Kayseo, Healing Shrine, Harvest Season, 6th rot., 4th day, afternoon – Foskos time
After assuring herself that I would be fine without her, Thuorfosi left for Pinisla immediately after mid repast. She didn’t like being separated from little Resepex for too long. Her entire world was her baby right now. I wondered if my own life would become like that in a year after I gave birth.
Having Thuorfosi live with us while on leave was practice for when I delivered. Both Otty and I helped her out with watching and playing with Resepex, who was a cutie. Unless she remarried, Thuorfosi would have no one to take the father's role in childraising. I didn't want her to hire a family to help raise her daughter, so I invited her to move in with me and Otty. After Mother Tyoep and I had our babies, we could be a home of three mothers and two fathers, where at least one of those fathers would always be on hand to help rear the children. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to raise a daughter alone without a father to help.
I remember Twessera, in one of her rants, commenting that men had no reason to exist other than to hunt or grow food for their families and care for the children when the head of the household was obligated to do business elsewhere. We laughed about it at the time, but with the advent of Resepex in our lives and my own baby on the way, I had been thinking deeply about how important fathers were to our children. I found myself worrying about Twessera and her current two-rotation visit to the Arnmay family in Is'syal "to decide if I can abide hiring Onsus Arnmay as the father of my children,” Twess had said.
I contemplated Twessera's reluctance to marry while waiting with Arma and the King on one of the benches that line the atrium on the first floor. All three of us were curious about the outcome of the first rite of intercession in six centuries. Imstay King promised Arma he would issue the order for her husband to return home before the end of the rotation when light pulsed out of the Well and the great bell on the top of the dome tolled once on its own. Then, we were all stricken with paralyzing fear and unable to move because of the presence of a god in the Well of Mugash.
When we all caught our breath, the High Priestesses erupted from the door of the lit-up Well. My Mistress was the last to leave. She walked straight to Imstay King after closing the door into the Well. The King stood to meet her, a question on his face.
“Where is Aylem?” he asked. “What has happened?”
"Mugash commanded Aylem to remain in the Well," the Blessed Lisaykos said with pursed lips and a frown that could split rock.
The stricken look on the King's face told me a lot about his evolving relationship with the Queen.
The Holy Irralray strode over and embraced the King. "Peace, nephew. We are here for you and Aylem. All we can do is wait.”
“How can I not worry? The gods treated her so harshly after the incident with the Prophet and the Blessed Asgotl. She has been so long mending. Now, with the twins, we can't afford Aylem to break again. Is it Mugash?”
Lisaykos nodded yes.
“What does Mugash want with her?” Imstay cried. “Aylem has done nothing wrong for once.”
“Try not to worry, cousin," Lisaykos said. "I can tell that Mugash isn't here to discipline Aylem. I am her avatar, and I would know."
“Then why?” he wailed.
“Imstay, I do not know,” my Mistress replied.
Then, the bright light coming out of the Well vanished. Lisaykos ran into the well, leaving the door open behind her. The King followed. They appeared a moment later, with Lisaykos carrying the dazed Queen in her arms.
All of us found our way to my Mistress’s study. While we waited, the Holy Senlyosart told me about what happened during the rite of intercession. The Holy Raoleer joined us and we started talking about the mine.
“Getting the bad air out of the mine is the first step, young Kayseo,” Raoleer said. “It’s not that hard to do and to be frank, you don’t need to use a windshaper. Most artificer mages know the charms to move masses of air around. But windshapers can do it faster and easier than other magic users. The other thing a windshaper can do for you is cut ventilation shafts in just a few bells. If Sister Senlyosart can spare a windshaper or two, I can send one of my mining masters to determine where to cut the rocks to ensure adequate airflow."
“The most important thing, at least for the short term,” I said, “is to get good enough air so we can recover the remains of the dead. The miners were trapped in the workings by the mudslide," I had to close my eyes to stop the tears, "and the work crew yesterday could tell that they tried to dig their way out, and...”
I failed to keep myself together. I hid my pathetic face behind my hands and tried to swallow the sob that erupted. I buried my face in my knees and tried to regain my composure, but the faces of the dead paraded across my memory – of my friend Zats, who had just started working in the mine, my uncle Loweros, old man Gabbo, and Lemmi, who was the lady who lived next door. Someone placed a comforting hand on my back.
“Don’t try to keep it in, child,” said the voice of the Holy Sutsusum. “Have you been keeping all this grief inside for four years? You poor dear. Can you get up? Come walk with me for a spell."
Raoleer and Sutsusum helped me up and then I walked arm-in-arm with the Holy Sutsusum around the atrium walkway. She listened patiently as I remembered all the people I loved and grew up with, who died one afternoon when the mountainside turned to mud after days of rain and destroyed the town of Pinisla.
