Emily, Harvest Season, 5th rot., 7th day to 6th rot., 1st day
Ishapur and I were captured by Mattamesscontan Legionnaires while we were addressing an underground assembly of Vassu worshipers in Kwabin. I don’t know what happened to Ishapur. Moo said she released all the incarcerated followers of Vassu. I have to trust her word that that’s what happened.
Ishapur took good care of me while we traveled together, even though she talked a lot with her big Ethyl Merman voice. It was difficult to fall asleep if Ishapur talking. I hoped she survived apprehension by the city guards in one piece.
As for me, I had managed one whole day out of the splints when I was ripped from Ishapur's arms and carried off by my collar to the provincial governor's palace, struggling to breathe. Damn effing Cosm garrison girls. The city guard dragged me into what looked like a throne room and tossed me onto the floor in front of a high priestess-sized twenty-something silverhair wearing ornate formal robes of white and gold with the most impossible hair and headdress. How could she even move in that get-up? Anyway, I wasn't hurt from being thrown on the floor, thanks to Ud's shirt, but my landing did lack a certain dignity.
Despite my safe landing, I wasn't unharmed since I did have a bruised throat from where the neck of my overtunic nearly strangled me.
So that was my introduction to the Infanta Moo’upegan, face down on the floor tiles, gasping for air, and as angry as Galt in his aspect as Wrath.
“This is the Coyn you sent the city guard to capture, Exalted One,” the city guard squad leader announced, bowing from her knees.
“How amusing," a pleasant voice said from behind a fan. The ornate headdress and hair didn't even move. "What should the punishment be, squad leader, for disregarding my orders?"
“Exalted One?” the guard looked panicked. “We were to bring it alive and unharmed, and so we have, Exalted One. And here it is, in good condition, ready to do whatever you need a Coyn to do.”
“General Gowatonk, please detain this squad leader and her squad for questioning,” the Infanta waved a hand. “Now, please.”
A worried older woman in a garrison tunic and hat hurried across the room, followed by palace guards. "It will be done, Exalted One,” the General bowed and then ran back to supervise the removal of the offending city guards.
While that was happening, the Infanta rose from her throne and walked down the prescribed twelve steps to the tile floor, where I had managed to sit up and gather all my apparel bits that scattered when I landed. To everyone's surprise, she knelt before me and gently cast a healer's probe.
“I have blunted the pain but the charm will wear off in two to three bells," she smiled down at me. Then she placed her hand over her heart and bowed her head, "How should I address you, Beloved of Vassu?"
“Wait!" I snapped, not quite sure what was happening here. "Who are you and what is going on here?" My treatment by the city guards didn't match the actions of this big silverhair with the Taj Mahal on her head. What was with all these courtly Mattamesscontans and their headgear? Everybody in this town wore a hat or some kind of headdress or headgear.
“You are Emly, the Prophet of the Great Breaking," Taj Mahal Head said reverently. The other people in the room just gawked. "You are the girl with the golden eyes," Tah Mahal Head continued. "You're the Coyn who talks to the gods and makes fire without magic. Tell me, how should we address you?"
The other people in the room fell to their knees, nervously eyeing Taj Mahal Head. Then, they all kowtowed to me and stayed prostrate, with their eyes staring at the floor.
I was now accustomed to these people. It was a lost cause to get people to use my perfectly good name on Erdos. The damn Cosm always wanted a title or honorific. I might as well not even have a name, and Asgotl should add “loss of identity” to his list of occupational hazards for prophets.
“Beloved of Vassu will suffice,” I conceded. It was what all the Vassu insurrectionists used. It would be less painful just to stay with that as a title. “Please, rise and be at your ease. But tell me, who are you, why am I here, and what has happened to my colleagues?”
“What assurance do you have that this is a true prophet?” a silverhair woman in a brown damascene robe called out. “If she is this so-called prophet, have her make fire without magic!”
“Your doubts verge on disrespect. Look at her aura, Lady Goomigetcha," Taj Mahal Head said, as she reached out and picked me up gently. "This little one has ten god marks in her aura and Galt's god mark in the golden eyes he gave her. You simply need to look with your inner eye to know that this little one is the beloved of the gods."
Taj Mahal Head carried me up the 12 steps and placed me on her throne. "I dare not sit while you are with us, Beloved of Vassu." Then she knelt in front of me. Her kneeling caused all the other people to drop to their knees in the audience chamber below us. This was really getting to be over the top.
