THE EPIC GILGAMEK 37: THE SWEET SCENT OF SUCCESS
A NOTE FROM OUR AUTHOR - BRYRON MAKES A DECISION - A GREAT FOOLISHNESS IS BORN
Faithful Readers —
We are nearly at the end of Part 1 of the novel-in-progress I’ve been calling EPIC GILGAMEK. There are only four or five chapters remaining and if all goes well we will have traveled alongside Gilgamek from the bottom of his society to nearly its top, from Trench to Palace, from anonymity to destiny.
When it’s complete in a month or so, Part One, which began in May 2025, will tip in at just over 51,000 words.
51,000 scrapping words.
Hard for me to grasp. I am beyond elated that I’ve gotten this far. A lot of it I owe to you, faithful readers, who finish each and every installment and always offers words of encouragement.
Thank you all, for real. And big thanks also to Substack for providing the space for this manuscript to happen.
This is the good news. The less-good news is I have no idea when we’ll see the second part of EPIC GILGAMEK. I hit a bit of a rough patch I talked about here. I wish I could promise something but right now I can’t. Maybe the words will spark and we’ll get Part Two right on the heels of Part One or maybe we will have to leave Gilgamek hanging, becoming literally the Dangling Mek he had hoped to save.
Whatever this book’s fate, I’m grateful to all of you who have chosen to walk this path with me.
It is, after all, no easy road.
What Has Come Before
While scavenging in the caverns beneath his city, young Gilgamek stumbles upon a being not seen in millennia: a dragon. In that brief encounter Gilgamek acquires mysterious strengths that he cannot easily control. He also becomes haunted by a disturbing dream of a pitiful mek held captive in a dark place, a dream that he realizes is more real than he imagined. As Gilgamek struggles with the changes that have befallen him, forces beyond his understanding gather: vaporous searchers arrive in the city; an elegant stranger named Lady Fray takes up residence across the street from his hovel, and the Autarch announces the next Mortality Games. Always one for a come-up and encouraged by his fickle new powers, Gilgamek decides that the Games might be his chance to escape his poverty (and after no small trouble finds a conflict tutor in the enigmatic Lady Fray). Despite the bloody chaos of the first contests, Gilgamek advances out of the preliminaries, yet butts heads with the Autarch’s designated heir, Prince Taramfis, and lays eyes on his sister, Princess Glamarys, for the first fateful time...
37
Gilgamek competes twice more that day. First against a gangly Machine Bird named Vlatlin, which ends quick. He catches the Machine Bird off guard, smashes in his weapon elbow — end of arm, end of match. The crowd disapproves of the quick defeat, but Gilgamek is glad that Vlatlin doesn’t push it.
“I ain’t dumb,” says the Machine Bird, walking him off the arena.
Second match pits him against the seventeenth-ranked fighter in the Dominion: Smokeless Fire from Death Mountain. Smokeless Fire is a Blade Caliber colonel and a decorated veteran of a dozen brushfire wars against the Wizard. Smokeless Fire has a Shadow Might — can, for short periods, reduce himself to a flickering, hard-to-see and even harder-to-hit shade.
Problem is, Gilgamek can see Smokeless Fire better than most, his new eyes guiding him. He just keeps dodging the Blade Caliber’s darting strikes, wearing Smokeless Fire down until his Shadow Might starts to falter. Eventually, Gilgamek finds a clean look and pours it on, knocking the colonel down twice and eating a flurry of sharp hits in the process. Before Gilgamek can bash Smokeless Fire a third time the colonel steps back and plunges the tip of his sword into the sand. The Tapout chime sounds and the marshals descend en masse, but Gilgamek has already stepped back — he hates the soft whips that the marshals use to stop the fights.
Smokeless Fire is gracious in defeat, shakes the boy’s hand firmly, no dirty tricks. “See that you make it to the end, soldier,” the colonel says and later in his exit interview adds: “Give me twelve like that one and we’ll drive the Wizard back to Zardraz.”
Perhaps it’s because Gilgamek ain’t used to praise or because Smokeless Fire is one of the greats of the realm or because Gilgamek has never risen so far, so high, in his life, but the colonel’s words touch Gilgamek profoundly.
You ever been praised by someone you respect for something you did that’s worthy of respect? Remember how those words, as they enter your body, become an accolade, lifting you above yourself to a place where you cannot fail? This is what happens to Gilgamek at that moment. He feels like he’s gone up in planes. Feels like what he imagines a regular mek feels like, what it must feel be to free of flesh, free of the hatred that all hold towards the flesh.
Like what it must feel to be normal.
The announcers try to interview Gilgamek, too, for the first time in those Games — one might almost think they were avoiding him — but our boy stalks off without a word, wants to be alone with what he’s feeling.
“Tough and silent this young Ruster,” the announcers deadpan. “His fists, his eloquence.”
But Gilgamek ain’t so completely lost in the emo sauce that he don’t notice something cool: how after each of his last three victories the crowd cheers him with increasing energy, especially up in the cheap seats. Not a ton of love and support, but more than before and that’s a marked improvement from what was going on with him and the crows on those first days. There are even a few folks holding up banners with his black lightning bolt and dancing to the rhythm of Trenchtown Rocks, universal anthem of Trenchers everywhere.
A bedazed Gilgamek stays topside for a while, studying a couple of matches, basking in whatever it is he’s feeling. It’s only after the announcers signal thirty minutes to the next set of bouts does Gilgamek remembers that Bryron is fighting in this next round of bouts.
