The Transfer of Brilliance

You think stealing is good to do so long as you aren't caught? Listen to this story then. Formerly the sun resented the moon's greater brightness. It therefore went to all the animals, telling them, "Take away the moon's cloak and give it to me! I will reward you for it."
Of all the animals, only Salmon, Herring, Trout, and their relatives were stupid enough to listen. They entered the bower where the moon rests during the day as easily as laughing, for the moon was not on guard against such foolishness. They hurried back to the sun with the stolen cloak.
"Put it on me right away! The honor of doing so is the first of your rewards."
The silly fish did so, and forthwith the cloak gave forth radiance and heat too great for any animal to bear. The fish screamed and ran. They didn't stop even after they jumped into lakes, rivers, and oceans to relieve their pain, and they swam so far that they lost their legs. Now they can't come back on the land. The moon never caught them, but do you envy their fate?
Finis

Secret of Peregrine Platform

A single tug was enough. The line shot up, up, and up, nearly the entire height of the tower to deliver the snared fish to the tower's master, Crime Sage Rykel.
"A promising trial, but you're a bit small," he told the fish as he unhooked it. He dropped it so that it fell neatly in the little pond he had created for the experiment, not out of mercy but as a demonstration of skill. "Now I need only take over the Peregrine Platform and hover it over some filled pockets."
The Peregrine Platform was one name. Every region had its term for the strange object which traveled through the sky without evident purpose. Never had anyone boarded it so far as was known, but in no previous era had Rykel lived. With consummate technique he made use of a catapult to lob a likeness of himself aboard and then used his magic. As easily as that, he and the figure swapped places.
From there he moved to take control of it, but what was it? He discovered then that what men had long seen from below was the foundation of a grand mausoleum. Reasoning the source of power likeliest lay in the center, he approached the great portal, but he was not welcome there. Curses buffeted him and were repelled by skills that were eldritch, modern, and wholly his own. He reached for the door but saw it recede before him in an impossible movement he arrested with his guard-freezing spells, and the doom of death which fell on those who dared enter the ancient tombs shattered one of his twelve statues in his tower. Hostile forces opposed every step, but for nothing. He reached the center and purified it with borrowed holy power.
"Great sage!" A ghost appeared, which was nothing unexpected. "You have freed the kings of the Sky Tombs of Ganceras from our travails! Ages ago, we were overcome by the death-wizards of Alaonir and trapped as fuel for their magic, aware but impotent. Our fury however had its own force and struck continuously their lands, and does so still. Now we are released, and we release too the Alaonir Plain."
Rykel swapped with his effigy, leaving it to take the fall from the Sky Tombs which were even then dissolving. "My purse-fishing plan, ruined! But it must have been the Ullonik Curse-Storm that he meant. If that is truly gone, a route undiscovered by security is opened to the Eight-Tiger Vault. Off I go!" The kings of Ganceras watched him and rejoiced that the world yet had such sages in it. They departed then, and what befell them is not for mortals to know, but about the Vault and that the Crime Sage failed to rob it, all men learned it later.
Finis

Sport and Discovery

"Lines out!"
With those words, fishing season began. Anglers lowered their microfilament lines from the orbital station down, down to the planet that was mostly ocean and most of that stocked with fish. They triggered their rocket hooks when the sensor detected a nibble. Each had a bucket for the worthwhile catches, and as for the small fry, the atmosphere filled with the burning husks of fish that had to be thrown back.
The laughing, the bragging, the broken lines and the lies about old catches attracted people to orbital fishing as much as the sport proper. That season, however, the sport asserted itself.
"Whoa! This one's a bit much." A mild statement that came across as a desperate plea because of being voiced at all, and accurately at that. Anglers rushed to help. Assist robots glided over. Everyone's strength and everyone's hooks were required, and soon they saw why.
A gigantic serpent rose from the ocean against its will, its tremendous might, and its unbelievable mass, for the thing encircled the entire world.
"Ha! How about that? I guess Earth's myths are based on ancient aliens after all."
"I owe some people I argued with some apologies when I get back."
"Who can recommend some good books on the subject?"
Amid merry talk like that the participants raised up the world serpent, and the meal that night was unforgettable.
Finis

The One Thing Fantasy and Science Fiction Share

You can make the fish really big, like mega-huge.

The Internal Ocean

No one went to an Otthe Evanfor demonstration with any prediction as to the subject or results, not after one or two experiences. The gallery spectators settled themselves and waited for the latest thing.
"The latest thing! This is it! I have invented a fish." Otthe Evanfor moved among the blackboards and jars of the experiment theater, pointing, waving, and poking. "A special fish that swims in a special ocean: the ocean of memory. That's right."
The audience thought perhaps he wanted it to gasp, and it obliged him. After all the entertainment he had provided, how could it desert him then?
"Yes, it swims in human memories, and for its food? Especially tasty memories. The kind you can't stop remembering. Look!" He pointed at the only other person who had been allowed in the theater proper. "The first subject! Tell us your experiences! Are you remembering anything right now?"
"Well, matter of fact, right now what's coming to mind is a time when, you know, we were all enjoying ourselves . . ." The nervous man turned red, but he was being paid. "I enjoyed myself a lot, and when I went back to my room to, uh, well, I did feel like there was an ocean in me, but not in the memory part."
The audience laughed, but the presenter glowed. "Yes? And then?"
"And then I realized I wasn't in my room. I was in somebody else's house. What a day. They asked me to leave, but I needed to do something before I did."
More laughter. "And you still have this memory? Not for long, I think."
"Sure I do. Only now I remember a fish in the toilet, which I don't think is what happened."
So much entertainment.

