Emily, Salicet, Harvest season, 9th rot., 1st day

The camp in the wooded vale was primitive compared to the camps at the Battle of Tiki’s Shrine and Black Falls. The table was a portable affair that broke down into pieces. Instead of a bed, we all slept in bedrolls. We dined off of cold rations and drank tea or water.

I ate my cold dinner, which was chicken, onions, and shredded cabbage. I fell asleep early and missed the visit by the High Priestess Ilsabess. She visited to question Foyuna about the magic to evacuate the city.

Kamagishi woke me a quarter bell before dawn, “You need to wake up, Great One. We need to start moving. The Impotuan cavalry will be showing up around the third bell.”

I managed to sit up and regretted it because it was cold out. “Brr,” I pulled the bedroll up.

“Here,” Kamagishi cast a warmth charm. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” I crawled out of the bedroll and pulled on my overtunic. It looked like everyone else was already up since all the other bedrolls were already rolled up and stacked.

“Too bad the enemy caught on. Will Foyuna have enough time?” I asked, looking for my belt and pouch.

“She says she’ll have plenty of time. Most everyone has already left for Salicet. The supply crew wants to get this tent packed up and out of here so you need to finish dressing. Then we can catch up with everyone."

“Huh,” I started pulling on my boots. “Is there any tea?”

“Already packed, but there should be some in Salicet.”

“Where’s the Queen?”

“Patiently waiting for you, bed slug,” Aylem’s voice replied from outside the tent.

Tea was indeed waiting when we landed at the ruined palace. I was surprised to see that the war mages of Erhonsay were packing up.

“They’re leaving?” I asked as soon as Asgotl landed at the sentry post.

“The Erhonsay mages decided to leave well before the Impotuan flying cavalry arrives,” Aylem explained, jumping out of the saddle.

“May the blessings of the eleven gods be upon you, Great Ones,” Ilsabess walked up and made a bowing obeisance.

“And upon you too, Holy One,” Asgotl replied before I could.

Ilsabess looked surprised to be addressed by Asgotl, and then she laughed, "The world is indeed changing as we watch. There is hot tea and fresh bread in my command pavilion if you wish to warm up. It will be one of the last things we will pack."

We followed her to the pavilion where Imstay, Foyuna, and Fassex were conferring over a map of the city.

“Ah, you're here," Imstay looked up at Aylem. "We are mostly done. As soon as the sun comes up, Foyuna will join her party at the top of this big boulevard. Fassex will do the coordination between the 32 parties. Once the charm is cast, I’ll leave for home. I need to be far away before the Impotuan cavalry shows up. I’ll wait for you in Aybhas, at the usual place.”

“All the parties are already in place?” Aylem looked surprised.

“Usruldes picked the sites while you were sleeping. Half our fliers and all the foot troops that rode with them are already inside the city. They will help the city guard with getting people out and making sure no one gets left behind. I took care of that myself while you were sleeping. I put all the clergy from the Shrine of Gertzpul with the ground troops to widen the road to the farms south of the city. The Lord Holders have already started to stockpile supplies there. I instructed them to turn around and head back by the second bell. Any supplies that aren't on the ground by then will go home with us. That’s the best we can do for these folks.”

I climbed up on a chair at the map table, “That is far more than I ever expected anyone to do, Imstay King. I can only hope that the government of Impotu will help the Salicetans get through the cold season without too much loss of life.”

“I pray that isn’t a vain hope,” Ilsabess remarked. “I know the shrines should respond, but I don’t feel optimistic that our rulers and army will help. The Empress has been slow to help stricken areas in the past, and her aid is usually too little and sent too late.”

“I hope I haven’t condemned all these people to a slow death from cold and starvation,” my stomach felt sour over the thought. “That would be too cruel after saving them from certain death by incineration. It’s bad enough that some have already died at the hands of their own army.”

Aylem put her hand on my shoulder, “You can’t save everyone, dear heart.”

I’m sure I grimaced, “I know but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”

We made small talk until the sun came up. Like the rest of the High Priestesses that followed Foyuna here, I learned that Losnana and Kamagishi decided to help with casting the charm instead of watching. Raoleer and Huhoti had already made breaches in the walls in four places wide enough for two wagons.

