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Ishtar released a mournful sigh. It echoed across the chamber; the walls groaned in protest.
In a better world, She would be retired by now. All of Her predecessors were retired. Six thousand years of divine servitude was plenty, thank you.
She’d had a good run as Queen of Heaven—built the temples, gathered the followers, cultivated the cults, appointed the priestesses, gazed upon Her mighty works and trembled. The full package: Built the sites, saw the sights, bought the t-shirt. And when civilizations fell and humanity moved on, as it tends to? She was ready to pat Herself on the back for a job well done, and retire gracefully into Oblivion.
And that’s just what She did. For a brief, glorious period of time Her name and likeness were forgotten by the world. It was heavenly, She remembers (and She says this as someone who has visited multiple actual heavenly planes). Oblivion, that is. Basically the luxury spa package to end all luxury spa packages. Like relaxing into a natural hot spring so hard you actually dissolve into it. The pinnacle of non-existence. A non-place of Utter Peace.
And then the fuckers dug Her up.
Or rather Her names, Her legends. Which for a god, amounted to the same.
It wasn’t peaceful now. Now, She was the oldest deity whose name was not-yet-lost-to-time. And Her own damn fault it was too. She was never a Goddess of Wisdom. If She had been, She’d have known better than to allow humans to invent writing.
And not just any writing. Writing embedded in clay. Huge mistake. Huge. Never give humans the ability to preserve your name in stone tablets. You will be working unpaid overtime for a literal eternity.
Even worse, now She had seniority. It was a terrible thing, being so ancient a god. It gave people expectations. It meant you got stuck with the very worst headaches. The thinking being: you’re old and wise and powerful and all-knowing—You handle it.
In the present, She was sitting at the head of a celestial conference table, trying to look wise and all-knowing while squinting down at a clipboard, ignoring an impending migraine of truly unholy proportions.
Ishtar was six thousand years old, which was approximately too-fucking-old to be dealing with this nonsense.
She continued to glare at the clipboard as various other gods trickled in. Time wasn’t even linear on this plane, but it’s a multi-universal law that your co-workers will find a way to be late to a meeting you're chairing.
The clipboard began to singe in Her hands. She placed it calmly to one side.
Gods, She supposed, were the worst type of people.
And the worst type of co-workers. Silently, She made a vow in the name of, well, Herself, that next time She would just send out an Email.
(She wasn’t certain what, precisely, an Email was, but She liked the sound of it.)
Gradually the trickle of incomers slowed to a drippage. Ishtar looked around with deep suspicion; the seats around the conference table weren’t even half-full. Oh, this wouldn’t do at all.
She waited another ten non-minutes for late arrivals. Finally an extremely...prolonged sea serpent slithered into the room. This process took several minutes, as there was no end of coils in sight, until at long-last a pointed tip followed the rest of the tail inside, pulling the doorknob shut behind it. The serpent then took several more minutes to studiously drape its—torso? spine?—self in thick loops across most of the remaining conference chairs. Ishtar waited patiently, appreciating the increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere. She liked to keep these celestial meetings as awkward as possible—gods shouldn’t be encouraged to socialize. It never ended well, as demonstrated by…well, every branch of mythology in existence, actually.
So. To business.
Ishtar cleared Her throat, sending a deafening echo around the room. (One advantage of seniority—She was by far the largest thing in the room. Yes, including the giant serpent. Ceilings tended to leap away when She entered a room.)
Ishtar inhaled deeply; the resulting gust of wind blasted through the room, knocking a few chairs (and their occupants) down with it.
Ishtar opened Her mouth, pretending not to enjoy the looks of panic this inspired, and—
An outrageously muscled man burst into the room, trailed nervously by a tornado.
The man had a trident and very little in the way of clothes; the tornado was dripping onto the carpet.
“So glad we could make it!” the semi-clothed man boomed merrily, grinning like a maniac. He scooped up a chair from the floor and dragged it toward the head of the table, where Ishtar was already sitting on the enormous golden stool She brought everywhere these days. It was so hard to find good seating, when you were roughly the size of a (particularly shapely, if She did say so Herself) ruddy great mountain.
