Michael Coorlim's Blog, page 37

TWIK002: Steampunk

Steampunk. What is it? Where did it come from? What’s with all the goggles?

This episode begins with a discussion of steampunk’s origin as a literary genre, and its evolution into contemporary maker culture and a legitimate artistic movement.

We cover its mainstream manifestations in movies, television, fashion, and music, then touch upon its growing multiculturalism beyond Anglo-centric stories set in London.

If you enjoyed the podcast, you’re encouraged to make a donation. It’s appreciated!

Galvanic Century

I researched Steampunk while planning and writing the stories that later became the free novel Bartleby and James. Sales have been strong enough to expand the premise into the Galvanic Century series.

Future episodes of the podcast will drill down into more specific topics related to the Galvanic Century books, including various Edwardian cultural artifacts and some of the more interesting pseudo-scientific beliefs that those in the era held.

Links:

Here are links to things mentioned in the podcast, and a few additional items I didn’t mention.

K.W. Jeter’s note to Locus magazine, wherein he coins the term ‘steampunk’
The Teslacon website
The Steamcon website
Kinetic Steam Works
Steampunk exhibit at the Museum of the History of Science
Steampunk Coture
IBM Social Sentiment report on Steampunk
Steampunk Hands Across the World
Beyond Victoriana
Steampunk India

Steampunk Authors and books, past and present

K.W. Jeter on Facebook
William Gibson
Bruce Sterling
Alyson Grauer
China Mieville
The Difference Engine on Amazon (Affiliate Link)

Steampunk Music

Steamstock
My Steampunk youtube playlist
Thomas Dolby
Abney Park
Steam Powered Giraffe
Professor Elemental
The Cog is Dead
The Clockwork Quartet

Steampunk film and movies

Tai Chi Zero trailer
Warehouse 13
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on IMDB
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis on Youtube

Steampunk Video Games

Myst gameplay video
Bioshock Infinite
Clockwork Empires

This is only a very brief overview. If you’ve any steampunk links to add, feel free to do so in the comments.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post TWIK002: Steampunk appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

TWIK001: That Which is Known

Welcome to the first episode of the That Which is Known podcast. I do a lot of research for my books and screenplays, usually more than actually makes it to publication, so TWIK gives me the opportunity to share some of the cool stuff that I discover.

Content

In practice? I write genre fiction, so expect to see a lot of historical, esoteric, and scientific topics covered, like sleep deprivation, steampunk, and occult phenomena. The first couple episodes will be based on research I’ve already done for the books I’ve already written, but after we’ve run through those you’ll hear about things soon after I’ve studied them.

Format

For the most part episodes will just be me rambling on into a microphone, but from time to time I might bring on experts to talk about particular topics, or friends I’ve collared if they’ve had the misfortune to wander on by while I’m recording. Some episodes will be short, five to ten minutes long, but others might go twice as long.

It all depends on the topic.

Frequency

Starting out I’ll be posting one episode a week, though if I can smooth out my workflow I’ll double that. I’m a full-time author, though, so most of my time is spent writing and researching – we’ll have to see how it all works out.

I hope you’ll enjoy what you hear, and that you’ll come back to listen next week when I cover the topic of steampunk. That Which is Known will be available through iTunes eventually, but until then you are welcome to subscribe to my RSS feed.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Ghosts of Shaolin excerpt

Ghosts of Shaolin is the fifth Galvanic Century book. In this excerpts, British detectives Alton Bartleby and James Wainwright are in Hong Kong, looking for the men who have kidnapped James’s adopted daughter. Guiding them is Triad turncoat Tam Lien.

The next day Lien led us towards the mountainous core of Hong Kong island, around which the city had been built. The top, Victoria Peak, was considered neutral ground to the Triads, a place where they could meet and talk business without fear of betrayal. It was in that respect similar to Kowloon, though perhaps without scientific overlords.

Bartleby craned his neck to look up at the mountain, rising over a thousand feet to tower above the rest of the island, dwarfing even . “I’d imagine that they’re too winded after the climb to start any fights.”

“There’s an aerial tramway up the mountain,” Lien said.

“I’ve seen it,” I said. “An older model telpherage system. Well maintained, but the designs are decades out of date.”

“It gets you up the mountain and back down again,” Lien said. “What’s the point of innovation for its own sake?”

“I understand the individual words coming out of your mouth,” I said, “but collectively they’re not making any sense.”

“Don’t be precious, James, it ill suits you.” Bartleby was grinning. “I’m sure the telophage is perfectly adequate.”

He was mispronouncing it intentionally. I would not let him bait me.

Bartleby purchased three first-class tickets for us. A bit of a waste, I suppose, as there was no one else waiting for the tram and we would have the cabin entirely to ourselves. The cars were on a slow but ceaseless loop, requiring us to step quickly at the terminus to board. Inside it was well appointed, with crushed velvet upholstery in the front of the car and a lace privacy curtain to shield august personages from the rabble who had only purchased second or, perish the thought, third class tickets. There were no controls in the cabin; its operation was at the mercy of the operators in the control towers at either end.

I cannot imagine that their options were more complicated than “make the cars go” or “don’t.”

As I said. Barely suitable.

I stood at the back of the tram, hands in my coat pockets, watching the Central District with its government buildings and wealthier homes disappear beneath us. The incline was rather steep, a much more severe grade than a train might take, but I would have vastly preferred travel by dirigible. There’s something about the freedom of flight, about being untethered, that speaks to a part of me, and a tracked tram simply did not suffice.

“It’s a pity Aldora did not see fit to accompany us.” Bartleby was standing by the side, watching the mountain as we passed. “The view is breathtaking.”

Lien spoke from the front of the car. “Perhaps she did not care for the company.”

“No, she tolerates James well enough.”

Our guide stared at him. “I was referring to myself.”

Bartleby chuckled.

I stood at the opposite end of the cabin, watching the station recede behind us. We passed a car heading back down, and I saw a figure standing at its rear. A wizened old native woman was staring back at me, and while I could not see her eyes, they unnerved me in the same way that Lóngtóu’s had. The image rose to my mind’s eye unbidden, a shrivelled old crone, the lines of her face endlessly deep, her eyes bottomless black pits that pulled at me, pulled at my Qi, my energy, trying to devour my life force.

“James?” Bartleby’s voice cut through my fugue, and I righted myself before I collapsed. He was staring at me.

I shook my head and looked back towards the old woman, but she’d moved from the window. I turned from the window, leaning back against it.

The motors, at least, were quiet, save for the hissing of gas that signified a pneumatic mechanism of some sort. By the sound it didn’t seem terribly efficient, as if the gaskets needed tightening to reduce the waste emissions. Schematics rose unbidden in my mind as if I were working at an illusionary drafting table. I’d have to take a close look at the top of the car to be sure, but I was passingly familiar with the standard pneumatic tramway motor designs.

“Something’s wrong.” I stepped towards the centre of the cabin.

“What is it?” Bartleby headed to meet me.

The entire car tilted slightly, and he stumbled, catching himself on one of the seats. “James?”

“The cables are coming undone.” I walked towards the ceiling hatch. “They’re high-tensile steel, they don’t just–”

The cabin shifted again, clearly listing.

Lien steadied herself against the wall. “Is it going to fall?”

“It shouldn’t.” I grabbed Bartleby’s walking stick and used its crook to pull down the ladder leading to the ceiling hatch. “There are multiple redundancies, and two cables aside. If one should break, the other compensates until we can–”

There was another shift, the car noticeably listing.

Lien started, staring up at the roof. “There’s someone up there. I can hear them.”

Bartleby drew a revolver from inside his waistcoat and, before I could stop him, fired three rounds through the cabin ceiling. Each report was like a physical blow against my ears.

“Stop that, you idiot!” I snatched the weapon out of his hand. “You’ll hit the motor.”

He flushed and said something, though I couldn’t hear him over the ringing.

Lien spun and kicked out the window nearest her, sending it falling, intact, away from the cabin. Without another word she grabbed the edge above, using it to swing herself onto the roof.

