High Priestess Kamagishi of Galt, the Royal Pavilion, Foskos Army Camp

It was a terrible dream. The overseers, huge and malevolent, more than three times my height, set the building on fire. It was their solution to the fever running through the underfed girls in this bunkhouse: burn the bunkhouse to kill all those with the fever. I had already squirmed through wretched human waste to escape before the flames were started. The men hung out by the door and had a contest to see who was best at slicing a fleeing Coyn girl in half. I had almost gotten to the drainage ditch when someone yelled, "Hey, Gaff, get that one." There was laughter, the sound of footsteps running towards me, and an explosion of pain on the side of my head.

It wasn't my dream. I knew that after I cast a charm to banish the illusion. Then I was able to hear the person sleeping on the floor mat next to me sit up and gasp in terror, and choke back a sob in the dark.

"That must be one of the horrific nightmares Lisaykos told me about," I said softly to Emily, who was still breathing heavily. She wiped her eyes and collapsed down onto her sleeping mat and pillow. Then she took in a shuddering huge breath and let it out.

"It w...w...wasn't so bad," she said in a very quiet voice so she would not wake the others, though I could tell her nightmare had woken every silverhair in the pavilion including the King plus two in the tent next to ours.

"I was lucky," she added in a whisper. "I woke up before the bad part."

I sat up despite myself and looked at her in horror. What could be worse than watching one's bunkmates fleeing a fire and being sliced in half by swords and axes wielded by giants, all seen from the point of view of a tiny helpless Coyn?

"How can you sleep after something like that?" I whispered back.

"Usually can't if I'm a...l...lone. I usually get up 'cuz sleep's not p...possible."

"And otherwise?"

"Lisaykos w...would cast deep sleep on me so I could go back to sleep with no dreams and send someone to w...wake me after daybreak," Emily said.

"Would you like me to do that for you?" I could see her golden eyes study the darkness above her and saw that they reflected light just like a cat's. I could feel her thinking but it was that strange thinking state Emily fell into when she was deep in thought.

"Kamagishi, w...when you have a precognition of an event, does it ever feel to y...you that the timing of the event is influenced by your observation of it?"

I was very confused as to where that question came from but I answered her as best I could, "Yes, sometimes very much so. Like yesterday and right now with the event that is currently forming which will happen around the third bell." I could feel her frenzy of thought again which then stopped.

"If you stopped trying to observe the future event, or some other precognisant mage was watching instead of you, would the event still happen?"

"There is some kernel in every foretold event that will happen no matter what, no matter who foresees it or how many may foresee it."

After a moment, Emily's thought train felt like something had fallen into place in some great conceptual framework that was building in her head. A clear thought came ringing out of Emily's head, though what it meant was beyond me: "When the travel time of light on Earth was a constant, the observation of the light through one of the two slits caused the waveform to collapse in the famous slit experiment. So the action of the observer changed the physical phenomenon, when the time was a constant. If we flip it and instead make the kernel of the event on Erdos the constant and time the variable, then is precognizance a parallel observation event that causes the timing of the kernel of the event to change? "

This was followed by: "Time is orthogonal and magic is somehow involved with time. Magic must be one of the fundamental forces with its own set of mathematical rules. If magic did not uniformly constrain the Brownian motion of gasses, like Priestess Huhoti of Giltak described, does this mean magical force is a vector rather than a field?"

And then: "Magic is a manipulation of orthogonal time as a variable to create the desired physical phenomenon in our perceived reality. It should be measurable by someone with the ability to sense and manipulate magic. The experiment to verify this should be actions taken by a precognisant mage to change the circumstances of the arrival of the kernel of the foreseen event."

Then I felt a huge disappointment radiate from Emily that she had no magic and could never experience a magical observation event.

With a cavernous sadness, Emily said, "I don't think I can go back to sleep at the moment. I need to find a w...wax tablet or some paper."

"Here," I made a light, sat up, and pulled my recorder manuscript out with its magic stylus. "You can dictate all those thoughts you just broadcast and this will write them down."

"But won't that w...wake everyone?" Emily whispered urgently.

"We're already awake," Imstay grumped loudly. "Just dictate it and get it over with so I can go back to sleep."

"Those were beautiful clarion thoughts, Emily," Fassex sighed from where she was still curled around her pillow. "They were a real treat after your nightmare that might have woken every silverhair for at least 500 hands all around."

