Epilogue Two

Dear Reknarja,

Please enclosed find a packet of seeds that have the cure for this ‘childless illness’.  The Haians tell me that since we can restore fertility in people it might be an idea to let it spread, considering the ‘limiting population’ clause in the Assembly of Nations agreement.  I will be sending a letter to Chevenga with this proposal in this same packet.

I am sending these arkanherb seeds out to all members of the Assembly and Haiu Menshir is already creating remedies from the mature trees which are currently being tended in the Temple so that people who do not like the effects of arkanherb needn’t get high to get cured.

Of course I am sending an official letter to your father the King so he can lift his quarantines.  Not to pry, but how is his health? I hope he continues robust and with all his faculties.

I was happy to hear that Jak and Peyyapallo have reconciled again.  Are they living in his palace in Tor Ench, or hers in Hyrene?

We would like to invite you and your wife to come visit for a time, now that Ky and Fara are safely delivered and it would be good to see the children playing together, though I’m certain that your princess will be quite bored with our little blobs that don’t do much yet. We’ll restrain Ili and Boras and Tesha, who is becoming quite the scrape-grace.

Ili is chafing at the long time it is taking for his domoctopus’s eggs to hatch, and he is teaching a new friend (from Berit in Haiu Menshir) to ride our Mahid blacks.  Next fall there will be a lovely crop of foals from the herd, according to the stable master and they are already picking names.  The Haian girl… Tirchaer… is allowing ‘Indomitable’ for her favourite mare’s foal because ‘Innie’ for short is a pretty name, she thinks.

In any case I will see you at the next meeting of Nations at the Tor.  We have to come up with some central meeting place rather than having everyone traipse around to the various capitols.  My Assembly is already fretting about how expensive the trip is going to be and I can’t imagine they will appreciate the incredible distance up to F’talezon, even by wing, which is one reason that everyone is voting for closer meeting places.

I’ll let you in on a few things, mostly because they will be announced in the Pages shortly.  The NA forces that set out to get rid of the Fehinnan slave chancres on the Dust Coast went extremely well and my fessas designers are talking to the Haians about making the built island hospital more permanent. I’ll have to tell you about how General Pasen survived the assassin’s attack right at the end of the whole engagement and he says he will retire again.

Among the slaves we freed, some thousands were Enchian and you will probably find them making their way home again soon.  The Srians – being the ones directing the operation – will no doubt have the full report to let everyone know…

Epilogue One

Minis sat down on the edge of Muunas’s palm as the crowded Temple began emptying out to go dry themselves off, as if the rain festival were still running. Doof flapped over to land on his arm, then slide down to his lap, tangling in his wet hair, looking bedraggled as though she were just hatched.  The mysterious second parrot, a red and grey, put his scarlet crest up and tried to preen Doof’s feathers without getting any closer to Minis.  He laughed and scratched Doof before setting her next to her suitor. “Good luck,” he said to the grey, winking at him.

Then he slid down Muunas’s lap to his feet, to find both Radas and Narilla waiting for him, each with a cup in their hands. “You need sustenance,” Radas said and they watched him quaff the drinks that only the Temple could make, made of light and energy and air. His lips tingled and his tongue and gums and throat as Gan flung his arm over his shoulders.

“You’ll be easy to beat, sparring, brother mine!” He crowed as Antras politely cleared his throat to announce that the Marble Palace staff were there at their Imperator’s disposal.

“You and whose Mahid?” Minis whispered as Ky came down, one of the only people not soaking wet except for the very hem of her dress.

Farasha straightened and let out her breath, Narilla turned to her.  “Timing,” she said.  “I think I am in labour…”

Gan and Minis whooped and Ky laughed so hard she cried as the priestesses swooped on Farasha and carried her and Gan off to the Temple birthing pool.

**

Shkai’ra leaned over to whisper in Megan’s ear.  “Pretty impressive spook pushing.”

