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At long last, the first part of Do Unto Me, a short story set in my Winterfur world. Written as part of my 2010 NaNoWriMo entry, Do Unto Me doesn't feature ermine wizardess Baksrit of Albes AKA Winterfur. Several characters and incidents from my unpublished second Winterfur novel, Isen's Bane appear or are referenced here, but Do Unto Me is (hopefully) designed to be self-contained. This story takes place roughly two and a half weeks after The Woodcarver's Geis.

Things to Note: The Way of of the Phoenix or Paxianism is the Winterfur world's equivalent of Christianity, with bits of other religions thrown in. At the end of her long life, the Great Phoenix, Pax, ruled an empire that included what is now the Kingdom of Gloomhaven, where Baksrit lives. Pax eventually died when her last rejuvenating immolation was sabotaged, but her teachings were incorporated into a new religion that developed over the centuries following, ironic considering that Pax was agnostic. The Libri Paxi is their version of the Bible.

The passage Father Louie quotes is from Jehlikael 2 but its message, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is a common one throughout religions and societies in the real world, predating the earliest parts of the real world Bible at least by centuries. The Yihanni guru's version of the saying is paraphrased from a Vulcan philosophy from Star Trek. The name Jehlikael refers to a minor prophet and was devised just for the pun of it.

Story and characters ©2011 Marvin E. Fuller