The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  Phoebe stood up and addressed the gathered muses. “The council of Helicon, land of muses, endowed with power through the will of the gods and the creativity of the human race, existing to bring creativity and light to the universe, is now in session. As head, I call this meeting to order.”

  Everyone got quiet.

  Nora ate the last few bites of her cookie.

  “Now,” said Phoebe, “I know that you’re all here to find out about the incident last night at the Winter Ball, and we will deal with that eventually. But before we get to that, we have some other business to attend to.”

  Nora suspected that Phoebe was trying to get the other business out of the way sooner because if she didn’t, the council could go on for hours talking about incredibly boring things. The worst thing was that they rarely came to any kind of decision. The council was fond of delaying voting as long as possible. Often, they would form committees to discuss issues and report back to the council. If the committees played their cards right, this might mean that it took months for the council to decide about anything at all. Nora could tell that Phoebe wished she knew how to make things more efficient, but the muses were all stuck in their ways. By forcing them to hurry through the other business, it might make things go more quickly.

  However, at Phoebe’s pronouncement, several of the muses got up and left. Some people didn’t have the patience to wait. They probably assumed that others would tell them what happened later anyway.

  “First on the agenda,” said Phoebe, “we have the engineering enclave. The council recognizes Coeus Dust.”

  Coeus stood up. He was a sturdy man with big hands and thick shoulders. Though his hair was thinning, his face was unlined and youngish. He spread his hands. “I’m here to ask for assistance for the engineering enclave. These past few weeks, we’ve been overloaded with work. We’re all trying to recover from the debilitating sickness last year, and I realize that, but there are more demands on engineering than other enclaves, and we need as much assistance as we can get to set everything to rights. In particular, the Winter Ball and the cleanup afterward was quite a strain. I might point out, as well, that doing cleanup has nothing to do with engineering whatsoever, and how this ended up in the purview of our enclave, I really don’t know.”

  The head of the wine and spirits enclave stood up. “May I speak?”

  Phoebe inclined her head. “The council recognizes Jim Steam.”

  “Usually, the engineering enclave asks for help of specific enclaves,” said Jim. “For instance, usually, we always help with the setup of every event and festival throughout the year. We’re not much for cleanup, mostly because we’re all hungover. But this year, we didn’t get any requests. So, I just think if they asked people, like they usually do, then everything would be fine.”

  Phoebe cleared her throat. “Jim, your attendance at the council meetings is, er, lax, especially for the head of an enclave. But perhaps if you’d been here a few weeks ago, you’d know that there was a lengthy argument between philosophy and engineering, during which a motion was passed that engineering would stop asking for help as it provided a, uh…” She turned to Themis Branch, head of the philosophy department. “How did you put it, Themis?”

  Themis stood up, looking important even in his mismatched, stained suit. “An environment of obligation not suited to the helpful spirit of Helicon, Phoebe.”

  “Yes,” said Phoebe. “That is what you said. And you packed the meeting with members of the philosophy enclave to ensure that your motion passed.”

  Wow. Nora could see that the philosophy-engineering feud had reached new heights. The two enclaves were always at each other’s throats. Engineering didn’t think philosophy was useful, and philosophy resented the fact that engineering didn’t respect their importance to Helicon.

  “The motion stipulates,” said Coeus, glaring at Themis, “that we are not allowed to ask for help from a particular enclave, but it says nothing about asking for general volunteers. So, until engineering gets the help it needs, we have decided we will be asking for volunteers at every council meeting.”

  “Seriously?” said Jim. “Well, that’s just dumb.” He turned to Themis. “Why in the hell would y’all pass a motion like that? It makes everything harder.”

  Murmurs of affirmation from the gathered muses.

  Themis folded his arms over his chest. “Coeus, you’ve only brought this up tonight because you knew everyone would be here about the Thundercloud boy. And you—” He nodded at Phoebe. “Are in cohoots with him, because the two of you are in a relationship. You’re biased towards him and towards the engineering enclave, and you always have been.”

  Phoebe didn’t respond. She made a pained face and deadpanned, “Is there a motion on the floor?”

  “I have a motion,” said Jim. “I motion that—”

  “Move that,” said Themis. “You move.”

  “Right,” said Jim. “I move that the engineering enclave can ask anyone they want to help whenever they want. And that if some people don’t like it, they just say no.”

  “I second that,” said Coeus, looking pleased.

  “You can’t do this,” said Themis. “We passed this motion weeks ago.”

  Phoebe ignored him. “Motion has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?”

  Themis was practically hopping up and down. “This will undo everything that we argued for when we made the proposition in the first place. The fact is that engineering is far too self-important in Helicon. They think they run the place, and they don’t. If you give them back all of their power over us, they’ll go back to lording their position over all of us.”

  “We don’t lord any position,” said Coeus. “You’re accusing us of things which have no basis in reality. In fact, your whole enclave has a very loose interpretation of reality in general. You’re always debating things that people with common sense—”

  “Very well,” said Phoebe. “All in favor of the engineering enclave asking other enclaves for help, signify by saying ‘aye.’”

  There was a cacophony of “ayes.”

