Emily, along the Ahkeseld River and other places

The rocks and the dirt and the grass fell on top of me while I was falling. Clod by clod I was buried. I expected to be crushed by the weight of the earth and suffocated by the lack of air. Neither happened. Instead, once I was swallowed by the darkness, it felt more like being in water. Then it became water yet I could breathe.

As soon as my mind recovered from the shock and the change of scenery, or lack thereof in this case, I knew a god must be messing with me.

"It was a lot more fun last year before you figured everything out, Luv," Vassu the Shark moped as she swam a circle around me. She was the only thing I could see and she was still wearing the pink chiffon. So Vassu was messing with me? She was more active with the puny lifeforms of Erdos than other gods, and I did like her goofiness. It reminded me of the great musical comedian Anna Russell.

"The bismuthite adventure was a very good time," I said. I wouldn't turn down more of those. The bismuth adventure with Usruldes and Cadrees had been a lot of fun with a Cosm who didn't scare the crap out of me.

"Alas, the time for appetizers is over," Vassu sighed.

"Appetizers?"

"You know, Luv, little tasters to engage your fertile brain, get you interested, and keep you entertained while we get ready for the main dish," Vassu sounded like she was trying to be cheerful and positive.

"And where are we on the menu right now?" I asked.

"We're still in the teasers," she stopped in front of me with all those scary teeth. "We're in the soup and salad and bread rolls stage of an American formal restaurant meal of the twentieth century. The main events of the entree are coming up soon."

"So where am I?" I asked, noting I could stand up and there was something solid beneath my feet.

"Well, nowhere really," she grinned.

It was then that I noticed I had lost my boots and one of my stockings.

"I'm just taking the opportunity to tease that insufferable cat god. He opened up the hole in reality that you fell through but I shunted that time-space line to bring you here instead of Salicet. Finding us will give him something to do while we girls can have a chat. I confess that I do want to talk with you about one matter of importance."

"You wanted to talk with me?" I was still feeling unhappy about what Mugash pulled on me with Tiki's blessing.

"I had nothing to do with that," Vassu huffed. "I tend to err on the too-much-information side of things and I do not approve of extending physical burdens and sufferings. Biological life is already hard enough on souls."

I knew she wasn't lying. The gods tend to err with their lack of disclosure, but they don't lie. The problem from my point of view is that they withhold information or like to disguise it to the point of not being useful inside the wrapper of a prophecy.

"That's not a flattering way to look at your deities, but it's not incorrect either," she sighed. "Well, I do need to speak with you about Twee, who you just met. You haven't had time to get to know him better but I hope you do become friends with him. The most important thing, Emily, is to get him to my shrine in Weirgos. He's the next revelator. You must take him to Omexkel since Giltak is collaborating with me on this. There, he needs to learn all he can about cast and wrought iron. Then you need to take him home to his tribe and help get them started on their iron industry. It's the next step on your great task of setting up the Great Breaking."

"What?" To say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement. "I thought the Great Breaking was about the end of slavery."

"Have a seat, Luv," Vassu gave me a toothy smile. Then, I was sitting in a comfortable wingback armchair with a matching hassock under my feet. "I don't know how long it will take Galt to find us. I do not have time to give you a university class on the relationship between technology, agriculture, the nurturing of creative intellects, and the organization of labor, but for most agriculturalists, the step-up in technology and the ability to sustain a large creative artificer population can correspond to the elimination of most forms of slavery."

I mulled that over for a moment, "I note you said that the relation of those four things could lead to the elimination of slavery, not that they would. I also note you said most forms of slavery, not all."

"You really are sharp Luv. Don't ever change that about you. Yes, the introduction of technology that greatly increases labor productivity is a necessary condition to the elimination of slavery."

"Given the way you said that, I must surmise that it is not a sufficient condition," I anticipated where Vassu was leading me.

"The engineering that minimizes the abuse of increasingly-productive labor is societal. Societies must be managed to balance individual wants and community needs, and that is done through the structure of power. As much as you dislike the man, you need the cooperation of Imstay and other ruling Cosm like him to prevent the abuse of the labor provided by the different races."