“I am the Infanta Moo'upegan nu Mattakwonk, the Empress Presumptive of Mattamesscontess," she bowed her head along with the Taj Mahal again. "I brought you here under my protection because Vassu commanded me to do so. Your friends will come to no harm. I am closing all the unofficial places of worship and reopening all the official churches of Vassu. I wish all the underground leaders of Vassu to become regular clergy. This was announced yesterday at court, but the news had not yet spread into the city because we are still preparing for the transition from the false Cragi to the Vassu and the ten other true gods."
“Vassu commanded you?” I asked in disbelief.
“Vassu has been speaking to me ever since my father exiled me to Kwabin," the Infanta's eyes looked steadily at my feet. They were weird-looking eyes – one was pink and the other was teal. "I have been waiting years for this day to come. Vassu told me about you several years ago. She said that I would be the next Empress of Mattamesscontess, but before I could claim my throne, I first needed to aid you on a god-appointed quest to rescue the last revelator mentioned in the Blessed Uaysserex's Prophesy of the Great Breaking."
“The last revelator?" I asked. How well had the prophecy spread across Erdos so that someone in Mattamesscontess could know it in detail? Did Uaysserex's revelation circulate to the Shrines in Mattamesscontess before the Cragi heresy moved in?
“The Prophesy mentions seven revelators,” Taj Mahal Head said. “The Queen of Foskos was the first. You were the second. The Princess Lisaykos haup Foskos was third. The griffin Asgotl of Naver Aerie was the fourth. The Chem kl'dr shaman Twee of Shwook is the fifth. The flying horse Spot is the sixth. I do not know how it will come about, but Vassu told me we will rescue the seventh revelator together."
I realized that the Cosm who would be with me on my pre-arranged adventure trip was none other than this imperial silverhair. It was my guess that the girl probably had a servant just for tying her shoes. She probably thought cows milked themselves and delivered dairy products prepackaged to the palace kitchens. She would be a complete liability in the wild. What were the gods thinking? I thought I'd get paired up with someone competent like Usruldes, Ishapur, or Veronteegan. Maybe Taj Mahal Head had talents I had yet to discover, but I was concerned she would be helpless at everyday tasks in the same way that palace-bred Foyuna and Lisaykos were.
I was looking forward to winning my bet with Galt over this.
The following day, as I was introduced to morning repast, imperial style, news arrived about Mattamesscontan Navy triremes skirmishing with Chem ketches south of Kwabin. While I wasn't thrilled to hear that an unnecessary naval battle might be in the offing, it was a good excuse to escape morning repast. Having the Empress Presumptive serving me every dish on her knees was just too much, and nothing I said would dissuade these people from treating me like the queen of the universe.
Of course, the palace didn’t have any appropriate cutlery for me to use. You would have thought someone dear to me had died from the sorrowful performance by Taj Mahal Head when she came to apologize for the unavoidable tragedy of giving me eating utensils used by slaves. She was emphatic that the lack of an appropriately opulent Coyn-sized prong and spoon would be a smear on the honor of the provincial palace for the rest of time. Taj Mahal Head sincerely hoped I would forgive them for this oversight.
I don’t think she understood why I started laughing. I never had the chance to explain because that was when the messenger came in with news of the skirmishes with the Chem fleet. I put on clothes that would be serviceable on a ship. I tucked my journal in its oil-cloth ditty bag inside Ud's shirt and slipped my copper box of matches into my pouch. Then, I insisted on tagging along with Taj Mahal Head, now sensibly though still opulently dressed in a naval officer's uniform. I made one argument no one could counter – I could speak the water language, and the Chem already knew me. If I told the Chem that the Kwabin Fleet would not impede the freeing of their enslaved kin, they would believe me. I could help avoid an unnecessary battle at sea.
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I was wrong about the battle. Fighting had already broken out between Chem and the Kwabin Fleet along a stretch of the Strait. Moo'upegan's trireme was attacked by three ketches before we even had a chance to hoist a ring-bell staff to ask for a parley. By the time we sorted things out and could stop the fighting, the weather had turned foul, and the ship's captain soon had sea anchors out as the ship ran before the wind. We foundered on the notorious reefs off Dunkanoag Point north of Kwabin Harbor.
I woke up in a damaged Chem ketch with just me and Taj Mahal Head onboard.
