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Mirror of Echoes
Chapter 1
The entire castle was in a state of excitement over the ceremony that was to happen later that day. A slew of bad luck had hit the house for the past few months. At first, it was merely small things like the lights burning out, the food ending up being slightly charred, and a sprained limb here and there, but the accidents gradually increased in danger. Some of the horses ended up dead from bad feed (no one knew how that had happened), the kitchen nearly burned down and almost took the rest of that wing of the house with it, and the sudden loss of an entire supply shipment to a freak storm. The loss of the shipment had finally pushed the head of the house to wonder if there was more than just typical bad luck. But even the local witch couldn’t clearly understand what was wrong, although she was able to ascertain, “something was wrong.” The witch hypothesized a ghost’s anger was doing this and offered to perform an exorcism, for a small sum. Of course, the exorcism was performed, but it only seemed to anger the ghost further and the day after the exorcism, a nightingale fell dead from the sky in front of the head of the household, the father, right as he was walking out to greet his in-laws.
That definitely did not sit well with the in-laws.
The in-laws immediately demanded that the father summon a shaman – not just a shaman, but a mudang, a shaman from the East, specifically the Empire of Kyerim. The wife of the head of the house supported the action; the woman was from Kyerim, not to mention the daughter of the in-laws. She said that all the true shamans boasted the blessing of the gods, and only true shamans came from Kyerim.
Something like that.
Of course, the services of the mudang were costly, but according to the father’s contacts in the countries around Kyerim like Pueyo and Wanha, these shamans were very effective. So, although the father protested against requesting a mudang, he did as he was bid. Today was the day the mudang was going to arrive.
Well, Teryx always knew that witch was weak, if not a charlatan.
He sighed, stretching his arms over his head. The world was mocking him. Though it was wonderful outside with clear skies and with just the hint of a breeze, he, Teryx, was going to be forced to stay in the house and play host to some mangy old man or woman when he could’ve been riding in the fields, enjoying the weather, relishing the women…
Ah, the women.
“Teryx, stop fantasizing for a moment and get your ass off the chair. The mudang is going to be here soon,” his brother’s voice floated from the hallway. Teryx grumbled in return, standing up. He walked over to the mirror to double check his appearance so his parents wouldn’t have a fit. Maybe if he dressed horribly enough his father would kick him out and tell him not to come back until he was dressed properly…
“TERYX!”
“I heard you the first time!” Teryx shouted back. “Keep your pants on!” He ran a hand through his rather unfashionably short dirty-blonde hair. His mother almost had a heart attack when she saw him after his haircut, as he remembered correctly. It’s not that it looked bad, Teryx thought, it’s the fact that it goes against my dear mother’s sense of fashion, which happens to be that guys should have long hair.
He tugged at his shirt, white with red trimmings with a vest of burgundy over the shirt, the sleeves tucked into gold-brushed armlets with a phoenix – the family crest – emblazoned upon them. His black pants disappeared about mid-shin into his black boots, specially polished by the servants for this occasion. Around his waist was a black leather belt with a rather elaborate gold buckle, molded to resemble another phoenix: the ever-haunting family crest. He sighed a long suffering sigh, reached for his sword. Buckling it to the leather belt, the male clipped the short chains of the scabbard to the hooks. There. He was ready.
“Teryx, get your ass out here unless you want me to go get Miriam to drag you out!”
And just in time.
He moved to open the door and stick his head out into the hall to shout back at his brother, but the door opened too fast. In fact, it flew off the hinges and forced him to stumble back. He tried to find a sure footing, but his foot ran into the chair and he tripped backwards. He was so sure that he was going to slam his head on the edge of the sill, so sure of it, he just waited, just waited those milliseconds –
Suddenly, he felt a sort of pressure on his senses, a wrenching of his guts, as the room seemed to ripple and change for a moment. He swore he could hear cold, cold laughter that swiftly turned into a scream of outrage. Abruptly, he felt his arms find purchase against the wall and managed to steady himself.
This all happened in the space of about a heartbeat.
“Teryx!” He heard his brother call out his name, but for the moment, he couldn’t do anything but wonder at the fact of how he had survived. He was so sure he was going to split his head open on the sill, as if someone planned it, someone was so sure that it was going to happen…
“Move over Stefan,” he heard his sister, Miriam, order. She pushed the brother out of the way and looked closely into Teryx’s face. Teryx wanted to say something, wanted to move. But he couldn’t. “Teryx, snap out of it!”
