Sythyry

Distressing Dawn [22 Nivvem 4385]

Jagraton sat up in bed as dawn gave him new cley. This was somewhat remarkable, as (1) he was now able to move his own body, without interference or even residual clumisiness from the paralysis; and (2) he was no longer drunk, though he was enjoying one of the most vicious hangovers of his whole life.

“Ho there, foreign Sir Mister. Are you awake now?” asked the tall Orren woman in the next bed.

“I am — oh, I am! Do you know what has become of Prince Rastomil?” asked Jagraton, who had not as yet assembled the story in his mind quite so coherently as it has been presented thus far.

“Sir Mister, I don’t know who or what your Prince Rastomil is or might be. was he also teleporting around, blind drunk? ’cause if he was doing that, that’s not a good idea in Hanija, Sir Mister.”

Jagraton got out of bed and engulfed two quarts of water. He had been stripped and re-dressed in the night, and he was wearing a pleasing peach nightgown. “I hope he wasn’t, then. Where am I, and where are my clothes and equipment?”

“You’re in the Bipothzing Residence. I’m Ropaf Bipothzing, at your service,” said the Orren woman. “Your clothes and weapons are off in the laundry-room, hanging to dry. I have never seen so many weapons in one fumbergine’s clothes! Not that I often have call to strip a fumbergine naked and dress him and put him to bed and count his weapons, mind you, for I’m not that sort of a girl.”

“Well, allow me to thank you for saving my life. I was just about out of tricks,” said Jagraton.

Ropaf curtsied. “Quite welcome! I’m a poor boat-woman, and you’re a wealthy fumbergine, but I’m the one to pull a Rassimel out of a canal when he needs it most!”

Jagraton collected his weapons and proper clothes, got directions, and gave Ropaf a respectable reward, and, lacking any useful ideas, headed back to Strayway.

Helping the Prince [22 Nivvem 3485]

Jagraton returned to Strayway, having lost Prince Rastomil, and nearly his own life. He didn’t have much hope that the Hanijan city guard would be terribly helpful at poking at a member of the greater nobility. So he asked us for help. This would have gone better if he had made himself well-loved in the skyboat beforehand.

“Ah, Grinwipey, my good man…” said Jagraton to the first adventurer sort of person he found on board.

Grinwipey is not the best target for that. “Foh! I’m your good man now? Years and years I spend with Sythyry and Castle Wrong, fending off advance after gleensnigging advance from all these porkydotting traffs, and suddenly! With no notice at all! I’m your man! And your good one, at that! Without even being asked if I’d rather have your piffipoker in my snoodberry, or whether I’d prefer it in my gunders! A fine frottle of frogs this is! Even Inconnu’s not half so rude!”

“No! That’s not what I mean…”

There is little escape from Grinwipey when he’s in a mood. “No? No? You’re spurning me? You’re rejecting me? You’re out-and-out flobbering breaking up with me? After all our time together, all those evenings of squelchy romance, all our adventures! You’re just sending me off with just a ‘not what I mean’? You lout, you vundrel, you pile of gromp’s shomps! I’m just burnt squid eggs on toast for you to take up when you want me and feed to your pet geese when you don’t, am I?”

“It’s an emergency!”

“Oh, that’s what you all say, you two-legged pluffers. You get all sweet and seductive, with them words all dipped in malt syrup. Then when I’m all seduced and everything, ready to render up the virginity that I’ve preserved so carefully through four marriages — and you’re all “it’s an emergency!” and toss me off like a used-up squirtie-hankie. What’s this emergency of yours you’re making up? You met yourself a flousy floozy, one what can actually find your dingerdong under your fur and can pretend to enjoy the nine seconds between intromission and extrohaustion, and that’s the sort of emergency to dump me?”

“Nothing of the sort! Prince Rastomil has been kidnapped or murdered!”

“Well, ain’t that the whip’s tips! You’d better go goggle off to the prince’s loyal bodyguard, the one what won’t let the prince out of his sight for a minute on account of he’s so dorbitty concerned with the prince’s safety and well-being, and ask him about it. Much more efficient than making those passes at the ship’s tailor what never did anyone a flea’s worth of harm.”

Jagraton stomped off to find me, with Grinwipey floating behind. He actually found Phaniet, since I was busy with that morning’s work.

“Phaniet! I need your help!” cried Jagraton.

“Oh, he does, he does. He’s gotten himself all erunct and horniry over me, and I sure as sheepwrack won’t shimmer his shindig. So who does he go looking for, but Sythyry? Probably needs a finding-spell, he does,” noted Grinwipey helpfully.

“Shush, Grinwipey. What’s wrong, Jagraton?” Phaniet kept her voice carefully cool and professional. She doesn’t actually like Jagraton very much.

“The prince! He’s been kidnapped or murdered or something!”

Phaniet nodded. “That could be unfortunate, or even sad. Tell me more?”

“Can I please see Sythyry and Vae?”