"Oh! Beloved, you're awake finally," Moo'upegan said. "I was able to find you after our trireme foundered. I found a hatch, and we spent a night on it. Then I spotted this ship. There was no one on it.”
“That must have been exhausting, having to swim to catch up with a drifting boat,” I said, “especially while carrying me so I didn’t drown. Thank you. I owe you my life.”
‘No,” Moo’upegan looked at me funny, “I flew us here.”
“Oh, you flew," I stared at my feet. "Of course, you flew. You're a silverhair with levitation magic." I laughed at how weird life was with magic users around. "Stupid me for forgetting that mages use magic."
“Are you not accustomed to mages?” Moo’upegan looked bemused by me.
“I lived by myself in the wilderness west of Foskos until two years ago. I did not grow up around magic users.”
“Really? You must tell me about it," Moo'upegan stated. "We'll have plenty of time to talk, I think, before we see land again." She looked around the Chem ketch, "I wonder if the Chem sailors all died. There was no one onboard when we arrived."
They’ll be fine,” I reassured her, “or at least better off than any Cosm or Coyn. The Chem are amphibious. So long as the water isn't too cold, they can survive any shipwreck. They just swim away and wait out the storm underwater."
“Well, that's not so bad," she looked around. "Do you know how to make this thing go?" she waved her hand at the entirety of the ketch. It was in bad shape. Both masts were broken. The mainsail, boom, and gaff were missing. The top of the mizzen mast and several jibs were dangling from what remained of the bowsprit. They would need to be cleared away. The way the ship was sluggishly rolling told me we also needed to pump out the water the ketch had taken on during the storm. I also knew I wasn't big enough to get the pump handle going.
“The first thing we need to do is get the water out of the hull and check for leaks," I told her. I'm too small to run the pump, so I'm afraid I must rely on you to start pumping."
"Water in the ship?" Moo'upegan tilted her head at me, looking confused. "I think we can skip the pump for now," she lazily waved her hand, and streams of water began to explode out of the hatches and port holes, flying away from the boat to fall into the ocean. We both got drenched in the process.
I was annoyed. The breeze was stiff, and I immediately started feeling cold. Moo'upegan just laughed.
“There!” she exclaimed, and suddenly I was warm and dry. “What else needs to be done?”
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Emily, Harvest Season, 6th rot., 1st day
“Every Cosm is magic,” Moo said. Moo was quite talkative. Personally, I thought the girl needed to get out more and make some friends.
“Without our innate magic to continually renew our bones, we wouldn’t survive,” Moo’s chatter kept going. "We're bigger than our bones can bear. I think silverhairs are the largest Cosm because we have the magic to be bigger without our bodies failing.”
“I got another, Moo,” I told my companion on this half-wrecked ketch after setting the gouge hook. “Can you bring it up?” I asked. Having a mage handy was an excellent substitute for a fish net.
“Certainly," said the Infanta Moo'upegan, Empress Presumptive of Mattamesscontess, as she lazily waved her hand, and the fish on the hook floated out of the water. It thrashed the air until Moo stopped its heart. Then she floated it into the remains of our boat.
“This one should last a day or two," Moo exclaimed with some excitement. She was big even among silverhairs, as big as a high priestess. She reminded me of Aylem: she was overpowered, overly tall, and chronically lonely. Sitting on top of her empire's hierarchy, she had no friends. Centuries of protocol prevented anyone from speaking to the Mattamesscontan royal family with anything like familiarity. Her subjects were not allowed to look her in the eye; they had to keep their eyes on the floor when speaking to a royal. Even a simple hello was impossible because one had to kowtow when greeting royalty. Mattamesscontan protocol made Foskan manners look like spring break at Daytona Beach.
“Did you want to try cleaning a fish again?" I asked Moo. "The alternative, oh thou bottomless sinkhole of appetite, is waiting for me to do it, which will take a while since that fish is twice as big as I am."
“I will attempt it,” Moo said, picking up the fish and laying it on a thwart. “I don’t want to wait until tomorrow for you to finish.”
“I’m not that slow,” I protested.
“Yes, you are,” Moo countered. “I swear I could eat this whole fish right now.”
“Just save some for me, please, and try to preserve as much of the fishing line as possible. My hands still hurt from making the line. I don't want to make any more for the time being." I stowed my makeshift fishing rod and jumped off the rowing bench to check the water level in my jury-rigged still. I poured it into a waxed canvas bucket and dragged it over to Moo.
“You need to drink this, Moo,” I directed.