“Please move aside.”
That soft voice that carried so much authority… Teryx wondered who it was. He didn’t recognize the voice. A girl – or was it a boy? Teryx wasn’t sure – walked up to him, shorter than he was. The person had long black hair that reached down to his or her legs, dressed in robes that reminded Teryx dimly of the Church priests but not quite since these robes seemed less confining… more flowing. He waited – why was he waiting? – for the person to do something, to say something.
“What’s wrong with him? Don’t tell me the ghost got him!” That was Stefan. Funny, he didn’t seem so far away before.
“Teryx, you better not be faking this… or I’ll… I’ll…” Miriam making threats again. But she didn’t always seem so blurry.
He suddenly realized that the person was touching his face, the person’s fingers at his temples. This time, instead of a gut wrenching feel, he only felt the cool, refreshing breeze that one caught only on summer nights, sweet fragrance of plum blossoms as fireflies danced in the darkness…
Teryx started, gasping for air as he fought for breath; he would have started flailing his arms if the two hands on his head didn’t move to his hands, holding them tightly as Teryx fought his way back to life. He wheezed, finally broken from the strange trance that had gripped him moments before. As he slowly calmed down, the weight of the hands vanished with familiar faces crowding up in his face.
“Teryx, are you all right?” Miriam asked, her green eyes wild with worry. She gripped his arms, shaking him slightly. “You’re okay, right?”
“M’fine, ‘Riam,” Teryx muttered, before going into another coughing fit that lasted only for a few seconds this time.
“What the hell happened to you, Teryx?” Stefan asked, brows drawn together in concern over his brother. Teryx managed a shrug. “I mean… the door suddenly flew back and you were about to trip over the chair when you froze. It was… kind of creepy,” Stefan finished, perturbed.
“I heard laughing,” Teryx murmured, more to himself than anyone else. Miriam tilted her head.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he replied, shaking his head. “So… what happened?”
“Pretty much what Stefan said. You were all frozen and wouldn’t answer or anything when I got here. Then he came and did something, and you woke up,” Miriam explained.
“Who?”
“The mudang. Some reason, he galloped in here at full speed and jumped off of his horse as if he knew this was going to happen to you. It sent Mother into hysterics since none of us were prepared for him to arrive so early,” his sister informed him. Teryx blinked.
“Wait… he? I thought it was a girl…” Teryx trailed off.
“The mudang? He’s a guy… you must’ve been out of it,” Stefan said, still a little worried. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine now. Really,” Teryx added when he saw Stefan’s doubtful look. So, the mudang’s a guy… but he looked so young. Not old. Maybe I was just hallucinating.
“Well, since your little spell killed pretty much any attempt at a welcome ceremony, father just installed the mudang in the guest quarters. Oh, and, by the way, you’re supposed to play gracious host while he’s here,” Miriam added, smiling sympathetically. “Hopefully it won’t be too horrible.”
“Sure… I can feel the agony of boredom right now,” Teryx grumbled, but inwardly, he was curious. He was almost positive the mudang had saved his life… but according to Stefan, it hadn’t looked like he was going to split his head open. Still, Teryx could’ve sworn that was what would have happened if… something hadn’t happen beforehand. And he had the suspicious feeling that that something had to deal with the mudang.
The worst possible assumption.
Jesa was almost there and was resting with his small entourage when an incredible sense of danger and foreboding snapped through his mind, caused him to jump up, tell his head attendant to follow after him at the normal pace, leap onto his horse (he never liked riding cars too much), and take off to the Fenix House. When he felt that he wasn’t going fast enough, he forced himself into a trance, calling upon the power of the gods of earth to aid him. Those gods didn’t mind all that much, but he had to support the divine strength he received with his own energies. While it did get him faster and better results, it took a lot more out of him than he wanted.
When he was within sight of the household, malice and bile slammed into his senses, almost knocking him out of his trance. He managed to continue, trying to reach the house faster. Just as he was at the gate of the house, he sensed the malevolence move and strike. Since he couldn’t waste the time trying to find the exact location of the enmity, he blindly flung out power into a hasty and sloppy (that was the part he hated most, the sloppiness) ward to the center of the disturbance. Thankfully, the gods decided to relent on their fun, and the substandard ward he cast managed to stem most of what the supernatural anger would have caused.
