Emily, tent city at Black Falls

I wouldn't say we were lost, because when Asgotl was in the air, we could see everywhere in the camp; however, we weren't sure where the shrine's Voice trainees were camped since there were thousands of tents and even more people, Cosm, Coyn and mounts. We found the Herald Attendant and Musician Attendant trainees as well as the Priestess and Priest Voices and Windshapers; however, the directions we got at every stop to the Voice trainees just confused us. None of them were any good. I began to suspect that there were a lot of Cosm in Black Falls who didn't know how to give directions or were too proud to tell a Coyn they didn't know where a different part of the tent city was located.

Near where the shrine Heralds were camped, we found a camp full of shrine Coyn with about a hundred tents. They all wore light-gray summer-weight overtunics with red ochre trim over white linen undertunics or kirtles. I was relieved to see that the Coyn looked well fed and not at all abused. They reminded me of the Coyn at the Shrine of Giltak.

Several local Coyn appeared to be off-duty and relaxing with musical instruments. They were jamming and were much better than I would ever be. Asgotl wandered into the entrance of their camp which caused a bit of a stir. We only intended to ask for directions.

"Hey, griffin, this isn't...," a tall bearded black-haired man tried to stop Asgolt, which looked like a mouse trying to stop a marmot. He paused when he spotted me.

"Welladay, you're wearing Mugash shrine staff colors," he observed my gray shrine mantle with the black-lined hood and the gold-thread Mugash sigil embroidered on it. "You from Aybhas? I didn’t know there were any of us on that shrine’s staff." I decided to dodge the question since I had the mantle because I lived with Lisaykos, not because I was real staff like Wolkayrs.

"Yep, we’re from Aybhas," I said. "W...we are on an errand. W...we trying to find w...where the Sassoo shrine's Voice trainees are because we need to locate one. Can you please help us?"

"You in a hurry?" he smiled up at me, "because I see an instrument bag on your back and I'm wondering if it's a divine?" I had grabbed it on my way out with Asgotl on a whim. It still had my stockings and underwear in it.

"We need to return before the sixth bell, w...with the trainee we were sent to find."

"How in the world did you score a ride on a griffin?" he looked up at Asgotl in wonder. "Would he be offended if I scratched him?"

"I wouldn't be offended at all, friend," Asgotl said, shocking the man since griffins never talk to Coyn. He looked around carefully and then laid down slowly, just in case there were Coyn he couldn't see who might be in the way. "Between the eyes and behind the ears, please. You won't hurt me at all if you need to stand on my knees to reach."

"Let me get off first, y...you miserable excuse of a griffin," I chided him. "He really is terrible," I told the black-haired man as I slowly climbed down. The man helped me down the last bit of leg, "you're just a kid and someone lent you a griffin?"

"I get that all the time. I'm older than I look. Besides, the griffin and I have known each other for a while," I explained. "Sometimes I ride him by myself," I admitted.

"Now I’m impressed. I'm Oytwee, by the by," he said, "and you are?"

I didn't get a chance to reply since several children in the six to ten range spotted Asgotl getting scratched. They squealed in delight and came at a run.

"Are you a real griffin?"

"Well, I'm not an elephant, last time I checked," Asgotl said, though I could tell he was frozen in place so he wouldn't accidentally move and hurt a child. He was such a good griffin.

"Can we pet you?"

"You shouldn't touch or climb on my wings. Please leave my tail alone. I really like getting scratched on my neck, behind my ears, and between my eyes."

"Can we sit on you please?" said one very cute little girl with curling blond hair.

"Only for a little while because I am on an errand and will need to leave soon."

"Oytwee, I'll watch them," a plump gal in her twenties came running over. "It's my turn today with the kids."

"Is it okay with you, master griffin?" Oytwee asked. "Can we steal your friend for just for a moment? None of us has seen a divine yet."

"It's fine," Asgotl said and didn't even flinch when a little boy pulled on the fur of his shoulder to climb up.

