(Continued from installment 85)

(still Aylem, Royal Pavilion, Foskos Army Camp)

"Was that Garki, the king's page?” Kamagishi asked. “He keeps dropping by the library to pick up books to satisfy the King's sudden new interest in geometry and bridge building, so I am told." She smiled knowingly at the King.

Imstay chuckled, "yes, I was told that I've even ordered a copy of Giltak's revelation to Emily from the shrine in Omexkel, the annotated version."

"Well, it does contain a complete pictorial instruction guide to building your own slide rule," the biggest gossip and book addict in the kingdom remarked. Then Kamagishi looked at me, "Great One, I thought you were still in Yant."

"Fassex and I arrived yesterday."

"With the Blessed Emily?"

I nodded in answer. "Kamagishi," I asked, "why are you here and what happened with Galt just now? I think that's the first appearance of him in his aspect of anger in more than three millennia."

"Actually, Great One, the last appearance of Galt as the personification of anger was around two and a half millennia ago, when he appeared to enable High Priestess Yasknapa of Yantes to escape her persecutors." She paused and then sighed. "As for me, I was quietly working yesterday after mid repast when I had a sudden premonition of white-colored fire falling out of the sky," Kamagishi began in a tone of voice that told me this might be a tale wrapped around the truth of what happened. The woman did love to spin a good tale, after all.

"After I alerted the citadel that I had had such a vision, the pressure passed so I concluded it must have happened somewhere else. I messaged the Citadel so they could stand down the alert." She looked at the Emily who Imstay still had in his arms. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and deep, suggesting she had fallen asleep. "The Blessed Emily does look rather sweet, sleeping like that," she said with a fond smile.

One eyelid cracked open and, no kidding, Emily managed a one-eyed menacing stare with that one sleepy eyeball. "I'm just resting my eyes, you know," she said in a sleepy voice. "I am awake still, and I am listening."

"Hello, little one," Kamagishi smiled, quite amused. "Anyway, ever since then, I've had an increasing sense that something else was about to happen down here at the Shrine of Tiki, but not until General Bobbo and High Priestess Lisaykos arrive. Immediately after that, the army here will leave to go south. When I couldn't resist the pressure of the precognition anymore, I got on Pibl, my eagle, and flew down. I was about halfway between here and...Sutsusum!"

High Priestess Sutsusum from the Hospitable Shrine of Gertzpul on Two Ferry Island rushed in, looking a little windblown, still wearing the beautiful alternating dark blue and white pleated robe of the Gertzpul clergy. "Can someone come to take care of my griffin?" she asked.

"I'll take care of it," Usruldes said and walked out.

"Please, Holy One," Imstay said, "take a chair."

"I saw the manifestation of Galt from the walls of my shrine and flew straight here. Can someone please tell what has happened?," she inquired, looking over Kamagishi with her burnt hair and eyebrows wearing in my housecoat over her ripped and bloody clothes.

Garki came running back into the pavilion just then, "I will put your saddlebag on the bed in the sleeping chamber, Holy One." He did a bowing obeisance to Kamagishi and then disappeared for a breath. Then he was back, making a second obeisance to Sutsusum, who was also in her late 40s like Kamagishi. "May I bring you some hot tea, Holy Ones?"

"Please," Sutsusum said smiling. Garki's smile could be contagious.

"I would like some of the wonderful ale I know the King orders by the firkin," Kamagishi perked up.

"I would like some too," added Fassex. “The dark ale, please.”

"Tea," I told the boy.

"Nothing for me," Imstay said.

"Hmmm," the sleepy Emily considered. "A small beaker of dark ale sounds good to me right now."

"You are not old enough to drink, young lady," I told her reflexively without thinking. Emily gave me an ‘are you serious?’ look and rolled her eyes.

"Well, you are a very easy drunk," Usruldes said to Emily as he returned and sat back down.

"Does it matter?" Emily posed to him."I'm too weak to go anywhere right now so why not have a beaker before someone carries me off to bed? I don't need to do anything tonight so why not?"