The entertainment turned into something else when the dictator heard about the invention and arranged to have fish trail likenesses of himself behind them into every citizen's memory, but such is the delayed price of amusement.
Finis

Mysteries of Fashion

The latest fashion mystery! Why is Hitherside, that nobody-and-nothing town, that favorite retirement spot of bulbous fish oil sellers with too much time on their hands and too much money in their cushions, suddenly producing wild designs we just can't stop praising? You can sit there and ask while I go and answer, because Calp the fashion investigator always solves it!
I arrived there and saw plenty of fathers dressed like grandpas and children dressed like grandma's smelly dolls just like we all used to expect from Hitherside, but don't think Hither fashion is for foreign consumption only. I found a livelier specimen named Tnapp with some of those broad cuffs and superfluous buttons we like to see who told me a local cult was responsible. Those Hithersiders have their jokes, don't they? I got a more helpful tip from a party favorite her parents attacked with the name Fnore, who told me the clothier Sment was the only one she trusted with Friday and Saturday's body-coverers.
Sment was happy to talk. Too much time on their hands, remember? That wasn't always true, he told me, but since business turned baskets-and-tubs he added more assistants than he knew what to do with. They came to town and begged to work for him! Maybe you fashion fiends aren't surprised, but Sment sounded like he just saw a taxman apologize for the trouble. His story was that customers saw some special orders he had out and demanded more of the same. Whose special orders? A local cult! I guess Tnapp wasn't giving me the funny falsos after all.
Now I won't tell you how I found the next subject because I don't want any of you taking my situation here. I'll only say that before long I was talking to a cultist who asked for reasons of privacy if I could refer to him only as Adherent of Azure. I think he enjoyed that a little too much, but the source is king, so I let it stand. He told me the cult's been having real problems because outsiders keep stealing their designs. They're trying to set themselves apart from the cheek-to-cheeks, after all. You don't want to go around asking people if they're in the same cult as you. Clear visual signs, that's the way. They keep having meetings and voting on new styles, and a week later every publication has diagrams. Don't you feel terrible for them?
I don't! I feel great, because I solved it again. Till next time, keep starching those shoulders. I will, and I'm Calp, the fashion investigator.
Finis

The King and the Count

Anyone could tell you the feats of Prince Ulrich, so today I will speak of what fewer know, which is the origin of his armor that is unlike any other.
Once upon a time, there was a kingdom that was fair, but not fair enough for its king's liking, who was always thinking how to make it better for himself and his people. When he realized what was needed was a pond, there was nothing more to do than to command his knight Manfred to fetch him one.
That knight ran to the nearest lake, which was quite far away, and drank up as much as he could. You would think me a liar if I said he drank the whole thing up, for this was generations after there were men capable of that, and indeed he only lowered the water in the lake by a foot or so. Then he ran back, sloshing all the way, one gauntlet over his mouth.
He reached the spot without losing too much of the water and spat it into the hole the king had ordered dug, filling it up as pretty as you please and forming just the sort of pond the king wanted.
The king discovered then that Manfred had gone beyond his orders and brought a guest. A single fish flew out of his mouth into the pond, and it had something to say about it. "Hey, is this courtesy? Is this manners? I was swimming along as nature insists I do, and now where am I?"
No one stays a king by being surprised, and so King Rudolph answered him straightaway. "Your pardon, but my kingdom must have a pond. I know you will agree with me about the importance of water! A pond is hard to praise without fish, and here you are, so how about this? Be my own fish and nobody else's, and I will make you the count of this pond and put the fish I acquire later under your administration."
That was as fine an offer as any fish ever had, and that fish (whose name was Ortolf) agreed to it. You will think he regretted submitting too hastily and surrendering himself to another, but you live today while this was long ago. King Rudolph kept his count in honor without the slightest breach and found him many subjects of his own, and a wife as well who was from good stock as fish reckon these things. Nor was there a truer vassal than Count Ortolf.
They dwelt there many years, the king in his castle and the count in his pond, until age afflicted Ortolf more than he could withstand for long. He did not despair at it though, for in those days men and fish did right while they were healthy and not only on their death beds in hope of escaping what they had earned for themselves. He requested a final audience with the king and was granted it, whereupon he said, "Your son has grown old enough that he should have good armor. Take these my scales and cover him in them, and the results will be to your liking."
That is just what the king did, and the squamous armor was the finest made in that age. Over the years it was worn by many owners, and now Prince Ulrich has it.
Finis