Emily, Lord Truvos' bedroom, after mid-repast, 7th rot., 6th day
The sandwiches were yummy and the company was excellent. Kayseo and Lisaykos started talking shop about this or that technique for healing. I picked up one of the wax tablets Lyappis had left before she disappeared back to the downstairs of a manse suddenly full of unexpected guests. I was deep into remembering and writing down what Sophia Erhonsay had said when Kamagishi poked her head around the doorjamb. Lisaykos noticed this. I didn't. I was too focused on what I was doing.
"I believe she is writing it down, Sister Kamagishi," Lisaykos looked up.
"Can I come in?" Kamagishi asked timidly. That got my notice since Kamagishi and timidity were two things that did not fit together.
"Since when did you start to be meek and unsure of your welcome?" I accused. "You are the least shy and introverted member of the Convocation and here you are, meeping at my door? Oh, please. I know you w...want to ask about recording the details of a sudden cameo by the deity Erhonsay, god of war and wisdom. Well, quit hiding in the hallway and get in here." I was shaking my head as she sat on the edge of the bed.
"Here," I held out the wax tablet, "I'm done. Y...you can have it for your archives." I had edited Erhonsay's words so there was no mention of fireworks. What the Cosm didn't know, I wouldn't need to explain. I also left out the part where Erhonsay said I was the prophet because I wouldn't abuse power. They didn't need to know that and I didn't want to give history lessons on Nazi Germany. Someone else could introduce the concept of genocide to Erdos. I would not.
Kamagishi read it and then looked at me in question, "What is a mortar?"
"Blarg!" I threw my hands up in frustration. "It's a thing that destroys other things. It uses the exploding powder that destroyed my home."
"But can create delight and awe, because no object is intrinsically good or evil. Right? It is how it is used that is good or evil, as defined by sapient beings," she paraphrased me and grinned.
"I am short on patience right now, Kamagishi," I growled. "I'm unsure if I am even teaseable right now, that's how short my temper is feeling."
"I'm sorry about earlier," she hung her head. I knew she meant it.
"It w...wasn't your fault," I was honest about what happened. "The halberd w...w...was what set me off since it came attached to the scary Fassex. I don't do w...well when I see weapons. They remind me of a certain night with a f...fire." I had to stop. My hands had started their tremor and the stutter was kicking up. I closed my eyes and banished the sight of flames that were trying to invade my vision for a second time in one day.
"I think we should put the trial off until tomorrow," Kamagishi remarked with a voice full of authority as she picked up the bed tray of sandwiches and moved it to the table where Lisaykos and Kayseo were sitting. "If you are feeling like your temper is short, you will not be in the best mind to be judging a life, but it is up to you."
"T...t…t," I slapped my left thigh with my left hand in frustration. "Tomorrow would be better." I relaxed against the headboard, aware that I had been tense and it made my shoulder ache. "Kamagishi, does your brother have a complete set of the six volumes of the law here in the manse? I would like to look something up."
"Don't you think you should rest?" Kayseo asked from the table.
"I w...won't be able to, at least initially. If I am tired, I w...will fall asleep looking at the law. I can't help sleeping when I'm too tired, especially with such exciting reading as Foskan law."
Kamagishi obliged me and laughed, "I find the lists of what things are taxable particularly thrilling."
Watching Lisaykos roll her eyes was delightful.
- - -
Emily, Lord Truvos' bedroom, after the sixth bell 7th rot 6th day
"I would take you to our library here in the manse but there are all sorts of people downstairs and I'm under the impression you want to hide from the world for now," Kamagishi had a servant open the door into the bedroom for her. She had all six giant volumes of the law plus the volume on guidance for judges and recorders. They might sound huge and in size they were. Despite this, the handwriting was on a Cosm-scale and the vellum pages were much thicker than paper, so the amount of law wasn't proportional to the size of the codices. Tolstoy's War and Peace was much longer than the laws of Foskos.
As Kamagishi piled the books on the foot of the bed, Kayseo gave me a stare of disapproval. I tried not to look too eager. I'm a sucker for books, even ones with law. Kayseo suspected I would stay up to read. She wouldn’t be wrong either.
"How many books does the manse have?" I asked.
"About a thousand," she sat on the side of the bed facing me. "It's one of the largest private libraries in Foskos. Not even Lord Gunndit has one as large. It takes up an entire room."