It would take 32 astromages to cast the charm. Foyuna would link herself and the other 31 astromages together with the help of Fassex. All the other mages would supply their own magic to the astromage leading their party. Foyuna estimated that the combined magic of 480 mages would create a two-day-long time loop for the entire population of the city. The 32 parties of mages would encircle the city just inside of the walls, excluding the area with the ruins of the palace, shrine, and library. Everyone inside that circle would be caught in the time loop.

The actual casting of the charm felt like a let-down for me, given all the drama that led up to it. Foyuna’s group of 15 mages plus Fassex were standing in front of the sentry post into the camp, looking down at people and wagons on the main thoroughfare. Then they all vanished. It was noiseless and abrupt, a real “now you see them, now you don’t” kind of thing.

Then it struck me: there was no city noise. It was quiet.

“Other than the people in this camp, there is no one in the city,” Aylem remarked from behind me. “It really worked.”

“Look,” Imstay pointed. “Someone’s coming.” It was someone on an eagle approaching the city from the south.

“It’s Usruldes,” Aylem said.

It took some time for Usruldes and Cadrees to reach us. When Usruldes jumped off Cadrees and undid his flying cloak, the surrounding priestesses and priests of Erhonsay all eyed him with wary stares and loose scabbards.

Usruldes ignored them. He walked up and did a kneeling obeisance to me, Aylem and Imstay, “May the blessings of the eleven gods be upon you, Great Ones, Mighty One.”

“And also upon you,” I replied. “Please be at your ease. Well, did it work?”

“Foyuna miscalculated the duration of the charm. It lasted three days,” he stayed on his knees. I could tell he was smiling under his mask. "It was strange being able to walk around all of you while you were frozen in place for three days. If you look in your pouch, little one, you'll find a five bronze piece I slipped into it two days ago."

“Prankster,” I accused while I fished out the coin.

“I have some words from Kamagishi and Losnana. They advise that you do whatever you need to do before the Impotuan cavalry arrives. They agree that waiting will result in an ugly altercation with Aylem facing down several hundred mounted silverhair and halfhair soldiers. If that happens, Aylem will miscarry.”

“That gives us two bells,” I surmised. “We need to tell the Holy Ilsabess that she needs to get her people out of here now.”

“I can do that for you,” Imstay volunteered. “Then I will leave.”

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Spread across the pastures of five farms to south of us. Most of our people are already on their way back. I will stay here with you, Great One, in case you need concealment inside a charm of circular light.”

“Seriously?” I gave him a look.

“That sounds like a good idea,” said Aylem, nodding her head.

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“Thank you, Great One," he was smiling behind his mask.

“So, what’s next, Em?” Aylem asked.

“Let’s find that lazy griffin and then we need to visit the portal area of the salt mine,” I answered. “We need a hunk of rock salt.”

“We do?” Aylem looked puzzled.

“Yep, we do. Let’s go.

There were multiple adits in the ridge above the city. They were easy to find since no one had ever bothered to clean up the tailings piles. Aylem targeted the biggest tailings pile and we landed. Both Aylem and Usruldes dismounted. I stayed in the saddle on Asgotl’s back.

"At every mine I've ever been to, there's also some spillage as rocks are removed from the mine. Look around. There should be a hunk of rock salt on the ground, maybe in the grass or in the bushes."

“Like this one?” Usruldes bent down a picked up a bowling ball-sized chunk of salt.

“Can you scratch it with your fingernail?"

“Yes,” he looked up at me.

“Alright, now lick it.”

“WHAT?” He gave me a bug-eyed look.

“Lick it. It could be calcite or it could be halite, which is the mineral name of salt. You have to taste it to be sure.”

Usruldes was dubious but then licked the rock. “Ugh. Tastes like salt.”

I couldn’t help but grin. Asgotl was chortling and Cadrees looked amused.

“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Aylem folded her arms and gave me one of those disapproving parent looks. “So now that you’ve conned poor Usruldes to lick a rock, what’s next?”

