(Continued from part 69; Emily, Vault at the Shrine of Galt)

* I have an itch I can't reach, right behind my left ear *

He spoke to my mind and begged me with his beautiful golden eyes, the same color as Kamagishi's strange eyes.

I reached out and gave him a good deep scratching through the thick fur behind his ear.

He started purring. * Ah, that hits the spot. Thank you. You are most kind.*

"You are welcome," I said to the cat. He was a wonderfully handsome cat. "So, I take it you are Galt."

* Just don't ever call me John, * and then he licked a paw with all of the dignity of Gene Kelly in the first scene of the movie Singing in the Rain.

I studied this ham of a cat. "Fit as a fiddle and ready for love, I see," referring to the first musical number in the movie.

He rubbed up against my hand and purred some more. I scratched some more.

* I am the Casanova of feline felicitude. If you were a cat, we could make wonderful kittens together. *

I rolled my eyes at him and heard his laughter in my mind.

* Emily, look at me *

I looked at him and fell into those golden eyes. I lost track of where I was because I was now back in the abyss.

* Look into it, Emily *

So I did and I understood for the first time the nature of nothingness.

* Not many can look and see what isn't truly there, Emily. There was a philosopher from one of your former worlds who was given this same opportunity and it drove him insane. Many took his insane ravings as genius afterward. A truly sad case. You, however, have seen the truth of this. Now I am sure you will be able to see magic for what it is. *

"But I have no magic," I protested, not even sure what he was talking about.

* Yes, you have no magic, which is why you will be able to see it for what it is. *

"Okay, now I know you are one of the eleven goofball gods because you are making absolutely no sense whatsoever. I'm so glad you cleared that up for me."

Galt sniffed the air around my hand dramatically. * Ah, the sweet smell of sarcasm. How I missed it so.* He paused to lick his paw again. * Sorry, I had to reassert my dignity. Now, Emily, the thing about a catalyst is that even though it expedites a reaction to completion, it is not part of the beginning or final products. So of course, you can not have any magic.*

"If you're trying to be ineffable, you're doing a great job, Galt," I made a face at him. He just purred.

* I know you can do this, Emily. We have faith in you. Please, just give it some thought. Tell me, what is magic? *

"What?!?"

* I met a soul not too long ago in the orthogonality of time who you may know as Maxwell. He had been a great mage in a previous life and understood the true nature of magic. Because of that understanding, he was able to write those four wonderful equations when he lived on Earth. This will help you. *

"Is this a revelation?"

* No, kitten, it is not. If you don't come up with the answer on your own, I may have to resort to using a revelation; but I have confidence you don't need my help to derive the answer. And before I go, the thing your friend Irhessa is looking for is in the room with the lost key. I know you'll be able to get inside, Emily. One last scratch please? *

I'm a sucker for cats. Of course, I gave him one last scritch behind the ears; and then, he was gone.

Kayseo gasped and put me down. Hessakos and High Priestess Kamagishi looked at me with round eyes and worry.

Kayseo put her hands on either side of my head to examine me and then looked at the other two, "it's not magical; it's natural." Something was obviously wrong but I had no idea what. I felt fine.

"Truly frightening," the Holy Kamagishi just shook her head.

"What's wr...ong w...with you people?" I demanded to know.

"Great One, your eyes are now gold," Hessakos said, sounding a bit scared.

"That's really unnerving," Kayseo said, "but the only thing that changed was the pigment."

"I do find it unsettling that all these things are happening now," the High Priestess remarked, standing up and brushing the dust off the knees of her red and white robes. "It worries me that we could be entering a third era of miracles and interventions."

"Could be?" Kayseo aksed. "I don't think that is any 'could' involved here. Let's take that out of the subjunctive case and put it into the declarative case where it belongs."

"Before you all go down the road of speculation, shouldn't we at least look at the door with the lost key?" I asked.

"How do you know about that?" the Holy One of Galt looked down at me.

"Didn't you hear Galt mention it?" Did they not hear my conversation with the Foskos god of knowledge?

"Great One, we only heard your answers to him," Hessakos said quietly. "Please explain the door without a key."

"Galt said the answer you are looking for is in the room where the key is lost," I replied.

"It's that door over there," the High Priestess pointed at the door opposite where we entered. "I can't open it. No one can. It's been closed for almost 2,500 years."