"This way," he led the way to the circle of musicians around a campfire. "Hey folks, this gal's from Aybhas and she's got a divine."

"Oh!" A young blond man hopped off his seat, tucking his flute under his arm, "please have a seat. Can you play something on it?"

'Well," I sat down and check the tuning, "we can't spend too long because w...we are on an errand." I did overtone style tuning so they could hear the overtones played high on the strings. Then I started my tuning riff, "this is something I play to check my tuning since it uses parallel twelves." Parallel twelves are what Foskans called an octave because there were twelve half steps in an octave. I wasn't good at Foskan musical notation yet but I at least could transcribe it onto a normal musical stave for my own use.

I finished with my tuning riff and decided to play a Dowland piece followed by the Peter, Paul, and Mary arrangement of All my Trials because I thought it might have resonance with these Coyn, who despite the care given to them, were still slaves. I had reworked the rhymes in Fosk to keep the original meaning as intact as possible but tweaked it just a little to make it a hymn of Surd, the deity of family, and mercy.

"All my trials, Surd, soon be over. All my trials, Surd, soon be over.

I’ve got a little message Surd sent to me, someday I’ll wake and find I’m free. All my trials, Surd, soon be over.

If living were a thing that money could buy, you know the rich would live and the poor would die. All my trials, Surd, soon be over.

Too late, my brethren, too late but never mind. All...”

"Stop that noise," someone on the other side of the cloth camp wall threw a large bucket of water at us. "What did we tell you about making noise over there?" a young woman's voice ordered. "Just stop it."

The aim on the water was excellent. I and my guitar were soaking wet. I was annoyed. I know it wasn't because I sang poorly. I had a decent soprano voice with good pitch control, though it lacked a mature vibrato. It was very high and very pure sounding, almost like a boy soprano in one of those English boys' church choirs. From singing duets Thuorfosi taught me, I knew it carried well.

"Sorry about that," Oytwee handed me a cloth. I immediately applied it to my instrument. I wasn't at all sure if the wood glue was water-resistant.

"A few of this year's incoming class are not pleasant people," he said softly. "That's where the Voice trainees are camped so you don't need any directions. Just walk around the end of this row to get to their entrance."

“That was a song of beauty you played,” an older man with graying hair remarked. “Do you have a score for it?” I had to shake my head no. I would have to fix that.

"A true musician," said the gal next to me with a prell and an approving smile. "You take care of your instrument before yourself.”

"So that's a divine," Oytwee studied it. "It has a very nice timbre though it doesn't carry far. Where did you learn to play it?"

The screams of happy children interrupted us. Asgotl allowed the children to pile on his back. Then he stood up, sat his hindquarters down, and let them slide off the incline of his long back. From his expression, I knew he was enjoying himself. I wondered if he had once done the same for the Queen's two children.

"We said stop your noise," the angry voice demanded. "That does it. I'm coming over there." A Cosm-sized hand appeared to untie the cloth wall, which was about 16 hands high. Soon it dropped and a Cosm girl around 12 years old stepped through in the red ochre over gray of Sassoo with an angry look on her face. Her expression turned uglier when she saw Asgotl entertaining the Coyn children.

"How did a griffin get over here?" She scowled. "Who is your master, griffin, and why aren't you in your field where you belong?"

"I do not answer to you, child," Asgotl snapped.

"Trainee Moyuxkol, you are in violation of the rules for the temporary city," Oytwee said. "You have now trespassed in a Coyn encampment and should leave immediately or face the consequences."

"Oh no, not until that griffin leaves and returns to where he escaped from," she announced.

"I am a free griffin, child. I have not escaped from anywhere and I am here on business."

"Stop lying," this overgrown brat ordered. "Who owns you?"

"No one," Asgotl's neck feathers started to stand up as he got angry.

"Trainee, the griffin is not lying," I pulled out of my pouch the fire opal tablet of the king's personal staff that he gave me last rotation. "The griffin is a friend and is doing me a favor since I have been tasked to find someone among the Voice trainees."