There was plenty of empty space (few of Her co-workers chose to sit near Ishtar, preferring to crowd together at the other end of the table, for unknown reasons). Still, Ishtar glared at the half-dressed man (out of basic principle) as he pulled up a chair, the tornado dripping after him.
“So good to see everyone!” he continued effusively, glancing at the chair next to him. He used the tip of his trident to nudge the giant serpent tail off the seat. The tornado made a gurgling sound of thanks and somehow bent itself in half to sit.
Ishtar sighed again, rattling the table and most of its occupants. She spoke:
POSEIDON. SO KIND OF YOU TO JOIN US.
It came out more gustily than She intended. Around the room, gods grabbed onto their headgear. The blue god with the headdress and false beard tried to hold onto both, and promptly fell out of their chair. Even the colossal sea serpent seemed shaken, anxiously tightening its coils.
Poseidon, the absolute madman, just nodded cheerfully. He had become insufferable since the recent rise in Neo-Hellenism. Some days Ishtar just couldn’t stand deities with living, breathing worshippers. Worst thing for a god’s ego, being actively worshiped. Led to all sorts of self-image issues.
She kept glaring down at Poseidon. He just kept nodding and beaming.
“So you’re in charge then? Thought they might send in one of your lot! They always bring in the seniors when things get political. Still a bit surprised to see you! Not exactly your area is it?”
Ishtar frowned. She agreed, but She still frowned on point of principal. It was a frown that could level city-states, but the man just couldn’t be deterred.
“No offense meant! I don’t mean geographically. You’re from Sumer, right? Sumer’s not so far from Egypt, speaking globally!”
Ishtar frowned magnificently. Sumer was pretty bloody far off as far as She was concerned. Not even on the same continent for one, on top of flourishing in completely different time periods. She didn’t actually want to be here.
“I just meant I was expecting this would be a water-deities-only type situation! I’m surprised they didn’t send Enki! God of Water and Wisdom, seems like this would float his bo—er, be right up his creek, so to speak!”
I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IS THE CORRECT USAGE OF THAT PHRASE.
The problem was, no one wanted to be in charge here. That was the issue. The Suez Canal didn’t technically fall under any specific deity’s jurisdiction—and in light of current affairs, absolutely nobody was about to volunteer to change that.
Ishtar considered sighing again, but took pity; Her compatriots looked windblown enough.
AND IF YOU MUST KNOW, ENKI—GOD OF WATER AND KNOWLEDGE AND MY MOST RESPECTED FATHER BLESSED BE HE—HIS ADMINISTRATIVE DUTIES HAVE IN FACT FALLEN TO ME FOR SOME MILLENNIA NOW.
(Actually, She’d won them off him in a drinking contest, which had seemed like a good idea at the time.* The resultant hangover had been ungodly.)
ON TOP OF WHICH, I WOULD REMIND YOU HE IS ALSO A GOD OF MISCHIEF. WOULD YOU INVITE LOKI OR ERIS TO HEAD THESE NEGOTIATIONS?
A shudder went around the room. Even Poseidon (finally) frowned. Chaos gods had a time and a place, which was typically as long and as far away as one could possibly shove them.
I WOULD REMIND YOU THAT THERE IS CURRENTLY A SEAFARING VESSEL OF GARGANTUAN PROPORTIONS BLOCKING MAJOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE ROUTES, DISRUPTING HUMAN GLOBAL ORDER AS WE KNOW IT. I WOULD REMIND YOU THAT OUR GOAL IS TO RESOLVE THE CURRENT SITUATION.
It went unspoken that chaos gods did not tend to solve so much as multiply problems.
“Fair enough, fair enough!”
Poseidon took a moment to think. He chewed contemplatively on the tip of one of his beard braids. Then he perked up.
“I have a nephew who could be of assistance, perchance! Hermes, powerful little fucker, and a god of trade and merchants to boot. He finds the whole situation hilarious, actually, I’m sure he’d be glad to take it off our hands!”
HERMES…THE TRICKSTER GOD. WANTS TO TAKE A GLOBAL CATASTROPHE OFF OF OUR HANDS. TO MANAGE AS HE SEES FIT. BECAUSE HE FINDS IT ENTERTAINING.
