On the origin of the following: I have (of course) written an unsaleable fantasy novel of my own and in that world the elves are depicted somewhat like Melniboneans, proud, stylish and totally amoral. Their bitter resentment towards humanity is due to the fact that they know that they are only an early experimental product and that they have been superceded by a species that is stupider, shorter-lived and less magical than their own.
That and a certain legend from Plato's SYMPOSIUM led to the following. I hope that TALES will find it of interest and publish it.
Let me say finally that this wasn't the most powerful Gloranthan fiction I heard last weekend. I knew when I wrote it that this was good but I didn't know that there would be a poet there. I am coping well with my feelings of envy and awe towards the Seleric Verses. I want to read them properly....soon! (Tales people take note!)
The following is copyright Michael Cule 1996.
THE STORY OF AYE AND BEE This story I heard from the lips of one Grinty Foulfart, a Trickster in the protection of my then Lord, the King of the Quivini, Loricon. It was in the hall of my Lord at evening feast and I and my fellow Humakti, Ovar Forkbeard had been ordered to bring the Trickster before Loricon from where he had been confined in chains, in the dungpit beneath the stables.
He smelt even more fouly than usual that night and Ovar and I prodded him ahead of us with pitchforks to keep from having to touch him. He hobbled along, covered in dung with his ankles and wrists shackled, knowing that his overlord was about to punish him, but still he had a smile on his mad, Trickester's lips and he whistled a little tune.
We halted him before the High Table in the hall. The smell of him filled the air and many of the ladies and not a few of the men turned pale. Loricon turned to him and said: "Well, now have you any reason why I should not put you to death for what you have done?"
What the Trickster had done was this: he had, since coming into my Lord's service the previous year, seduced not my Lord's daughter, the fiery Kallyr, later called Starbrow, who was even then training in the ways of the Red Women of Vinga but my Lord's eldest son, Aoryth. He had persuaded the boy, then only fourteen summers, to lay with him as a woman and had even dressed him up in his sister's skirts (for which she had little use for she preferred even then the touch of armour to silk). It was thus we had found them in the hay loft the previous day. The boy had been sent hastily away to stay with relatives in Boldhome and the Trickster had been cast bound into the dung pit to await the King's justice.
Foulfart stood silent for a while and then the King asked again: "Come, can you give me any excuse for what you have done?"
"No excuse, my Lord," replied the prisoner, "but only a story."
"Let me hear your story," said the King and sat back to listen.
THE TRICKSTER'S TALE You ask why I have done as I have, using your son in ways you call unnatural. My reason is a sacred and a spiritual one, hard though you may find it to believe. We Tricksters seek the sacred in what the world rejects and calls folly. And we find it because we know the secrets that lie behind the surface Illusions.
This is the secret behind what I have done: You have heard how in the beginning of things, the Gods made the first man and the first woman, Grandfather and Grandmother Mortal, and made them so that they had something of all the gods in them that they and their descendants might choose which gods to serve and honour.
This is true but it is not the whole truth. You see, when they, the most mighty gods decided to make such a creature they rapidly gained the approval of all the Powers, of Truth and Illusion, of War and of Harmony, of Storm, Sun, Darkness, Earth and Water. Grower too gave approval, seeking a gardner that might trim the plants and trees.
But when they went to Maker, to mighty, cunning Mostal, the other Gods were
rebuffed. Mostal had seen the plants and the animals that had been made first
and found that they were constantly getting into delicate machine parts and
damaging them, shitting in alchemical retorts and causing much confusion to
Mostal's Schedule. "I'm not having anything to do with it," said Mostal,
"It's all nasty living, messy stuff and there is far to much of it around
at the moment. We don't want any more."
The Gods pleaded with Mostal to join in the project, pointing out that the new creatures would be far brighter than the animals and could help build and make things if Mostal would only add some of the Making Essence to the project.
Eventually Mostal consented, but with one condition: "I don't like the way you've made the animals reproduce. It's far too messy and glandular. I have in mind a complete redesign of that part of the creatures. Let me take charge of that and I'll give my consent."
Well, the other gods didn't see what was wrong with glands but, anxious to make the new creatures Makers as well as Growers and Truth-seekers and Warriors and all the other things they had already put in they gave in to Mostal.
Mostal got to work and in a while the creatures were completed. "I've called them Aye and Bee," declared Mostal. "Good sensible names. Aren't they lovely pieces of work?"
The other gods had to agree. They were tall and beautiful and absolutely identical, one to the other save that Aye had white hair and Bee had black.
