Emily, Shrouded Shrine of Vassu, Harvest season, 9th rot., the night of the 6th day
After getting snippy with the Convocation, I was visited by a god in my sleep that night. In a dreamscape crafted out of my memories, I appeared to be at Gasthaus Schmidt on Neubaugasse, which was a place my Austrian cousins took me to back in the 1980s.
It was good schnitzel. I realized I missed schnitzel, proper Austrian schnitzel made with proper Austrian pork, which tastes so much better than the mass market cardboard they called pork in America. My jägerschnitzel tasted as good as I remembered, with the mushrooms blending perfectly with the meat. I guessed that Surd picked up on my favorite gasthaus after Sassoo took me there on the opera trip when I was in Black Falls.
“Tell me what you remember about soap, Emily," Surd asked as she cut her wiener schnitzel with perfect dainty American-style knife cuts. Then she switched the fork from her left hand to her right hand to eat. My half-Austrian self noted the Americanism and cut with my knife on the right and ate with a fork on my left, like any proper daughter of Niederösterreich.
Despite the American-cut pink woman’s suit, Surd reminded me of my grandmother from Wiener Neustadt, which was a bedroom town for Vienna. If she had been wearing a pleated skirt and a blue loden waist jacket, she could have been my grandmother in her younger days.
“Really?" Surd blinked, and then she was wearing the pleated skirt and the blue loden waist jacket. She even had a jaunty blue loden hat with an iridescent feather in the band. They were clothes right out of my grandmother's closet. "Excellent fish face, Emily. Did you forget I'm a god?"
I sighed, “The mind-reading thing is always startling to me. It’s also a bit uncomfortable, not physically but mentally. It’s easy to be paranoid if you know your thoughts are never really private. My head knows it’s going to happen, no matter what I do, but my gut is happier if it never detects that someone is actually reading my mind. Isn’t that odd, and a bit silly?”
“Not really,” Surd looked sympathetic, though I wasn’t sure if I could trust her.
“It's a mental trick your body is playing on you," Surd said. "If you don't observe telepathy, then your body will not remind your brain of its existence. It is one of the ways that you trick yourself into being less stressed."
“I do that?”
“Oh yes, all the time,” Surd looked helpful. “You have several ways you trick yourself. It’s how you manage to stay mostly sane despite the stress of living with Cosm in an exclusively Cosm environment.”
“Mostly sane?” I sipped my Römerquelle, savoring a taste I had forgotten.
“Well, you are a mekaner addict,” she grinned, pleased with her own wit. “I’m looking forward to the organ. And for the record, I like red fireworks. I advise using strontium salts.”
“Just where am I going to find the makings of strontium salts, Surd? It’s not an element that I have a lot of knowledge about.”
“I'm disappointed in you, Emily," Surd looked at me. "There are celestine crystals in your geyser and fumarole spire that you and Kayseo brought home from Geyser Valley, It's mixed in with barite and gypsum, in little sand-sized crystals. The layer is about a half-hand thick. You'll have to break the layer and then sort the minerals by hand with thumb forceps and one of the new magnifying lenses that Raoleer is playing with. Please don't tell her I told you. She wants it to be a surprise when you arrive two days from now."
“Oh, duh!" I felt really stupid right then. "Celestine, of course! Strontium sulfate. How could I forget that? No, I wouldn't do a hand separation of little crystals, Surd. That's the hard way to do it. I'd wash the mix of the three minerals in distilled water. Gypsum is ten times more soluble than celestine but a thousand times more soluble than barite. Use enough water until only the barite is left as a solid, giving you a solution of dissolved calcium and strontium sulfate. Add sodium chloride until solid strontium salts precipitate out of the solution. It's much easier."
“Oh," Surd looked a little surprised. "That makes sense."
“I find it strange you would do it the harder way,” I remarked.
“Well," she smiled with an apology, "if I wanted a strontium nitrate for red fireworks, I'd just create it."
“Gods,” I had to shake my head.
“Yes, we are gods. It is hard to remember that your level of life needs to find common materials and then refine them into usable chemicals. I’m not the god of making things. I’m just the god of hearth, home, and family."
“And the god of doors,” I had to add. “Why doors?”
She laughed, amused, “I am to doors as Gertzpul is to roads. Doors are the most common way to access a home just as a bridge is the common way to access Uedroy.”
“Was that supposed to be divine humor?” I had to ask.
“No, daughter, it’s symbolism. I’m not sure I can explain what it means at the divine level.” I could tell she was entertained by the exchange but I was frustrated. I really had come to hate inscrutable.