“Oh, well. Now that you mention it—”
I THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUGGESTIONS, Ishtar proclaimed, quietly vowing on Her own grave that She would never accept advice from a man failing to wear a toga. AND NOW TO CONTINUE WITH THE AGENDA OF THIS MEETING. I WILL BEGIN BY TAKING ROLL, TO ENSURE WE ARE ALL PRESENT.
Ishtar glanced down at Her clipboard (only slightly burnt and mostly legible) and looked up to give the room a healthy glare. She was convinced that several of the table’s occupants had vanished since last She looked around. She glanced suspiciously at the giant sea serpent. It didn’t seem any larger or lumpier. But then, the alternative was that half Her co-workers had snuck out while She wasn’t looking. On second thought, She hoped the serpent had decide to turn this into brunch meeting.
(Here, Ishtar tried to ignore the thought that, if She had been given a choice between this meeting and being eaten by a giant snake—She just might have taken the snake. People have gone through worse to avoid unwanted responsibilities. She vaguely remembered a recent story going around about some new-age prophet and a whale. At the moment, a whale seemed easy-peasy.)
Ishtar cleared Her throat, sending a snowfall of white plaster trickling down from the ceiling. Then She turned to the uninvited guest currently dripping on the conference room carpet.
BUT FIRST: POSEIDON. I SEE YOU HAVE BROUGHT A GUEST. I MUST CONFESS SOME CONFUSION.
Translation: why is a soggy tornado sitting at my conference table.
“Ah, yes! Allow me to introduce Charybdis!”
Ishtar examined the drizzling vortex seated next to Poseidon, which upon closer inspection was made more of water than of air. It had an eye in its center, which it used to blink owlishly around the room.
A SEA MONSTER.
“And also my daughter!” Beside him, the whirlpool gurgled mournfully. “Ah, excuse me—my adult child!” Poseidon grinned proudly. “My non-binary non-human adult child. Who as an adult is also a non-child. So my non-binary non-human non-child…hmm!” He trailed off, stroking his beard in confusion. “Oh! My OFFSPRING! Well, less spring, more pool. On account of being a very powerful spirit of whirlpools and tides! Thought that might be useful!”
I SEE. AND HOW EXACTLY DO YOU SUGGEST THEY MIGHT ASSIST IN OUR PARTICULAR SITUATION?
“Well, Charybdis is a whirlpool deity, are they not? And the boat’s stuck sideways, is it not? Lodged in there real good! So if we perhaps applied an equal sideways force, but in the opposite direction—"
FOR THE LOVE OF EVERY PANTHEON, WE ARE NOT WHIRLPOOLING THE SHIP. I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SPECIFY THAT.
“Ah, right, well, unusual problems call for unus—"
NOT THAT UNUSUAL. I WILL BE MOVING ON WITH ROLL CALL.
Ishtar shuffled Her papers, only to find they had crumbled to ash in Her hands. She really needed to stop doing that. Ah, well.
WE WILL START WITH THE NILE RIVER GODS. She gazed around the room. WHERE ARE THE NILE RIVER GODS.
A small blue hand extended from somewhere in the middle of an enormous sea serpent coil.
AH. SHIFT OVER, IF YOU WOULD, NAGA.
The coil unwound itself, revealing three mismatched shapes which, upon closer examination, became three strange, mismatched faces.
The shaping was of less concern than the quantity.
WE WERE EXPECTING QUITE A FEW MORE OF YOU. WHERE ARE—She glanced down at the clipboard—ANUKET, KHNUM, AND SATET?
The three faces stared guiltily up at Her. Well, two of them looked guilty. The third was a crocodile.
The blue god seemed to realize they were still holding up their hand.
::Um. They begged off.::
OH?
The lioness-headed goddess nodded smoothly. Lionesses do everything smoothly. Lionesses fall on their asses the same as anyone, but they do it majestically.
—Their reasoning was that they are gods of the Nile, specifically. And also, TECHNICALLY, river gods. And since the Suez Canal isn’t actually connected to the Nile specifically, nor is it technically a river….
I SEE. NOT THEIR DOMAIN?
The lioness-headed goddess shrugged. But like, regally.
—Not their domain, realm, jurisdiction, administrative region, or general responsibility. Was their reasoning, I believe. Ma'am.