“Not unless you persuade me it’s important,” said Phaniet. “As of now, you look like a Rassimel imitating an Orren in a wild rush.”

So the bodyguard told Phaniet a chopped-up and scrambled version of the story. After which, Phaniet said, “Well, you were certainly quite drunk. The rest of the story will take some checking. It doesn’t sound all that plausible, even from you.”

“Quickly! Quickly!”

Phaniet was not inclined to move quickly. “First of all, did Prince Rastomil come home last night? If he did, that would indicate that he was not kidnapped, and even reduce the likelihood that he was murdered.” But checking with Windigar in the pilot’s chamber found that Rastomil was not on board. “Well — he was supposed to be seeking a dissolute lifestyle. Perhaps he is simply sleeping in with this appealing Lady Noshi — illegally — or even enjoying a second round before breakfast?”

“No! I’m sure it’s worse than that!”

“Oh, dear. You do seem quite jealous. Why don’t you trot ’round to Lady Noshi’s house and ask after him? If he’s been kidnapped, I’m sure someone will want to hand you a ransom note,” said Phaniet.

“They tried to kill me!”

Phaniet flicked her tailtip. “Well, you are an adequate warrior, I believe. Simply don’t let them paralyze you or get you stinking drunk, and you should be fine.”

“I need assistance! The prince’s life is at stake!”

Phaniet shrugged. “I will be glad to assist you save the prince, should he need saving. At the moment I think you are misunderstanding the situation, based on an overload of strong drink and other peculiar Hanijan intoxicants, and, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised, jealousy as well. Still, if you want assistance, ask Jyondre and Yerenthax. They’re usually good for an adventure.”

So Jagraton did. He also collected Bryef (who was his official but uninspired deputy) and Invincible Fire Demon.

Jagraton lay flopped back in the cushions of the circular couch in Lady Noshi’s parlor. He was paralyzed, in the sense of having been rendered incapable of moving his body, and his brain buzzed with a great and extensive drunkenness far beyond the three cautious sips of wine he had tasted. He lay in a comfortably relaxed position.

The prince did not notice Jagraton’s incapacitation. Indeed, after a bit of the most casual and insipid repartée, Prince Rastomil and Lady Noshi had removed or opened certain of their garments, and were now shagging — no more dignified term would fit the character of their junction, and even “rutting” might not be utterly inapplicable — quite frantically on the couch. Even drunk, Jagraton found this behavior unexpected, even to the point of being surprising. Perhaps Jagraton remembered the Hanijan laws on the topic, or perhaps he considered the situation in light of the prince’s general preference for privacy and infrequency in his amours. Perhaps, again, the presence of Lady Noshi’s husband (no matter how drugged with that fuming nacreous purple beverage), might have been thought to inhibit such matters. But the lord simply muttered, “That’s how it starts, yes, for me too,” in a very vague voice, to which his wife snapped, “Be quiet, Kethji!”

Despite all these things, inhibitions were desperately lacking.

Or, more specifically, Prince Rastomil’s inhibitions were lacking. The Lady Noshi, while she can hardly be said to be non-receptive — for her entire body was clearly and completely devoted to the task at hand — maintained a certain ironic detachment on her face. She seemed, if anything, to be deep in contemplation of some distant mathematical theorem or abstruse philosophical principle, at which the frenzied rocking of her hips and the occasional orgasm were, at most, a minor distraction — if that.

She almost seemed to be performing some intricate and long-term sorcery, but Jagraton could clearly see that there was no magic at all involved. Not that he was spell-blind! Not a bit of it. He could clearly see the Ruloc Corpador spell that had paralyzed him.

After some time, Lady Noshi turned her head from her efforts with Rastomil. (Rastomil’s stamina, which was ordinarily quite ordinary, was quite infinite this time.) “Kebu! My work is about to get difficult, and I don’t want any interruptions. Please dispose of that bodyguard.”

Kebu, the withered butler, nodded. “Does your porthaceous and umnolent ladyship wish for him to be found ever again?”

“Best if he is not,” said Lady Noshi. Prince Rastomil grunted, though whether in assent, protest, effort, or pleasure, I cannot say.

“I shall render him mortaceous and pulpish,” said Kebu. He took a long and sharp carving knife, and stepped over to the paralyzed bodyguard.

I think I must do something about this, said Jagratonl. He was more of a warrior than a mage, but knew some magic. Not enough to fight off a butler, especially one who seemed quite experienced in wickedness, but enough to escape. [Bard notes that spellcasting on the World Tree does not actually require speech or movement, though it is easier that way and not everyone seems quite aware that it does not. -bb] The prince seems to be safe enough. Indeed, his current course of blatant adultery is practically obedience to his duty. I am afraid that flight, rather than active defense, is the best course of action for me. It will not look well on my report. Still, staying here and being killed by a carving knife would not look well on my grave.

So he cast his best teleport spell, which was tolerably good by the standards of most primes. (Your impression of Locador may be spoiled by the way that Vae uses it, or hCevian, or even Feralan and I. It is usually much more modest.) He had no idea where anything was, so he told it “as far as possible that way”.

