Afternoon, First of One, Harvest, 236 CR

I sat with my friend-and-assistant at the center of a triple circle, inside the ring of orbs we’d been gifted, and we spoke as one to our audience of fourteen Gods—thirteen, really, since one of them already knew we weren’t talking to him. We’d just given them everything I’d offered, but everyone involved knew that it wasn’t everything they’d wanted.

A perfect place to start negotiations.

I felt the breath that the two of us had taken in, two diaphragms contracting as one to power two voices. “It doesn’t need to be just this,” Kelly and I said in unison. “Grant us that this would suffice, and we will offer more. Not because it is owed, but because we would offer it as a grace, for the sake of the graces we have been offered in our own turn.”

There was a heartbeat of silence, of the weight of consideration. It tasted of a quiet fury, of the anger of being thwarted and denied; it tasted of recognition and amusement and a surprising amount of respect.

And then it shattered in riotous, howling laughter as one Trickster God in particular rejoiced at the joke.

And the tribulations stopped not his laughter, I thought to myself in wry joy. What was a bargain struck more cleverly than you’d anticipated, to such a God, if not a tribulation worth taking as a joke in good spirit?

I didn’t have time to really think about it further. The liminal space exploded in a wash of—and then everything was in order, and it had been between one breath and another. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I knew it nonetheless; that it had been a span of time in which generations could live and die and turn to dust, and it had been a span of time that ran by so fast it couldn’t be measured, and all in all it had taken about one and a half seconds.

The mood in the air had shifted. It still wasn’t quite the presence of all those Gods, but it wasn’t just their attention. We had their interest now, some degree of their focus, and they were waiting—impatiently, in some cases; with a suppressed fury, in others; with resignation or glee or anticipation or curiosity in others.

“We are not unaware of your intent in our bargain, Gods of Earth, Gods who smiled upon us from across the curtain between worlds. With something small, you sought to gain something vast—named and welcome, you would have been given a true foothold in Yelem itself. The door would be open for you to travel freely, without constraint; a cycle of pranks in name and intent. We will not permit it.” Kelly’s voice was commendably level as she threw down the gauntlet. “Depart with what you have bargained for, if what we offer now sparks no joy within you, or stay and make fresh bargain, and be contented thereby.”

“You reached farther than I’d have agreed to if you’d asked outright, you wily pranksters, you clever Tricksters.” My voice was casual and quiet, a murmur halfway between amused and chiding. “I’d have given you more if you’d bargained for it, but not a foothold, not free travel unconstrained. And that’s what you’d have had, if we were naive enough to name you, if it wasn’t just your epithets on that form—not that the epithets alone won’t be an empowering, a source of strength through the recognition itself and what might come after. But I ain’t mad, because it was fair play, and you’re playing fair.”

“Gods of Yelem, Ascenders of my ancestors and of the lands beyond Alqar, you are not unaware of our intent in this fulfillment. Gods who once walked the soil or sailed the waters of this world, by rights your names should dwell in honor by those epithets through which you have aided us with the Cycle of Nations.” Kelly didn’t drop a beat picking the thread back up from me, and I had a moment of being distracted by just how impressive that was. “And yet, if to include your names and not theirs is to do you more honor than they, would this not be an offense unto those who have aided us as much as you have—and if less honor, then an offense unto you?”

“But this conundrum,” I said, grinning, “has a simple solution. After all, if the seven Tricksters of Earth accept one condition, one perfectly reasonable condition, then all of your names go on that paper, and maybe we deal again in the future. And if not? Well, the experiment’s done, the discovery’s going to be filed. Call the bargain sealed if you want, and take what’s yours back; or leave them with us, and we’ll credit you again and again under these terms.”

We paused at that, letting the words sink in; I wanted to give them an opportunity to bow out now, especially because we didn’t think they were going to. While Kelly’s tradition held the Gods to be more like verbs than people, my own tradition was one of arguing with God, of wrestling with His angels, of saying flat-out that His plan was one of sacrilege… and then bargaining with Him, as we bargain with our fellow humans.

And Ketka had taught me that there’s a real power to giving people a chance to leave, one that you don’t think they’ll take—as these Gods didn’t take this one, despite the moment of tangible metaphysical turmoil. That kind of chance makes people more inclined to stay, next time, and I was willing to lean into the tropes and tricks of the trade.

They were Tricksters, and they’d understand, even if they didn’t take it as the statement of respect that it in so many ways was. And besides, what we were going to offer was invaluable, even to them—Tricksters find a path, the saying was, but sneaking through the cracks tends to be a lot harder than walking through a door.

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Kelly started back up a little later than I would have, but this was her line, and I wasn’t about to step on it. “In Shem,” she said, “there is a saying: act as a Clerk Exemplar would have had you act. We do not ask that of you, Tricksters of another world; we do not require, of any of you individually or as a collective, that you embody the truths of our nation which blaze in the soul of those such as James Morei, for how would this be within your nature?