Inwardly, Ishtar withheld a sigh that would have blown the leaves off of every tree in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.**
AND WHAT OF BAIRTHY, NEPHTHYS, AND NU? THEIR DOMAINS ARE NOT CONFINED TO RIVERS.
The lioness-goddess was graceful, but not graceful enough to look embarrassed.
—The way they see it, they’re more general gods of water, and it isn’t fair to hold them responsible for what they view as a seafaring incident, and one which incidentally didn’t even take place on a sea….
Unfortunately, the lioness-goddess wasn’t wrong. This is what happened when humans went about creating artificial bodies of water without bothering to invent new gods to go with the territory. It was a bureaucratic nightmare of divine proportions.
I SEE. SO TO CONFIRM, WE HAVE NEITHER ANUKET, KHNUM, SATET, BAIRTHY, NEPHTHYS NOR NU.
The lioness-goddess muttered something that sounded suspiciously like —Gesundheit.
SO INSTEAD WE ARE LEFT WITH…
Ishtar looked down despairingly at the three little gods. Her eyes roamed over the crocodile-headed god (who, on further inspection, was also crocodile-bodied), the slouching blue god with the lop-sided beard, and finally back to the lioness-headed goddess (who looked up furtively from licking her very human-shaped fingers).
...SOBEK, HAPI, AND TEFNUT. RESPECTIVELY GODS OF THE NILE, THE FLOODING OF THE NILE, AND—MOISTURE?
Tefnut grinned generously at her cohorts. It was a regal smile, possibly due to the fangs.
::That’s us!:: Hapi piped up, false beard now dangling precariously from their left ear. Beside them, Sobek blinked slowly and continued to smile. Crocodiles do not have reassuring smiles, although they do try to make up for it by tripling the number of teeth.
I SEE.
Ishtar frowned.
The blue god spoke up in a slightly squeaky voice that rustled like river reeds.
::If I might offer a suggestion, my lady Ishtar?::
Ishtar eyed the river god placidly. Their unbound breasts seemed to stare at her, swaying gently in time with the ceremonial beard. It was hypnotizing.
::I would like to suggest a simple, expedient solution, one which would quickly and immediately dislodge the boat from its current predicament::
GO ON.
::I would like to flood the canal::
Ishtar couldn’t help it—She sighed a deep sigh, straight from the belly. The entire room instinctively ducked for cover.
—Huge surprise, said Tefnut the Lioness-Headed, licking her palm and using it to smooth one tufted ear. The god of flooding is in favor of flooding the canal. Absolute shocker. What a twist.
::I just think it could be a practical and cost-effective solution::
—What a coincidence.
::I would just raise the shoreline and boom, the boat unsticks itself::
—Really thinking outside the box here.
::It’s a practical solu—::
WE ARE NOT FLOODING THE CANAL.
(Across the table, Charybdis gave an unhappy little gurgle. Poseidon reached over to give a consolatory pat somewhere near where a shoulder would be on a human adult child—only to have his arm sucked into a whirling vortex. Charybdis made a sound like a panicking hurricane. Ishtar chose to ignore the peanut gallery, instead maintaining eye-contact with the little blue god, whose beard and breasts were swaying like pendulums. Ishtar felt rather dizzy.)
BUT THANK YOU FOR YOUR...ENTHUSIASM. DARE I ASK IF YOUR GROUP HAS ANY OTHER PROPOSALS? YOU, PERHAPS, SOBEK?
Ishtar eyed the crocodile-headed god, whose head was wobbling peacefully. The only response was a wide, silent grin.
Well, it appeared to be a grin. With Sobek, it was difficult to tell.
—I’ve always wondered how you keep your teeth so clean, Tefnut murmured. She turned to Ishtar in (annoyingly regal) apology. —Sobek just likes to be included in things. We don’t get out much these days.
UH-HUH.
—I mainly tagged along in case Sobek tries to bite someone .
DOES SOBEK OFTEN TRY TO BITE SOMEONE?
—No, but I’d hate to miss it when it finally happens.
Ishtar took a steadying breath. Well, steadying for Her. Unsteadying for the room at large. The resulting gust of wind dislodged Hapi's beard.
AND COULD WE REALLY NOT GET OSIRIS.
It wasn’t really a question. More of a statement of despair. The Egyptian water gods shrugged in unison.
