Maker of Fire

Moo, Three Feathers Camp, Cold Season, 1 st rot., 2nd day

Listayodas was like a different person in the morning. His eyes were bright and his posture straight. He managed to get to his feet and shuffled about ten steps before he asked for his walking stick. He insisted on doing his morning business on the necessary without help from me. His stiff pride streaked the aura of his legs orange with pain. I insisted – over his protests – on carrying him to the table for morning repast.

After our early meal of smoked fish and soda biscuits, the old prince hit poor Emily with a volley of questions. He started with the reign of Imstay, followed by the invasion of Yuxviayeth and the war with Impotu. He interjected with questions of how the gods made Emily their prophet.

I'm sure Listayodas would have interrogated poor Emily the entire day if he could. Emily was wilting after a bell. She was rescued from death by inquisition when a wolverine shaman arrived to tell us that the Storm Walker was waiting for us. She also said that Melk was ready for us at the sacred compound in the center of the city. The shaman brought a magnificent set of traveling clothes for Listayodas: an anorak, riding chaps, and mukluks of black sealskin and a warrior's mantle of all-white eagle feathers.

I helped Listayodas dress, assuming we would not return to this place.

"Is there anything you want to take with you, Listayodas?" I asked him as I handed him the stretchy fi'irsdeerskin muffler that Titmarrans wore under their hoods.

"I wonder if they kept my sword. I would like to get that back." He looked wistful. "It's an heirloom of the royal family, used as the badge of office for the one who commands the kingdom's armies."

"We can only ask," I told him.

"No, we can demand," the fierce little Emily barked like an angry badger. "We should get either the sword or an explanation and reparation if it no longer exists."

"Wow, who fed you fire liquor this morning?" I teased her. "And are you ready to leave? Do you have everything, Beloved? Like your little journal that you keep writing in? And your knife and hatchet?"

"Yes, I'm ready," she said, looking up at me. I heard her mental grumpiness about her sore neck from talking to Cosm. I knelt in front of her and cast a charm of pain relief on her neck and shoulders.

"Better, Em?" I smiled at her and suppressed my amusement over her exasperated mental cussing out of "damn overgrown, overpowered, overprotective Cosm."

"Thank you," she managed to say. I'm sure I could hear her grind her teeth.

"I'm going to carry the stubborn Listayodas, Beloved." I put my own hood up and my mittens on. "Can you follow?" I handed the old warrior his walking stick. "Can you carry that, Honored One? It will be easier for me if you do."

"Must you carry me?" the old man's pride asked.

"I can see and feel your pain, Honored One." I tried to sound reassuring. "This is only for today. I hope that by this time tomorrow, you'll be in treatment at the Healing Shrine in Foskos. If it helps, I won't carry you if you can stand and only need to take a few steps. Deal?"

He sighed and capitulated. "Deal, Exalted One." His head turned to Emily. "Beloved One, is Lisaykos Haup Foskos still the High Priestess at the Healing Shrine? And is Irralray haup Foskos still High Priestess at the Peaceful Shrine?"

"They both are," Emily said, nodding.

"Oh, thank the gods, not everyone is dead." His aura flashed yellow as happiness and relief flooded his mood. For the first time since his rescue yesterday, he smiled.

I picked up Listayodas and carried him out of the lodge and into the sunlight. Storm Walker was kneeling in the snow in front of the lodge door. His sword was between us with its hilt toward me.

"What is this, Storm Walker?" I asked.

He put his face and hands in the snow, "I ask you to take me into your lodge of warriors, Great Snow Bear Warrior."

"I do not live in the lands of the Children of the Great Owl, Storm Walker. I live far from here in a place with no snow. You would suffer there from the heat. My ways are not your ways."

"Please, I beg you. You are my better, and I see no path forward other than serving you because the godspeaker forbade the honor of your taking of my spirit. My lodge has cast me out, and my only other paths are exile or dishonorable death."

"What about the other warriors whom the Great Snow Bear Warrior defeated yesterday?" the Beloved asked.

Storm Walker looked up from his debased position. "They are dead. They killed themselves last night."

I felt Emily's surge of anger as the godmarks blazed like charm gems of light in her red aura. Then I felt that itchy feeling when she talked with the gods and the gods talked back. Listayodas must have felt it too because he gasped and looked down at Emily.