And when they examined the reproductive parts, it was clear that Mostal had done a major redesign for they were both male and female, capable of both siring and bearing children.
"I've fixed it so that their souls will bring them together when it is time
for them to reproduce," said Mostal. "They are perfect mates, one for the
other."
The other gods congratulated Mostal on this idea and gave their blessing to the new creatures and sent them off to explore the world.
After a while, Truth, Law and Fertility were sitting around watching Trickster juggle. Trickster wasn't very good at it so Truth said: "Why don't we go and see what is happening to Aye and Bee?" The others thought this a good idea and set off to the woods where Aye and Bee had built a home. Trickster tagged along behind trying (and failing) to juggle.
They came to the house and called out for Aye and Bee to come out. But all they heard was a moaning sound from within and the sound of an axe from the woods behind. So, being gods they went in.
Inside all was confusion. Bee lay around the house in many different bits. Arms here, legs there and guts all over the place. Bee wasn't dead (this was *before* death remember) but all Bee could do was moan and keen.
Then Aye came in, carrying firewood and an axe. They could see (being gods) the blood on the axe-blade, so Law said to Aye sternly: "Why have you done this?"
Aye flinched slightly at the god's gaze but spoke up boldly saying: "I had no choice. Bee was always doing what I wanted to do and doing it when I wanted to do it. We both liked to cook at the same time, both liked to sleep in the same place, both wanted to chop wood at the same time. When Bee tried to take the axe from me I used it so as to get some peace."
"You get some peace, Bee gets some pieces!" said Trickster and they all agreed
that was in Very Bad Taste. Trickster started to gather up the scattered
pieces of Bee and to make something out of it while the other gods discussed
what to do.
They all realised that Aye and Bee hadn't been the great success they had hoped. "It seems, " said Acos, "that people must be different one from the other if they are to work at all." And because he had said so that was the Law.
"Look what I've got here," said Trickster. And they saw that he had taken the
body of Bee and made two new creatures out of it. Fertility used her Essence
to heal the still gaping wounds and the two stood up. This was Grandfather
and Grandmother Mortal.
"They will always know that they were once part of the same thing and yearn
to find their lost other half in the other," said Orenoar. And because she
had said so that was the Truth.
"And as it is for them, so shall it be for their children, who will always
have something of male in the most female and female in the most male," said
Uleria. And so it has been ever since.
And Trickster said nothing, but smiled for he had seen that at that moment, the Gods, the Great Powers of the Universe had themselves become male and female and different one from the other.
And so all this time later, Tricksters know that we look for our other halves, scattered through the many bodies in the world by the Wheel of Birth and Rebirth no matter where they may be. We are faithless and fickle, not to hurt but to find, going wherever our hearts move us.
Then the King said: "And what happened to Aye?"
"Oh, Aye went off and wandered the world and had many, many adventures. But
although Aye sought in all the creatures he met the Essence of Bee, which was
made to be her perfect match, he never found it. And everywhere she went all
he could see was the peoples made from the corpse of her mate. Aye wandered
the world and everywhere Aye went it was among aminated corpses."
And the Trickster fell silent again and the hall fell silent.
"I have heard nothing," said the king, "to tell me why I should not end your
miserable life. Is there no one in this hall who will speak against this
man's death?"
"I will." The voice was soft and yet carried all the way up the hall. From the
shadows at the far end, where strangers and travellers were seated, a figure
rose. White haired and regal, it was as beautiful as daybreak after night,
as deadly as my Lord Death riding on the edge of a blade. It stalked up the
hall and every eye there was fixed with longing on its terrible loveliness.
I think not one person there looked on it without desire stirring in their
loins.
"Death is too good for him. I claim this Trickster as my rightful prey. He has
spoken things that should not be spoken and it is my right to deal with it.
Will you argue with me, my Lord King?"
The king shook his head, his face pale as he recognised the stranger. "He is yours, Androgeus. Do with him as you will."
The stranger grabbed hold of the Trickster by the scruff of the neck and snarled in his face, so low that only I could hear: "Damn you to all the hells of all the Gods for telling that tale. I HAD NEARLY FORGOTTEN!"
Then the figure picked up the terrified Trickster and tucked him like a mangy dog under one arm and left the hall for the darkness outside. And I have never seen either of them again.
Michael Cule
Actor and Genius
AKA Theophilus Prince Archbishop of the Far Isles Motto Nulla Spes Sit in Resistando (Resistance is Uslesss) Ask me about the Far Isles Medieval Society: Better Living through Pan-Medieval Anachronisms.
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #63
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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