Aylem, Crystal Shrine of Tiki

I should never have introduced card games to Foskos because Foyuna just won her third game in a row of Scabby Queen. We were sitting on my bed in a two-bed guest room; Emily slept in the other.

Until someone invented paper, cards were made of parchment. Dealing cards just isn't the same. Given that books were expensive since there are no printing presses, there were few leisure activities. Music and recited epic poetry were popular, as were various handicrafts. The world was ripe for card games so I "invented" scabby queen, happy family, and casino, which I loved to play as a girl in Coventry.

We were killing time, waiting until I felt it was safe to wake Emily. I didn't want to revive her until the activity in her brain resembled that of a normally-sleeping person, either the slow activity of dreamless sleep or the somewhat faster activity of dreams. I know that brain activity is electric but there's no way I can explain that to the people I live with. They have no concept of electricity.

So I told priestesses like Foyuna and Lisaykos that I measured the amount of frenzy versus calmness when I looked for differences between a coma, normal sleep, or a drugged stupor. I taught this to a few talented people like Lisaykos. Foyuna just took my word for things; she couldn't feel brain activity since her talents were elsewhere.

Playing cards were also a way to avoid thinking about what had happened. What Emily said before I forcibly took her to the Crystal Shrine of Tiki upset me, not to me as queen, but me as Jane, a moral 20th-century woman from the Midlands. I didn't like the thought that morals can shift depending on whether you're at the top or the bottom of the societal heap.

The events that followed were equally disturbing. Tiki touched and blessed a Coyn. This had never happened before. This could cause a great deal of distress. I realized if it was known that a god had touched a Coyn, it might undermine the premise that only Cosm were the beloved of the gods. Magic was the blessing from the gods so those without were not blessed---or so we thought.

Foyuna, who was Imstay's cousin, was witness to the event. Its authenticity was indisputable. If Foyuna spread the news to all the subordinate shrines, the event would become public before the king returned from this year's campaign of conquest.

The hardest part was the god's statement that the three of us were a picked threesome. Why Asgotl? What did this mean for the flying mounts? Asgotl was the first being I freed, years and years ago. I broke the charm of control on his beck and replaced it with a simple charm of illusion. I still didn't understand why he stayed with me. He left to visit his family several times but he always returned to me.

I both hoped and dreaded that Emily would explain the god's intentions for us. I let her sleep through the night and woke her in the morning. After my morning routine, I asked her what had happened between her and Tiki. I was somewhat disturbed when she started sniggering. She didn't go into a fit, which was reassuring.

I handed her my tablet but found it hard to believe what she wrote: "He gave me the recipe to make phenolphthalein."

"I don't understand. It sounds familiar. Should I know what that is?" I handed the tablet back.

Then she wrote: "Has two uses: 1) measures acidic or caustic nature of liquids, which could help invent better soap; 2) common medicine for constipation."

I didn't know how to react to that. It was so ridiculous. Tiki appearing was a miracle. Tiki blessing someone was a divine gift. Revelations from Tiki become sacred scriptures. People treated a person touched by Tiki---or any other god---like a demigod or a living saint.

So Tiki had just given an unmagical Coyn a divine revelation on how to cure constipation or the ability to make better soap. Granted, we could really use better soap than that horrible stuff made from tallow, wood ash, and salt. But as the subject of divine revelation? How was I ever going to explain this to Foyuna---sweet, eager, helpful Foyuna?

This was perverse, even for Tiki, who was a god known for his quirky nature. He was known as the prankster god for a reason. The absurdity of it snuck up on me and I started to laugh. It was funny, especially the bit about curing constipation. It certainly would come across as a miracle for those who ate too much roughage. I was looking forward to telling Asgotl. Given his appreciation of the absurd, he would appreciate this.

I went down to see what I could fetch back to the room so Emily could eat. I wasn't going to take her to the communal dining room where she would feel uncomfortable.

Leaving Emily in the guest room was a good decision because the moment I entered the dining room, all the shrine priestesses, priests and attendants wanted to know if they could meet the Coyn that Tiki had blessed. Emily would not react well to the sudden adulation of a room full of Cosm.

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With a plate of the savory foods she liked, I realized on my way back to the guest room that I needed to warn Emily about the implications of being blessed by Tiki.

---

Emily, Crystal Shrine of Tiki

The Queen was sitting across from me on her bed looking rather uncomfortable. "You got a triple crown yesterday. Tiki appeared and said he came because of you. Then he touched you: that means he blessed you. Last, he gave you knowledge, which counts as a divine revelation and will now become part of the sacred scriptures."

I think my jaw fell off and bounced across the room.