"Can't a mage who can use the mind's hand pick the lock?" I wondered.

"There are charms on the locks to prevent that," Kamagishi replied.

I started walking over to the door. When I got to the steps, someone came up behind me and picked me up. Of course, it was Kayseo.

"You aren't going to give me a break, are y...you?"

"Not a single one, Great Bug," she smiled sweetly with just a touch of self-satisfaction.

"Only 16 and already insufferable," said I, pouting. She laughed.

"What is in the other rooms, Holy One?" I asked.

"Books, really old books," she replied, walking around the mezzanine to where we were.

"Can I see some other room?"

"Sure," she selected a key and inserted it into the keyhole of the door to the right of the one with the lost key. It swung open and the charm gem light lit up. The three walls were lined with shelves full of books.

Kayseo started to walk in and I stopped her, "wait, I w...want to look at this." I reached out and touched the hinge.

"Holy One, who oils these hinges and keeps the rust off everything?" The hinge looked new, as did all the door fixtures.

"No one does," she answered. "Whoever built the Well used the sideways charm of time on the chamber. It too is one of the lost charms. It's like healing stasis but lasts forever, but only on non-living things."

"Huh, what a w...weird name for a charm." I studied the door, wondering what could sideways time be. Then it hit me like a getting slapped in the face with a salmon. "Crappola, that's what he meant!"

"Great One?" Kamagishi was giving me a look. "Who?"

"Galt! That's w...what he meant! Time is orthogonal and the lost charm used that quality to spin time perpendicular to time's current direction of travel. That makes perfect sense now," I looked up, happy to have sorted that mystery out.

"Emily, no one understands what you just said," Kayseo patiently explained things to me.

"That's alright," I shook my head, "I think it w...would take me a few rotations before I could teach someone enough to understand what I just said. It's a lonely w...world out there for someone like me. No one speaks the same language. Take me to the door without a key, Kayseo, please?" Kayseo gave me a worried look.

The door looked as new and usable as the rest of the doors around the Well. I started laughing. I couldn't believe no one had opened the door. "How often do people come down here, Holy One?"

"Oh, Maybe once every 20 years. Very few people are allowed to see the books and records in the vault."

"Is there a list of w...what's down here?" I wanted to know. There might be something I would want to read or had to read. So, Galt wanted me to figure out what magic was. Interesting. That meant there was something wrong with the current theory of magic, except I knew very little about that, other than there were three kinds of magic.

"I have one in my study."

"Can I see it sometime?"

"You? Of course you can."

"Kayseo, put me down please."

"What are you up to now?" she asked me suspiciously.

Enough was enough. "Priestess Kayseo," I said with every ounce of managerial authority I have ever held, "I do not answer to you. You will put me down now, child." I let a little real anger show in my eyes.

Kayseo looked very startled, and so did Kamagishi and Hessakos. I suppose that might have been expected since I have rarely asserted myself never lost my temper. It had the intended effect and my feet were on the ground.

Each door had thee copper hinges. I pulled the little knife wedge out of the billet protector on my belt. Then I took off my belt and pulled off the new pattern-welded knife in its sheath, the one Aduda made me two rotations ago with the big heavy bronze pommel. After putting my belt back on, I walked to the open room next door and inspected the bottom hinge.

I leaned against the door to close it. It took a moment but it finally moved. Given that the door outweighed me by a lot, it told me a world about how good these hinges were. When the door was shut, I took the little billet knife and used the bronze pommel on my new knife in its sheath to hammer the small blade like a wedge, lifting the top of the hinge pin.

I took one of my brand new throwing spikes from its holder on the shoulder strap of my chest underwear and put it at the bottom of the hinge. I hammered it upwards at the bottom of the hinge to knock the pin further upwards. When it had come up about half a hand, I stopped and removed my jury-rigged tools.

"Can someone pull that pin out for me please?" Hessakos walked over and pulled it out without effort. Damn Cosm.

He looked at the pin and shook his head, "it's so obvious." He laughed. "I should have thought of this."

"Well, get to it," I smiled up at him.

"Can I borrow your knife pommel?"