"I'm going to talk you through what you need to do," it was time to get serious. "Usruldes, put the salt down on the ground away from any grass. He put it in the middle of the haulage road out of the adit.

"Aylem," I started, "remember your telling me about shunting the scar tissue in Twee's eyes onto a parallel timeline?"

“Yes,” she looked at me funny.

"I assume that whatever you shunt to a parallel timeline could also be moved back, yes?"

“I don’t see why, but it would be possible.”

“Great,” I beamed. “First, we need to back away from the salt and erect a barrier against projectiles and fire." We retreated a distance of about 40 hands. "Aylem, I would like you to remove all the water molecules trapped inside this salt and put them on a parallel timeline."

I watched as a small drop of water appeared above the salt crystal. Then it vanished.

“Can you bring it back?” I inquired. As I watched, the drop reappeared.

“Can you reinsert the water into the salt crystal?”

“As a drop or as the scattered molecules whose position I didn’t bother to mark? The first is much easier than the second,” she scowled at me.

“As a drop would be fine,” I smiled, enjoying this. The drop vanished. I could see a vesicle form inside the salt crystal with the water drop inside.

"Alright, Aylem, it's time to blow things up. Please move the water back onto a parallel timeline."

“Done,” she said, frowning at me.

“Salt is a one-to-one mix of sodium and chlorine in a cubic lattice. Each chlorine atom is surrounded by six sodiums, and each sodium is surrounded by six chlorines. Aylem, can you see the crystal structure of the molecules of salt?”

Aylem got the funny half-lidded look of a trance, “Yes, it looks like what you described. The smaller atoms are?”

“The smaller ones are the sodium and the larger ones are the chlorine,” I explained. “Neither of them likes to exist in the elemental state. They both want to bond with something. What I want you to do is separate the sodium atoms from the chlorine atoms, and collect the sodium atoms together in one place. Can you do that?”

“Hey, ask me to do something difficult,” she grinned. The salt chunk made a funny noise and then collapsed into a blob of silvery metal while exhaling a small yellow-green mist.

“Is the barrier in place?” I double-checked.

“It is now,” said Usruldes.

“Aylem, please move the water back onto our timeline and insert it into the sodium.”

The result was a pyromaniac’s dream. The sodium blew apart into many burning pieces, throwing off flaming fragments of white metal, many sparks, and a white fume. All the leaves that had fallen off the trees with the cold weather and all the dried-out grasses caught on fire around us.

Then all the fires went out. "I don't think you want to start a wildfire just yet, Em," Aylem remarked, "so I put all the fires out."

“Well, that was a miniature version of what you're going to do to the hill that Salicet was built upon," I explained. "There will be some differences. First, the chlorine gas you made when you separated the salt into its elements won’t be able to escape. So there will be pockets of it underground. Next, there will be a lot more water because most of the salt is below the water table. The water in contact with the salt will be a brine, to tell the truth, but that won’t stop the reaction. How fast can you do all the steps, Aylem? You need to move the water, separate the sodium and the chlorine, and then move the water back.”

“Faster than you can describe it,” she tilted her head and thought for a second. “The water is what starts the reaction, right?”

“Exactly,” I nodded. “Elemental sodium and water react to make sodium hydroxide, better known as lye, and hydrogen gas. The reaction also gives off heat which starts the combustion of the hydrogen. The explosion effects are from three things: a coulomb explosion in the sodium, the creation and expansion of the hydrogen gas, and then the combustion of that gas with oxygen. The hydrogen will also react with the chlorine gas, which might make the explosion smaller.”

“I get the bit with the hydrogen, Em, but I have no idea what a coulomb explosion is. That might not matter. What I want to know is why make this three steps? Why not make it two steps to separate the elements and then move the chlorine to a parallel timeline? Moving it back would be unnecessary.”

“Good fish face, Emily,” Usruldes laughed. “I’m glad you two know what you’re talking about because I have no idea.”