I stared at the spot where she’d been for only a moment before beginning my ascent up the ladder. There was a lock on the hatch to the roof. I freed my spanner from my tool-belt, gripped the lock in its tines, and dislodged it from its mounting with a sharp twist.

I emerged onto the smooth roof of the now-tilted tram cabin to see Lien struggling with four cleaver-wielding men in black. As I watched, one swung his weapon through the air and she ducked away from it effortlessly.

A second attacked and she smashed the back of her forearm against his wrist, knocking the chopping blade away to the side, then struck him in the throat with the tips of her fingers. He dropped to the tram’s top, clutching at his windpipe and gasping for air.

I came up behind the third and slid my arms under his, locking my fingers behind his neck in a nelson grip. He flailed at me in surprise, but was unable to reach me with his weapon. I cranked my hands forward, applying a hyperflexion to his cervical vertebrae. He screamed in Chinese and struggled to free himself.

Beyond us, Lien dropped to the tram’s rooftop and swept her leg under the fourth man’s feet in a singular motion, almost like a low pirouette. He fell to his backside, the cleaver skittering from his hand off the tilted roof.

He let it go, instead pulling his sleeve back to reveal a strange device mounted on a wrist bracelet. Lien kicked his arm below the elbow with enough force to shatter it, but not before the man managed to fire a jagged metal disk from it.

It discharged in my direction, missing me and the man I held, but stuck Bartleby in the chest as he emerged from the hatch behind me.

He tumbled from the ladder, disappearing from sight into the cabin.

“Alton?” Terror and grief overwhelmed me and I gave the man I held’s neck a savage twist, breaking his neck then letting him fall limp. I half-crawled back to the hatch, confirming my fears as I saw my partner lying limp at the base of the ladder, sprawled out in a spreading pool of blood. My thoughts were jumbled, fear making me a child, not thinking through the consequences of my actions.

I leaped down the hatch, landing beside him, heedless of the way my weight made the already precarious cabin sway, the idea that I might snap the remaining cables far from my mind.

Alton was hurt. Badly. That’s what occupied me, and I used my bare hands to try and staunch the blood welling up from his chest, the remaining opponents confronting Lien a distant concern.

“It’s not that bad,” I told him. “Tell me you’re not that hurt.”

He didn’t respond, probably a factor of the shock and blood-loss.

“Oh god, Alton, I… oh god.”

I did what I could, tearing out the lining of my waistcoat and using that to affix my handkerchief to the spot below his ribs where the blood kept welling from. The circular blade had spun as it flew, chewing up flesh and bone to bury itself in my partner’s innards.

Ghosts of Shaolin is available through Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play. It has been written to serve as an entry point for new readers, but if you would prefer to start the Galvanic Century series from the beginning the first book, Bartleby and James, is available free.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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TWIK 001: That Which is Known

That Which is Known is a weekly podcast presented by author Michael Coorlim. It covers the subjects of his research as an author of genre fiction, touching on the historical, the esoteric, and the scientific.

Learn about the podcast to come and the author’s process in this awkward first episode.

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“Rite of Passage”

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

 

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Shadow Decade

Having published the fifth Galvanic Century book, Ghosts of Shaolin, I’m going to take a break and work on a new series, Shadow Decade.

It isn’t that I’m bored of steampunk. Far from it. I’ll be putting out the sixth Galvanic Century book, A Sacred Space, later this year. But I do like writing other things too, and Shadow Decade will be cyberpunk.

Looking back on a Shadow Decade

Obviously I can’t give away too much yet, mostly because it hasn’t been written yet, but in a broad sense Shadow Decade is going to tell the story of a woman stranded in the future and trying to rediscover her past.

Erica Crawford wakes up in 2025 with no memory of the past ten years. She has no idea what she’s been up to, and neither does the hospital, the police, or anyone else. There are no records, and as far as her friends and family are concerned, she just disappeared one day.

2025 is a very different world than 2015 was, and in addition to her sense of personal alienation, Erica has to deal with a world in which she has no place. She has no money, no career, no context for a world where culture-shock is as common as the flu, where surveillance drones darken the skies, where even your toaster is an internet portal.

Someone is lying to her. Someone knows something.

Someone wants her dead, and she doesn’t even know why.

Shadow Decade is a story of isolation, of alienation, of depersonalization and the persistence of memory. It’s about identity, about how we categorize ourselves by context… and what we fall back on when that context is taken away from us.

I’m looking forward to writing it, and I hope you’ll look forward to reading it.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Do You Like Free Fiction?

I write books. Sometimes these books are free. If you like books, you should check out my books.

Books!

Bartleby and James is the first novel in the Galvanic Century series of steampunk mysteries and thrillers.

Alton Bartleby is a social savant and the foppish toast of steampunk London’s upper crust. James Wainwright is a brilliant but socially stunted working class engineer with a flair for invention and a propensity towards violence. Together they solve the mysteries that Scotland Yard cannot.

This novel is the first in the Galvanic Century steampunk series of mysteries set in Edwardian England. Join Bartleby and James as they tackle their first four cases as consulting detectives.

Last Words is a very short and very dark story, perfect for a single sitting.

Brandon’s father has to have a talk with his son, both the most important and the last chat they’ll ever have. How can a man give his boy the worst news possible? Can a 5th-grader cope with loss on an unimaginable scale?

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Hero Historia: Aea Watched 7

Aea Watched is the second chapter of the historical superhero web serial Hero Historia, set in ancient Sumer.

Aea and Sabit could but watch as Enki, Lord Storm, ascended from the top of his Ziggurat. Unlike Aea’s own desperate soaring, Enki floated at a sedate pace that gave the impression of inevitability, a rise that could be opposed no more than one opposed the rise of the sun.

Sabit clung to Aea, no longer in furious rage, but in an infectious terror that Aea knew too well. Gone were thoughts of her own divinity. Gone were thoughts of protecting Izbu or mourning Mugga. She was transfixed by the living god coming to meet her.

Enki was surrounded by a crackling energy, the essence of the lightning that filled the raging storm around them. It rolled over his skin in sheets, emerging from his eyes, his mouth, playing along the golden jewelry he wore around his neck. His hair half-rose behind him like a mane, charged with the energy of the storm.

Under that, though, Aea couldn’t help but notice that he looked ordinary. Fit, yes, healthy, but no more or less attractive than any other man. If she passed him on the street she might dismiss him for a laborer, were it not for the crackling lightning suffusing his being.

He extended a hand towards the girls, and his voice boomed like thunder. “Cease.”

They watched him, terrified. Aea was afraid to move.

“I know how apotheosis plays upon the mind, but you must stop your quarrel.

Sabit whined. “I’m sorry, Lord Enki, I was just filled with–”

“Be silent.”

Sabit shut her mouth.

“You will have your chance to explain.”

It began to rain around them, fat drops of water splattering against their skin.

Enki looked grim. “Your conduct ill fits gods. You will be judged.”

Aea bowed her head.

“Tell the priests the gods will convene in one month’s time. Tell them to be prepared. Do you understand?”

Still unable to form the words, Aea nodded.

“Good. Conduct yourselves as if we are watching. Your actions will determine your fate. Now go… descend.”

Aea could but obey, and slowly began to lower herself and Sabit back to the top of the ziggurat. Above she could see Enki, still cloaked in storm, disappear into the greyness of the clouds.

Sabit collapsed to her knees as they landed.

Aea ran to Izbu’s side. His eyes flashed open when she reached for him, revealing black whiling pits. She drew back her hand, just as he erupted into flames.

“Izbu!” she cried, shielding herself from his heat.

He writhed on the clay platform, eyes clenched shut, mouth wide in a silent scream, the hiss of steam as water hit his flesh the only noise he made. She reached for him again, only to draw back from the heat.

“I’m sorry!” Sabit was sobbing. “Aea, please…”

The older girl had no attention to spare for her weeping companion, focused on the torments that Izbu suffered. She could but watch him twitch, though to her amazement, the flames did not consume his flesh.

He rolled onto his back, still, and his eyes opened. He regarded her with a peculiar calmness. “Aea”

“Izbu! You’re on fire!”

Izbu looked down at himself, closed his eyes, and the flames coating his skin extinguished.

