Lisaykos, the Ruins of Black Falls

We started work healing the moment we arrived in what little was left of Black Falls. Frankly, the town was a ruin, the garrison fortress and manse were both smoking rubble and what was once the Singing Shrine of Sassoo was four empty, half-collapsed walls surrounding blackened and charred timbers and the stones of the fallen dome.

When we began, there was just a canvas roof over our heads. As supplies were flown in from Guundit, Truvos, Esso, and Aybhas, tired soldiers and garrison guards built a large tent around us. It was a blessing the weather was both dry and warm.

Between the three of us, we managed to save Senlyosart. Aylem went into a deep trance to try to rebuild Senlyosart's leg. I managed the remaining spinal cord and the brain trauma; and with Usruldes' help, we were able to make great progress with tissue repairs, especially for the all-important involuntary brain and nerve functions. I must learn that technique that his teacher Ud taught him.

Senlyosart will need many months to relearn some of her basic movements, like sitting up and walking, assuming her leg will be salvageable. If it can't be saved, she will still need a long time to heal and rehabilitate.

The alternative for her leg was amputation. Frankly, when they pulled her out of the rubble, what was left of the leg was, well, mush. I wasn't sure that even Aylem could undo the damage, it was that far gone.

Between my son and I, we healed Usoy, whose injuries were mostly burns, broken bones, and injured organs. The biggest problem was the amount of blood he lost internally. His salvation was the unlooked-for arrival of several healers from Aybhas who brought Kayseo with them. They arrived just before Aylem and I did.

Kayseo remembered everything about blood transfusion. Her colleagues sat her in a tall chair and let her direct the rest of them in what needed to be done. Kayseo remembered everything about matching similar blood characteristics and instinctively did it on her own based on watching me last year. She had the other healers find unwounded volunteers among the army that were willing to be examined by her to match blood types. She convinced those who matched to give up some of their blood if needed. Usoy was in stable stasis by the time Aylem and I arrived.

I was asleep after healing non-stop for all the pre-dawn and daylight bells. I was wakened sometime between the quarter and half night bells by widespread screams of panic and alarm.

I had been so tired at the end of healing that I just pulled off my boots before falling onto a floor mattress. Now I sat up and pulled my boots back on. I ran out of the tent, only to be greeted with shaking ground and people trying to flee along the narrow berms between the salt pans to the south of what was left of Black Falls.

I levitated above the level of the tents to see what was happening only to see a horrid creature, black and hairy, with many segmented legs and glowing red eyes. It was easily the size of the dome over the atrium at the Shrine of Mugash. It was maybe an eighth of a wagon-day away and was approaching the edge of the growing tent city, though not at great speed. It was still one of the most frightening sights I think I ever had seen.

I immediately searched my memory for what sort of charm might stop such a monster. Imstay joined me after a moment.

"Where did it come from, Great One?" he asked.

"Maybe the tunnel caves that run through the lava plains, cousin," I suggested. "There are mentions of monsters living in those caves in the historic records."

"That thing is bigger than any tunnel cave," Imstay said bleakly. "I wonder if putting on armor is a waste of time with that thing?"

"Oh, Gods!" I gasped and clutched Imstay's arm, "what is that boy doing?"

I saw my son fly directly towards the monster. My heart was gripped by fright watching him. When he got right up to the thing, it reached out and grabbed him with two hairy legs and then threw him high in the air.

"I'll get him," Imstay said but I snagged him with both arms and stopped him.

"No, you fool. You'll just die too. We need you to lead the assault that will kill that thing."

Then I heard in my head: * Mother, Imstay, Katsa, come here and meet my teacher Ud. *

"That's Ud?" Imstay said and looked at me. "I think I just aged two decades."

"Let me find one of the priestesses of Sassoo so they can spread the information and control the panic," I told the king. "Then I will join you. Don't get eaten." It only took me a moment to find one of the acting deputies for the shrine and relay the news that the visiting monster was friendly and known to us. I debated whether to tell Aylem but decided not to disturb her.

I walked sedately with just a moderate light to keep myself from tripping in the dark to meet Ud. My daughter was already there with Imstay, and my son. Katsa had taken on the task of transporting food, clothing, and materials to build temporary shelters from Gunndit to Black Falls. She and her string of wagons were heading back after daybreak to bring another round of supplies.

Yesterday, when Katsa arrived with the first shipment of supplies, she saw the King and her brother in his all-black Wraith uniform. She got off the wagon she was driving and walked up to Usruldes. He did his full obeisance to her. She immediately folded her arms and looked down her nose at him and said: "So, they say your name is Usruldes."

She then snagged Imstay, who is neither as tall nor strong as she is, and said: "So, Imstay King, he's been in your employ for how many years?"

"Sixteen," he managed to say, to hear my daughter tell the story.

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"You should have introduced me to him before this," she stared the King into the ground and then dropped him.

As she walked away, she later told me, she heard Imstay tell my son, "she's even scarier than the Blessed Lisaykos." I think my reaction to this scenario was what Emily calls schadenfreude.

As I joined the three already standing before the monster Ud, I heard her in my head.

* Greetings, mother of my student Usruldes. I'm sorry to have panicked the camp but Sassoo asked me to come and lend my aid since a shrine was destroyed and one of the gods' chosen representatives was sorely injured. *

"I was just talking to a mutual friend of ours yesterday about how I would like to meet you someday, and here you are," I smiled, though I could just barely see her red glowing eyes on the top of her furry exoskeleton. They were rather scary-looking eyes though Emily had assured me that Ud was extremely friendly and rather maternal in character. Ud's answer to me was tinged with her pleasure.