"That's tiny compared to the library at your shrine," I remembered the stacks at the Fated Shrine, 32 huge rooms full of books spaced around the great circular reading room. It was one floor down from the dome that housed the Well of Galt, partially excavated out of the basalt bedrock of the hill that Is'syal was built on.
It was smaller than the now-destroyed library in the ruins of the Shrine of Galt, in Salicet. It was once magnificent. On our trip, Galt dropped me in the center of the circular counter space in the reading room of the Salicet Library, which was a whole separate building from the domed structure of the shrine itself. The Salicet Library was the size of the palace and the entire Fated Shrine complex in Is'syal put together.
It took me some effort to move and then climb the chairs the priestess librarians used behind the counter. Then standing on the white and red marble countertop, I had to contemplate how I might get down. The distance between the floor was more than twice my height and the shrine was a place without the hope of rope.
As I considered my options, the great double doors into the reading room groaned on their hinges as they opened. A tremendously-tall silverhair in a kimono-style dressing robe entered, her long hair in a single braid down her back. Her face was lined with age, especially around her reflective amber eyes which were the same as Kamagishi's. With a flick of her hand, the charm gem lights suddenly illuminated the whole building.
Even standing on the counter, I still had to look up at her. I felt no fear since she looked more sorrowful than frightening.
"Can the girl with the golden eyes make fire?" she asked me in that funny Impotuan accent that tried to make every vowel drawn out and full of too much air.
I opened my pouch and pulled a match out of the copper box. Then I removed the striking stone from its protective leather wrapping and struck the match against it. She watched the flame with consternation. Then I blew it out. This was a library, after all, and fire inside a library was dangerous.
She got on her knees and kowtowed like someone from China, "May the gods bless you, Beloved of Galt and herald of our doom."
"May the blessings of the eleven gods be upon you, Holy One. Please get up."
"Thank you, Beloved of Galt," she got to her feet and managed to make the motion look graceful. "Our patron god woke me to come and greet you. I have expected and dreaded your coming for years. At the death of the old Emperor, I had a dream command from Galt to find a secret storage place safe from the ravages of war as a repository for our oldest and rarest books. Since then, I have removed those volumes which have no replacement, though they are only a fraction of what we have collected. May I show you what is about to be destroyed? It would be quickest if I carried you. I suggest you sit on my shoulder."
Her name was Losnana and she had been a high priestess for thirty years. She was 68 and bore the same burden of precognisance that Kamagishi had. She had been receiving visions of what was about to happen for many years. She had not been quiet about what she had seen and was now unwelcome at the Empress' court because of it.
Losnana walked me through the entire library. It was immense, bigger than Butler Library at Columbia or Bancroft Library at Berkeley. With tears in her eyes, she walked through the reading room one last time, running her hand over the round marble counter in the middle of the room.
"This has been my home for 56 years," she blotted her eyes on her sleeve. "It is a hard fate to know that one's home has been doomed for years and years more. It will be dawn soon. Let us go to my chambers where I will don my robes of office one last time. Then we shall enter the Well of Galt for the last morning prayer at this shrine."
I rode on her shoulder as she strode through the temple complex, shocking those priestesses already awake. When we entered her quarters, she placed me in her throne-like chair in her outer reception chamber. Unlike Lisaykos, she had servants, who she motioned to follow her into her inner rooms. She came back out a short time late in robes of particolored red and white. Instead of a headstall of three rolls of white wool, she wore a tall pillbox-style hat of felted red wool over an electrum veil. The hat had broad white silk laces that tied under the chin. In her hand, she bore a scepter topped with a sherry-colored topaz.
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She stopped to give each of her six servants a small coffer and directions to flee the city immediately to where their families were already hiding.
As they left, she turned to study me, "Well, herald of doom, do you have a name?"
"My name is Emily."
An eyebrow floated upward, "just Emily?" She looked amused.
"Emily Courage, Maker of Fire, Revelator of Tiki, Mugash, Giltak, and Galt," I admitted.
"Yes, the foretold prophet, who has died once already, if the rumors are true," she placed me back on her shoulder, one hand wrapped around my calves to keep me seated. "Are they true, those rumors?"
"It is true that Aylem Queen accidentally killed me and the griffin Asgotl," I replied, a little abashed. "Mugash revived me. Asgotl was revived by Gerztpul at my request and was made a revelator of Sassoo on the ninth day of the fifth rotation of the growing season."
"So many signs and the nobles of Impotu know of them because we make sure they know, but they will not heed them under this current Empress. Why is that, Prophet? Why don't the gods give us signs, here in Impotu, that the rulers can see?"