Back in the parlor, Kebu set down his carving knife neatly, lining it up with the forks and chopsticks. “M’lady, the bodyguard has rendered himself strossulent and disproximal, in defiance of your wishes.”

“My wish is for quiet and calm while I finish this!” snapped Lady Noshi. Her body was quite occupied and entangled with Prince Rastomil’s, but her face showed not the slightest interest in those proceedings.

Kebu curtsied quietly, and stood by for further commands.

# # #

Hanija is a city of canals. Teleporting blindly around town is perhaps unwise, especially if one is paralyzed and unable to swim. Fortunately for Jagraton, he teleported somewhat over the water, and fell in with a loud splash.

An Orren boater pulled him out in an instant. “Hello, Sir Mister. Are you all right?”

The boater’s companion started doing the squeezes and presses that push water out of the lungs. “I think he’s drunk. There’s the gin and the arak, stinking on his breath.”

“He’d have to be, to do such a stunt as that. Hif-hith! He’s a well-dressed fumbergine, at least. Let’s take him to the house and let him sleep it off. Should be he’ll pay us a nice rescue-gift, if he’s got manners to match his clothing.”

[OOC: This is the start of a new story arc, which I would probably name if I were awake. -bb]

Beware! I did not see much of this myself. I generally take great liberties with peoples’ words and descriptions, but I stay true to the spirit of the original. In this story, I will be less accurate than that. I heard various fragments of it from various of the principal — by some wondrous miracle, the fragments occasionally managed to be consistent with one another. The rest is guesswork or pure embroidery, except for the scenes where Phaniet or I are present, which measure up absolutely to the precision which you have come to expect from me.

“My lord prince Rastomil, why are you donning your most formal outfit, with its waistcoat of plum and burgundy with bright copper buttons? Were you not about to depart for an evening in the fleshpots of Hanija, drinking quantities of the local herb-infused distilled spirits, and winning dozens upon dozens of lozens from foolish locals at games of chance, thereby recouping those you lost yesterday and the day before?” Jagraton was nominally Prince Rastomil’s bodyguard, but was under orders to ensure that the Prince returned to Barency in a state unsuited for polite company. Rastomil had no great love for the project.

“No, my good man, I have other plans for the evening. I have been invited to a dinner at the home of some local noble or other. In the spirit of fostering good relationships between our cities, I imagine I should attend.”

“But, lord Rastomil! It will be a slow and tedious evening! The intoxicating liquors shall dribble forth, rather than being quaffed voluminously and energetically! The conversation shall be hedged in polite qualifications, rather than being bold and colorful! No songs shall be sung, that you may join in their lusty chorus! If there are dancing girls, they are certain to be old and withered society matrons wrapped in hideous corsets of antique fustian, not the comely and barely-dressed darlings you so dearly love to watch!”

“Forgive me, my good Jagraton. I have spent the last eight nights trying my very best to carouse. I have returned home well after midnight, too drunk to remember which way my own door opens, which can be rather awkward when I am returning home with company eager for activies which are remarkably illegal in Hanija. I have sung vulgar songs — so many of them that I know sixteen Hanijan words for ‘vulva’, despite not knowing even one for ‘manners’. I have made every effort be be depraved. Now, I need some time for recreation. I am a quiet sort of Rassimel anymore, and I fear I would rather stay home collecting ornamental teacups or something.”

“Collecting teacups, my lord?”

“Collecting teacups, or even collecting dust,” said Rastomil. “Should I wear a purple cockade, do you think? Or does that mean something I don’t intend in Hanijan, like Would you be my tofyof? or I am violent atheist?”

“I’m sure I don’t know such things, my lord. I assure you that they are not relevant in the taverns in the roll’gainst quarter, where you may go with the utmost assurance of being instantly well-liked upon paying for a round or two of beverages,” said Jagraton.

“Well, I shall wear the purple cockade, then, and if it carries some invidious meaning, then my dear parents’ orders shall be better-satisfied in a single evening than in a month in the saloons!”

I could have put off the punishment by making various appeals. However, (1) the lawyer’s fees would cost as much as the likely reduction in fines, (2) I plan to stay longer than the appeals would go on, and (3) I plan to spend my vacation — this is a vacation, remember? — doing more amusing things than bickering in court. (Such as getting married.)

Shirahung was quite impressively unimpressed with me, and Khohu rather less impressed with Arfaen. It may be years before either of them dares take another foreign client. They did accept their fees without any great difficulty, though.

Payments

I didn’t mind one bit giving Arfaen her — loosely speaking — back wages. Which are triple what a person of my stature should be paying a tofyof for seven years.

Arfaen: “This makes me the highest-paid courtesan I know of! Twenty-one years’ wages for, what? A half-dozen nights together? Or maybe only the one night in Hanija counts?”

Sekhidi: “You are not a courtesan. You are a tofyof, or you should have been, which is an entirely different matter altogether!”