* Oh, you're the one who lives with Emily. How is the little bundle of trouble? Is she here? *

I laughed. "We left her at the Shrine of Tiki with High Priestess Foyuna, who probably has her hands full making sure Emily doesn't do too much damage while there for two or three days."

* That's too bad. She would be a great help tomorrow. *

"Tomorrow?" Ud knew something we didn't know.

* Tomorrow is the day that Galt said Aylem will try to run away again. That's another reason I came to visit: to help with Aylem because Kamagishi, who is already on her way, won't be able to stop her. I can stop her but only by force, but Galt told me Emily can stop her by just being Emily. *

My son looked at me, "should I go get Emily?"

"You're as tired as I am," I told him. "We should both go back to sleep soon."

"I can get Emily," Katsa volunteered.

"Do you have your eagle with you?" I asked.

"Oh, no, I don't," Katsa realized. "That's the problem with taking a wagon here. I'm so used to flying that I forgot that I didn't this time. I could borrow yours."

"I could get her," Imstay said.

I looked at the tired and overworked King: "No, you don't, Imstay King. You need to stay here and be kingly, especially with Ud present. Your troops and people will need you here to keep control of reactions to Ud's visit."

"I will get her," and we all turned in surprise to see Asgotl folding his wings after landing behind us.

* Now that sounds like a very good thing to do, friend Asgotl. *

"Hello, Ud," Asgotl bowed his head to her. "It's a pleasure to see you again though it is much sooner than I thought it would be."

"Can the griffin get Emily by himself?" Imstay asked.

"Of course, I can, Imstay King," Asgotl sassed back. "Emily and I have flown together, just the two of us, many times. All I need is someone to put my saddle on me, please, and I can be at the Shrine of Tiki by the half-night bell.

---

Emily, Crystal Shrine of Tiki

I didn't do a step of walking all day. Foyuna carried me around with me sitting on her arm, except for when we went up to the roof to get to the observatory. She had one of the Priestesses in the shrine bring Bobbo up at the same time. The two of us were carried in both arms of our hosts while they flew to the observatory. There is no other way to get there. Damn show-off Cosm.

The observatory, of course, was built on a Cosm scale and operated by magic so it was impossible to get my hands on the equipment and play. I almost melted down on the spot from a bad case of magic envy. We stayed up there as the sun went down. The priestess on duty started the demonstration by measuring the position of where the sun went down with a giant spherical astrolabe.

The astrolabe as wide as Foyuna was tall. There were also an alidade and some diopters that the shrine used to instruct its trainees. I was fascinated when the priestess making the measurements used a lit-up leveling charm to level the planimetric surface of the astrolabe.

I wanted to move in and enroll, but alas, the shrine required magic of all of its students so no Coyn could enroll even as scholar attendant students. I did grumble to Foyuna about that. She pointed out that the Crystal Shrine was the oldest, more than four thousand years old, and designed only for Cosm because there were no Coyn in Foskos when it was built.

That bit of history surprised me. Foyuna then told me that around 2,900 years ago, the Coyn migrated in over a century from the east. They came from the east, fleeing some catastrophe many hundreds of wagon-days away. Foskos was thought to be the cradle of civilization for the Cosm but the Coyn were not native to the region.

Upon hearing this, I knew that I needed to start a serious study of history to gain a better idea of the history of the world. Maybe I needed to make an extended visit to the Shrine of Galt, to camp out in the library and just read history books, including the restricted ones.

Foskos was the ancestral nation from which Jutu, Impotu, and the small city-states sprang. Nobles who fell out with the royal family of Foskos founded the two nations to the east. Since women sometimes became king, the royal house had never failed throughout known history.

There was a bias in Cosm culture toward men being the better gender for agriculture, hunting, and war, so rulers were men more often than not. A woman ruling was not an outrageous concept. Foskos had had several women as king and at least two who had been both king and queen at the same time.

The word king and the word lord were not gender-specific in the Fosk language. Queen was a curious word too. It did not mean the person married to the king. It was reserved for the best mage as measured by the ability to use the Great Crystal. This would always be a woman because that was how Cosm genetics worked. Men who were great mages like Usruldes were rare.

There was so much I didn't know about this place. If I was going to be stuck here while the gods used me as a tool, then I needed better knowledge of this culture. I doubted I would escape the gods until I delivered the revelation from Landa, though the thought of running away still plied my mind late at night when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. But if the gods were part of the key to freeing the Coyn, then I had to persevere.

I was more accustomed to Cosm now, after living here for a year and a half. Still, those huge hands made me flinch when they got too close to my face. Whenever I was reminded that I was a Coyn currently trapped at the top of Cosm society, I remembered that were several hundred thousand Coyn who were still property. I needed to break out of the cotton-wadding protection the shrines had me wrapped in and make my way into the places where Coyn lived and worked.

I wasn't completely at peace living with Cosm. I was also uncomfortable about the gods taking over my life. I had heard the talk and the rumors that I was a prophet and I didn't like it. I didn't want to be a prophet. I wasn't even sure what a prophet was supposed to do.

I had a daydream to ditch the gods’ demands and run off with Asgotl to go exploring. I needed to ask him if he was interested in doing that with me. I wanted to see what the rest of the world was like, and I certainly did not want to walk.