I handed the sheathed knife to him. He used the liberated pin and my knife pommel as a hammer to knock the hinge pins loose in the door with no key. Then he pulled them the rest of the way by hand. He took out the crystal he wore around his neck, levitated the door off its hinges, and slid it sideways to pull the door bolt out of the door plate. He picked up the liberated door and leaned it against the wall.

"Looks like the lights are not working in this room," he made a light to look inside. "Gertzpul! There's a dead body in here."

The mummified body of a Cosm woman in faded robes of an unknown color was on the floor. The head stall on top of her veil had the three rolls of a high priestess. Her desiccated bony hands were wrapped around two books and a key. Hessakos very carefully took the key, walked to the unhinged door, and fit it in the lock. The key turned the bolt.

"That settles the problem of losing the key, Holy One. This is the lost key." He handed it to her.

"I am thinking the mysterious disappearance of the High Priestess of Yasknapa of the White Shrine of Landa may finally have a solution," Kamagishi remarked, “since she was last seen fleeing the palace and running through the streets of Is'syal."

Hessakos walked back to the mummified body and carefully slid the first of the books, a thin volume, from out of her dead hands. He muttered an apology as he did so. Opening the manuscript carefully, he looked inside and then gaped.

He closed it carefully and walked over to me. He knelt and opened the book so I could see the first page, "are these Latin letters?"

I could not believe what I was seeing. Beyond any doubt, I was looking at Humanistic Bookhand of the 15th or 16th centuries and the language was close to Shakespeare's English. How did an Elizabethan get to this world?

"Gods!" I ran my fingers down the page and felt the ink on top of the vellum. "Unbelievable."

"Can you read it?" Hessakos asked.

"Yes, I can. It's an old form of English." I scanned the page. “This poor w...woman, she locked herself in this room to die so she could not be compelled to create...more...charms that..." I stopped and flipped through the pages with growing horror.

"Emily, are you alright," Kayseo knelt next to me with real concern on her face. "Your face just went almost completely white."

"This lady was a hero. She should have a proper resting place. She died to save others from suffering. Galt helped her in her last days. Please let me see the second book."

Kamagishi brought the second book, sat cross-legged on the mezzanine floor, and opened the second book in her lap. It too was handwritten in a humanistic book hand in Elizabethan English. It was her diary of the last few years of her life. On the last page, a piece of vellum fell out. It did not appear to be a page since it was the wrong size. I picked it up and read:

"My Lord Galt has commanded of me to place here this small missive. I have had great comfort from him in these my final hours. I pray thee and beg thee, receive from me this piece of my regard and pass it only to the one upon whom Tethys Vassu has placed her regard to hear the words of our fair island home in this strange place. Take his hand in thine that he may ken the truth through thine eyes and then give this leaf to the flames to perish. These two volumes I have writ so that thou may ken why I have come to this place to die.

"I have seen thy fair face on the mountain top in the land the Spanyards took from the heathens. I know that thou will come and thy arrival brings comfort to me at my life's end. Giveth thou these writings to the one who died in the night of great fire when Saint Michaels Coventry wast set afire by the gunnes in the sky. I place now my trust in thee. I set here my hand for the last time in my life. I was Yassknappa of Yantes. I beg thee to pray for the repose of my soul."

Underneath, she had written the instructions on how to use the charm of tongues, which made no sense to me. I had to assume that Hessakos would understand them.

I sat down on the floor of the mezzanine in front of Hessakos. "You are mentioned in this letter along w...with me and with the Queen. Good fish face, Hessakos."

"What does it say, Great One?" Kamagishi asked.

"She asks that Hessakos read this through my eyes. After he has read it, she asks that it be burnt. She requests that the two b...books which contain the high priestess' journal and knowledge of charms be given to the Queen. Last, all of this is by the command of Galt w...who helped her escape her enemies."

"Shouldn't we at least keep the letter intact until Fassex might have a chance to see it?" Kamagishi posed. "She is Yasknapa's successor, after all."

"Holy One, the burning the letter immediately is the command from the god Galt, and I w...will be w...waiting to destroy it once Hessakos has read and comprehended it. This is not negotiable. I w...will burn it if Hessakos doesn't beat me to it." I was adamant about this. For some reason, only Hessakos was being trusted with the charm of tongues. That was clear to me. "Maybe you should leave me and Hessakos to ourselves for a few moments," I suggested.

