Maker of Fire

Emily, Village of Pocatoe, Harvest Season, 4th rot., 2nd to 8th days

I started talking on the first day of the rotation and spoke for two days until I rebelled and called it quits. I've never been one for public speaking. Watching what I say is hard, especially with people I don't know and who don't know me.

What I didn't know was that Veronteegan had a magic recording scroll. Every village and town head in Mattamesscontess had one to help them with their duties. This was especially true in small places like Pocatoe, where the village head handled all the government functions without help. The scroll filled in for a clerk in settlements too small to afford one.

Veronteegan snuck the scroll in after Ishapur set and splinted my broken bones while Ulexi was carrying me to and from the necessary closet. My entire discourse describing my life was captured on her scroll. A highly censored version later became a holy book just a step down from scripture. The censored Life of Emily Before had all the references about sex and indecency taken out, along with my not-so-reverent comments about Tiki’s revelation and Mugash’s cursing the speed of my post-death recovery.

I discovered the Life of Emily Before several years after my first visit to Pocatoe. When I did discover the book and its companion volume, I was appalled — though I did laugh over the removal of my rant regarding the indecency of knees versus boobs and breastfeeding in public. Even in a new world where I was living a new life, my 1950s and '60s middle-American prudery was still lurking in my brain.

It really floored me that anyone could find a knee so provocative that all knees needed to be covered. I mean, knees? Really? Maybe it was something weird to do with Cosm biology.

I needed to be more aware of magic recording scrolls. Veroneegan snuck the scroll in the next day, too. Ishapur, the now former priestess of Cragi, asked me about the gods. Ulexi also wanted to listen. Lady Veronteegan thought it would be good if her villagers could listen. I didn't want a big to-do, but Veronteegan hit my guilt button, pointing out that this could be the only opportunity for the residents of Pocatoe to receive instruction from a real prophet. She snuck the scroll in because she wanted a record of my words for those who could not leave their work in the fields and forests.

Like the Life of Emily Before, I would discover The Prophet’s Discourses on the Nature of the Gods several years later. The uncensored versions were, by agreement of all the Shrines of Erdos, placed in the restricted sections of the Shrines and libraries as secret scriptures. Blarg! And in case I didn’t mention it, blarg!

I will forever regret discussing the gods with Veronteegan, Ulexi, Ishapur, and the residents of Pocatoe. Veronteegan captured my description of Galt as the goofy cat god who is affectionate, fickle, fond of silly gags, dressing up with Giltak to perform song and dance numbers, and protective of his clergy and shrines. Like a cat, he is quick to wrath and will destroy whoever displeases him. When angered, he will act without mercy. He will not go out of his way to protect any innocents who are unfortunate enough to be caught up in his acts of wrath. He will also play with his victims before destroying them like he did with the city of Salicet.

While I may have captured his essence accurately, the consequences of this description were dire. I'm just glad that Galt and Giltak found it amusing because, after a couple of decades, the Mattamesscontans established a festival of Galt and Giltak where song and dance duets compete yearly for scholarships to the scholar attendant schools at the Shrines of those two gods. Of course, it became a tradition of this festival that one of the contestants must perform as a cross-dresser. For reasons that escaped me, this festival was treated as a solemn event in Mattamesscontess, and humor in the performances was frowned upon. I guess no one other than me understood Galt's comedic aesthetic in a pink tutu.

Yes, there was my mouth, living a life of its own in Pocatoe — happy, wild, and free. I really needed to learn to keep my mouth shut.

Regardless, at the time, I found poor Ishapur to be pathetic. She was like a childhood bully who had been bullied back and broken by it. She was miserable. She had been punished by a god — I’m sure it wasn’t Galt since he would have killed her — and she had the belief system by which she had lived her life destroyed, all in less than a half bell. She was a lost soul, and — damn my empathy — I couldn’t refuse her desperate grasping for purpose in her now avulsed life. She was like the deep but emptied wine cup from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, waiting to be filled. The college professor portion of my soul responded to her pleading for instruction. She hit me right on the sticky bits of my ego, where my vanity was most vulnerable.

On a different note, the god’s punishment of Ishapur had an interesting aftermath. After Veronteegan healed her burns, the skin of Ishapur’s right hand turned a shiny, reflective white. It was painful to look at in full sunlight. The skin felt normal and she still had full use of her hand; only the pigmentation and reflectivity changed. Receiving the mark of punishment from the gods was a turning point in Ishapur’s life and career.

