Emily, Aybhas Chapel Shrine for Coyn, Harvest season, 9th rot., 4th day
Lisaykos woke me up from the charm of deep sleep she cast the previous night. I was unhappy to be awake. More to the point, I was unhappy to be alive. The thought of all those Cosm who would be at Twee’s revelation followed by the High Priestess sewing circle and terrorist society meeting made my stomach turn over the wrong way.
I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t face all of that today, and maybe even tomorrow. I wanted to find the deepest darkest hole possible, climb into it, and never come back out. I felt trapped, stressed out, angry at Thuorfosi, and depressed that I had hurt her, all at the same time.
I pulled the covers over my head and rolled myself into the blankets. Then I told Lisaykos from the dark security of my bed cave that I wasn’t going anywhere. Eventually, I fell back asleep.
“Hey you," someone shook me. "You need to eat something if you can." It was Kayseo.
For Kayseo, I could wake up. I pulled enough covers down to see her, though it was difficult given that the damn cat was curled up between me and the window sill, which made it difficult to free up the blankets.
“Eskurt, you are not helping,” Kayseo chided the cat. “Now that your eyes are open, Em, I am going to sit down.” She leaned her crutches against the wall and sat on the closest of my two clothes chests.
“Wow, Emily,” Kayseo frowned at me, “solid dark gray aura. Want to talk about?”
“Arg,” I pulled the covers back over my head.
“Thuorfosi is doing much better, by the way. She really was afraid that you would never see her ever again,” Kayseo tried to encourage me. “It was good it was just a bit of temper.”
There was a long pause. I think she was waiting for a response from me. I didn’t have any. I was all out of words.
“I didn’t even know you could get that angry,” Kayseo marveled, killing the silence. “You really should forgive her, dear heart. I think just about everyone you know could make the mistake Thuorfosi made in front of you last night. Emily, there is no one in Foskos like you. To be a Coyn is to be property. It's always been like this and it's hard to change. Even thinking about it is difficult. I'm not sure any of us besides you can ever understand what it's like to be a Coyn. I know I don't. Coyn have always been the objects of my pity all my life, little humans who need to be owned because they can't live on their own without protection by a Cosm. It's what we are taught as children. I know there are other Cosm who are less noble with their attitudes toward Coyn, but Thuorfosi has never been one of those."
I think I groaned at that point. Kayseo was making unpleasant but reasonable sense. I didn’t want reason and somber facts just then. My bratty inner child still wanted a rage fest.
I felt a pain relief charm land on my right shoulder and arm from through the blankets, “You know, Em," Kayseo continued in her gentle, kind voice, "it could easily have been me or Twessera or even our mistress who misspoke that way. We have always lived in a world where Coyn are property. I know that freeing the Coyn will happen soon, but I confess that I can not imagine what that world will be like. Any of us could have said what Thurofosi said last night. If you apply that incredible brain of yours, you'll know that what I say is true."
“Aylem would never have said that,” I countered from inside my bed cave.
“Don’t divert the subject,” Kayseo didn’t waiver. “What you don’t know and need to know is that Thuorfosi will stay unsettled until you forgive her.”
“Are you trying to guilt me, child?” I growled.
“Yes,” she didn’t sound at all ashamed.
“Blarg." Kayseo was shredding my plans to hide for the rest of all time in my bed cave. "How about tomorrow?"
“How about now? The sooner you talk with her, the better you both will feel. She is miserable, you know. She thought you were serious. She knows how important freeing the Coyn is to you."
So once again, Kayseo coerced me to do that which I didn't want to do. I never did figure out why she was so good at manipulating me.
Asgotl was in the hallway for us as soon as I was in my cold weather riding gear – the cloak this time instead of the coat because Kayseo brought the sling for my arm that I forgot the previous evening. I found it a bit unjust that I couldn’t even go a whole rotation without landing in a sling again.
It did not escape me that Asgotl was ready and waiting, with the Wraith Corps sentry ready to help both of us mount. Kayseo had planned things out before she ever woke me.
