Far north of here in Ŋísh the land of meadows, Ɵórí SHóry-l was well known as a brewer. When she was born she lived in a small group of compounds, but by the time she was thirty-eight years old it was growing toward becoming a city. Several courts had already asked her to do her work in their cities, but she preferred to stay with her family.
Ɵórí loved children more than anything. There was scarcely a single young child in the SHóry compound who could not call her a parent, and she had a tattoo for each of them.[1] She didn’t want to give up any of her children, nor did she want to ask them to move from the meadows and woods they knew. So she refused the courts, one after another, when they asked her to move. But it was well known that anyone with enough humility to walk into her house would leave with whatever they had come looking for—a barrel of beer to make the soul sing, a salve to soothe the fiercest burn, even medicines to heal tongues that had begun to stutter and breath that had begun to falter. Many small gods came to taste her beer and begged to be bound to her, but she always said she did not need any more help. Brewing was a private thing; sharing her brews a public one.
Now, one month a youth dressed in green[2] came to the gate of Ɵórí’s house. Ɵórí’s young daughter Íváŋ let em in and offered food and introduced em to the small gods of the household. In exchange the youth hummed a tune like the dark of a forest floor spattered with points of light. Íváŋ already suspected what e was, but when she asked how soon e would get yr first tattoo e just laughed, and yr eyes flashed, and she knew for certain.
Íváŋ asked what kind of brew the youth was looking for, and how e meant to pay. “Thirteen barrels of beer fit for the great gods,” e said, and smiled to show all yr teeth. “I will arrange my payment with Ɵórí the Brewer.[3] May I speak to her?”
“She is at work,” said Íváŋ, “but I will sit with you until she is done.”
The full moon was well above the horizon when Ɵórí came out of her shed for supper and found a youth dressed in green entertaining her family with the dramatic tale of a diplomat who got into a riddle contest with 18 Dragon Gathers Starlight. She liked the youth as much as her family did; when supper was over they were already becoming friends. Ɵórí and the youth sat in the courtyard together drinking beer and looked up through the tree branches that cut the full moon into shards.
“This is very good beer,” said the youth. “But do you make beer that is better than this? Do you make beer fit for the great gods?”
“Some people have told me so,” said Ɵórí. “I suppose it depends on whether the great gods have high expectations.”
“Very high expectations,” said the youth. “It must be beer whose very smell could give a small god the strength to uproot a tree.”
“And when do you need it?”
“Thirteen months from today, in the morning.”
Ɵórí did not ask how the youth would pay. The great gods know better than to cheat an honest woman.
The next morning the youth with the flashing eyes was gone and yr bed seemed not to have been slept in. Ɵórí went into her shed and began to think of recipes for a beer fit for the great gods.
In the seven months that followed the beer of Ɵórí the Brewer surpassed everything she had made before. It smelled so good that the head of household had to hire a spirit-binder to keep small gods away from the brewing shed so Ɵórí could concentrate. But Ɵórí was not satisfied. “This is a beer fit for small gods,” she told her head of household, as the woman’s tattooed toes curled in delight to taste it. “It is not fit for the great gods. Ask the young children to find every good herb and spice in the forest.”
In the twelfth month Ɵórí was still not satisfied, and she had grown very worried. If she could not offer a worthy beer to the House of Glass,[4] what would become of her? She sat until dawn in her shed with her hands clasped over her diaphragm, and answers did not come to her.
Just as the sun’s light seared a thin red line onto the wall of the shed, something else came through the window. It was a grey cat that jumped up on top of the high shelf where Ɵórí could not reach it. “You are making a beer fit for the great gods,” said the cat, looking down at her with eyes like half-moons. “So I hear, and so I smell.”
“Perhaps I am, and perhaps not,” said Ɵórí. She was weary. “You must be a clever small god to get in past the bound-gods guarding my shed. I suppose you want to taste my beer.”
“I won’t refuse,” said the cat, licking its lips. “But my reason for coming here is that I want to help you. You only have one month left to make a beer fit for the great gods, and still you don’t know how to do it.”
Ɵórí ladled some beer into a shallow bowl and placed it onto the ground for the cat, which jumped down and began to drink it. As it drank it became larger until it stood as tall as Ɵórí’s waist. “This is certainly a beer fit for small gods!” said the cat. “Now tell me, what have you been doing?”
