Imstay King, Royal Pavilion, Foskos Army Camp by the Crystal Shrine of Tiki

After everyone had eaten dinner, I asked the Blessed Emily if she wanted to see the sand table. It was a work of magic of which I was proud and I had remade it this afternoon while she was sleeping, based on a suggestion she had made the evening before.

I will admit that I had more than that as a motive. It was also my intent to beat down her resistance toward me with good intentions and charm, which frankly, were the only weapons I had left when facing this confusing and stubborn opponent. My only option left was to make her a friend and ally of Foskos, since it would be suicide to make an enemy out of someone so favored by the gods. It would take one thing that I had little experience with: patience spread over seasons, maybe even years. I was now forced to play a long-term strategy, which had never been my strong suit.

In addition, I was motivated to establish some kind of better working relationship with her before she embarked on her ultimate goal of dismantling the slavery system for all four of the lesser races. After watching the process of revelation at the Shrine of Giltak with my own eyes, I knew this would take place and there was nothing I could do to stop it. That left me with the prospect of trying to guide its progress in such a way that the disruption and potential bloodshed is minimized.

How I wish my Bobbo were well and here to advise me. Faced with his absence, I realize now just how wise a man he has been all these years. I confess I should have valued him more in the past and I certainly will make up for that fault of mine in the future.

"Great One, if you're up for it, I would like to show you the sand table," I suggested to the Blessed Emily.

"H...how, Imstay King? It's too tall f...for me to see even st...standing on a chair."

"I'll have to carry you," I told her. "There's no other way. You're still wrapped up in that blanket. Are you still cold? We can keep the blanket."

"I am still c...cold," she said in her slow soft voice. For some reason, her stutter was acting up this evening. The last time I remember her stutter being this bad was when she released Aylem from Mugash's punishment.

"We'll keep the blanket, then," I walked around to her side of the table.

"Let me help you," Usruldes got up. "It will be a little tricky with the blanket. Hold your arms out like this, Imstay King, one for her to sit on and the other to stabilize her at her shoulders since she can't grab your collar. That's good." Then Usruldes picked Emily up, still wrapped warmly in the blanket, and placed her in my arms.

"How does this feel, Great One?" I asked. "Do you feel secure or does it feel like you might slip?"

"It's c...comfortable, Imstay King, and it f...feels quite secure, thank y...you."

"So this is the sand table which captures what the ground looks like as if we were very high in the air," I explained. "So we're located..."

"Yep," she said, "right on the other side of the river from the Impotuans, who are sand...w...wiched between us and the shrine. The y...yellow represents?"

"Paved or graveled roads." Stupid me. This was Emily. Of course, she would know how to read maps, given that what was dwelling inside this girlish Coyn was a personage older than the Holy Fassex, with another world's knowledge on how to manipulate the natural world to create magic-like effects without the benefit of magic.

"So w...where is Bull Trout River?"

"It's this right here," Usruldes had grabbed a pointer stick and identified it since I had both my hands full holding the Blessed Emily safely.

"How accurate is the sand t...table?" she asked.

"If you flew over this area tomorrow, it would look just like this from the air."

"How?"

"Well, someone like me who knows the charm of copying shapes, flies as high or as low as needed, depending on the situation, and casts that charm. Then the mage travels to where the table is and casts the charm of recreating shapes. The details like blue for water, white for trails, and yellow for paved roads are up to the individual mage."

"Wow, that's awesome!" Emily went wide-eyed on me. For some reason, it made me feel happy that I could actually impress her for once. Then she went into frenetic thinking mode. "That w...white line up that c...canyon is the Impotuan supply p...path?"

"I think so. It's what I picked up when I did a flight earlier today. I went up to where the stream bends to the right, there." Usruldes put the pointer on the spot. "The enemy trail turns left there, not right, and appears to go over a little pass, like you suggested, in back there. That drops their trail along a little valley that connects Pinisla to Truvos. Now we need to find their route into that valley and do something to control that access. But first, we need to defeat that army on the other side of the river. Then most of these troops need to depart of Black Falls to help run off the third force attacking us."

"Usruldes already put Tiki's cure into the salt and white sugar supply for their officers, which includes their mages. He'll be checking at the quarter and half night bells for any effects."

"Usruldes' staff...hey, don't look at me like that, Great One. He does have a staff, and they're all stealthy just like him. Anyway, while you were sleeping today, his staff and the queen's wagoneers from the Villa, with help from her stores' manager Py'oask, took a wrong turn, shall we say, with those three wagons of questionable flour. All of the Queen's Coyn wagoneers and their one Cosm escort were safely retrieved by our agents after they fled the Impotuan squad that captured that valuable cargo of flour. I'm glad they could all swim, which made their escape from the Impotuans a lot easier because you-know-who over there would really take it out of me if any got badly hurt."

"Ack!" I squawked. Aylem startled me by walking up behind me silently and placing her hand on my shoulder.

"Yes, that's right," Aylem purred with a look of cat-in-the-cream comeuppance at scaring me, "but they are all back in camp safely. The garrison personnel from Aybhas has adopted them and given them their own camp within the Aybhas garrison camp,"

"You are going to be the death of me," I exhaled and regained my wits.

"It's better than arguing all the time," she said tentatively.

I leaned my head back lightly against her shoulder, "you have a very good point."

Usruldes cleared his throat and then gazed at the ceiling cloth of the tent with great interest. Fassex wandered up to look at the sand table.

"As I was saying," I straightened up, "we're hoping the combination of these effects will lower the number and the health of the mages maintaining their barrier. If we can take it down, then we will have won this little war."