In a clear voice that carried, Emily spoke in a tone that imposed her will on those who could hear her, "The gods have spoken, as I explained yesterday. Defeat is not dishonor. To kill yourself only because you have suffered defeat is a sin. Those who do so will face the punishment of the wolf god after death." Emily turned her face up to me. "Moo, it is up to you if you want to take Storm Walker into your service, but Landa says you will not regret it. Sassoo says his prowess as a hunter is good enough that Storm Walker could achieve a blessing as one of his priests or shamans."

Listayodas whispered so only I could hear, "If you accept his service, pick up his sword and give it back to him. Also, they stripped him of his warrior's cape, so it is up to you if you want to replace it. I would urge you to do so."

"I don't have a cape to give him," I whispered back.

"Then promise him one. That will have to do."

"I'm putting you down for now," I placed Listayodas on his feet and made sure he had his balance. Then I picked up Storm Walker's sword and grasped the tip, presenting the hilt to him. "I will accept your service, Storm Walker. I was unprepared for your request to join my lodge, so I do not have a cape ready to give you. I will prepare one for you as soon as I am able. This is my promise to you. Until then, carry my axe for me as a sign that you are my warrior." I took the beaded baldric that held my axe and draped it over his right shoulder.

"I will make you proud, Great Snow Bear Warrior." He struck his left chest with his right fist. "What is the name of your lodge?"

"The Pink and Teal Shark Lodge." Then I had to blink, because I had no idea why I said that. It just burst out of my mouth without my giving it any thought. This was most unusual since I always gave my words my deepest consideration. After all, I was a ruler, and every word I uttered mattered.

"How fitting," Storm Walker said as he got to his feet. "The shark is a mighty beast of the sea, and pink and teal are the colors of your eyes. I am honored to be a member of your lodge."

Storm Walker insisted on carrying Listayodas for me so I could take Emily. As head of the lodge, carrying Emily was the greater honor, according to my newest retainer. We didn't have far to walk to reach the central compound. A crowd of warriors in their mantles and shamans in their capes followed us at a respectful distance.

Melk was waiting in the clear area in front of the circular temple of the hearth. She was wearing a new saddle pad with straps for more than one rider. "May the blessings of the eleven gods be upon you, Great One, Exalted One, Honored One," she squawked, bowing her head.

"And also upon you, Melk," Emily responded. "Do you know when Erhonsay will come?"

"When you take out the scroll Galt gave you. The Exalted One must cast the charm to start the pen."

"So, we can take care of other matters first," the Beloved stated. "Are Red Owl Caller and the Chief of the Eagle Tribe here?"

"We are," the Chief said, pushing her way through the crowd to stand before us.

"Twenty-two years ago, someone took the sword carried by Listayodas Prince," Emily remarked. "It belongs to the Kingdom of Foskos. It must be returned to him."

"It was taken from him as a trophy of war after he was defeated in combat," the Chief said. "He is a dishonored warrior, and the sword is no longer his."

"It does not belong to him; it belongs to his nation, and he cannot return to his people without it," Emily snarled, as her aura shaded red. "You will return it. Do not forget that the Great Owl and the other gods are displeased with the conduct of the tribes. You have no standing in their eyes until you change your ways as they dictate. Your empty protests about honor are no more than melting snow. They have no substance. You can begin by returning what is not yours. The sword is stolen property. Return it now."

I glanced at this tiny terror I held in my arms and felt fear run down my back and up my neck. She was once again in that fey state I called prophethood, when I could feel divine power flow through the godmarks. She was more than human when she was in this state. I don't think she comprehended just how frightening she could be. I wondered if she was again on the threshold of that scary silver aura that no Cosm could resist.

The Chief glared at Emily, the Beloved of the Gods. Emily glared back. After a moment, Emily's patience snapped. I overheard her supplication to the gods and felt the gods answer. She grabbed my shoulder for balance and raised her other hand, pointing at the sky. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed overhead, and angry, rotating black clouds suddenly appeared.

I wished someone could come and cast a charm of peace on me because I was shaking.

Lightning blasted the ground between Emily and the Chief. I felt a strange, unpleasant, tingling pain in my feet and calves when the bolt landed. The Chief looked up with a mix of anger and fear. A second bolt struck, this time closer to the Chief, blasting her headdress of eagle feathers off the hood of her anorak. She was trembling, but still made no move.

