Maker of Fire

Tom, Healing Shrine, Planting Season, 5th rot., evening of the 9th day

I was shocked listening to Emily cry her heart out to the griffin Asgotl. I learned some very valuable and unpleasant things from eavesdropping on that conversation. First, my immediate fears that Emily would leave me were nonsense. Second, all the insecurities and introversion of that girl I met at a Washington Square jam session were still there. My little mouse had paved them over with two lifetimes of coping skills.

The flashbacks and the nightmares upset me. I had to face up to the reality that the experiences of this life, especially when she was a child, had broken my Emily. I felt helpless because I did not know how to put her back together again. To be honest, if I lived through half of what she described to her griffin friend, I'd be so combat fatigued I wouldn't be able to function. Maybe the griffin had kept her from that. Perhaps I owed the griffin for being there for her when I couldn't be. After all, he was some kind of semi-divine being and was Jonas' whale in a previous life. He deserved my deference and consideration regardless. Besides, he was a friendly guy despite being a griffin.

I confess that I felt anger at the gods for putting Emily through all this agony. I hoped I didn't get smitten for that.

I also felt ashamed that I was one of the causes of Emily's ongoing stress when I should have been the one she relied on. I used to be her support person when we were back on Earth, but I had failed at doing that here on Erdos. I didn't feel good about myself over this. I had tried so hard to get back to her, climbing over a fortress wall of Cosm silverhairs, and then I let her down in the worst possible way. My uncertainty over her accepting me despite the gap in our status was nothing compared to her troubles. Listening in on Emily and Asgotl left me sure that my fears were mostly in my head.

I also had to admit that I was upset that I wasn't the big man of our future family anymore. I was supposed to be the one to lead and protect, not Emily. I knew that in Foskos, women led in more than half of the endeavors in life. I was okay with that. The evidence of my eyes showed me that women could be damn good leaders. But my attitude toward Emily's exalted status showed me that, at some level, I failed to accept that. It was a shitty thing to acknowledge about myself. Because of it, I had hurt the person I cherished the most in this upside-down world of magical giant women who ran society. I had been a selfish jerk when my Emily was suffering and hiding it. I had been too involved with my own petty problems to catch that.

I smiled at her, dried her tears, got her dinner, and tucked her in. Then I asked the healer on "Emily duty" to cast that wonderful magic that would let her sleep all night without nightmares.

I wasn't sure I wanted to leave her once she was asleep. I was tired because we had flown through the night to get here, but I was too wound up to relax and sleep. I was debating if I had it in me to join all those big scary silverhairs in the study of the Princess High Priestess. I had to weigh my discomfort against my desire to discover what had happened over the last two days. Vassu had sent me here, but gods don't appear to unimportant people like me for trivial reasons. Big events had happened, and my mouse was probably in the middle of them.

I was debating with myself when someone knocked on the door.

"Come," I said softly.

Ursuldes came in and sat down on one of the chest seats. "I was going to offer you your own charm of deep sleep. I think you need it, or you'll fret yourself into stress-based exhaustion. Your misery is leaking all over the place. Don't give me that look, short stuff. I think you've finally figured out Emily isn't going to dump you. I'm unsure why you're beating yourself up right now, but we can sort that out in the morning."

"But—"

"Look, I just diverted the Queen and my mother from interrogating you tonight. You don't need to visit the bear patch of my mother's study right now. You can avoid all those scary silverhairs, at least until morning," Usruldes smiled in an encouraging way.

"Did you...?"

"Sorry, yes, I did. You're as easy as Emily to overhear thoughts from, easier in fact. When Emily gets touched by a god, all we can pick up is noise. But you? You're enough like her that any silverhairs you befriend will pick up your stray thoughts without any effort, like I did just now."

"Oh fucking wonderful," I really didn't want to hear this. Did that mean Silverhairs would know when I was horny?

"Why is that a problem, Tom?" Usruldes asked. "Wanting to have sexual relations is a normal part of life, especially for men our age. Oh, sorry. I did it again, didn't I? Emily is used to it, though she is uncomfortable when she's aware of it."

"Yeah, I'd say. I think it's pretty shitty."

"I don't want to make your evening harder than it already has been, little guy, but be careful with the profanity. I noticed your language tends to be colorful. My mother and the Queen will step on your hard if you don't guard your language in their presence." He looked at his feet and frowned, "Besides, you're a sacred person now. You should try to speak more politely, at least in public and in front of old prudes like my mom and my sister."

I wasn't sure if my face was burning because I was angry or if I was embarrassed.

"Probably a little of both," Usruldes said with sympathy.

I sighed, "I will take that sleeping charm, big guy."

"Good move. You need it."

