Priestess Arma, along the Ahkeseld River

I watched in horror as the edge of the bluff collapsed, pieces of the edge slipping down one after another, with Emly on the first bit of ground to go sliding down toward the river. I grabbed Twee and levitated both of us as the ground where we were setting up the bedroll wobbled and buckled as it too slid down toward the river.

I snatched the haversack and waterskins quickly before they vanished downhill and flew them and Twee to the far side of the river, where there were no bluffs. Then I levitated over the hillside that fell into the river, looking for Emly and hoping beyond hope to find her in one piece and still alive and unhurt.

Frantic, I exerted all the magic strength I had, lifting the part of the bluff in the river that I knew she was on. I spread it, thinning it and expanding the space it took to help search, and moved it to the river bank next to us. Then I searched for her. I found her boots and one stocking but nothing else, which made no sense unless I missed her in the river. So I went back to search the river, taking the collapsed bluff still in the river apart, standing up to my hips in the cold river water.

All the time I was searching, Twee was trying to get me to stop and to rest, saying something strange, like a god had passed by and taken Emly away. I didn’t want to accept that for it could only be Gertzpul. Nothing else made sense to me. I eventually collapsed on the river bank, Twee circling me frantically in concern, saying Emly would be alright. I had to wonder if I had heard him correctly, or if he or I had bumped our heads and were making no sense.

At some point, I must have blacked out because when I opened my eyes next, members of the black-clothed assassins of Foskos had me on a bed pad in a tent, under blankets and with a pillow behind my head. The pain in my head was substantial. Twee was seated on a chair speaking the hiss-and-click language of the Chem to a very tall man sitting next to him. The man was in the black mask and black mantle of the Foskan assassins.

“You’re awake,” said a woman’s voice on the other side of me. I turned my head painfully to see a very tall silverhair with thick wavy hair in a single braid down her back. She was wearing a blue gown over a pale yellow undertunic. The fitted cut appeared very practical for flying or working but I could tell that the cloth wasn’t just good, it was excellent. The undertunic was patterned linen of a very high thread count and the gown was silk.

“I’ve rarely seen a magic-overuse injury as bad as yours,” she smiled sympathetically. “You almost killed yourself. If I had arrived any later, you might have left this world, and that would make my friend Emily very unhappy since your friend Twee tells us you helped him and her escape the second Impotuan fort.”

“You found Emly?” I started to get up despite the pain but the silverhair’s hands pushed me gently but authoritatively back down.

“We have not located Emily yet,” the woman smiled with a hint of frustration, “but we have reason to believe we will not find her. One or more gods have taken her somewhere beyond our ability to find her. There was a foretelling made by Galt five nights ago, saying that we would find two of Emily’s friends but that Emily herself would walk home on her own. Twee said he saw a hole to a different place that Emily fell through. Then it closed behind her. We know that Chem are born with second sight and we believe him. I’m wondering why you did not take his advice and stop your efforts searching the landslide for Emily?”

Again, I had failed as a priestess. I should have listened to Twee, whose role as a shaman was very close to being a priest here. I instead wallowed in my panic when I could have been conserving my resources to get us both safely to Foskos. “I failed to heed him because of my own foolishness. I feared for Emly’s life so I heard Twee but failed to listen to him.” I wanted to find an Arma-sized hole to bury myself in.

“I'm not sure you should be sorry about being driven to save a life, Healer Arma," she smiled, and there was understanding and compassion in that smile. "I am astounded that you lifted and spread half a landslide out of a river to find a missing Coyn. You found her boots so you must have found and spread out the debris from the place she fell. If she was here to find, you would have found her then. Moving all that ground and relocating it so it could be searched was an awe-inspiring feat of magic kinetics. Are you sure you're not really a road builder of Gertzpul in disguise?" The look on her face was holding its own conversation and it said to me: "You did great so quit being so hard on yourself."

“But…,” I started to protest and this lady cut me off.

“No buts, young healer,” this thirty-something only a few years older than me chided, shaking an admonishing finger, “You did well. If you had not done such a good job of methodically spreading out the landslide debris, the Corps of Wraiths would be doing it themselves in your stead, just to confirm there is no Emily for us to find. Their chief, Usruldes the Wraith, would demand it of them for the sake of being thorough.”

“Usruldes the Wraith,” I grabbed my blankets without thinking and physically shuddered. That name was wrapped in fear for over more than half the dry land on Erdos.

