Emily, traveling
We had roast mutton, of course, for our last dinner on the beach and went to bed early. I woke up before everyone else and took one last dunk in the lovely ocean and body surfed a couple of waves in the morning twilight. I went back to my room, changed out the wet underclothes I went swimming in, and left them on the porch rail to dry.
I went for one last stroll on the beach, which in reality means I walked a short distance and then had to sit down to rest and catch my breath. I was still sitting there watching the waves as the sun came up when Usruldes came and fetched me back to the cottage.
"Are you sure you didn't overdo just now?" he plunked me on his shoulder and braced my shoulder with his hand to make it easy for me to keep my balance.
"I'm alright," I protested. "I'll probably sleep all the way home so it doesn't matter for today, does it?"
"Were you thinking that before you dove in?"
"Well, yeah," I admitted.
"This is exactly what Ud, Asgotl, and I were talking about with you the other day," he sounded just like his mother Lisaykos with his inflections when he nagged me. "You're always pushing just a little too far when you don't have. You need more rest, not more exercise. You're still recovering, and you are not where you can start building back strength yet. It's too early."
"You sound just like your mother," I pointed out.
"Good! You listen to her," he paused, "sometimes."
Aylem started laughing from the porch. "Usruldes, your mother has a staff of three healers who follow this bundle of trouble around to keep her from overdoing. It's a lost cause if you think she'll listen to you."
"I'm an optimist," he said cheerfully. "Besides, I have my own coercive measures."
When he said that I knew I was doomed. There was nothing I could do to prevent what was coming. He was too big and I was too weak to escape.
"Really?" Aylem inquired suspiciously. "Pray tell."
"Why look, Emily," he was so cheerful about this, the beast, "I already have your feet right here."
"I hate you, you slimy bastard."
"I know for a fact that my birth was legitimate and I'm too clean to be slimy," he said as he clamped my legs under his huge hand and proceeded to tickle the bottom of my foot with the other. I will leave out the rest of the embarrassing details.
I had already strapped myself into the saddle on Asgotl when Aylem came out, hopped on, hopped off, and then started to adjust the stirrup length in a businesslike manner as if she did this all the time.
"So," I said in a bored voice, "you thought I wouldn't notice you're more than a hand taller?"
"I told you she would notice," Asgotl sounded quite smug.
"That's an exquisite grimace, Aylem," I said in a cheery voice. "How in the world did someone your age grow more than a hand in a half year?"
"She learned some new magic from Ud and this was a side effect," Usruldes called over from where he was strapping the camping gear to Cadrees' saddle.
"Huh," I thought about it, "it makes a certain amount of sense if one assumes that certain types of magic demand a minimum amount of magic potential to do since size is a measure of magical capacity." Concepts of a theory of magic premised on the laws of the conservation of energy and mass were already bouncing around in my brain, thanks to the damn cat god.
So, was physical mass like a magical energy storage device? Was physically-stored magical energy a potential energy analog? If so, what was it converted to when it turned into the magical analog to kinetic energy? Was storage a function of the whole mass or volume of a Cosm or was it tied to a subset of a Cosm like the nervous system? Or was there some extra physiological system that existed in Cosm that didn't exist in Coyn, like some additional organ that just handled magic?
"Emily? Emily?"
"Huh? What?" I surfaced from my thought train.
"You were wherever it is you go when you get deep in thought and don't hear people talking to you," Aylem said from directly behind and above me. I wondered when she had gotten onto the saddle, then I realized what she had just said. I'm really dense sometimes.
She wrapped me in a felted-wool summer flying cloak so I was warm and quite comfortable leaning against her abdomen in flight. I indeed slept all the way home. I even slept through the attempt of that griffin clan above Copper Basin to harass our party. Aylem waved her hands around, to hear Asgotl tell the tale afterward, and all those poor griffins got blown away by a heavy wind.