"Where did you steal that from?" the brat accused.

"You insult not only me and Asgotl but also the King w...with that statement." Oh, she was so annoying. I couldn't stand spoiled brats like her. As the nerdiest girl in junior and senior high school, I had run into her type too often when I was growing up in another life.

"What does a filthy little Coyn know?" she sniffed and looked down at me from her considerable height, which looked to be pushing 15 hands. "There's no way the King would have a filthy thing like you in his camp."

"I w...wish to speak to whoever is in charge of your camp, trainee," I stood up, slipped my tablet back into my pouch, and slung my guitar on my back by its strap. "I have an errand to run in your encampment. Be so kind as to show me the w...way, please?" I spoke in neutral but polite tones.

"I won't show you anywhere except to the guards for stealing the king's tablet," this little brat pronounced. She was so confident she could do whatever she liked. If she turned out like this, then what were the parents like?

"So, hand the tablet over, and you, me, and griffin will go to the guards."

"I am here on business w...with a proper tablet from the King and you are just a trainee," I stated. "You have neither the standing nor the authority to impede me. If y...you do not wish to be expelled from this shrine, you will take me to your supervisor so I can find the person I am looking for, or y...you can skip that step and find her for me. Her name is Opa hat Kay'syo and her presence is requested at the royal encampment."

The Coyn around me looked scared. The brat looked bratty. I wanted to wipe the arrogance off her face. Some of her fellow trainees were now watching the show. A few looked like they approved but more looked concerned.

"You think you can pull precedence on me?" she shrilled at a high volume. "You filthy little Coyn, know your place!" She took out her crystal and cast a charm of discipline.

The initial shock took my breath away. Damn, that charm was seriously painful but it didn't hold a candle to what Aylem had done to me. I was used to pain by now. The charm of discipline was worse than a migraine but when the initial wave of pain was over, I opened my eyes, turned on my heel, and started walking to Asgotl, though it took all I had in me to do so.

"Sorry, kids," I said to the children, "I need my griffin back. Go to your tents and get out of sight, alright?" I smiled for their sake. "Hurry now, you must go hide quickly."

"Asgotl, I don't have the stamina to do finish our errand," I shifted the guitar to climb up his foreleg and neck. "W..w..we need help. Let's go back."

"Watch out!" Asgotl suddenly shouted.

"How dare you turn your back on me!" the brat screamed and hit me with a second charm. Asgotl screamed in pain since it hit him too.

My ears were hissing and I almost passed out from the pain of the second charm on top of the first. I staggered a step. I took my guitar off my back, popped the strap off, and picked up a large rock. I used the strap as a sling and like usual, I did not miss. The rock hit her right in the correct spot just above her temple and she fell. In the moment it took her to regain her senses, I had my knee on her larynx and my knife just above her carotid artery.

The pain of two charms of discipline was still burning its way through me. I wanted to curl up and scream in pain. As a result, I was not tactful.

"My knife is right above the artery that goes to your brain. If you move so much as a finger...w...width, it will cut your artery and you w...will die in under a minute because that's all it takes with the arteries in the neck. You have angered me, child, on a day when I have little time to w...waste on spoiled brats who think they are someone with a noble surname. Under the laws of Foskos, your fate is now in my hands. I am not a violent or vengeful person, but by the gods, the least that w...will happen is that you will be expelled."

I didn't see the kick coming. The foot was aimed at my knife, to get it away from the brat's neck. Because of the way I held it, hilt up, point down, it dragged across the brat's shoulder and left a lovely incision wound. Then the foot-propelled business-end of the knife lodged in my thigh. I hoped it missed the femoral artery. The rest of the Cosm-sized foot broke my left forearm, my elbow, and several ribs. I could feel and hear them break. I was also concussed when the toes and the ball of the foot struck my head just behind my ear.