It was a short flight. Thuorfosi’s and Wolkayrs’ house was at the base of Snob Hill, on the ring road around the shrine grounds, across from the east garden. It was a cute house or would have been if it had been on a Coyn scale. I've always found it hard to think of anything Cosm-sized as cute. It had a kitchen, dining room, sitting room, and bathing chamber on the ground floor and four rooms upstairs for bedrooms. Both floors had what the Cosm called necessary closets, with newly-installed flushing necessaries and sinks with running water – not that I could reach either.
Wolkayrs opened the door for us. He didn’t look like he wanted to murder me, which was reassuring. Lyappis and Twessera were sitting with Thuorfosi in the sitting room. She was on a lounge with her feet up and her shoes off. Her eyes were red, which left me feeling awkward and even more guilty. I knew I reacted badly the previous night because I was on edge, but seeing Thuorfosi’s hurt made me feel worse.
“Granddaughter Kayseo!” Lyappis burst out in greeting as she beamed.
“I don’t know who is worse,” Kayseo rolled her eyes but smiled, “you, Grandmother Lyappis, or the Holy Kamagishi.”
"That should be Mother Kamagishi for you, Kayseo," Lyappis got up and then bowed an obeisance to me. "Permit me to give you a hand, Great One." She turned her chair so it faced Thuorfosi, then picked me up and put me in it before I had a chance to breathe.
“Now, folks, let us retire to the kitchen,” Lyappis herded everyone else out of the room before any of us could even think.
That left me facing Thuorfosi without an idea of where to begin. The silence was painful but it didn’t last long. “I’m sorry,” Thuorfosi said in a voice soaked in misery.
“I know.” I didn’t know what else to say.
The silence took the conversation over again.
“Say something, please,” the distraught Thuorfosi begged after a long moment passed.
I couldn’t help myself, “alright. Something please.”
She smiled a grimace and shook her head, “You’re as bad at this as I am.”
“It seems so,” I conceded. I took a big breath, “I didn’t mean what I said yesterday evening. It was the anger talking. I didn’t know I could get that angry.”
“I shouldn’t have nagged you,” Thuorfosi admitted. “I knew you weren’t happy with life right now, but I was upset you got hurt.”
“Yeah, I know.”
The pause wasn’t as long this time, “I can’t go to Weirgos with you as planned. I get to be babysat for the next ten days.”
“Do you know who will replace you?” Like usual, Lisaykos was sending a healer with me to help me navigate another Cosm-scaled shrine complex and to make sure I didn’t do something stupid to my recuperating collarbone. Whoever it was would also be taking care of Twee, who had greater needs than I did, given that he needed help to keep his air bladder and his gills wet and his cold-blooded body warm.
Thuorfosi finally smiled, “both Kayseo and Lyappis. Twessera will be staying here at the house with me, along with Kibbilpos, who you know, and Healer Sulkirk who I think you don’t know.”
“Both Kayseo and Lyappis?” I was surprised, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. Kayseo couldn’t carry either me or Twee while walking with crutches.
“Yes, both." She looked miserable again, "I wish I hadn't said what I said yesterday, Em. I wish none of it happened. Now we’re both unhappy.”
“I don’t know,” I wanted to lighten the mood before I got any more miserable. “I have to admit there is one good thing to come out of this.”
"What?" Thuorfosi gave me a look of complete disbelief.
“In the morning, when Kayseo wakes me up by dangling food overhead, she lets me eat the bacon unlike you.”
“What?" The look she gave me was one of consternation. "You! You little, overly-clever troublemaker. Hmph!" I watched the calculation grow in her eyes, "Just because I am pregnant, doesn't mean I can't reach your feet, Emily – your delightfully-ticklish feet."
“Not today, please,” I said, trying to sound discouraging without being angry. “Today is not a good day for me to be handled like that, even in well-intended fun. Please, just don’t.”
Thuorfosi studied me and then collapsed into herself, “I’m sorry. I should know better. I’ve been around you so much that it’s easy to forget how thin your tolerance is. To me, it is just some fun teasing of a friend, and to you, it’s an imposition upon your person that you are physically helpless to escape.” She looked like she was going to start crying again. I didn’t think I could bear that so I changed the subject again.
