General Bobbo, at the palace schoolroom in Is’syal
We found the children in the middle of a geography lesson, taught by a scholar from the Library Shrine of Galt. Imstay dismissed him and focused on Opo'aba and Heldfirk, demonstrating with my paper airplane. After Imstay asked me to show how the paper was folded, paper airplanes filled the schoolroom.
Just before the fourth bell, the Queen arrived with some paper and a paper airplane. She was stunning in an embroidered purple gown to match her eyes, her hair up in a jeweled coif. Imstay spotted her immediately. They frowned at each other for a good ten or more breaths. Imstay cracked first, "paper is amazing."
"Yes. Yes, it is." She was a bit off-guard in reaction to Imstay's harmless small talk.
"Are you coming in or did you just want to hold up the door frame?" Imstay sent a paper airplane towards her. She caught the airplane and sent it back.
"Well, it did seem to be a rather noble doorway," she replied, putting on her court face and regal air. "I was impressed with its dignity and bearing." Opo'aba giggled and Heldfirk stated: "Mom's being weird again."
Aylem sat on the edge of the teacher's table, "I see I didn't need to bring paper. I didn't foresee that you would interrupt their school time." She frowned at Imstay for doing so.
"Yes, I should not have done that," Imstay conceded. "So that little Coyn with the head injury came up with this paper stuff? Is she really a Coyn? I've never seen one this smart before."
"There's no doubt she's a Coyn. She is so smart that it's scary."
"Is there enough money in the treasury to compensate her for her losses?" Imstay asked.
"Are you serious? Even if you compensate her, I don't know if you could meet her terms for producing something afterward like instant fire." Aylem remarked. "When I asked her to make me a sky metal knife, she said the price was the emancipation of all Coyn."
"What?!?" Imstay had not foreseen such a radical request. I was shocked myself.
"I was surprised myself," Aylem admitted.
"That's ridiculous," Imstay got a bit louder. "How would all those Coyn survive? They are entirely dependent on us."
"Yet the Sea Coyn flourish in a society that excludes Cosm. Emily herself met all her own needs while living in the forest. Coyn don't need us or our magic to survive. The proof of that is Emily, who makes things that magic can't create."
"This sounds like a new variant of our usual argument," Imstay's voice was stripped of any emotion.
"Which one?" Aylem managed to say without sarcasm.
"Yes," Imstay looked her in the eye.
"Point taken," Aylem sighed and looked down.
"Did you set up Uncle Kushamar? He aired his suspicions with just a bit of a bite to his voice. I stood as still as possible and so did the children. No one had seen these two talk this seriously in years. Were they being reasonable because they had onlookers?
"If he was set up, it wasn't by me," Aylem responded in a flat voice. "What sort of beast would set up Kushamar to commit murder and mass murder? No, I don't think it was a setup. No one ever guessed he had a hidden breeding farm hidden in that gulch."
"Yes, but..."
"No, no buts please," she cut him off, pleading. "This is the point in every one of our conversations where everything falls apart; however, this time it was different."
Imstay flushed red with anger but kept his words unspoken, wondering if there was a difference. "Explain."
"If it had been winged horses, eagles, and griffins in that death pit, not a single one of our cities would be left standing from the mass bombardment of dropped boulders," she argued. "I saw the death pit at the breeding farm, Imstay. There were thousands of dead Coyn children, mostly female. It was so overboard that I vomited, as did Lynhaydras and her two guards. All of us have seen death before. But this...this was...was..." She shook her head, "I don't have words to even describe it."
Imstay looked like he wanted to say something, anything to explain it away.
"Don't say whatever it is you mean to say, Imstay," Aylem looked truly wearied. Not once did she raise her voice, which rather unnerved me. "Please just listen," she pleaded some more, hoping he would hear what she had to say for once.
She continued: "The mass murder of thousands of Coyn children is so extreme that there is no way anyone can save your uncle and the use of the charm of compulsion is a sacrilege violating the Laws of Landa. The first demands that the guilty party be buried alive. The second demands death by exhaustion.
"The shrines will not let this pass, husband. If General Lynhaydras determines that Gandrohas knew his father's breeding farm, there will be no saving him or the rest of the family either. Kushamar will be taken to the Well of Galt by the eleven High Priestesses and compelled to describe what he has done. I see no way to prevent his fate."
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She got up to leave, "I apologize for ruining what should have been some happy time spent with Opo'aba and Heldfirk." And then she was gone, leaving Imstay at a loss for words. He knew it was hopeless and did not want to admit it.
"Is Uncle Kushamar really going to be killed?" Opo'aba asked in a tentative voice.
"I fear that is what will happen, child," Imstay looked at his daughter with a face that wrenched my heart. The children loved Kushamar who had always been kind to them. Personally, I thought punishment for Lord Kushamar was long overdue. I wondered if there was any value to having Opo'aba and Heldfirk attend Kushamar's trial in the Well of Galt.
---
Lisaykos, at the Healing Shrine of Mugash
"Trust me, Emily," I told her, "boredom will be the largest obstacle in relearning how to speak. We've reverted the injured part of your brain back to the state it was at when you were learning to speak as a child. This is dangerous because it might also affect your swallow reflex. So even your food will be boring since you'll be eating only easy-to-swallow foods."
I got one of Emily's long-suffering patience looks as a reply.