“Why am I even talking to you, Surd? I thought I made it clear I didn’t want to even see you folks after Black Falls.”
“Mueb thought that an information session on the fatty acid for soap making would be a nice peace offering. Schnitzel is my way of bribing you to speak with me for a few moments, but I’m standing in for Mueb today. She has difficulties speaking to oxygen-burning ambulatory sapients, as you might have noticed, and today’s topic is too fraught for a timid god like Mueb when trying to talk to a prophet as contrary as you are. Mueb’s much better with carbon reducers and methane burners.”
“A peace offering?” I guessed it was inevitable but I didn’t know if I was ready to let go of my anger.
“Mueb concluded that she needed to be able to inform you of critical items, and she can’t do that if you keep closing her out.”
“Closing her out?” I was confused.
“You have not yet opened yourself back up to Tiki, Mugash, Gertzpul, Sassoo, Landa, and Mueb. I have no idea why you opened up to me, but Mueb knew and she asked me to approach you.”
“Huh." I had to think about what Surd said, both the bit about opening up to her, and Mueb wanting to get back on talking terms, even if the exchange was by proxy. If I had opened back up to Surd, it wasn’t due to a conscious decision on my part.
“Will you accept the knowledge?” Surd asked. That was a first. I was being asked if I would take a gift during a divine-managed dream. So much for dream commands. This was tweaked.
"I know how to make soap,” I countered.
“But you don't know the fatty acid profiles of plant and animal oils on Erdos,” she said.
“Surd, I intend to use olive oil. They grow enough in Black Falls and Gunndit to supply a soap industry. I don’t need any other oil than that for soap, at least not initially.”
“Yes, you do,” she informed me. “The amount of olive oil produced is good enough to supply the kingdom with cooking oil, but there is not enough to supply a soap industry on top of that. That’s why you need other fatty acid sources.”
“Well, like what?”
“The nuts of the blue thin-needle pine,” Surd replied. “It’s about half lauric acid, which was the component that made coconut oil such a good soap ingredient back on Earth. It’s the fatty acid that gives you good lather formation, strong cleaning, and hard soap bars, Then there’s sunflower oil, which no one farms now but it could be an excellent cash crop in parts of Impotu and Junu. You can substitute it for olive oil, though it wants a little something added to it to get you good hard bars. We know that you do not have this knowledge. While you could make good soap with olive oil, it won't become common if you can't introduce other oils to supplement the olive oil supply.”
“What about tallow?” My mother used to make tallow-based soap when I was a kid.
“Profile of fatty acids is different in cattle on Erdos compared to Earth, and the soap molecule formation will throw off too much glycerin, leading to bars with very long cure times. So with tallow, you will still need to mix in another oil to compensate. You know you want this knowledge, Emily.”
The problem was that Surd was right. I had figured out what was being offered. The only thing that could improve on this knowledge would be a mass spectrometer and some magnetic resonance to count the carbons in the chains that made up the fatty acids in each oil. I estimated that it would take at least two to three decades. before I could do a first try on primitive analytical machines. I needed to invent vacuum tubes first.
Soap. I had lusted after real soap since the day after I escaped from the breeding farm all those years ago. When you combine lye and oils made up of the right fatty acids, the result would be soap after two to four rotations of curing time. If you cooked it, it would cure faster but it had to be watched every second, which is why I didn’t care for the hot process route. I liked things that cooked themselves when it came to household items.
“There’s also a method for making primitive-grade sulfuric acid that’s so easy that you will have a cow, Emily, and we know you would never think of it,” Surd tempted.
“Can I tell you tomorrow night?" I asked. "I want to think about this."
“Alright,” Surd beamed, “I will return tomorrow night. How about sachertorte and coffee? And maybe Ariadne auf Naxos at the Volksoper?”
“Are you trying to bribe me with food and opera, Surd?” I demanded, floored by gods dangling food and entertainment from a dead planet in front of me as motivation.
“In a word, yes. In all your existences as a human, you have always loved good food and good music. These have proven to be good motivators for you where other methods have failed or wouldn't work in the first place. Of course, I'm going to use the method that has worked best for you. Erhonsay was right. Targetted bribery and plain dealing are the best."
“The lack of understanding on how to handle your own creations is incomprehensible to me,” I said honestly. “How did you gods get this so wrong initially?”
Surd sighed. “You are certainly smart enough to understand some of the problems gods face when trying to adjust reality through proxies such are yourself. Less intelligent prophets and revelators are easier to manage with fear, though some can be managed through the desire for fame and power, or by being awed by the divine nature. It was the latter that Mugash used when she overawed you every time she approached you.
