Maker of Fire

Convocation, Crystal Shrine of Tiki, Planting Season, 3rd rot., evening of the 4th day

Lyappis left a pitcher of sekanjabin, a plate of grapes, and a bowl of pickled beets on the side table next to the lounge. Aylem had been craving those three things for the last rotation. She noted the Queen had made herself comfortable on the piled cushions.

"Give me a nudge when you finish up," Lyappis straightened up to leave, "and I will come and carry things back with you."

"You're not staying?" Aylem looked panicked.

"I'm not part of Convocation, and I was not invited, dear heart," Lyappis dropped her voice. "You'll be fine. They won't eat you—at least not until after you give birth. Just don't kill anyone." She patted the Queen's hand and left.

The Queen's fishface of astonishment caught most eyes. Before anyone could comment, the impenetrable facade of the Ice Queen slammed into place, daring watchers to say anything at all. An uncomfortable silence descended.

"That was a great fish face, Great One," Lisaykos addressed Aylem from her chair next to Senlyosart's lounge. "I'm afraid the Revered Lyappis has again succeeded in teasing you. She's worse than her daughter."

"I'm not sure if that was a compliment," Lyappis' daughter, Kamagishi, protested on cue. Most chuckled, and everyone smiled, including Aylem. The tension in the room dissipated. Aylem appreciated the skill Lisaykos had used in manipulating the room. The old princess was a master.

Foyuna filled the dome with hundreds of floating charm gems of light, creating a dazzling effect with the multitude of glowing white pinpoints in the darkness under the high dome. The Throne of Judgment and the Great Crystal in its rock base were both difficult to move, so Foyuna did not bother. She made a circle of armchairs and lounges for the Convocation on the opposite side of the Great Crystal from the Throne.

After Foyuna gave the blessing, Sutsusum started the meeting.

"Sisters, where is Imstay King? I asked that he be here," Sutsusum inquired.

"His absence has been noted," Fassex responded. "Just before this meeting started, the Queen located Imstay and his entourage along the Upper Rig River. They were speaking with some eagles. I mindcasted the King directly, and he told me he would be late. A party of eagles intercepted his entourage and asked to talk to him. The eagles included Lagasha, Mother of Nesters, so the King can't duck out of speaking to her. Do you wish to wait for Imstay, Sister Sutsusum?"

"No, let us proceed," Sutsusum wondered how long the meeting would last. She would like to fly home before the sun went down. If she needed to wait to speak with the King, she might be staying the night despite how close her bed was on Two Ferry Island, just a wagon-day away.

"I believe we will have three items to discuss," Sutsusum explained in her high-pitched voice with its odd inflections and unique cadence. "First is a communication from the deity Gertzpul at daybreak today. The second is an outline of the revelation of Gertzpul to the newest revelator. The third is the precognitions of Kamagishi and Losnana."

Sutsusum checked off the first of many items listed on her wax tablet with her stylus. "I propose," she continued, "to begin with the second, third, and fourth parts of the recent revelation of Gertzpul. While these parts of the revelation concern the mekaning of roads and bridges, they have little to do with what is happening in Sussbesschem or the war with Impotu. The second through fourth parts of the revelation are the portions that the King can learn about later without harming our current war preparations.

"As you already know," Sutsusum warmed to one of her favorite topics, "commerce would improve if we could build bridges with long spans high enough to clear the 40-hand height of lumber barges. To look ahead to what's coming at us in three or four years, we want bridges that can clear the 60-hand high masts of Sea Coyn river boats. Those folks can sail their boats up the river to Uldlip against the current with a good enough wind after planting season runoff is over. We'd like to be able to do that too, but I am told that Cosm weight and displacement are too much to make sailing efficient for us on the river.

"The bridge at Gunndit Town has six spans of 180 hands between piers which are 52 hands above planting season high water. That's uncomfortably low for lumber barges. The two bridges at Aybhas have the longest distance between piers in Foskos, 200 hands. Clearance under each span of the two bridges is just 36 hands, which is why all timber and lumber to-or-from Gunndit and Black Falls is loaded or off-loaded at the big lumber yard outside the north gate of the Aybhas city wall upstream of the two bridges.

"The best bridges my shrine can build have spans of 180 to 200 hands. That's based on the average usable length of a Ryoep Fir trunk, which is 200 hands. We can build bridges with 200-hand spans between stone-and-mortar piers, not more than 60 hands high. We have found that more elevated than that will be unsteady and can lead to the collapse of a pier.

"We can span more than 200 hands between supports, but that requires building frames, trellises, and trusses to distribute the load between piers. The problem with building frameworks is that they need planning and use much more material than the standard flat-beam 200-hand-span bridge. Even then, the longest trusswork on any Foskan bridge is the 400-hand bronze-framework bridge section over the Salt River at Is'syal.

"Our limit on bridge spans has been 200 hands for wood and 400 hands for bronze," Sutsusum looked happy to be bragging about the road-building skills of her shrine. "Our inability to build longer bridges means we must depend on ferries for most of our river crossings." Sutsusum suddenly smiled, startling everyone, "Sisters, the second part of the newest revelation is how to build a bridge with two supports and a span as wide as you need it to be."

"Impossible!" said Raoleer. "Without enough support from below, the materials of the span will fail."

"The span of the bridge is not held up from below, Sister Raoleer," Sutsusrum grinned, enjoying Raoleer's reaction. "The two support towers hold up long chains anchored in the ground. The deck span hangs from ropes that are attached to the long chains. So the towers hold up the long chains, and the long chains hold up the deck from above."