“Kayseo hauled me over here and forgot to let me graze on what was left on the dining room sideboard to eat,” I stated. “Let’s go eat at that grilled meatball skewer and nips place at the top of the north market. The snow has stopped and the roads are clear and I could really sink my teeth into a big yummy nip.”
So we all stuffed ourselves silly with street food, including the Revered Lyappis. After that, Kayseo and Lyappis packed a travel chest of my clothes which would follow me to Weirgos and then Omexkel. The chest was sent ahead of our new departure time in the morning, on the fifth day of the rotation. The plan was to arrive before mid repast, which I would eat privately with Twee, Kayseo, and Lyappis in my guest quarters at the Shrouded Shrine of Vassu. It was Lisaykos who set that up, assuming correctly that I would want to avoid meals with the whole Convocation and the Council of Lords.
Imstay King, Weirgos, Harvest season, 9th rot., 5th day
Because the Weirgos Manse was empty, except for the servants who I was paying to keep it up, I took the place over for the meetings at the shrine. I installed Aylem, Opa, Heldfirk, and Garki into the best of the bedrooms. I supplemented the servants with my own staff from the palace. I also invited Lord Fusso haup Ark’kos and his family since I had my eye on his youngest son as a potential candidate to become the new Lord Weirgos. It was dangerous to leave the holding without a lord while we were in the midst of a war.
I invited the Blessed Emily and the Chem Twee to stay in the manse but my far cousin Lisaykos turned me down on their behalf. I wasn’t surprised. I knew all the gossip about Emily’s state of upset over the last rotation. The news left me nervous, more nervous than I wanted to admit.
I wanted a happy, comfortable, and well-cared-for prophet, kept inside the invisible bubble of Wraith-maintained security that didn’t impose upon her movements within the kingdom. Most important to me was that she stayed in Foskos where we could maximize her defense, and take advantage of her unquenchable habit of creating new and marvelous things. I wanted her to think of Foskos as a friendly place where she could invent more wonderful creations.
My ideal vision of Emily making her home in Foskos was probably in vain. The last rotation was a good example of why that was so. She had suffered too much at Cosm hands to ever be comfortable living in Cosm society. It didn't matter that her friends and colleagues in Foskos were at the top of the kingdom's hierarchy. The quality of those she spent her time with was just a drop compared to the ocean of her still-abiding discomfort and fear.
Her desire to remove herself from the safety and care provided by her Cosm friends left me sleepless at night. She was the most dangerous person on all of Erdos. The safety of Foskos made it necessary for her to be the kingdom’s ally. We could not afford to alienate the Blessed Emily, Destroyer of Cities. Frankly, the longer I knew her, the more she scared me.
I knew that she would never warm to me. She looked at me with eyes that equated me with gambling cheats and sellers of fake potions. That did not matter to me so long as she liked Aylem and the children. I knew she liked Garki a great deal and she appeared to be on good terms with Opa. She didn’t have much exposure to Heldfirk so he was an unknown. Her relationship with Aylem was strange, but appeared friendly and improved over time. Since the incidences in Black Falls, Emily had taken on a veneer as if she were Aylem’s stern older sister with the benign toleration for a younger sibling’s missteps. It was strange to watch given the physical and outward age differences between them.
The Blessed Emily's ongoing discomfort around large groups of Cosm was visible to anyone who could see auras when the Chem Twee came for his revelation. The Holy Moxsef sat the four revelators together. She put Aylem on the Throne of Judgment in the Well of Vassu with Lisaykos in an equally-grand chair next to her. On the other side of Aylem, Moxsef had laid down a rich patterned carpet so the Blessed Asgotl could also attend. Because there were no suitable chairs, Emily ended up sitting in Aylem's lap with the gray of her unhappiness overlapping the green undertone of her fear for everyone to see.
The only other people who were seated inside the shrine’s dome were the Holy Senlyosart, the Holy Mieth, and the Priestess Kayseo, Heir of Pinisla. They were in the wheeled chairs that the prophet had designed, sitting to the left of the prophet and revelators. The rest of us were standing on the tiered floor surrounding the open Well of Vassu. Lord Bobbo was also offered a chair but turned it down. He spent the ceremony on his feet, balanced between a walking stick and Captain Tyoep’s arm.