“Smart prophets like you, Emily, are difficult to manage. Smart prophets don’t respond well to fear. Look at the muddle with Jonah. The most intelligent prophets also have a very high rate of suicide. It’s one of the reasons gods shy away from using highly-intelligent sapients in these roles.
“Threats also tend to backfire. Just look at the mess with Job. He never did deliver the desired results, which would have been the conversion of the entire Arabian peninsula to the worship of Jehovah. Losing all he loved in life not only ruined him as an effective prophet, but he went insane in the end. The scripture he wrote became a classic of ancient Earth literature but as a prophet, he was a failure.” She shook her head and looked sad.
“Why can’t you just create a prophet programmed to follow divine commands?” I wanted to know. It seemed like a reasonable way to handle the problem, though it did raise the problem of autonomy and free will.
“The real problem is biology, Emily,” Surd looked at me with speculation. “You, of all people, should understand this. Most would not, not even Aylem. You are one of the few who can divorce your intelligence from your biological emotions. When a soul occupies a biological body, the biology affects the mind, always in ways that are not entirely predictable. While we can know the outcome of all the possible timelines for a living being, we can’t predict which timeline will collapse to become history.”
“If you know the momentum of a particle…,” I began.
“Then you can’t predict the position, but if you know the position, you can’t predict the momentum,” Surd finished. “Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is just a subset of the laws of most realities.”
“You mean there are realities where the uncertainty principle doesn’t apply?” I asked, fascinated by the ramifications.
“Yes,” Surd sighed. “You are such a nerd, Emily. You’re already speculating what it might be like. I’ll tell you what those realities are like. They are very boring. There’s no fun in them because everything is predictable. When you exist with no seeming end, uncertainty is what makes existence interesting. From the fish face you’re making, I can see you understand.”
“Damn,” I muttered, as it sunk in that gods acted to avoid boredom. The concept of endless boredom was too big to wrap my mind around, but it was as frightening as the nothingness of the abyss.
“Making a controllable sapient being is problematic," Surd continued. "We made the Cosm to be more biddable, but their creativity is one of the things we had to sacrifice to do so. The Cosm will never conceive of a universe without the divine, unlike the many humans on Earth who lost their faith when confronted with scientific knowledge. The Cosm will never birth anyone like a Nietsche or a Buddha. So, no, a completely-controllable prophet or any other incarnated soul is out of the question, not if we want uncertainty.”
“Let me get this straight,” this made my head hurt. “What you’re telling me is that I and other sapient beings have free will because gods don’t like to be bored.”
“That's a rather blunt and inelegant way to put things, but yes, your statement is not untrue at your level of understanding." Surd smiled as she tried to radiate being helpful.
Damn gods. I hated that whole inscrutable thing. My conclusion was not untrue at my level of understanding? Oh, gag me.
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Emily, Weirgos, Harvest season, 9th rot., 7th day to Omexkel, Cold season, 1st rot., 1st day
I made a mistake in the morning. I let Imstay King and Kamagishi talk me into making an appearance before the Lord Holders. I had never seen all the ruling lords together in one place before. Most, though not all, were silverhairs.
I spent an entire bell listening to the Lord Holders heap polite abuse on the king’s head for presenting the revised law as a done deal. When the bells rang for the third bell, I decided I wanted to ask Lord Gunndit a question.
Lord Gunndit was the biggest of the Lord Holders. The male Lord Holders all looked diminished when standing or sitting next to Katsa haup Gunndit. I still wasn’t used to her. Katsa didn’t visit the shrine enough for me to lose my apprehension of her. I think she would like to get to know me better, given that I live with her mother, but she also is aware of my discomfort. I feel bad about that because she’s been at the forefront of trying out some of my ideas, like planting sugar beets and now setting up to harvest maple syrup once the cold starts to retreat later in the season. She’s also expanded her flax fields because of the demand for paper and is planting glayon vines in the wastelands for rubber.
Despite being a scary mage adept, I wanted to ask Katsa a question about the plant oils she made. She was one of the two big producers of olive oil in Foskos. All the olives were grown in Gunndit and Black Falls. Olive trees didn’t grow north of Aybhas.
I ran a little experiment during the break. I decided to stare at Katsa from my chair between Kamagishi and the king. While I stared, I would focus on thinking about wanting to talk with her. It took about five breaths before she started looking around the room. She looked at all the silverhairs first before her eyes landed on me. She then looked surprised and walked over.
“I could feel your intent,” she was amazed as she sat down.
