliation release. Ghoster, ever accommodating devil that he is, was willing as well. Only, in order to be at all effective, he needed his protectorate, the Nebuland, what's contained within the Ring of said Nebuland. Which was once Megaera nee Kinesis's wedding ring, which Count Molech bit off her, ringfinger included (hence 4-Fingered Meg) in the same place (Aegean Trigon) the previous autumn, and which Sundown gave Abe Ryne on the Fourteenth. Gave the Great Man still attached to Count Molech's severed hand, you might recall. Recall as well Pyrame Silverstar, who's been calling herself Miracle Maenad for a good percentage of the century, who's possessing and who's therefore mostly in control of the Female Entity, the Mnemosyne Machine, Miracle Memory, Trans-Time Trigon's innards, once expressed an interest in hiding Heliosophos's presumed parents-to-be within Djinn's devic protectorate. That the Male Entity, Helios called Sophos the Wise, Taurus Ulysses Heliopolis, managed to get away from Bad Rhad long enough to get outside and, murder in mind, go straight for Agenor Heliopolis added a distinct urgency to acquiring it. Hence at least part of the motivation for the assault on the Ark. Even if the Judge did repossess the Taurus, and is still holding on to him, that doesn't mean Helios won't get away again. Also doesn't mean, should he successfully dispossess himself for a decent length of time, he won't eventually regain complete control of his 3-Thing, Pyrame-Lilith-Memory, she who physically resembles Rhea twice Sangati always Ararat; something, being constantly a devil's shell, he hasn't been able to do this lifetime. (When not humanized, which only happens when she's occupied by a devil, Machine Memory is entirely his to command. When humanized all she's functionally obligated to do, besides obey him in a devilish sort of way, is keep him from dying. He does that, he takes Trans-Time Trigon with him back into the time stream and, since she's its innards, she's just as gone. It's tough, I'm sure you'd agree with her, being an approaching omnipotent Artificial Intelligence absolutely dependent on an otherwise mostly ordinary, ergo mostly dim-witted, mortal prone to getting himself killed over and over again.) So, all things considered ... Except they lost Ghoster, and the Ring of the Nebuland, during their ill-considered go at those on the Ark. It really should have occurred to them the Great Man's hired guns wouldn't be spooked by a gaggle of Greek Gods popping by for a visit; that said guns had many a gun at hand and that especially Agenor-Zeus wouldn't be bullet-proof. They also had no way of knowing Ryne's witches had somehow managed to take, thanks to Count Molech, four-fingered (albeit only on one hand) Megaera born Kinesis hostage. That he'd shoot her, though, was never in doubt. Thus their retreat, though not before Ryne's supranormals captured, if they did, if they didn't go over to the Ark full of malice aforethought, Roxanne born Heliopolis and her husband, Alexandros Kinesis, Meg's brother, the Sorceror's Apprentice. Even without Fish, Sorciere or Granny; even without the participation of Sundown and the Elemental Twins; they're an impressive bunch, these supras, far more impressive than they had been in Colosseum. As for Agenor's fiance, well, Garuda Argiope never was spotted. Might she have been captured as well? Put mildly, Agenor Heliopolis is in a lousy mood. So are the Silver Arrow Assassins, Mystery Might, the Trinondev Warriors of Weir, and those devils not stuck in Angelo Zeross's rings. He's got them quelled again. Their talismans are in a Hellstone stuck in Agenor's pocket, though. Doesn't mean they have to stay there of course. Doesn't mean he, Angie, is going to be able to keep the devils quelled either. Fish and Sorciere are no more happy than anyone else. Only they're more unhappy with each other. Which is probably why Fish has Sorry as good as handcuffed, physically and psychically, with her Brainrock soul-net. If anyone is happy it's Miracle Maenad, Pyrame-Lilith-Memory, the thereby humanized Miracle Machine. Heliosophos hates it when his Female Entity counterpart, his oft-times unwelcome and very much underappreciated, trans-time companion, is happy. His Milady Memory gets so smug. If only he could find a way to have the Trinondevs suck out her devic possessor, thereby dehumanizing her, then have them suck out his own occupier, whomever that may be, thereby freeing him to kill his father-to-be. Funnily enough, Agenor Heliopolis has much the same thought when it comes to his son-to-be.
And so Helioddity ends. Rather, so Odd-14 ends, -- with everyone happy.
Top of Page15. Helioddity: "At Last, Magister Mandam"Then again Helioddity might well end here. For me it's been a regular coyote of a conundrum as to whether Odd-15 should finish Oddity or whether it should begin that other book I referred to a few times awhile ago. Guess I'm going to have let you, the reader, decide that! Here's a preview of the next installment of Heliodyssey. It's taken from the end of Odd-15 and serves as Oddity's epilogue.
Want to do some prep work? Here's a good place to start ==>. As for his significance with respect to the Heliodyssey story sequences, we had some indication of that in Odd-3. Top of Page |
Helioddity: Chapters 1-5 Helioddity: Chapters 6-10 Helioddity: Chapters 11-15 |
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