I heard from Aylem beforehand that Emily refused to wear her scholar’s robes. Instead, the prophet was in a gown of a simple cut but made with the finest wool fabric, deep blue with quilted gold embroidery. Aylem was wearing a tawny gown with one of those stand-up collars that were the newest fashion. I confess that I might have been biased, but I thought she looked stunning.
I was standing just far away enough that I couldn’t hear Aylem’s conversation with Emily and Lisaykos, but I could make a good guess at what they were saying. Emily looked uncomfortable, sitting with a straight back and trying to balance despite a sling on her arm. Aylem said something to her. Then Lisaykos said something to Aylem while grinning. Emily turned red with a look of intense reluctance.
Garki, standing with Heldfirk and Opa next to me, figured out what was up. "Oh," he smiled with revelation and not the holy kind. "If the prophet sits back so she can balance better, she'll run into the Queen's…,” he paused, made a suggestive motion with his hands, and grinned at Heldfirk.
“Well, of course, she will," Opa gave Garki a look of adolescent disgust. "Mom's not exactly flat, you know, soon-to-be-brother. Don’t let mom hear that, or you might be my soon-to-be-dead brother.”
“Children,” I felt obliged to chastise them. “You are all in public. Behave.”
“But Dad, it’s true,” Heldfirk said in a voice that had just the right boyish pitch to carry well within the domed chamber. “Mother is really stacked!”
Heldfirk's utterance came out during an unusual pause in the murmur of conversation while we all waited for Twee to show up. I think almost everyone heard it, including Aylem. After her eyes popped open in a fish face, she turned her head slowly and stared at Heldfirk. Then she turned as red as Emily with embarrassment. I heard a few stifled chuckles. The kids were going to be so dead once this was over.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Ooh! You're gonna be in big trouble, future-little brother," Garki teased with a grin.
“You too, you idiot,” Opa hissed. “You started it.”
I cleared my throat loudly and glared at the three of them, “We are visitors at a shrine, and two of you are trainees at other shrines already. Don’t make me sorry that I pulled rank so you could be here.”
With dread, I felt Aylem's anger growing, directed at Heldfirk. Her face had turned a disturbing bright red, the color I associated with the worst of her rages, and I could see the aura of power growing in her hands. That scared me.
Emily looked up at Aylem’s face and then pinched her thigh through the tawny fabric of her gown. She said something to Aylem that caused the anger to vanish. Aylem gasped. With a look of resignation, Emily sat back against Aylem’s chest. Aylem’s expression shifted to regal Ice Queen and Lisaykos was a study of perfect royal neutrality. Asgotl’s snickering was loud enough for most to hear it.
The tableau of misbehaving children and stoic revelators had nothing more to offer since Twee entered the dome with the Revered Lyappis. This time, he wasn’t wearing the black suit that kept him warm. Lyappis must have kept a warmth charm on the little fellow.
Twee entered on all fours since Chem prefer to walk that way. His head came up when he spotted Aylem and Emily. Then he looked around until he spotted Priestess Arma, who was standing behind her mother's chair. The appendages at the end of his tail rose and waved at her. Arma winked at him and waved back.
I sucked in my breath without thinking when the sky outside went dark and thunder rolled in the mountains that backed the river valley. Then a hideous monster appeared over our heads. As fear gripped me and everyone else, we all lost the ability to move before the manifestation of Vassu in her aspect as the Terror of the Deeps.
Emily, Shrouded Shrine of Vassu, Harvest season, 9th rot., 5th and 6th days
Unlike sitting with Aylem on Asgotl's back, sitting on her lap raised me high enough that my head would intersect her boobs if I leaned back. It was embarrassing.
“That's why I use my blanket when sitting with Emily," Lisaykos leaned forward with a grin. I could have really used a hole to disappear down just then. "You know, dear heart," Lisaykos targetted me in a soft voice only the four of us could hear, "they're called breasts. Most women have two of them. They won't burst if you touch one. It would be better for you to lean back rather than lose your balance.
Lisaykos didn’t tease me often, but when she did, it was like a stealth missile, flying in low and exploding suddenly on target. I was embarrassed, Aylem was embarrassed, and Lisaykos was amused.
