Maker of Fire

(Continued from installment 2.71 - Emily, Aybhas, Planting Season, 5th rot., 9th day)

We had only walked as far as the corner when a motion on a rooftop caught my eye. "Get down," I smacked Lisaykos' coat to get her attention, "NOW!" Without thinking, I swung my forearm in its thick sheepskin coat sleeve to deflect the clay bomb. The lettuce-sized bomb was flying towards us faster than any Coyn could throw.

It never reached me or Lisaykos. It impacted a barrier that sprung up just two hands away, spraying the physical contents away from us.

"Get away from the smoke, get away from the smoke," I shouted, panicking. Lisaykos obliged, wrapping her other arm around me to keep me from falling as she levitated at speed away from the spot we had been in. A gentleman wraith appeared before us in the air, casting a complete spherical barrier around us. A second barrier appeared over the spots of fire that were now burning in the street.

We watched the strange sight of three Coyn struggling as they floated from the rooftop to the street. Two lady wraiths appeared with three Coyn in their hands, who they turned over to the Guard Lieutenant and her troops. They then flew over to us.

"Please, Great Ones," one said, "stay inside our barrier while we ensure the area is free of more attackers. It will only take a moment."

It did only take a moment and we all floated back to the ground. I buried my face into Lisaykos' shoulder as the adrenaline wore off. It was embarrassing when Lisaykos patted me on the back and said, "There, there, it's over now."

"Blarg," I said into her coat. Being an old lady inside a childlike body really sucked at times.

Then I looked down at the three Coyn kneeling in the dirt surrounded by eight looming angry guard gals, halberds waiting for an excuse to whack off heads.

"Put me down, please?" I requested.

"Please don't, Emily," Lisaykos pleaded, reading my intent.

"Lisaykos, I must ask them about the bombs," I stated. "I'm not going to argue with you about this. I need to know. Please, put me down now."

She sighed and gently lowered me. "You will drive me to an early death at this rate."

"Not likely," I retorted, jogging over to the three captives. A waxed leather bag was on the ground next to the trio. The Lieutenant was removing the contents using her mind's hand. Most of the bag was filled with sawdust. The other contents were two small wood boxes, one with a clay bomb packed in sand, and a large slingshot contraption made out of braided glayon vines. It was obvious that it took three people to use the shooing device: two to hold the ends and one to pull it back and shoot. I had my answer to how the bombs were launched. The last missing pieces were who these people were and why they were throwing their lives away.

I waded through the legs of the surrounding guards, who quickly stepped out of my way. I picked up the slingshot thing. "Clever," I admitted, looking it over. It even had a pocket arrangement for the bomb that wouldn't stress the clay ball while the glayon vines were pulled back. "I never thought of using glayon like this. Who came up with this."

"Those vines are the source of that new rubber stuff. The Prophet Emily invented rubber," the Coyn woman said.

"Emily may have made rubber, but she didn't create this giant sling thing," I remarked, looking at how the pocket gizmo was attached to the braided vines.

"How do you know?"

"I'm Emily," I looked down at the three kneeing Coyn and studied them as their eyes grew wide.

"You invented the bombs," one of the two men accused.

"Yes, I did, to help the slaves of Impotu escape their captors after the Great Crystal of Compulsion was destroyed at Salicet, a place more miserable than this one." I sighed, regretting my own deeds. "I can understand why there was a food riot because rations were cut. I might rioted too if I had been a spoot slave, but these bombs take several days and careful manufacture to make. Someone either made them here and hid them, or they smuggled them in.

"Then there is this clever thing," I held up the three-man slingshot. "This took planning to cut the vines at just the right moment to harvest. Or maybe someone stole these out of the shacks the trainees use to drain the sap out of the vines for use at the Healing Shrine. That priestess you just tried to kill saved my life with one of these vines two years ago. All slaves in Foskos will be freed as soon as the pregnant Queen gives birth because she has the power to destroy the Great Crystal of Control at the White Shrine of Landa. Why all this planned destruction? It makes no sense when all slaves, Coyn and flying mounts, will be freed as soon as the Queen gives birth. Why couldn't you just wait for your freedom? I don't understand."

"That's right," the woman shouted at me, enraged. "You don't understand anything about us. It's all a lie, you know. We've been hearing we'll be freed for a year now. And has it happened? Of course not, because it's a lie, just like what you just told us is a lie. You're not a slave, and you work for them. How could you ever understand what it's like to be a slave and live in the constant fear of these monsters?"