The lady was startled by my reaction, and then she relaxed and chuckled. She clapped twice loudly, interrupting the conversation of Twee and the Foskan assassin. “Sorry to break into such a lively conversation, but it is apropos to introduce yourself to Priestess Arma since you were the one who found her and asked me to come to heal her."

“You will, Great One,” a musical bass said as he bowed his masked head. Who was she that he called her great one? Was she one of the rumored revelators who lived in Foskos?

“Friend and Priestess Arma,” he looked at me with stormy grey eyes, “please forgive my rudeness in not greeting you when you awoke, but Twee here was talking up a storm.”

Twee slumped little and tilted his head, “Sssssssorry, Arma.”

“It’s alright, silly,” I replied. He flicked his tongue twice in reply. Twee was an easy-going sort and not all wrapped up in conversational courtesies.

“I am Lord Usruldes Udkin,” he bowed in his chair, “commonly known as the Wraith. I am the Minister of Intelligence for the Kingdom of Foskos. I want to assure you that my Corps of Wraiths will bring you and Shaman Twee safely and comfortably to the Healing Shrine of Mugash in Aybhas.”

I think I must have clutched the blankets to shield myself from this new threat, “Us...us...usruldes?”

“I think your infamy may have exaggerated your menace, Lord Usruldes,” said the lady who had healed me. “Priestess Arma, let me assure you, if you are under his protection, nothing on this world will harm you. You need a safe place to recuperate and Twee will be staying at the Healing Shrine while I try to remove the scarring from his eyes. Healing eye injuries is one of my specialties. I fixed Emily's eyes last year after she had a bad accident with one of her furnaces.”

My head was spinning. On one side of me was the most feared assassin in the world. On the other side, the lady who healed me could be none other than the storied Blessed Aylem, revelator of Tiki. Emly said Aylem Queen had fixed her eyes last year. The Queen was said to be the greatest mage anywhere. She was also rumored to be insane.

“Oh dear,” the assassin looked concerned, “you don’t look good, Priestess.”

“You’re…you’re…,” my tongue would not work properly and I was having trouble focusing. My ears were filling with funny high-pitched tinnitus.

“I’m afraid I forgot to introduce myself,” the lady smiled with an apology all over her face. "I am sorry, friend Arma. I am Aylem Nonkin, Queen of Foskos. I am also both an adept and a healer. Lord Usruldes is right in that you do not look well right now, though that shouldn’t be a surprise since we know you’re not well.”

I felt Twee take my hand with those soft fingers of his with the strange springy skin, "Sssssssfeel better sssoon, Arma. I am worried for you. I find that Lord Usruldes is thoughtful and kind. He found us and summoned a healer as soon as he saw your condition, which was getting worse after you fell and passed out."

“I’m afraid we’ve given the poor girl a shock, Great One,” the musical bass was full of concern and care, which did not mesh with my conception of this man as the world’s most frightening assassin.

“I fear you are right, Lord Usruldes,” the Queen sighed.

“I have an eagle litter coming to take you to Aybhas, Priestess,” Lord Usruldes informed me. I will ride alongside and Twee will ride with me. The Queen is coming with us. We have kept all of the Impotuan soldiers away from this area so they do not even know you are alive, which may be a blessing. A few escaped. Some we captured. The rest are casualties.

“You will be safe in a bed at the Healing Shrine in two to three bells," he paused as a lady dressed as one of the Foskan assassins handed him a message tube from a messenger bird. He unrolled it and his eyebrows slammed together in a frown.

“What’s wrong?” the Queen asked.

“Snow Bear is injured,” his lips pursed under the mask. “General and imperial heir Arkaline took his arm off. She escaped. His eagle is carrying him and his arm, one in each talon, so Marmot writes. They are heading here because of a rumor that a certain healer is in the camp. Great One, could you...?”

“You do not even need to ask," the Queen made a slightly-exasperated face at him, "especially not for the ever-worthy Snow Bear. Can we get a tent set up with a good windbreak and conditions inside as clean as possible?"

“Certainly,” he got up, hissed and clicked at Twee who was still holding my hand, and then Lord Usruldes left.

The Queen gave me a quizzical look, “would you believe me if I told you that Lord Usruldes also has a soft heart, especially for his Corps of Wraiths, but for others too? He and his eagle bond spent more than two bells rescuing survivors from last year's flood, unknown and unasked when he could have been at his leisure. Then he refused to admit it had been him. He is much kinder than his reputation would suggest.”

I was speechless. I think I was indeed in shock.