The rotation I spent in Pocatoe passed peacefully until searchers from Ishapur’s temple came looking for her. They missed her after she spent eight days in the village talking with me. Ishapur had sent no message back, so her temple became worried about her safety when she didn't return promptly. When they arrived, they found a changed Ishapur.

Veronteegan had lent her some clothes while Ulexi used green vitriol to dye her dark red robes a rich dark brown. Recoloring her robes was quicker than making her new clothes. It was fortunate that Ishapur and Veronteegan were close to the same size. The younger Ishapur was taller, but the middle-aged Veronteegan was wider.

Two priestesses of Cragi from the temple in Mahradin arrived on eagles. They landed in front of the village hall that doubled as Veronteegan's residence. Ishapur was with me in my upstairs bedroom. Veronteegan came running into the room with concern written across her face.

“Clergy from the temple are here, Ishapur,” Veronteegan caught her breath. “Come, follow me. I can get you out the back and to your eagle before they get inside. Quickly now.”

“No,” Ishapur said in her loud, Ethyl Merman voice. “I will not fear whatever my fate may be because now I know that regardless of what happens to me, I now follow the true gods. Even if it leads to my death, I know I am on the right path, and the gods will not forsake me." Frankly, I was blown away by her confidence. She had achieved that fearless state common to converted fanatics.

In her now dark brown robes, she got up and made the Mattamesscontan two-handed reverence to me, "If I do not return, Beloved, I thank you now for your wisdom and instruction, holy prophet." Then she strode out the door to her fate.

Because she had such a booming voice, I could hear her on the village common as she addressed her two former colleagues.

“Nipmak, Oronock, I greet you.”

I couldn’t make out the replies of the two priestesses.

“Lady Veronteegan, can you take me to a window, please,” I asked the village head. “I want to hear this.”

“You might be seen, Beloved,” Veronteegan cautioned me. “It could be dangerous for you.”

“The gods will protect me, Lady, as Ishapur discovered.”

Veronteegan sighed, picked me up, and crossed the hall to her own bedroom so I could watch the scene below.

“I am leaving the service of the temple,” I next heard Ishapur proclaim. “That is why I have dyed my robes. I am remiss for failing to send word. I will not return, either to the temple or the worship of the false god Cragi.”

“What are you saying, Ish? Have you gone mad? Apostasy is a death sentence,” one of the priestesses, an older woman, said in a concerned tone.

“I have experienced the power of the true gods firsthand when they punished me for assaulting their prophet, who I have now met. See this?” Ishapur held up her shining white hand. “This is what the gods did to me. It is a sign. You should heed this portent as a warning to abandon the false god Cragi and follow the true gods from this day forward. Change is coming, sisters, and those who refuse to leave Cragi’s worship shall perish.”

“What the..." The other priestess rubbed Ishapur's hand as if she expected the shiny white to be a powder or paint.

“That’s my skin, Nip,” Ishapur said. “It’s not fake. I tried to kill the prophet, believing her to be a danger to the worship of Cragi. The gods set my hand on fire and sent me flying through the air to hit a wall. The wall is upstairs; it is currently being repaired because my impact cratered the plaster. See this sleeve? It is new because the old one burnt along with my hand.”

“I'm finding your words hard to hear, Ish. If it was anyone besides you, I would think you were suffering from a dangerous delusion," the older priestess said, frowning. "Can I see your hand, please?" She took Ishapur's and examined it with closed eyes, "It's a normal hand, so my body clairvoyance tells me, and nothing is coating your skin. This is so strange."

"No, it is a miracle of the Prophet Emily," Ishapur stated. "When I encountered the marks the gods have placed upon her aura and in her eyes, I believed she was cursed and tried to destroy her. I was mistaken, and the gods punished me for my actions. They granted me a great mercy because they could have destroyed me, as they have destroyed Toyatostaga and the great city of Salicet on the other side of the world. The evidence is before your eyes, sisters. Erdos is ruled by gods, and none of them are named Cragi."

“But Cragi is real,” the older priestess said. “I was a girl when Cragi attacked the coastal towns of Gungywamp, wearing the aspect of a kraken, demanding our worship.” She shook her head, confused.