"How so?" Emily asked.

"If Aylem can enter their camp, they will all die if they don't accept her demand for surrender," I explained. "Either way, we will win this battle and the Crystal Shrine will be able to open its gates again."

"Got it," Emily nodded her head. "T...too bad they can't suffer the same w...way the residents at Pinisla and Yant suffered," she said with a scowl and bit of a bite to her words.

"Feeling a little vindictive, dear heart?" Aylem looked a little surprised by the quiet intense venom of Emily's reply.

"If someone starts a fight w...with y...you, you don't have to be nice w...when y...you finish it," Emily stated firmly.

"Still upset over the news about Kayseo?" Fassex asked.

"Maybe a l...little," Emily conceded.

"I find your thought of chopping off all their feet and sending the feet to the shrine in Aybhas rather suggestive, little one," Fassex gave Emily a knowing smile. "Lisaykos should teach you some techniques for obscuring some of your more disturbingly clear visualizations."

"I don't know about that," Usruldes remarked rather dryly. "I found that image rather refreshing myself."

We were all startled by sudden and nearby peals of repetitive thunder and flashes of lightning. It was not raining out. The door guards were standing and looking north with their mouths agape. We all walked out of the pavilion and into the open space in front.

In a distance of maybe a half a wagon-day to the north of camp, dark boiling clouds were sending out a tremendous show of thunder and lightning at an altitude too low to be a natural storm on this clear night. Several tornadoes were swirling out of the bottom of the clouds. I glanced at Fassex and Aylem and they were both making fish faces at the phenomenon.

"What is it?" I asked Aylem.

Aylem was trembling and Fassex looked scared.

"It's Galt."

"Galt is causing that?" I was confused by her answer.

"No, he's not causing it," Aylem gripped my shoulder tightly. "It's him. It's Galt in his aspect as anger."

A chill ran down my spine and I gathered Emily against my chest protectively. "Gods!" Strangely enough, Emily was thoughtful, studying the miniature cataclysm, and not at all afraid like I was.

Then, blessedly, it stopped and the clouds and whirlwinds vanished, returning to the night to the chirping of crickets and a spray of stars across the heavens.

"We are indeed living in remarkable times," Usruldes intoned. He then frowned and studied where the storm had been. Aylem noticed and stepped next to him.

"Oh!" She said. "Are you good with eagles?" she asked Fassex.

"I can handle the eagle if you can handle the rider," Fassex replied.

"Who is coming?" I asked.

"Not sure," Usruldes replied followed by Aylem saying, "Kamagishi."

"Really?" Fassex looked surprised. "Well, that implies something big is about to happen."

"Maybe it just did," Usruldes remarked. "I have sent for the wranglers to help with the eagle."

It took a minute longer for an eagle to make a faltering landing that was more falling than it was flying. Usruldes and Fassex acted together to bring bird and rider down gently. Kamagishi fell off the eagle and into Aylem's waiting arms.

"Great One, where did you come from?" Kamagishi mumbled. “Aren’t you in Yant?” She was scorched and her face was burnt enough to be blistering. There was a bloody spot on her clothes spreading under her left arm. Her eyebrows and some of her hair had burned away.

"Let's get you inside and fixed up," Aylem said in a voice that didn't invite any contradiction. She carried the high priestess as if she weighed nothing even though Kamagishi was a tall silverhaired woman, taller than me even, with a well-muscled build. Usruldes got ahead of her and Aylem to hold the tent flap open for them. He held it open for Fassex, me, and Emily too, before turning back to help with the injured eagle.

---

Aylem, Royal Pavilion, Foskos Army Camp by the Crystal Shrine of Tiki

I carried Kamagishi to the big bed in Imstay's sleeping quarters, which for the last two days has been the sleeping quarters for the women while the men slept under the tables in the inner chamber. I laid her down while Fassex pulled off her shoes before she left the chamber and closed the cloth flap of the door behind her.

"Not a word until I take care of the worst of this," I told her. I examined the gash in her side. "This looks like an arrow graze."

"Crossbow," Kamagishi managed to gasp out.

"Your clothes are ruined," I warned her. "Do you have some extra with you?" I asked as I unbuttoned the top of her buttoned kirtle. Kamagishi always was on top of the latest fashions, even as a high priestess. She's always been vain about clothes. Laces are much more practical, I thought, as I looked at all those buttons. Impatient, I waved a finger and the buttons undid themselves.

"Clothes in my saddlebags," she said through clenched teeth. I healed the slice on her side. It wasn't deep at all, just long and bloody.

The burned skin was confined to one side and above the jawline, thank the gods, and didn't extend under the singed cloth surrounding her neck. The burns on her scalp were worse and I got to work healing those. Then I healed the skin on her hands and forearms. It took a while but I left her with fresh unburnt skin, lifted the headache, and relieved the sore back and butt muscles for someone who lives at a desk, and then takes an eagle for a long flight. Regardless, she would look like quite the sight for a while until her hair grew back.

"Better?" I asked as I offered her a hand up. "We'll have to send a runner to get your clothes since the wranglers took care of your eagle."

"On it," Garki's youthful tenor sang out from the other side of the cloth wall and I heard his feet leave the pavilion at a run.

I had to laugh. Garki was such a joy to be around.

"Oh, my. Oh, yes. Thank you." Kamagishi took my hand and let me pull her up. I handed her the housecoat from my clothes bag so she could cover up while waiting for her own clothes, and we joined Imstay, Usruldes, Emily, and Fassex at the table in the inner chamber.

(continued in installment 86)