"Then, what will prevent Imstay from just shifting from chattel slavery to serfdom or wage slavery?"

"The gods, which is to say, our agents working through the shrines.

"That never worked on Earth," I protested.

"There were places where it did, but unfortunately, that was the exception and not the rule. In this reality, we have designed a brake to minimize greed and maximize the greater good for all sapient life. The trick is in the social engineering to make this work. You are part of that, but so are Aylem and Asgotl."

"Foskos is not the whole world," I pointed out.

"Foskos is destined to rule all other nations in the coming age," Vassu pronounced, and the words felt heavy and profound.

"I still don't understand how this is supposed to work," I grumped.

"The Cosm will not do what the gods will not permit in the running of societies. I will do a tiny bit of rule-breaking here, Emily, because you are just too smart to do what you are told without explanation. You need reasons for what you do. So here's an incentive for you: your revelation from Landa will make the perpetration of chattel and economic slavery a sin.

"This is this bad part of having someone like you as a prophet, Luv. Many gods prefer less intelligent prophets because they don't tend to talk back, usually cower in awe, and don't ask pesky questions," Vasso gave me another of her toothy smiles with all those sharp, hungry-looking teeth. "Many gods prefer that sort of behavior from prophets."

"I see," I mulled over what she said. As far as motivational goals, it was a good one. "So, Twee is the fifth revelator. So, that leaves one revelator slot for an eagle and one for a flying horse."

"There's also a fudge factor," Vassu remarked, "as one might have said on Earth, in that we may or may not count you as one of the revelators, since you're the prophet. If we need to add a revelator at the last minute to fix or fine-tune something, we can have seven revelators plus one prophet, which is a fudge in case we need eight revelations.

"Lisaykos was not originally meant to be a revelator and Galt wasn't supposed to give a revelation this time around too, so that's thrown off Tiki's original grand plan."

"So, you gods fudge your own prophecies?" I rolled my eyes. The more I learned about how the god business worked, the stranger it got.

"You see, not even we know all the details of what will happen. You understand more about time now, so I can say that we know everything about all the different permutations of what may happen, but we don't know which one will happen."

I stopped and thought about that, "That actually makes a twisted kind of sense in a weird statistical thermodynamics way."

"You are the most intelligent prophet I have ever encountered, Emily," Vassu studied me with those weird shark eyes with the peanut-shaped pupil. "Having a smart prophet is new for me, and to most of us, except for maybe Galt, but he has such a long view of time, it's hard to say what he's had to work with in the past. I do know he enjoys working with you. He hasn't been this interested in a prophet for a long time, which for a god is longer than you can imagine, I'm sorry to say."

"No need to apologize, Vassu," I frowned just a little. "I can cope with the concept of things beyond my understanding. Not knowing stuff keeps me interested, in a warped sort of way. I do suffer from curiosity."

"Which killed the cat!"

"I know," I grinned. "But you know, the cat came back.

"The very next day!" She flashed a toothy grin at me, "I know. This is why everyone thinks you're so much fun. Well, most of us." She stopped, looked around, and then chuckled. "He's looking for you, and he's getting close. It's good for him. I'm not going to make it easy for him to find you."

"Hey, I do get that I am the pawn piece here," I shrugged. I was powerless and I knew it.

"You are not a pawn, Emily Prophet," she was suddenly stern with me. "You are the designated prophet. You can not change the boundary conditions on reality, but you can affect the nature of significant outcomes. This is big. Time is one of the variables in magic and you, Emily, get to play with time without having magic."

"What?"

"Galt already has helped you there. He showed you how your choice of timing on visiting the Shrine of Landa changes the face of war on Erdos. The things you do, the people you talk to, the things you tell them, the thoughts you influence --- all of these allow you to leave your mark. If we want to use Tiki's metaphor, you're the catalyst. I don't like that one much. I prefer a deterministic chaos metaphor instead. I think the role you have is like Lorenz's butterfly, that the flap of your wing in Mattamukmuk drives the tornado that will level Salicet. But you can choose Mattamukmuk or you can choose Ud's beach cottage on the Great Wash. That choice will change the effect of that tornado in Salicet. Salicet could fall tomorrow and its half-million residents would all die, or Salicet could fall five years from now, already half-deserted by those who choose not to follow the path of doing the wrong things."