Then, during one of those rare hushed moments you get in small crowds, Prince Heldfirk said in his high-pitched boy’s voice, I suspect in reply to something Garki said, “Mother is really stacked.”
I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud. Lisaykos' face reverted to unreadable and regal, so I had no idea what she was thinking. Alyem tensed up, and when I looked up at her, her face was the wrong color of red and she looked ready to murder her son. I took a risk and pinched her, "Ten years from now, you can use this for revenge on your kid when you tell this story to his future wife."
Aylem gasped for breath and then relaxed, “You are right. Thank you.”
Asgolt, the wretch, started sniggering.
We didn’t have time to talk further. Just then, Twee entered the chamber of the dome with Lyappis, who was escorting him within a charm of warmth. He had mentioned earlier that he didn’t want to meet the water god wearing a rubber wetsuit. He was rather vain about his black skin and yellow spots.
Before he even reached the rail around the Well of Vassu, the world went sideways as a giant lion's mane jellyfish appeared, floating between Twee and the throne of judgment. It was both scary and beautiful, with the red tentacles and the fringe of the bell undulating as if underwater.
*Greetings, Aylem and Lisaykos, beloved of Mugash,* Vassu spoke, and everyone inside the dome heard her voice. *You must begin teaching Ud’s cure for lime blindness. In seven seasons, your healers will be burdened to restore the sight of the freed Chem slaves. You will need many healers for this task.* Thus I learned that Vassu had a third aspect, that of a giant jellyfish.
Vassu stopped speaking to us. One gigantic tentacle descended and caressed Twee's head. Then as abruptly as she appeared, she vanished, leaving a room of gasping, frightened Cosm, some falling to the ground, others losing the contents of their stomachs.
Twee had fallen flat, with all four limbs splayed on the floor. He was not conscious. I hoped he survived his revelation without too much harm. I had no idea if Chem even got headaches. Lyappis picked him up and carried him to where he could recover, despite her looking a bit green around the edges. I had no idea what Vassu's motivation was to appear in that form, leaving so many Cosm feeling sick.
As the crowd began to disperse, Aylem bore down on her family. Before I left to return to my guest chambers, I saw both Aylem and Imstay looming over the boys with frowns of parental disapproval etched across their faces. Opa looked on with a smug look. I was having a hard time not smiling over it.
Because Lyappis was taking care of Twee, Lisaykos walked me back to my quarters with Kayseo. Lisaykos vanished to eat dinner with the rest of the Convocation. I had a pleasant, quiet dinner with Kayseo. We played cards all evening. Poor Twee woke up with a revelation headache around half before the first night bell. Lyappis had him dictate the contents of his revelation so she could capture it on a magic recording scroll. Other than that, it was a quiet evening.
It wasn't a peaceful night for me. Erhonsay visited me in my sleep with a dream command. She wanted something done with Mattamukmuk as soon as Asgotl, Aylem, and I could free ourselves from these endless meetings over the law.
After the morning repast, Lisaykos came to walk with me back to the dome for the formal meeting of Convocation to discuss the revision of the law. Moxsef as host arranged a circle of chairs, each with two side tables for a codex with the law changes and a spot for beakers and pitchers of drinkables. Lyappis was invited to attend as my aide for the meeting. I ended up not staying very long, even though Kamagishi told me I was expected to address the topic of the revisions for the high priestesses.
I expressed my opinion before the meeting started formally because Irralray from the Shrine of Erhonsay stuck her foot into her mouth. I hardly knew Irralray. I knew she was a princess of the first degree, Foyuna's mother, and Imstay's aunt. She shared the same big haup Foskos nose that Lisaykos had, but unlike the thin and willowy Lisaykos, Irralray resembled Imstay with her build and gait of someone who did a lot of hand-to-hand fighting. As a Convocation member, she seldom spoke but was articulate and thoughtful when she did. She angered me that morning with what she had to say while the other high priestesses were settling into their chairs.
“Sisters," she began as she sat down, "are these law changes wise? The Blessed Emily is intelligent, inventive, and maybe even a genius. It is also possible that she is unique and no other Coyn are like her. I can understand the law changes for flying mounts, but can we be sure that this expansion of Coyn protections is the best course of action?
