Aesma and the Red Eyed King

Part 1

Once, and always, there was Aesma Ten Yondam, who was a very powerful goddess. She had anywhere from two to forty five arms, she was exceptionally strong, and had an insatiable red hunger for dominion. She knew five ways of smiling, ten of the forty five forms, and all the syllables of Royalty, though she understood none of them. In her blackened heart she let many wicked schemes and plans ripen and kindled an endless rage against the inadequacy of the universe, which made her one of YISUN’s favored companions. She was poor at Patkun, could not tolerate pedantry, and her ribald jokes and raucous behavior frequently got her thrown out of YISUN’s speaking house.
On one such occasion, Aesma was thrown out long before she could get at the wine. Her wailing and pounding at the doors of the speaking house drew nearly two score of pilgrim-saints, who were passing on the King’s road. When they approached to inquire about her distress, she engaged them in a ferocious battle that lasted the better part of five hours, as was her custom. The battle was so fierce that it cracked two roaming moons and threw part of one into a primal sea, which boiled away to steam.

“That’s better,” sighed Aesma, when the dust had settled and the sea had finished boiling. “Hey,” said Aesma to the battered and bloodied pilgrims as an idea struck her, “Where can I get some wine about here?”
“Foul creature! If it’s nourishment thou seeks, get thee the great and holy Temple of the Disc of the Sun,” croaked a furious pilgrim. “Drink thee of the consecrated wine there, not thy common lecher’s milk, and purify thy fetid soul!” Aesma was grateful, and turned the man into an exceptionally large golden fish as way of saying thank you, for she was fond of well-colored fish. She grabbed a strand of frozen light and broke it into the shape of a door. This was an old and popular trick which the god Un-Kaon had taught her in return for Aesma stealing sweets, for Kaon had a terrible sweet tooth. It was called Division, for it was a cutting art, of which there are thirty and one.
Aesma leapt out of her skin and through the door, and then back into her skin, which was waiting on the other side, through a tangle of twisted planes of space. As she emerged, the temple of which the man spoke lay directly ahead of her. It was a grand and stately building, with sandy white columns, and the Holy Sun Disc enshrined there was visible for fifty or sixty leagues about, so bright it was.
The priests offered libations and chants to the great altar of the Sun there, and payed homage to the stars, and studied in minute detail the nature of a man’s soul. Each was a scientist and philosopher of clean and manly visage, who wore a neatly pressed apron. He discarded ostentation and valued virtue above all else. Members of the temple spent many hours contemplating the proper roles for women and men, the just ways of proper rulership, and the ways in which a man’s perfect qualities could be compounded in his body as in his mind. They had there a great golden scale, with which the head priest measured the weight of a man’s vice against his virtue. It was a place of great influence on the enlightened thinking of the time, a temple of grand seriousness and moral import.
For this reason, of course, Aesma immediately hated it. She lasted about thirty minutes in the public service. “I can’t stand it!” howled Aesma, “Your elegies are dull! Your saints are all liars. Your youth are pallid and weak, and your wine tastes like piss. One cannot as much fart in here without being preached at.”
“Out, demon!” said the Hierophant, and brandished his stave of authority. A score of priests stood beside him, robed in their aprons and strewn about with their golden chains. The light of good and righteousness sharpened their noble features and rugged eyes.
“Were violence not forbidden in this most holy temple, we would have thee out by the stave,” boomed the head priest. “I pity thee, crawling thing, for thy black heart is all shriveled and malnourished without the guidance of moral authority!”
“At least I’m not being sucked on by old men!” spat Aesma at the holy congregation. She then pulled down her loincloth and mooned them, to great dismay. Then the staves came out after all, and she was thrown out of the temple in a short order.
“Get thee a husband!” said the exasperated priest, and slammed the door shut. Aesma thought this was not a bad idea at all. Husbands were rumored to be better than dogs. She set off, her quest for wine quite forgotten.
Aesma looked far and wide for a husband. She broke a sunbeam fifty times by Division and split her mind into fifty shards and hurled those shards, molten, through the gaps therein. This was a trick she stole from Ovis by watching her bathe. Each shard grew into a splinter-clone of Aesma’s evil body, and did great mischief as it ravaged the earth, befouled the land, frightened the populace, and scoured the nations of the universe for husbands. But after five hours had passed this way, Aesma grew frustrated and annihilated all her extraneous selfs in godsfire. It took some effort, for their accomplishments in such a short time had been exceedingly high, and one had even installed herself as queen.

Exasperated, she resolved to ask the God Un-Ogam, who she often came to with difficult questions. Ogam was in his White Aspect, and thus a little more contemplative. However, he was a ferocious god of battle, and not a philosopher, and thus rarely gave good answers. Aesma liked visiting him anyway, as he was older than her and loved to spar. So Aesma rode her chariot to the gore-soaked battlefield where Ogam was doing battle with a dozen minor gods of justice, and landed it amidst the melee “Ogam!” shouted Aesma, “Find me a husband! Surely you have a slave that will do?” Ogam couldn’t hear Aesma at first, as he was in a berserk rage, bending the great stave of the bird-headed god of Law UN-Ghum in half. When the stave snapped, Ogam hurled Ghum into the sun and calmed down a little. He and Aesma were very close friends.
“I have many slaves,” said Ogam to Aesma, “but none will do for you, little sister. None are your equal. Come back later, and I will find you a great, roaring god for your spouse, hung like a bull and with muscles like an elephant!”
Aesma was discontent, and smacked Ogam in the forehead. Ogam hardly noticed, as his skull was thicker than a fortress wall. This was one of his excellent qualities, in Aesma’s view. “I’ve waited enough!” fumed Aesma, “Why, just now I was preached at just for wanting a drop of wine! If you can’t find me an equal, tell me, who is my equal?”