Arfaen: “Well, starting today, Sythyry’s the tofyof and I’m the keeper!”

Sekhidi: “The lizard clearly does not understand social ranks! Or, perhaps, zie is attempting to avoid zir beating by accepting an extravagant loss of status, in a misguided hope to awaken sympathy within my breast. But it fails! Sympathy has been awake in my breast for the whole trial. Nonetheless, even sympathy must be subservient to the law.”

I didn’t much like paying the other fines, though. They were expensive.

Ow

The corporal punishments were administered in a small room with a tile floor — practical, in case of blood flow! — and with only a few court officials and a healer around. And Arfaen, as part of her punishment — or, if she had been coerced into the relationship, as part of her revenge. I could have insisted that my barrister Shirahung attend too, but I didn’t see the point.

The officials had a bit of a problem with me anyhow. The whipping-stock is a padded log with an assortment of leather restraints and cuffs, the right size for anyone but a Zi Ri … or a Khtsoyis, I suppose, though I don’t exactly know how to restrain a Khtsoyis. They had to call in a leatherworker to adjust them so they could fit me, and as it was, I wound up in an unusually awkward position.

I didn’t much like the knout. The club was worse though, hearing my wingbones cracking and all. Next time I do this I will arrange for an undetectable pain-suppression spell on myself.

I won’t make any particular claims of bravery or stoic-ness for this part of the day. I just don’t want to talk too much about the details. Except that Arfaen claims that she was wailing less than I was, and I don’t believe her.

Afterwards: I wound up doing the spellwork on the healing of my wings. The Guild healer did put on the splints and immobilizations, which I should wear for a week or two, to avoid any long-term problems.

Anyhow, that was not the best morning I have spent in Hanija, and now I will try to forget it.

The Conversation

Since we were already on the Island of Official Buildings, Arfaen took me as tofyof that afternoon — after a fairly long lunch where we discussed our own private terms.

Arfaen: “I hope you’re not expecting me to be faithful to you. I couldn’t do that, not even to Mellilot.” (And yes, I count less to her than Mellilot did.)

Me: “Of course not. Honestly, that was one of my top reasons for not asking you to be my tofyof earlier, that chastity clause.”

Arfaen: “I’m not going to hold you to it either. I’ve seen how you look at Invincible Fire Demon.”

Me: “I do?”

Arfaen: “Oh, you do, you very very do.”

Me: “Oh dearie … um … does he look back like that?”

Arfaen: “Nobody could possibly look back like that!”

Me: “Ahem! Anyhow, I think I will follow Hanijan law on Hanijan territory. My wings hurt enough as it is … No, no. Please stop crying, Arfaen. They don’t hurt a bit any more.”

Arfaen: “You’d better! I expect you to perform your certain customary duties, which the law is quite coy about, just as soon as you are healthy enough!”

I flapped my wrapped-up wings (which do hurt a bit), and grinned at her.

Tofitude!

Then, back to the civic administration buildings, to register my tofitude. Arfaen is about as low-status a person as can take a tofyof, so the recommended celebration — and the wages she pays me in escrow — are rather small. We did have a bit of an audience, mostly gigging at how the lovesick high-status Zi Ri was becoming the tofyof of zir own low-status chef.

Fortunately, I have no actual sense of shame. At least as far as foreigners are concerned. Arfaen was rather whining, though.

I rode back to Strayway on Arfaen’s shoulder, with my tail looped comfortably around her other arm. I am oddly proud of being in a legally-recognized relationship; I thought it would never happen. A pity I got into it in such a ridiculous way, though.

Maybe I will start my own city-state, where traff marriages are allowed.

Sekhidi: [climbing onto the judicial sphere] “Ah, Miss Sythyry, Miss Arfaen. I had not expected to see you ever again.”

Me: “Well, we are back for the judgment, despite the efforts of various great monsters to get us to escape from justice in the style of Hanija.” I carefully didn’t say ‘justice, or your best approximation thereof’. Really. Even if the judge heard that.

Sekhidi: “The nendrai’s failed attack on the city does somewhat change the scope and character of the trial.”

Me: “She was merely making an emphatic request. If she had attacked the city, the situation would have rapidly become both complex and dire. Still, I have discussed the matter with her at some length. She will attempt not to interfere in matters of Hanijan justice. For punishments that she does not interpret as depriving her of us, I suspect she will succeed.”

Sekhidi: “It is somewhat early in the trial to decide on punishments, and somewhat presumptuous for the accused to express preferences.”

Me: “My own preferences are mute! I express the nendrai’s preferences, without regard for my own.”

Sekhidi: “Even so, I have never seen such a pained expression on Shirahung’s face. You have engaged a skilled barrister; why not allow him to speak in your place?”

So I tried that.

Sekhidi: “First of all, is there any doubt that the crime was committed?”

Barristers: “No.”

Sekhidi: “Are there mitigating circumstances?”