"Even if there are some intelligent Coyn, most of them have been raised, trained, and employed for labor much like other working livestock animals, like oxen or barn cats. Hardly any of them can even read, and most can not survive without Cosm help. How can we be assured that the Coyn will be able to understand what these laws mean? I fear these laws will lead to thousands of Coyn deaths by removing them from the care of their owners."
That set me off. I think I might have felt a wee bit of anger over what Irralray asked. I didn’t know that Kamagishi already had set up her recording scroll. The result became the fifth scripture of the Prophet Emily. I hated when that happened. If I had known my remarks would become more scripture, I would have prepared a more organized statement.
Sitting in my chair on a pile of cushions, I interrupted Irralray, "Speaking as a slave, a sage once said that 'you can own me, but you can't eat me.' These words contain the kernel of what is so very wrong about the laws and traditions of the Cosm allowing the treatment any other sapient race as livestock.
"Unless you were a Cosm raised among the Tirmarran cannibals, eating the flesh of a Chem, a Coyn, or any flying mount is repulsive. This demonstrates better than anything else that sapient races are not livestock.
"While laws treating sapient races as livestock are not as repulsive as eating other sapient races, such laws are still distasteful. Sapient beings are not livestock, so no law should treat them as such. Perhaps if we had to physically eat such rancid laws as these, there would be fewer bad laws.
"I have been asked by more than one Lord Holder how all these newly free slaves will survive. Surely, some have said, that the Coyn, in particular, lack the size and the strength and the magic to survive on their own, that they are not fit to be free, and that they are not capable of taking care of themselves. Lacking land and property, who will feed them or grow their wheat or put roofs over their heads and wood or firestones in their stoves in the cold season?
"The nation of Inkalim is all the evidence I need to rebutt such arguments. If Coyn slaves lack the skills and education to survive, it is because their former owners did not provide them with these things. Who then is to blame? The Coyn did not enslave themselves and the current owners did not create slavery which is now more than two millennia old.
“Some say the Coyn live subservient lives to the Cosm because they are not equal to Cosm might and magic. They say that as the weaker race, it is proper for the Coyn to be under the heel of the Cosm. Is it not true, many Cosm have argued, that the gods placed the Cosm over all the other races and gave Cosm the power to enforce their will?
“I can not and will not argue with either facts or the will of the gods. It is undeniable that the Cosm have no equal because of their size and strength and the power of the Cosm mages. It is magic that puts Cosm closer to the gods than any other race and divine will that compels Cosm to revere and fear those gods.
"It is true that the gods have placed the Cosm over Coyn, a fact that I hate. As was stated in the very first revelation from Tiki to the first high priestess, Uskya haup Foskos, the gods made the Cosm to rule over the Coyn to prevent them from doing themselves harm. This burden upon the Cosm was not to care for a weaker race that required aid to survive but to protect all other life from the destructive potential of the Coyn, because the Coyn can destroy the world.
“Despite Cosm reverence and worship of the gods, you must know that the gods’ presumed omniscience does not always include a complete understanding of the sapient life they create. I see the faces of disagreement, Holy Ones, especially you, Irralray, and you, Fassex, and you, Rakkalbos. Your love of the gods is why the gods hold you in such high esteem but it also prevents you from seeing what is in front of your own eyes, that one god at least has done such harm to myself and Aylem Queen that both our souls will be long to heal and forever scarred despite all that divine love and knowledge. Mugash caused such harm despite her excellent intent to help Aylem Nonkin. She broke the Queen so completely that Aylem ran from her troubles and lost herself. No, Mugash loved her daughter Aylem, but she did not and still does not completely understand her.
“Knowledge is not wisdom. The gods themselves know their understanding of us is not complete. Their lack of complete understanding is why the ages of renewed intervention and scriptural guidance are necessary. No one knows why the gods created biological life as the means by which sapient souls can experience reality. The gods are too great and too complex for any of us to ever understand their reasoning.