The Zak smiled as Ili and his Haian friend mounted the horses and led the whole herd carefully out of the Temple. “It was astonishing on every level.  Lixand –“

“—Mata I think I want to stay in Arko for a while,” he broke in.  “I don’t think Ardas will want to come back here…”

“He can decide, just as you can.  I was thinking that I’d stay a while myself, open an office for the company here.”

Shkai’ra laughed.  “You like big cities, love.”

Megan looked down at her hands.  “I think I’ll learn how to fly… and we can go home to Brahvniki every moon.”

182 - End of Ordeal

Matthas and Ilesias ran up the steps into the Temple and found  that Oas, Anae, Imbas and Mella already had some people standing as avatars of God.  The stone-workers that Matthas had worked with, building the new part of the Temple, the Imperial family’s households, led by the Marble Palace chamberlain.  Professors and students from the University. The Marble Palace stable master and Tanifas.

The Mahid team… all of the women took up station with Inensa or before Mella and one… Melforasha, before Anae.

Boras and Tesha Riala Mahid tumbled off the dog, who slid between two horses and lay down practically in Ili’s lap.   

“We’re HERE!” Tesha shouted, dancing in place, clinging to the dog’s ears to get her balance.

“Fix it, GODS!  FIX IT, OH TEN!” Boras shouted, raising his tiny arms.

Ili stood up, carefully so as not to hurt the dog or the children.  The choir fell silent.  The crowd filling the Temple, old and new, held their breath. Even the animals were silent.

Then a single note from the glass harmonium slid down into hearing. Down, down, like a grace note falling from Selestialis till it rumbled and thundered.  All over the Temple, driven by a united impulse, people pulled off their gloves and held up their naked hands to the sky.  Some held black handkerchiefs. One, lone gold glittered in Ilian Kallen’s hand, until he looked all around and shame-faced and angry tucked it away.  All other fingers reached up, somehow outlined in silver.

Ky’s hands were full, she held both babies on her lap and instead of raising her hands she raised her voice, singing a rising harmonic to the Temple’s tone.  Ili’s treble joined her.  Then the women. The men’s basses and baritones sang with the Temple. Voiced, wordless… Then the women’s notes began falling and the men’s began rising till, at the moment of noon, when the sun blazed down on Minis in his coat of fur on Muunas’s hand, met and the mighty, united voice of all Arko shook the city, and the crater and the lake.

At the bottom of the lake, the roots of the Temple, the core of Argos, responded. *Emergency protocols engaged direction Ark Co.*

Thunder rumbled through the Temple and lightning struck out of a clear sky, undiverted by the shattered ruins of the Lightning tower it touched the highest spire of the Temple.

Water flowed up through new channels that had been cracked before, to flow into the wrong part of the Temple, now directed correctly.  From Mella’s outstretched hands fountains burst out that every God and Goddess statue echoed.  Water flowed as Divine tears, out of beneficent hands. Minis stood up in Muunas’s palm as the animals, soaking wet, climbed or flew away to let him rise. The water poured down on the Arkanherb trees that Inensa had had brought, ran through the leaves and flowers of the poison garden.

The water, infused, poured around Anae’s feet and from her upraised hand showered down again into Risae’s hands. *Buselasas pro takulshu toff deenay mod eefika shun replik ashun kannibas ind ika sub speesees Imperial Gold* The Temple’s words were barely audible as the crowd held the note.

Minis, soaking wet, thin, barely able to stand, held up the seals.  The rain in the Temple stopped and the water retreated to the pool at Anae’s feet and the fountain flowing quietly, calmly, from Mella’s hands. Thunder rumbled again and the single note song of Arko stopped. 

“The answer to our problem of bearing,” Minis said, his voice rolling out.  “Has been solved.” He held out his hands, and pointed.  “These arkanherb trees are now the medicine to cure this illness.  Anae cleansed, Mella provided, Risae created. Blessed be the Ten.”