"To give signs to the contemptuous royalty and nobility of the Impotu court is like throwing pearls before swine," I said, unaware that the expression was unknown on Erdos and would be credited to the great wisdom of the Prophet Emily in the years to come. "They would not know the value of such gifts."
"Do you know, Emily, if today is my last day of this life?" she asked in a conversational voice. I had to wonder if her spine was made of adamant, she was so calm as she walked to her fate. I was in awe of her bravery.
What I needed to say to her appeared in my head, "You have a choice, Losnana, Beloved of Galt, of offense or defense. You can destroy your attackers but you will perish if you do, or you can defend yourself and choose to keep me with you while you carry out Galt's will. If you do, you will save another high priestess, who has suffered for the gods' sake, but your oppressors will also be allowed to live."
The twilight of dawn was collecting on the horizon when Losnana opened the doors to the great domed chamber housing the Well of Galt. It was twice as big as its counterpart in Is'syal, with white marble walls and alternating red and white floor tiles. The Well and the great topaz within it were surrounded by soldiers in bright red tabards and breastplates.
"You blaspheme in your own shrine, Losnana," announced a voice that I knew I had heard before. "Cosm are the only blessed race. A filthy Coyn has no welcome in this holy precinct. Soldiers, capture the Coyn and kill the sinning blasphemer."
I looked for the owner of the voice and found her. It was the Imperial Heir, Lady Arkaline Ugi, with her stunning cobalt blue eyes and that axe-blade of a nose. She wore a coat of plates covered in red velvet and gilt full-plate arms and legs. Her gilt helm looked like a cross between a Roman Empire helmet and a Renaissance-brimmed burgonet.
Arkaline took a second look at me, pointed her sword, and screamed: "You! How are alive? Soldiers, get that Coyn!"
The topaz at end of Losnana's scepter flared brighter than my eyes could stand, "You have violated the Convention of Surd," Losnana's voice boomed through the dome over the Well of Galt, "bringing weapons into this sacred space and intending violence. There are dire consequences for such actions, Heir Arkaline. I am not the Holy Mieth who knew no defense to save herself."
Every soldier who came within 20 hands of Losnana collapsed and died. After a few moments, they stopped approaching.
"Step away from the Crystal of Truth, Arkaline," Losnana commanded.
"No, I will not," the Imperial Heir sneered. "You have come to destroy this holy object and I have come to prevent you, blasphemer." The crystal embedded in Arkaline's sword hilt glowed as she swung to cast a fireball. It flowed around us as it hit Losnana's barrier. Arrows and crossbow quarrels soon joined the near-continuous fireballs.
"I will not be able to withstand this much longer," Losnana said to me. "I must end this now." The scepter topaz began to glow even brighter. Everyone, including me, was blinded by it. Then I felt Losnana draw back her arm as if she intended to throw something.
She did intend to throw something. She threw the scepter at the huge topaz in the Well of Galt. It hit the topaz and both shattered. The flying shards of the giant crystal struck the skin of the soldiers where they lacked armor since they wore only helms and cuirasses. Some fell, bleeding from the neck. Others howled in pain, clutching their limbs, stomachs or groins. The well-armored Arkaline escaped harm though she stopped her attacks for a moment.
"There is a tunnel under the library," Losnana told me, as she strode out of the domed chamber and into the vestibule. "I gave the order for the shrine residents to flee when I saw the soldiers. I wonder who let them in."
The soldiers attempted to prevent Losnana from leaving. Nothing stopped her. Her barrier magic was awesome.
"I'm surprised to find that you are a curious soul," she chuckled as arrows, crossbow bolts, spears, throwing axes, and fireballs failed against the barrier. Soldiers ran and tried to smite the barrier with their swords, dying as they did so.
Losnana kept up a stream of chat, as if nothing were happening around us, "I thought you would be fanatical, flat, single-minded, and boring, like most prophets I've read about. Your thoughts go from ordered to chaotic faster than a blink. You truly dislike being a prophet, which astounds me. And yes, you love knowledge, making things, discovering things, and finding things. There's so much in your head. I am surprised and pleased to find that you are a scholar. You also crave both adventure and a safe bed to sleep in at night. I regret I will never be able to know you. You're such a bundle of contradictions and I do love puzzles." She sighed, "What happens now, child?"
The words I needed to tell her appeared in my head.
