Maker of Fire

Usruldes the Wraith, Aybhas

I knew that the General of the Left was a lonely guy. Sometimes I thought that stupid winged horse of his was his best friend, and yes, Niefl'flaf was on the stupid side, even for a flying horse. Many years ago, Bobbo was sweet on a priestess warrior of Erhonsay. They had their hand-in-hand ceremony scheduled when she died in a training accident. He has not looked at another woman since.

I sat in the one-room shelter my agents had built for myself and Cadrees as I watched Bobbo lesson the gals of the garrison. It was common knowledge that the only warrior in Foskos who was a better fighter than Bobbo was the King. Bobbo wasn't as big or as strong as a silverhair. He constantly exercised to maintain the stamina he needed to beat a silverhair in a fight; however, Bobbo fought with his mind as well as his body. Many silverhairs relied on pounding someone to death. Bobbo analyzed them to death.

He had excellent mid-range clairvoyance and maybe just a touch of precog to help him dodge and weave. He had the remarkable talent of not being where his opponents' weapons traveled. He was infamous for a rising offside axe shot with an optional shield hook that dropped behind a shield and got an opponent in the left ribs. With a short sword in his hand, the same basic motion took the left arm off at the shoulder socket.

I think he fought everyone who was off duty at the garrison and a few that were on duty. No one beat him, not even the garrison commander. He beat her easily, five times. Then he told her how he beat her so she would improve. He actually talked to every opponent, teaching them how to get better. He was an excellent teacher. I could see him retiring to Kas to teach fighting in his old age.

It was obvious to me that Captain Tyoep, the garrison commander, liked the General, in a woman being attracted to a man sort of way. She was flirting. He was so far gone down the path of a single male that he didn't even realize it. I had to wonder if he was missing the flirting cues because he was so short. Seriously, she was almost a whole head taller than he was, but mismatched heights are not uncommon between silverhairs and their halfhair or unmagical partners.

My wife and I are a good example of that since I'm two heads taller than she is, though I am tall for a silverhair man and she is short for a halfhair. Sometimes it just works out that way. Oyyuth has a lot of magic for her height, inheriting all of the talents that run in her family for magical fine control over temperature charms, a critical skill for brewers. She can make light and has rudimentary telekinesis. She can manage to omnicast for help over a very short range, but that's all she can do. It's exceptional considering how short she is but I would have fallen in love with her regardless. I'm afraid I fell for her the first time I saw her and I've been smitten ever since.

I was eighteen and Old Gwilekos, my mentor in spycraft, started to take me to the draught rooms of local breweries in Is'syal for practice in the art of eavesdropping by clairvoyance. That's one of the things she set out to teach me since it is neither simple nor easy to listen in on just one conversation in a noisy crowded room.

Oyyuth was sixteen. Her father had her learning every job in the family business. When I first saw her, she was learning the jobs of the draught room for the Kay'syo Brewery. My first sight of her was with three pitchers of beer in each hand, dodging bodies, tables, and chairs as she navigated the floor of the draught room. Even at sixteen, she was mature in ways I didn't expect, and she bounced drunks as well as her old man could. I was captivated.

I was a regular in under a year, excluding when I was sent on my first missions. The King enrolled me as a royal courier, though it was an open secret that some of the couriers were spies. I was cleanshaven and cut my hair short in the unofficial bowl cut worn by all couriers. I frequented businesses with the hood of my mantle up to create the accepted polite fiction that I was just another middle-class citizen instead of a silverhair. That hood got me my own chair in the back corner of the draught room. The white eyebrows still meant I got great service but the hood signaled I didn't expect the use of lawful honorifics.

I would stop in every afternoon before crafters and artificers quit for the day so I was there before the evening rush and usually left before the dinner hour. I always had a book with me, assigned by the King who wanted to improve my education. I would watch Oyyuth from under my hood. It took me two years before I got the courage to talk to her beyond making change for my horn of beer. I didn't have problems talking to other girls, just Oyyuth.

By eighteen, she was running the draught room and all its employees. Oyyuth treated me like any other customer. Her old man started hanging out in the draught room in the afternoon to glower at me. I couldn't dredge up the courage to ask her out and yet, I couldn't stop watching her surreptitiously from under my hood. It was a terrible situation. I knew at some point I either had to ask for parental permission to take her out, since she hadn't asked for me first, or be invited by her brooding father to leave and not come back.

Unknown to me, Old Gwilekos knew Kirurffi hat Kay'syo. Kirurffi, who was a lot smarter than most people knew, recognized me as one of her students. That's why he hadn't already tossed me out though both Kirurffi and his daughter Oyyuth knew I was attracted to her. Kirurffi had observed that I was tongue-tied in front of Oyyuth. Old Gwilekos couldn't tell him my background because the King has told no one who I was.

Old Gwilekos reported the situation to the King. The King paid Kirurffi a visit I didn't know about. The next day, Oyyuth walked up to me with a horn-sized beaker filled with cold water she had just chilled down. She yanked my hood down and inspected the haircut. I was aghast and too startled to speak.

"Alright, Courier Hessakos, let's see your tablet," she stood with one fist cocked on her hip and the other held out in front of my face.