"Quit exaggerating, Fassex," Aylem chided lightly. "Emily doesn't understand your humor and might take you seriously. It was probably only about 30 to 50 hands, Emily, which is to say, just a few tents in the royal compound."

"My nightmares haven't woken people before," Emily protested, looking disturbed.

"I fear you're wrong, dear heart," Aylem said in a gentle tone of voice that I had never heard come out of her before this moment. "You've woken Lisaykos and your three healers several times with your bad dreams."

"Say what?" Emily looked upset at that, eyes wide and her expression horrified.

"Where was that nightmare located?" a man's voice asked from the tent next to the royal pavilion.

"You can tell him, Emily," the King said. "If that breeding camp is still there, it won't be for long."

"Is that Fusso?" Aylem asked in wonder.

"Yes," Imstay replied. "He's currently my acting General of the Left.

"It's safe to tell him, Emily," Fassex said. "He loathes breeding camps and everything they represent."

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"It w...was somewhere north of Blockit in the Island Swamp," Emily said, "but that event w...was seven years ago and I do not know if the breeding farm is still there."

"I've heard tales told of an incident like the one in your nightmare," the voice of Lord Fusso said. "When this little tiff is over with the Impotuans, the confirmation that the fire really happened means I now know the search for the site is worthwhile, Great One. I never want to see something like that again, even if it was just a dream. If what you dreamed wasn't even the worst part, I do not want to find out what followed. If anyone is too disturbed to sleep, I will be taking a stroll around camp. I will not turn down some company. I will wait out front."

"I will join you," Imstay said and there were noises in the inner chamber as he got up and got dressed.

"How late is it?" Emily asked.

"The three-quarter night bell has not yet rung, though it will soon," Aylem said.

"So Emily, this is a magic manuscript and what you dictate will be written down and the record is permanent and won't ever be lost." I smiled at her wide eyes. "I always carry one with me. They are standard for all court cases and government proceedings."

"Oh, wait," Emily seemed like she remembered something. "At the w...water meeting in Is'syal the day after the flood, is that what the gals in the red gowns w...were setting up in the conference chamber?"

"Yes, the red gowns are for the priestesses who serve as court and government recorders, as opposed to the priestesses who serve in the library," I explained, realizing Emily did not know that. She had some curious gaps in her knowledge about Foskos.

"Alright, here goes," she took a deep breath and I could feel her organize her thoughts into beautiful regimented rows of logical conclusions, not that I understood a word of it. She dictated clearly and quickly. I thought she was done when she sighed. "It's one of Clarke's three laws, that one person's science can be indistinguishable from magic. I think that may be something like what Galt was after, that magic isn't really magic, but rather, it's this reality's science that hasn't been measured and quantified yet."

"Do you thi...," I started to ask a question but was startled out of my thought by a vibration that sounded like a cat purring but I could feel it making the ground vibrate underneath me. I could hear birds taking flight from trees and neighing horses over in the pastures on the west side of camp. Eagles screamed and griffins cried. Lights started coming on in tents all over camp.

Aylem got out of bed in just an undertunic and stuck her head out the back of the pavilion. "The dome of the shrine just lit up and lights are being lit in the enemy camp too.

"This is happening everywhere," said Fassex with her eyes half-lidded while she traded thoughts with our sisters at home in their shrines.

"It is all over the world, Imstay," Usruldes' unexpected bass said, sounding slightly out of breath. "Ud just spoke to me. She says it is Galt and his purr of happiness is everywhere. Ud said this means he just won a bet he made with Tiki. It is causing havoc everywhere from the Island republic of Kora-Kor to the City-State of Mattamukmuk on the east coast, halfway around the world away from here."

"I hope it stops soon," Emily said to me. "I don't think I could sleep through that."

The moment she stopped speaking, it stopped. Her eyes grew very wide all of a sudden and then she nodded as if to herself, smiled, and fell deeply asleep. Aylem gasped, rushed over, and felt Emily's head.

"Did you see that?" she asked me.

"See what? Did you see something, Great One?" I asked.

"It was Galt, but I could see through him. He walked across Emily's stomach, laid down, and licked her chin. She fell asleep, he smiled, and vanished. Right now, her thought process feels like, like..."