Before I could speak, she remarked: "That was strange." She gave me a sharp sideways glance, "Your mental state felt like it jumped."
"Interesting, because I just got an instruction from the gods for you. You need to enter the library and get to the passage behind stack 177 through..."
"The third quadrant stacks, yes, of course," she was talking more to herself, "that makes a lot of sense."
The short space between the domed shrine and the larger library held the bodies of many soldiers, though I counted the bodies of two priestesses and four scholar attendants among them. Losnana's eyes teared up at the sight.
She laughed with no humor, "We had a revelator from about six centuries ago reveal that a high priestess of Galt would one day cross the passage from Well to Library, walking through the bodies of the shrine's dead with tears in her eyes. I guess I just fulfilled that. Tragic. I feel like my heart is tearing in two, for I have loved this place," she caressed the marble of a pillar as she passed it. "It is hard to lose a home of 56 years. It was a wonderful life while it lasted."
She twirled a finger and the doors opened for her.
"I will do everything to stop you, including my fire magic, if you enter the library," Arkaline shouted from behind us, at the head of more soldiers. "Just surrender to us, Losnana. Don't let your name be smeared with the loss of the greatest book collection on Erdos."
"It is you who is wrong, Arkaline Ugi," I found myself saying, and my voice was amplified. I was not in control. Someone spoke through me and it panicked me.
"When a god accepts a mortal as high priestess," my voice continued, without my acquiescence, "any assault henceforth on that person is an assault on the honor of the god. The reason the crystal of compulsion exists in the Well of Galt is to provide a means to try sacred persons in those rare events when they have erred. It was not created to become a tool to perpetuate imprisonment and slavery. If you pursue Losnana, the blame for the destruction of this place and the wrath of the Galt will be upon your head and the House of Ugi."
*Sorry, kitten,* Galt apologized inside my head, *that needed to be said out loud for the sake of the scriptures that will be written about this event.*
"Did a god just talk to you again?" Losnana asked with awe on her face.
"Yes, Galt did," I replied. "He's a very chatty god. Giltak is just as chatty."
*I am not at all like that gossiping chatterbox Giltak!* Galt shouted in my head, causing me to wince.
Losnana didn't notice that last exchange as she reacted to renewed attacks from Arkaline's soldiers. Losnana cast a barrier between us and the soldiers, and entered the main library corridor leading to the reading room. "I am running out of magic quickly," she confessed, looking worried, shutting and charming the doors behind us.
"I want to run so I'm going to shift you," she dropped me to being carried in both her arms as she ran into the reading room.
"Losnana, just leave me on the counter and go," I waved at the center of the room while listening to the sounds of the soldiers and mages trying to open the library doors outside. "I will go the same way I came, on the back of Galt. As for you, exit the hidden passage and meet with Blinda, your attendant, who is waiting for you with three mules. Travel 12 leagues south along the river and you will find an old friend who needs your help."
She put me on the counter. "So, I will survive today," she frowned. "Then, will we meet again?"
"Beyond a doubt, I will meet you in either Is'syal or Aybhas," I said as she and her surroundings began to fade from my sight. Just as the sight began to vanish, I saw the door explode inward, blowing Losnana off her feet.
I closed my eyes at the memory and hoped that she was still alive and unharmed, as I had many times since that day.
"You were there," Kamagishi broke me out of my memories. Her expression was one of reverent awe. "Please, Emily, tell me everything you can about this. All we know is that the library and shrine burned, and the upper city was destroyed by some kind of massive tornado."
"It wasn't a tornado, Kamagishi," I tried to think of how to tell her that wouldn't take too much time. "It was Galt in his aspect of Wrath, and he only destroyed the palace. He's consistent. The Impotuan soldiers tried to attack you, and he retaliated. Now they attacked his High Priestess in Salicet, and he retaliated. He didn't touch the lower city, the river port, the slums, and the slave yards. The library and shrine were already on fire before Galt arrived as the god of terrible temper tantrums. He leveled the palace and its grounds."
"I'm sorry for catching those thoughts, Emily," she plucked at her skirt, one of her nervous habits, "but I thought I caught that some books were saved? Yes?"
"Galt gave Losnana a decade to get the most important texts into a safe hiding place," I explained. "I best start at the beginning, or it will be a muddle."
"Can I get the others?" She asked, pulling her magic recording scroll and pen out of a case on her belt.
"Not today, please. Some other day. My tolerances are stripped down to nothing right now. I have nothing left."
- - -