- - -

Lisaykos, Healing Shrine of Mugash

My son, dressed as a royal courier, frowned in concentration as he read what I could not read. It was all in Earth’s Latin letters, tiny Latin letters as if written by a Coyn. I suspected that they were written by a Coyn, one who was not Emily. Irhessa put the paper down and looked at me in consternation, “it’s a love poem, in English. ‘What I dream I had, pressed in organdy, clothed in crinoline of smoky burgundy, softer than the rain.’ There’s more like that, a whole cascade of images, all invoking a scene of meeting a man’s lover in a romantic place in his dreams. Then he wakes up to find her sleeping next to him, and he confesses how much he loves her. Organdy and crinoline are fabrics associated with fancy women's clothing on Earth and smoky burgundy is that deep red-brown color you see in some of the heartier red wines.”

“Surd save us,” I let slip. The implications were startling.

“There's more," he said, picking up the paper. "He writes, 'By this Paul Simon piece, you will know that it is me if you are my Emily. I come to Aybhas from time to time on business for the holding where I live. I have obtained my own guitar. A Coyn can't climb the steps to the main shrine or I would visit the garden under your window on the south wing and play the songs that I know you love, including our song. So if your captors ever let you out, come to the social hall for Coyn by the Chapel Shrine of Surd in the northeast quarter. I will play there when I come to town. I do not know if you still love me but I believe I still love the lover you once were. Even if you do not love me anymore, we should talk.' He wrote no more than that. I do not know why he drew a drum at the bottom of the paper."

“The last line of the Prophecy of the Great Breaking," I remarked. "I think it has to do with that since the prophecy promises that the girl with the golden eyes will rediscover her heart's desire."

“’And Wisdom returns to her the heart she shares with a drum,’” he quoted. “So this mysterious Coyn who can write English in Latin letters and quotes earth poetry, does he have a name or occupation that has something to do with drumming?”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with that occupation, because her first husband was a soldier and her second was a miner.”

“He was in prison?” Irhessa was shocked.

“Mining was a profession where Emily lived,” I got up to make myself some more tea since I had granted Wolkayrs time to be with his recovering sister and Aylem was busy trying to remove scar tissue from the Chem’s eyes. “Her people did not use working in a mine as a means of punishment. Emily’s people knew how to mine rocks so that people didn’t die all the time. It was an honest and honorable craft. Why else would Emily be good at it herself?”

“When we find this person, he can explain it to us,” Irhessa glowered. “Which husband do you think it is?”

“You look like a father looking over the first young man to ask to date your daughter,” I was amused. Despite accusing me of being protective of Emily, he didn’t realize he was protective of her too. “I hope it is the first husband because she fled her country to escape the abuse of the second.”

“That’s right,” he looked like he was remembering something, “the first husband died in a war.”

"She loved the first," I boiled the water with a charm and poured it into the tea basket at the top of the pot. "Emily will know who it is when she gets back,” I sighed and wondered where she was, which god had taken her, and when she might come home. I had to face my own truth, that it was too quiet and I was lonely without her causing continual havoc in my quarters. Lyappis was right. I needed to be more social for my own good. I don’t know if I had been good for Emily but Emily had been a blessing for me.

I frowned at the boarded-up windows on the east wall of my study and grumbled over Impotuans to myself. With the destruction of the two Impotuan forts in the southern Blue Mountains, we would have a peaceful pause during the upcoming harvest and cold seasons. Foskos was recovering from last year's flood and this year's invasion. The upcoming cold season will be another lean one because the Impotuans burned the crops in Yuxviayeth and massacred everyone they found.

Thank the gods for Emily's gift of purple wet weed. It would keep people from starving for a second cold season in a row. The Holy Ashansalt had learned the knack of cultivating it in alpine meadows and Coyn who farmed on holdings had been planting its seed bulbs this year everywhere they could carry then. The bogberry harvest will be excellent this year, which will help on the southern end of the kingdom. I think there will be not a few nobles this year learning to like fish better. Emily had already convinced my daughter that Coyn could walk out on the iced-over lakes and rivers to fish through the ice. She even designed a tool that two Coyn could use to cut through the ice. Foskos would not starve this cold season.

Next year, Imstay will take an army into Impotu to pursue retribution for the invasion. Foskos would look weak if we didn't launch a counterstrike. There is disaster and war behind us and more war in front of us. Wedged in between, the peace of the upcoming harvest season has an air of the surreal. How I wish I could stretch these quiet sunny days out forever. But I can't do that so I watch and I wait and I worry about that little Coyn whose existence has become precious to me.

Emily never did give Imstay instant fire.

--- The End of the First Part ---