  “Opposed?” said Phoebe.

  The philosophy enclave all yelled out, “Nay.” But it was clear that they were outnumbered, and that there were far more in favor of the motion than not.

  “Motion passes,” said Phoebe.

  Themis shook his head, glaring at Coeus. “This isn’t over.”

  Coeus gave him a tight smile. “Do your worst.”

  “Both of you sit down,” said Phoebe, glaring at them. She ran her hands through her white curls, frustrated. “Moving on to our next order of business, the council recognizes the head of the music enclave, Terence Wind.”

  The rest of the business went rather quickly. The music enclave wanted to pass an ordinance that muses who borrowed musical instruments from the enclave brought them back within a week, unless it was expressly stated otherwise. That motion passed with no opposition.

  Then the architecture enclave made an announcement that everyone was very busy with other projects currently, and that there would not be any new tents available for muses until sometime in February. Nora was glad that she and Sawyer had just gotten their new tent recently. It would have sucked to wait until February.

  After that, it was finally time for the council to deal with Lute Thundercloud and the fireworks.

  He was brought out to the center of the fire pit, forced to face Phoebe and the other heads of enclaves.

  Phoebe addressed the gathered muses. “Before we begin to discuss Mr. Thundercloud here, I do want to assure everyone here that the explosives that went off last night were relatively harmless in nature. Certainly, if anyone had been too close, they could have been burned, but it is unlikely they would have caused death. These explosives are from the mundane world, and they are called fireworks. Some of the older muses in the visual art enclave may even recall that some time ago… about fourteen hundred years ago, maybe, right, Theia?”

  Theia nodded
at Phoebe.

  Muses could halt their aging, and so most of them had been alive for hundreds of years. The tweens and children were pretty much the only ones in Helicon who aged at a normal rate.

  “Anyway,” said Phoebe, “we did work on an inspiration thread similar to these once, with some art made with flames and sparks. So, these things are primarily for aesthetic purposes. They aren’t meant to harm people.”

  A wave of conversation passed through the gathering.

  Phoebe held up her hand. “However, that does not mean that we are not talking about a serious offense here. The action last night was frightening, and it was damaging. It ruined our Winter Ball celebration, and no one is particularly pleased about that, I assure you.” She addressed Lute. “So, Lute Thundercloud, we have brought you in front of the council of the muses, and you now have the chance to confess your crime. If you do so, it will make it easier on everyone, and we will consider your apologies as we weigh your punishment.”

  Everyone looked expectantly at Lute.

  His face was ashen. “I’m sorry,” he said in a quiet voice, “but I can’t confess to something I didn’t do.”

  A smattering of surprise and shock rippled through the crowd.

  Phoebe gave him a stern look. “Lute, the evidence of your crime was found in your tent. If you didn’t do this, why did you have the fireworks?”

  “I didn’t,” said Lute. “Someone set me up. They put them there when I was away. We were all that the ball. Anyone could have had access to my tent. I didn’t do this.”

  Phoebe inclined her head. “Well, if it were only the physical evidence, perhaps you could make that argument. But we also have a witness.”

  “What?” said Lute.

  Nora couldn’t be sure if he was surprised because he was actually innocent or because he couldn’t believe he’d been caught. Truthfully, she’d expected the prankster to be younger than Lute. But she knew that boys her age and older sometimes had an immature streak. She didn’t know Lute well, but she figured he was capable of it.

  “We didn’t want to have to do this,” said Phoebe. “It would be easier, as I said, if you would just confess. I will give you another chance to do so.”

  “But I didn’t do it,” said Lute, and now he sounded angry.

  Phoebe beckoned, and another tween came forward. Nora recognized him. He liked to hang out in the engineering enclave sometimes. Other times, he was in math and numbers.

  “The council recognizes Colin Oak,” she said. “Colin, you came to us last night to tell us about Lute. Can you explain why you suspected him?”

  “I didn’t suspect him. I knew he did it,” said Colin. “He talked about how he was going to do it for weeks. He bragged about it to me.”

  “Really?” said Phoebe, “but you didn’t report this to anyone, even though you knew that the Winter Ball would be sabotaged?”

  “Well, I didn’t believe him,” said Colin. “I thought he was just making it up. Sometimes guys do things like that, you know? They say they’re going to pull off some big prank, and it’s all just empty bragging. But then it happened, just like he said it would. And I knew that I needed to tell someone. So I came to you.”

  “Yes,” said Phoebe. “And you also told us about the location of the fireworks.”

  “I did.” Colin nodded.

  “This is ridiculous,” said Lute. “He did it. He planted the fireworks in my tent and everything. I can’t believe you’re falling for this. It’s obvious he’s lying.”

  Colin’s face fell. “I hoped you wouldn’t say that. But I did think you might.”

  “Colin has an alibi,” said Phoebe. “There were at least five other muses who were with him the night of the ball. I and other members of the council have interviewed them extensively. He is not responsible for the explosion. On the other hand, no one seems to have seen you after you entered. Even your friends Rufus and Twyla lost track of you.”