“I was just focusing on wanting to talk to you, Revered One. You’re the one who felt my thoughts since I don’t have any magic. Regardless, it was an interesting experiment.”
“So, what did you wish to discuss, Great One?” Katsa hunched down in her chair to be at my eye level.
“What would it take to get oil from the pine nuts of the blue thin-needle pine tree?” I asked. “I confess I’m not even sure which tree it is. I just know that I want some of its oil.”
“You have a use for blue thin-needle pine nut oil?” Katsa looked intrigued. I caught Lord Truvos lurking in the background looking worried that we were speaking.
“Yes, I do. Does anyone make this oil?”
“How much do you need?”
“I’ll guess about five flasks by the fourth rotation.”
“No one makes pine nut oil, at least not yet, but I’ll get right on it when I get home,” Katsa took the bait. “It will be a good cold season project for people,” she lifted her head and smiled at Lord Truvos. He just shook his head and walked off, muttering. I found their good-natured rivalry entertaining.
“When you get it made, can you ship it to me at the Building Shrine? Send the bill to your mom.” If I could get pine nut oil, I would have at least one substitute for olive oil. I was beginning to get excited about making the electrolysis tank with Huhoti. I saw a lot of lyes in my future, pardon the pun.
The king let the Lord Holders complain about their lack of franchise until the fourth bell. Then he rose and signaled for silence.
“I hear and sympathize that you have been given no opportunity to have a say about the changes in the laws. My lords, I was not given any say either. This revision of the law is at the command of the gods. You have all seen the Fourth Scripture of Emily and know what is in it, so you know that this command to change the law is undeniable. The gods demanded we normalize justice and punishments for all sapient beings. We have made our first attempt at doing so.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“This is not the final version of the law revisions because we must now test the law itself through use. We will go slow and not rush any legal sentences, especially those which involve any physical punishments of the non-Cosm races. Every sentence will be reviewed in Is’syal until we get all the problems with the new law smoothed out. We will revise the law as we go, and fix it as we find the sticking points. It is the best we can do given our obligation to follow the will of the eleven gods.”
“Why does this have to be a big rush?” complained Lord Kas, who was the last of the old conservatives. “I still see no reason to be in such a hurry.”
“Salicet,” Imstay looked at Lord Kas with an unreadable look.
“What?”
“Salicet,” Imstay repeated. “That is why we will not take our time with this. The gods want changes and they want them now. Not following the will of the gods when a prophet is active can result in immediate disaster. Just look at what happened to Salicet.
That little speech shut the big complainers down and then Imstay spent the mid repast schmoozing all the discontented Lords, charming them and flattering them, and making them feel appreciated, despite the need to rush the revised law into use. I had to reevaluate my take on King Used Car Salesman after watching him work over his Lord Holders.
We left the mists of Weirgos and its waterfalls for Omexkel two days later. It only took a bell to follow the river north to the Building Shrine. I kept thinking bad thoughts of making a snowboard and using it to freestyle down that logarithmic continuous roof spiral on the Shrine of Giltak. Aylem overheard my thoughts and warned Raoleer not to let me make any sleds until my shoulder was completely well. Damn killjoys.
On the other hand, the Coldtide Festival held by the Coyn of Omexkel was amazing. Aduda was home from teaching in Is’syal and Boi and Koifu joined him in showing me a good time. The different craft groups among the Coyn set up stalls like the ones you find at Shinto temple festivals in Japan. Some groups sold food and some put on entertainment. Roaleer sponsored a contest for the group that presented the best song and dance worship sketch dedicated to Giltak.
We all had a very good time except Aduda who left me sad when the evening was over. He walked me back to the cute little house the shrine built me and confessed that he loved me. I had to tell him I already was waiting for someone else. It was sad and painful for both of us since I feel he has been a good friend.
While trying to sleep later that night, I had to wonder if Tom had seen the back of the bench in the garden. Was there a message waiting for me there? I checked before I left for Weirgos but there was nothing. Could he even get to the bench when the garden was snowed in for the season? Regardless, it would not make any difference for me in the short term. I would be leaving for Mattamukmuk in two days. I wouldn't be able to resume my search for Tom for at least two-to-three rotations. First, we had to take care of Mattamukmuk.
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Emily, Aylem, and Asgotl, Cold season, 1st rot., 4th day to 2nd rot., 8th day
Leaving Twee in Hutoti's competent hands for learning about iron and steel, Aylem, Asgotl and I left for Mattamukmuk. We had an eagle escort over the pass between Omexkel and Eagle Territory and then along the north fork of the Rig River until we reached the Naver Range on the east side of the Blue Mountains.