“Cragi is dead,” Ishapur pronounced. “The god of the waters, Vassu, killed Cragi more than forty years ago and left her remains on the Isle of the Three Pines for all to see. Cragi was a sea monster with strong magic, but she was no god.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“From the prophet,” Ishapur replied. “The temple and the Empire have worked to bury the news of Cragi’s demise from the entire nation. We have been lied to and misled, sisters, but it is not too late to take the correct path of worship back to the legitimate gods.”

“You say that the demon Vassu, who the ignorant peasants still follow, killed the divine Cragi?”

“No, the divine Vassu killed the magical monster named Cragi, who had intimidated a cowardly emperor by destroying our navy and merchant fleets,” Ishapur replied in ringing tones of confidence.

“And a so-called prophet told you this? How and when did you meet this person?”

"She is not a so-called prophet. She is a real prophet. She is the person who walked into the palace last year with the prophecy that Toyatastagka would be destroyed if the worship of Cragi was not abandoned and the worship of Vassu not restored. And that prophesy came true this year, sisters. She is the same prophet who predicted the destruction of Salicet in Impotu, which also came to pass. I met the Prophet Emily here, in Pocatoe. She was my patient."

“And you believe her?”

“No, Oronock, I believe being thrown across a room and into a wall by powers I could not see or sense, and I believe this,” Ishapur held up her shining white hand.

“Didn’t the incident in Toyatostagka involve a Coyn?” Nipmak asked.

“Emily is a Coyn,” Ishapur nodded. “She’s a tiny thing, and young. She was injured badly in the storm. The villagers rescued her and requested a healer. That is how I met her.”

Oronock looked up and saw Veronteegan and me watching from the window. She brushed past Ishapur and ran into the village hall. I heard her steps as she ran up the stairs and down the hall. She burst into Veronteegan’s bedroom and bore down on me. It always took my breath away when someone at least eighteen hands tall moved that fast. I schooled my features to be calm despite the panic I felt.

“It is rude to enter an official’s personal quarters without leave,” Lady Veronteegan said to the priestess in authoritative tones of disapproval.

"This is a matter more important than your privacy," Priestess Oronock stated, her glare digging into me. "You! Are you this so-called prophet?”

"The gods have indeed made me their prophet against my will," I said."

“What!?”

“Look at her aura, Oronock,” Ishapur said from the bedroom door. “Then look at her eyes. The eyes were the gift of the god who destroyed Salicet last year: Galt, the god of knowledge, fate, justice, and wrath, who usually appears to mortals in the guise of a cat.”

Oronock tranced for a long moment and then stepped away from me and Veronteegan. She shook her head in disbelief and fell to sitting on the bed. "What are you?” she asked me in a pleading voice.

I tried to sound confident. "I'm just a Coyn, like any other Coyn: a small human with no magic, at the mercy of big mages like you who can squash a little bug like me with a charm. Sitting on me would also squash me, so please refrain from doing that. It would hurt, and I'm already injured."

Oronock dropped her head into her hands, “What you’re telling me, Ishapur, is that everything I have believed my entire life is a lie. But to surrender to this new truth means being hunted down and killed as an apostate.”

“This isn’t Toyatastagka, Oronock,” Nipmak said from the doorway. “We hardly ever act on reports of apostasy. The Infanta disapproves of such actions. I myself heard her four years ago when she said that if we chased every report of a hearth altar to the kitchen god Surd, we’d be burning half the population of the province at the stake.”

“She sounds like a smart lady,” I remarked.

“We’re clergy, Nip,” Oronock scowled. “It’s different for people like us. The authorities would chase down apostate clergy. We’re too prominent and too important to be left alone.”

“You can live a lie following the fake god Cragi, Oronock, or you could flee to where no one would know you, or you can accept the consequences of living a life of truth. I have accepted that I may be killed for rejecting the false Cragi, and I am confident that the gods will protect Emily from harm. I can not tell what the right decision will be for you, Oronock, though I would advise you to leave the temple, no matter what. It would pain me to see my friends following a lie." She sighed, and her eyes pleaded with Nipmak and Oronock to leave the clergy. Then, her expression changed to something more speculative.

“What would happen,” Ishapur looked at me, “if we took our prophet to the Infanta to show her the marks of the gods in Emily’s aura?”