Khohu: “Miss Arfaen is a Cani; she is subject to the loyalty instinct. In the case of the transaffectionate, this loyalty can become sexual from time to time. Miss Arfaen requests a diminuation of punishment in light of Unavoidable Instinctive Behavior.”

Sekhidi: “Granted, in the traditional and routine degree.”

Khohu: (to Arfaen) “It’s not much, but it’s something, dearie.”

Sekhidi: “Is that all?”

Khohu: “Not all! Miss Sythyry is the captain of the skyboat, and of the adventuring company that employed Miss Arfaen. Zie made it be well-known that zie wished for the intimate attentions from zir crew. Miss Arfaen was subject to easy coercion because, first, she was an employee of little power or status, and, second, the aforementioned loyalty instinct. As is often the case, the tofyof was manipulated into improper activities which she would never have entered on her own.”

Arfaen: “Wait, what? You’re trying to make Sythyry out to be the villain! No! That is not true or right!”

Khohu: “I’m simply trying to defend you, dearie. I do have affan at law between us.”

Arfaen whined, tucking her tail between her legs.

Shirahung: “Miss Sythyry wishes to dispute Miss Arfaen’s story. No coercion was involved. Rather the opposite. Miss Arfaen is the skyboat’s pony — all get a ride who wish one.”

Me: “Quiet, Shirahung! That is not true!”

Khohu: “Even Miss Sythyry accepts my version of events. Zie compelled… ow!”

The “ow!” was because Arfaen had bitten her own barrister on the shoulder.

Sekhidi: “Oh, great gobbling gods. These foreigners are the oddest case I’ve had in court in many a year. If I weren’t paying attention, I would think that they were colluding together, to prosecute their barristers.”

Me: “I don’t think the barristers are doing what we want them to. They’re just doing their job.”

Sekhidi: “And what mockery of the court, and of Hanijan law, do you wish them to do?”

Me: “No mockery. I don’t want Arfaen punished for this. I shouldn’t be sleeping with my clients, no matter what the local laws say. I am at fault here.”

Arfaen: “What — I threw myself at zir, and so zie gets punished? What sort of justice is that?”

Sekhidi: “Well, it’s quite clear that you two love each other. It is a pity that you didn’t figure that out before you wound up in court about it — shall we say, two days ago, when it would have been the simplest thing in the world for Miss Sythyry to take Miss Arfaen as a tofyof. If the court were moved by sentiment, the case should be dismissed straightaway. However, the court is moved by laws, and the legalities of the matter are clear enough.”

Barristers: “We simultaneously proclaim the reasons for our respective clients being given light punishments, even at the cost of the other defendant being given heavy ones, in defiance of our clients. However we are wary of physical violence, and, indeed, edging nervously away from them. It looks quite odd.”

Arfaen and me: “Stop that!”

Barristers: “(quiet)”

Sekhidi: “I believe that it is time for a long detailed discussion of precedents and legal nicities, which neither Miss Arfaen nor Miss Sythyry has the slightest chance of being able to follow.”

Arfaen and me: enter a dazed coma.

Barristers: invigorated and encouraged by the flood of legalisms.

Sekhidi: “So we sentence Miss Sythyry to class-5 punishments, and Miss Arfaen to class-1b.” We looked confused. “Miss Sythyry is getting the worse of it, as is standard, because zie is the employer.”

Barristers: “Now, O most obstreperous and unruly clients, will you let us do our work?”

Us: “We suppose so.”

1. So, no prison time, to avoid tugging the nendrai’s tail.
2. Arfaen pays a smallish fine.
3. I pay a largish fine.
4. I pay Arfaen triple what a tofyof should get paid.
5. (I work for a bit selling magic items to cover these! But that’s not part of the sentence.)
6. I get beaten, twenty standardized strokes with a knout and twelve with a standardized heavy wooden club. Indoors, in private, with healers around to make sure that I get all twenty and twelve standardized strokes. The twelve, by the way, are required to break both my wings — a slight surcharge for being Zi Ri.

Arfaen: “Oh, no!”

Me: “Not a terribly big matter, really. It’s not the first time I’ve been fined for transaffectionate matters, and certainly not the first time I’ve been beaten for them.”

Arfaen: “I want to make it up to you! May I be your tofyof afterwards?”

Sekhidi: “No; zie will not be allowed to take any tofyofs for a period of seven years.”

Arfaen: “Wail!”

Me: “Hm. Can I be Arfaen’s tofyof?”

Sekhidi: “Are you mad? It would be a terrible plunge of status!”

Me: “That means yes?”

Sekhidi: “Such a thing is never done!”

Me: “That means yes?”

Sekhidi: “… yes … it is legally possible … “

Me: “Let’s do that, then.”

Hanijans: *gasp*

Arfaen: “… !”

I’m not quite sure if I’m (a) fleering and flouting at Hanijan law, and/or (b) belatedly admiring Hanijan law, and/or (c) apologizing to Arfaen, and/or (d) proclaiming my support for the concept of the tofyof, and/or (e) fleering and flouting at social status altogether, and/or (f) getting a good story to laugh about a century from now, and/or (g) making sure I have amatory access to Arfaen. (I suspect d and e.)