We stopped briefly at the Naver Aerie to meet Asgotl’s mother. It was obvious she was scared of Aylem but dismissive of me. I didn’t mind. I already knew that Asgotl’s mother wasn’t thrilled about Coyn, especially the ones who had fled the warfare in Yuxviayeth and set up homesteads of refugees along the east face of the Naver Range. She thought the aerie was providing too much aid to the Coyn farmers. She wanted them gone from the neighborhood. It was a good thing that the other griffins in the aerie felt otherwise.
When we were done with Lipkwatl, Asgotl’s mom, we located the refugee Coyn settlement and landed about a quarter of a wagon-day away, in a pleasant snow-carpeted mountain meadow. Aylem set up camp while Asgotl went to speak with the local Coyn. The griffin carried an offer from the new Lord Yuxviayeth, who was Lord Esso’s younger brother. The offer was the construction of both a chapel shrine served by priestesses of Mugash and Surd, plus a trade road up to Capani, the seat of the holding. The new grain road over the mountains to Yant started in Capani, so the farmers of Naver would be able to sell grain to Foskos if Lord Yuxviayeth built them a road.
The new Lord Holder wanted the Coyn farmers who had fled Yuxviayeth to come back to their farms, which he would restore to them. If some of them wanted to stay on their Naver homesteads, then he would help to extend shrine services in the area. He was also inquiring throughout the kingdom after Naver Coyn who had been enslaved in Foskos and buying them. Then he freed them and sent them back to their former homes.
If the Coyns’ homes had been destroyed, then the newly-built chapel shrine of Surd in Capani housed and fed the freed Coyn while they helped them find their families, any remaining property, and new homes and jobs if needed. Sometimes the returning Coyn had to share quarters and eat at Surd’s Table, but no one went hungry and no one lacked a roof over their head or warm clothes and blankets against the cold.
The outreach to the Yuxviayeth Coyn was a big experiment, initially proposed by Lord Fusso haup Ark’kos. The motivation behind the project was to show the more contrarian Lord Holders that an agricultural economy was sustainable with freed Coyn, both as farm owners and as farm laborers. Aylem told me that Imstay King and Lord Bobbo had their fingers all over this project as well. Imstay just kept surprising me lately.
While Aylem set up camp, I sat on my hands with nothing to do. Aylem wouldn’t let me help at all. I was too small and slow for Her Royal Majesty on getting things done. At least she was a decent camp cook. That mattered because she did all the cooking. All the dishes were too big for me to handle. Aylem looked very pleased with herself as she kept me from contributing even a smidge of work. I was disgusted but I wasn’t angry since it was clear she was just having a little fun at my expense.
As far as teasing went, her ribbing me was harmless, and it got Aylem to smile for a change. Some of her confidence had returned but Aylem the Glum still needed to lighten up. Lyappis had a long talk with me before we left for Mattamukmuk about the care and feeding of Aylem on this trip. Aylem was still being too hard on herself and carrying a lot of doubt around as baggage.
Lyappis was hoping the trip could be a good confidence builder for Aylem. It would be Aylem’s first trip without Lyappis to fall back on. I got cautioned to be a positive and supportive presence for Aylem while traveling, so I put up with Aylem teasing me.
The irony was painful.
“Are those nips on that grill?" I asked after one bell of boring inactivity. Tired of sitting in a tent with nothing to do, I wrapped myself in Aylem's flying cloak, which I dragged over to the fire pit she made.
“Oh, certainly," she smiled as she fried big fillets of trout in a giant skillet. I was curious about where she got the eggs and flour for the breading.
She looked a little sad, “Emily, I paid a horrible price when I acquired creation magic. Having been saddled with another half hand of being too big, I thought that now I had suffered for it, I should not be too shy about using it. After all, the damage has been done. So I created the eggs and the flour and the skillet and the cooking oil too.”
Then she gasped, “Oh, dammit, Emily. I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to read that thought.”
“I know you didn’t,” I shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it. That’s not to say I like it. I don’t, but it’s impossible to keep someone like you from passive reading. I’m not upset.”
“Your aura says you’re not happy about something.”
“Okay, miss magic nosey-pants, I admit I’m feeling grumpy again, for the seventeenth time this afternoon, but not because you passively read a thought that you physiologically can’t stop yourself from doing.”
“Grumpy?” she prodded.
“Grumpy,” I grumped. “While you’ve been playing girl guide, I’m been freezing my toosh off in that tent over there, bored out of my mind for the last bell.”