"You are a fool," Emily shouted. "You have mistaken your sense of honor for righteousness. Honor is meaningless without humility. If you do not surrender your false pride to the will of the gods, the god of wrath will strike you where you stand, and the wolf god will punish you for this after your death."

I cast a memory charm on myself so I would remember this moment, like I had done so many times already this season. I was glad I did because the Holy Veronteegan later recorded my dictation of this and other events I experienced with the Beloved Emily.

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"Return it."

"No."

"Behold the consequences of defying the gods." Emily's voice did not seem loud, and yet, it echoed throughout Three Feathers Camp.

A third lightning bolt struck the Chief. When the vision returned to my eyes, only a blasted, smoking circle of charred and glassy ground remained where the Chief once stood. The strange-smelling smoke stung my eyes and nose and turned my stomach.

"Red Owl Caller," Emily addressed the hearth shaman, "do you know where Listayodas's sword is?"

"I do."

"Bring it, please."

The hearth shaman bowed and walked out of the central compound. As the shaman left, Emily looked at the scorched circle where Galt smote the Chief of the Eagle Tribe and muttered, "But for the grace of the gods go I."

The red of her aura shaded to green as she buried her head in my shoulder and shook. For that brief moment, she was that scared little Coyn I knew who hid her timidity behind a facade of grumpiness and intimidating intelligence.

"Do you want a charm of peace, Em?" I asked her so only she could hear.

"No," her aura went pink with resolve. "I can do this. I know I can do this. We will finish up here, and then I can finally go home. I just need to get through this, and the worst will be over. Getting Melk and Listayodas back to Foskos is worthy of this effort."

"I am amazed by your courage, little one." I meant it. I had lived with her closely every day, with the result that I knew her moods and emotions better than my own. I knew the contradiction of her existence as her fears and desires warred with her great heart and her responsibilities that the gods had imposed upon her. If I overlooked her genius as a mekaner, she was just a small, introverted girl who had greatness thrust upon her, and she wore that greatness with humility. My admiration for her was bottomless.

Red Owl Caller returned with a sword in a beaver-fur scabbard on a beaded baldric. One eye was sporting a red-purple bruise that would be black by tomorrow. An incision on her jaw was still bleeding into her fi'irsdeerskin muffler. One mitten was bloody. "Your sword, griffin warrior." She held it out, and Listayodas took it with the hand that wasn't holding his walking stick.

"I thank you, Red Owl Caller," the old man said in a clear tenor that carried. "Can you hold this for a breath, Storm Walker?" He held out his walking stick, and my new retainer took it. Listayodas then pulled the sword partially out of the scabbard, revealing a sky metal blade. Yes, this was a valuable heirloom sword. I understood why he wanted it back.

"I no longer understand what the Great Owl wants from us," Red Owl Caller said, "but that," she gestured at the scorched circle of ground, "is not it. Can you explain this to me?"

The Beloved answered. "The Children of the Great Eagle enslaved Melk and kept Listaodas hostage. Someone took his sword when he was captured. The demand to return it was a test that the Chief of the Eagle Tribe failed. The test was for wisdom – and remember, the Great Owl is the god of both war and wisdom.

"By refusing to give Listayodas the sword, the Chief put pride before wisdom, but all pride is false without roots in humility. Reflect on this and you will understand. The Great Owl will now tell you through Melk what her will is. Can you put me down, please, Moo?"

I put her on the ground. She pulled a scroll and pen out of a fi'irsdeerskin pouch and held them out to me. "Can you cast the charm to start the scroll, Moo?"

"Of course, Beloved." I ransacked my brain for the charm for a recording scroll, remembered it, and added a levitated barrier charm as a writing surface. To my amazement, the scroll split into two scrolls as soon as I cast my magic. A second pen appeared. Maybe I shouldn't have been so astonished because the scroll – or scrolls – were made by Galt. I know that Vassu promised me I would see miracles in my lifetime, but I was still awed when they happened in front of me.

I was startled by the screech of Erhonsay in her guise as the giant snowy owl. She descended through Galt's stormy clouds and landed in front of Melk. Melk dropped her head in submission. Everyone watching was petrified and fell on their faces. I'm not sure anyone saw Erhonsay leave. I lifted my own head when I felt my own fear abate. Melk stood and looked at Emily. Then she began to speak the words of the revelation that she had just received.