I took my fire opal tablet as a royal courier out of its special case on my belt and handed it to her. She duly inspected it, "huh, so that's what one of these things looks like." She handed it back to me and as I put it away, she dumped the really cold water on my head.

"What was that for?" I managed to sputter.

"That's for making your legal guardian who lives in the big house on top of the hill come and talk to my dad because you were too timid to do it yourself," she said, using one of the ways city residents referred to the palace.

"Wha...?"

Just then, I heard Imstay's laugh from the draught bar. There he was, hiding his long braided hair under a hooded mantle, standing with Kirurffi back by the big barrels of tapped beer. They were laughing and slapping each other on the back. I think my chin hit my toes. I had been set up.

"Come on, wet one," Oyyuth dragged me to my feet by the brooch and chain closure of my mantle. "We're going for a walk."

"We are?"

"Yes, we are, master too-shy-to-ask-me-out," she dragged me to the door with her finger hooked under my mantle chain. She smiled serenely and looked quite pleased.

We were married two years later.

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General Bobbo, Aybhas

The military was split between offensive forces, which were mostly men, and defensive garrisons, which were mostly women. As common wisdom stated, nothing was fierce as a woman protecting home and family. As a result, the culture of Foskos assumed men were better at aggression in attacking and women were better at ferocity in defense.

Wars of conquest and raids for revenge were handled mostly by men. Policing and defense of communities and castles were handled mostly by women.

Bobbo was quite happy with his afternoon on the garrison practice grounds. A few of the women of the garrison gave him a real workout, which made the effort worthwhile. He had to switch to his preferred weapon, the single-bitted axe, to beat the garrison's two best fighters.

He took his leave right after the sixth bell and returned to the fourth floor of the shrine. There was no sign of the Queen's griffin on the south balcony where he left Niefl'flaf to chew his pinion feathers for lack of anything better to do.

He was about to knock on the door to the High Priestess's door when it opened. Lisaykos looked down her long beak of a nose at him, "skip the formalities, General, and leave that fighting axe and buckler on your backstrap outside the door." She waited for him to do so and motioned that he should sit on one of the two lounges against the north wall. As he sat, he noted the small set of Coyn-sized steps on one side of the lounge against the south wall.

"Tea? Beer? Kayberry juice? The tea is hot." She pulled some beakers off the bottom shelf of the sideboard.

"Oh, please, not more beer. I got quite soaked at the garrison. Make it tea, please."

"I was guessing that's where you went by the fresh dust on your boots and the sweat ring around the neck of your undertunic," she placed a beaker of hot tea in front of him. He slipped a surreptitious finger under the collar of his tunic and was a bit abashed that what she said was correct. It figured the old bird would notice something like that. He always had to watch himself around her. She was so sharp. Very little got by her. He would always be careful not to make an enemy out of her: that's how much he respected her. The fact that she was a pure silverhair and even taller than the king only added to the intimidation factor---not that he would ever reveal that she scared the crap out of him. The only other person who scared him more was the Queen.

"Before the Queen and Emily return, General, I thought I would share a few thoughts for when you attempt to speak with our Coyn guest," she began.

He found the word guest very interesting, "go on."

"Emily is not of Foskos. She is a free Coyn and just as standoffish as the Sea Coyn traders of Inkalim. She is also mute. If a question needs an answer beyond yes or no, she will write it out on a wax tablet."

Bobbo was surprised and showed it. "She's literate? The revelation I saw this morning wasn't dictated? She wrote that?"

"No, that's the work of my secretary based on what she wrote on wax tablets. His handwriting is much better than even mine, and I have a fair fist. But yes, she is quite literate and extremely intelligent. She is also quite feral. So my advice is to be careful how you address her and do not approach her. She is not a tame Foskos Coyn so don't expect her to act like one."

"I'm not sure I understand," Bobbo frowned.

"From the old injuries she had when she was first brought here, it was obvious to those of us involved in her healing that she suffered badly at the hands of Cosm. We don't know where and we don't know when, but it's as clear as daylight that she doesn't like us and doesn't like being around us. She doesn't want to be here and she is not happy that she can't go home because agents of the King destroyed it when they entered it in her absence."

"What about the blessing of Tiki?" Bobbo protested. "Doesn't that tie her to Foskos and make her one of us?"

"I thought you knew better than that, General Bobbo." Her words came out coated in ice. "The gods care very little for borders and the petty little kingdoms and nations we chose to form for ourselves or impose upon others. Their will is inscrutable. Tiki must know why he gave a feral Coyn from the northern wilderness a revelation that's a recipe for relieving colon distress because I can not sort night nor day from it."

"Blarg," he swore.

"Anyway, Emily is shy and skittish and I do not know how she will react to a male Cosm who is obviously a seasoned soldier. That's why I asked you to leave your weapons outside. My advice to you is to appear as harmless as possible, and whatever you do, speak softly and calmly, and try not to make any sudden movements."

"Feral Coyn, eh?" Why was his life never easy, he asked himself.

Lisaykos smiled that frightening smile of hers at him, the one that made him wonder if she tortured small children or kittens for fun. "She hasn't bitten anyone as far as we can tell."

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