He heads down, searches for Bryron throughout the whole fighters complex. Since beating Kills Millions, Gilgamek’s not had a chance to connect with Bryron; he’s been busy training for his next match. And it’s not like Bryron’s been about — homemek also seems to hiding out somewhere — in prep mode, Gilgamek assumes. He hurries from room to room, wanting to send Bryron off right, in part because they’re all they have in these Games, and also to make up for the mess he put them in the day before.
He finds Bryron, and to his astonishment the handsome mek’s not dressed for battle. He’s still in his tailored duds, his packed duffel at his feet.
“What the scrap, Bryon, you’re up in less than five minutes,” Gilgamek says, rushing over.
“Actually, I’m not,” Bryron says.
“Actually, you are, motherscrapper.” Gilgamek grabs the duffel, searching for the zipper. “You got to get ready fast if you’re going to grab some wins.”
Bryron rips the bag from Gilgamek’s hands. “Don’t you get it? I scratched. My name is off the boards.”
Gilgamek glances at the leader board and sees it’s true — Bryron’s name is not on it.
“But why?” he demands.
Bryron’s richboy voice seems to come from a mile off. “Because I ain’t like you, Gilgamek. Because I don’t want to be carried out of here with a broken back. And because my scrapping hands won’t stop shaking.” He holds them up. “Like a leaf. Like a leaf.”
“You can’t quit, Bryron,” he pleads. “We’re going to show these bastards! We were going to show them all!”
“You’re going to show these bastards,” Bryron says. “I intend to sit in the bleachers and cheer you on.”
Gilgamek doesn’t know what to say. He barely knows Bryron; they were enemies for months and yet as Bryron pick up his bag, Gilgamek feels a deep pang, like he’s losing something.
“To victory,” Bryron says, heading towards the exit.
“To victory,” Gilgamek repeats hollowly.
They hold the winners’ ceremonies at the end of the day. Two hundred survivors to be reduced to twenty tomorrow, and down to one on the final day. The princes float down and alight before the victors and everyone takes a knee, except for Taramfis, who stands ramrod straight.
“The Prince-in-Waiting refusing to bow to his younger siblings? Unprecedented,” the announcers whisper, scandalized.
Don’t be an ass, Glamarys says sharply to her brother.
If you are in want of submission, sister, you are always welcome to bow to me, Taramfis says.
Someone remind me how this is good for the family, Radmek asks.
It is not good for the family, Glamarys says, her smile brilliant. But our dear brother seems to believe that pretend he’s Atuarch is good for him.
Never one to grovel while others are standing and buoyed by the colonel’s praise, Gilgamek glances at Taramfis and then, without hesitation, rises to his feet. The prince and the trencher lock gazes over the bowed heads of the other victors.
And now a second idiot enters the fray, Glamarys says in disbelief.
Hello punk, Gilgamek thinks.
Die, demon, Taramfis silent says.
Some of the cheap cheats begin to cheer the face-off. Someone shouts Gilgamek’s name.
“What is this?” whisper the announcers. “An act of defiance? A personal challenge to Prince Taramfis? Have you seen such daring?”
“Whether it’s daring or lunacy there’s no love at all lost between these two competitors. The palace and the trench seem set to war.”
“A war for the ages but look, the other fighters, emboldened, are rising to their feet as well, a veritable insurgency!”
The cheap seats’s applause spreads throughout the whole coliseum until the acclaim is thunderous.
“Tomorrow promises to be a most interesting day, wouldn’t you agree, Olzon?”
“Absolutely, I’d bet a fortune if I had one that the gamemakers are reworking their brackets after this little display.”
The young princes begin rewarding garlands, assembly line style, and when it’s Gilgamek’s turn he bows and then grins innocently in their faces.
Glamarys’ welcome expression dazzles in turn. “Seems that you and my brother have grown as close as … testicles.”
“Closer,” Gilgamek says and Glamarys laughs loudly .
“And here I thought this was being broadcast to the entire Dominion,” Radmek says.
“Biology is not profanity,” Glamarys says, after she recovers. “There is nothing evil or shameful about our bodies.”
There’s a strangeness to this one, Glamarys silent says, placing the wreath on his head. His might emits no signal.
Why should it? Radmek says. He’s only strong. His might may be too deeply woven into his habitus to show.
That is not typical, Radmek. Father should be told.
Forget Father, Taramfis says. After tomorrow there will be nothing to report.
You and your after tomorrows don’t make any sense, Radmek complains.
After the last garland is distributed, the surviving fighters, the honored two hundred cheer wildly and the crowd cheers wildly in response. Gilgamek cheering like a madmek with the rest of the mob.
Now another mek might have been sweating what Glamarys said — the whole joint about informing her father, the Autarch — but Gilgamek has filed that worrying scrap in the file for Later Review. At that moment he’s preoccupied with more pressing concerns. Like gorgeous Glamarys herself. Like those eyes whose luminosities could launch a dynasty. And the screw-everybody way she laughed, her head tossed back too loosely for a true princess.
He’s so enamored right then, so full of his own hope and possibility, he ain’t even hiding it and when at last Glamarys floats back to her box with her brother he feels his heart beating fit to break its traces.
Only an idiot would fall for a princess like that, he marvels.
Hello idiot.
Next: To the Victor Goes
what can I say, I'm praying (atheistically) for more.
So there is a god!! Hallelujah!