Page 51 of Inkpot Gods

“You’re natural-born, if that’s what concerns you,” says Miss Cottingsly. “I remember when he tested your blood for the first time, and for the fiftieth. Everything about you is of this world, and not of any other. No seasons coming courting or gods descending on moonbeams.”

“But something in me stops the rain.”

“That is what your uncle supposes to be true.”

“And you?”

Miss Cottingsly shakes her head. “I suppose nothing, miss. I’m here to serve your uncle, and when it suits him, to serve you in his stead. It’s not my place to have opinions.”

“The moon manifests itself in the world, as physical people. Like Deborah.”

“Yes,” says Miss Cottingsly, giving no indication that she has any resentment over the way Deborah left their household. “Many gods manifest in that manner.”

“Is there a god of rain?”

“Yes, several.”

“Who?”

“Zeus would be the most obvious. Alchemically speaking, the Greek gods are the easiest to work with: the Great Work was conceived in sight of their temples, and they still remember its founders fondly, or as fondly as gods remember anything. Zeus would also be a grave mistake. He’s the king of his pantheon, and prone to fits of temper, and to forcing himself upon unwilling women. His power is such that he can get any woman with child, however young or old or”—she gestures to herself—“dead she happens to be. You are lovely and unmarried, and calling upon him would be a risk not worth the taking.”

“No,” says Asphodel, wrinkling her nose. “I would rather not tempt the king of the gods.”

“But there are other Greek powers who might be more amenable to assisting us. The Hyades, for example.”

“Those being?”

“A sisterhood of nymphs. It’s their job to bring the rain when Zeus is occupied elsewhere, and they’re minor-enough divinities that they manifest just like the other incarnates do. They walk in storms.”

Asphodel just looks at her for a long moment. Miss Cottingsly doesn’t squirm. She no longer has the animal instincts that would motivate such a reaction.

Finally, Asphodel asks, “And why, if these Hyades are out there, haven’t the alchemists called on them already?”

“They’re all women, and the American Alchemical Congress has always been unwilling to see certain truths, no matter how clearly they might be presented.”

The thought that Boston might have endured a decade-long drought due to sexism is almost funny in its offensiveness. Asphodel shakes her head. “What information do we have on these Hyades?”

“I’ll bring you the literature,” says Miss Cottingsly politely, and slips out of the basement, leaving Asphodel alone.

Asphodel sighs, leaning back against the counter and resting her weight on her hands. This is what she’s always wanted, what she’s been demanding for years, but it suddenly seems so terribly petty, working in the shadow of men who will never see her as their equal. If even the Hyades, powers if not full gods, can be discounted due to their sex, what hope does she have?

She has the hope of stubbornness, and the sheer determination to force them to see her as clearly as she sees herself. She is Asphodel Baker, she stole her name from the fields of the dead and from the moon itself, and she will not be stopped by the prejudices of foolish old men. She’ll be the best of them one day, and when she is, they’ll all bow down before her.

And in the meantime, there’s work to be done. She turns back to the book open on the table at the center of the room. People have used ceremonies to summon rain throughout recorded history. Ptolemy recorded many of them in his works, and while he lived and died so many centuries ago that there’s almost certainly information missing from what he had recorded, newer discoveries that had yet to be added in annotation, he provided a solid starting point.

There are no specific records of Greek rainmaking rituals, perhaps because Zeus was enough of an ever-present threat that they saw no reason to invoke him. The Romans are a bit better documented, but their main ritual, the aquaelicium, requires a special stone. The documentation is murky and somewhat unclear, but after several minutes of study, she concludes that the lapis manalis, the water-flowing stone, is not a type of rock, but rather a specific rock, one which is presumably still somewhere in Greece. Given long enough to work, she might be able to isolate and re-create its properties, creating her own rainmaking stone, but she doesn’t have the time or resources for that right now. She needs a solution before her week runs out.

There are other rainmaking rites, some of which might be more achievable. The Romanian practice of Caloian is tempting; there’s a document variant designed for the banishment of droughts, and it has requirements she might be able to fulfill without any assistance. But that simplicity makes her wary. If it’s that simple, surely the Congress would have tried it by now, wouldn’t they? The only reason she can see that they wouldn’t have is that the drought-banishing ritual focuses on a young woman, and they don’t have a surplus of those. It’s still suspect enough that she doesn’t move it to the head of her list.

No. Whatever she does, it will involve calling on the Hyades, and the hope they’ll have some cause to answer.

“Not over-fond of alchemists, these girls,” says Miss Cottingsly, coming back into the basement with a cloth-bound book in her arms. Asphodel moves to take it from her. The title, They Fall As Rain, is picked out in gilt gold against the wine-red cover.

“Why not?” she asks, looking from the book back to Miss Cottingsly.

“They’re lesser even than the Lunars. I’d wager the only powers less, well, powerful would be the Horae, who only really have their full strength for an hour out of the day. Useless little things. The universe should really stop wasting the effort it takes to make them manifest.”

“How does that explain them disliking alchemists, then?” asks Asphodel. “I’d think being weak would make them unappealing. People like my uncle would never waste time hunting down something you’d call lesser than a Lunar when there are Summers and Winters to be had. Or even Lunars. They have their uses.”