"Yes, that we will do," Kayseo stood and then tactfully waited for Kamagishi to stand before walking to the opposite side of the mezzanine by the stair. Kayseo hides a sharp brain under that sweet exterior of hers when she isn't bullying me.

"Your hand, friend," I held out mine. He wrapped both of his huge hands around mine. He looked very solemn.

"I w...will read this in English so you can see the w...words and hear the words and understand them. The writing style is antiquated and not easy to understand, which is why I'm approaching it this w...way. Under the letter part are the instructions for the charm which I can read but I do not understand it at all. Are you ready?"

He nodded and I began to read the cumbersome writing style from five centuries before my era on Earth. When we finished, he rubbed his temples and grimaced. He picked the book in his lap back up , opened it and started to read. He slammed it shut in indignation after three pages.

"Those...those..." He was angry enough that his face was red.

"All that happened a long time ago. It's now all in the past. She had g...good company and a good friend in Galt at her ending and it was not painful, just sad that she had to make that choice," I put my hand on top of his.

He exhaled and relaxed his shoulders, "you are correct." He looked at the letter, "this word, ken?"

"It is an archaic form of the verb to know."

"I have a request," he picked up and held the letter between us.

"Yes?"

"There are three instant fire sticks in your pouch which Asgotl brought back from the Vanishing River Valley. Use one to start burning the letter? I would like to see the instant fire sticks."

"For you, yes." I opened up my pouch and pulled out the waxed box and the sandstone rock in its leather wrapper. "I don't know how w...well this ancient vellum w...will burn so be ready with a charm of fire, please."

"Of course." He held it so I could catch a corner on fire easily.

"Is that what I think it is?" Kayseo came running, all excited. Kamagishi followed at a slightly more dignified pace, but only slightly.

I got out a match and held the rock in my other hand. I struck the match. It flared, catching the corner of the 2,500-year-old vellum on fire. It burnt quicker than I thought it would and then it was gone.

"There, now I can sleep tonight w...with a light heart that I fulfilled her request," I said.

"The Heavens thank thee for this travail and thou hast my heart's gratitude, Emily, maker of metal and fire," a lovely voice said from within the Well. There she was standing in billowing robes of deep purple, a purple veil on her silver hair, and the three spotless white wool rolls for her headstall. She had a face filled with lines of both love and grief and her eyes were a brilliant amethyst color. She kissed her hand and then blew it to me. A mist of light hit me and vanished with the same profound feeling of ephemeral beauty I had from Gertzpul and Giltak. Then she faded to a swirl of glowing purple points of light that ascended from the Well and vanished through the roof.

I was left speechless. Lisaykos would have said gobsmacked but she wasn't here.

Hessakos closed both manuscript books and handed them to Kamagishi, "we will leave these in your safekeeping until the Queen can come for them." He got up and picked up my throwing dart, my knives, matchbox, and rock.

"Emily?" Kayseo bent over and lifted my chin with a finger. "Feeling a little overwhelmed?" I nodded. She laughed kindly and picked me up. My head felt heavy and I let it drop onto her shoulder. My mind was empty of thought. I heard every sound and saw every dust mote in my sight. The smell of the strong soap Kayseo used floated past my nose and the soft wool of her gray healer's robe brushed my cheek. I felt at peace for one of the very few times of my remembered existence.

Kayseo was the last to exit the stairwell which the Holy Kamagishi closed and locked behind us. Then the High Priestess turned and placed her hand on my forehead. "Take her home and don't leave her alone today, Kayseo. She has received the benediction of the blessed dead and her mind is in a state of extreme disassociation."

"Is that what that was?" Kayseo looked pleasantly surprised. "I've read about it but I never thought I'd get to see one."

"Well, shall we take this strange phenomenon of a quiet peaceful Emily home, Kayseo?" Hessakos asked with his usual cheerful smile.

"Yes, let's."

"You may want to be prepared to return," Kamagishi said. "I'll be contacting the Holy Fassex in just a bit and I expect those formal ceremonial types from the Shrine of Landa will want to do honors for their long lost high priestess. I suspect they will want to thank you two, and Emily also, if she's returned to us by then. Gads, I need to contact the citadel and the King too. Enjoy your day, youngsters," she ushered everyone out of her study so she could get to work.