Emily, Salicet, Harvest season, night of the 8th rot., 10th day
Twilight was dwindling by the time I was done with Ilsabess of Erhonsay. As soon as Asgotl was airborne, he started pumping his wings in a steep climb.
*Emily, not now! Can’t you manage to behave for once?* Kamagishi mindcasted at me as we left her and Pibl behind us. Too bad I didn’t have any magic to mindcast my refusal in reply.
For the first time, Asgotl almost got us killed. We came down fast as we buzzed the army camp at the ruined palace and then the main thoroughfare. The problem was the downhill slope of the thoroughfare. Because it was downhill instead of level, we didn’t slow down like usual. As a result, it was not at all certain that Asgotl could pull up in time to avoid hitting the tower over the main gate into the city. We were flying way too fast. Our clearance was so thin that the war mages on the gate tower ducked as we flew over their heads.
When we landed in the little vale where we would spend the night, an angry Kamagishi was waiting with an angry Aylem.
“I think we’re in trouble again, Grandma,” Asgotl said as he landed.
“I know we are, Blubber Brain. We cut that just a little too close.”
"Yeah, next time I'll remember to level out higher when the ground slopes downhill," he remarked, "but did you see the look on those war mages' faces? They actually ducked!"
I couldn't help grinning, "Yeah, that was good. Oh well, here comes the fun police. Let's hope Aylem can keep a lid on her temper." The sight of Aylem approaching with her angry red face wiped the grin off me.
“You two,” Aylem started, glowering at us. “You...you…,” her fists were clenched and she was shaking with rage. The look on her face scared me enough that I felt faint.
Asgotl dropped his head, “You were watching, weren’t you? Sorry, girlfriend. I didn’t fly that as well as I should have.”
Aylem inhaled and I could tell she was counting to ten. She let her breath out, "you two will be the death of me from worry. I wish you two would stop the stunt flying.” She closed her eyes and grimaced. “I’m going for a walk,” she turned on her heel and stomped off into the growing darkness.
“Well, that went better than the last time,” Kamagishi looked annoyed at us. “You take too many risks,” she folded her arms and glared at me, “and you,” she smacked her foot against Asgolt’s beak, “should know better than to abet this little one’s thrill-seeking.”
Kamagishi sighed, “Come on. The king saved some dinner for you both.”
I unstrapped, got off Asgotl, and started walking, “Aylem looks like she’s getting better.”
“She's made a lot of progress," Kamagishi tried matching pace with me and got frustrated. "I want to put you back on Asgotl or it will take all night to get to the king's tent." With that, she picked me up and dropped me on the saddle. "Much better," she looked pleased with herself.
- - -
Usruldes, Salicet, night of the 8th rot., 10th day
From our perch on the ruined palace gate, Cadrees and I watched as Emily and Asgotl barely missed the gate tower in the city below. Somedays, I think the two of them bring out the worst in each other.
“That’s just crazy,” High Priestess Ilsabess remarked, shaking her head at Emily’s and Asgotl’s antics. “Well, I never thought I’d ever see a Coyn riding by herself on a griffin.”
“I thought I’d never see a real god mark,” said another priestess in the brigandine armor of an officer, "but that tiny Coyn had nine. She's either a real prophet or Tiki is pulling a huge prank on us mere mortals."
“The scary thing, Vanness,” Ilsabess frowned, “is that she’s the real thing and I no longer have any doubts about what we need to do next.”
This was excellent, I realized. The Holy Ilsabess was about to divulge her plans, which would let us finalize ours.
“What are we going to do next?” Priestess Vanness asked, following her mistress into the rows of tents.
“Call everyone on the walls, but not at a gate, back to camp,” Ilsabess ordered.
“Even the northeast and water gates?”
“Those gates no longer exist, so we aren’t going to guard them.”
“Holy One, I don’t understand,” Priestess Vanness protested.
“It’s simple,” Ilsabess sighed, “we were ordered to guard the gates and prevent anyone from exiting through them. I won’t stop anyone who climbs the walls or swims the river. Understand?”
“Yes, Holy One.”
“Now, I need to go scout what’s happening on the other side of the ridge,” Ilsabess turned into her tent to discard her armor. “I need to speak with the Holy Foyuna, about how she proposes to do the impossible and evacuate 200,000 people in less than a day.”
