(Continued from installment 2.83)

Tom, Aybhas, Planting Season, 5th rot., 10th day

After Flea's plea, we decided to ask Asgotl for a ride to the chapel shrine. Visible guard in tow, Emily disappeared down a hallway to talk with the fire victims still on cots lining the walls. A healer I remembered from my stay for chilblains took me to the room where Gerta was staying.

Gerta was a mess. She had a room of her own with a trainee to help her. There were slings on both arms. Under the blankets, I could tell that one leg was splinted up to her hip. A hardened leather shell was bandaged onto the back of her head. Her face brightened up when she saw me.

"Py'oask! You're here! The old Princess said you were south of Foskos in the land of the lizard people."

"Trainee," the healer motioned to the door, "these two need to talk." The trainee and healer left, closing the door behind them. I sat on the end of the bed since there were no Coyn-scaled chairs to sit on.

"The Holy Lisaykos told me you jumped out of a burning building," I looked at my old friend and former lover. "I'm glad you survived. The old Princess said you almost died from hitting your head."

"I couldn't believe it, Py'oask, when the Princess High Priestess came to talk to me. She was so big, it was scary at first. Then she did the calming magic on me." She stopped and then looked at me with big eyes. "It's true, isn't it? The cat god really came and blessed you. Do I have to bow at you now and call you Revered One, Py'oask?"

"Screw that nonsense," I growled. "Don't bother unless there are Cosm who might overhear. Those are their rules, not ours."

"But Py'oask," she frowned at me, "a god really blessed you. That's huge! Another Coyn got recognized by the gods! The Cosm can't claim to be the blessed race anymore, and lord it over everyone else because of it. I'll be happy to revere you in public under the noses of all the Cosm all the way to the grave, just to stuff it up their asses. What I don't understand, Py'oask..." She looked perplexed.

"Is why Galt blessed a rake like me?" I filled in what she must be thinking.

"Well, yeah," she looked embarrassed.

"Why did the god of knowledge, justice, destiny, and wrath choose to bless the bed hopper and despoiler of thousands of innocent young maidens, the breaker of hearts, and lover of multitudes?" I turned and displayed my best profile with dramatic flair for Gerta, looking at her from out of the side of my eyes.

"Well, you said it, not me, breaker of many hearts," she gave me a disgusted look but laughed at the same time. "The number of women you've bedded without a slave owner's consent probably exceeds, what? Two hundred? Three hundred? A different lover in every town and holding?"

"Oh, please, I was not that bad," I protested, rolling my eyes.

Gerta laughed at me, "Not according to your bragging down at the Surd Hall. My, who took the spice out of you? Are you really bedrolling that little prophet girl? I didn't take you for someone who chased children, Py'oask." She suddenly sounded stern and disapproving.

"In another life, we were married, Gerta. She was the only woman I could ever be faithful to." I was suddenly serious, too. "I've never talked about this to anyone before, Gerta, but I'm a reborn person. I never mentioned it because I knew no one would believe me."

Gerta's jaw dropped so far down that it threatened to detach.

"I'm serious, Gerta. Em and I were married in a previous life, on a different world called Earth. I met her, and she was the other half of me I never knew was missing. She still is. I think I've been looking for someone to replace her all the years I've lived here, which is why I never settled on any one woman. None of them were my Emily. I started leaving her letters last year. When she showed up lost in front of your bathhouse just before Coldtide, I wanted to take her back to the Shrine so I could tell her who I was. Her wraith shadow prevented that. I didn't know back then that one of the invisible wraiths is always following her."

"You're serious," Gerta was gobsmacked. "But she's a kid, at least in this life. And I know you like tall, busty women."

"She was a tall, busty woman in our previous life," I sighed. "I'm not going to leave her because of that. Besides, she is currently sixteen or seventeen. She's not a kid, and there's an old brain inside that young body, Gerta. Flat doesn't matter if it's the woman I love inside."

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"Alright, imposter, what have you done to my friend Py'oak because you are not him."

I laughed, "I must sound insane to you, Gert."

"You do, but we've known each other long enough that I can tell you're not spinning me a tale," she shook her head. "Py'oask, the rumors about what happened to you are wild. The scary one is that you rode up to the Shrine one day, and the healers took you away, never to be seen again. Another one is that the Cosm banished you to the land of the lizard people."

I started laughing, "Oh dear, oh my, that's funny, Gerta. Both of those have pieces of the truth in them."

"What?!"