It is certainly a grand and dramatic gesture, even if I don’t know what it is a gesture for.

Guard-Mage: “Hsst! Miss Sythyry! Sythyry, arise and come to the door!”

I helpfully woke up. The guard-mage was calling to me through the feeding-slit under the door.

Me: “Wait, you’re trying to rescue me too? I really don’t want to be rescued today.”

Guard-Mage: “There is a situation outside the city of which your attention and assistance may be the proper solution.”

Me: “I should think Wingsa and Yiseth-Epu are more than competent to handle nearly any sort of emergency. For one thing, I am an enchanter, and thus, fairly slow about things. For another, the majority of my tools are currently unavailable.”

Guard-Mage: “It’s scared up the roads, it’s making monsters, it’s asking for you!”

Me: “Don’t you confounded Hanijans ever use antecedents in your sentences?” Rude, but I don’t so much like being woken up so often.

Guard-Mage: “The nendrai! It’s in a fury, it’s attacking the city!”

Me: “Oh, I suppose she would do that.”

Guard-Mage: “She insists that we return you and Arfaen to her!”

Me: “Well, tell her I’ll be back tomorrow night?” Which never actually works with Vae, but I wanted to go back to sleep.

Guard-Mage: “Right away!”

He slammed and bolted the feeding-door, and presumably ran back upstairs.

After a third of an hour, he came back and called to me again and woke me up again.

Guard-Mage: “Hsst! Miss Sythyry! The nendrai wants you now!”

Me: “So what am I supposed to do? I promised to stay here. If you want me to go tend the nendrai, that’s sort of up to Hanija and the judge and whoever, isn’t it?”

Guard-Mage: “I’ll ask the Captain of the Guard. Oh! Miss Sythyry! How dangerous is the nendrai?”

Me: “She’s very nice and sweet usually. But she did ruin one city-state when she got upset. On the main trunk, at that. Can I go back to sleep yet?”

He ran off. I curled up. After another third-hour he called to me again and woke me up again.

Guard-Mage: “Hsst! Miss Sythyry! The captain and the judge say that you’re to be released on your own recognizance!”

Me: “Arfaen as well, I presume? Vae did ask for her too.”

Guard-Mage: “…. I’ll check…. “

He ran off. I curled up. After another third-hour I was woken up again.

Arfaen: “Sythyry! Come out!”

Me: “Arfaen! Hi! How have they been treating you?”

Arfaen: “They put me in a cell with prostitutes and dancers. We had a grand time.”

Guard-Mage: “Hurry, hurry!”

He unlocked the door. There was a bit of a melee, as four violent and dangerous and sleep-deprived prisoners tried to fight their way out against thirty guards, and were driven back. I waved jauntily good-bye to them, and sat on Arfaen’s shoulder, and, when we got to the top of the staircase and the Wizard in Helpless Fury had worn off, healed the three who had gotten injured. Not particularly because I am nice, but because I had cley I wasn’t going to use before dawn, and because I wanted to confuse matters with Hanija.

Then out to the city gate, to confront Vae (in the form of a gigantic thousand-legged cat) and her gigantic army of elementals.

Me: “Isn’t this a bit excessive? I was only going to be gone one night.”

Vae: “Not so well could I sleep, when you were in prison and a deep and vile cell, and so the many war-beasts did I make.”

Me: “Rather a lot of them, truly. Were you actually going to use them?” Vae burst into tears, so I added, “Don’t answer that. Can you dispose of them now that I’m out?”

Vae did so. Some she sent to the Verticals, and some she destroyed, and some she cast into distant universes, and some, I’m sure, wandered off and became guardians of some ancient treasure for future adventurers. I petted her until she was legless, a long furry cat-headed serpent wrapped around me.

Me: “I don’t think I should leave Vae alone tonight. Mind if I put a tent here and call it a prison cell? I promise not to leave it. Unless there’s another emergency.”

Guard-Mage: “I suppose that will be all right.”

So we constructed a nice warm tent, right in front of the city gate. By “we” I mean “Vae”. By “warm” I mean, um, that the cloth of the tent was weasels: live weasels biting their own tails, hooked together like chainmail rings. It was quite warm. It was also quite baffling, and the Guard-Mage spent some time staring at it. If Arfaen and I did anything to spite the excesses of Hanijan law while his back was turned, well, it would have been done in a bubble outside of space and time, and thus, not in Hanija Mene. I am fairly sure.

Phaniet: “Hsst! Sythyry! Wake up!”

I helpfully woke up. Phaniet was standing in my cell, with a spiky black halo which, on closer inspection, was hCevian. Khipo and Aoda were staring, or perhaps glaring.

Me: “I awake, to the sweet singing of my assistant and my friendly Locador demon! But why are you waking me up in what I believe to be the middle of the night?”

Phaniet: “We’re getting you out of here, boss!”