Wrapped in the charm of circular light, I followed Ilsabess as she sought our fireless and mostly unlit camp. She landed her eagle at the edge of the trees along the stream and crept in on foot, avoiding all our sentries. She added a dark green hooded mantle and entered our camp with her hood up. I admired her noiseless stealth while walking through our tents. I debated on whether I should help her find Foyuna.
Ilsabess didn’t need my aid. She soon narrowed in on Imstay’s encampment. Inside his pavilion, Foyuna, Fassex, and Imstay were discussing what to do if the Impotuan war mages tried to stop our efforts in the morning.
“Are there enough wraiths to insert our mages unseen?” Fassex asked.
“We have 76 wraiths with us and they all can cast the charm of circular light,” Imstay divulged, not knowing he had an uninvited audience. “What concerns me is time. If we need to smuggle 32 parties of 15 mages into the city, then we need to start well before dawn. I also don’t know if the Impotuans put up sentry wards. We’ll have to wait for Usruldes to return to find out. If they did use sentry wards, we’ll need to add two more parties of mages so we can cast the charm from outside the walls but that has the disadvantage of including our opposition on the inside of the charm.”
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“We’ll be helpless once the charm is cast. If those war mages get inside the charm, it could be a disaster,” Foyuna pointed out. “They must be kept outside of the charm. Then we can retreat long before the charm wears off and they’ll never know what happened or how the city was emptied.”
“What did Aylem say when you asked her if she would take out the war mages?" Fassex asked.
“She said I should find a different way,” Imstay slumped. “She also said to ask her again in the morning if we didn’t have an alternative.”
Ilsabess listened from the shadows outside the tent for several minutes. She never detected me though I had placed myself only a few hands behind her. Then Fassex looked out the tent toward Ilsabess’ hiding spot, “come out, whoever you are. You too, Lord Usruldes.”
“After you, Holy One,” I said to Ilsabess. I heard her sudden quiet intake of breath from being startled.
She turned around looking for me, “Where…?”
“Right here, Holy One,” I dropped my charms and bowed an obeisance at her. “Shall we?”
She looked me up and down. Then she turned and walked into the king’s pavilion, “Good evening." She pulled down her hood and took a seat, "I would prefer that you leave my war mages out of whatever you have planned. We will follow the orders we were given to prevent anyone from leaving the city through its gates. I will not stop anyone from entering or moving about the city. I also have removed all of my people from the walls. We will not guard the walls, just the gates that are still standing.”
“You are the Holy Ilsabess?” Imstay asked.
“I am, Imstay King. I came to inquire after just one thing. What kind of magic will you use to evacuate a city of 200,000 in less than a day? I know of no charm that would make it possible. From what I heard, you have around 500 mages with you to cast your magic. It sounds like a huge undertaking but I can’t figure out any combination of charms that will achieve your goal of emptying Salicet in time.”
“Sister Ilsabess,” Foyuna smiled, “we will use the charm of stopped time on the citizens of the city plus whatever forces we can insert into the city to help evacuate them.”
Only the reaction in her eyes gave away her astonishment, “Isn’t that a lost magic? I thought stopped time was a myth, to be honest, a tall tale out of an exaggerated ancient scripture whose translation out of archaic Old Foskan was doubtful.”
“It was never lost to the Crystal Shrine, Sister Ilsabess. It is one of our two most closely-held magics, normally taught and practiced only by the High Priestess and her twice-blessed subordinates at Tiki’s shrine in case it is ever needed. It has not been needed for over four millennia.”
“Surd save us,” Ilsabess shook her head. “It’s almost unbelievable.”
“If you won’t stop us,” Fassex asked, “then why don’t you join us?”
“I will ask my mages what they wish to do. We may decide to help you empty the city, but we will not join you in Foskos, either as partners or as exiles.”
"Guarding the gates and looking away if we breach the walls sounds like sophistry to me," Fassex pointed out. "Why the wordplay?"
“The Prophet convinced me that preventing the evacuation of Salicet is contrary to the will of the gods, so I will not stop you. Despite that, I swore an oath to serve Impotu and I will not betray that oath. While both good and bad rulers come and go, the Empire and its peoples have survived for over 24 centuries. Foskos and Impotu are currently at war. By rights, I should be trying to capture or kill you were it not for the Prophet’s words earlier this evening that you are here to save lives and nothing else.
“Those of my shrine can not join you or even accept your hospitality. Doing so would make myself and all my mages traitors in truth rather than appearance. When the evacuation is done and you have returned to your home, we will leave to find our own place of exile. We will not be able to stay. The Empress and Heir will see our actions as treasonous. They will never believe I was following the command of a god.”