Aea threw herself at him, clasping him, embracing him.

“Sabit hurt me, dazed me,” he said. “And all I could see was the poem on the tablet, filling my mind, spilling into it like a mudslide. All those symbols tumbling until they carried a new meaning.”

“I saw it too,” Aea said. “A puzzle that unlocked my mind.”

“It was like a divine fire,” Izbu said. “And then pain, burning.”

“You just erupted into flames. I thought Sabit had done something.”

Izbu propped himself up on his elbow, staring past Aea for a moment towards the cowering Sabit. “No. These flames came from within. A manifestation of my inner god. How did you stop Sabit?”

“We flew into the sky–”

“I thought I dreamed that part.”

“No, I can fly,” Aea said. “I pulled Sabit from you, and we wrestled in the air until Enki came.”

Izbu sat up straight. “Enki!”

“He said…” Aea paused. Enki had said many things, but she’d been too overwhelmed to hear most of them. “He said that we were to be judged. The gods are coming to Nippur.”

“Judged?” Izbu said. “But you were… this is Sabit’s fault!”

“She was just overwhelmed.” The words just came out, but Aea meant them. “But I think Mugga is dead. Maybe Garre too.”

Izbu looked away. “Yes, Garre, she… Garre is gone.”

Aea closed her eyes. She hadn’t particularly liked Garre, but he did not deserve to die. Sabit had much to answer for. And, apparently, so did she. She opened her eyes again, fixing Izbu with a level stare. “No one ever said the gods were fair.”

“Maybe Kuwari will know. We should head back down.”

“What about Garre’s body?”

Izbu stood, then helped her up. “We cannot help him. The priests will retrieve him for his family.”

“Are you sure?”

He shook his head. “I’m exhausted. Let them deal with him.”

Aea nodded, feeling drained herself. She looked to Sabit, who was still cowering by the temple’s corner. “You will come with us, killer.”

Sabit didn’t argue, simply standing and staring at her feet.

Aea could have flown down the stairs to the Ziggurat’s base, but she simply walked alongside Izbu as they descended the stairs, linking her arm with his.

***

Kuwari was waiting at the foot of the Ziggurat, arms folded, Puabi and Husze at his sides. He didn’t speak, simply watching his three students as they approached.

Izbu broke the silence. “Garre is dead. Maybe Mugga too. Sabit killed them.”

“Mugga was thrown into the outer city,” Aea added.

“Their remains will be recovered,” Kuwari said.

“Is this why there are so few instructors?” Aea nodded towards Puabi and Husze. “Are the choices divinity or death?”

“Not always,” Kuwari said. “Sometimes apotheosis is peaceful. Sometimes there are other options.”

“You knew this would happen?” Aea felt coldness fill her. “And you didn’t warn us?”

“There was nothing up there you did not bring yourselves,” Kuwari said. “The process, our teaching, the tablets… they are tools. Harmless on their own.”

A flash of hot rage burned through the ice filling Aea’s chest, but Izbu put a calming hand on her shoulder.

“You said there are other options. Than divinity or death.”

“Other options than divinity or humanity.”

“What?” Sabit said.

“When you climb the Ziggurat you will uncover your true self,” Kuwari said. “You may discover that you are more than human. Or you may be something less.”

“Less?” Aea asked.

Izbu glanced at Sabit. “An animal.”

Kuwari kept his eyes locked with Aea’s. “A demon.”

Had she heard right? “A demon?”

“The gods are not alone in their ability to possess men,” Kuwari said. “The vengeful dead edimmu, the gallu of the underworld, the evil asag, He Who Offers Misfortune… there is no way to know what lies in your heart.”

“We might be monsters?” Aea asked.

“That is for the gods alone to judge.”

Judge. “Enki said the gods were coming. To judge us.”

“He did?” The old priest’s face paled. “Did he say when?”

“One month’s time.”

Kuwari turned away towards his aides. “Oh, but that’s hardly time at all. We must prepare.”

“Will they tell us what we are?” Izbu asked.

Kuwari turned back. “They will offer their judgment. But until then, we will proceed as if you are gods.”

“Are you serious?” Aea turned towards the bewildered looking Sabit. “She murdered Garre and Mugga!”

“The line between holy and infernal is not one of benevolence,” Kuwari said. “If it were that simple, we could handle the matter ourselves. Only the gods know which of you are meant to join them–”

“And which of us are to be destroyed,” Izbu said.

Kuwari nodded.

“Then can we at least lock her away?” Aea pointed at Sabit. “Before she can murder anyone else?”

“You can do as you see fit,” Kuwari said. “You’re either a god, in which case your only rules are your own, or a demon, who exists to break all laws. I am but a man, and to try and restrict she who might be a god? I cannot imagine a greater taboo.”

“You weren’t so circumspect during our schooling,” Izbu said.

“Ah, but then we were acting with Anu’s authority.”

Aea turned from the school father and stormed up to Sabit.

“Aea, I–” the younger girl began.

“Quiet!” Aea could barely stand to speak to her. “You killed our classmates. Murderer. I don’t care what Kuwari says. I know what you are, and the gods will make you suffer for your evil.”

Sabit broke down and started to cry.

Aea was unmoved. “So you’re going to stay here, at the school, understand? And you’re not going to leave. Or I’ll kill you myself, monster.”

“Okay, okay,” Sabit managed. “Whatever you say.”

It was obvious to Aea that Sabit’s guilt was tormenting her, that she was ashamed of her actions. The pain and regret were visible on the younger girl’s face, a torment that exceeded any punishment that Aea could come up with.

Good.

“What now?” She asked, walking back to where Kuwari and the others were watching from, wiping tears of hurt and anger from her eyes. “Do we move into Ziggurats?”

“Not all gods rule over cities,” Kuwari said. “There are thousands, after all, and only a dozen or so cities. No. If you are gods, and we will proceed as if you are, then the next step is to determine which god you are.”

“How do we do that?” Aea asked.

“We don’t.” Kuwari said. “That is for the other gods to determine, and how they do so is a mystery men are not fit to know. But what we can do is record our observations of your nature to hasten the process.”

“So what,” Izbu said. “You want us to record our dreams onto tablets? Keep a journal of our daily affairs?”

“Not exactly,” Kuwari said. “You will be appointed a scribe, a specially trained priest who knows what to look for, what to write. He will follow you and note your behavior.”

Aea felt a moment of panic at the thought of some priest following her around constantly. Would he follow her into the bathhouse? When she had to eliminate waste? Would he watch her sleep? She hoped her scribe was a woman.

“At the same time, we must prepare for the gods’ arrival,” Kuwari said. “There will be a few days’ festival to celebrate your apotheosis, and then we priests will begin gathering supplies and making plans for the grand arrival of the pantheon.”

“What do we do?” Izbu asked.

“You’re gods,” Kuwari said. “You can do as you like.”

***

That wasn’t precisely true.

Aea’s first instinct was to leave the city, return to her farm, rejoin her family, and live a normal life. She could have done it, too. She could fly. Who could stop her? Lagash was far, but she was a god now, whatever that meant.

She knew, though, that the other gods would come for her. She had no doubt they could find her. And running away… what would that say about the kind of god she was? A god of cowards? A god of scared little girls? Was that the life she wanted?

There was no use denying it anymore. She was a goddess, and she would comport herself accordingly. She would be judged for her actions for the next few days. She would endeavor to be the best goddess she could be, because that was who she was.

So, she could do whatever she wanted… within the confines of Nippur.

Later that evening she met the scribal priest who would be following her around when Puabi introduced her to the fattest man she’d ever met.

“Aea,” the Older Sister said, “allow me to introduce you to Urratum.”

She tried not to stare. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Most of the priests, Kuwari aside, showed the hallmarks of lives of luxury. Jowls and bellies were prominent, as were soft hands that had never known a day’s labor. Urratum took that an extra step, though, with an almost spherical physique and a face that verged on puffy. He held a stylus in one had and a clay tablet in the other.

He spoke with a high pitch. “Just go about your business. Pretend I’m not even here.”

“What do you want me to do?” Aea asked.

Urratum made a note on his tablet. “Just go about your business.”