Ɵórí explained and the cat watched her brew a batch of beer. “This is as good as beer can be made using human arts,” said the cat when it was finished. “But to make beer fit for the great gods you must use godly arts.” It arched its back and some of the hairs flew off to land in the fire, where they spat violet sparks. It dipped its paw into the blood-warm beer and whisked its tail so the steam came up in perfect spirals like nautilus shells; and it sang a song. Of course I cannot tell you what the song is! I’ve been sworn to secrecy! Any other kind of magic might need to be written out, but brewing is wilder magic than what wrote the world. Brewing is a magic that has forgotten ink; it is a magic blessed by the little sister of the gods.[5]
Now when Ɵórí tasted the beer she nearly swooned and her skin seemed to glow. Now when the cat tasted the beer it grew to the size of a lion and began to purr like an earthquake. “Now this is a beer fit for great gods!” it rumbled. “Good! Let us make more!”
They worked night and day and night to make eighteen barrels of the beer fit for the great gods, and four days before the appointed day they were finally able to rest. Ɵórí’s daughters and young children and their other parents had prepared a huge feast. They had roasted roots and locust-flour pancakes with soft cheese. They had porridge with sausage and tender fried grubs and delicate fruit pies. And of course they had beer! You’ve never seen such beer. Sweet beer cakes, small beer for the young children, and everyone had a taste of the beer fit for the great gods. People came from all over Ŋísh to have a taste, but three barrels were all for the House of SHóry. Three days later they were still drunk!
On the morning of the fourth day Ɵórí got her daughters to help her roll the barrels out into the courtyard, and no sooner were they all laid out than the youth in green came knocking on the gate!
E was ushered inside and got to taste the beer. “Yes!” e crowed, glowing like a firefly. “This is a beer fit for the great gods!” A bird flew up off yr shoulder, and soon a procession of teŋríech[6] came in through the gate with saddles ready to take the casks of beer. With them was a solemn person who was not a youth but who did not have the chin tattoo of a grown woman. E was likewise dressed in green, and e presented Ɵórí with a mirror taller than a woman and as wide as two. The frame was brass, carved with every kind of flower and leaf, and all around the edge were protective charms in beautiful calligraphy.
The procession rode away, and Ɵórí put up the mirror in the front hall of the house.
Of course, this was not the last time she saw the youth! She was the favorite brewer of the great gods until she died; but somehow it was always that youth with the flashing eyes who came to give her the commission. She would invite in that great god[7] and sit in the window with em, and with a grey cat the size of a lion curled up under it; and they all three would drink beer until the moon rose.
[1] A woman would not go to the trouble of getting a tattoo commemorating the birth of a child who she did not intend to have a large part in raising; this indicates that Ɵórí is not absorbed in her work but rather does what she does for the sake of her community.
[2] In plays, actors wear green to indicate that their character is a god or spirit in disguise. This is generally considered to be an artistic signal, not something that is strictly true in the story.
[3] This would be “Ɵórí Ɵóróshú,” indicating that Ɵórí’s name was picked as a sort of pun (although it’s also a reasonably common name in the north).
[4] Ɵórí assumes, rightly, that the youth dressed in green is one of the children of 6 Mirror of the Forest, whose house is known to be in the dark forest north of Ŋísh.[5] Despite not being the youngest among the great gods, 10 Creeping Mushrooms is known as their little sister. 10 Creeping Mushrooms is the matron of not only decay but also of fermentation. She is also something of a trickster figure or wild god, considered to be the matron of the large quick salamanders known for carrying off sacks of locusts.
[5] Despite not being the youngest among the great gods, 10 Creeping Mushrooms is known as their little sister. 10 Creeping Mushrooms is the matron of not only decay but also of fermentation. She is also something of a trickster figure or wild god, considered to be the matron of the large quick salamanders known for carrying off sacks of locusts.
[6] A teŋrúech is an animal with spreading toes and small horns, often used to carry or pull loads. They are not large enough for an adult woman to ride, however.
[7] As listeners to the story we know that this youth was 54 Signal Flash, the youngest child of Glass and the most mischievous; and I daresay Ɵórí had some idea as well, even if e never told her yr name.