"I wish I had a camera," the Queen suddenly grinned, one white eyebrow racked upward. "Asgotl is right. You really do make some great faces. But back to business. Tiki has shown you his favor and the event was witnessed by two indisputable personages, namely me and the High Priestess Foyuna, who is the king's cousin, by the way.

"With this, you have now gained extremely high standing in Foskos, something like a living saint. I suspect this will annoy you as a bare minimum. That's the bad news. The good news is that no sane Cosm will dare touch you ever again, not even the King. Any worries about the king's agents sniffing out your trail are now moot.

"Do not be surprised when Cosm approach you and call you 'Great One,' which is the title for those blessed by a god. Foryuna will insist you stay here until your revelation is recorded. Recording a revelation immediately is way things are done. This will be difficult since you can't write in Fosk yet. The only work-around is for me to transcribe what you write into Fosk."

I motioned for the tablet. I wrote: "don't need to tell about the phenolphthalein."

"Oh no," the Queen said, "Tiki touched you on the head, which means there was a revelation passed when he blessed you."

On the tablet, I wrote: "Making phenolphthalein requires things that do not exist in this world and no one but me would understand the process. Why record useless knowledge?"

"Maybe it's not useless," she shrugged. "Maybe Tiki wants you to invent the things you need."

I closed my eyes and shook my head. It was impossible. It would take laboratory glassware, cast iron, rubber, gas cylinders, coking ovens with gas and tar capture, and temperature-controlled fractional distillation. Did this culture even know about coke as a fuel?

I could maybe do some of the tasks required to make phenolphthalein, given a lot of resources and a few decades. Other things I had no idea how to do, like making a simple thermometer. I could probably make a thermocouple instead, assuming I could perfect a galvanometer and find ores to refine chromium and nickel.

Overall, I decided it was simply impossible. If a god was going to give me a revelation, why wasn't it something practical?

I let myself fall back on the mattress in defeat. The last ten or so days felt like a lifetime and too much had changed too quickly. I wanted to go back home and hide in my cave, but I didn't have a home anymore. I felt that old black depression slip through my defenses to start nibbling at the edges of my life.

The Queen crossed the room and sat down next to me on my bed. "I don't have to read your mind to see that you're under a cloud," she brushed my hair away from where it had covered my eyes. "I will leave Foyuna a note and we can make tracks back to the Healing Shrine of Mugash. It looks like it will take time to write your revelation since you can't write Fosk and you can't dictate it." It crossed my mind just then that despite being a freakish monster with a nasty temper, the Queen could also be surprisingly thoughtful. "I need to find something to write on," she said to herself.

"No need for that," Foyuna walked through the door and closed it behind her. "What did Tiki give her as a revelation? Sounds like it's not prophesy or moral instruction." She sat down on the Queen's bed.

"It's instruction, but for making medicine, not ethics or future events," the Queen was apologetic. "I can read the letters she writes but I don't have the leisure to transcribe them right now. With your royal cousin absent from Is'syal, I do need to check regularly on the thieves who think they run the government, lest they succeed in actually stealing something."

"Why can't she learn how to write here, Great One? We have everything here that the Mugash shrine has."

"Accommodations," the Queen rested her hand on the top of my head, which was reassuring and frightening at the same time. "She has three attendants she already knows there, and Lisaykos is putting in a Coyn-scaled room in an area sealed off from Cosm. Lisaykos also volunteered to teach her writing. Further, if she agrees, we'll also try to do something about her inability to talk.

"I also think the shrine staff here would frighten her, Foyuna. They seemed ready to greet her this morning with all the appropriate reverence for a blessed revelator, but Emily has lived in the wilderness for years by herself. She is not accustomed to being around a lot of people and she would be frightened with so many Cosm doing her reverence. Given the circular layout of this shrine, you have no way to seal her off from those who are curious.

"I will ensure that she writes up her revelation from Tiki just as soon as she learns Fosk letters," the Queen concluded, speaking as if I wasn't lying right next to her. That annoyed me.

"If the revelation was for a medicine, that might be something we need quickly, in case there is a plague coming that the healers can't handle," Foyuna looked very concerned.

The Queen looked at Foyuna, then looked at me. I did a facepalm and the Queen attempted not to laugh. That set me off and we both laughed together. Foyuna looked quite disconcerted with us. "I don't understand. Why are you laughing? It was a divine revelation!"

The Queen caught her breath and managed to reply with a straight face: "it's a medicine for constipation." Then she started laughing again.

It was Foyuna's turn to have her jaw drop off and go bouncing across the floor. "Unbelievable," she muttered. "What a twisted little god."