This year’s Ākal-ne metro area census reveals demon creation is down 50% from last decade […] the recent tweaks to children’s base income have done wonders for their well-being, at least if Lilith’s judgments as to which children are in need of becoming demons can be fully trusted…
—Ākal-ne Government Report 32.1, 5860A.C.
“So, you’re finally gonna see Tamar again this weekend,” Hannuša says, swaying her arms back and forth as she walks next to Elīya.
They’re out looking for a dance, hoping some rooftop will have a party that obliges their hobby. The moon’s a slight crescent in the dark blue sky; the cobblestone’s mostly shadows. But despite how late it is, it’s still hot enough that Elīya’s skirt almost sticks to her skin.
“Yeah.” Elīya smiles. “I still can’t believe it’s happening.”
“Sounds like you’re the one who made it happen.”
Elīya nods a little. “Not that I’ve earned it, yet. Won’t be earned properly until I pull off a manifestation.”
“How’s that going?”
Elīya sighs loudly.
“That bad?”
They’re walking close to the middle of the empty street; basically everyone on campus is sleeping or studying this close to the end of the term.
“I don’t flaming understand half the stuff Lucifer has me do. No, more than half. Last time they asked me if I could feel anything under my feet, any type of ground, what would it be?”
“And how’d you respond?”
“Um. I said… stone. Warm stone, at night. Like, the kind you find out in the desert? Which, really, I mean, what’s that even supposed to say about me, like hello, I live in a desert.”
Hannuša scratches her chin. “Hmm. I’d probably actually have said dirt and grass and fallen leaves.”
“Huh? That’s weird.”
Hannuša raises an eyebrow.
Elīya blinks. “Wait, do you understand this whole thing better than I do?”
“Low bar.” Hannuša puts her hands behind her head, looking up at the stars.
“Maybe you should be the Theurgist, then,” Elīya mutters.
“Not my problem. My problem is the three proofs I’ll have to do in two hours for the final of my Theorems class.”
“Must be nice, having finals that expect something of you.”
“Eh, it’s got its downsides.”
They cross the street that leads out of the university. The lights on the sides of buildings are still dim over here, but now that they’ve left campus, Elīya can actually hear other people off in the distance. She sighs in relief; it seems they’ll get to dance after all.
“Hey, Hannuša?”
“Hm?”
“Why can’t this Theurgy thing just be easier?”
“Dunno.” Hannuša shrugs. “It’s about you, though, so maybe the difficulty has to do with, well, you.”
Elīya closes her eyes, to hide her rolling them. “I’ve been told that before.”
“I’m sure you have,” Hannuša glances at Elīya with something like concern.
“Are you making fun of me, in your head? Because that wouldn’t be terribly ethical to do, for multiple reasons.”
Hannuša shrugs again, exaggeratedly.
“I can list them,” Elīya continues. “Reason one: that’s keeping a secret from me, which is against principles of openness. Reason two: though there is nothing necessarily wrong with unkind thoughts, as no one can perfectly control their thoughts, if such thoughts are evident just from looking at someone’s face, they are not mere thoughts.”
“Aren’t those two reasons completely contradictory?” asks Hannuša.
“Reason three, which forms a bridge between reasons two and one: if someone can guess at your thoughts, and that they are unkind, it is likely the person will imagine something much more scathing than what the thought actually is, thus making honesty the better option.”
Hannuša exhales. “Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you on your home turf. Which probably means you have been really stressed, wow.” She nods to herself. “Yup, you sure are as terrifying as I remember.”
Strangely, Elīya smiles to herself. It has been a while since she went at a fairly simple, small moral problem. It’s satisfying. “Actually, you’ve just made another case study. True honesty is more than just speaking your mind, it’s understanding what you mean and being able to clarify. In fact, a truly honest statement requires effort from both the person speaking it and the person hearing it, as the listener has responsibility to ask for clarification if needed. And in this case, I would ask: what do you mean by terrifying?”
Hannuša opens her mouth and looks to the side. “Um…”
Elīya raises her eyebrows. “I take it the second level of honesty is difficult for you?”
“Somehow I ended up needing to justify calling my friend ‘terrifying,’” Hannuša says, “so yeah?”
“You’re the one who said it. Responsibility, etcetera.”
“You don’t just get to talk like a textbook and then ‘etcetera’ me!”
Elīya crosses her arms.
“To change the subject,” Hannuša says.
“Oh no you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. See, this is me, changing the subject, I can do it, take that!” She points at Elīya, smiling. “Anyway, have you tried—oh, I don’t know—applying this thing you’re doing now to Theurgy or whatever?”
Almost a full second of imagining doing so passes before Elīya’s eye twitches. She doesn’t want to admit it, but that’s the real terrifying thing here.
“Your turn to be honest, oh moral arbiter.”
“I am not arbitrating—”
“Yes, you are.”
Elīya bites her lip and looks away, exhaling. “Well, I’m not supposed to be. My branch of ethics is intended to be personal, after all, with each individual choosing their virtues, who they want to be—”
Elīya glances back to Hannuša, who is raising her eyebrow so sharply that it cuts her off.