“Mugash, god of healing, told me just before I arrived here that I would be in Kwabin within two rotations, and I would be captured by the Infanta,” I replied. “So my meeting with the Infanta is inevitable. I can’t guess how she will react to me, but I will know soon enough. I would be more concerned that you might come to harm if you are caught taking me to Kwabin.

“Oronock, Nipmak, I can’t tell you what to do,” I caught Oronock’s gaze. “That’s not my place. I will only share with you my advice. The worship of Cragi is on its way out, so leaving the clergy now may be wise. The followers of Vassu are currently in arms against the nobles and clergy in the rest of the Empire. It is only a matter of time before the worship of Cragi fails. The Infanta cannot be ignorant of what is happening in the rest of Mattamesscontess. If she is wise, she will do away with the worship of Cragi in her province.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Oronock shook her head. “I just don’t. Ish, your hand is startling, and you, little one, are no ordinary Coyn. I cannot deny the evidence of my own senses, but I can not see a way to move forward.”

“You don’t need to decide anything immediately,” I pointed out to the upset priestess. “Take a day or two to think things over. There’s no hurry. I’m not going anywhere so long as I have all these splints on me.”

“That strikes me as good advice, Beloved,” Veronteegan commented. “You two can stay here for a few days while you figure things out,” she told the two priestesses. “Take the time you need to sort out your futures.”

Convocation at the White Shrine of Landa, Yant, 5th rot., just before dawn of the 6th day

The Holy Fassex hat Rigdit, High Priestess of Landa, smiled when she spotted the Queen hurrying to join the rest of the Convocation. Aylem radiated maternal contentment; it leaked out of her and subtly placated everyone around her. Fassex remembered Aylem being like this after the births of Opo'aba and Heldfirk, too. Everything always went well for Aylem when taking care of her newborns. The Queen was that sort of nursing mother.

“Please grant me your forgiveness, sisters,” the Queen made the praying hands bow of apology between equals. “The girls would not settle down,” she explained, referring to her newborn twins.

“We know, Great One,” Fassex poured her will into reassuring the uncharacteristically contrite Queen. “Your duty to your twins takes priority. That is why I did not schedule a firm time for this event. Everyone knew there might be a wait. And now that we are all here, let us line up to process.”

*Aylem,* Fassex mindcast, *you will have a shadow. Just ignore it, please.*

The high priestesses in their full regalia lined up in the order of the founding of their Shrines. Because it was her Shrine hosting Convocation, Fassex would take the lead in all the processions. The Holy Mieth walked with the Blessed Lisaykos, sharing the third place in line since they were both High Priestesses of Mugash. Mieth wore the flaring cylindrical hat used in Impotu instead of the three rolls of wool used in Foskos. The Holy Losnana, walking with the Holy Kamagishi in the fifth place in line, also wore the cylindrical Impotuan hat. Losnana's was red, while Mieth's was black.

Fassex led the procession from the gate into the Shrine’s grounds and up the stairs to the narthex.

“Open the doors,” commanded the Holy Fassex, High Priestess and avatar of Landa, god of magic. She was dressed in her richest black-and-purple robes with a wide cloth-of-gold sash around her waist, denoting her status as an adept. She wore her hair up in coiled braids wrapped around the base of the three stacked rolls of white wool that kept the cloth-of-electrum veil in place. In her hands was the ceremonial sky metal halberd of the Chief Executioner of Foskos.

The Queen brought up the rear of the procession given her unique position, not as a high priestess, but as the one who controlled the Great Crystal, which ruled all the other crystals. A step in front of the Queen was a silverhair who was as tall as a high priestess wearing a dark green floor-length cloak and a matching hooded mantle hiding her face. Aylem could tell from the feel of the aura that the mystery person was the Holy Ilsabess, the self-exiled Impotuan High Priestess of Erhonsay.

Two young adepts pulled the main doors into the Well of Landa open and the Convocation processed in. The Well of Landa was similar to the Well of Galt: It was a circular depression with a decorative black and white marble railing. It was surrounded by a walkway that could accommodate eight Cosm walking side-by-side. The walkway was ringed with six tiers of marble seating.