Unfortunately, whatever-it-was still managed to get a foothold in one of the inhabitants of the household a second after he cast the ward. For a moment, he wondered why the hell the family, for all their money, didn’t have something as simple as wards around their house.
So, he had had to rush up to the second floor of the great house – which he noticed was actually quite high as second floors went – find the person who was being dragged into death, and use more raw power without any finesse to sever the link between the malice and the male in front of him.
He could hear his teachers scream in agony.
After he diverted that particular disaster, the Lord Fenix installed him in his rooms, apologizing for the lack of ceremony. He could’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so tired. If he had to stand on a welcoming ceremony in his state then, he might’ve just cursed the entire castle himself. That is, if he knew Karma wasn’t a factor: good or evil cast, it would return to the caster. Damned laws of the universe.
“I hope one of the gods is amused over the situation,” Jesa muttered to himself. He had quickly taken advantage of the built in baths, stripping off his dusty and sweaty travel clothes and slipping into the steaming water that a servant so kindly drew for him. He sighed in contentment, wondering idly if the hot bath every single day would be enough to remedy the beginning of this ordeal. He hadn’t even gotten to divining the cause of the mess, but from the brief encounter, he was pretty sure it was a gwishin, a ghost with a serious grudge that kept it from passing on. Normally, gwishin expressed what they wanted, but from what the Lord Fenix told him, this particular gwishin didn’t seem to want anything but to cause trouble. Jesa sighed. It would’ve been so much easier if he could’ve caught the gwishin by surprise, but Jesa had been forced to rescue that guy with his power, so the ghost certainly would be on its guard next time.
“The gods must really find my life amusing,” the raven-haired boy mused. He also expected trouble from the family in general, over his age. Though he was one of the most powerful and renowned mudang in the kingdom and even beyond, his age was a factor most did not realize until he met his employers. He was only sixteen, soon to be seventeen, while most shamans were well into their forties or fifties. But fortunately, the Lord Fenix didn’t seem too adverse. Probably just too desperate, Jesa thought.
Or you aged so much by not looking like a dress up doll from your wild ride into the house, a voice echoed in his mind. Jesa smiled wryly.
“It’s not my fault I have to wear those robes. It comes with the business, Kyonggae,” Jesa retorted. The air shimmered in front of the boy, a haetae appearing, laying down lazily in the air. The haetae were legendary creatures – or “beings,” as Kyonggae preferred – that resembled something like a lion with a horn attached to the head. In actuality, Jesa supposed it would be very hard to accurately describe a haetae, since saying one looks like a lion with a horn on its head isn’t really the best comparison, but merely the closest one. Sleek like a prince of cats, Kyonggae possessed a golden brown coat that seemed to shift hues like oil does in light, a grand, intricate horn on its head.
The haetae were entirely magical, from the realm of the gods sent as guardians for the mudang, the gods’ chosen agents and avatars. Very few people could see the haetae if he or she was not a mudang; a haetae operated on slightly different rules than nearly anything that was born from the earth. A haetae was similar to a ghost: neither could directly affect Jesa’s world but haetae had the added advantage of innate, divine magic as well as intelligence and wisdom far beyond that of a human. The nice thing about Kyonggae was that it wasn’t bound to the laws of physical reality and was essential to Jesa in help and as an anchor when the boy entered deep trances. Kyonggae was also the young mudang’s contact with other mudang whenever Jesa or another shamanwent away. Jesa wasn’t quite sure if haetae could just teleport all over the place or if they periodically went back to the realm of the gods; he guessed it didn’t really matter.
And that outfit you bought last is essential for your job mudang Kyonggae queried, a sly look on the fantastic being’s face. Jesa flushed. All right. So maybe dressing up in those costumes all the time rubbed off on him. The haetae laughed, leaping from its perch in the air to the floor, padding silently over the tiles. Jesa was amazed at the affluence that surrounded him from the plush rugs to the heated tiles in the bathroom.
“I don’t suppose you know anything about what’s going on in the castle?” Jesa inquired, resisting the urge to yawn. The past hour had taken a lot out of him, both mentally and physically.