“Enough, it would be, that you behave in such a manner that such a Clerk would have done no more than laugh, or sigh, or make the signs of respect; enough, it would be, that if all the consequences of your deeds within Yelem were to be seen and known by one such, he would wish no censure upon you nor strive for your departure forevermore. Bring no true shame to us—in all the forms of the word; in myself and my charge, the village of Kibosh and those who dwell here, the Duchy of Aluf and the Kingdom of Shem and those who dwell within them, and even in the continent of Alqar and the world of Yelem itself.”

Kelly paused, and something passed between her and the Gods who were waiting and listening. It was something expectant, something in the tension of the moment; she shuddered, and I felt the muscles of her back spasm against mine, but I could hear the mad smile in her voice when she decided the silence had filled that space long enough.

“Do these,” she said softly, “and live also by the creed of Shem as we have remade it, and it is my desire to name you, each and several, by the names you will that you be known by. Break as little as you may; fix what you can, in those places and times where such is welcome; build a better future by word and deed and the formation of consensus, and to the mortals leave the question of what shape that future has. For these endless plains hold no slaves, not to necessity nor to the power that grows itself into more power, and all who live by these precepts are welcome here.”

I cut in smoothly, smiling. Grinning, really, maybe beaming. “I won’t pretend to know exactly how the Shemmai think you should behave. That? What she said? That’s between you and her, and by proxy not just the people who helped her write it but the people who raised her, the people who taught her, and all the people up the chain. It’s between you and a Kingdom, between you and Shem as a living, breathing incarnation of its conceptual underpinnings.

“Me, I want something a lot less gussied up in fancy language.” My grin took an edge, widening into something that people aplenty had called mad. “Call it xenia, call it hospitality law, call it the proprieties, it’s all the same. Be a guest here, in this world that’s become my home. Take on yourselves the obligations of that guest-right, judged by the laws of the desert and the sea.

“I know that constrains you, binds you. But a guest can make jokes; a guest can play pranks. A guest at my table could stare me down and call me on my bullshit, and a guest at my grandfather’s table could challenge him on the Law itself—my grandfather, who was a titan among his peers. I’m not going to tell you not to be Tricksters; it’s what you are, the seven of you. But there’s space to be Tricksters and still be a proper guest, and that’s all I ask.”

We breathed in. One body, one spine, one voice. “If you agree,” we said in a unison I found eerie even in the moment, “bind yourself by your signature—marry your name to your epithet, and in doing so agree to the conditions we have laid out. As Zuqeh seals all contracts and bargains, so mote these terms be.”

There was a split second of silence, and then a cacophony that seemed to wipe away the universe. For the first time, the flare of my Skills—of Comprehend and of Observe—didn’t augment my senses or lead me to conclusions; instead, they deadened me to the overwhelming wave of meaning, intent, and action that even so shook me to the core.

It was a battle, or maybe a war. I couldn’t tell how many Gods were on each side, or why; I couldn’t even tell how they were fighting, or whether they were just arguing in a way that was functionally equivalent to armies of worshippers marching to put temples and cities alike to the torch. All I knew was that overlaid on top of it all was a braying, joyful laugh, the same cackling laughter I’d heard earlier, and then there was a sense of motion and a blurred moment of time.

One God had waited to take the field, waited until the matter was almost decided against us… and taken the reverse sweep, rejoicing at the odds he’d chosen to move against with an exultant joy that needed that caliber of opposition to flower and flourish.

And then, as the eternity ended which had taken only the time between one heartbeat and the next, there was nothing but the lingering echo of his triumph and a sense of finality, of absence.

Opening my eyes, I glanced down at the form that I’d set before me. I blinked in astonishment—thirteen signatures. Every single one of them, every Trickster God, had agreed to our terms, even if Hephaestus was staying coy and declining public credit. And with that, all the Yelemi Gods had added their own names to the dedication for the Cycle of Nations, freed from the unwelcome need to mirror the Tricksters and remain at an equal credit.

The grin started to overtake my face, and I let the laugh spill out, cackling and wild, until Kelly pulled me up by my wrists to drag me and my viciously rumbling stomach to dinner. And even still, no matter how truly distracting my hunger had become, I couldn’t get out of my mind that simple list and the vast consequences it might have.

Further ancillary assistance (cont.)

For the provision and safeguarding of the aforementioned Pranks Cycle, we thank the following associated Trickster Gods from beyond Yelem (referred hereafter as ATG):

Sun Wukong—whose tribulations stopped not his laughter

Loki, Úlfs faðir, Sleipnis móðir—whose shape flows like water

Anansi—who turns the tables

Māui te whare kino—who snared the sun

Raven—who brought water

Coyote—who poured the stream of stars

Hermes Trismegistus—whose seal withstands the flame