Every priestess and priest of Landa living in Yant was seated on the upper tiers, waiting for the Convocation. Visiting dignitaries sat on the lowest tier, like Lord Katsa haup Gunndit, who wore her robes as an adept of Landa, and Heir Sertlos haup Black, who wore her robes as a priestess of Erhonsay. Ten-year-old Lord Vupnavos haup Yant was also seated with the Lords. She was the sole surviving member of the main branch of the house of Yant and the ward of Lord Inorurk haup Surdos. Her parents and sister had been killed in the invasion of Yant the year before. Also in the watching crowd was Princess Opo’aba and her two brothers, the Princes Heldfirk and Garki. Healer Trainee Fedso'as Kas'syo haup Gunndit and Adept Trainee Twevyar haup Gunndit were seated with them.

The High Priestesses and Queen surrounded the Great Crystal of Landa, an amethyst quartz crystal two hands wide and sixteen hands tall. Fassex walked up to it and placed her left hand on it.

“Hear me now,” Fassex began in her pleasant, musical voice. "I am Fassex of Landa. Last year, we promised that Foskos would destroy the source of its control gems after the Queen gave birth. During the last rotation, the Queen delivered two twin girls. Today, we keep our promise. Today, the power of a charm gem to constrain the free will of a sentient being will become a thing of history.

"Our original expectation was for the god of magic to give the Prophet Emily a new revelation. According to prophecy, this revelation would order the destruction of the Great Crystal of Landa as one of the measures to abolish slavery for all six sentient races. But the Prophet Emily is not here. The gods have sent her on a new quest, and we do not know where. We are now resolved after talks with the King, the Queen, the Lord Holders, the Presiding Craftmasters, and the rest of the Convocation. We will not wait for the Prophet, for we do not know when she will return.

"For the last half year, we have reached out to all the mounts and Coyn with control gems to warn them of this change. We have encouraged those with control gems to keep them, in a pocket or on a neck chain perhaps. While the charm of restraint will vanish with the destruction of the Great Crystal of Landa, the charm of health imparted in the Well of Mugash will still persist, preventing the spread of fevers within twelve hands. The Healing Shrine of Mugash has prepared thousands of new charm gems of health for those who choose destroy their gems of control. These will be available at every city gate, customs gate, and healing chapel shrine.

"This crystal has lived in this Shrine for thirty-six centuries," Fassex caressed the stone. "Twenty-five centuries ago, Yasknapa of Yantes was forced to extend the magic properties of all the Shrines' crystals to make charm gems. Once changed, the magic structure of a crystal cannot return to its original, unmodified state. The only way to create control gems is with the Great Crystal of Landa. The only way to destroy control gems is to destroy the Great Crystal of Landa.

“This crystal has served this Shrine for as long as this Shrine has stood. But because we are resolved that all sentient races should be free, today, through my power as the avatar of Landa, this crystal shall be broken.”

Fassex closed her eyes and spread her palm against the cool surface of the deep-purple quartz. A light grew inside the giant gemstone, and then it shattered with the sound of hundreds of rock shards falling onto the marble flagstones of the Well of Landa.

“Sisters," Fassex stepped out of the pile of broken amethyst shards that had buried her feet. "We have work to do." She handed the halberd to a waiting adept and took a bed-sized piece of cloth-of-electrum fabric. After spreading the cloth on the floor, she lifted all the crystal fragments and deposited them on it. Then, Fassex lifted the stone block in front of the Throne of Judgement that closed the entrance to the crypt.

The members of Convocation each took hold of the cloth-of-electrum and picked it up so that no crystal fragments fell from it. They carried it into the crypt, where they vanished for around an eighth of a bell. They returned, and Fassex replaced the stone blocking the stairs to the crypt. The High Priestesses had interred the remains of the crystal among the tombs of the avatars of Landa.

Fassex addressed those who had gathered for the destruction of the crystal. "We have a banquet for mid repast in the great hall downstairs; service will start at the fourth bell. We will gather again here at the fifth bell when the meal is over to install the new crystal into the Well of Landa. The Queen will bring it into harmony with the rest of the crystals in the Shrines. Then, at the sixth bell, we will host food and drink for Cosm in the square at the Shrine’s gate, at the field in back of the Surd Hall by the west city gate for Coyn, and at the Mounts’ Residence for flying mounts. An eighth after the seventh bell, the Shrine of Giltak will shoot fireworks.”