The Lizard Thing, part 4

a lesson in meta-chemistry

I had no idea that this was a thing.

What is the proper grip for stabbing someone with a pencil? Authors need to know.

I spent the weekend at the National Association of Science Writers conference, which as you can see below was held in Raleigh, the purple city — amethyst¹ instead of emerald, I guess?

More on that when I recover and get caught up on some grading.

In the meantime, please enjoy a buttload of punny gem names from Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld.

Dark Opal. Try saying it out loud. Even in the Gauntlet voice, it doesn’t really work. And I never really understood the stripes.

No, not the one with the whip from Steven Universe. The other one, the pulpy cheesecake one from 1983, drawn by Ernie Colon.

See? Lizard. Kind of burying the lede, I know.

What? I was 13 at the time. And you gotta admit, that nega-cat with hands is cool. Even little Godzooky there has some style. Look at him jump!

This week’s story segment was prepped ahead of time so that I could focus on the writerly festivities. Enjoy.

The Lizard Thing, part 4

by Randall Hayes

This reminds me of the spinner version of the Universal Table from TSR’s Marvel Superheroes role-playing game. I like it because it also sneaks in ROY G BIV as a color scheme. Interestingly debatable. Violet is shorter in wavelength, so that could mean the smaller atoms like hydrogen and helium, but then violet is also higher energy, which could just as easily represent the unstable radioactive molecules on the outer edge.

We were halfway through our individual plates of those giant hissing cockroaches when I pulled out the coin purse to see if it was real money or just fey gold, which would turn to dust and bone and mouse droppings with the sunrise, in which case we needed to spend it as soon as possible. My roaches were roasted to perfection, super-crispy and spicy-hot enough to kindle coal. Quetzal’s were alive, tethered to her plate by thin threads of spider-silk glued to their abdomens. Whenever one would spread its wings try and get away, she would snap it out of the air.

One of the coins was bigger than the others, and sort of orange. I held it up to the lamplight, trying to make out what the crude stamping on it said. “Holy crap, I think this is arcanum,” I said, licking the edge of it.

Quetzal crunched and swallowed and flicked her forked tongue a couple of times before reaching her head over the table on her long neck and sniffing the coin. “Some magic mineral?”

“Yeah-yeah,” I said, getting excited. “You know how physical matter all fits somewhere on the periodic table? I tapped the surface below our plates and cast a visual seeming on the wood, which showed rows and columns of elemental symbols. “Well, meta-physical matter exists in states above and below that plane.” I pointed to a spot in the air where an orange block hung above the table. “Arcanum is a metal, magically charged, which decays into copper with a very long half-life. Really good for storing magic.”

“So it’s a battery.”

“Yep. There are so many magical creatures here, hoovering up all the mana, that it’s rare to find a concentrated source like this. That’s why most of the spells you see in Chimeria are cheap illusions. They’re an efficient use of a severely limited pool of magic.”

“Why would you make a coin out of it?”

“Probably a holy symbol for some money-god, or maybe the focus of a financial spell. I’ll do some research on it when I get back to the library.”

“Won’t that redcap want it back?”

“He can twist on a corkscrew. Although, if he knew where to find more, that would be … valuable.”

“What about the card?”

I held it up. “Just an address I don’t recognize. I’ll have to look that up, too.”

Quetzal turned her head so that one side-facing eye was pointed directly at the card, and started making minor postural adjustments to move it into her various foveas. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution, focused through the lens of a consistent predatory lifestyle, has made her visual system into something of wondrous, monstrous sophistication. She blinked. “Nothing unusual.” Next she closed her eyes and sniffed it, and flickered her dry forked tongue over it. “Standard provincial goblin-kin, fresh from nowhere. Near-toxic levels of testosterone.”

“We are numerous, and widespread across the worlds. Could you recognize them, or track them?”

She wrinkled her scaly snout and snorted derisively. “If I wanted to. I have an olfactographic memory, you know. Which I am not wasting on those wannabes. So don’t ask.”

I pulled out one of my crappy amulets and placed it in my eye socket like a monocle. “It’s not enspelled, or if it is, it’s a good spell.” I put both back into hidden pockets in my sleeves. “Maybe it’s just an address.”

The waitress chose that moment to appear. “Cash, blood, or karma?” In Chimeria, karma is sometimes slang for servitude. Or if we’re feeling literal we just say hours. Blood is pro-rated by total volume (so mine is more valuable per unit than a larger creature’s, like a human’s), but an hour is an hour is an hour, whether you’re a chef, or a waitress, or a wizard. It’s a great leveler, that tradition, and one of the things I like about this place.

“Could I interest you in an amulet of true seeing?” I whipped it out again, with a flourish, and swung it on its little chain.

She popped her chewing gum. “Maybe.”