Aylem’s fish face was epic. Then she regained her composure. “I packed your guitar and your music. I also packed that book you’ve been reading on the Tirmarrans.”
“And these are hiding where?”
“In Asgotl’s saddle bags that I haven’t unpacked yet.” She smiled.
“And Asgotl is where?”
“Oh.”
I enjoyed the second fish face, which was even better than her first. It was a nice way to pay her back for not letting me help in camp.
She destroyed me when she served up her camp version of fish and chips using fried trout and nips. She was so proud of herself. The food was tasty too. I think the girl liked to cook but no one would let the Ice Queen into the kitchen to play.
I thought I would die laughing when Aylem created a bottle of old-label Sarson’s malt vinegar, which was a famous brand in England and the traditional sauce for fish and chips. That set us up to sing the "don't throw your trash in my backyard" round for far longer than we should have. Then we sang everything else we knew until way past our bedtime.
That first night in the Naver mountains set the tone for the rest of the trip. Camping every evening ended up being a lot of fun. We even got Asgotl to sing with us. He’s not bad.
It took five days to fly to Mattamukmuk, and that included the two attacks on us as we crossed Impotu. The attacks were laughable because Aylem has no peers. She was also no longer exhausted from turning the rocks under Salicet into a giant sodium-metal hydration bomb. She was feeling charitable, so she created a wind that blew the Impotuan mounted cavalry away from us. Egos were likely slain, but no lives were taken. It was a very class act on Aylem’s part. She made it appear effortless. She even looked a little smug afterward. The Impotu fireballs couldn’t even reach us.
We flew over the northern end of Mattamesscontess, which was mostly a mixed-pine and deciduous forest. An ancient mountain range ran along the border between Impotu and its neighbor to the southeast. Only a few scattered settlements lined the Mattamesscontess south slope.
The mountains grew as we traveled east until no settlements were possible and the passes never lost their snow, even in the Growing Season. Suddenly, the slopes vanished into the waters of the strait between the mainland and the Island of Alkinosuk. The day was clear and the smudge of the city of Mattamukmuk was visible across the strait. The white square-rigged sails of ships dotted the strait and the seas to the north and south of the giant island.
Asgotl landed in the same square I landed at during my first visit here. A foreign silverhair on a griffin landing in the square got us a lot of attention, especially since griffins were uncommon on the east coast.
My presence was also a crowd magnet. Several people in the square started yelling for someone to arrest Aylem for bringing a Coyn into the city.
The scene was similar to my previous visit. Temple guards and clergy boiled out of the temple. The same young priest who threw me down the stairs came running out, “Hey, get that Coyn filth out of here, and...erk…,” his mouth kept flapping for a moment but no more sound came out. He floated upward in front of an annoyed Aylem on Asgotl.
“Hey,” I waved at him from my perch in front of Aylem, “remember me? Have you folks destroyed those two crystals yet, as I told you to?" I heard my voice echo around the square.
He started pointing at me, panicking, and trying to get away. The tableau quieted the crowd.
“Let him go, Aylem,” I asked. “He was just doing his job, though not as politely as he could have.”
“I do not savor bad manners,” the Ice Queen pronounced so every soul in the square could hear. Aylem used a small bit of her voice magic by injecting a sliver of fear into what she said. I know I shuddered at her words. Aylem was being scary and I was scared.
“Sorry,” Aylem whispered in my ear in reaction. “Wish peace charms worked on you.”
Then the Ice Queen sat up with windswept hair streaming in a halo around her head, “The chosen prophet of this age, the Blessed Emily, is once again before you. She told you last season to destroy the Great Crystals used to make charm gems of control and compulsion. You did not listen. With the power given by the gods, the Prophet Emily destroyed Salicet, the largest city in the world less than two rotations ago. You were promised a similar fate if you did not destroy the two crystals here at your shrine.”
Aylem stopped speaking and instead held up a hand. The hand began to glow until no one could stand to look at it. Then the ground shook and a pillar of flame formed between us and the temple.
“Gods,” I screeched, suddenly frightened again.
*It’s just a natural gas seep that I helped to the surface,* Aylem mindcast because the flaming funnel of the fire pillar was too loud. *I’ll let it burn for a little longer to get our audience good and upset. That will help us with taking over the Assembly too.*
Aylem watched and waited, and listened to the screams from the crowd. Then the column of flame vanished.
“Where are the high priestess and the elder I spoke with last season?” I shouted as Asgotl started walking up the temple steps.
A man appeared, kowtowing to us, wearing the gold collar and the staff I last saw with the high priestess.