“The gods have made many sapient creatures and uncountable realities. Every reality they make is different. All we know for certain is that we are their creation and that they care for us, but they do not always understand us because they are so different from our limited selves. Why is this germane? Because there is a deeper history behind the creation of the Cosm which explains this third age of miracles and intervention.
“Have you forgotten the revelation of Landa to the Adept Teboso? Let me remind you of its contents. In a previous reality, in a place long ago and far away, there was once a planet called Earth. On Earth, there were magic creatures like leviathans and dragons, wyverns and griffins, mammoths and kraken, and roc eagles, but there were no magical humans. The only human race on Earth was what we would call the Coyn here on Erdos. The gods made the Coyn with no magic but with great creativity to make up for it. Then the gods watched to see what this interesting sapient race would do.
“The first thing the Coyn of Earth did was destroy all the magical creatures or to drive them into hiding so profound that their existence was forgotten. Lacking magic, the Earth Coyn then invented marvelous things. Paper. Steel. Pens already filled with ink that never needed to be dipped to write. Machines to sew clothes, spin thread, and weave cloth. Potions to create artificial stone for roads and buildings. Potions that could cure cancer. Great engines burning rock oils that pulled multiple plows and harrows at the same time, threshing machines that harvested huge fields of grain in less than a bell, and flying machines that carried hundreds of people through the air five times faster than the fastest flying horse across distances from the Fenlands to Mattamukmuk, so cheaply that most workers could afford to travel that way.
“Do not look at me with such disbelief since there are two other reborn people who lived on Earth to confirm my words to you. I tell you these things so you will know in the future what it is that the Coyn can do.
"Except for mind and healing magic, the Coyn of Earth could do everything that magic can do on Erdos. The great advancements in agriculture alone fed a planet inhabited by eight billion Coyn. I can tell from your faces that you are shocked by that number or that you do not believe me. Regardless, it is true.
"Aylem Nonkin, the Griffin Asgotl, and I are all reborn souls who lived on Earth, and we know there is a fourth reborn soul we have not found yet. Regardless, three of the four of us can attest to the billions who lived on Earth near the end of its life. Just as an example, the war that was responsible for Aylem’s death on Earth killed over 50 million people before it was over. It was only a small fraction of those who lived there. I know it is hard to believe that so many could live on one planet at the same time. Even then, Earth still held great empty places with few people. Most lived in the cities while most of the production of food was done by a small minority on the planet using the aid of Coyn’s great farming machines.
“The creativity of the Coyn also led to the invention of terrible weapons of war, devices more powerful than the charm of great defense wielded by the Queens of Foskos. Yes, I see your disbelief again, but despite your inability to stretch your minds around this truth, let me remind you that I, a mere Coyn, destroyed Salicet. Yes, you might argue that it was Aylem Nonkin who did the deed because it was her magic that achieved the explosion.
"I will state now that Aylem merely made it easier for me to achieve what the god Galt desired. I could have achieved the same result in three other ways, though they would have taken more time, at least three years for the quickest. Magic is not necessary, even with the primitive tools available to me, to destroy a city on Erdos. In the next year, Vassu will direct the Chem to do similar acts of destruction, which will be achieved through my help. Mages do not own a monopoly in dealing out pain, suffering, injury, and death.
"I do not wish to frighten you so badly that you ruin my life with your constraints. I will only say that to my knowledge, no Coyn ever destroyed a city using the means I instructed Aylem to employ five days ago. It was the melding of my knowledge with Aylem's magic that destroyed Salicet. I created a new means of destruction to meet the conditions that Galt gave me to save the residents of Salicet. Not even Galt or Giltak or Erhonsay foresaw how I would erase that city and the hill it was built on. They were surprised when I told them what I proposed to do. Pardon my momentary pride and vanity over the demise of Salicet, but this is the sort of destructive creativity that a Coyn can achieve. Deprived of the crutch of magic, the Coyn have become the most inventive sapients the gods have ever created.
"Coyn have a talent for mekaning that makes it necessary for the Cosm to oversee their efforts. The challenge that the Cosm must answer in the future is to nurture and encourage the great inventiveness of the Coyn without allowing them to destroy Erdos. This is what the law must codify. This is how the Cosm must rule. This is what the gods desire: not slavery but guidance, and where needed, the prohibition of dangerous inventions that would harm both the planet and the life that lives upon it.
