All right, since Tara asked me to write this, I’ll do the best I can. She says she wants me to do it because we’re such good friends, and she can trust me, and I’m sensitive to the situation. Reading between the lines, that means she thinks I’m a good spy and a better gossip, doesn’t it? But it makes sense that she would want an insider’s report. The ruler has the most to fear from the intrigues of the harem.
Ailann and Patrick always agonize over where to start, but I’m going to make it easy on myself. I’ll just pick up where I left off the last time I wrote something. She was unbuttoning her shirt.
Patrick is looking over my shoulder, telling me to skip to the renovation of the club. Pat, old friend, this is my book. My book, not yours. And I’m not glossing over the sex scenes. I love it when she straddles me, and I pull her close, or in the shower when I…
Yes, Mickey, I am going to tell the story. Tara asked me to tell the story.
Ailann hands me a whiskey, straight up.
All right, the club. We had a few peaceful months while the construction on Everybody Goes to Tommy’s was being completed. It’s got a lounge, a casino, a top-flight restaurant, a gallery for Driscoll, a shopping concourse, and a curfling arena. I’m really getting into curfling. It’s such a genteel sport. The first time I really watched a match, I was amazed at how the air currents from the sweeping hoop skirts could move the hoverstones into the goal area. And the way the strategy changes completely depending on what style of dance the shuffler determines. And the way the team that scores gets extra points for the gracefulness of their dancing. It wasn’t in my original plan, but it’s just total class, and I knew that in order to call my club the most exclusive on Dolparessa, I’d have to have curfling.
The most exclusive on Dolparessa, says Ailann. That’s pretty ambitious, Tommy.
It isn’t! It’s all for Tara. Everywhere I’d go, I’d think about her – I could see her on the dance floor, or on the terrace, drinking champagne, or I’d picture myself singing to her.
Like Tara is gonna play curfling, says Cillian.
You never know. It’s getting very popular amongst the aristos. You never know what Tara will do. For example, I was showing her around, and she asked me what a particular closet was for. Well, I wasn’t sure – I thought it would just be used for supplies, but then Tara pulled me inside of it and put her hand on my…
Patrick clears his throat.
Well, it certainly is the most exclusive closet on Dolparessa. Anyway, I had Wynne working as a consultant on the casino. We installed the latest gaming machines, but we both agreed that there had to be some old-fashioned tables. I like them because they’re classy, but he likes them because they’re flashy. It’s so much more impressive for him to manipulate the probabilities of something physical than a virtual game. He’ll get a streak going in spinette or Skarsian hold-em, and the ladies fall all over him.
Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. But Tara did want an honest report.
At the same time the club was being built, Clive talked Sweet Blonde Suzanna into taking our envoys to the meeting of the Combine of Sentients. The plan was to use either Cara or one of the K’ntasari as a mouthpiece for Lucius. But when Lucius figured out the mind-control thing, he said that it would be easiest to use Suzanna. Of all of them, she was the flakiest,* which meant she’d be easiest to influence. You can imagine how Cillian reacted to that! Of course, nobody told Suzanna that Lucius would be borrowing her body. In retrospect, it’s probably better that we didn’t.
Those few months were the happiest time of my life. I was emanated a lot, and I got to be with Tara. During the day, I’d supervise construction, and then most every night, we’d get drunk, and screw around, and she’d fall asleep in my arms. What more could a tree want?
It was pretty nice, Cillian admits. You’d think it would be perfect, except for a few nut jobs around here.
I know what he means. On the outside, everything seemed peaceful. But on the inside – drama. I wasn’t there when it started, but I can access the appropriate branches. I have to admit, it feels a little weird to do it. And that of itself is weird, since there’s really nothing we can call privacy in here. I mean, I don’t care if anyone accesses my branch. Right now, Cillian’s looking at that sex scene I wanted to write. Go for it, bro. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at the night when he took Tara down into the pinkpunk dungeon and…Patrick, why are you such a pile of mulch all the time?
Anyway, what happened was that Tarlach was working with Aran. Aran’s first emanation was traumatic, and he’d never been quite right after that. Tarlach was trying to find a way to help him cope, help him feel less self-destructive. And he figured out that one of Aran’s problems was that Goliath didn’t really have that many memories because it was new. In order to stay sane, a Cu’enashti relies on its memories of the Chosen. Ari and Manasseh, the first two branches emanated, had been on their own for two years, not even knowing that Tara existed. It was an abnormal, hell, a unique situation. On the other hand, Atlas had been building up a huge repository of good memories over the years. Having Aran access those branches really helped his separation anxiety. He just had to immerse himself in our best memories of Tara.