I lost track of time. After I had cried myself out, most of the High Priestesses had left for their Shrines. Irralray, Fassex, and Rakkalbos decided to stay the night since their shrines were that farthest away.
Lisaykos kept our dinner warm and sat with us while Sutsusum and I ate.
"You should spend the night here, dear heart," the Blessed Lisaykos told me. "You too, Sister Sutsusum."
“Yes, that is wise advice,” Sutsusum nodded.
“I should really go back,” I tried to protest. “Thuorfosi and Mother Tyoep will worry if I don’t show up, and I have so much to do at the holding.”
“Is that all?” Lisaykos flashed a brief evil smile. “Wait one,” she held up a hand and then tranced. I bit my lip as I waited.
“There, your delightful adoptive mother knows you will be staying here,” Lisaykos pronounced.
“But –”
“Do not ‘but’ me, child,” my Mistress said in her command voice. “The thought of you weeping all the way home up the White River turns my stomach. After the disaster in Pinisla, I thought you might never smile again. You turned inward and shut us out, no matter what we tried to break through to you. I was so relieved when you connected with Twessera a year later when we had you shadow her on her rounds. You opened up to her and started to return to being your cheerful self.”
"But you didn't even know who I was four years ago. I was just a second-year trainee."
“Dear heart, I’ve had my eye on you ever since the disaster,” Lisaykos gave me a look that both scolded me and wrapped me in her care at the same time. “I keep an active watch on my young healers in training. I had a report about how you were faring every rotation from your teachers and dormitory supervisors, especially because of your amazing talent at healing. We were worried about you and kept a close eye on you. It was concerning that you never talked about your grief.”
I was speechless. I had no idea that was going on when I was a trainee.
“Good fish face, Kayseo,” Lisaykos allowed herself to smile. “So what do you want to do for the rest of the evening?”
I sighed. “I was originally planning on reviewing the timber accounts with my husband, who is better at sums than I am, to see if I can afford to build a sawmill.”
“Kayseo, child, has anyone ever told you that you need to work less and play more?” Lisaykos scolded. I had an irreverent thought that my Mistress could stand to take her own advice.
“I'm sorry, but I can't think of anything I might want to do. Curling up in bed and reading would be pleasant, except I have nothing to read."
“What do you do in the evenings in Pinisla?” Sutsusum asked.
“We do a lot of singing and dancing, though sometimes we just listen to our musician friends playing together. Healer Thuorfosi is an exceptional prell player. Lady Tyoep has learned to play the divine. And my husband plays both the elhorn and the strampult. Those are just the names you might know, Holy One. We are growing quite the band of musicians in Pinisla.”
“Oh,” the Holy Sutsusum blinked. “I see. So, my hopes of starting up a card game are in danger of being unfulfilled?”
"Might I interest you in poker?" the Blessed Lisaykos smiled, looking gleefully malevolent. "I know for certain that Kayseo here knows how to play, being one of the first to learn the game from the Prophet."
“Did she now?” Sutsusum beamed.
"I'm afraid I do not have the means right now to play for any sort of stakes," I tried to say as tactfully as I could.
"Oh, pish posh," Lisaykos gave me a chiding look, "remember that gambling is forbidden at the Healing Shrine? I am not one to break my own rules. The stakes, dearest Kayseo, are dried bog berries. Sarfaz has several pouches full in a table drawer, ready and waiting for poker. I must admit that she is a keen player. I should ask her if she wants to join us.”
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Garki Foskkin, Is’syal, Harvest Season, 6th rot., 4th day, evening – Foskos time
I ate dinner with the rest of my classmates in the trainee refectory. I was no longer the only boy among the trainees at the Fated Shrine. The Shrine enrolled two twelve-year-olds on the first day of Harvest this year, so now there were three of us. The Holy Kamagishi, confronted with housing the two new boys, bought a big house a block from the east library entrance. She hired two older scholar attendants, who were a married couple, to supervise it along with a cook. The couple had grown children who had married and moved on, so it worked out for them.
My Mistress Kamagishi asked me if I wanted to move in with the two new kids, but I declined. I wanted to stay at the palace, in my bedroom attached to the King's apartments. Imstay King felt more like a father to me than my own father had been, and I liked being with him. My late father, the Lord of the independent town of Capani, never gave me anything besides a name, an education, and a place to sleep with the rest of his fourteen children.
The King gave me the one thing I never had growing up in Capani, and that was affection. I followed him when he asked me to become his page. But it was uncomfortable moving into the palace because of how he and the Queen fought, though the Queen never harmed me personally. Every time she spoke with me, she was aloof, but she was always polite and never threatening. However, I heard stories from the other servants of the things she had done when she was angry and used her magic, and those tales left me wary of her.
After she returned from running away last year, she had changed and I began to like her better. The biggest change in her was that she now smiled. She never smiled before. She also started going out of her way to be kind to me. But she was so big that I felt like a little kid around her, and sometimes, I could feel the pressure of her magic when she was angry or upset. She still scared me at times.