"From above?" Raoleer frowned as she tried to imagine what Sutsusum had just described. "Like a cable bridge but with towers?"

"Exactly!" Sutsusum beamed, happy that Raoleer understood.

"Holy One," the Queen interjected and held up a sketch she had just made on paper, "what you described would look like this, yes?" No one in the room would have recognized Aylem's amateurish drawing of the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the gorge of the River Avon in Somerset, England. Aylem realized that Sutsusum was describing a suspension bridge and drew her sketch to confirm it. Aylem herself didn't know the name of the bridge she had drawn. She just knew what it looked like from family trips made when she was just a little girl between the Midlands and summer camp near Bristol.

"How very clever," Raoleer enthused, smiling to see a picture instead of trying to visualize from Sutsusum's description. "The towers are always in compression from bearing the chains, which leads me to consider fitted stonework as the best material and building method. We should consider iron for the chains since we've found that iron is more forgiving than structural bronze. How would you build the road suspended from the chains, Sister?" Raoleer asked Sutsusum.

"Stop!" Foyuna interrupted the developing conversation of bridge-obsessed mekaners. "I think only the three of you," she started and was cut off.

"Four of us," Moxsef added abruptly. "Those two aren't the only ones who need to build structures," she waggled her fingers at Sutsusum and Raoleer.

"As I was saying," Foyuna rolled her eyes at Moxsef, "I think the four of you understand the finer details of this new bridge type. The rest of us were getting lost. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this new bridge design would make it possible to build a bridge that could take freight over the Ravine of the Rig River between Omexkel and Ark'kos, yes?"

"Yes," the Queen said. "The length of a gorge or river will no longer prevent the construction of bridges. We will be able to retire most of our ferries for freight. Freight to Omexkel will be able to skip the detour to the ferry at Rigdit or the bridges below Weirgos."

"Blessed One," a perplexed Foyuna asked, "have you always been hiding mekaner tendencies?"

"I blame Emily," Aylem grinned.

"I concur," Lisaykos added, rolling her empty cup between her hands. "Living with Emily is an education about things like stress and strain, advanced mathematics, and building things that would have defied imagination just three years ago. The Queen and I, and to a lesser extent, Senlyosart, have also been exposed to the Prophet's strange ways. I think more people than you estimated followed most of that bridge discussion, Sister Foyuna."

"I am not ashamed to admit that I was completely lost," Fassex inserted herself into the give-and-take. "Those two started talking about loads from above and below, and I was left far, far behind," she pointed at Sutsusum and Raoleer. "You too?" she nodded at Ashansalt of Mueb.

"Actually," Ashansalt gave Fassex an apologetic look, "I followed the bridge discussion. Building a small bridge is something we teach in our farm mechanics classes at my shrine."

"Enough, sisters," Foyuna jumped back in. "We need to move forward. So, part of the new revelation is an advance in our knowledge of how to build bridges. We should leave the details to the mekaners of the Convocation. Sister Sutsusum, what is the next part of the new revelation?"

Sutsusum nodded, "The third part of the new revelation is something that Gertzpul called a railroad." It took her a half bell to explain why using rails made of steel made moving freight more effective than using wagons on roads. Imstay finally arrived while Sutsusum was in the middle of explaining how to make iron and steel cables.

The Convocation meeting took a break for dinner, and Sutsusum resigned herself to flying home after dark. Once dinner was over, Sutsusum startled the King and Convocation when she took out the Ringed Staff of Gertzpul. After she attached the fire opal on top, the staff floated on its own into the middle of the circle of chairs and lounges. Once there, it rose to about 25 hands and began to emit light. The behavior of the staff warned the Convocation that Sutsusum's next words would be momentous.

"Sisters, Aylem Queen, Imstay King," Sutsusum began, "Gertzpul woke me up this morning with the message I convey to you now. He placed his hand upon my shoulder as I slept to wake me."

Silence reigned momentarily as fourteen startled pairs of eyes studied Sutsusum. Each person examined Sutsusum's aura and the new mark of Gertzpul over her right shoulder. Gertzpul's touch elevated Sutsusum in the hierarchy of the Convocation. She was still below the two revelators belonging to the Convocation, Aylem and Lisaykos, but above all the other high priestesses, who would now do one-kneed obeisance to her. The news was indeed momentous.

Sutsusum waited for the rest to regain their composure and then continued. "Gertzpul's message is thus: he has chosen a flying horse from Alkinosuk as his revelator. He sent his revelator to Sussbesschem to become the mount for the Revered Tom. The revelation will be dictated to the Prophet and written down by her. The revelation has four parts, three of which I outlined before dinner. The remaining part is a new law for the Chem about overturning the status of being legally dead, which will be an issue for freed Chem slaves."

"Do you know any more about the new revelator?" Fassex asked.

"He is a young stallion of four years, raised in the great herd of Alkinosuk. He is all black except for a white mark on his nose." Sutsusum took the impulse to laugh and stuffed it deep. With her most solemn demeanor, fit for conducting the funeral rites of sacred persons, Sutsusum pronounced, "His name is Spot."

The meeting collapsed into several moments of uncomfortable silence while everyone except for Sutsusum and the Queen tried and failed not to laugh.

After the attendees recovered, Sutsusum dropped her other momentous news. "In two rotations, the Shrouded Shrine will send its yearly gift of ice charm gems to Sils'chk," she began. "Gertzpul wishes that I accompany this year's gift to Sils'chk, so I can meet with our newest revelator and bring the text of the revelation back to the Shrines for copying and dissemination."