Then I went flying. I expected to hit the ground and that would be the end of me. A Coyn usually dies after a physical assault like this from a Cosm. An adult silverhair Cosm could weigh somewhere between 1,600 and 2,50 stone. I weighed maybe 90 stone, soaking wet with my boots on. In the great game of classical dynamics, I had just experienced the losing end of the momentum equation and was about to explore the losing end of the impact integral.

The outcome of Cosm versus Coyn on a physical level is no joke. It's the reason that Foskan towns and cities segregated living spaces for the two races. Cosm and Coyn can work together but not live together. It's one of the reasons Lisaykos was so unhappy when Aylem left me at the Healing Shrine of Mugash in Aybhas because it was an all-Cosm, no-Coyn facility. It had no safety features for Coyn before Lisaykos retrofitted parts of the shrine for my benefit.

I expected an impact followed by whatever comes after death. I wasn’t ready to die but at least I wouldn’t have to put up with any more of this prophet crap. I would miss the gang of three and Lisaykos and Woldayrs. I knew now they had become a new family for me despite their excess of tallth.

I didn't get my impact and expected death. The world went wonky on me for the second time in one day and I had this really strange feeling that I was transitting multiple inertial reference frames where time was stretching at right angles to bleed off speed. The ground came up and floated into me softly. That's the only way to explain it because that's what it looked like to me.

* Oh, that worked better than I thought it would. I'm so glad. Help is coming, little Emily. *

Ud! Ud's shirt! In the short time since she gave it to me, the only times I had taken it off were when I washed it. When other people put me to bed, I always asked for my shirt back, after explaining it was a magic tool for my protection. It was on my back when I got kicked and it saved my life.

"Thank you, Ud," I managed to whisper. It hurt to breathe.

* You are welcome. Now I am very happy I gave that to you. Help is here now. *

"Great One," one of Usruldes' wraiths was kneeling next to me, "say something!"

"Something," I hoped she heard me. I couldn’t manage more than a whisper. I opened my eyes but did not even try to move. "Breathing hurts. Head hurts. Someone should cast stasis cast on me to stop internal bleeding but I can be fixed. Is Asgotl alright?"

"The griffin is fine, though he is still in pain," the wraith agent replied. "I'm sorry I did not reach you in time. I did not expect a Priestess Voice, of all people, to attack you. I thought you were dead. You should be dead."

"A Coyn pulled a knife on a trainee," an approaching woman's voice pronounced. "That Coyn ought to be dead and it would be better for it to be dead at this point because the only resolution to this situation will be that Coyn's execution for assaulting a noble. Who the crap are you?"

"I am an agent of the King," she stood up in her hooded black mantle and tunic and must have pulled out her fire opal tablet since the next thing she said was: "This is the same tablet the Revelator showed that trainee when she requested the trainee's help. That trainee assaulted her three times and you assaulted her once. By law, both your lives are now forfeit to whatever the blessed one decides unless she dies, in which case you will be judged in the Well of Galt."

"Blessed what? That’s a stinking filthy Coyn," the woman shouted. "What nonsense is this? I should just stomp on it now and put it out of its misery since it will die anyway. No Coyn should have survived that. How can it be alive?"

"You should hope she's alive," I heard Imstay's voice raised in anger. I felt the ground shake as his weight knelt next to me, "say something, please, Emily?" There was worry in that abruptly soft voice.

"Something, please. That's a silly request, Imstay King," I managed to whisper. Now that the charms of discipline were wearing off, I was beginning to feel a tiny bit better, but I had that strange out-of-balance feeling I remembered from the car accident in West Australia that almost killed me.

"I think my back is broken, Imstay. I need a healer but I w...wanted to talk to Opa before she sees Aylem. Imstay, this is important. Please, tell your daughter that Mugash showed Aylem all of Opa’s fear of her. I think it's w...why Aylem ran away. Aylem couldn’t face the guilt of making her own daughter afraid of her. Opa needs to know." I didn't remember anything after that, except for Lisaykos' and Kayseo’s voices talking to me in my delirium.

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