“Well, that’s not bad for a bookkeeper, Jane,” I regained my composure. “I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t work, though we would lose the secondary minor reaction of hydrogen burning the chlorine to make HCl. Let’s try it. Make a bucket full of water. We’ll find another salt chunk, drop it in the water, and you can try moving the chlorine instead of the water. Usruldes, old buddy, can you please lick some more rocks for me?”

“Very funny, Great One,” Usruldes groused. Aylem laughed. Then Aylem made a bucket of water and Usruldes found another chunk of salt. Aylem waited for Usruldes to drop the salt in the bucket and erected a new barrier over us. Then the world exploded, or at least the bucket did, scaring all of us. The explosion left a small crater in the middle of the old haulage road. I think I squawked when it happened.

First Aylem put all the fires out. Then she walked over to me, “are you alright?”

“I’m more startled than anything else. I think your version works fine. That little hill there across the river looks like the top of a salt dome. Can you feel the salt under the ground from here?”

Aylem stared off into space for a breath, ‘That’s a lot of salt.”

“Can you fee the salt dome under Salicet?”

“Oh! That’s a lot more salt.” Aylem’s eyes refocused and she shook her head at me, “you have dangerous ideas, Emily.”

“Why, thank you,” I smiled up at her. “So how much salt do you think you can separate in one go?” I asked.

“Hmm,” she stopped to think. It took a few moments. “How much do you want me to separate? I think I could do the top of the salt dome under Salicet. Would that be enough?”

“How much is that in depth and width?" I had no idea how big the Salicet salt dome was other than being big, maybe as big as the ones around Beaumont, Texas.

“Half again as wide as the city and maybe a thousand hands deep,” Aylem shrugged. “It’s not the size that controls how much. It’s my clairvoyance. If I can find it with my clairvoyance, then I can manipulate it.”

“Can you include all the salt in the ridge behind the city?”

“Not a problem,” Aylem nodded.

“Let’s go back and make sure everyone has left the city. Then let’s get this over with.”

We returned to the city which both Aylem and Usruldes surveyed with clairvoyance to confirm it was empty. I insisted we find a ridge top to the southwest as our base for destroying the city. We finally located part of the ridge crest that wasn’t completely covered in trees and set down. We talked Aylem into staying in the saddle with the safety strap on, in case the magic drained her. Usruldes cast circular light on all five of us as a precaution.

“I will begin now. It will only take a moment,” Aylem’s disembodied voice announced. “There, I’m done.”

Nothing happened.

“Huh, that should have worked,” I said. “I wonder if...”

Then the world exploded. After my eyes recovered from the flaring yellow-white light, I saw the first shock wave travel through the air and shake the ground under us as it passed by our barrier. The sound was so great that my ears rang for at least a bell afterward. There were two more shock waves, both from the ridge that the city was built on.

As we watched, a hemisphere of fire erupted and grew while flaming house-sized pieces of ground were ejected thousands of hands into the air. Some of them exploded in flight into smaller projectiles of fire. Burning building-sized pieces of fell into the river and then erupted into sprays of boulder-sized fireworks, like hundreds of giant roman candles. They were so bright that I had to close my eyes.

Soon, a bank of dust and debris hid the city from view as the rising gasses of the explosion widened into that classic mushroom shape seen in nuclear bomb explosions or Plinian volcanic eruptions. The rising cloud had enough energy to breach the stratosphere. Anyone downwind to the northeast would be treated to a fallout of dust-sized debris. The fog of debris dust started to settle out to reveal what was left of Salicet. When the air cleared, everything within a half wagon-day was on fire.

The crater that the explosion left behind looked like a small caldera collapse to me. Galt had had his wish fulfilled. Where once Salicet sat upon its hill, now there was only a huge crater filled with burning rubble.

Even though I had done no work at all, I felt exhausted by the events of the last three days. All I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and sleep for a week. I’m not sure what I felt watching the destruction of Salicet. Maybe I was too tired to feel anything other than numb.

“Are you alright, Aylem?” I asked.

“I could do with a nap,” she admitted, sounding as tired as I felt. “I’ll probably do an Emily and sleep in the saddle.”

“Well, ladies, let’s head for home,” Usruldes suggested. “If we leave now, we should be in Aybhas just after dusk.”