"Yes, Garki," Imstay ordered, "bring Granny Emily a small beaker of the dark ale from the Villa."

"You've got my ale here?" I was honestly shocked. I was also a little embarrassed by what I had said to Emily. I really should know better. I don’t know why I still feel like I need to protect her.

"Of course, I have three of your brews," Imstay looked a little put out. "I have at least ten or twelve of the best the kingdom has to offer available at all times for my guests. The Villa dark ale has a slightly more bitter and nuanced flavor than the rounder and somewhat sweeter dark ale from Kas'syo Brewery, which is the other really good dark ale."

"Oh," I didn't know what to say. "Thank you for the compliment on my ale. I'll pass it on to my brewers."

"You're welcome," he smiled with a mischievous rake to his eyebrows. "It is a worthy brew."

"Anyway, we just sat down just a few moments ago, Holy One,” I said to Sutsusum, “after putting Kamagishi back to rights. We all heard and saw Galt in his aspect of anger and then Kamagishi arrived with cuts and burns on her and her eagle. Her eagle is with the wranglers and the healers right now and I took care of the Holy Kamagishi’s injuries."

"Yes," she nodded. "I've been eying the blood that’s soaking through that housecoat.”

"There’s blood?" Kamagishi lifted her arm and saw the bloodstain on the housecoat. "Oh my, that must be from the blood on the ripped kirtle, sister. I was grazed by a crossbow bolt. It’s healed now.”

"A crossbow bolt?" Sutsusum squeaked in her high-pitched voice.

"All in good time," Kamagishi smiled mischievously. "I had just started telling everyone what happened when you showed up."

"So what were you saying about a premonition?" Sutsusum asked.

"Yesterday, in the afternoon, I had a very strong premonition about white fire falling from the sky. That was the start of everything, but nothing happened in Is'syal and the feeling passed."

"The white fire was probably the Queen and myself," Fassex volunteered. "We were carrying these little bombs that spread a fire that can't be put out, designed by the maker of fire over there," she pointed at Emily. "We dropped them on the Impotuans as a present before we landed here yesterday."

"Since they violated the Convention of Surd when they attacked one shrine and threatened a second, I can only approve," the normally kind and steady Sutsusum remarked with surprising vitriol in her high-pitched voice.

"Today, as you heard walking in," Kamagishi said to Sutsusum, "I had an increasingly-pressing premonition that something was going to happen here until I couldn't bear it any longer and flew down. I still have this feeling and right now it feels like sometime in the morning before the third bell, but not until General Bobbo and the Blessed Lisaykos arrive."

“I find that disturbing,” Usruldes remarked with a deep crease showing between his white eyebrows. “Bobbo received healing of the injuries to his brain and spine just a few days ago. He was not conscious yet when I left the Shrine of Mugash. I can not imagine what might happen for him to travel here in his current state. The man was almost dead when I found him.”

"I find it rather shocking myself," Kamagishi remarked with a frown. "I had news from Aybhas that his injuries were such that he was not likely to ever wake from the coma he was in; however, I have never had a false premonition. Either Bobbo or someone who looks just like him will be here tomorrow, dressed in a green housecoat over sleeping trews and shirt. What prodigy of healing was able to heal him?"

Imstay gave Usruldes an unreadable look and then addressed the rest of the pavilion, "it turns out that my spymaster has been hiding an unusual talent for healing from the rest of us all these years. The Blessed Lisaykos has already invited him to come study at the Shrine of Mugash. He healed Priestess Kayseo in the field when he found her and he healed the General the next day at the shrine, using a technique never seen before, which he learned from his instructor in magic who does not live in Foskos.”

Usruldes was hiding his eyes behind his hand and was shaking his head. He was not accustomed to being seen in public, even if that was just the small group currently gathered in Imstay's pavilion, but Fassex would not abide his hiding behind the charm of circular light.

“His instructor?” Kamagishi the incorrigible gossip prodded.