“Then I suggest that you go to the Fenlands,” Aylem said, walking into the tent with Kamagishi. “Ud would be happy for the company, and I suspect she would welcome your war mages, especially if you could address the growing piracy problem plaguing the Sea Coyn.”
“Ud exists?” Ilsabess jaw dropped. “That’s not some old legend of a big arachnid monster?”
“Well, those legends may be real because Ud is very old,” Aylem looked around. “Did no one bring any tea?”
“I’ll take care of it, Great One,” I bowed. “We left so quickly that Imstay did not bring a page or even any beer.”
“So you’re Ilsabess,” Aylem beamed a friendly smile at the Impotuan high priestess. “I’m Aylem, and I believe you’ve already met Kamagishi.”
“Actually, Aylem,” Imstay looked embarrassed, “we haven’t made introductions at all, and we probably should.”
“That was my fault,” Fassex made a sour face. “I was too intent on getting you out of your hiding place from where you were eavesdropping.”
“That’s Imstay,” Ilsabess pointed, “and that’s Foyuna, but I don’t think I placed you yet.”
“Sister Ilsabess, I am Fassex, High Priestess of the White Shrine of Landa. I only wish we could have met in more auspicious circumstances.”
“That would have been nice,” Ilsabess looked sad. “It has been too long since the Foskan and Impotuan shrines last met.”
“Sister, will you not reconsider following us back to Foskos?” Fassex made her case. “Galt commanded both your sisters Mieth and Losnana to seek refuge with our shrines.”
“I can not put my people in a position where they may have to fight other Impotuans or to accept generosity from those who do," Ilsabess made a frightful face full of stubbornness. "We are already under a cloud with the Empress for our refusal to aid the war with Foskos.”
“Why did you refuse?” Imstay was curious.
“We knew they intended to attack Foskan shrines in direct violation of the Conventions of Surd,” Ilsabess gave Imstay a look like he should have already known this.
“Sister,” Fassex grabbed the conversation back, “it is obvious to all of us that the Great Breaking has begun. You know the prophecy so you should know that Impotu will fall. Why continue to serve a lost cause and an unworthy ruler? It’s not treason if your country ceases to exist.”
“I know what the prophecy says, but the Empire’s demise could be a year, a decade, or even a century from now. I do not want to gamble on a guess of when the current Empress or her Heir will fall from power. The prophecy is not exact. Maybe if Losnana were here, she could tell me how long the current regime will last, but she isn’t so I’m stuck. Fleeing to our current enemy of Foskos would make us look like traitors, but simply absenting ourselves and going somewhere else preserves our honor that we committed no treason.
Ilsabess looked at Aylem, "Great One, would Ud truly welcome me and my war mages? What sort of shelter is there for Cosm?"
"Ud lives in a vast network of caverns, "Aylem explained, "many of which are furnished for Coyn, Cosm, and all three races of flying mounts. The only bad thing about staying with Ud is her menu. She and her children only eat meat, which is usually mutton. You’ll have to forage or garden if you want any greens.”
“I must speak with my people about these things before tomorrow arrives. If you will excuse me, I will take my leave of you until tomorrow. I very much want to see this grand magic you will cast, Sister Foyuna.”
“If you stay just a little while longer,” Kamagishi spoke up, “you can share a beaker of hot tea with Losnana. She will be here in just a few moments. I know she would be happy to see you.”
“Losnana is here?” Again Ilsabess’ reaction was only around her eyes.
“I am indeed, Sister Ilsabess,” the stately Losnana strode into the tent. “I wanted to witness the demise of the only home I have ever known. Galt’s anger is because of the destruction of my shrine and my library, so I need to see this event with my own eyes.”
Ilsabess was out of her chair in less than a breath and ran to embrace Losnana, “I was worried that you were dead, especially since Arkaline could find no trail for you. I’m glad she didn’t find you since she meant to murder you.”
“I know. She tried to kill me the day my shrine burned. I am the last of the elders of the Ugi family who she hasn’t purged yet.”
“And Mieth? Have you seen her? Is she well?”
“I’m sorry, she is not well,” Losnana sighed. “She was too gentle a soul. Nine years imprisonment in the dark broke her. She is at the Healing Shrine in Aybhas. I do not know if she will ever be whole again.”
“Gods,” Ilsabess shook her head. “So many lives ruined. Arkalla and Arkaline Ugi have much to answer for. Let us share a beaker of tea and then I must return to my camp and make hard decisions.”