Much of the revelation repeated what Emily had already told the Tirmarrans, with some additions. The revelation stated that shunning defeated warriors was a sin. It forbade enslaving eagles and Coyn, and banned the hunting and eating of griffins, whom the Tirmarrans treated as prey and not as mounts. The revelation elevated Coyote to full status in the tribes and designated beavers, otters, raccoons, and moles as their totem animals. It ended with the commandment that every tribe send a shaman to the Crystal Shrine in Foskos to be educated in the scriptures. Each shaman had to wear a penitential cape of shells.

I could imagine the consternation this was going to cause in both the Tirmarran tribes and the Kingdom of Foskos, given that the two were ancient and enduring enemies.

The revelation also included two novel passages that extended to "all tribes and nations," concerning the treatment of non-combatants and soldiers who surrendered. Armies were to refrain from assaulting and looting non-combatants. Furthermore, soldiers who surrendered could not be killed, enslaved, or forced to fight for the side they surrendered to. The revelation even distinguished between just and unjust reparations.

These provisions went far beyond the Conventions of Surd and the Laws of Landa. They would change the nature of war, assuming wars were conducted by the godly. That didn't always happen, as the recent wars started by Impotu demonstrated.

When Melk finished, the two scrolls floated into Emily's hands, and the pens vanished. The writing on the scrolls fascinated me. Each scroll contained three texts: one in Tirmarran pictographs, one in Tirmarran written phonetically in the Fosk alphabet, and one in the Fosk language.

Emily looked at the writing and made a bemused face. "Huh. I guess I don't have to make a translation after all." She rolled up the scrolls and handed one up to me. "Give this to Red Owl Caller, please." She put the other scroll into the fi'irsdeerskin pouch.

"What I don't understand is why Melk didn't suffer any backlash from getting a revelation," Emily said in Fosk as she frowned. "Most other revelators have passed out for a time, and then suffered a towering headache. Do you know why you aren't affected, Melk?"

"Erhonsay told me in a dream last night that the worst effects of my revelation will be delayed until we are done traveling to Foskos," the eagle replied, sounding apprehensive. "She did not want me to pass out on the cold ground here. As it is, I do feel strange, like I am just an observer watching everything around me, as if I were watching a dream. It feels almost like a charm of peace."

"Maybe it is a sort of charm of peace," I commented, "which has the effect of protecting you from the backlash of receiving divine knowledge until you're safely home."

"Your aura looks wobbly where Erhonsay touched your head, Great One," Listayodas grinned up at his mount.

"Oh gods, I have a title," Melk said in surprise.

"I guess you're your own eagle, now," Listayodas smiled at her. "I don't dare own a revelator. It wouldn't be proper."

"Idiot two-foot! They broke the control gem twenty-two years ago. You are my friend and bond. I'm not leaving you even if you don't own me, hairy brain."

"I'm teasing you, feather ears," he grinned.

"Oh." Melk blinked and tilted her head. "Never mind."

"We should go back to the clearing outside the city gate," Emily said, reverting to Tirmarran. "Landa needs room to pick us up and take us home. Can you fly with the four of us on your back, Melk?"

"I'm a roc eagle. Of course I can."

Pinisla, Coldtide Day

"Why are you packing groom clothes for a Coyn, Thuorfosi?" Heir Kayseo haup Pinisla asked her friend.

"It's just one of Emily's old blue kirtles and an undertunic," Thuorfosi smiled. "I have this itchy feeling she's going to reappear soon, in a few days. I felt like this before, when she came home with the Queen last year, during the middle of the Battle of the Crystal Shrine. I'm sure our little whirlwind won't have clothes ready for a handfasting. And if I'm wrong, her clothes don't take up any room, so no harm done."

"Thuorfosi, you know that if you pack clothes for Emily, she won't show up."

"Yes, and if I don't, she will. You know, that sort of thing is just superstition. I trust my itchy feeling more than anything else. I do have a touch of precog, after all."

"Huh."

Lisaykos, Healing Shrine, the day before Coldtide Day

"Do the seals pass inspection? Gerta? Tori?" Kneeling, I put the wooden box on the ground in front of them. Inside the sealed box were ten thousand charm gems of health. They were the first batch of gems supervised by the city's Coyn, having just spent a rotation inside the well of Mugash. Gerta had received the box of charm gems from the hands of the Holy Raoleer.