"We will start with exercising your tongue by making percussive consonant sounds," I handed her a tablet with those sounds written out. "Let's get through all of these today at least once since you will be practicing them while I am gone."
Emily gave me a questioning look, so I explained: "I need to go to Is'syal for a few days. I'll leave tomorrow afternoon around the fifth bell. There's a trial for Lord Kushamar, who is one of the most powerful lords and the king's uncle. He was caught running an unregistered breeding farm where over a thousand corpses were buried in a pit." Emily flinched and swallowed hard. I can only imagine how bad her memories must be.
"He's been accused of moving boundary stones, which is punishable by fines and restitution. He is also accused of murder and attempted murder of the young tax collectors who discovered the boundary stones. Normally he could pay blood money to avoid a trial, and he's rich enough to do so because blood money settlements are expensive.
"During the boundary stone investigation, the guards of the Is'syal Citadel garrison found the unregistered breeding farm. The Coyn there were in a pathetic state and have since been removed to the nearest healing shrine for Coyn. All of them had charms of disciple plus charms of compulsion. The use of the charm of compulsion without the knowledge and approval by the Shrine of Landa is a sacrilege. The penalty is death by exhaustion."
Emily gave me a questioning look, so I explained it to her. "Death by exhaustion involves casting a charm of compulsion to run in a circle around the perimeter of the White Shrine of Landa until dead. It's a terrible way to die."
I continued: "The Citadel guards also discovered the mass grave with over two thousand dead Coyn. Since the victims were Coyn and not Cosm, the offense is cruelty, not murder; but for cruelty, scale matters. Cruelty on the scale of thousands is a capital offense and the penalty is being buried alive.
"Lord Kushamar will be taken to the Well of Galt and those of us who are high priestesses will cast the charms of compulsion and truth on him, all of us together. This ensures that the charms can not be overcome by a strong will like yours. Then we will question him as to his part in these crimes. The king will not be able to protect Kushamar as he has done in the past. So that is why I will be gone for a few days since I must witness any punishments that we decide upon.
"Wolkayrs and Thuorfosi will be staying in my chambers with you, and Tweserra and Kayseo will trade off with them when they need a break. So there will be someone with you at all times while I'm gone. So I expect you to practice these sounds until you are bored to a stupor, and after that, practice them at least five times more."
I got a new version of the face of disgust out of Emily for that last pronouncement.
"I would like to take the big clear crystal and the pink and green crystal with me to Is'syal to get an appraisal on them. I believe you would do well to know what others think they are worth. I did notice that look on your face when Aylem offered to buy the pink and green one off you. It was a face that seemed to say 'it's just a rock.' I don't like the thought that others might take advantage of you because you don't value things the same way others do. May I take them with me?" Emily gave me a funny look and then nodded.
"One more thing before we begin the tongue torture, Emily," I remarked. "I will be speaking with Raoleer, the high priestess of the Craft Shrine of Giltak, about registering paper and the pencil as new crafts, so we need to discuss soon how to divide the originator and royalty fees. The pencil should be all yours, but paper had some contributions beyond just you. So give that some thought while you're working on your sounds."
---
Emily, at the Healing Shrine of Mugash
Without Lisaykos around, her chambers felt empty despite Thuorfosi waking me in the morning and Wolkayrs' company during the day. Lisaykos was right: practicing p, t, k and b got boring very quickly. It was also frustrating because I had problems articulating those sounds. It was like my tongue did not know what to do. There was some kind of disconnect between my tongue and my brain. The tongue worked fine but it the brain itself that needed to relearn how to talk.
Nothing about talking was intuitive. I had to listen to myself carefully and pay attention to my tongue position to make sure I made the correct sound. According to Lisaykos, my ability to speak was currently as bad as an infant's. If I stopped practicing for too long during the day, Wolkayrs would call out: "I can't hear you!" He was a total nag. At least I had the run of the library and Wolkayrs had the keys. I got a lot of reading done the first two days Lisaykos was gone.
This world's technology was about bronze age so no one stayed up late unless they were magical Cosm who could make their own light. The rest of us went to bed shortly after the seventh bell at dusk and got up at dawn. The second night that Lisaykos was away, I was fast asleep with Kayseo reading in the armchair in Lisaykos's bedroom. She opened the door between the two rooms so she could keep an eye on me while not disturbing me with her light.
Unfamiliar sounds woke me up. I had no idea how late it was. I opened my eyes to the sight of Kayseo struggling with two figures who were hooded and masked in black. In horror, I watched as they stabbed Kayseo in the gut. As far as I knew, we were the only people on the fourth floor. Who would even know what had happened if I couldn't raise an alarm? I first pocketed my throwing spike from off the window sill. I blessed whatever genius made my nightgown with pockets. I then threw my broken planishing hammer through the window, hoping that made enough noise for people on the lower floors to notice.
I discovered that calcite doesn't break as easily or as loudly as glass so I didn't know if anyone heard the sound of the breaking window. I hefted my hatchet, which I always kept within reach out of habit, just like I did if I was sleeping in the forest. I must have made a strange sight standing on my bed in my nightgown and bandaged head, wielding a Coyn-scale hatchet. The pair in black laughed at me. One pulled out a wand-mounted crystal and cast what I assumed was a charm of deep sleep since I remember nothing after that.