"Funny story, Gert! I snuck into the east garden of the Shrine, thinking Emily might be in her bedroom and sang a love song under her window. She wasn't home, but the old Princess was and she heard me. Her bedroom is next door to Emily's. As I was leaving the garden, the old lady almost caught me. To hide, I got into the bushes next to a Cosm house and thought about making love to Emily back on Earth. That's an old trick of mine to dodge getting caught violating curfew. If I'm thinking of sex, then a mage looking for me will pass over me because it's normal for a guy to be thinking normal horny male thoughts. And that's what happened, but then I fell asleep in the snow. That's when the cat god came. He appeared to me as a big fluffy black cat with a white bib and mask, and woke me up. Then he followed me back to the lodging house. I thought he was just a strange cat but that's when he blessed me."

"There's no way that happened," Gerta protested. "You're whitewashing the walls, boy."

"Gerta, that's really what happened. Do I need to call a priestess in here and have her cast compulsion on me to tell the truth? I'll do it?"

"Damn, you're serious."

"I'm pulling this river barge straight, Gert. It's what happened. I woke the next morning with chilblains."

"I heard about that. I thought it served you right for chasing some girl's bed on a snowy night."

"I got sent home to the Villa, and they sent me to the local chapel shrine of Mugash because I couldn't walk. The healers went insane because they could see the blessing forming in my aura, so they told the Shrine of Galt. I was shocked when the Holy Kamagishi, High Priestess of Galt, arrived to talk to me. She said I would be sent to Is'syal so she and several other High Priestesses could figure out why I got blessed by Galt. One of them would have been the Holy Fassex."

"No!" Gerta found that just as scary as I did.

"I figured I had only one last chance to get to Emily before I got trapped by all these High Priestesses. I thought I would get caged, just like I thought Emily was caged by the Cosm mages. Even though my feet were still messed up, I got a friend to get Sweeper, and I rode through the night to the Healing Shrine, right up to the north doors. What met me at the door were the cat god and the god of war in her aspect as a giant owl. This brought the old Princess and the Queen down to the doors. I thought the cat who had jumped on the back of Sweeper was just that weird cat who woke me up in the snow and followed me. Then he talked to me, Gerta. A god actually talked to me."

"What did he say?" Gerta was hanging my words.

"He thanked me for trying to protect him. You see, I thought he was just a cat and that the owl was there to make off with him and eat him. So, I had my dagger out to fend off the owl so the cat could escape. I didn't know the cat was Galt or the owl was another god. Galt thanked me for my good intention of trying to protect him from Erhonsay, and then said something like, 'My work here is done,' and vanished."

"You tried to protect the god of wrath from the god of war with your eating dagger," Gerta's face was indescribable, "in front of the Shrine of the god of healing?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what happened."

"Surd save us all! That's absurd!"

"And my life has gotten more absurd ever since."

We both heard Emily's "shave and a haircut" knock pattern on the door just then.

"Gerta, please be gentle with Emily," I insisted at a whispered volume. "Yeah, she's the prophet, but she's really shy." Then I said loudly, "Come." Gerta hid her astonished face immediately as a healer opened the door for Emily.

"Come sit next to me, Em," I kicked off my boots and moved over on the bed. Emily pulled off her boots, walked up the ramp, and sat.

"Hi, Gerta," Emily smiled tentatively, looking unsure of her welcome with one of my friends. "Lisaykos said you did remember me from the time I got lost, and you thought I was looking for the towel window."

Gerta tried to sit up to bow and started to say the ritual obeisance.

"Stop, you idiot!" Emily ordered, surprising me and startling poor Gerta. "Injured people shouldn't be doing all that obeisance nonsense, so just don't. And please don't 'Great One' me to death. It's just the three of us. My name is Emily. I'd love it if you would use it," Emily begged.

"I can manage that, Emily," said Gerta, who is good at reading people and not at all shy. "I find my ability to bow an obeisance a little constricted right now," she smiled in an open, inviting way. "Py'oask was telling the most absurd tale about defending the god of wrath from the god of war with his eating dagger."

"Weird, isn't it?" Emily smiled back. "What's even stranger is that it happened that way, and I slept through it all. He did tell you about the bit with the Queen, yes?"

"He said the Queen was there," Gerta replied. "There was more?"

"Oh my," Emily grinned. "I see someone left out some important details." Emily gave me an accusatory look and started telling the story from her perspective. We talked well past the seventh bell. The healers set up an appropriately sized table and chairs for Emily and me, and we had dinner with Gerta. Then we talked until the healers threw us out so Gerta could go to sleep. We left with Spot for the double wedding in Truvos the next day.