Usruldes, Healing Shrine, Planting Season, 5th rot., evening of the 9th day

I walked into a room full of the most powerful people in Foskos, with every eye tracking me. I immediately made a full obeisance and then stood when given leave by the Queen. Just because I knew it would annoy her, I waited for my mother to give me leave to sit down.

My sister Katsa beat her to it, barking, "Oh, for the love of Landa, sit down already, or I'll throw you into a chair myself."

I politely bowed, "Your will, Revered One." I loved the look she gave me, which promised to levitate me half a hand off the floor for half a bell. With a perfectly composed visage, I took a seat on Emily's lounge next to the Holy Kamagishi. My mother gave me one of her special looks reserved for erring children and trainees.

I smiled with all the innocence I could muster, "How are you this evening, Mother?"

The glare vanished, replaced by my mother smiling, with an extra helping of evil glee on the side, "I am well, Irhessa, dear boy. I won't bother to ask how you are because your blue haze of fatigue tells me all I need to know, child."

We smiled at each other briefly, and then the King started laughing. We both glared at him, as did my sister Katsa.

Wearing amusement on his face but calculation in his eyes, Imstay King smiled at us, remarking, "I'm so glad the Gunndit family is doing better. It's nice to see a family reunited and getting along so well."

He then turned that smile on me, and his eyes told me I would receive a royal rebuke later.

"That could have been done better, Lord Irhessa," the Holy Kamagishi ignored or missed Imstay's subtle admonishment of me. "All of us have had a terrible time over the last two days, and your mother's suffering has been second only to little Emily's. She and Emily were attacked this afternoon. Your mother escaped harm only through the quick actions of a wraith shadowing Emily."

The slow smolder of my anger was fanned into burning. She might be my difficult mother, but an attack on her was not something I could or would ignore. "Who attacked my mother?"

"Three of the Coyn from the group responsible for yesterday's fires and riot," Imstay said.

"May I question them before they are executed?" How did I and my Wraiths miss a conspiracy by Coyn, no less? Inexcusable!

"Little brother, calm yourself. It is not your fault." Imstay knew me too well. He saw the murder in my eyes. "We all missed it. And you can't interrogate your mother's attackers. Emily had them executed on the spot after she questioned them. Her quick action allowed us to find the other conspiring slaves and their bomb caches."

"Snow Bear, show yourself," I commanded, clamping down on my temper.

"May the blessings of the eleven gods be upon this sacred gathering," Snow Bear's raspy baritone said. Then, he appeared on his knees by the door to the study.

"You have our leave to be at your ease, Deputy Spymaster," the Queen responded with a kind smile.

"Snow Bear, how did we miss this? This is an appalling oversight!" I needed to know.

"We have no agents who are spoot slaves, Spider." His eyes were sympathetic, "The conspirators were all spoot slaves and a few riverboat and wagon slaves."

I groaned. I was the one who did most of the recruiting of our Coyn agents. I had the magic to override certain features of the control gems worn by all Foskan Coyn. As the one who had built our network of informers, the responsibility for this oversight was mine. I felt faint and sick to my stomach. The law was clear: I had committed a failure of duty that led to the attempted murder of two sacred persons. The punishment was the death of the Great Cracks. When the faint feeling and the ringing in my ears stopped, I admitted my fault before someone else pointed it out.

"I am the one who recruits slaves for the kingdom's informant network. Neglecting to have agents among the spoot slaves is my fault. I am guilty of a failure of duty leading to the attempted murder of sacred persons," I took in a shuddering breath.

My mother was the apotheosis of duty, and her duty would be to follow the law, even if it doomed her immediate family. I was sure that my life was now over and my family would be condemned to share my doom.

I got on my knees and bowed my head and hands to the floor to my mother, begging, "I would plead that you spare my infant girl, the family of my wife's brother, and the brewery."

"Lord Irhessa," the King said, "don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not," I rebutted. "You know the law as well as I do. I have offended through my own negligence."

"Wait," Kamagishi, High Justiciar of the kingdom, held a hand up. "Could this be a failure in the making of control gems?" I appreciated her attempt to find a hole through which I could escape this fate.

"No," Moxsef, the owner of the spoot slaves replied in an unhappy voice. "No, the spoot slaves have been idle in the eight communities affected ever since running water and sewer collection drains were installed last year. They were not under any work orders because most of them had no more work to do. Though they are not allowed to leave where they live, our idle slaves are permitted to recreate within Coyn neighborhoods and can choose how they spend their time before curfew. Their control gems worked just fine. The guilty slaves had the freedom and time to hatch this wickedness. We have some results already from interrogating the conspirators in other cities. They worked around their inability to leave their home cities by recruiting slaves on cargo boats and wagons to help them."

