Hidden Headgames - Auctorial Preamble

Sometimes there isn't room for everything. That’s where “Hidden Headgames” comes in. Consider it a game of ‘fill-in-the-blanks’.

There certainly wasn't enough room for everything that wanted to be in “Goddess Gambit”. Gambit counted as the last full-length installment of ‘The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories’, the inaugural three-part fantasy epic released by Phantacea Publications between 2008 & 2012. Yet, at over 350 pages, before the addition of bonus materials, it was, and remains, at least to my mind, massive.

It was so big that we didn't find out, not for sure, who survived its endgame-battle for howsoever-diminished, and drenched, Dustmound until 2014’s “Helios on the Moon”, itself the third and final entry in the equally engaging ‘Launch 1980’ trilogy. (In what amounted to the triumphant, not to mention monumental, reprise of Phantacea Phase One, it began in 2009 with "The War of the Apocalyptics" and continued with "Nuclear Dragons" in 2013.)

Guess what? Even that two-chapter addendum didn't finish Gambit. Except, this time we don t get a sort of sequel, we get a sort of prequel instead. One that only slightly overlaps “Janna Fangfingers”, the mini-novel that led directly into Gambit after closing off “The Thousand Days of Disbelief”, Book Two of that extraordinary epic.

“The Forgettable Fiend”, the initial sequence in the three-part collection of vignettes you’re holding in your hands, gets the long time a-coming, conclusory honours. And, if you already know who the Forgettable Fiend is in terms of Jim McPherson’s Phantacea Mythos, then Smiler’s main mojo hasn't been working on you. I know it hasn't on me because I have to keep up pH-Webworld online and it contains bread baskets brimming over with Web Wheaties (information) on said Mythos; on said Smiler, dot-ditto.

Sooth as always said, at least by me, Smiler’s has been with us since 1978’s Phantacea Three, a series of six oversized comic book ‘floppies’ that came one issue short of finishing. Therein he was often referred to as Rhadamanthys, the same as the seemingly human piper in “Feeling Theocidal”, Book One of the Glories trilogy. No surprise there. It was the same character.

What about Squirrelly Tethys in "The Death’s Head Hellion" and Tomcat Taddletale in "Contagion Collectors", the first two mini-novels comprising 1000-Daze? Could be. And Reilly Haddeus in Fangers, its third, composite mini-novel? Almost definitely. Not that even the recurring deviant, Jordan ‘Q for Quill’ Tethys’, also the Legendarian, can recall him at its denouement.

That despite this:

The Legendarian had a hot shower, alone. He was … towelling himself off when he chanced to look into the bathroom mirror. What was that streaked into its steaminess? No bout a-doubt-it. Undeniably, that was the letter ‘D’, done at an angle of 90º clockwise.

As for why it looked like it was smiling, well, wasn't that what the letter ‘D’ done at that angle would do? That determined, that then instantly forgotten, he had a remarkably good night’s sleep.

... from "Janna Fangfingers", the third and final mini-novel extracted from "The Thousand Days of Disbelief"

At least he tried. Over the multiple centuries of his existence, many another has as well, with virtually the same result. In case you haven t figured it out yet, that’s Smiler’s main mojo. As shall be revealed in due course it's hardly his only one. Why do his fellow devils so often address him as Judge? Is he secretly Sedon, sometimes thought of as the Devil Himself? Could he be, or have ever been, King Sodom?

Since it links all three parts of Games, I’ll tell you this much at the outset. The ‘D’ stands for Daemonicus, once (as per Feel Theo) the King of Demons. Kings have queens. King Sodom has, had, for example, Queen Gomorrah. Pyrame Silverstar reckons that was her, going back 4,000 years at the minimum. She's right about that. But who else was she? Dealt with that in Hellion. Only – now it’s her turn – she seems to have forgotten it.

Forgivable, perhaps. She’s only just recently been decathonitized. Blame that, as mostly told in Nuke, on the launching of the Cosmic Express. Wait! Wasn't that set entirely on the Outer Earth, with no mention of the Hidden Continent of Sedon's Head whatsoever? Yes and no. Some of that was made clear in Helmoon. The rest of it is herein; here in Games’ second section, “Pyrame’s Progress”, to be absolutely precise.

Master Devas would be spirit beings without their power foci and debrained daemonic bodies. Pyrame’s called the Pauper Priestess because she doesn't have the former; never has. Didn't need one because she'd been a solid individual for fully two thousand years prior to her to her devic siblings and cousins. Now, though, she'd not only lost her solidifying daemon, she's forgotten her identity.

Games also serves as a prequel to ‘Wilderwitch’s Babies’; 2016’s “Decimation Damnation” being first the mini-novel extracted from that ongoing, as yet open-ended saga. Might the Witch’s saviour – after her nearly fatal encounter with Mater Matare, the Apocalyptic of Death, at the end of War-Pox – have been Pyrame’s daemon?

Let’s say yes. That doesn't mean the Witch knows her identity, however. Not until Saladin Devason introduces her in Dec-Dam:

Wilderwitch braved her best bluster. “Who’s your sad excuse for a girlfriend, Sal – Murk Mist, Mad for Mud Magpies? She looks likes she could use some brightening up.”

“This,” he said, introducing his dusky companion, “Is the lovely Lilith. She’s a demon queen; make that the Demon Queen. You might have heard of her. She’s the mother of Anti-Patriarch Cain, Slayer of Abel … You’re going to bear our child; whom I might name Abel simply because Lily’s never had an Abel before.”

... from "Decimation Damnation", the first mini-novel excerpted from the open-ended saga of 'Wilderwitch's Babies'

Should mention that, back in War-Pox, Wilderwitch learned from none other than Freespirit Nihila, once Harmony, the Unity of Balance, that she was the incarnation of selfsame none-other — at least selfsame when she was altogether the incomparable Harmony. That is prior to her execution, as told in Fangers, by her brood brother, Unholy Abaddon, the Unity of Chaos.

So, does the third vignette in Games, namely “Acquiring Nihila”, tell how the Witch acquires the wholeness of Nihila? Not even close. The Witch doesn't even appear in the novella. Nihila does. As do the folks, many of whom are witches, not so much behind the launching of the Cosmic Express as its destruction; one of whom is Miracle Memory.

Which in turn makes Games a kind of continuation, for a few days, of Helmoon as well as what amounts to Nuke’s side-story. Babies will be back, full-throttle, in “Daemonic Desperation”, parts of the opening chapter of which are included as a bonus vignette at the end of this very book.

One guess who the desperate daemon is; hint: it’s neither Pyrame Silverstar or Freespirit Nihila. They’re devils.
 
Jim McPherson
Creator/writer
The Phantacea Mythos

Back Cover Lily

Transparent GIF prepared for the back cover of "Hidden Headgames".

Jettisoned when Strife sought to take over Miracle Maenad during Helmoon (and as also alluded to in Nuke, which was written at the same time), Primeval Lilith finds herself in Absudyl, the Subterranean Land of the Mandroids, deep beneath the Weirdom of Cabalarkon.

Where, incidentally, she ruled while subsumed by Master Morgan Abyss for most of "The Death's Head Hellion". She was back there by the time of "Decimation Damnation" as Wilderwitch's Miss Murk, Mad for Mud Magpies.

As hit upon during Games, she had a couple of stops – and at least one collision – before she got there.