“Again?”
“Moo, our biggest danger is your dehydration. I calculate that you need to drink eight of these a day to stay hydrated. I need your magic to survive, which means you need to survive, too. So yes, again. That's only the second one today. You have six more to go. Quit complaining and start drinking."
Moo laughed, "This is so much fun. No one has dared nag me or raise their voice for at least twenty years. If you weren't the Prophet, I'd want to hire you. I still could, couldn't I? You're a free agent, aren't you? You don't owe anyone fealty or homage or any of that stuff? If that's the case, it's one rotation a season time off and every fifth and tenth day off for every rotation you do work. Hmm, prophets are probably on the same pay scale as the most senior government officials, so that means I will provide you with your own mansion near the palace, with staff included, plus two carriages, two wagons, five horse teams, a stable, and 300 stone of gold a year spending money. Is that good enough to tempt you? You would be handy since you can speak the Chem language and already have friends in Foskos and Inkalem. How are you at haggling and negotiating?"
“Lousy. The person who keeps track of my money has forbidden me from making any deals or financial arrangements without her help. I'm not even allowed to do my own shopping unless accompanied by someone to haggle for me." I sighed. Then I noticed the half-full bucket. "Finish your water, Moo."
“Nag, nag, nag,” Moo rolled her strange eyes – one pink, one teal – and then finished the bucket of water.
“I’ll need to turn down your offer, Moo. I have plans and they don’t include working in Mattamesscontess.”
“But the weather is nice year-round," Moo cheerfully protested, "and there's none of that pesky snow stuff."
“I like snow," I argued for the fun of it. It was hard to stay grumpy with Moo around. She reminded me of a college student discovering her freedom for the first time. We were adrift in a wrecked boat with no survival supplies, and Moo looked like she had been freed from jail. This was her adventure, and she looked greedy to experience every moment.
“I can import snow if it's that important to you," Moo beamed at me. I think she was happy just to have someone to talk to who wasn't afraid of her rank. "If I'm not mistaken, we'll see snow soon enough. The storm has blown us into the north-right ocean current, and we are drifting northeast. If we could get a sail up, we would probably reach the Cliffs of Gong."
“How can you be sure?” I wanted to know.
“I know where we are because I used the charm of looking down," Moo explained. "I've also been dropping wood chips off the side and watching our drift with respect to the sun to calculate our direction. From what I know of winds and currents, I believe we are in the north-right ocean current. This is a shipping route. If we're lucky, we may encounter Mattamukan, Mattamesscontan, Inkalem, Soukian, or Korakoran shipping. Anyone of those would tow us or take us on board, depending on the size of the ship."
“I wish I could feel as optimistic as you, Moo,” I replied. I had to trust in Galt and Mugash’s word that this little trip would indeed be my promised fulfilling adventure, or Galt would owe me a whole lot of dinners, operas, and Grateful Dead concerts.
“We’ll be fine, little one,” Moo smiled down at me. “I have Vassu’s assurance that we can find this missing old soldier and his eagle and rescue them. Then we can go shopping on our way home. It will be fun!”
Yes, it was day three of being adrift with Moo’upegan, this strange Cosm royal who was as lonely as Aylem Queen and as exuberant as Fed’soas. It was a combination that left me feeling pity for the woman. Moo was so greedy for human interaction, poor thing. I thought my ears would fall off from the constant stream of talking from this attention-deprived silverhair.
Spending time with Moo’upegan was quite the experience. She knew so little about life outside the palace or army camp – and even in a military encampment, she was not allowed or expected to do a lick of work or worry about her own upkeep. The first time I cleaned a fish for our dinner, she was grossed out by the fish innards. She had never seen anyone clean a fish before. Without telling me or asking first, she took the fish guts I had removed and flung them in the water with her mind’s hand.
“What are you doing, you oversized idiot?” I gaped at her in disbelief. “I hope the local sharks aren’t bigger than our boat.”
“What?" Moo'upegan looked at me in bewilderment for the fifteen-hundredth time that day.
“I’m sorry, Moo,” I shook my head, “I didn’t mean to snap at you. Please don’t do that again. Sharks are attracted to the smell of blood in the water. Keep your eyes out for sharks. We either want to avoid them or catch a small one for dinner.”
“Oh,” she frowned. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, I know. We’ll survive,” I tried to relax and told myself that Moo’upegan could probably beat the crap out of any sharks that might attack the boat.