Otherwise, living at the palace was much better than living in my former home. The King included me in Princess and Prince’s lessons after he caught me reading Princess Opo’aba’s school books. Opa, Feldkirk, and I soon became partners in sneaking out of the palace and wandering the markets. I taught both of them how to open door locks and where to climb the west garden wall to escape the palace grounds. I also befriended General Bobbo, who helped Opa sneak out to take her shrine exams two years ago. I missed Opa when she enrolled at the Singing Shrine, but we’re still best buds. We trade letters every rotation.
I've been lonely again now that Heldfirk is studying at the Building Shrine in Omexkel.
In a way, I wish Galt had not marked me last year because I would have liked to follow the King to the war in Impotu as his page. I miss being his page. I was never lonely when I was with the King.
Instead, I now spend my days learning magic, working in the library, and studying the finer points of Foskan law. When the King is busy or away from Is’syal, I eat at the refectory because I don’t like eating alone.
As I came up the stairs, I contemplated an evening of reading legal decisions, followed by finishing my letter to Master Aduda about his interesting theorem about taking limits. Then, just for a moment, I felt panic. It wasn’t my panic. I was feeling someone else’s panic.
As quickly as it came, it vanished. Did I imagine it? No, I decided, it had been real. But who was it? What was wrong?
I tried extending my clairvoyance. I looked up and down the hall, into the King's apartments, down to my bedroom, through the guard post, across the hall to the Queen's apartments, through the Coyn quarters, out to the regular quarters, and down to the nursery.
I didn’t sense any panic, fear, or pain from any of those I passed with my mind. My empathy is as good as a healer’s. If those feelings were there, I was confident I’d detect them.
I then took a slower look through all the places my clairvoyance could reach. My effort wasn't as good as my instructors' abilities at the Shrine, but it wasn't inept. I could survey all the living apartments on the third floor. This time, I noticed something off. It was a door in the nursery that went down to the kitchens and the bakery. It was open. It shouldn't have been at this time in the evening. I dropped my bookbag and ran down the hall to the nursery door. The servants were surprised when I ran in, through the front rooms, and straight back to the food preparation area. Someone was yelling at me to stop by the time I was running down the stairs.
Then I saw her, crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, on the landing between the two opposing doors – one to the hearth kitchen and one to the bread ovens.
"Help!" I shouted up the stairwell. I kicked open the doors and shouted into the kitchen and bakery. I didn't care who got me help so long as it came quickly.
I knelt next to the Revered Lyappis's head and confirmed that at least one of her hearts was beating. I could feel the pulse at the side of her neck, and I could feel her breath from her nose on my hand. I shifted to trying to read her aura. I wasn't as good at auras as Opa or Heldfirk, at least not yet. I could see the orange-red of injury but couldn't resolve where it came from. At least the elderly priestess was alive, but we had to get her to a healer.
The Queen would be upset to find that the Revered Lyappis was hurt. The Blessed Aylem relied on the older healer for help with the twins and for encouragement and support in social situations. When Lyaappis wasn't around, the Ice Queen would sometimes reappear, which was always uncomfortable.
“Help! Help! Is anyone coming? I need a healer! The Revered One fell and got hurt! Anyone?”
One of the wet nurses came running down the steps and saw us.
“Merciful Murgash!” she cried. “My Lady!”
“Get a healer! We need a healer,” I shouted at her.
“Kid?” A man’s voice bellowed from the hallway into the bakery. “You need a healer? Someone hurt?”
“The Revered Lyappis fell on the stairs. We need a healer!” I yelled back.
"Anvi, go run to the healers now! Don't come back without one. Don't take no for an answer. A silverhair has fallen on the stairs. Don’t gack at me, girl. Run! Now!”
I heard shuffling noises and then more shouted orders. “Clear a path through, you idiots. Get those flour barrels out of the way. Now, give me that.”
Footsteps came hurrying toward me and Head Baker Emoskos appeared, blotched all over with flour stains on his apron and clothes. "Have you moved her at all, boy?"
“No, sir,” I shook my head. “All I did was check to see if she was breathing.”
“Bleeding?”
“None that I can see,” I had already checked. "Her leg is a weird angle, so I think it's broken, and I think she bumped her head, or she wouldn't be out of it."
“Well, since there’s no bleeding to stop, all we can do is keep her still and wait for a healer. Here, I brought some big flour sacks to use as blankets. The crew is breaking down one of the trestle tables so we can use the top as a carrying board.”
“Thank you so much, sir," I said, and meant every word.
“Hey, Garki, it’ll be okay. Good thing you found her,” he ruffled my hair.
The Revered One moaned and shifted her head slightly.