“What did you write down?”

He made another note. “Ignore me.”

Aea’s stomach churned, and she wrung her hands, just knowing that he was judging her, evaluating her every moment of indecision. She looked from the fat priest to Puabi for guidance.

The Older Sister offered her a small smile. “Your time is your own, goddess. Urratum is going to follow you, but no mortal can demand anything of you.”

She looked back at the scribe, who was watching her without emotion. “What if I just fly away? Leave him behind?”

“That too is a choice,” Urratum. “Your disinclination to cooperate will be noted.”

“Why don’t you go to the festival?” Puabi suggested. “You’ve been sequestered to the inner city since your arrival. And the people of Nippur would delight in seeing their new goddess.”

“Okay,” Aea said. “Maybe I’ll see if Izbu wants to go.”

Urratum made a note.

***

Izbu stood at the north end of the ziggurat, staring off past the city walls and towards the desert beyond. It would have been simplest to fly herself up towards him, but Aea didn’t want to give Urratum the excuse to write more unflattering things about her on his little tablet.

She was sweating when she reached him, which was disappointing. She’d hoped that gods didn’t need to sweat, or eat, or deal with any of life’s little annoyances.

“Isn’t it hot up here?” she asked, shielding her eyes. “Standing on bare clay, with no shade, under the full might of the sun?”

“I barely notice the heat anymore.” He turned to her. “It’s nothing compared to the divine fire that burns under my skin.”

She looked back at Urratum, who was panting and heaving his bulk up the steps, and wondered if she’d be blamed if he died of exhaustion. “Where’s your scribe?”

Izbu gestured back towards Enki’s temple. “Trying to find a scrap of shade, I guess. I’d forgotten all about him.”

She saw a huddled shape around the temple’s corner. “How can you forget? They’re following us around, recording our every step. It’s… I feel very exposed.”

Izbu shrugged. “Does it matter? We’re gods now. Of course the mortals are going to be watching us.”

Aea glanced back down at the city, envious of his ability to put the matter behind him. “Do you want to go into the outer city? See the festival?”

The aloofness and distance on his face vanished, and for a moment he was the Izbu she knew again. “That didn’t even occur to me. It’d be a nice change of scenery. Kuwari can arrange a palanquin for us.”

“A palanquin? Why don’t we just walk?”

Urratum snorted and she tried to ignore him.

“That might not be the best idea,” Izbu said. “It’s going to be very crowded.”

“So? We’re gods.”

“That’s the point. It’s probably a great taboo to touch the body of a god.” He looked at Urratum. “Isn’t it?”

Urratum raised his eyes above the upper edge of his tablet, paused mid-note. “Oh my yes.”

“Oh, for them, you mean.” Aea looked down towards the outer city. From above she could see the tiny shapes of the festival-goers filling the streets, faces painted in festive colors that clashed with the bright dressed worn by the women and bare chests sported by the men. “I didn’t consider… but no. You’re right.”

Urratum made a note. Aea pretended not to notice.

“Let’s go, then.” Izbu turned back towards the steps. Aea accompanied him.

Izbu’s scribe, an overweight priest, but not so fat as Urratum, scrambled to his feet alongside the temple, and hastened after. He fell in alongside Aea’s, and the two engaged in quiet conversation while following their gods.

Aea lowered her voice. “I don’t think I’ll get used to them.”

“The scribes?” Izbu said. “Who cares what they think. Only the other gods can judge us.”

“But they’re taking notes on behalf of the other gods.”

Izbu laughed. “And since when have the gods cared what men think? No, it’s probably busy work to keep the priesthood occupied.”

Aea was shocked at his words. To say such things about the priests, or the gods – it was enough to get someone whipped. But they were gods themselves, now, weren’t they? They could behave how they saw fit. But the ease at which the blasphemous words seemed to leap to her companion’s lips… it left Aea feeling uneasy.

Maybe he was being glib, but she was the one who had been wrestling with Sabit in the sky. She was the one who would have to face the gods’ judgment. It was her fate, truly, that the scribes were determining.

Maybe Izbu could laugh. She could not.

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Hero Historia: Aea Watched 6

Aea Watched is the second chapter of the historical superhero web serial Hero Historia, set in ancient Sumer.

Learning the six-hundred written symbols took less time than Aea had feared. In less than a year she had learned the way of shapes, and in another she had learned the way of numbers as well. Mathematics wasn’t as easy for her or as interesting as the making of words, and she particularly enjoyed poetry. Much like she had grasped music, Aea could sense that there was an underlying system to the making of words, some code more subtle than that of mathematics, and thus, much more fascinating.

The routine of her classes had diminished the fear she felt over the unforeseeable future. Every day began with the recitation of the prior day’s tablets. After lunch they would memorize new tablets, take dictation from the Older Brothers and Sister, and pour over tablets containing vocabulary lists broken down by syllabic symbols.

Reading and writing made all of the other classes easier as well, as the school housed a great store of ancient but accurate tablet lists of all the creatures and places in creation. Each evening the students would choose a tablet and a subject and copy it, slowly building their own personal libraries.

Her classmates continued at their own pace. Mugga struggled with poetry, but could construct great and detailed stories about the children she’d grown up with. Sabit struggled in math, but mastered the lexicons immediately. Garre, to Aea’s annoyance, seemed fairly skill at every task save the lute, which he deemed “unimportant” and “stupid.”

As fond of Izbu as she was, Aea had to admit that he was lagging behind the others. Indeed, he didn’t seem to care for his classes at all, remaining preoccupied with the mysteries of their school.

Aea did her level best to put it out of her mind. There wasn’t anything to be done for it… and besides, there were so many tablets to read. So much of the world to discover. She might never see Ur or Drehem, but she could read about them. It was a poor consolation to actually being allowed to leave the inner city, but it was all she had.

It would have to do. For now, she would lose herself in the words of those scribes long dead.

***

On the second Holy Day of Nisānu, the month of Sanctuary, the eve of the anniversary of Aea’s arrival in Nippur, Puabi came to the girls’ sleeping quarters with a serious expression on her face.

“Put on your finest dresses, girls,” she said. “Today is going to be a busy day.”

Mugga looked confused, counting on her fingers. “Isn’t today a Holy Day?”

“It’s the Day of Anger,” Sabit said. “Dressing fine is forbidden.”

“It’s a very special Holy Day,” Puabi said. “And for you, the prohibitions are relaxed.”

“Why?” Aea had accepted that the rules the gods set forth were usually contradictory and confusing, but she did her best to keep them straight.

“Today you climb the Ziggurat.”

“What?” Mugga scrambled to her feet.

Puabi spoke slowly and with care. “Today you will read for Enki, for the gods. It is a very important, very special day.”

Aea’s heart leapt. “Is it the test?”

“Everything is a test,” Puabi said. “Every moment of your life, from birth to death, the gods are taking your measure.”

Mugga scowled. “Don’t tease, Older Sister. Not today.”

The woman shook her head. “I am not permitted to speak of it further. Put on your finest dress. Meet in the courtyard. And do not tarry.”

Mugga squealed and grabbed her nicest dress from the rack next to her straw bed.

Aea felt a lightness in her chest and a dryness in her mouth. “This is it. This has to be the test. It has to be. What else is important enough to go out on a Holy Day?”

“Do you think we will both be gods?” Mugga said, eyes sparkling. “Sister goddesses? Both us?”

“I don’t know,” Aea said. “But that would be amazing.”

“This will change everything.” Sabit clutched her arms to her chest. “Whatever happens. Nothing will be the same.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mugga said, turning to Aea. “Whatever happens, we will still be as sisters!”

Aea clasped her larger friend’s hand. “Let us make an oath, then, to always be friends. No matter what.”

Mugga raised her hands and squealed again. “Get ready, you sluggards. We go to meet our destinies!”

Aea could scarcely contain he excitement as she fastened her cleanest linen wrap around her shoulder, fastening it with a bronze pin shaped like a lotus, a string of beads dangling from it down the back of her shoulder. She was still pretty sure she wasn’t a goddess, but Mugga’s enthusiasm was infectious, and it was hard not to be drawn into the excitement of the possibility.