“Esteemed visitors to our temple, the two you mention were removed from their offices as clergy and imprisoned for their crimes as religious impostors and frauds,” the new high priest said.
“You are no high priest,” Aylem cranked up the power in the Voice. “You lack the blessing of even the singly endowed in your aura. You are an impostor. As an avatar of Tiki, God of the Heaven and of Time, I, Aylem Nonkin, strip you of your magic as a punishment, and as a warning to others that the gods will not tolerate those who impersonate their clergy, all of whom bear at least one god-endowed blessing.”
The fake priest screamed, clutching his head. Then, he passed out.
Aylem got off Asgotl, and then walked to face him, “Take Emily far enough that she won’t be affected.”
“Yes, boss,” he took off with me still in the saddle.
“Hey, wait! How about consulting me on this, folks,” I protested. Asgolt didn’t even flick his ears.
I gave him the hand signal to turn around and then land, but he ignored me. He finally banked and circled so we could see the temple, now a wagon-day distant. To my surprise, it exploded. After several long moments, Aylem flew up and joined me on the saddle.
*They resisted me. They tried to stop me with magic and military force from entering the temple. Poor fools.*
“So, Boom?” I thought as loud as I could. I wondered if the crystals were destroyed yet.
*The crystals, all of them, are no more,* Aylem purred. *Now let’s find some dinner and a place to sleep. This should be fun.*
Aylem had some interesting ideas about what constituted fun while staging a three-revelator invasion of a foreign capital.
* Sorry about not warning you when Asgotl took you away from the temple,* Aylem explained. *I wanted to drop my restraints on power. I’m afraid that it would injure you or maybe even kill you, which is why I wanted you at a distance.*
I wondered why she felt she needed to drop the barriers around her power. Aylem spent about a quarter of her magic suppressing her power around the clock. If she didn’t, mages would become mindless minions in the face of her overwhelming presence and lesser beings would pass out. The weakest beings, the young, and the elderly, all risked death.
*Remember our strategy for us to scare the Mattamukans? I have found that my unrestrained power is quite effective at emptying bladders and stomachs. It's me at my scariest, I believe. It’s certain to leave many people terrified of us. Let’s have some fun with this, Em. Let’s go find the best and most expensive eatery in the city and have a big dinner for all three of us.* Then she laughed with a nasty grin.
Asgotl took us to the big square where all the government offices were concentrated. Ignoring the Assembly House, Aylem walked Asgotl up the steps of the city governor’s castle. She waved her hand and destroyed the front doors so Asgotl could walk in. The griffin ignored the guards at the entryway and strolled down the center hallway to a central reception counter, talons and claws clicking on the stone floors. The two guards and liveried clerks stood frozen like deer in headlights.
Aylem was enjoying herself, “I require food, a lot of it and the best quality, with many signature dishes. Where is the best place in the city?" She didn't bother to dismount. I found myself grinning with her.
“Housen Inn,” a young silverhair woman in a clerk’s robe directed. “Go back three corners toward the temple on the main road west, starting at our steps, and turn right at the third corner. The Inn is a four-story stone building with white marble facings. It’s five corners down from the right turn, on the left side of the street.”
Aylem turned Asgotl around and we left the building, walking on Asgotl’s back to the inn. It was an amazing building. It reminded me of the palace buildings in a Medieval Chinese city, with the red tile roof and the pretentious stairs to the front entrance. It was owned by some clan of snotty Mattamukan merchants. They were mere fleas in Aylem’s eyes. She was now in full Ice Queen mode and hamming it up.
Billowing smoke and flames from the temple formed the backdrop on the hill behind the inn. Aylem hopped down and strode up the steps like she owned the place. She spoke to the groveling dining room host at the door. Everyone within line of sight heard her.
“I require a floor of your establishment for myself, the Blessed Asgotl, and the Prophet Emily. Send up a plate of every one of your specialty dishes, wine, and hot sweet tea in a Coyn-sized beaker. The griffin will require four kettles of your freshest raw meat or freshest fish. Use dining couches for myself and the prophet. I do not wish to be disturbed while we eat, but if the city governor comes to hear terms for the city’s surrender, send him up. Now, which floor is available?"
I couldn’t hear the poor inn host answer Aylem but she didn’t like what he had to say. He screamed in pain when she pinched his earlobe. Then I felt a wave of magic pass through me. It left me wanting to run as far away from Aylem as I could get.
“I felt that flinch, Grandma. Can you ignore Aylem for now, Em?” Asgotl asked. “I think Queen Big Foot over there forgot about shielding you.”
