Emily, in an Impotuan fortress
When I next awoke, I was in a place I had never seen before. The first thing I noticed was the smell, like New York subway station at Penn Station in the 1970s: that rank acrid old urine smell. The next thing I noticed was the pain when I tried to move my head. I was on my back on a stone floor.
I cracked my eyelids open just a tiny bit and saw there was very little light. I could make out the dancing shadows made by torches of pine pitch. I heard nothing except the occasional drip of water and an occasional slapping noise, like wet swim fins at the side of a swimming pool. The pain was nasty. I closed my eyes, hoping to fall asleep. It seemed like a way to kill time that would otherwise be spent enduring a headache.
I woke up to a touch on my head and opened my eyes. All I could see was the inside of a Cosm hand. I could feel the warm sensation of a healer’s probe.
“Ah,” a woman’s voice said from somewhere above me, “you’re awake. How do you feel?” The hand moved out of the way to reveal a silverhair on her knees looming over me. It’s not the sort of thing I would want to wake up to, given the flip my stomach did.
“Head hurts,” I grimaced, trying not to move.
The hand descended, “here, how is this?” Her accent was odd, like she was aspirating all her vowels.
The pain retreated but didn’t go completely away. “Still hurts but better,” I said honestly.
“You were not supposed to harm her," the unnamed healer with the accent said to someone else. "What idiot threw her in here, on a cold floor without a cushion or a blanket or water? Move her to a room with a bed and put a guard on the door. Look at the size of her. She's not going to escape by leaping out a window."
“It's just a Coyn," another woman's voice said, pitched a bit lower but with the same accent. "I don't know what the fuss is about."
“I will tell what the fuss is about and you will do well to listen, lest we anger the gods, my lady. This ‘just a Coyn,’ as you put it, has seven god marks, one of which is from the wrath cat. She has his eyes. We can not treat her poorly. The gods favor her.”
“Regardless, we leave tomorrow.”
“You should not. She can not travel by air until the swelling goes down. You could kill her. Even if you don’t fear the gods, you should still fear your mother, who wants this one alive and well.”
“Move her if you like. Put her in your room. I have no soldiers to spare for guarding this thing.”
I heard hinges squeak and then booted footsteps stomping away from me. Then whoever this healer was picked me up gently and carried me up a flight of stone steps and into what looked like a wood and stone building. It followed the usual pattern of Cosm construction: it was just two stories tall, with the bottom made of stone and the top wood. Cosm didn't build higher than that because of their weight. Multi-story buildings like the palace in Is'syal and the Healing Shrine required magic, and even then, meeting halls and sacred spaces were always on the ground floors or lower.
I didn’t get a good look at this healer until she put me on her bed in her room. I guessed she was around 19 hands. She had a pleasant oval face and unusual teal-colored eyes. She pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and sat down.
“I’m Priestess Arma, a healer of Mugash,” she introduced herself. “I’ve been told that your name is Emly.”
“Emily,” I tried to correct her.
“Isn’t that what I said?” she frowned at me. “Are you hearing alright? Any buzzing in your ears at all?”
“Ears are fine,” I said.
“Are you hungry at all?
“I feel a bit nauseous,” the thought of food made my stomach protest at me.
“Sounds like you got hit harder than I estimated,” she laid her hand gently on my head and I could feel her probe. “Yes, you need to rest tomorrow and not travel at all. How did you hit your head?”
“I don’t know. The last thing I remember was soldiers coming through the windows into the High Priestess’ study.”
“That does not sound pleasant.”
“I think they killed the healer I was with. It was not at all pleasant.” I could see the spray of blood as Lyappis fell to the floor in my memory as vividly as if it were in front of me. She was probably dead. It did not make me feel at all charitable toward Impotuans.
“Where am I?” I asked, wondering how far away home was.
“You’re in a hidden fort in the mountains above the Ahkeseld River.”
“Where did that other woman want to take me tomorrow?”
“Kipgapshegar, to meet the Empress of Impotu,” Arma said, “who is the Lady General Arkaline’s mother.”
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Somehow, I needed to find a way to escape.
- - -
Asgotl, Naver Mountains, the fifth day of the sixth rotation of the growing season
The hunting was good south of Yuxviayeth at the aerie of my clan. It was the first time back in three years and I had a lot of socializing to do before heading back to Foskos.
I was surprised to find that my clan was helping Coyn refugees from Yuxviayeth who had fled the Foskan invasion last year. There was an enclave of about 50 Coyn who settled in a small mountain valley where the Naver Mountains and the foothills of the Eagle Mountains meet.
The members of my clan knew the fate of Coyn captured by the Foskans and supplied the refugees with meat when they ran out of food. The refugees knew the Impotuans had raided Yuxviayeth, killed all the Cosm there, and burned the fields. They did not go back because they feared the Impotuans. They believed that the Impotuans treated the Coyn even worse than Foskos. They had heard about the Sea Coyn but did not know where to go to find them. I thought they might prosper in all those empty valleys northwest of the Vanishing River and told them of the northern wilderness that stretched to the Fenlands of Ud.
I wanted Emily with me so she could talk to them. She would know where they might live to be free of worries of enslavement by Cosm.