We landed for a short time on a huge cinder cone that's immediately south of the Great Crack known as the Ever Red, which is an actively-erupting volcanic fissure that’s not stopped spewing basaltic lava for several centuries. The cinder cone in question was impossibly big, maybe 500 hands high, which made me doubt it was entirely made of cinders. Regardless, there was a clear view from it into the upper portion of the Salt River Valley.
Landing woke me up. It was late afternoon, maybe around the sixth bell. The sight that greeted my eyes was worrisome. There was some kind of fire up the north fork of the Salt River, near where Yant is located and another down by where the Crystal Shrine of Tiki is located. I was about to ask what was happening when Usruldes saw I was awake. He motioned that I should be still. That's when I noticed that Aylem was in a deep trance state.
I heard Aylem exhale and felt her relax. "This is bad. We are being invaded. There are three armies. There is a smallish one, about 20,000, attacking Yant. The city wall has been breached and there is currently a magic fight in front of the Shrine because they are trying to breach the shrine's gate.
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"The second army is the largest, about 40,000. They are trapped between the Shrine of Tiki and a bend in the river. Imstay has an army of about the same number surrounding that bend on the west side of the river. That seems to be going well since Imstay has that force contained. The third army is down at Blacks Falls with 20,000 soldiers. That force is having a hard time because we've opened all the canal gates and have flooded the salt pans and berry bogs, and it looks like we did that when they were halfway across the salt pans. If we can get an offense going there, we can take them.
"I'm not a soldier, Usruldes. What do you suggest?" she asked
"I'm not a soldier either," he said, "I'm just a spymaster who obviously has just failed in keeping our home safe." His face was bitter. "I suggest we leave Black Falls for now since their water defense is working. I should go to the King. You should go to Yant and use the ultimate charm of defense since the city wall has been breached."
“The knowledge of that magic invaded my mind when I inserted my flame into the Great Crystal when I was nine years old," she made a sour face. "I have not even thought of it since then and if you had asked me yesterday if I remembered it, I would have said no. When you mentioned it just now, the way to invoke it is suddenly standing in the forefront of mind as if I had used it every day for the last twenty-five years."
She closed her eyes and her expression was like someone near and dear to her had just died. "It is a terrible magic and I must use it," her voice was grim and resolved. "How is your far mindcasting, Usruldes?"
"Excellent," he replied, equally as grim. "I can far cast to Imstay with our crystal pair that he made and it has a range of about 50 wagon-days. But you are you. I believe the two of us do not need a matched crystal pair. Remember, Ud was my magic teacher too, and also, I will have access to Foyuna and the Great Crystal."
"Can you find me from far away?"
"I'm my mother's son in that respect," he smiled a humorless smile, “and I know she has often been able to find you in her mind.”
"Good enough," she nodded. "I may not be reachable this evening."
"Yes, I understand that, but if I get into the Crystal Shrine of Tiki, I will be able to at least check up on you."
"Thank you. I will try to contact you when I reach Yant if I am able. And if I am not, Fassex can reach the King."
"Stay safe," he said, and then pointed at me, "you too."
"You know I can take care of myself," I pointed out. "I can avoid trouble."
"War is different, Emily," he cautioned. "Don't overestimate yourself and please remember that you are not well."
"Blarg," I grimaced at the reminder. "Right."
"Good," he nodded, made a bowing obeisance at Aylem, and took off on Cadrees for the Tiki shrine.
"Should I leave you in Is'syal, Emily?" Aylem asked me, wrapping her arms around in concern. "You'll be far from the fighting there."
"My gut reaction is to stay near you for now, because while you sound fine, I suspect that you are not fine. Asgotl and I will not leave you while you deal with the inevitable gossip and backlash about your mental health."
"But..."
"Aylem, this is not negotiable," Asgotl said. "We are coming with you. Both of us. That's what friends do."
What a good griffin he is.