"Is that what you see in your view of possible futures?" I asked, curious if this was real or just hypothetical as a teaching moment. The whole destruction of Salicet thing really did upset me.

"Destroying Salicet tomorrow would be hypothetical, Luv, because it is already an abandoned reality. It can no longer happen. The one five years from now is quite possible, on the other hand," Vassu explained. "The tornado is a metaphor. I'm not going to spoil the surprise for you.

"Oh, this is so much fun when we have time to chat," Vassu did that shark-tooth grin again. I was getting used to it. She was coming across a lot more coherently this time. "I should probably let Galt in here soon before he gets angry," she winked. "He's so touchy at times but still, it's such a thrill to be working on a reality with Galt. He's one of the oldest Gods, you know.

"Of course, this is all metaphorical, Luv, but Galt is a god's god. What a surprise it was, the moment when Tiki slipped up, because Mugash failed to account for your free will, and then, BAM, you cut us out of the prophet channel right on top of a potential nexus event. Galt was ready: he slapped down the equation to fix reality and ran with it. Oh, it was such a choice moment. I was in awe. It was masterful. I can already see the knitting realities entwining and rearranging, fixing the holes and spinning off into the orthogonality of time."

She grinned at me suddenly, "I know you're still getting used to thinking about time as having more than one dimension, but here's a brain puzzle that I know you will enjoy, Emily Luv: multi-dimension time that's non-Euclidean."

*VASSU!* Galt's voice echoed through the water space. He popped into being on all fours, fur standing on end. He looked a little silly all fluffed out. I hoped he didn't fry my brains for thinking that. Gods might take it poorly if taken for comic relief.

Vassu sighed, "dear me, playtime with Emily is over. I'm sorry, Luv, we need to do this again sometime. I do look forward to your invention of fireworks."

"I get to do fireworks?" I sat up. Now, this sounded like fun. Where would I find selenium, I wondered?"

"Hot springs near phosphate-rich marine shales," Vassu replied seamlessly.

"Selenium, selenium, selenium," I muttered to myself, trying to remember what the blowpipe test was for that element. I would need to talk to Raoleer about making the right kind of tubing and gas hardware for that. How hard would making a gas works be?

*Now look what you've done, Vassu,* Galt hissed just a little. *You know what happens if Emily gets too distracted. I have a schedule I need to meet, and you just made it harder for me.*

"Come now, Galt dear," she flashed a shark-toothy grin at him, "I think she's going to enjoy her trip to Salicet in Impotu and Toyakastagga in Mattamesskontess. Do me a favor, Luv"?

*It depends,* Galt was calming down, but he was still bristling.

"Don't make her walk all the way home. Winter is coming. Be kind to the poor dear."

"Wait!" I just realized what Vassu just implied. "Walk home from Impotu?"

"No, dear," Vassu glowered at Galt, "walk home from Mattamesscontess on the east coast."

*It's good timing for the revelation from Landa,* Galt was strangely defensive, not something I had seen in him before.

"Galt, it throws off my timing for the Chem. I know we've talked about this."

*From the Stem River,* Galt stated.

"Too far, Luv," her teeth got a little longer. "She needs to be home before the lower passes in the Blue Mountains snow in."

*The Impotu military road from the headwaters of the Third River.*

"The three passes are too high and she's lost her boots."

*Skags Mountain, and that's much too close. I won't go any closer.*

"I'll accept Skags. Deal?"

*Deal, you overgrown can of tuna,* he growled a little.

"I will consider it a favor," she said graciously. "You may collect sometime in the future, Luv."

*I'll remember that.*

"I know you will."

*Alright then,* he looked at me and instantly appeared more cheerful. "Well, kitten, I have a fun trip planned for you, complete with your first miracles. You even get to taunt some tyrants. I know you'll enjoy this.*

"WHAT?"