Emily, on the beach

Usruldes headed off into the nearby woods to visit a spot with wild onions, carrots, and squash to add to our dinner. While he was gone, we talked about many different things in a sociable girl-to-girl way that she had never used before with me. There was very little of the condescending and overbearing Queen in evidence and a lot of a scared and uncertain woman trying to find her feet after falling hard. About half of what we talked about was in English because she wanted to know what the second half of the twentieth century had been like and what I had done during my lifetime.

I did manage to get her to open up about herself and her experiences growing up in the 1920s and 30s. I was shocked and envious to discover how many silent films she had seen as a little kid --- actual silent films in a movie theater with a live full-time pianist! Her descriptions were fascinating. I was happy to find out how much she loved music, which I had not known about her. Given Usryuldes' reaction to her singing with me, I concluded that no one knew she liked music.

If I wanted a word to describe Aylem while still on Ud's beach, it would be subdued. In a way, it was galling because she had lost so much confidence in herself. I'm sure I didn't like the old Aylem much. I wasn't sure I was going to like Queen Aylem once she regained her footing, though it was too soon to tell if she would revert to her old bad habits. While we were at Ud's beach, I do know that I felt sorry for her because despite her sins, she was a lost soul and I’ve always had a lot of empathy.

Usruldes did the cooking on our trip. During one of his breaks from roasting the mutton over the fire, I asked him to get what I had brought for Aylem, guessing that she might need tangible assurances to lure her back home.

"Hey, Usruldes, can you get that thing with the purplewood?"

He looked at me a bit confused and then figured it out. "I know right where it is," he ran into our tent and came back with a cloth-wrapped object that he handed to me. I undid the wrapping and held out the knife in its scabbard hilt first to Aylem. She just stared at me and it.

"You better take it before I drop it, Aylem. It's too heavy for me and I’m close to dropping it."

She took it and pulled it out of its sheath. "It's beautiful. Is this Damascus steel?"

"No, at this level of technology, it's more like Viking pattern welding, which looks similar to Damascus, but the way it's made and its alloying content is different from Damascus steel. The original Damascus iron came from a mining district in the middle of India that had some unique impurities that led to its legendary properties once it was forged in the metal-making industries of Medieval Damascus and Bagdad. The biggest difference in pattern welding of low-carbon and high-carbon wrought iron is that this will have less elasticity; however, elasticity isn't as necessary for a knife as it is for a sword. This should suffice as the knife you wanted that would be sharp and stay sharp for many meals. It will rust more easily than twentieth-century steel so make sure to keep it oiled.”

“Emily," she looked up from her knife, "I thought you said that the price for steel was..."

"The terms have been rearranged by the gods," I explained with a healthy serving of discontent. "While my body was recovering and the healers thought I was under a charm of deep sleep, the gods itemized what it was they wanted from me, and part of that was to establish iron and steel crafts. According to the gods, they chose me because I remember all my pyrometallurgy from my previous life. It's one of their priorities because, without the introduction of iron and steel, there will be wars over tin. I can’t say I’m happy over losing iron and steel as leverage, but I don't think it's possible to say no to the gods of Erdos."

Aylem started crying quietly. "I don't deserve this, Emily. Not after what I did to you and Asgotl."

"You know, girl, if you're going to be like this all the way home, it will be a very w...wet trip, and you're so big that I'll have to invent the umbrella just to stay dry," I said with just a hint of being put upon.

"What's an umbrella?" Usruldes asked.

"It's a w...waterproof cloth stretched on a collapsible frame that you use to stay dry in the rain," I said without thinking. "It can expand for use and fold up for storage and carrying."

He got up and ran into the tent and came back out with a tablet. "Alright, umbrella, to stay dry in rain. How are they made?" He looked up hopefully.

Aylem looked at me and I looked at Aylem and despite her state of upset, we both laughed.

---

Asgotl, on the beach

I found her lying in the warm sand of the beach just after the sun went down, staring up at the sky with her hands behind her head. After I found her, I realized I didn't know what I wanted to say. I've never been good at expressing why or what I feel. I stood there for a long time, trying to figure out how to even start the conversation.

I ended up sitting down next to her in the sand, staring out at the breakers as they rolled in and crashed against the sand. It was a long time before either of us said anything. She finally breached the silence.

"Will you leave and go home to your clan?" she asked softly.

"They are my kin but I have lived in Foskos too long," I admitted. "I like being lazy and having someone else hunt for me. People let me inside and allow me to hang out with friendly Cosm and a weird little Coyn I know. I get to travel all over the place, including here. No, I have no desire to live in the wild with my clan."

"So what are you going to do?" she asked. "I have no hold on you. You've always been free to leave." Her voice was sad and resigned.

"There need to be some new rules between the three of us," I remarked, staring out to sea. "The first one is that I will no longer call you mistress or great one. You do not own nor do you rule me. You are Aylem, or if there is a need for formality, Aylem Queen, as is customary in Foskos.

"The second one is what Emily and I do together is our business and not yours. I'm my own griffin and she's her own person. I concede that there is a very small chance that in a stall turn, as Emily calls it, Emily might somehow become unstrapped from the straps that have never failed.