  Lute’s shoulders slumped. “You’ve got to be kidding me. So, that’s it, then? You’re just going to believe Colin? No one else heard me ‘bragging’ about this, did they?”

  Phoebe pursed her lips. “The fact that you aren’t willing to admit your wrongdoing is troubling, Lute. And I’m afraid it’s going to factor into our punishment.”

  Lute twisted his upper lip. “I can’t admit something that isn’t true!”

  Phoebe only shook her head. “Sit down.” She gestured.

  Lute sat down, but he didn’t look happy about it.

  Phoebe and the other heads of the council put their heads together and began to discuss.

  The rest of the muses all began to talk as well.

  “I don’t believe this,” said Sawyer. “He didn’t do it, and Phoebe’s not even paying attention to that.”

  “I don’t know, Sawyer,” said Maddie, “I think he did. He just doesn’t want to admit it. He’s mad that he got caught.”

  “Yeah,” said Nora. “It doesn’t seem to me like that Colin guy is lying.” She didn’t know Colin very well, and she was surprised that she’d never noticed him. He was actually a pretty attractive guy. He was no Sawyer, of course, but he was easy on the eyes.

  “What?” said Sawyer. “Of course the Colin guy is lying.”

  “Could be,” said Agler. “I can’t tell. Neither of them seem very trustworthy to me. But I can’t think of any reason that Colin would lie. Why would he make that up?”

  Sawyer glared at all of them. “You guys are being thick.”

  Nora squinted at him. “Since when do you care so much about Lute? Besides, it’s not like they’re going to exile him for setting off some fireworks.” She turned to Agler and Maddie. “Right?” Truthfully, she rarely saw people get punished in Helicon, so she wasn’t sure what might happen.

  “No, they’ll probably just make him clean toilets for a month or something,” said Agler.

  Agler was almost right.

  “The council has reached a decision,” said Phoebe in a loud voice.

  All conversation died out immediately.

  “Lute Thundercloud, as punishment for your actions,” she said. “You will be spending every evening in the food enclave kitchen, cleaning up all the dishes that have been used during the day.”

  Lute clenched his jaw.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “You don’t have to keep me company all the time, you know,” said Lute as he lowered a stack of soiled plates into the sink in the kitchen. He gave Sawyer a knowing half-smile.

  Sawyer blushed and turned away. He hated that Lute always seemed to see through him, understanding his motives better than he understood them himself.

  Truthfully, he didn’t really keep the other guy company all the time. Lute had been washing the dishes every day since the Winter Ball, which had been three weeks ago. Sawyer had only been there a handful of times. Well, no more than ten. Maybe fifteen. But not all the time. Anyway, sometimes, he only popped in for a few minutes, just to say hi.

  It wasn’t fair, after all. It was obvious to Sawyer that Lute had gotten a bad deal, and that he hadn’t actually set off those fireworks. He wanted to help clear Lute’s name—he’d even tried to get his friends on board with the idea. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t investigated things before. But no one else was as convinced of Lute’s innocence as he was, so nothing was being done.

  Sawyer had tried to do some investigating on his own, but nothing much had come of that. He’d asked Colin a few questions on a few different occasions, and then suddenly, Colin didn’t want to talk to him anymore. What the heck was up with that? In Sawyer’s mind, it only made Colin seem more suspicious. But no one else agreed with him.

  So, he began to question himself. Maybe he was blind. Maybe Lute really was guilty. Maybe he couldn’t see that because he was attracted to Lute.

  But then Sawyer would come to watch Lute wash the dishes, and he knew it couldn’t be true. Lute hadn’t done it. He just wasn’t the kind of person who would do something like that. Even if S
awyer was attracted to him, that didn’t mean he’d lost his ability to judge character.

  “I’m just passing through,” said Sawyer.

  Lute chuckled. “Sure you are.” He plunged his hands into soapy water. The cooking muses often used magic to get the plates clean. There was nothing creative about cleaning, and the muses thought it was a waste of energy. So, Lute having to do this as a punishment was considered a boon to the food enclave, because it expanded the amount of energy they had to contribute to inspiration threads. “You always say stuff like that. You’re just being friendly. You’re just stopping by.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. “Why don’t you stop lying to yourself?”

  “Lying to myself?” Sawyer moved closer, leaning on the edge of the sink. This way, he could see Lute in profile. Usually, his conversations with Lute didn’t go this way. Usually, they chatted about random things. Sometimes, they talked about their interests—Lute about music and Sawyer about sewing. But it was generally just everyday sort of topics. Nothing heavy. Certainly, Lute had never accused him of lying before.

  Lute scrubbed, not looking at him. “Yeah. That’s not why you’re here. You and I both know it.”

  Sawyer examined his fingernails. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “I’m just…” Lute looked up at him. “I’m sick of this, I guess. You’re interested. You’re not interested. You come to see me, but you’re always rushing off to find your girlfriend—”

  “We’re only friends, Lute.”

  Lute snorted.

  Sawyer backed away. “I should go.”

  Lute turned around, pulling his hands out of the water. They dripped soap and water over the floor. “I’m not saying it’s not scary or confusing or whatever. Because I know this is crazy.”