MOVING ON.
She turned to Poseidon, who was dripping wet but no longer entangled within a remorseful sentient sinkhole. Currently, he was staring off into the distance, jiggling his trident with his foot. Incredible.
I MUST CONFESS MYSELF SURPRISED BY YOUR PRESENCE HERE.
(Surprised wasn’t the word, precisely. Grief-stricken, perhaps.)
Ishtar cleared Her throat, as a threat. When She spoke, it was in a tone that could shatter glass and then chew back into sand:
FROM MY NOTES I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE FORMALLY DECLINED TO INTERVENE IN THE SUEZ SITUATION.
Poseidon stopped jiggling his trident.
AS KING OF THE SEA GODS WITHIN A PHYSICALLY PROXIMATE PANTHEON, YOU WERE OFFERED EARLY OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO.
Poseidon was suddenly very interested in examining his trident. He used the skirt of his toga to buff away an invisible smear on one of the prongs.
VERY EARLY, IN FACT. ONE OF THE FIRST ON THE CALL LIST, I’M TOLD.
Poseidon winced. Possibly because he’d managed to cut his finger on his trident. “Well see, that’s the thing. I’m the god of the Mediterranean. Which is where the boat was heading. Never actually entered our territory, I’m afraid.”
I SEE.
“I’m not trying to be difficult! I’m the last person to ever cause any difficulty!”
Ishtar, who had an extensive knowledge of Greek mythology, only barely managed to keep a straight face.
“Last person! Hades, if the ship had been exiting into our waters, we’d be happy to claim the responsibility! But since it never actually reached us to begin with...different matter entirely...tricky situation, very tricky....”
THANK YOU POSEIDON.
“I did try to see about handing the matter off to Zeus! Bringing in the big guns, so to speak!”
DID YOU.
“Well, yes! Even pointed out that ‘Suez’ spelled backwards is ‘Zeus.’ Tried to argue it was a heavenly sign, so to speak. An omen of the divine!”
AND HOW DID THAT CONVERSATION GO, PRECISELY.
“Well, gods tend to be skeptical about omens, seeing as we’re the ones who usually go about creating them….”
I SEE.
“He told me to get heartily fucked. But then again, most conversations with my siblings tend to end like that.”
AGAIN, MY THANKS TO YOU POSEIDON.
“Er, speaking of sea monsters....”
WERE WE?
Poseidon gestured helplessly to the giant sea serpent, which was wagging its tail.
AH YES. NAGA.
The serpent perked up its enormous flared head. Two curved fangs peaked out of its mouth.
*Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss* the serpent said, or would have said if not for its rather magnificent overbite. What it actually said was:
*Yethhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I am tho happy to be here!* It squirmed around in its seat as it spoke. Since its body was looped around most of the chairs and every side of the table, this ended up shaking the entire contents of the room, gods included.
“Why is he—er, it—here, precisely?”
Ishtar wished She still had papers to shuffle, just for effect. She settled for staring impassively ahead.
GIVEN THAT THE SHIP IN QUESTION BEGAN ITS JOURNEY IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA, WE NEEDED A SOUTHEASTERN REPRESENTATIVE. NAGA KINDLY VOLUNTEERED.
Poseidon frowned, causing his nose to bury itself in his curly beard.
“I thought Naga was a type of sea serpent!”
The serpent looked down at itself meaningfully. ‘Itself’ being a substantial amount of sea serpent.
“A type, not just, er, one individual. I thought there were lots of Naga! Nagas! Er, Nagi?”
*Yethhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh* said Naga cheerfully. *Yeth, there are many of uthhhhhhh*
“So which one are you?”
The serpent considered this, thoughtfully scratching its chin with the tip of its tail.
*I am Naga*
“.”
*I have come here with a thuggethun* The serpent glanced around the room, clearing its throat. The chair closest to the ‘neck’ section of its torso trembled and tipped over.
*I thought perhapthhhhhhhhhhhh* the serpent said with some feeling. *I thought perhapth I could thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhlither up the canal*
Around the room, there was a brief but fervent silence.
YOU WANT TO...SLITHER. UP THE SUEZ CANAL.
*It wath juth an idea*
I SEE.