Tarlach takes a lot of shit, but he’s really a good guy. He’s always trying to help, and he is pretty insightful. At one time or another, he’s helped all of us, except maybe Lorcan. But then again, it’s not his fault because Lorcan won’t let him help. The only one he can’t seem to do any good for is Suibhne. No matter how much therapy Tarlach gives to Suibhne, it’s of no use. I think it’s because Suibhne was meant to be broken, so there’s no point in trying to fix him.
Tara-therapy is great, says Suibhne. It didn’t improve my sanity, but it feels wonderful.
Yeah, the Tara-therapy was going so well with Aran that a lot of other people wanted to try it. BJ and Cuinn raved about it. But then, Owen asked Tarlach to use it on him. Owen said he didn’t want to be a deviant anymore.
The upshot was that Owen and Lugh had an enormous fight, and…okay, this is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but…I guess Lugh accused Owen of loving Tara more than him.
I mean, right?
But Lugh was pretty miserable about it, and sulked for weeks. We all got upset because he was the guy who always cheered everybody else up, and he wouldn’t even speak to anyone. Once, I tried to talk to him about it. I tried to get him to talk to Tarlach.
What good did talking to Tarlach ever do anyone? he asked.
Well, it seems to be helping Aran. It couldn’t hurt to try it, I said.
Yeah, it could. Because Tarlach will try to cure me of my deviancy, and I don’t want to be cured. Maybe Owen wants to be normal, but I don’t.
It isn’t exactly making you happy, though, is it? C’mon, Lugh, look at yourself. Your name means “light,” but you’re as gloomy as a starless sky.
Lugh doesn’t mean light – that’s an etymological misconception. However, Lucius means light, so why don’t you go hang out with him? You know, Lucifer also means light-bringer. Loki starts with an L, also. And Lorcan. “L” is a good initial for bitter men with an axe to grind.
I didn’t even know what to say, so I left him alone. Most everybody did. We all felt guilty about it because we all remembered how much help Lugh was to us when we had it rough, but at the same time, well, honestly, we were feeling kind of funny about being associated with a pervert like him.
Well, everyone except for Lorcan. I guess it’s no surprise that he’d have a completely inappropriate reaction, is it? Lorcan got a grub in his rootlet about Lugh being more perverse than he was. So he started acting out. He decided to make a big show of pursuing Jamey. Believe it or not, he wrote a book of poetry – like that makes sense, trying to win Jamey with words? Lorcan’s book is called Flowers from My Poison Garden. He was steamed that Flowers of Evil was already taken. But I don’t know if the poems are meant to woo Jamey as much as to shock and offend everybody else. I kind of hesitate to repeat it, but here’s the first poem. It’s called “Dilemma”:
The sores upon my wrists fester
rubbed raw from the fetters of irony
why is it that
my only peace is
my cock shoved up the snatch
of the insatiable whore
and not bathing in the blood
of beautiful Jamey
whose suffering makes my leaves
tremble with delight
if only the perfect scars
I would trace on his porcelain skin
like lacework
could bring as much satisfaction
as fucking the universal bitch.
I think you get the point. Poor Jamey. Anyone else would have told Lorcan to sod off, but Jamey put up with it.
Ailann had his own worries. He was thinking of publishing the transcripts of our testimonies for the SongLuminants in the hope that it would convince CenGov to lay off the Cu’endhari. Somehow, he had to persuade humanity to make nice and cooperate with us, because if they didn’t, the SongLuminants would erase them. Of course, humanity had been at each other’s throats since…well, since…I guess the story about Cain and Abel is apocryphal. But the bubbles had upped the ante on Ailann’s godhood, and he had to prepare himself to do some smiting, if the need should arise.
Calm down, Mickey. Tara loves the gossipy stuff, and anyway, all of this is relevant to the story. To sum it up, we had enough drama going on that we were really distracted. We didn’t pay attention to the warning signs that Tara and Sir Kaman noticed. We didn’t know that anything was wrong at all until Mickey started getting those reports, and then Charles burst into the Convocation.
Yeah, I am getting ahead of the story. It was foreshadowing. I was trying to create a sense of tension before moving into the next chapter.
Okay, right. I’m moving into the next chapter.
*Literally, an asteroid composed of nothing buy interstellar dust – trans.