Maker of Fire

Emily, Healing Shrine of Mugash

I woke up in a nest of pillows, under a down-filled comforter in my usual spot on the lounge in Lisaykos' study. Asgotl was curled up asleep on the carpet next to me. I looked up at the early snow falling outside the window behind Wolkayrs' work table.

"Ah, good," Lisaykos said from behind me, "you're awake." Wolkayrs got up from his work table and brought a platter over, putting it on the little table he had made for me. The table slid a flat surface at a height where my hand could reach without sitting up all the way. The platter was filled with bite-sized squares of bread, with bacon and smoked salmon with cheese, and liver pate, and ham salad with pear slices---all things I liked to nibble on.

"Thuorfosi will be here soon to drown you in the tub and do your hair," Lisaykos paused. "You will let her put you in a dress for this evening because you are having dinner with the Convocation and this is not negotiable."

I sighed. "No, m...maybe tomorrow b...b...but not today," I stated. The thought of trying to keep myself together in front of all the high priestesses for an entire formal dinner left me with a feeling of dread. This same bunch interrogated me at the palace after I had been abducted. They arrived with no warning and grilled me with theological questions as to why Tiki, the chief of the Gods, made a lowly unmagical Coyn like me into a blessed revelator. It wasn't a positive experience and it didn't leave me feeling warm and fuzzy towards them.

The Convocation was anything but safe. If they were all like Foyuna, who was friendly and kind, it wouldn't be so bad. I had an unnerving feeling that they were more like Fassex, with her overwhelming power and her overly-rigid opinions on things like proper religious attitudes. The sight of those Cosm that Fassex punished at the tea shop next to the Shrine of Galt was never far from my thoughts whenever I was reminded of the High Priestess of Landa.

I felt unsettled and unhappy over the events of the last two days, the dream command last night, and everything that happened this morning. The last thing I wanted to do was to play the role of a well-behaved little revelator for the Convocation Altar Guild and Gestapo Glee Club. I wanted to forget all the memories the last two days had resurrected of my horrible childhood as a Coyn and the constant fear of things much larger than myself. I needed to bury once more the dread of huge hands descending from above to toss some of us into the air for the fun of watching us then fall to our deaths, or to be stripped and whipped, or to be taken away from the rest of the bunkhouse and never return.

I wanted to curl up somewhere warm and safe and quiet, maybe read a book, maybe listen to Thuorfosi play her zither thing, maybe listen to more of Asgotl's outrageous stories or Twessera's funny ones.

"I see that..."

I gasped and flinched at Lisaykos' voice right next to me. She knelt next to me and rested a hand on my knees.

"I'm sorry, Emily, I didn't mean to startle you," she had that deep crease between her eyebrows that showed up when she was disturbed about something. "I can tell just looking at you that maybe the Convocation should do without you this evening. My apologies for forgetting that the last few days have been hard on you. You probably don't want to go to the general staff dining room on the second floor this evening. Now then, what to do?"

"Thuorfosi and I were planning on going to the meatball skewer place in the north market this evening," Wolkayrs interjected from his work table. "It would be easy to include Emily in our little excursion."

Lisaykos looked at me, "are you up for that, or should you be staying in?"

I had my pick of evils. I guess the face I made while pondering my choices spoke volumes.

"Oh dear," Lisaykos chuckled. "You get to choose between having the nice but uninteresting evening inside on your own or going out to eat but having to be carried the whole way." She suddenly frowned and looked out the door into the hallway. "If you want to discuss security arrangements, Lord Usruldes, you can come in and have a seat."

"Security a...a...arrangements?" I asked.

"It's only an issue, Great One, and not a very big one at that, if you opt to eat out," Usruldes said, strolling through the study door. He fell to his knees, bowed his head, and put his right hand over his heart, "may the blessings of the eleven gods be upon both of you, Great Ones."

"Please rise, Lord Usruldes, and feel free to sit down," Lisaykos said with just a hint of orneriness. She stood up, avoided bumping the still sleeping Asgotl, and sat down in an armchair facing Usruldes, who remained standing.

"Security arrange...ments?" I asked a second time.

"There has been a very discreet guard on you since your mishap with the Queen," Lisaykos informed me.

"There has?" I wasn't sure I liked the sound of this.

"There are ten who assigned to this task," Lisaykos explained. "Usually there are eight who do most of the work and two others who occasionally fill in."

I looked from Usruldes to Lisaykos and back.

"It's been a while since I've gotten the daggers of death glare out of you, dear heart," Lisaykos remarked with some amusement.

Right then, more than anything, I wanted to be back in my home in my little valley on the other side of the volcanic rift, far far away from security, and convocations, and Cosm, and the damn gods behind it all.

"Y...you knew about this and you d...didn't tell me," I accused.

"No, no one told me or asked me about this," Lisaykos said, shaking her head. "They just appeared one day, a few days after you died. I did my own checking to make sure the people watching you were fit to do so. They all work for Lord Usruldes. They are all women, by the way. They share one of the two local houses that the Corps of Wraiths use. It's the two-story house with the white shingles three down on the left from the peak of snob hill. You can see it sitting in my armchair in my bedroom."