*I could disthlodge the boat with my tail. It ith a very nice tail*
I HAVE NO DOUBT.
*Very thhhhhhhrong, very thurdy. And I am narrow enougf to fit*
AH.
*Motht othean monthterth couldn’t fit up thuch a narrow canal. That’th why they sthay in the othean*
INDEED.
*Otherwithe they would be canal monthterth*
WELL THAT IS QUITE A SUGGESTION. WE WILL KEEP IT IN MIND, AS A CONTINGENCY PLAN.
Naga nodded its head, satisfied. Then it turned its attention to its tail, which had gotten tangled in an armrest. Further down the table, a squeaky voice muttered:
::Well I don’t see how that’s any better than my idea::
—Oh shut UP, Hapi.
Poseidon glanced at the Nile gods with some concern.
“Why in Olympus’s name couldn’t we get any of the heavyweights from the Egyptian pantheon? I seem to recall there being rather a lot of them!”
Ishtar glared at him, though She had been thinking much along the same lines.
“Osiris, Isis, Horus. Seth! Ra, for Hestia’s sake. They’ve got plenty of influence, and it’s their bloody territory!”
—Excuse me, Tefnut interrupted testily. —You’ve just listed a sky god and a sun god, absolutely no water jurisdiction thanks. And Seth is a chaos god.”
A shiver went around the room.
“And what about the bloody rest of them!”
—They send their apologies, but they’re very very busy. Unlike some people, they still very much have their hands full manipulating large-scale global events which require a great investment of time and planning. Tefnut glanced around and lowered her voice conspiratorially. —I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.
Poseidon leaned forward, a bit breathy. Gods were notorious gossips, and the Egyptian deities fueled a constant rumor mill. Gods were also notoriously competitive, and the Olympians considered themselves in constant competition with well—everyone.
Tefnut shrugged. —Ever since the British started ransacking our home soil, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to get involved in foreign politics. We've seen many triumphs. Some quite recent.
“Are you telling me—”
—Am I telling you Osiris engineered Brexit? I’m not telling you Osiris didn’t engineer Brexit.
Poseidon leaned back and nodded, as if satisfied to have confirmed a long-suspected theory. Ishtar frowned with disapproval, because She was fairly certain this violated multiple celestial protocols. She said as much.
Poseidon gazed up at Her gleefully. It sent a shiver down Her immense spine. “Oh really! As if you’ve really never sought a little vengeance against a foreign empire, hmm? Never took the liberty of causing a some ruckus after a cruel and unnecessary invasion on home soil? Never felt a tad protective of the Fertile Crescent in modern times, eh?”
Ishtar hesitated, because no one was supposed to know about that.
“Completely unrelated, but American politics have been interesting over the last few years, wouldn’t you say? Lots of civil unrest. An attempted coup, at one point.”
Ishtar grit Her teeth.
“Say, weren’t you the Goddess of Political Power at one point?”
Ishtar wisely decided to move the conversation forward.
AS WE SEEM TO BE GETTING NOWHERE, I WILL NOW OPEN THE FLOOR TO SUGGESTIONS.
There was chattering among the gods at large, all of who suddenly demonstrated a horrifying desire to be helpful.
*I would like to rethhhhhhhhhhhpectfully reiterate my offer to thwim up the canal and unthtick the thip*
Ishtar ignored this.
*All it would take ith a flick of my tail* Naga wiggled the appendage in demonstration, inadvertently knocking Hapi’s headdress straight off their head, and Hapi out of their chair.
From the floor, Hapi chirped, ::I would like to emphasize that flooding is a natural and useful phenomenon with many potential benefits to the ecosystem::
Charybdis made a wet noise of agreement.
—What if we started a feud among the wind gods? Eventually it would get so messy that something might shake loose.
::Oh, along those lines, what about an earthquake! We could get Atlas to shrug in just the right direction. Tickle his nose with a feather, get him to jiggle the boat loose::
—That would require jiggling the entire planet, though. What if he dropped it?
::Well I said flooding was the most practical solution, now I’m just spitballing::
*My tail could jiggle the thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhip*
I AM NOW CLOSING THE FLOOR TO SUGGESTIONS.
Ishtar exhaled magnificently.