“The Coyn did not and do not possess the same love and fear of the gods which the Cosm possess. Mere scripture was not enough to prevent their many sins on Earth. Remember the last verse of the revelation of Teboso? It goes like this: ‘Landa showed me a place where once a great people lived. None of their inventions could save the people or heal their dying home. They mistook their inventiveness for wisdom and failed to govern themselves. And so, the people perished and all their great works lie in ruin on the lifeless Earth that was once their dwelling place.’
"Though the Coyn destroyed the Earth, the gods were amazed by what the Coyn achieved without magic. Never before had a sapient race made machines that could fly through the air or harness the force of lightning. So the gods made Erdos, and they gave its governance to the Cosm, in the hope that the Coyn could be nurtured and guided by the Cosm to once again create marvelous things – this time without destroying the planet they live upon.
“Instead of care and nurture, the Cosm interpreted their mandate and used their power to enslave and oppress the other sapient races, in violation of the revelation of Uskya. This is what you must now remedy.
“You have in front of you now the revision of the law, made by the King and the High Priestess of Galt in her role as High Justicar. I have read it. There are many good things in the revision but there are still other things that I believe need to be changed. It will be a painful time for Foskos as it claws its way forward to a law that works for all races.
“I will not involve myself further with Foskan law. I do not care whether a Coyn should be caned five times or ten for the crime of petty food theft or if an Eagle should be placed in the public place of shame for fishing in a Lord Holder's trout ponds through ignorance. What I care about are items like the elimination of the horrific Coyn cruelty laws and their replacement by laws treating assault as the same crime regardless of the race of the victim. I care about laws that acknowledge that kicking a Cosm might not even be a crime but that it should always be attempted murder if a Cosm kicks a Coyn or Chem.
“To be succinct, slavery will be eliminated through a new revelation from Landa, but it will not be this year. For a short time, there will still be slaves, but because they are sapient beings, killing a slave should still be murder. Depriving a slave of food should be criminal neglect of a dependent. Overworking a slave or not protecting a slave from adverse weather should be a form of assault. All such crimes should have punishments commiserate with the harm done. No Coyn nor Chem nor flying mount should ever be labeled livestock by any law.
"I have never cared for splitting hairs over nuances of the law. What is important is not to harm one another, to do to others what you would want others to do to you, and above all, to practice kindness to all other sapient beings. In a world ruled by kindness, we would only need to confront unintended accidents and acts of thoughtlessness, rather than crimes fueled by greed and malice.
“I know that it is perhaps laughable to desire a world of kindness when more war will be breaking on the horizon once the snow melts, but that is when we need kindness the most, to lessen the cruel necessities of battle. To contain the Coyn effectively, the governments provided by the Cosm must be united under one hegemony. Junu was swallowed by Impotu three years ago, so Foskos only needs to defeat the Impotuans, who are now weakened by their multiple defeats this year.
"As we learned from the Blessed Twee yesterday, Vassu intends that the Chem will attack Mattamesscontess. The Chem are not conquerors. They will not wish to rule that nation. Their action will be to free the Chem who have been abducted and enslaved by the Empire of Mattamesscontess. The Chem will then turn to the Healers of Mugash for aid in restoring the eyesight of all the former Chem slaves. The war by the Chem will become an opportunity for Foskos to extend its hegemony across the continent to the eastern coast.
“Why do the gods desire Foskos to carry out this task rather than one of the larger nations? Because the shrines of Foskos have preserved and revered the scriptures and followed the revelations of the gods more closely than any other country.
"In a dream command last night, Erhonsay commanded that I, Aylem Nonkin, and the Griffin Asgotl travel to Mattamukmuk, to destroy the two great crystals that supply the black market with charm gems of control and compulsion. At that time, Aylem Queen will demand and receive the submission of the Island Republic of Alkinosuk as a vassal state of Foskos. They won’t dare refuse this demand because the news about Salicet is all the argument we will need to convince them.
"I wish to rest now. If you do not have any more questions about what I think of the revised law, I will take my leave of you, since I am sure you have much business to discuss among yourselves which does not require my presence.”