"Watch your mouth," a guard leaned down and applied a nerve pinch to the woman's shoulder. She screamed as the guard maintained her grip for several breaths until the woman collapsed, panting and half-conscious from the pain.

I looked up from this miserable tableau to see other guards holding back a growing number of Coyn and Cosm bystanders. "Lieutenant, let any Coyn who are block or ward leaders through. I would like more responsible Coyn to witness what happens here."

She looked like she wanted to argue with me and then wilted under my glare. "Your will, Great One." She visited the people gathered at both ends of the street and let around twenty Coyn approach to watch within earshot. I gathered my thoughts as she did that.

When she was done, I continued. I tried to yank the woman up from where she was lying in the dirt, "Get on your knees, you fool." She was too heavy for me, and she resisted me. A guard reached down and did it for me.

I looked at the three on their knees, their hatred burning in their eyes at me. "You think I don't understand anything about you?" I laughed with a bitter taste in my mouth. "I understand everything about you except why you couldn't wait for your freedom. Do you think I know nothing about slavery in Foskos? I was born in an illegal breeding camp that used illegal control gems made in Mattamukmuk, gems that had never sat inside the Well of Mugash like Foskan ones. Foskan control gems prevent infectious diseases from spreading, but the ones used where I was raised had no such protection. When a fever spread through my bunkhouse, the overseers set it on fire to keep the disease from infecting the other bunkhouses.

"I escaped through the necessary holes by crawling through the piss and the crap of eighty girls. I hid in the tall grass and tried to reach the sewage drainage ditch for concealment. As my bunk mates tried to escape, the overseers played a cruel game of seeing if they could slice a fleeing child in half with their swords and axes. From where I cowered in the grass, I watched the only friends I had in this life, Ginny and Maree, Lannee and Gill, and Samo, who I loved and who I w...will never forget, m...mauled by those Cosm monsters. That nightmare of flames and blood has never left me, and it still haunts my sleep several times a season." By now, the tears were running down my face, and I could see the flames flickering on the edge of my vision. I forced the flashback from taking me over, but the screams and flames now ran concurrently with my present reality.

"You lie," the woman hissed. "Where's your charm gem?"

"I w...was spotted in my hiding place, and an overseer swung at me with his axe. His aim was bad, and he merely stove in my skull right here," I pointed where I had been injured. "When I regained my wits, I realized I w...would probably die from my head injury. My skull was broken, and the pain w...was so bad I wanted to die. But I decided that if I w...was going to die, I w...would die free and not a slave. So, lying there in the sewage ditch, I took the control gem in my teeth, and I bit it off."

"That should have killed you," one of the two men said in disbelief.

"Yes, it should have k...killed me, but it didn't," I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets to hide their shaking. I knew I was losing to the flashback now and struggled to stay on my feet. I must have lost that struggle because I heard Lisaykos' voice talking to me, talking me back out of the nightmare.

"An attack of the waking trauma sickness is a terrible thing to watch, Great One," a woman's voice remarked.

"Yes, we've been unable to cure her of it," Lisaykos replied, cradling me in her lap. "She's a very difficult patient. Can you hear me yet, little one? Emily?"

I opened my eyes to Lisaykos, the Lieutenant, several guards, and several more Coyn looking down at me. The flames and screams were gone.

"I used a trick Lyappis taught me," Lisaykos said, stroking the top of my head, "to stop the waking nightmare. Maybe we should move on to the chapel shrine so you can rest."

"N...n...no! I have to ask these three some things," I protested, trying to get up. "Help me up, please?" I felt weak and hated it.

"You can sit here with me while you get your wits back," Lisaykos said as she sat me up in her lap. Holding me, she turned where she was sitting in the dirt of the street to face the three captive Coyn. "I told everyone the rest of your story, as I understand it, while you were recovering. You've been out for only a few moments. I think these three criminals should now understand what you've lived through, including how we captured you and caged you up at the Healing Shrine until recently."

Now I wanted to know precisely what Lisaykos has told them, and the surrounding listeners.

"Can someone cast a compulsion to answer questions on these three f...f..for me?" I asked, fighting to control the annoying stutter that decided to show up at this most inconvenient time.

"Of course, dear heart," and Lisaykos turned her merciless eyes on the three Coyn who had tried to kill us. I saw them shudder as the magic took effect, and I wondered if Lisaykos had gone out of her way to make the casting uncomfortable.

"Go ahead and question them. I have compelled them to obey your voice," Lisaykos said.

(Continued in installment 2.73)