Whatever the test was, whatever form it took, she’d try her best.

***

Izbu and Garre were already waiting in the courtyard when the women arrived. Unsurprising, given the simplicity of male fashion compared to what the girls wore. Both men wore broad leather belts fastening sheepskins that hung to their knees, Izbu barefoot while Garre wore goat-felt-lined sandals. Izbu had taken to wearing his curled hair long and free, while Garre still shaved his head.

The Older Brothers Dile and Husze, like Puabi, hadn’t dressed in finery. Aea didn’t see Tid, but she supposed it made sense that he would not come – all of the potential gods had felt the sting of his disciplinary lash, and while he was only doing the will of the school in enforcing its punishments, she too would be afraid of a young godling venting his new powers on a reviled target.

Aea couldn’t help but linger briefly on the sight of Izbu’s bare-chest and broad shoulders. He’d grown into a powerfully-built young man with clear piercing eyes and an easy smile.

Garre in comparison had seemed almost to curl in on himself. He was taller, but had a slight curve to his spine that hunched his shoulders forward, a posture born from late nights bent over a tablet, either reading or writing. It was amazing, they were so different, mentally and physically, yet remained fast friends.

Izbu caught Aea’s gaze and flashed her a smile.

She gave him a quick wave.

“Are we all together?” Kuwari took a number of goatskin pouches from Husze, slinging them over his shoulder. “Good. I needn’t tell you to all be on your best behavior… godlings you may or may not be, today you stand in the presence of Enki.”

Garre barely managed a weak smile, surprising Aea. She would have thought him more enthusiastic.

Kuwari snapped his fingers. “Follow.”

She wondered if this would be the last time the School Father would have the authority to order them about, or if tomorrow she would owe him obedience as an Older Sister to the next generation of students.

***

Kuwari led the way to the foot of Enki’s Ziggurat. When they reached it, he stopped and faced his students, a grim expression on his face. “Children. I need not emphasize the importance of the task ahead of you. You have been my students these last years, and I am proud to have known you. However this turns out.

“I can offer you no advice as to what lies ahead of you, as this is a test of character. You will fare based on your soul, your inner self. If you are a god, you will be a god. If not… well. Remember the fate the gods have decided is a fair one, even if we cannot see its wisdom.”

Aea looked down at her bare feet, then at the first steps of the ziggurat. The massive structure seemed to tower over them steeper than ever.

Kuwari took the goatskin satchels from his shoulder, handing one to each of the waiting students. “Inside each parcel is a tablet containing the holiest of holy scriptures, written by An, god of the sky. It will seem, upon first reading, simple and unimportant. But locked within these symbols is another layer of meaning, a secret knowledge known only to the gods. Knowable only to the gods. As such, I cannot help you with them.”

The students took the satchels with solemnity, drawn expressions on their faces. It felt unbelievably heavy in Aea’s hands, not so much physically, but with the weight of portent.

“Climb the ziggurat in silence,” Kuwari said. “At the top you will find cushions placed there by the priests. Kneel. Read your tablets aloud, again and again. If you are touched by the divine, your true self, that spark of the most holy, will awaken.”

The students stared up at the Ziggurat, at their destinies.

“What happens after that?” Aea asked, her throat dry.

“It is not my place to dictate to gods,” Kuwari said. “But there will be places of respect here for those that remain of earthly disposition.”

There was a small hitch when between those that remain and of earthly disposition. It was subtle, but after two years of listening to Kuwari’s lectures, Aea could not have missed it. There was more danger here than he was willing to reveal, but it didn’t matter now. There was no turning back.

All there was was the Ziggurat.

***

The gods were dredging the rivers,

Were piling up their silt

On projecting bends—

And the gods lugging the clay

Began complaining

Mix the heart of the clay that is over the abyss,

The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay,

You, do you bring the limbs into existence;

Ninmah will work above you,

The goddesses will stand by you at your fashioning;

O my mother, decree its fate,

Ninmah will bind upon it the image of the gods,

It is man.

***

It was a poem, and on her first read-through, Aea didn’t find anything remarkable about it. The wording was odd, the characters used archaic, the phrasing unusual, but it was clear enough, telling the story of the creation of man. She read it aloud, as bidden, and could hear her classmates do the same.

The cushions were evenly spaced around the square top of the ziggurat, and Aea had chosen one on the far side of Enki’s temple. It was in the sun now, and when Utu was high overhead he would beat on her mercilessly, but after he had passed she would have the shade to recover. Not knowing how long this ritual would take, it seemed like a good choice.

To her left, at the corner, she could see Mugga kneeling with her tablet. She struggled with poetry, but there was nothing complicated about these words, so she would not be at a disadvantage.

To her right, midway between her corner and the next, Aea could see Sabit concentrating on her own. Beyond Sabit was Garre, at the next corner. Izbu was on the opposite corner, hidden from view by Enki’s temple. This too was her strategy.

Aea read on.

“The gods were dredging the rivers,

Were piling up their silt

On projecting bends—”

The tablet itself was fantastic, far more ornate than any she had before beheld, worthy of the creation of a god. It was two slabs of clay, hinged together, overlain with beeswax. The symbols themselves were precise. Perfect. Idealized forms of the alphabet she’d learned.

“And the gods lugging the clay

Began complaining–”

It was on her third read through that her mind started wandering. She felt nothing unusual or divine from the recitation. In a way it was a relief, a relaxation of pressure, this final confirmation of ordinariness, and it felt like a great weight had been taken from her shoulders.

“Mix the heart of the clay that is over the abyss,

The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay,

You, do you bring the limbs into existence;”

She would stay on at the school, she knew, and teach the next group of children how to read. That was not a bad life, fed from the gods’ table, living in the shadow of the Ziggurat. It was better than breaking one’s back on a farm, or splitting your pelvis having child after child. True, when she’d arrived she’d wanted to run back home, but now she could see a life where she kept learning forever, never having to go out into the outer world to earn a laborer’s wage.

The sound of her classmates’ reading had changed. Mugga had stopped.

Aea flicked her eyes off the tablet to see why, and saw her friend staring at Sabit.

Sabit was glowing.

Aea’s tongue tripped and she lost the recitation, forgetting all about her tablet in her surprise and shock.

Was this apotheosis? Was Sabit becoming a god before her eyes?

She could hear Garre and Izbu’s recitations slow and stop as well, until all eyes were on Sabit, who alone kept reading.

Sabit’s fingers clenched her tablet tightly, and from where she stood Aea could see that the girl’s fingertips were actually pressing through the ancient clay. Her arms were tense, muscles straining visibly under her skin. The tendons of her neck likewise stood out in sharp relief, though most of the girl’s face was hidden behind her bangs.

Though her voice was still small and as strained as her muscles, Sabit’s recitation echoed in the silence.

“O my mother, decree its fate, Ninmah will bind upon it the image of the gods.”

Sabit lifted her head, and Aea could see that her eyes were white. Not rolled back, no, but shining from some inner radiance. If Aea hadn’t already been on her knees, she would have fallen to them.

Sabit’s arms twitched, and the tablet she held tore apart at the hinges before crumbling under her fingers as she recited the poem’s last lines in a voice that seemed to echo inside Aea’s skull.

“It. Is. Man.”

Garre peered around the corner of the temple, staring open-mouthed. “Sabit? You? A god?”

A wild shriek erupted from the girl’s mouth, and she was a blur, flashing towards him. She’d reached Garre before Aea could blink, pouncing on him like an animal. She couldn’t see exactly what had happened, but there was a spray of crimson and he was gone, knocked or fallen back around the corner.

Mugga screamed, and Sabit was upon her next.

“Sabit, goddess, no!” Mugga whined as the smaller girl grabbed her by the wrists, arms pinned wide, back behind her shoulders. “Please, sister!”

“You would DARE call me sister now?” Sabit screeched and pivoted, throwing Mugga into the side of Enki’s temple, as if the larger girl were nothing but a rag doll.

Mugga hit the clay with a crack, then slumped to the ground in a daze.

Sabit advanced upon her. “You would make Aea your sister, but overlook me, standing next to you?”