Because the celestial conference room existed outside of time, it would be equally accurate to say that both no time had passed, and that an eternity had passed. Equally accurate, perhaps, but Ishtar felt that the former was more honest.
At some point in the past non-hours, some intern or priestling or some such had wheeled in a tray of assorted offerings (leftovers generously donated by those few strange, terrifying entities who were still worshiped in modern times). The refreshments consisted mostly of slightly wilted prayers, flowers, burnt candles, candies, fruit, and soda. Ishtar was delicately lifting Her sixth bottle of a brightly-colored bubbly ambrosia called Fanta, having squashed the previous five bottles between Her (gargantuan) thumb and index finger.
The group had spent the last several non-minutes reviewing already-discarded options. (Well, half the group. The Nile gods had barricaded themselves behind a pile of Naga’s coils, and were gambling heavily over a game of Senet. Tefnut kept losing and then refusing to pay up, citing the fact that the original rules had been lost to time, so it couldn’t actually be proven that she was losing.)
Ishtar was on the verge of resting Her forehead on the conference table. Except that would definitely collapse the table. And probably the room itself. Possibly their current celestial dimension itself, and wasn’t that a tempting way to end this meeting. A meeting from hell, Ishtar would say, except that She was on friendly terms with all the underworld gods. Now there was a group of deities who knew how to appreciate good old-fashioned R&R. What She wouldn’t give right about now to be having a nice, quiet picnic in a land of the dead. Always so refreshingly well-organized, those sorts of places.
Ishtar gazed forlornly at Her clipboard, which had been charred beyond recognition.
UNFORTUNATELY OUR OPTIONS ARE LIMITED. REALISTICALLY, WE HAVE THE POWERS OF ONLY A HANDFUL OF RIVER GODS AND WATER SPIRITS AT OUR DISPOSAL.
“Hey, I’m the God of the Ocean, as it happens! King of all sea gods!”
EXCELLENT! WE SHALL LEAVE THIS MATTER IN YOUR CAPABLE HANDS, THEN.
Poseidon began to backpaddle like a man who has just realized his canoe is halfway down a waterfall. “Though in all practical matters, I’m God of the Mediterranean. So not quite within my jurisdiction, of course.”
OF COURSE.
“Although.…” He frowned thoughtfully. “There are a number of other sea gods who are quite versatile about these things. Where are the Norse gods? Why isn’t Njörðr here? He’s a seafaring god, this is absolutely a seafaring issue!”
I HAVE NO DOUBT. SADLY, HE SENDS HIS APOLOGIES. THE DEADLINE FOR RAGNARÖK HAS BEEN PUSHED FORWARD. AGAIN.
Poseidon winced. “Christ. They’re working ungodly amounts of overtime on that.”
(Ishtar quietly agreed. That was the problem with making promises about the apocalypse. Sure, it will cow your worshippers and give a sense of climactic destiny to your whole spiel, but in the long term it’s even riskier than just having your name written in clay. Centuries after your followers have been mass-converted into some centralized monotheistic nonsense, not only are humans still handing down your myths just for fun, but suddenly there’s a popular movie franchise and congrats! You’re stuck constructing a global apocalypse with barely a blót sacrifice to your name. And sure, everyone knows your name. But when’s the last time anyone slaughtered a herd of cattle in your honor, huh? Not like the good old days at all. It was a fulltime job without the pay or the perks. Not unlike Her current situation.)
Ishtar tried not to be grateful when Poseidon interrupted Her thoughts:
“Wait! Wait wait wait!” The King of the Sea Gods was bouncing giddily in his chair. “Wait wait! The Red Sea! The RED! SEA!”
WHAT OF IT.
“The ship! Entered the canal! From the Red Sea!!! See???”
WHAT IS THE RELEV—
“And whose jurisdiction is the Red Sea under?”
There was a silence thick enough to smother all the firstborns in Egypt.
“Only some of the most powerful entities this side of the BC/AD calendar! We hand it off to them!”
Ishtar shuddered quietly. Yes, quietly. It made the walls tremble, and dust fall from the ceiling, but not in a noisy way.
True, ever since that mess with the Moses prophet, the Red Sea technically fell under the domain of the Abrahamic god or gods. Not that anyone was interested in drawing that goddamn wild card. It was a blessed (hah!) two thousand years and counting since that lot had performed so much as a party trick, and nobody in their right mind wanted to jeopardize that record. No thank you.