The doors of the inn were now filled with people trying to flee the restaurant. Aylem threw a translucent barrier around the building to keep the cooking staff from escaping. "The inn staff is not allowed to leave," Aylem's voice echoed down the street. "Any customers should go home now."
She stepped back out onto the stoop and waved at us, "Fourth-floor balcony in the back, Asgotl. There are double doors for you there. See you there in a moment." She vanished back inside. We flew to the backside of the building and landed on the balcony.
Panicked floor attendants ran up to us trying to be composed. “If the Great Ones would please follow me,” a middle-aged man wearing the inn's livery motioned. Staff members in the hallways ran past us in both directions with arms full of white goods or cleaning supplies. Some were escorting other customers away from our floor.
One pompous silverhair lady started complaining about being more important than anyone and that she was not going to move. They carried her out after gagging her while looking at me and Asgotl in trepidation.
Aylem arrived on the fourth floor like Elizabeth Taylor meeting Rex Harrison in Rome in the movie "Cleopatra." She managed the same wow factor without the need for any fancy Hollywood props. Damn, that gal could make an entrance. Being huge and deliberately leaking power, the world circled around her at the moment.
“My food?” she demanded.
“This way, Great One,” an attendant walked to a set of double doors and threw them open. Inside were two lounges heaped with cushions, set up on either side of a low table filled with steaming platters of food. A row of kettles filled with raw meat lined one wall. We settled in and then Aylem threw the food servers to wait in the hallway.
“Want to bet on how long it takes for the city governor to show up?” Aylem was enjoying this.
“Nope, I hate losing at gambling so I don’t gamble,” I stated.
“Oh!” Aylem smiled with malevolent glee, “there is no Coyn-sized cutlery for you.”
“Aylem, there are no Coyn on this island,” I pointed out.
“Wrong answer, Emily,” she wagged a finger at me. “The point is not to get cutlery. The point is to be as unreasonable as possible. You may want to take notes. Now watch my example. Service,” she bellowed.
She waited for one of the servers to run in and then kowtow in front of her. “What sort of low-class street-food stall are you folks running here?” the Ice Queen demanded. “How can you claim international fame when you aren’t even prepared with dishes appropriate for the prophet to dine off of? Well? What are you waiting for? Go, find the prophet dishes she can use. Don't forget a prong! She's not some rustic barbarian who doesn't know any manners.”
She watched the poor guy flee the room to find Coyn-scaled dishes that might not exist on the entire island of Alkinosuk. Aylem was having too much fun.
The fun disappeared when soldiers surrounded the building and then tried to storm our dining room. When the door got kicked in, Aylem waved her right hand in the air in an annoyed fashion and everything but me, her, and Asgolt froze.
Aylem looked annoyed.
I looked around, feeling a bit disconcerted. “What did you do to them?” I asked.
“They are fine,” she shrugged. “I cast stasis on everything within two blocks. Now I need a messenger,” she unfroze a lady soldier with a buckler and a cutlass. The gal ran a step in her leather armor before stopping her forward momentum. She looked around and realized she was at Aylem’s mercy. Her kowtow was so fast that her grieves chipped the tiles and the buckler ended up rolling across the floor.
"Soldier," Aylem said in a bored voice, "bring me the city governor, the speaker of the Assembly, and the Admiral of the Alkinosuk pirate fleet – I think you call it a navy – and if they are not here in front of me before the sun goes down, we will start the destruction of this city with the Assembly House. I will see all three of them or the fate of Mattamukmuk will be the same as Salicet.”
Aylem had so much fun with this. After she sent the soldier with her message, she cast compulsion on all the soldiers sent to apprehend us. They marched out into the middle of the street in their squad formations, dropped their weapons, and then took off their armor and clothes until every one of them was standing at attention in their underwear.
The three essential politicians of Mattamukmuk declined Aylem’s invitation. They did not show up until Aylem was ready to destroy her ninth building along the government square. The city governor’s castle and the Assembly House were already in ruins. Aylem was taking her time and proceeding with great dramatic flair. I was watching from Asgotl’s back. She made the three tardy officials kneel in the street in front of our inn overnight. After that, Aylem, Asgotl, and I partied as loudly as we could for as long as I could stay awake.
The pirate Republic of Alkinosuk surrendered in the morning. Then the strategic weapon of mass destruction known as Aylem insisted on going shopping. We flew home loaded down with cotton fabrics that were usually imported through the Sea Coyn merchants at the Uldlip trade fair. We got back to Aybhas with a day and a half to spare before Arma’s wedding.