“Put your knees on either side of her head, Garki,” Emoskos pointed. “Don’t let her move her head. That's really important, in case she hurt her neck. Can't let the head and neck move without a healer supervising, if you can help it."
I did as Emoskos directed. I knew he knew what to do. He had been a soldier before he became a baker, and he knew his way around battlefield injuries.
The Revered One moaned again and opened her eyes. She closed them shut immediately with a grimace. “Oh, gods, that hurts.”
“We have sent for a healer, Lady,” Emoskos said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Where I am?” Lyappis asked. “I’m not sure how I got here. My head really hurts. I think I have a concussion. Someone should cast stasis on me.”
“I felt you fall,” I told her.
“Is that you, Garki?” she flinched as she spoke. “My eyes don’t seem to be working right. That’s not good. A healer’s coming, right?”
"Yes, we're waiting with you for the healer to come," I said in what I hoped was a reassuring voice.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” a strong alto shouted. A middle-aged healer in her grey robes came at a run down the bakery hallway. “Oh, Surd save us,” she stopped short and took in the scene. Then she knelt next to me.
"Hello," she gently placed a hand on Lyappis's shoulder and tranced a moment. "I am going to cast stasis on you, Revered One. Your head is the worst of your injuries, but you also have some breaks. You will be in bed for a rotation or two. We'll talk again in a bell or two when we have you settled in." Then she put the Revered Lyappis under a stasis charm. I really wanted to learn stasis now. It looked so useful for emergencies like this.
The healer startled me with an obeisance, “May the blessings of the eleven gods be upon you, Revered One,” she bowed from her knees next to me.
"And also upon you, Priestess. Please be at your ease." I nodded. It still felt backward to me for all these clergy to make obeisance to me instead of the other way around. At least I got treated like a normal trainee at the Shrine. Thank the gods rank didn't matter for trainees.
“I am Healer Kidsodos, Revered One. What happened here? Who found her and when?”
"He found her," Emoskos pointed at me. "He yelled for help, so I sent one of the flour runners to your chapel."
“I felt someone’s panic as I came up the stairs after coming home from dinner at the Shrine,” I explained. "I tried looking with my clairvoyance, such as it is, and saw the stairway door open in the nursery. I knew that wasn't right, so I decided to check. I'm glad I did because the panic I felt must have been the Revered One falling on the stairs."
"Yes, and there's the skin of mother's milk she was fetching up to the nursery," Kidsodos pointed to a skin bag on the floor against the wall I hadn't noticed. "There's a supply of milk kept in the stasis room at the foot of the stairs in the kitchen." Kidsodos explained, "for when the Queen or a wet nurse is absent."
Kidsodos gave me a knowing look, “I thought trainees weren’t supposed to use magic outside of instruction time at the Shrine.”
"The King and Queen allow me to use basic charms within the royal apartments," I replied because it was true. Ever since the King discovered I had magic, I've been allowed to use magic to heat the tea water, melt cheese on bread, and cool the sekanjabin.
"Well, it was good that you can and did. Now, I'd like you to stay where you are, Revered One. Keep her head from moving. I need to address these broken bones, and we need to keep her head stable while I do that. One of my colleagues should be showing up any time now with splinting materials. Once we get her splinted up and have her head immobilized, we can get her boarded and moved down to one of the rooms in the chapel. I think we should take her through the bakery and down the first-floor service corridor to the delivery doors. Then we can walk her up the loading lane to the second-floor staff entrance, through the south service corridor to the atrium, and down the main hallway to the chapel."
"Kidsodos?" Another woman's voice called out from the bakery.
"Take the hallway to the backdoor, Lori," Kidsodos yelled back.
Another healer appeared, carrying two big strap bags full of slats, dowels, and linen rolls for building splints.
Kidsodos looked at me with concern, "Revered One, we'll have to take her clothes apart to splint the breaks. If you can, try not to watch and forget anything you might see accidentally."
“Lady Kidsodos, I have been on the battlefield,” I responded. “I have seen many injuries on both men and women.”
“Right, I forgot,” she nodded. “My apologies.”
“I took no offense,” I assured her.
I was fascinated by the deft efficiency the two healers employed in setting and splinting the broken arm, leg, and hip. They placed three bags of sand around the Revered Lyappis’s head and then slid the table top underneath her using the mind’s hand. The second healer levitated the tabletop as Healer Kidsodos monitored Lyappis. Emoskos and I ran ahead of them, clearing the route and opening doors.
When we arrived at the healer's chapel shrine on the palace's second floor, the healers thanked us and herded us out. Then Kidsodos came running back out to snag me.
"Revered One, will you please fetch your Mistress," she asked. "Our patient is her mother, and she will want to be here."
“Yes, right away, Lady.” I turned on my heels and ran.
Emoskos laughed as I sped away, "It must be so nice to be that young with all that energy."
“I know,” Kidsodos said. “My knees ache just watching him.”