"Two houses?" Usruldes said with a hint of inquiry.

"The other is the one a half block from the public boat landing. Five Bridge Street is the address," Lisaykos smiled at him. "You sometimes retire there to sleep in the back room. From what I can tell, it's the Wraiths' local base of operations."

Usruldes sighed, "if you didn't already have meaningful employment, I believe I would want to hire you for a rewarding career in protecting the realm of Foskos." Lisaykos laughed at that, finally relaxing. I realized that she had been tense ever since he entered the study. Were the two of them still circling each other, trying to discern where the lines were between them?

He relaxed enough to sit down in one of the armchairs. "Great One," he fixed his eyes on me, "you have received two revelations and three dream commands. The King determined that given the gods' interest in you, it behooved the kingdom to take measures to prevent any further incidences like your abduction at the end of the growing season. At the same time, any guard around you must also be so deft that you and the people you live with should not even know that it's there." He took in a large breath and sighed loudly in resignation, "obviously, this isn't always possible given that your bedroom is next door to someone who is a high priestess."

"So Emily," Lisaykos nailed me with her eyes, "are you staying in for a quiet evening, or eating out with Wolkayrs and Thuorfosi?"

"The l...latter," I decided. "I'm feeling a bit spent but if I don't need to w...w...walk at all, it w...will be nice to escape the shrine for a w...while." I ignored the issue of a hidden security detail following me around. It made me feel like I was living inside one of those isekai cultivator wuxia light novels, where the royalty was always surrounded by invisible ninja guards.

Usruldes stood and bowed, "I believe I must be on my way, Great Ones." He nodded his head politely at Wolkayrs, "Scholar." He started walking out and then stepped hurriedly to the side to allow Thuorfosi to enter the study. He bowed his head politely and placed his hand on his heart as she walked past him, eyes wide and mouth gaping. As soon as she had passed him, he vanished out the door.

Thuorfosi looked at us, still gaping, with her hand pointing to the now empty door. "Was that...was that really who I think that was?"

"Yes, Thuorfosi, that was Usruldes the Wraith, who I invited in for a few words after noticing him loitering in the hallway," Lisaykos said kindly.

"I knew a bunch of people saw him in Is'syal right after the flood but I wasn't one of them. Wow. A real Usruldes sighting." Thuorfosi had gone full fan-girl, something I would never have guessed about her. Lisaykos' reaction to Thuorfosi was even better: a look of incredulity that took no prisoners. Wolkayrs was struggling not to laugh. The tableau was quite entertaining.

It took a few minutes for normalcy to return to the study. Lisaykos had been patiently sitting on her curiosity over Giltak for the entire morning. She would not be diverted any longer.

"Now, about this dream command from Giltak?" she asked.

"I need to invent a tool called the compass. I suspect some form of the compass already exists but since I've never really been inside Cosm w...workshops, I don't know w...what forms are in use. Giltak said I had to invent it. That suggests w...whatever is in use is probably primitive. It shouldn't be t...too hard to make even if I don't have a w...way to thread the metal. I can w...work around the lack of threads if I use two pairs of spring clamps and use brass. Brass is probably the best metal to use since there isn't any steel yet."

"Brass?" Lisaykos asked. She walked over from her work table and sat on the end of the lounge. "What is brass?"

"You know, brass, the alloy of copper and zinc."

"Wolkayrs," Lisaykos waved him over from his work table. He came with a tablet and stylus ready, pulling up a chair. "Now, Emily, let's back up and give Wolkayrs a chance to write all this down. Now, please describe brass and how one makes it. And what is zinc?"

"W...What? You don't know w...what zinc is?" I looked at Wolkayrs, "you know zinc, right?" He shook his head no.

"I have decided that while you are living here, Wolkayrs and Thurofosi will be writing these little gems down that fall out of your mouth before they get lost," Lisaykos said, smiling that evil smile of hers. I rolled my eyes and she laughed.

Lying there on those pillows, sipping hot tea, and nibbling my lunch, it dawned on me that despite being stuck in a Cosm-scaled shrine, for now, the company was pleasant and I was comfortable. I realized, for the first time, that this place had begun to feel like a home.

I looked at the snow falling, piling up against the calcite panes of the windows. When was it that I rescued Aylem's children? I never kept a formal calendar living in my valley on the other side of the volcanic rift. It must be close to a year ago. If I had walked away from Heldfirk and Opo'aba, I would probably still be there in my valley and would have made glass by now. Without the intrusion of Cosm into my life, I suspect I may have eventually made my way to the coast to explore the culture of the Sea Coyn.

I had changed. I wasn't the Emily who lived a life of unbounded liberty and isolation anymore, completely free and utterly alone. Sitting here on this pile of pillows, with a down comforter and a warm wool blanket, I was trapped here for now, but this was not a jail. The shackles that kept me here were the ties of affection and my pitiful health. The irony was exquisite and my lips curled into a self-deprecating half-smile.

"Emily?" Lisaykos' voice dropped me out of my train of thought.

I looked up in question at her and Wolkayrs, who was poised with stylus and tablet.

"For a moment there, you were far far away," Lisaykos smiled with her eyes. "Now, let's start with the thing called zinc."

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