"Emily designed those straps. They have something she called redundancy. She said that even if three straps failed, the fourth would still keep her on me. I trust her craft ability.

"I appreciate that you were worried about Emily right before you killed us in such a painful manner. I can find nothing wrong with being concerned for her wellbeing. I also understand that I was being snippy with you. I could have been more tactful. I was annoyed that you were annoyed. I will work on that." With that, I said not what I wanted to say, because that would not solve any problems. Telling her off in anger might even make things worse, but I said what I needed to say to move forward as Emily asked. If she can forgive Aylem, so can I.

"The wind's picking up and from the look of those storm clouds, the weather will be here soon. You may want to get under cover." I got up and started walking back to the cottage that Ud made for us.

I only got a few steps before I was halted by Aylem wrapping her arms around my neck and hugging me.

"You're getting my neck feathers soggy, Aylem," I beak-bumped her.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I don't deserve you two as friends."

"Aylem," I gasped, "I can't breathe."

---

Usruldes, on the beach

"We have three routes to get home," I explained, drawing a map on the sand. "The northern route heads east across the fens then cuts down southeast along the Valley of the Vanishing River. This is a wilderness route and it also has an option to take a pass halfway down the valley that cuts over to the Aspen River to the east for the shortest route to Is'syal.

"The middle route crosses the fens on the south and then follows the Copper River to a pass just north of Emily's Iron Mountain. From there it can swing south to Uldlip or east to Queenstown. The third route takes us inland along the Great Wash and south down the Claw River. Then we would follow the Middle Fork of the Claw, over a pass in the Barren Mountains to the Barren River which empties into the Salt River west of Uldlip.

Emily made her opinion known upfront. "I favor the northern route down the Aspen because it gets the books from Yasknapa of Yantes into Aylem's hands the quickest," Emily said from the hammock chair. "The griffin clan that harrassed Asgotl is not a threat to any group traveling with Aylem. I have a feeling that we need Aylem to take possession of those books by the quickest route possible."

"The ancient mysterious missing high priestess of Landa has been found?" Aylem asked. I realized that she still had months of events to catch up on.

"Aylem," I replied, "Yasknapa of Yantes was found in the vault at the Shrine of Galt, in a room whose key had been lost for 2,500 years. We found her remains on the same day that Galt changed the color of Emily's eyes. Now here's the part that I'm glad you're sitting down for: Emily, myself, and you were all mentioned in a letter Yasknapa wrote to Emily 2,500 years ago at Galt's instigation."

"Merciful Mugash," Aylem's eyes grew wide.

"She left you two books," Emily said. "They are written in Elizabethan English."

"That's...That's..."

Emily continued, grinning, "she wrote in the letter: ‘Give these writings to the one who died in the night of great fire when Saint Michaels of Coventry was aflame from the guns in the sky.’"

"Blarg."

"Language, Aylem," Asgotl flicked some sand at her, "Emily is still a child."

Aylem aimed and flicked sand back at him. Emily rolled her eyes. I was just happy they were all getting along, especially the griffin.

"Aylem, I assume St. Michael's was a church in Coventry?" Emily asked. Emily used the English word church and with the charm of tongues I knew it meant shrine.

"St. Michael's was the cathedral. We lived within walking distance of it. I loved the bells as a little girl."

"How long does it take?" Emily asked me. "To Is'syal?"

"If we left at sunrise, we would be there before sunset, maybe before the sixth bell if the wind is right," I said.

"Usruldes, how many people know about Aylem having a previous life as Jane?"

"You, me, my mother, Kayseo, and High Priestess Kamagishi." I wondered if this had anything to do with picking a route home, or if it was just Emily leaping on a thought trail in her head and running down it without regard to the matter at hand, which is a bad habit of hers.

"How old were you when you remembered Coventry?" Emily asked Aylem.

"I was nine. It happened at my first visit to the Crystal Shrine of Tiki."

"The Convocation needs to know," Emily stated.

"Our route home," I said to remind them of our current agenda.

"The fastest route to Is'syal," Aylem stated. "If Emily thinks those books are that important, and she's the one who talked to Galt, then that's what we should do."

"I think I followed that circling sentence, I think. Should we leave tomorrow or take a few days to have some fun?" I asked, thinking it might be easier on Aylem to give her some extra time to settle back into her restored memories.

"I need to go home, the sooner, the better," Aylem said with conviction, though with a bitter face.

"And then I will take you to Lisaykos, to find the right mind healer to help you fix this little problem you have," Emily said firmly. It was not a request. Emily was using that unique tone of voice I had only heard once before that could not be mistaken for anything but a command.

Aylem's head came up defiantly and her eyes met Emily's. Emily's immovable resolve overcame Aylem's overwhelming force. Aylem's head dropped in resignation, "yes, we will do that."

"If you are serious about patching things up with Imstay, he needs to know about you too," Emily added.

There was another brief exchange of warring eyes and again Aylem conceded, "yes, you're right." She sighed heavily.

(continued in part 76)