I placed my hand on Emily's head. "This feels like the benediction of the dead that Emily received from Yasknapa of Yantes, only more euphoric. Emily may not be with us very much tomorrow. How amazing the world has become lately." I did marvel at all the strange things that were happening. I had come to believe we were entering the third age of revelations and miracles.

"She probably will not wake until late tomorrow," Aylem estimated. "We should make sure someone will be with her at all times because I will not be able to, nor do I think you will be able either."

"I'll be happy to keep an eye on our little whirlwind of trouble," Fassex said, yawning. "Too bad Galt didn't stop to put me back to slee..." She was instantly sleeping. Aylem extended her hand and then pulled it back.

"She's naturally though deeply sleeping," Aylem said in wonder.

"That was just a little too coincidental for comfort, Great One," I said, a bit disturbed.

"Kamagishi, it's just a handful of us in this pavilion," Aylem said, looking down at me with a concerned frown and a voice full of fear and uncertainty. "The name's Aylem."

I was astounded. The ice queen who was so aloof and unapproachable just invited me to drop the title in private. It was sad that it was so clumsy as if she had never been able to do this before now. It was shy and hopeful and painful. She was trying to ask me, not order me, and wasn't sure how to do it. I was touched and smiled without even realizing it, "of course, Aylem."

She was embarrassed and didn't know what to say next. I didn't want her to dwell on it, which would make her feel more awkward than she already felt.

It occurred to me that given the way she was raised in isolation, she might not have any confidants beyond Fassex and Lisaykos, who had both been her mentors and teachers. She may never have had the opportunity to make real friends close to her own age growing up. I had suspected something like this for years, and despite all the attempts I made to open up to her, she had never responded to any of my overtures. Now it dawned on me that she might not have known how to reach out or respond.

How was it that Emily had made such inroads with the queen? Then enlightenment broke on me like a downpour. The books I was keeping safe in order to give them to Aylem --- they were in what Emily called English. Aylem could read English. It was logical that Emily and Aylem were from the same place.

"You can read English," feeling my eyes widen on their own.

"Yes, I can," she admitted quietly, realizing that I just made the connection I had missed before. "I thought you already knew that."

"You and Emily are both...," I put my hand over my mouth before I said it where the King might hear. "I think I realized that in the Vault of Galt but I didn't take the thought about English to its logical conclusion before this. Priestess Kayseo and Irhessa haup Gunndit probably also know."

"I haven't talked to Kayseo so I'm not sure if she has thought it through," Aylem said softly. "Fassex and Lisaykos both know. Lisaykos has known for over a year now. Emily told Fassex five days ago."

My brain now was racing and I thought of the appearance of Galt in the Vault, the strange case of Yasknapa, Irhessa receiving the lost charm of tongues, the sound of Usruldes bass, the way Emily and Usruldes looked at each another, the way Emily and Irhessa talk to one another, and where Emily prefers to stay when she's in Is'syal...all the pieces clicked.

"Great Galt," I tried to stop the thought since Aylem was close enough to hear it without trying.

She sighed. She heard it. Oh dear.

"Well, you're right," Aylem remarked. "Those two are great friends, and they have a hard time hiding that, even when he's in his wraith outfit. Just bury the thought deep so others can't read it from you. The danger is not to him but to his family. They could become targets if his identity leaked."

"Oh my gods," I was gobsmacked and couldn't help it.

"Would you like some help sleeping?" Aylem offered.

"Question for you," I inquired. "Was Fassex correct that you have a problem growing out hair?"

She blushed deeply red, "sadly, it's true." She sighed deeper than usual. "Hair is touchy and very volatile. Facial skin doesn't feel much different from scalp skin to me; and so, my attempts have always overshot their target, and the quip about the razor is accurate. I'm afraid your face would be as fuzzy as Galt."

"You know," I said sympathetically, "you don't have to be perfect with every little bit of magic. It's alright not to be able to do it. I just didn't know."

"The problem is that Fassex has this horrid way of teasing me that always makes me feel bad about myself, and I hate it," she admitted.

What an admission! Whatever had happened to the Queen over the last half-year had made some big changes in her. The Ice Queen just admitted to a fault.

"I'm wide awake after that awful nightmare," I admitted. "You look a little out of sorts. Let's go for a stroll."

Aylem agreed. That left me feeling good about how things were going, even if I would be short on sleep come daybreak.