“Sabit, no!” Aea took a step, only to be grabbed from behind. She struggled to pull away.

“Stay!” Izbu hissed in her ear. “She’ll kill us all in her wrath!”

Sabit ignored Aea’s outburst, instead picking Mugga up by the shoulder and hip. “Now I’m good enough to notice?”

Mugga muttered something that Aea couldn’t hear.

Sabit didn’t seem pleased. “You didn’t know? Didn’t know that I needed friends? Didn’t know that I would have liked a sister? But no. NO. You only had time for Aea! AEA!”

Sabit took a few steps and pivoted, hurling Mugga again, this time into the air over the Ziggurat.

“Mugga!” Aea screamed and reached towards her friend, seeing her hurtling through the air, over the wall and into the outer city.

Izbu pulled her, kicking, away and around the corner. “She’s dead! We must flee, or Sabit will kill us next!”

For a brief moment Aea didn’t care, wanted to run after Mugga, but Ibzu’s words fueled her fear of the divine manifestation. She scrambled to her feet, and the two of them ran together towards the Ziggurat stairs.

Sabit fell like a stone before them, landing in a crouch, the force of her landing shattering the clay bricks beneath her feet and sending up a great cloud of dust.

“Stop, Sabit, we’re your friends.” Tears were flowing down Aea’s cheeks.

“Friends.” Sabit stepped forward, and Izbu scampered back, pulling Aea with him. “You were my friend. Until the others arrived. Then you were Mugga’s. And Ibzu’s. And I was alone, again!”

“No, it’s not like that,” Aea said.

“LIAR!” Sabit leapt.

Ibzu threw Aea out of the way, and the younger girl’s small but unimaginably powerful bulk hit him square in the chest, bowling him over backwards.

Aea ran with the momentum Izbu’s push had given her, making for the stairs at the front of the temple, but Sabit was on her before she could take three steps. She felt herself grabbed, held aloft over the small girl’s head.

“I am done with you!” Sabit screamed. “Done!”

Terror froze Aea’s heart, and everything seemed to slow down. Perhaps seeking to escape, her mind retreated from the present, away from the small hands gripping her, hoisting her, and back to the tablet.

She was going to die, and her last thoughts were about the structure of language. The way the symbols fit together, all six-hundred characters, in an incredibly complex code, meaings and words changing based on their grouping, context, and accent marks placed by the scribes who wrote them.

Aea felt herself being drawn back and knew that Sabit was going to throw her. She folded her hands over her chest, tablet still clasped tightly. If she was going to die, she’d do so with as much serenity as possible. Whatever her faults, Sabit was a god, and whatever she desired was her right, unfair as it might be.

There. On the edge of the tablet. An accent mark. A small wedge imprint.

She hadn’t seen it before because she’d been too eager to read Anu’s words, but always they had been taught to check the edges of any tablet for notation before reading. You sometimes forgot and the lack of contextual arrangement left the tablet’s writing confusing, but this poem, Anu’s poem, had made sense.

But the accent changed everything. She’d never seen it before, but somehow knew how it applied. Its meaning was subtle, but the sum total of everything she’d learned about language.

Sabit hurled her.

Aea went spinning like a missile, body rigid, her mind faster yet. The terror of flight and inevitable death filled her, but somewhere in the back of her mind her shadow-self was working, putting together the final puzzle, assembling the last piece.

One tablet. One poem. Eighty symbols. Two meanings.

The conscious Aea, the screaming Aea, the Aea that had been hurled over the city walls towards the desert, was aware of only a small fraction of the meaning. The hidden self, the god hiding behind her eyes, she knew.

She remembered.

She awoke.

***

Aea stopped.

In midair.

Just like that.

She stared down at herself, floating in the air. She stared down at the city below, at the Ziggurat.

This was amazing.

This was fascinating.

This had to wait. Izbu was still in danger.

Without really being able to articulate how, Aea turned and oriented back towards Nippur. As she flew she picked up speed, and somehow her vision was keen enough to pick out distant Sabit advancing towards an injured-looking Izbu.

Aea’s eyes narrowed.

It must have been something – maybe Sabit heard her, maybe her shadow fell over them, maybe it was some undefined god-sense, but Sabit saw Aea before she hit, looking up before impact.

It didn’t save her. Aea collided with the smaller girl, knocking her away from the stunned boy.

Sabit clung to her, screaming and crying, clawing and flailing with her hands. The blows that rained down on Aea were powerful, but she held on, lifting the girl up into the darkening sky above the Ziggurat.

“Sabit!” Aea shook the younger girl. “Calm yourself! Stop! Stop!”

“No! You cannot be a god! Not you too!”

“No, see? Now we can be sisters! Like you wanted!”

She knew she was lying as soon as the words left her lips. She couldn’t forgive Sabit. Not for doing what she’d done to Mugga. Not for harming Izbu. Not for trying to kill her. Sabit was a bad god, a selfish god, a small and petty creature, and Aea would never forgive her. But she did need her to stop struggling.

Lightning crashed behind the girls, striking the front of the Ziggurat. Sabit gasped, and their eyes followed its path down to the temple, where a lone figure stood staring up at them.

Enki had emerged.

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Entering Film Production with Sleep Study

This is about how I went from being an author and occasional screenwriter to being a film producer who co-owns a production company.

While I enjoy movies, I never really wanted to get heavily into the production side of things. I’m a writer. Words are my thing. Dealing with equipment, with actors, with all the details that go into making a movie… even though I had no idea what they were, they seemed like an awful lot of work.

Then again, when I was a kid the whole ‘publishing’ thing seemed like a lot of work, too. All I wanted to do was the writing, and I was happy with the idea of someone else doing all the busy work.

Screenwriting is its own beast.

While I’m primarily a novelist, I’ve dabbled in screenwriting since my late teens, taking a course or two in college, and filling a desk drawer which that which shall not be named. While selling a screenplay would have been nice, for the most part it was nothing more than a hobby.

Then a friend of mine started up his own production company. Cool, right? We collaborated for a bit, then I came up with the premise for the Sleep Study series: found-footage style surreal horror telling the story of a research institute with a dark secret. It was cool, it was simple, and it was easy to produce.

I wrote a pilot, plotted out a three-season arc we cast some actors, and we were good to go.

We shot the pilot.

While the pilot has its own charm, in retrospect it doesn’t work quite so well as a pilot. It ended up being twice as long as any of the episodes were going to be, in a slightly different format; while the standard series episodes are going to be single-shot scenes representing security footage, interview tapes, and experiment data, the pilot was three interviews interlaced that jumped between three characters’ experiences.

It works on its own. It’s good. Creepy. People dig it.

It just didn’t reflect what the series will actually be like.

That’s all he wrote.

Unfortunately after that the production company could no longer continue on the project. We parted amicably, and the actors were psyched to continue. Being a people pleaser, I took it upon myself to shop Sleep Study around to other local production companies for a year or so.

Unfortunately, most production companies prefer to work with in-house scripts, and while they offered to hire out to us to produce Sleep Study, I couldn’t afford that. And really, I was looking for collaboration, not contractors.

So then Burning Brigid happened.

I eventually accepted the fact that if I wanted the project to happen, I’d have to do it myself. I took some production classes, learned the technical and administrative side of filmmaking, met with lawyers and accountants, and co-founded Burning Brigid Media.

So here we are.

Fundraising for Sleep Study. We’ll be shooting in March or April, and have the first episodes going live by late summer. I’ll be producing and, unless we way overshoot our goals, directing, all while continuing to maintain my career as a novelist.

I’d be terrified if it wasn’t so exhausting. I’ll settle for exhilarated instead.

So tell me. What do you think about the project? Are you interested? Excited? Got any questions?

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Hero Historia: Aea Watched 5

Aea Watched is the second chapter of the historical superhero web serial Hero Historia, set in ancient Sumer.

“Who can tell me why the gods created man?” Husze’s voice boomed in the confines of the classroom, as bold and broad as the Older Brother himself.