“He learned his magic from Ud, the legendary spider monster of the Fenland,” Imstay grinned. I’m sure he was thinking that this would add to Ursuldes’ mystique as the sinister spymaster of Foskos.

“She actually exists?” Sutsusum gasped.

“Yes, she exists,” I added. “I have met her. She is frightening beyond belief and yet, she is one of the kindest personalities one could hope to meet.”

"For the last two years, it almost feels like the world grows stranger and more incredible by the day," Kamagishi remarked with a thoughtful scowl.

"Speaking of incredible events, what brought about the manifestation of Galt in his aspect of anger?" Sutsusum asked, extremely curious, having watched the same phenomenon we had.

"I was attacked by Impotuans on mounts halfway between Two Ferry Island and here," Kamagishi's yellow-gold eyes flashed in that weird way they have. "One of them grazed me with a crossbow bolt. I was trying to cast a barrier charm despite the gash in my side when one of my attackers threw a fireball at me." She felt the side of her head, suddenly concerned. When she realized there was a large patch of hair and an eyebrow missing, the color fled from her face and she had a horrified expression. She always was rather vain about her appearance.

"Oh gods, I must look a sight!" Her eyes were wide. "Couldn't you grow it out at all, Great One?" she asked me.

"I will do it for you tomorrow when it's daylight out so I can see better," Fassex volunteered with a grin. "Aylem can grow out hair but she's the wrong person to ask. She did you a favor by not doing so."

"What?" Kamagishi was surprised.

"Aylem has a small control problem when it comes to things like growing out hair," Fassex grinned deeper and I was feeling grumpy about having one of my faults in magic use exposed. "You see, she's so overpowered that if she grew out your hair, you'd end up looking as fluffy as Galt and would need the use of a razor to restore everything that wasn't your scalp."

I could feel the heat of my blush and felt angry at Fassex until I caught sight of Emily's intense look aimed right at me. Then, the anger drained right out of me, to be replaced by a sense of shame. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and attempted to find my center again, as Ud had instructed me to do before I had left to return home. I was aware of silence as I opened my eyes again. Everyone was looking at me with concern. Fassex met my eyes with a small encouraging smile.

"It's a start," she said and wouldn't look away until I nodded. I was feeling quite humbled at that moment.

"Are you alright?" Kamagishi asked me. She's always been more open with me than many of the others in the Convocation.

"I'll be fine, thank you for asking," I tried to smile with some confidence, though I felt little right then. "Please, continue. We still don't know what happened with Galt."

"Well, in a way, neither do I," Kamagishi admitted. "The fireball glanced off my barrier charm which I was in the process of casting. It failed as a result and I got burnt. Then, before what I knew was happening, I was within a circle of quiet calm, with a soothing voice telling me I was loved and protected. Outside the circle, there were boiling clouds all around me and lightning flashing continuously but never coming near me. This lasted long enough for me to realize that it was Galt and I was inside of him, which was a very strange thing indeed.

"Then it suddenly stopped and on the ground, I saw the burned remains of the dead flying cavalry squad that had attacked me. Neither myself nor Pibl, my eagle, felt very good. We were both burned and we flew straight here. I had to give Pibl some of my strength since he was half-blinded, burned on his head, and in great pain."

"The wranglers have him with the healers now," Usruldes said. "I checked when I took Sutsusum's griffin over to the fields set aside for the mounts."

"Thank you, Lord Usruldes, for that kindness," she smiled at him. "I have been wondering." She took a deep draught of her ale in one of the glass mugs. "Is this the glass I keep hearing about?"

"Yes," Imstay replied, beaming at being the first in Foskos to entertain and serve drinks with glass. I could tell it was hitting all his kingly ego reflexes. Silly man, but image is important to a king, and he knows it well. Between smiles, he took Emily's empty beaker from her. "I think you've had more than enough ale for one evening, grandma."

"K...k...kinda f...fun w...watching the pavilion spin," she muttered. "Someone help me to bed, please."

We all had a good laugh at Emily's expense. I got up to help her to the necessary and then put her to bed.

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