“Blessed be the Ten,” came the response.  Then Bella and the other dogs stood up and shook themselves wildly, re-soaking the crowd who exclaimed, laughed, began cheering, waving the black handkerchiefs that called for the end of Ordeal, hastily re-doning their gloves, embarrassed.

Everything in the Temple was wet. The mice around his feet, sat, bedraggled, beginning to wash, the eagles shook their feathers and the parrots. Even the owls were wet, sitting in Selinae’s hair, wings held out, dripping.

“Thank you, Arko,” Minis said looking out over the congregation who had saved him, saved themselves, wiping his face dry.  “Our Ordeal is over.”

- fin -

181 - Mama Anae! Open Your Still-Room

Matthas hurtled down the steps into the Mahid quarters, bellowing. “To the WATCH! Mahid Rise! Rise!”

He nearly ran into Ilesias, sliding out of one of the hidden passages, from the stable. “The Temple…” he panted springing to his feet.

“Yes, Minis needs us!”

“WOMEN!” Sofonisba, Alaria and Sulatesha came out of the training hall, Sofonisba dragging the other two along by force.

“Mahid, we are needed!” Matthas grabbed Alaria and Ilesias seized Sulatesha, both women protesting.

“We’re not really Mahid! We were married in, we shouldn’t we can’t we mustn’t…” Sofonisba straightened and snarled at them.

“If you are not Mahid as you claimed you are cowards and imposters! Stop this wailing and choose!  You said you chose when we came back to the City!  Enough of this NONSENSE,” she roared.  “You’re Mahid enough to claim the name, to hear the Temple when the Ten call us to defend and support our Imperator!”

There was a moment, too long a ringing silence. Then both girls bowed and said, “Yes, Senior.”

Sofonisba turned to Matthas.  “We are here.  The First is in Yeola-e, Melforasha is watching the children.”

“Good,” Matthas said.  “It must suffice.” 

The doors of the Mahid nursery burst open and little Boras, with Tesha in front of him, rode out on one of Tanifas’s silky Great Hounds with Melforasha chasing after.  “Boras and Tesha Mahid, you are too young to be called by the Temple!” She shouted grabbing at the dog’s tail, missing by a hair as the massive animal tucked it between his legs and tried to run faster, with Boras and Tesha crying him on.

Somehow the dog dodged sideways, bowling the two men back, staggering, as it pushed between Matthas and Ilesias and up the stairs. “We’re called!” The little boy waved at them.  “Come on! Come ON!”

Ilesias swore in Yeoli as he plunged after the disappearing dog.  “What he said.  Come ON!”

**

The words and information flow ever deeper as I dig into the mass.  I can hear Mella under it, Her words are muffled and indistinct so I do not know if She has found humanity's salvation. A cure for a God-created illness. An illness *made* by one of Risae’s students. Dearest Gods let there have been a cure created, along with the illness.

I have the silver stub of the spoon in my hands and I'm dug into the mound in a tunnel that seems to get no closer to Mella no matter how I dig. I set my hands and begin scooping words up and as the seals touch them, they fly up and become part of the walls and the ceiling and the floors… They all have their places and no one has managed, or bothered, to sort them all out and put them away.

I am running out of strength. What more can I do?

The mouse who has decided to live with its tail curled around my ear rises up, puts one paw on the top of my ear and squeaks shrilly, high as a glass harmonium. The squeak becomes a squeal and there is an enormous rustling noise as hundreds of Risae’s mice and Anae’s ferrets pour into the space around me, rush through my hands to touch the Imperial seals, and then begin pulling the mountain of words apart.

In the distance I can hear someone yelling ‘Come ON! Come ON!’ It sounds like Ili used to sound when he was a much younger boy. “We are NOT too young! Leave us alone! We’re here for Minis and Arko. We are Mahid! MAMA ANAE! Mama Anae! Open Your still-room for us!”