Me: “Why? It is hardly an intolerable cell. I have atheists, kidnappers, thieves, murderers, and forgers for company — quite an interesting assortment! And the food — the food is nigh-invulnerable!”

Phainet: “Stop joking and come on!”

Me: “Why? I might be tempted to run off if they impose a sentence of long imprisonment, but my barrister informs me that I am to expect fines and beatings and official annoyances. Unless, I suspect, I do something alarming, such as escape from prison before the hearing.”

Phaniet: “You’re crazy, boss.”

Me: “Probably. Still, I am going to stay here tonight. It’s hardly the first time I’ve spent a night in jail for being traff.” It’s the fourth, unless I’m forgetting something.

Khipo: “I’ll go! I’ll go!”

Me: “That’s the thief and murderer. Phaniet, I forbid you to take him; I don’t want you to get in legal trouble. hCevian, you’re already in legal trouble for being a Locador demon, so you can rescue him if you like.”

Khipo: “Wait, what?”

Me: “If you want to escape, Khipo, you may bargain with the Locador demon. You might, say, offer it the use of your body of some period of time. This one has been known to be involved in such situations.”

hCevian: “I have! If I ruled your body, I would take it to such perversions as even Sythyry would dread to experience! I would indulge in the very branch-tips of pleasure and pain! I might even return it to you intact, or, if you are very lucky, still alive!”

Khipo: “No … that’s … all right… I’ll stay here.”

Phaniet: “OK. Boss, you’re crazy, but I guess you’re staying. G’night!”

Me: “G’night!”

I went back to sleep, surrounded by the most hardened, vicious, and amazed criminals Hanija has to offer.

The cell was damp. Pools of cold stagnant water lay about the floor — lurking in wait, I think, so they could slurp forth and dampen the spirits of any prisoner, no matter how determined to be cheerful they were.

I don’t think this was a cruel design on the part of the architect, to break the spirits of the prisoners and add to their misery. I think it was a natural consequence of trying to make a prison cell five hundred feet underground, especially in a city full of waters and canals.

The cell was stinky. It had lurking water, but not running water. This meant that the privy — rather misnamed, since actual privacy was unavailable — was a bucket in the corner. A bucket which all the prisoners used, but not all of them used with any great accuracy. I resolved not to touch the floor on that half of the room.

The cell was dark. It had one (1) spell-light, attached to the decorative cornice in the middle of the room. This prevented one from even seeing the bucket with great accuracy. In certain respects this was surely a blessing, for the bucket was not a sight of much beauty. In other respects, it surely contributed to the noxious atmosphere.

The cell’s cuisine was inferior. Through a slit in the door could be introduced a tray made of heavy paper, on which were five loaves of a dense bread. The bread was evidently quite nutritious, being made of rye, lentils, celery, carrots, cabbage, eggs, kale, and turnips. It was also sufficiently delicious that we all ate just the minimum amount necessary. I am lucky to be a Zi Ri, and, thus, to have a very small appetite.

Five loaves, of course, means five inmates.

Guard-Mage: “No fewer than thirty city guards will surround the door as we open it. Enter quickly, for the guards are quite nervous, and will not be shy about using their weapons.”

Me: “How polite! I shall be the very spirit of alacrity.”

Guard-Mage: “I am an educated man, and know that word. You might want to use less erudite vocabulary when you are within.”

Guard-Warrior: “The heavy, spellridden door is now just barely open.”

Me: “I scoot!”

Guard-Warrior : “I slam the door behind you with considerable relief!”

The Introductions

Myself. A striped Rassimel man generally referred to as Khipo. A striped Rassimel woman who answered to Dong. A Herethroy woman named Seba — the most hated person in the cell, for her presence meant that food was made vegetarian, without the usual dried lizard flakes, which improve it somewhat. And of course there was Aoda, a Khtsoyis man.

And a decorative cornice that cast The Wizard in Helpless Fury every few seconds at all of us.

Me: “Hallo, O cellmates.”

Khipo: “Well, lookie here. It’s a Zi Ri. What are you in here for, Zi Ri?”

It is generally a very bad idea to say that you are in prison for sex crimes. Inmates are not much impressed by your bravery, cleverness, or violence for such a crime. They often seem to take it as a civic duty to injure you. Which is odd, because people in such prisons are not always so devoted to their civic duties.

Me: “Sex crimes.” I was in rather a Mood.

At about this point the regular casting of Helpless Fury got me. No more pattern spells for a while.

Dong: “Hah, birdy-liz looks like zie’d knock a Gormoror down ‘n rape him three ways to Oix.”

Me: “Close enough.”

Aoda: “Close is not Gormy-fucking good enough. You tell us everything right now. Or we give you the horky borky.”

Me: “Tie your tents in a knot and fuck your own snot.” Which I said with perfect Grinwipey-style intonation and etiquette, no matter that it sounds really hilarious coming from a little tiny Zi Ri.

Seba: “OK, zie’s a joker.”

Aoda: “Seems to me zie’s asking to wrestle.”