It is a ghost, a rather angry gwishin to be exact, the spirit creature replied, licking its fur as a normal cat would. “I did notice that this place has a rather weak toeju. In fact, it’s barely existing. There’s something very anti-magical about this place; I don’t like it. Jesa frowned.
“Anti-magical?” the mudang asked, cocking his head to the side. “What do you mean by that?”
There is something that’s sucking up the magic of anything within the grounds of the castle. The power isn’t being used either, isn’t returned to the world. The ghost is incredibly strong to last this long in this environment, but I believe that even though it will be on its guard the next time you encounter it, you won’t have too much trouble with it, Kyonggae answered.
“A magic absorption field? That would account for the lack of wards on the castle,” the raven-haired boy mused. “Any magic within the vicinity of the field would have been drained into the focus… do you know what the focus is?”
No. I’m assuming the focus is set as a passive system, so I cannot sense it, much less find it. I myself am at risk if I spend too much time here, with this field draining all magic within the borders of this house, it said. It yawned, flashing sharp teeth. I think we should investigate this matter after you exorcise the ghost. But I do advise that you might look for the focus while we are working on the gwishin. The sooner we find the focus, the sooner we can raise wards around the grounds and prevent further situations like this.
“Eh, I have to actually try to feel the field sap my energies, otherwise I don’t notice the drain at all. This is where I’m thankful learned to shield without using magic,” Jesa said, remembering his tutorial with one of the eldest mudang in the kingdom. The old man had been adamant about Jesa learning to shield his mind and spirit without the use of magic. And really, though it was much harder and slower, in the long run Jesa was a step ahead of most magic users since his mental and spiritual shields could not be absorbed as shields could if they were magical. For someone to break his shields over his spirit and mind, he or she would have to engage him in body, spirit, and mind simultaneously. This was a level of skill few possessed, the ability to fight on all three levels. Most could fight on one, fewer on two. And the triple state did not necessarily reflect the amount of power the user possessed; the ability to go into triple state reflected the harmony between the three energy centers. But even most people with triple state ability used magic to guard their minds and spirits.
Jesa used the mind and spirit themselves.
Through meditation and mental exercises, Jesa learned how to lock his mind from outside influence; the only way to pry open Jesa’s mind would be to have his permission or bash it open. In bashing his mind open though, the opponent ran the risk of losing the information he or she wished to obtain. Also, it would take an extraordinary amount of magical force to burn through natural mental barriers, which were nearly immune to magic. But this was what made it so difficult for magic users to cultivate these mental walls, the need to learn how to separate magic from one’s self. Same for spiritual shields. Through meditation, Jesa understood how to center his soul and anchor it from external interference.
Needless to say, it took Jesa a rather long time to build up his own shields. A long time which resulted in being smacked in the head quite often for being stupid.
Jesa wondered if his old teacher had a penchant for sadism.
On the other hand, the Lord Fenix is greatly in your debt now. Even more so than before, Kyonggae informed his shaman. The wet mudang tilted his head to the side, curious.
“What do you mean?”
That was the second son of Lord Fenix that you saved from the gwishin. Apparently he is quite the celebrity around in this kingdom, the haetae replied drolly. The raven-haired boy blinked in surprise. He was one of the three champions of a very large competition last winter. I believe one of the other champions was from Eire and the other from Pueyo.
“Okay...”
By the way, I would finish up your bath. The Lord Fenix will be sending someone to accompany you to dinner, remember?
“Oh yeah. The dinner. Damn, I was hoping to forget and just go to sleep,” Jesa sighed, resisting the urge to yawn. “Just want to lay down in that really nice, inviting, comfortable feather bed…”
You can do that after you get back from dinner. Now out! Or I’ll zap the water! Kyonggae threatened. The shaman grumbled but slid out of the immense tub, snagging a towel from a convenient rack nearby and toweling off. His hair would take a while; Jesa grimaced as his fingers felt the snarls in the long tresses. He’d have to ask a servant to straighten the snags later. As if to answer his thought, there was a polite knock on the bathroom door. Jesa blinked, looking at the haetae with an unspoken question. Kyonggae suddenly leaped from its seat, a smooth movement of rippling fur and muscle that sent the guardian beast through the wall to the other side of the door. After a moment, the haetae stuck its head through the wall.
It’s just the servant, Kyonggae said. Jesa exhaled, relaxing.
