those, your Presence. I feel I'd understand that sort of thing, see.» Great Being smiled slyly. «And I suppose I won't need to name you, either. I suppose that being such a creative type you've picked your own?» «Rimble. Greatkin Rimble—at your service. My friends call me Murphy, though. Or rather, they will. In time. When You invent it.» Great Being regarded Rimble with renewed consternation. «There's more of you?» Rimble rolled his pied eyes. «Really, your Presence—you've simply got to stop thinking about things in such isolation. Of course, there are more of my kind. I have twenty-six squabbling brothers and sisters. All of whom want names from You. There. Does that make You happy?» Great Being nodded, Its sly mood returning. «I'm glad I'm needed for something, Rimble. Otherwise, I would get very lonely. And sad. Very, very sad.» Rimble stared at Great Being. «You would?» «Oh, yes.» Trickster though he was, Rimble was not a cruel soul. How could he be? He,
like all of creation, had sprung from the kindness of Great Being. So Rimble felt a pang of compassion for Great Being—the first in manifest reality. He eyed Great Being carefully out of the corner of his yellow eye, and said, «Well, maybe me and the rest of the family could keep You company or something. Would that help?» «That would help a great deal,» said Great Being, Its moroseness lifting. «So I can always count on you to help me?» «Uh—» «You don't want me to be sad…» «Well—no, your Presence.» «Then it's decided.» «What is?» asked Rimble, who was getting the feeling that Great Being had just duped him. «You and your twenty-six squabbling brothers and sisters will be my helpers. For all time—» «For all time!» Rimble began dancing a hopping jig of fury. «I never said anything about all time!» «Didn't you?» Rimble was so stupefied by the question that he didn't answer Great Being. Great Being smiled broadly. «Do you know what Rimble means?» Rimble spluttered. «I made it up!» «Then let me give the name meaning. It's my nature, you know, to give meaning.» Great Being spoke in perfect mimicry of Rimble's earlier pronouncement about «Improvements.» Rimble paced. Then he said, «Okay. You're on. You give my name meaning.» He paused. «So what's it mean?» Great Being began to laugh. The boom of Its humor resounded in every corner of the known and unknown universes. Rimble bit his lower lip and asked: «You going to tell me who I am, or not?» «What, and spoil all the fun of you finding out?» scoffed Great Being. Then in a moment of unexpected seriousness, Great Being added, «I suspect, Rimble, that when all is said and done, you'll know more about yourself than anyone else. And that's a good thing, Rimble. Self-knowledge is power of the right kind.» Great Being paused. «Should I call you Murphy?» Rimble put his hands on his hips. «Guess that depends on whether You're
my friend or not. Well, when I decide, I'll get back to You on it. Meanwhile, I'm Rimble.» «The one who will know something of himself,» said the Presence softly. ></emphasis
Rimble laughed softly. «I'm so full of tricks myself, I thought the Presence was giving more of the same. I thought I'd have to wait centuries before Great Being would tell me what Rimble meant. And there Great Being had gone and told me in the first place. Rimble means 'the one who knows something of himself.'» Rimble sighed. «Not that anyone in Eranossa thinks so.» «How can we be of service to you?» asked Kindra graciously. Rimble stood up. He walked to the center of the Mythrrim ring. In proportion to their great size, Rimble resembled a child's toy. As large as his offspring were, Rimble felt no fear of them. The Mythrrim were a compassionate, intelligent, and good- natured race. It was to these three qualities that Rimble now spoke.