AND ARE YOU VOLUNTEERING TO REACH OUT TO THE GOD OR GODS OF THE RED SEA?
Poseidon opened his mouth, and then shut it firmly. He lowered his eyes, and began tenderly rebraiding the left side of his beard.
Around the table, Naga’s coils were heaving slowly. It took Ishtar a moment to realize it was because the great serpent was napping. Suddenly there came a rumbling groan, the sound of greatly exaggerated effort, and two heads popped up from between a coil. It would have been three heads, but the crocodile snout got stuck halfway.
—So, Tefnut said with complete dignity, serenely ignoring the fact that one of her ears was smooshed flat. —We have a suggestion.
Hapi nodded ferociously. It made their false beard bobble. ::It’s a matter of jurisdiction::
Tefnut’s ear twitched itself back into shape. —The way we see it, the Mediterranean is out. The Red Sea is out. None of the deities of those realms will agree to deal with the paperwork for this, and they’re powerful enough that we can’t strong-arm them into it.
::So, why not the canal itself? Not this particular canal, but canals in general::
The crocodile snout, which had been inching its way upward, finally popped up to reveal a grinning (?) Sobek, who made a series of high-pitched squeaking noises.
Tefnut nodded in agreement —Yes, exactly that! We need a God of Canals.
::Assuming there is one still in existence. Most have died out, or been syncretized with other water deities. And they can’t be too powerful either::
Sobek made presumably crocodile noises.
::Agreed. Not so powerful that they can argue their way out of this. We just need someone obscure and low-ranking who we can lob this off on::
—A schmuck, basically.
AND THIS IS HOW YOU PROPOSE TO RESOLVE A HISTORIC ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE OF GLOBAL PROPORTIONS?
All three Nile gods shook their heads in unison. Ishtar, only very very briefly, considered smiting them.
—Nah. This guy, he doesn’t have to do anything. Probably he couldn’t do anything. Ideally there’d be like a dozen random scholars who even know he exists. The point is that no one will listen to what he has to say.
NO ONE LISTENS TO WHAT WE HAVE TO SAY.
—Now you’re getting it! We need someone even lower on the ladder than us.
Hapi nodded sagely, causing their headdress to slide further to one side. ::The point isn’t to solve the problem. The point is to bureaucratize the problem. To transform it from our problem...into someone else's problem::
It was the perfect solution. It solved nothing, and satisfied no one. But it meant they got to go home.
Ishtar stared at the sad little cinderpile that had once been Her clipboard. If She breathed out just a little too hard, the ashes would float away.
With great finality, Ishtar stood up to Her full height, and released an almighty sigh.
The ceilings and columns crumbled. Poseidon leapt to shelter his adult child but stubbed his toe on his trident, Charybdis melted into a puddle on the carpet, and the Nile gods dove for shelter beneath Naga (who sneezed from the dust but otherwise kept snoring).
Ishtar raised Her immense hand to a forehead larger than the peaks of most mountains—and pinched the spot between Her eyes.
I NEED TO CALL MY EX-FIANCÉ.
And what exactly the fuck, She wondered, was his name anyway?
The world had almost forgotten about Enkimdu. Ishtar Herself had forgotten about Enkimdu, and She’d been prepared to marry him at one point. Possibly. The few Mesopotamian records that mentioned him were damaged and frankly the whole translation was open to interpretation. As for Ishtar—well, you try remembering the details of a breakup 4,000 years down the line. Hell, She’d been Queen of Heaven for awhile there, she'd had other shit going on.
In the end, Ishtar didn’t much feel like a reunion with the minor god She may or may not have been engaged to back in Her river valley heydays. Luckily, bureaucracy existed. She filled out a form, authorizing a new supervisor to take over the canal fiasco, and sent the towering stack of case files away to be carted off to whatever dusty little office Her former love interest had been assigned. She didn’t even feel guilty—he’d probably spent the last three millennia in retirement. Not like anyone ever called on him for anything, lucky devil. She’d had to sort deep through ancient record just to find his name.
Who would have thought those infernal clay tablets would finally come in useful for a change?