“Well, I need to finish drying…” Jesa replied. He raised his voice. “Just a few minutes, please.” He rubbed himself more vigorously with the towel, keeping himself from tensing again. The only place he ever felt safe was in the City of the Gods, the “home” of the gangsinmu, those that were truly marked by the gods to be the agents between the gods and the world. The City of the Gods was an ancient city atop the sacred Mount T’aebaek, the entire mountain suffused in magic that went back to the time when the gods actually walked the world. The City of the Gods could easily be said to be the safest place from all assault in the world, protected by not only the gangsinmu, who were much more powerful than the typical seseummu – a shaman not marked by the gods – but also the gods, who had their own blessing upon the place. To commit a foul act in or towards such a place such as murder would call the wrath of the living, the dead, and the transcendent.
Of course, Jesa found this all too stifling in normal circumstances, as he was one of the youngest gangsinmu in history. Actually, he was one of the youngest shamans in general, placing a youth among the aged. Most of the inhabitants of the City were old and had no reason to go out into the world. They were the teachers, the seers, and the sages that remained in recluse.
They were also incredibly boring sometimes.
True, Jesa did have to worry constantly about assaults from supernatural forces such as the akhma – demons created from dire imbalances in nature such as the wanton and deliberate destruction of life or land – or the agwi – a particular vicious brand of ghosts that were much more powerful than typical wandering dead – or even other human magic users. As a mudang, Jesa invoked and evoked the power of the gods and spirits. There were others that utilized the power of magical languages or harnessed the inherent magic in all things; each was a different class, each had a different name. The worst were the necromancers. The raven-haired boy shuddered. Necromancers were disgusting, perverted parodies of shamans who harnessed the powers of the dead and demons, feeding off the energies from blood and the dying. In the annals of the Mountain of the Gods, there were recorded battles, even wars between the necromancers and mudang.
But this was beside the point. The point was that Jesa would rather worry constantly and live his life a little than spend it cooped up in the Mountain. Even when he nearly died once, by making the fatal mistake of not checking who was knocking. It turned out to be an agwi that stole a human body. Jesa received a nasty cut on his arm and a few broken ribs for that mistake. He was lucky it wasn’t worse. He only survived since Kyonggae managed to distract the agwi so Jesa could muster his defenses. The battle that ensued was one of the fiercest the young mudang had ever fought. He nearly brought down the house he was in but managed to ward off the room. Instead, he reduced all the furniture in the room to splinters. What pissed him off the most was that he had to fight the bastard of the ghost naked.
Jesa definitely did not enjoy that.
He finished drying himself off, hanging the damp towel on a hook by the towel racks. The bearer of the Mark of the Gods snagged a robe from the nice pile of fluffy, white robes that looked warm and definitely were warm when he put them on. There were some nice benefits also of getting out of that damned City…
Like warm bathrobes. And nice, spacious bathrooms with heated tiles.
Especially the heated tiles.
He wrapped the robe tighter around himself and opened the door. A servant waited patiently by the door – an older woman, probably a trusted family servant. She bowed deeply to him as he thought he sensed a touch of fear and reverence: fear for what folktales said about mudang – Jesa thought some of them were quite ludicrous – and reverence for his power and what he represented.
Time to get yourself all prettied up! Kyonggae said, prancing around the woman, though she could not see him. Jesa suppressed a groan at the thought of having to deal with a formal welcome feast.
He just knew the gods were laughing at him. Just knew it.
It sucked to be mudang sometimes.
Actually, the feeling hovered between being disturbed and exasperated.
His hand hovered over the door, still debating whether or not to run off and hide and use the excuse that he lost track of time… or he could knock and prepare to be bored out of his mind. He was almost ready to go with the former idea and was about to slink off in an attempt to hide when something walked through the wall next to the door. Teryx blinked. Looked. And blinked again. Still there.