"Legal precedent is clear," Kamagishi added with anguish. "Failures to stop foreseeable events have been judged as acts leading to the murder and attempted murder of sacred persons."

"However, it is up to the sacred person involved to pass the judgment, is it not?" my mother startled everyone by speaking. Why was she stating the obvious?

Katsa looked confused, "And what is your judgment, Mother? Is the death of the Great Cracks not the punishment prescribed?"

"It's not up to me," my mother said with a smile in her eyes. "It's up to Emily. We were together at the time of the attack, and she has the higher precedence." She got up, "I'll go get her. If anyone can see a way out of this situation, it will be her. Sister Kamagishi, please prepare a writ since Emily can't imprint an aura on a seal."

"Right," Kamagishi broke out in a gleeful smile. I guessed she anticipated a lenient judgment from Emily, as did I. My sense of doom lifted. Smiles were on every face while we waited. Everyone looked relieved except Aylem.

"She won't react the way you think she will," Aylem told us, looking annoyed. "Emily will be angry."

"Of course, she will be annoyed that we woke her," Kamagishi beamed, "but we'll put her back to bed right away, and then we'll all be able to sleep tonight with one less worry."

Aylem just shook her head, clearly disagreeing but not pursuing the argument.

My mother returned carrying Emily wrapped in a blanket. She sat back down in her armchair and held Emily in her lap. A sleepy Emily frowned at me kneeling on the floor. She pointed at the spot on the lounge next to Kamagishi and told me, "Sit. There. Don't argue." So I sat.

"Lisaykos told me you need my judgment as a sacred person," Emily began, her eyes glaring at me. She knew I was the source of the trouble. "What has happened?"

Kamagishi outlined the failure of my intelligence network and its role in allowing the attack to happen. She then discussed past cases where negligent crown officers were guilty of the murder or attempted of a sacred person because they failed to stop foreseeable events.

"So, please, Great One," Kamagishi finished her analysis of what had happened, "would you pass judgment now on Lord Irhessa, the court official in charge of the Coyn informants in the kingdom's intelligence network? I believe you know that the punishment is normally death by being thrown into an erupting Great Crack."

I was surprised when the annoyed orange in Emily's aura suddenly flashed to a bright, burning red. Through gritted teeth, Emily snarled, "You people woke me up for this? No one of sound mind should even think this was a foreseeable or preventable event. And you," Emily shouted and pointed at the Queen. "You should have known better, Jane Paxton. Blarg!" Emily held her head, "You people will drive me insane! What nonsense! The same logic you would use to condemn Irhessa," she pointed at me, "would also condemn me for being the indirect agent behind the devastation of Aybhas, the riots and the death of Wolkayrs. You might as well tie me up and send me to the mines right now for introducing clay bombs!"

"But, Emily—" Aylem tried to speak up.

"No, no buts, you overgrown idiot!" Emily yelled in English. I quickly cast the lost charm of tongues on everyone in the room. "No buts are allowed here, Jane Paxton. I refuse to accept any buts. You know what's inside every but? An asshole, that's what!" If Emily hadn't been so angry, I might have laughed at the pun.

"So let me tell you what my considered opinion is here," the angry little Coyn returned to speaking in Fosk. "This was not the case of a foreseeable event. You poor pathetic, unimaginative Cosm could never have foreseen the clever workaround the spoot slaves used to circumvent the constraints on their movements imposed by their control gems. It's so clever that I wish I had thought of it.

"How could an uninventive Cosm have foreseen that the lowly spoot slaves would ever come up with such a wicked and clever way to rebel, despite their control gems designed to prevent that? Eh? It defies belief that anyone could predict such a thing happening with enough foresight that informants could be recruited and planted in time. I'm not sure even I could have foreseen this. Merciful Mugash! You are all idiots for even considering that this man is culpable of negligence, especially you!" She pointed at me. "You should have known better. I thought you had a brain, but obviously, I was mistaken."

"Emily," Kamagishi spoke calmly, in contrast to the rare sight of Emily red in the face and shouting while she lost her temper. "Emily, dear heart, the legal precedents are—"

"No! Your legal precedents are sheep pucky! You wanted a judgment? Well, here's my judgment. On my authority as the prophet," Emily pronounced in a voice that demanded obedience, "it is my judgment that Lord Irhessa is not guilty of failure, neglect, nonfeasance, or misfeasance in the commission of his duties, and that the uprising of the spoot slaves was not a predictable, preventable, or foreseeable event, and that he has no guilt, indirect or otherwise, for the act of attempted murder on myself or the Blessed Lisaykos today. We can discuss what's wrong with the current legal definition of negligence in the morning," Emily glowered at the entire room.

"Now, Lisaykos, would you be so kind as to return me to my bed and put me back to sleep?"

(continued in installment 2.78)