Aea didn’t answer, not trusting her father’s wisdom to prove true. She’d relied on it once before, in a class on the plants of the world taught by Older Brother Dile, and had earned only a rebuke and mockery for her troubles. The question had been about diagnosing emmer-rot, and while she hadn’t been wrong, how she had come to the answer had been somehow incorrect in a way that the girl didn’t quite grasp but which Dile had seemed to think was very important.

Garre had laughed at her, but she noticed that he kept his silence now. As did Sabit, though silence from the youngest girl was hardly unusual.

Quiet too were the other two students who had joined them, Mugga and Ibzu.

Mugga was only a few years older than Aea, the daughter of a fisherman, but nearly as tall as Husze. Garre had called her a cow, and Mugga had aptly proven her bulk was muscle by hurling a clay bench at him. She had been reprimanded by Proctor Tid, whipped for destroying school property. She’d later confided to Aea that it’d been worth it.

Ibzu was lanky but handsome, Aea’s own age, a merchant’s son from Eridu itself. She found her gaze settling on him naturally when her attention wasn’t otherwise occupied, and felt a flush of embarrassment when he noticed. He’d taken to smiling at her. It hadn’t helped.

Husze walked among the students at a slow pace, giving time for an answer that didn’t look to be forthcoming.

Aea busied herself staring intently at the wax-coating of the tablet she’d been issued, knowing the letters she still couldn’t read held the answer to his question.

“Anyone? Anyone? Garre?”

Garre looked down at his tablet, then up at Husze, his eyes closed. “Who could learn the reasoning of the gods in heaven? Who understands the intelligence of the gods of the underworld? Where have human beings learned–”

“The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer?” Husze asked. “You recite it well. But my question was not rhetorical. The answer is simple.”

Garre’s face reddened. “I don’t want to be whipped.”

“Just answer the question. I don’t need any citations or recitations.”

“We were created to serve.”

“Good.” Husze folded his arms. “This is a literal truth. Images of the gods must be cared for, fed, clothed, including the carvings in the entrance hall. You will share these duties. But how else do we serve the gods?”

“Obedience?” Aea asked.

“Yes. Who can name something the gods ask of us?”

“That we not drink from cups of unbaked clay,” Ibzu said.

“Yes. Another.”

Aea remembered one her father had told her. “That we not take clods of earth from the fields.”

“Very good. Another.”

“We are not to tear twigs from the steppe. Or vomit in the water-ways,” Mugga said.

“Correct. Another. Wait, Sabit, you have a question?”

“How many laws do the gods ask us follow?”

“Many,” Husze said. “Both things to do, and things to not do. More than any one man can remember. There are tablets that contain them in the temple.”

“Then how can we avoid disobeying the gods?” Aea asked.

“These laws… the gods do not just tell them to us,” Husze said. “When we break them, they let us know through accidents, through illness, through tragedy. That is how the priests and scribes know to record them, and that is how you can learn them. It is also how we know how to atone for our misdeeds.”

Aea shivered, feeling a moment of panic. The gods had created laws and rules for people, but didn’t tell them what they were, and would only reveal their desires through punishment. They were like the tax-men, like the soldiers who came through their village, laying down arbitrary rules on people who were having trouble enough getting by. It all seemed so unfair.

But maybe that was the point.

Her stomach dropped as she considered how unfair life had been. Her father was a hard worker, but the sudden and crushing taxes from Lagash had taken almost everything they had. She’d been a good girl, but she’d been sold into slavery. Had she sinned? Had her father? Older Brother Husze said that that’s where misfortune came from… maybe she’d had a drink from the wrong cup. Maybe she’d neglected some vital prayer.

Coming up with secret rules and then getting mad at people who didn’t follow them seemed like a poor way to run the world. When she was a god… if she was a god… she’d do things differently.

***

Aea and the other students had several hours of classes every day. It was a different sort of life, a more regimented one than farm-life had been. Older Brother Husze taught about religion and the gods. Older Brother Dile taught about animals, plants, weather, and the earth. Older Sister Puabi taught singing and the harp – Aea’s favorite class. Even Kuwari taught, patiently showing Mugga, Aea, and Sabit how to form the letters while Garre and Ibzu copied other tablets.

Writing was a form of magic, a way to put words and ideas into the minds of others, using little more than a cut piece of reed and a wax or clay tablet. Kuwari had shown the girls how to hold the reed, how to use the different types of reed to make different shapes, but the meaning of these shapes wasn’t something that Aea could quite grasp.

“You will come to know it, in time,” Kuwari had said. “And once you have, it will make all of the other learnings so much the easier.”

Aea was skeptical, but didn’t dare disagree with him aloud.

After the morning classes, once the day grew hot, the students moved to the cool inner courtyard for lunch. It was a relaxed time, peaceful and pleasant, and the food and drink was amazing – better than anything she’d ever tasted. Bread made with ghee or honey, well aged sweet-beer of the highest quality, lentil soup, date wine, and best of all, meat. So much meat. Mutton. Beef. Goat.

“This is amazing,” Mugga had said during that first lunch, face smeared with grease. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

“Try the date wine,” Aea had said.

“Clean your face,” Garre said. “Eat the goat, don’t eat like the goat.”

Mugga scowled. “Do you enjoy dodging benches?”

“Do you enjoy the beatings they give you?” Garre smirked.

“Those are nothing,” Mugga said. “My aged grandmother hits harder.”

Kuwari looked over from his own meal. “Is that so? I’ll tell the Proctor not to hold back next time.”

Mugga lowered her head. “There will not be a next time, School Father. I was only boasting. I will make no trouble.”

Kuwari simply nodded.

“House Father?” Aea asked.

He looked up, eyes half-lidded.

Aea steeled herself against his dismissive gaze. “Where does this amazing food come from?”

“The best of all food and drink the city produces is presented to the gods, to Enki and the wooden icons,” Kuwari said. “This is what they have declined to consume.”

Eating the gods’ leftovers? Aea’s eyes widened. “Is that allowed?”

Garre held up a chunk of bread dipped in soup. “Are we not gods ourselves?”

Kuwari chuffed. “That remains to be seen. But the gods’ cast-offs are traditionally given to the priests. To discard it would be wasteful.”

Aea furrowed her brow. “They could give it to the poor?”

“And have them eat better than the priests?” Kuwari seemed amused by the idea. “As I said. Wasteful.”

Something occurred to her. “Kuwari?”

He lowered his plate. “I am trying to eat here, Aea.”

“Just one more question?”

“Make it quick.”

She looked at the others, at Sabit, at Mugga. “What is to become of us if we are not deemed to be gods hidden in flesh?”

Mugga put down her glass of date wine, and Ibzu turned from laughing at one of Garre’s jokes. All eyes focused on the School Father.

Kuwari sighed and rose, putting his plate aside on the bench next to him. “That is not a quick question, Aea, but it is a good one. If you can all be patient, I will instruct Brother Dile that I’ll be taking over his class after lunch to explain things. Will that suffice?”

Aea exchanged a broad smile with Mugga. “Yes, Father, thank you.”

He nodded to her. “Finish your soup.”

***

Aea and her classmates watched with rapt attention as Kuwari stood in front of the classroom, hands clasped behind his back. The Older Brothers and Sister – Puabi, Dile, Husze, and Tid – stood at the back of the class.

“As you know, you have been brought here because you may be gods sleeping within mortal shells. From time to time the gods tire of one form, and are reborn into their created people.”

“Why?” Garre asked.

“It is not for us to know their will,” Kuwari said.

“Then why do we go seeking them?” Ibzu asked.

“That answer is simple and definite,” Kuwari said. “Husze! Tell us the history.”

Husze straightened up as all eyes turned to him. “In the first year of Ur-Nungal’s reign, the gods convened in Nippur to discuss the life and death of his father Gilgamesh and the possibility of humanity gaining immortality like unto the gods. We can never know what the gods determined, but the lore passed on to the priests of Nippur was thus:

“There exists among human beings those who are more, gods in the flesh, hidden even from themselves. Gods who have tired of one mortal form will be reborn in another, and it is your task, priests of Nippur, to go forth and discover these gods-among-men. Find them, educate them, prepare them for life as gods that they might rule the world with wisdom.”