What, is this “plague Teryx with hallucinations” day? he wondered, not sure what exactly he was looking at. He almost could say it was a lion… but it had a horn on its head. And something about it… just didn’t seem like a lion. It was too sleek, too perfect… in a way, almost too real. It suddenly looked at him, Teryx’s amber eyes meeting the creature’s prismatic sight; Teryx felt as if he was transparent as glass, his soul bared to the eyes that held rainbows…
A low chuckle came from the strange beast, snapping Teryx out of his trance. The dirty-blond was sorely confused. What was this creature? Teryx was nearly positive it wasn’t natural. Then again, his mind could be very imaginative. He suddenly froze as the beast moved and began to circle him, sniffing the air. The young man couldn’t help thinking that the attitude the creature had at the moment resembled that of his old teacher, an old monk who just looked at students and made them feel guilty, even if they didn’t know what they did. Abruptly, the creature vanished through the door; Teryx, needless to say, was shell-shocked.
Maybe I should just go into my room, lay down, and not get up until tomorrow. Yeah… that seems like a good idea, Teryx thought, dazed. Take a nice long nap. And not get up. Yeah… He blinked, startled as the door clicked and opened. The young man stepped back to avoid being hit by the door, resigning himself to death by ennui. Until he looked at the person in the doorway.
Wow.
Long black hair reached past the waist, stark against the pallor of the clothes – Probably silk, Teryx thought absently. The clothes them dirty-blond male had never seen before. The ends of an ivory silk jacket tied in the middle to form a V neckline, edged in white; the jacket extended down to the waist. The sleeves vanished under an overcoat of the same stark white silk, the cuffs of the overcoat’s sleeves wide, almost like wings. The sides of the overcoat fell to the ankles while the back stopped at the waist, just past the jacket beneath. The pantaloons were of the palest blue silk, tied just below the ankle with a band of the same material, the bottoms puffed up from the bound cuffs. Small cloth woven shoes adorned the feet of the mudang. All in all, the mudang looked like some exotic native from the east.
Well… he is from Kyerim.
After being caught by the glamour of the clothes – Teryx didn’t mind looking at exotic clothes, just didn’t like wearing the formal stuff – he looked at the face.
And was instantly captivated.
The mudang was not old at all. On the contrary, the shaman looked younger than Teryx by at least two or three years. Almond shaped eyes that looked almost black fit the exotic face, pale olive skin with high cheekbones starting to become more apparent. An androgynous face, yet with leanings toward the male gender. Then he saw the strange creature from before at the mudang’s side, bobbing its head up and down.
Teryx could’ve sworn it was laughing.
Suddenly, he remembered his etiquette and bowed to the shaman – could the mudang really be that young or was it some trick of the light or magic? – and rose, looking down at the raven-haired boy.
“My name is Teryx de Fenix. I am to accompany you to the dining hall, if it is your wish, Lord mudang,” Teryx said somewhat stiffly, trying to make sure he remembered all the proper forms of address and such. The shaman was silent, his expression completely unreadable. The dirty-blond teen wondered if he did something wrong.
“Thank you, Sir Teryx,” the mudang answered, bowing deeply back. “I am glad for your company.” Teryx sighed inwardly. He knew that according to the rules of etiquette, no matter what, his offer of company had to be taken, no matter what. Still, he had his hopes.
“May I inquire your name, Lord mudang?” Teryx asked.
“Oh, I apologize, Sir Teryx,” the shaman replied, slightly flustered. He bowed again, deeper than last time. Teryx wondered distantly if the boy was doubling up in agony or laughter. “I am called Jesa. And please don’t call me lord… I am not nearly a lord. Nor of the age.”
“If that is your wish,” Teryx said, inclining his head in the proper manner. Inwardly, he was puzzled. Most stories he had heard said that the mudang were notorious for etiquette and respect and all that. But this one just broke one of the first rules of etiquette: never mention one’s failings or flaws.
This is decidedly odd, the young man thought, shifting his feet so he could keep his posture. He felt horribly awkward standing there. Also, he felt edgy. There was something about the shaman that Teryx just didn’t like. But that was probably just because he was forced into playing the gracious guide and host.
Or maybe it was magic. He never quite believed in magic, but maybe this mudang cast some spell on him before. Or maybe he was just being paranoid. He stepped forward and offered his arm.
“Shall we go then?”
Author's Notes:
I promise I’ll get the plot moving. I swear. Cross my heart. I actually started this fic as a short story… as in… I could finish this in one setting. It didn’t happen. It’s spawning, I swear. But at least I’m not doing any gratuitous fight scenes. Or lemon scenes. And my dear beta (All of you should worship her…) has counted that I typed “gods” 25 times in this chapter. Oops?