"Aylem, can you make stuff in addition to processing stuff to extract elements?" If she could, there was something I wanted to try. "I noticed you made bottles and Teflon-lined caps out of thin air. Can you do something similar but with something inside?"
"I can," she said in a nervous voice. "It's called creation magic. It's one of the lost magics. Ud taught it to me. It’s what's to blame for getting bigger." She sounded bitter about that. Did she not like being tall and having such splendid magic power?
"Aylem, can you make me glass balls filled with white phosphorus and no oxygen and put them in a basket or bucket I can reach while I’m on Asgotl? Do you need me to think about white phosphorus for you?"
"I had an aunt who lived in Liverpool who died of phossy jaw before I was born," she explained. "I know what white phosphorus is."
She dropped into that deep trance again, and then there were two baskets of glass balls filled with a glowing substance on either side of me. They were not too big for me to hold.
“These are evil, Emily,” Aylem pointed out in a very neutral voice. “You think down some scary paths in that overactive mind of yours.”
"The U.S. Army used white phosphorus grenades during the war that my first husband died in," I said, holding a glass ball and getting a feel for its weight. "I know exactly how evil this stuff is." I put the glass ball back into the basket. "How do we keep the balls from breaking in flight? Neither Asgotl nor myself have any defense against this stuff."
“I have applied a charm to the baskets that keeps the contents completely immobilized and have added a charm to the glass that it can not break while it is inside the baskets.”
I nodded, satisfied. "Let's go visit Yant," I said.
We crossed the rift and flew up the North Fork. The number of conifers was astounding, just like Yellowstone. There were no invaders at Surdon but there was a long line of carts and people evacuating the city in the direction of Yuxvos and Is'syal.
Yant was the next settlement up the river. It was also the most northern town in Foskos. We cleared a bend in the river and I saw the broken city wall and the invaders inside Yant, already looting. The town was already on fire in several places.
Most of the invading soldiers wore bronze armor under red tabards. Several hundred were in front of the shrine's closed gate. There was a magic fight going on there between a line of mages on the ground behind a wall of tall bronze shields and the adepts on the shrine roof.
"Blarg," Aylem swore. "What's at the gate is just the vanguard. Look." She pointed at a mass of marching soldiers approaching the city. "I'm going to leave you two and take care of that army. Emily, please, try not to burn the rest of the town down." She dropped the stirrups and flew toward the incoming army.
I gave Asgotl the signal that would land us on the shrine roof. As we touched down, I heard someone give an order to recast the protective barrier around the shrine. Someone had recognized us and dropped the barrier so we could land, though I realized it was probably Aylem they had spotted first.
Fassex dressed in riding clothes ran up to us. "Great One, we are overjoyed that you and the Queen are here. Wait, what are those?" She extended her hand toward one of the baskets with the glowing white phosphorus inside.
I stopped her. "Holy One, don't touch them. These are dangerous. The glass is fragile by design so it w...would be easy to break one if you're not careful. They w...were made with me and my small weak hands in mind. The stuff inside makes an instant fire that can not be put out with the normal charm of fire extinction. With that being said, w...want to drop a few on the vanguard at your front door?"
"I am open to that," she remarked. She led the way to the front of the shrine. "You should go first."
"Holy One, I have no strength in my arms right now to throw one of these things. I intended to drop them straight down from Asgotl’s back. Please take one and try it out."
"If you insist, Great One."
"I do insist. It may help break their attack. I thought there was a general agreement between the nations of Erdos never to attack shrines?”
She took a ball, “the Impotu army at our gate has broken that convention of war.” Scowling, Fassex stepped toward the front facade and sent the ball toward the opposing line of mages. It broke on contact with the ground. Drops of flaming elemental phosphorus splattered in all directions, starting fires everywhere it fell. I felt sick at the screams rising from the gates and forced myself not to lose my stomach.
"Oh, my," Fassex studied the scene below. "May I try another?"
"Holy One, please, use as many as you w...want."
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