Kuwari clapped lightly. “Well recited, Husze. In the centuries since we were given this edict, the school masters have developed a procedure to identify gods within the populace. Signs that indicate potential divinity. Or rather, candidates for divinity.”

“How do you know if we’re really gods?” Aea asked.

“You will be tested,” Kuwari said. “And that is all I can say on the subject. But at the end of your education here, you will face a great test, a test that will reveal your truth and determine your fate.”

Nervousness gripped Aea’s throat, but she forced out another question. “And if we fail this test?”

“It isn’t the sort of test you pass or fail. It isn’t a thing you can prepare for. It isn’t a thing you can study for. It reveals your nature. If you are a god, which god you are will need to be determined by sages and oracles. If you are just a human, then you will stay at the school to become one of the Older Brothers or Teachers, to find other possible Gods-in-Flesh and teach them what they need to know.”

Aea’s gaze flickered to Puabi, to Dile, to Husze, to Tid, and then back to Kuwari. All of them had gone to the school. All of them had been found wanting. She tried to imagine someone with Garre’s ambition being asked to stay and teach children who might be what he had never achieved.

“What if we don’t want to stay and teach?” she asked.

“If you are so ungrateful that you would take this priceless education and turn your back on the school?” Kuwari asked. “I don’t know. We haven’t had any students that morally wretched. Not in hundreds and hundreds of years. Will you be the one to break that streak, Aea?”

She dropped her gaze,.“No, School Father.”

“Good.”

Garre spoke. “How long before we take these tests?”

“The gods will tell us when you have been sufficiently taught through signs and portents. Typically no more than two years, though school records indicate that it can take as long as ten, or as little as a few months.” Kuwari shrugged. “Are there any other questions?”

None of the other children spoke up.

“Good. The Older Brothers and Sister are dismissed. Ibzu, Garre, report to the scribal room for transcription studies.” He held up his tablet. “The rest of you, today’s symbol is Gub. You see how it looks like a calf and foot? Now, depending on context this symbol can mean ‘stand’ or ‘foot’ or ‘walk.’”

Aea half-listened to Garre’s words, face burning. She hadn’t meant to imply that she’d just leave without repaying her debt to the school if she turned out to be just a normal girl, but now they all thought of her as a wretch. Ibzu thought she was a wretch. It was terrible. Everything was terrible.

Maybe she should just leave now, escape, run off into the desert to live like one of the tent-nomads.

***

It was dusk when the day’s lesson ended, and after a brief supper the students returned to their sleeping chambers. Most nights Aea’d have stayed up talking to Mugga and Sabit for at least an hour after dark, but the former farm-girl had other plans tonight.

She was going to get out. Now, before she owed the school too much.

She didn’t know where she’d go. Maybe she’d live as a beggar in the city. Or maybe she’d wander the desert until she died. She just knew that she wasn’t a god, knew that she didn’t want to face being an Older Sister surrounded by children with more potential.

Funny. She’d never really wanted anything before. Never had any ambition. But she knew what she didn’t want.

And besides, it wasn’t like she’d asked to come here.

After Mugga and Sabit’s breathing had grown deep and regular, Aea slipped from her straw mat, pulled on her simple wool dress, pinned it at her shoulder, then padded out towards the courtyard.

The moon above was a fat sliver, casting a silver light that carried with it many shadows. She offered a prayer of thanks to Nanna, the moon god, for this concealment

She crossed the courtyard quickly, bare feet making scant noise, and stopped before the entrance hall, replete with its wooden icons. She couldn’t see them in the darkness between herself and the dim lighting of the outside moonlight, but she knew they were there, knew they were watching her.

“Gods, you know I am not one of you,” she said. “And I do not deserve to eat you food, nor drink your beer, nor live in your school. Please help Father Kuwari to understand that I was just a simple farm girl, a slave-girl, who he sought in error. Please calm his temper.”

That was really all there was to say about it, wasn’t it? She bit her lip, then slowly stepped into the darkness, walking between the rows of unseen gods. She had no doubt that they could reach out and grab her if they wanted to stop her, crush her, leave her dead for the others to find in the morning, but she would not run. Running would be an affront. It would be daring to say that mere human legs could outrun divine justice, and that had to be an insult, right?

They did not stop her, they did not catch her, they did not crush her, and Aea emerged into the cool night air unharmed. Relief flooded her body, and she crept through the eerily silent inner city, empty of priests, of groundskeepers, of their guards. A glance at the Ziggurat told her that even the temple there, home to Enki, was dark and silent. She had no doubt that Lord Storm knew how she felt, knew how she was doing, and if he saw fit to let her go, then her departure had to have his blessing, right?

Her light footsteps brought her to the great gates leading into the outer-city. Enki’s blessing or not, there was no way she could pull the massive gates open, let alone without making a tremendous noise in the middle of the night. Maybe she could climb over?

No. There. Smaller doors set into the walls. Of course. She padded towards them.

“Aea.”

The voice was quiet. It was Ibzu’s. It thundered in her ears, and she almost yelped.

He was walking the streets, like her. Had he seen her leave? Was he running away too? She stared at him, unable to summon words, unable to beg him to let him go.

She saw him quirk a smile in the moonlight. “You could not sleep either?”

“No, I…” She looked past him towards the school. “Mugga snores.”

He laughed quietly. “So does Garre. Maybe they should wed, have a litter of snoring babies.”

She smiled briefly, her gaze darting to the moonlight’s reflection on his smooth chest, to his placid warm eyes, then to her feet.

“That’s not why I’m walking, though,” he said. “I have brothers. Snoring doesn’t bother me.”

“Okay,” she said, wondering why he’d approached her.

“Walking helps me think.”

“Right,” she said. Gods, she sounded like an idiot talking to him.

“Are you bothered by it too?”

What was he talking about? “Snoring?”

“No.” He sat against the wall near her. “About what Kuwari was saying.”

She slowly slid down the wall to sit next to him. “It was a lot to take in.”

“What bothers me,” he said, “is that it’s such a big school.”

“Big?” she asked. “It’s the only school I’ve seen.”

“Well, how big is your sleeping chamber?”

“Big,” she said. “Many times bigger than my home back in Lagash.”

“Mine too,” Ibzu said. “But what bothers me is that there are beds for so many more students. Ten in our room.”

“Ten in ours.” Aea was acutely aware that Ibzu’s hand was only an inch from her own. She could feel its heat. “But I guess sometimes the gods don’t lead them to as many students.”

“Still,” Ibzu said. “Kuwari said that only a few students of any class are actually gods, yes?”

“Right.”

“So where are the others?”

“They become Older Brothers and Sisters.”

Ibzu looked at her in the darkness. “Aea, there are only Husze, Tib, Dile, Puabi, and Kuwari. Five. Where are the rest of them? The school can hold many more.”

His question stuck in her mind. “You’re right. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe they’re out looking for more students?”

“Maybe. Or maybe they go to serve the gods in other ways. Maybe we become slaves if not teachers.”

“You think so?”

“We’re being trained for it, aren’t we? And we grew up with them. Can you imagine Garre as a god?”

Aea groaned. “If he thinks he’s better than us now–”

Ibzu laughed again. “Right?”

“I don’t want to serve Garre.”

“I hope that’s all it is,” Ibzu said.

“What do you mean?”

She could feel his gaze in the darkness. “Sacrifices. Do you think Garre would take Mugga as a servant?”

“He hates her.”

“And as a god… he could do whatever he wanted.”

“Garre would make the worst god.”

“Wouldn’t he?”

They laughed together, and Aea pretended that it had broken the tension. All their conversation had done was redouble her desire to leave, to get out.

“Walk back with me?” Ibzu asked.

“Of course,” she responded without thinking.

“If I turn out to be a god–”

“I wouldn’t mind serving you,” Aea blurted. “I mean, you seem like you’re kind. Nice. Nicer than Garre.”

“I was going to say that I don’t want any slaves.” Ibzu said. “But… you could come and live in my temple. As a friend.”

“I would like that,” Aea said, linking her fingers with Ibzu’s in the dark. “I think we need friends now. Here.”

“Just in case,” Ibzu said, squeezing her fingers.

“Just in case.”

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