«Things are bad for me at Eranossa right now. See, I've got this charge from the Presence to go broaden the perspective of the known and unknown universes. Basic panoramic mutation, you understand. Happens every hundred millennia or so when the Presence gets bored. Anyway, as usual, Great Being has come to me to do the job.» Rimble paused, pulling on his black goatee. «Mattermat's blocking me on every level. So are most of the ninnies in Eranossa—Themyth excepted. I'm going to need to go through Neath to get the job done.» The Mythrrim made howls and squawks of dismay. «That's the hard way,» said Kindra. «Are you sure there's no other?» Greatkin Rimble shrugged. «Not unless you can think of one.» Kindra cocked her head to the side. Then, speaking in Oldspeech, she
conferred with the rest of her family. Tails wagged, wings fluttered. Rimble waited patiently for the Mythrrim to reach a consensus. Since the median age of a Mythrrim Beast was three thousand years, the creatures perceived time in a slower—almost geologic—manner than normal mortals. The family council took three days to reach its decision. At the end of that period, Kindra approached Rimble. The little Greatkin was fast asleep in a nearby cave. The ancient Mythrrim woke the snoring Greatkin gently with her canine nose. «We're ready to resume conversation with you,» she said. Rimble yawned and sat up. «I'm listening.» Kindra hesitated. «You have a great fear, yes? Fear for the future?» «Yeah,» said Trickster. «Great Being says 'change or be changed.' And that means everyone, see. Even the Greatkin. You know how Mattermat is about change. It's not his nature. It's mine.» «And if Mattermat doesn't surrender, all of creation will suffer?» «That's about the size of it,» agreed Rimble with a despondent sigh. Kindra grinned, exposing long teeth, yellowed with age. «How about a jolt of the fantastic. Get Jinndaven to help you—» «Easier said than done. I've pissed him off recently.» «Nonsense. Jinndaven loves you. What's more he needs you. You're the only Greatkin who'll listen to his wild ideas. The tame ones are fine for everyone else. But he's got nowhere to go with his wild ones—except to
you, Father.» Kindra purred briefly. «Anyway, we'll do this thing backward.» «Sounds promising,» said Trickster. He loved doing things backward. «We thought you'd like it.» Kindra chuckled. «We'll also do the unexpected. We'll go through the mortals. We'll make the change in them first. When they change, it will affect the Greatkin at Eranossa and Neath. Myth does
that. It reaches out in all directions. Has its impact on Greatkin and mortal alike.» Rimble pursed his lips. Then he said, «Mattie won't expect this. In fact, I
don't even think he believes the mortals have any effect on Eranossa at all. Divine Will only goes one way.» «That is his great error,» said Kindra, her expression sage. Trickster started to pace. «And of course the unknown universes interpenetrate the known universes. I likes it, I does. I likes it a lot.» Trickster looked wistfully at Kindra. «They do nothing but criticize me in Eranossa. I'd dearly love to put them in their highfaluted places. Neath style.» Kindra nodded. «Myths aren't short on blood and horror. We'll tell the tale here. You give us the main players, and we'll embellish. As it's told in Soaringsea, the tale will gather momentum. The people involved will feel the pull of the myth and begin to act on it. Myth and mortal will mold each other. One request, though.» «Anything.» «We want a part.» «You have a part,» said Trickster. «You're talking right now—» «Yes, but this is a bit part,» countered Kindra and several of the other Mythrrim. «We want to make an appearance in mortal time and space. We've grown curious during our years of retreat. We want to see the progress of the two-leggeds on the mainland. After all, we were their teachers.» «Progress?» said Trickster dubiously. «That's a kind word for it.» «Nevertheless, we want to visit the mainland, Father.»
Trickster considered this possibility. «Well, this is a tricksterish tale. The unexpected is the norm. Why not? The more havoc the better. You can visit Speakinghast, the bastion of tidiness, logic, and realism. Ugh,» added Rimble, rolling his eyes with distaste. Kindra flapped her wings with annoyance. «We don't wish to create havoc, Father. We're creatures of peace—»
«Hey, now, wait a minute. Peace isn't my thing at all. There's a Greatkin for that and it ain't me. If it's peace you want, go see—» Kindra interrupted Trickster crisply. «The end of a quantum leap is a new stability, Father. That's a kind of peace. We want a share in it.» Rimble grumbled and swore under his breath. Kindra began to laugh. «Change or be changed, Father.» Trickster stiffened. The Mythrrim roared—literally—with guffaws and giggles. The island shook with the sound of their voices. Trickster put his hands over his ears and wondered if he should dematerialize until the Mythrrim subsided. Finally Kindra stopped rolling about on the ground. Still chuckling, Kindra sat up and said, «Rimble-Rimble on you, Father.» The laughter started all over again. *2* By her own admission, Elder Hennin of Suxonli Village was a world-class villain, and she liked herself this way. Tammirring-born, she had inherited all of the psychic gifts of her native landdraw: prophecy, telepathy, and visualization. The good she could have made of these gifts was inestimable. For her own reasons, however, Hennin had distorted these gifts and bent them to her personal will. A renegade Mayanabi Nomad of considerable rank, Hennin possessed the training to twist anything to her advantage. Interested in enhancing her own spiritual power base in Suxonli, Hennin had done the unthinkable. She had revised the original Mythrrim tales about Trickster told by the Mythrrim Beasts themselves in centuries gone by. The villagers were an uneducated group for the most part, and Hennin had dazzled them with her brilliance and persuasive logic. In time, she had set herself up as an expert on the rituals of Greatkin Rimble, drawing others like Cobeth into her webs of intrigue and deceit. Cobeth was dead now due to an unfortunate accident at a Trickster's Hallows held last year in Speakinghast. Hennin missed his company, not because she had