After watching how empty charm gems were made, Gerta, as the Coyn's representative, was willing to trust the senior clergy at the Building and Healing Shrines. As Gerta watched, Raoleer did the final cleansing of the gems herself and then swore on the Building Shrine's great crystal that the gems hosted no magic. The box stayed with Gerta on her ride back to the Aybhas. She brought the box into the Healing Shrine as soon as she arrived to seal it while it resided inside the Well of Mugash.

The box had two seals. The first was my own, sealed with my aura. The Coyn already knew that I would not be the priestess sealing their boxes after this. The Revered Ones at the shrine were responsible for the gems placed inside the well. They would handle the sealing starting with the next delivery. The next box of gems would be sealed and overseen by the Revered Galpahkos while I watched. I felt that this was necessary to build trust, which Aylem was keen to emphasize.

The other seal on the box was one that city's Coyn leaders poured on their own. Of course, it lacked a magic imprint. Because the Coyn couldn't feel magic, imprinting an aura didn't matter to them. When Gerta brought the first box of gems from Omexkel during the last rotation, the handful of Coyn leaders who came to witness brought their own sealing compound, a little pot to melt it in, and a small fire pot to supply heat. Their sealing block was a piece of bronze with "Property of the Coyn of Aybhas" engraved on its flat face. I have no idea where they had it made.

"The seals look good to me," Gerta said. She was still anxious around me, which made me sad, but she was not as uncomfortable as the first time she had spoken to me. The other Coyn, the older man named Tori, was also nervous. I wished I had the knack of making the little ones more comfortable around me, like Arma and Twessera can do without even trying. Maybe I was just too tall. Or maybe it was just me, because I knew I made many Cosm nervous too.

"Tori?" I nudged.

"The white seal is yours, Great One?" he looked up at me with big eyes.

"Yes, and I can verify that no one has tampered with it. It's a security seal, which means that if any Cosm touches it other than me, it will shatter and burn the one who touched it."

I could feel Tori's wave of fear, and his aura went deep green.

"Tori, it is safe for Coyn to touch a security seal." I reached over and cast a charm of peace on the poor man. "One must have magic to be affected by the seal."

"I feel strange." Tori frowned.

"I cast a charm of peace on you, Tori," I resisted sighing. "You appeared like you needed it. I can reverse it, if you want, though I wouldn't recommend it."

"It will wear off in less than a bell, Tori," Gerta told him.

"Oh."

"Shall I break my seal for you?" I asked the two Coyn. "I can break yours too, because it looks like it's too thick for you to break by hand."

"Please,' Gerta replied.

I broke the seals and let the Coyn inspect the contents. Then, I carried the box for them out to the door into the east garden, where Captain Looxyas was waiting with her eagle to take the Coyn to the six guardhouses controlling entry into the city. The block and ward leaders had hired two Coyn per guardhouse who could read and write to distribute and register the charm gems of health. Two would be on duty in each guardhouse day and night. The Coyn gem clerks were on the Shrine's payroll for now, until I was sure this scheme would work.

Having settled that chore, I returned to my quarters to finish packing for my nephew's handfasting in Black Falls. Fed and I would leave early in the morning to spend the Coldtide Feast with my daughter's family. After the midday feast, we would all depart for Black Falls, arriving before the fifth bell. Fed was excited, more than usual, because her cousin Twevyar haup Gunndit was visiting from the White Shrine.

I dug into the chest in my storeroom where I kept a supply of clothes for Emily. Despite her minuscule size, Emily was hard on her clothes. I had extra sets of clothing for her hidden away, just in case. I've had to use my stash of Emily clothes twice since she started living in Foskos.

I found the groom side clothes I ordered for her two years ago. I had the funny feeling that she might show up in the next few days. My rare funny feelings usually resolved positively to an event. I added a set of flying clothes and a nice kirtle and robe as an afterthought to my packing.

Before I finished, I could hear Sarfaz's voice inside my head, pointing out – once again – how much time I could save if I employed a personal attendant or two. I knew the real Sarfaz would find the perfect moment this afternoon to nag me in person, with her perfectly timed tact. I had to wonder if my daughter had colluded with the Holy Kama-gossip in recommending Sarfaz, to wear down my bias against personal attendants. I would enjoy continuing to frustrate those who threatened my precious self-reliance.