I was in no hurry to get back. The days were long and the sun was warm and the hunting excellent. With both Aylem and Emily at the Shrine of Mugash for a season or more, I had the liberty to take an extended vacation visiting my family.
I was napping, spread out on a warm outcrop to soak up the sun when someone blocked my light.
"Hey, find your own sunning spot," I snarled.
“I am not here for your sun, you lazy griffin. I am here for you.” The voice was like thunder. It rolled and boomed off the canyon sides and the tall peaks like a tempest.
In a fit of sudden fright, I leapt to my feet. It was the Lord of the Winds in his aspect as the black griffin. What should have been eyes were a window into the night sky filled with stars.
"My Lord," I bowed my head as low as I could.
"You have a role to play, Dag Gadol, to counsel prophets. The current prophet feels trapped and wants to escape destiny and here you are, on vacation.
"Wait, wait, wait one moment here. What role? What prophet? What are you talking about, Lord? Didn’t you pick me to be a revelator? You didn’t say anything last rotation at the Fated Shrine about babysitting prophets."
"I know you remember, Dag Gadol," he scolded me. "Your last prophet was on that boat to Tarshish. It would have been a boat to Australia but he didn't know that Australia existed or he would have changed his name to Alexander and headed there instead. I know this isn't the first time you have counseled prophets. Indeed, it is the fourth."
Well, dammit. I was hoping I could avoid this sort of thing this time around. Most prophets were pretty screwed up in their heads. They wouldn't be prophets otherwise.
"Lord, I do not understand. Have the gods named a prophet? I know of no one currently in the role of prophet. Is it Emily? She’s the closest thing to one but she’s not deranged upstairs and she’s way too smart to be a prophet."
"Asgotl, you are a lazy, work-dodging, pleasure-loving, feather-shedding failure of a griffon. Now get off your drooping tailfeathers and go home before it’s too late. Your prophet needs you." He glared at me and I almost fell down from the fear of him. “Did you not know that extreme intelligence is a form of insanity?”
And with that, he vanished. Well, crappola, as Emily would say. What a way to end my first vacation in three years. And I only arrived four days ago. My mother will not be happy about this. It doesn’t help that no one believes me in the aerie about the Lord of the Winds blessing me with a revelation.
I promised the small colony of Coyn I would leave them with a pile of meat so they could start preserving it for the approaching cold season so, after the Lord of the Winds left, I spent the afternoon hunting. They were pleasant folks working hard to survive and my aerie admired their grit and determination. I wasn't the only one helping them but I didn't want to leave without doing my best to help out in helping them. What I really wanted to do was bring Emily to talk to them. Maybe I could do that in a rotation or two.
I took a long day to fly from my clan's aerie to Mugash. That's because I stopped in Is'syal first. One of my younger cousins, a big strapping fellow by the name of Rialdiaj, thought he might inquire after an opening that a certain royal family had for a mount for a princess. Her mount, a lovely flying horse names Ledjetl, passed away in unfortunate circumstances a year and a half ago. The princess indicated she was ready for a new flying companion and this time, she would like to interview someone free and looking for employment. She did not want to own another sapient being if she could avoid it.
Rialdiaj liked the sound of that when I was chatting with my relations. He realized that working for royalty meant much better opportunities for travel to interesting places, great pay and benefits, vacations, and above all, food security, which for a griffin as big as he was, was an issue. To be honest, he was just a smidge taller than I was at the shoulder and he looked on the hungry side most of the time.
It was the sixth day of the seventh rotation when we landed at the House of Mounts, which is between the palace and the citadel.
"This is the House of Mounts for the capital city," I explained to my young cousin. "If you take work with the princess, keep in mind that most of the folks here are either property of a Cosm or indentured to a Cosm. The terms under which both categories work are similar. The difference is that someone indentured is under contract for ten years at a time under terms no different from the obligations of those who are property."
"Ugh." He made a face.
"Rialdiaj, you can't treat any of these griffins, eagles, or flying horses in a rude or substandard way," I cautioned him. "Almost all of them have good relationships with their flyers. They have to because many of them are fighting pairs in the army or the guards. They work together and each brings a unique skill to the relationship. The flyer brings fighting prowess and magic and the mount provides flight and fighting skills. To stay alive in battle, they have to be a seamless pair. Bad flyers who mistreat their mounts get turned out of the army or guards and sent home in disgrace. I feel sorry for those mounts but at least they don't end up dead in battle."
"But what happens to those sent home?" he asked, concerned.
"In most magic families, the disgraced flyer is usually stripped of his or her mount, and the mount gets a better owner or employer. It is socially unacceptable in most Cosm families to abuse a mount, even one who is property. I only know of one mount who suffered under a bad owner, and that is out of hundreds of mounts I've met. Ever since the Queen negotiated better living terms for those who are owned, and legalized the ability of free mounts to make their own contracts, life as a mount in Foskos is not bad at all."
"Seriously?"
"It's as I told you back at the aerie, the trade-off is loss of individual freedom because of the demands of employment but the advantage is never being hungry again. There is also a lot of free time in the off-season if your flyer is a guard or in the army."
(continued in installment 124)