After a moment of silence, Hannuša says, “That’s sure not how you actually treat it. Your ethics.”
“Interestingly,” Elīya notes, “your eyebrow made that point clearer than your words.”
“I do my best. Anyway, who’s changing the subject now?”
Flame and fire. “Unfortunately, the second level of honesty is evading me, as I don’t particularly know what I think regarding ethical reasoning and Theurgy.”
“Evading,” Hannuša echoes. “Wow, I can really tell you’re stressed. You see, your wording did that thing, where it added like eight extra syllables to each thought—”
“Shush.”
Hannuša puts up her hands in mock surrender. “Just saying.”
“It is the truth, though.”
“But you’re wrong about one thing,” Hannuša says. “I don’t think it has to be ethical reasoning that you would apply to Theurgy. More like… just, reasoning. In general.”
“Why do you even know this, or have opinions on it?”
“Because I’m trying to help?”
“You’re not even the type of person to ever do Theurgy yourself.”
Hannuša shrugs. “Who knows? I’ve got a long life ahead of me, and I’m sure praying to God can’t stop me from doing it. Flames, if I ever did decide to try Theurgy, God might help, like with Lilith.”
Elīya nods. “What’s she like? I don’t think I’ve ever asked.”
“Yeah, wow, you did take almost a full year before asking me the one question everyone asks demons. Nice.”
“Sorry that I asked it at all?” Elīya offers.
“It’s cool. I don’t blame you for being curious.” Hannuša stretches her arms out in front of her. “Um, I mean, she’s busy, so it’s not like she talks to any one demon that commonly. Her not having, like, limbs and stuff kind of means there’s not much for her to do but make new demons and talk to all of us and coordinate, but on the other hand there’s a lot of us, so that kind of is a lot to do. She’s—really kind, though? I guess you’d have to be to be flaming queen of the first city, ever, on Šehhinah, and then say to yourself, ‘Flame it, I’m clearly not doing enough for people, I’m going to become the most powerful of the Holy to ever live and singlehandedly rescue and raise all the abandoned and abused children I can find in the world.’ Like, who does that? Her, I guess.”
“She’s like a benevolent Tamar,” Elīya mutters.
“Haven’t met your Tamar, but I doubt she’s like, un-benevolent. But also, not as powerful as Lilith. I mean, most of the other Holy—like, all of them—have prices a little smaller than their entire bodies.”
“She is human, though, still? Because I remember, learning about Theurgy, how human souls need bodies to attach to, and their bodies can’t be manifestations—”
“Oh flames, that isn’t commonly known outside of demons?” Hannuša says. “Wow, huh. Yeah, um, Lilith… Lilith’s something, alright. When she spoke the truest of God’s names and was completely immolated, she, through like a sheer act of will, and I have no idea if anyone else who’s ever lived has even half the will she does, she somehow forced her soul to accept, of all things, water vapor as her body.”
“Water vapor,” Elīya says.
“Yeah. All water vapor.”
Elīya coughs. “What? I’ve never heard that.” Wait, in the air she’s breathing right now—wow, that’s weird.
“Sorry, I really thought that was commonly known! I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s not a secret, either, but… yeah.”
“Literally all water vapor in the world is Lilith’s body,” Elīya says.
“Yeah, on Šehhinah, yeah. Wouldn’t be the case on other planets. Again, she’s got incredible will, but not quite that much.”
“So… does she talk to you through the water vapor?”
Hannuša laughs. “Water vapor can’t talk. Nah, she can just sort of show up in our minds, because we’ve got a bit of her soul manifested close to our bodies, that’s what makes us demons.” She looks to Elīya. “You know at least that part, right?”
“Yeah,” Elīya says.
Hannuša breathes a relieved sigh.
“Wait,” Elīya says. “If Lilith is all water vapor… is she all water? Because water vapor is water, it’s the same molecule, so—”
“It is the same molecule,” Hannuša agrees, “but it’s not going the same speed. The only water that can serve as Lilith’s body is water vibrating fast enough—that is, water that’s hot enough. She’s only the fast water, Elīya.”
“…Right,” Elīya says, blinking. “And wait, okay, I think I learned about this, but it was years ago, and since we’re on the subject—she’s a Holy, right, but it’s her manifestations that make people demons?”
Hannuša nods. “How we learn about it, as demons, is she has access to a lot of raw power from God’s soul. And she can use that power to basically push her soul into manifesting? So the only thing that touches us is hers, not God’s, but like… it’s like if you touch someone with a gloved hand, only the glove touches you, but what’s pushing it is the hand? Kind of.”
Elīya nods.
“And I think she’s got some friends among the angels that have some manifestations that involve her or something, so she can talk to them, too.”
“That’s… complicated,” Elīya says. “All of it.”
“There’s a reason there’s only one Lilith,” Hannuša says. “But anyway, that was a very long-winded way of saying that there’s nothing that would stop me or anyone else from doing Theurgy. Or… anything else.”
“Sounds like there’s a metaphor in there.”
“Ya think?”