Me: “What, you want I should knock you down and rape you three ways to Oix? What, you asked the wattle-and-caulkers [walkers -- incl. Rassimel and Herethroy] to do you, but you were so stinky they didn’t want to come close?”

Dong and Seba laughed at that, at least, which was all to the good.

Aoda: “Seems to me zie’s asking for a fight. Funny, zie can’t cast spells in here … “ he waggled a tentacle at the cornice Maybe zie’s some kinda sorcerer on the outside, and used to people shitting their pants in fear of zir spells. But that’s outside. In here zie’s a tiny little lizard with a candle in zir mouth and tiny little claws what couldn’t hurt a flea. In here I’m a strong shoggy with a big fang mouth and three clubs, same as outside. I can even heal m’self, I can.

The seven-winged burning thing never fails to make an impression.

Aoda: “Oh, fucking hairy shit. Zie is a sorcerer.”

Seba: “Is that real?“

Me: “Well, its presence has dried the floor up considerably, already. I think I’ll leave it around here for a bit longer, by way of housekeeping, if you don’t mind.”

Khipo: “I … suppose that’s all right.”

I claimed the corner of the room furthest from the latrine bucket. By which I mean the upper corner — even when it was baked dry, I didn’t want to get any closer to the floor than I absolutely had to. Poor walkers, who had to sleep on it!

If you care

Khipo killed three Herethroy in one of the outlying villages when they tried to stop him from kidnapping their baron’s three-year-old daughter. Dong steals from counts and bankers. Seba is a militant atheist and/or anarchist, who burned down a temple of Mircannis with hundreds of people in it, including the duke’s children, though nobody died permanently from it. Aoda is a forger of official documents, whose forgery of a trade certificate caused an international incident both embarrassing and unpleasant for Hanija.

I am in quite distinguished company. I had to tell them about my fight with the pirates of Dossimar before they would quite take me seriously.

Not that I particularly wanted to make friends with them, but I was hoping to get some sleep that night, and I wanted to be safe, or at least undisturbed.

Foolish hope, I know. At least my cellmates didn’t bother me.

[Recall that Sythyry was getting put in prison overnight for safe-keeping, before zir trial tomorrow. -bb]

The Induction

Guard-Mage: “Excuse me, Miss Zi Ri. You’re not allowed to bring magic items with you into prison.”

Me: “Oh, I see.” I removed several dozen oddments, including the teleport arrow, the scrying livery, and a ferocious lightning-caster, and piles of bound spells. “Does that satisfy your requirements?”

Guard-Mage: [After inspecting me closely with magic sense] “Yes, it does, thank you, miss. We’ll give them back when you’re set free.”

Which left only a few devices on me, things that aren’t at all easy to notice by ordinary magic sense: the seven-winged burning thing, my ring of pocket universes, the Glory of Hren Tzen in its current setting, and this and that.

Me: “That won’t be necessary. Items — go home!” I used the ring to toss the dozen or so oddments into a pocket universe, with a twisty spin to it that made it look as if I had teleported them quite far off.

Guard-Mage: “Did you just send them off to your skyboat?”

Me: “They are, indeed, where they belong.” Which was certainly true — they belonged in my easy reach, and where nobody without Vae’s power or hCevian’s subtlety could steal them.

Guard-Mage: “Through the city walls?”

Me: “My skyboat is, indeed, on the opposite side of the city walls.” It was, too. Not that they had gone there. Unlike hCevian, I can’t teleport through city walls.

Guard-Mage: “The city walls which block teleportation through them in both directions …?”

Me: “I suppose one might be generous enough to describe your walls that way, if one were so inclined. I might, after this matter is through, recommend certain enhancements to them to improve the safety and glory of Hanija … or I might not, depending, in part, on my treatment.” Also true, though, of course, I didn’t think I could teleport anything through those walls.

Guard-Mage: “Could you teleport yourself like that?”

Me: “Why, it is easier for one to teleport one’s own self than any other thing.” True, and not even misleading.

Guard-Mage: “I had better go talk to the lieutenant about this.”

Me: “If you’re worried about me escaping, don’t be. I won’t escape. If I had wanted to, I’d have done so long since.”

Guard-Mage: “Right, then. Glad to hear it.”

Me: “Very well!”

Guard-Mage: “Then you won’t mind if we take a few precautions. Just of a precautionary nature of course.”

The Precautions

Hanija doesn’t have many prison cells suitable for holding and restraining a Locador wizard. Which meant that I was taken to Kamku-Yi Prison, which is a rather well-buried dungeon sort of thing under Kamku Fortress at the Kamku Gate. Five hundred feet underground, enough so that it takes a significant spell to teleport out. And by “significant” I mean “not the easiest, and not the second-easiest either unless you’ve got an expertly power at it.”

Stopping Spellcasting: The dungeon cell (which I was not in at this point) had a decorative cornice in it that cast The Wizard in Helpless Fury, which prevents the casting of pattern spells for a few minutes unless one resists it. They did ask me to accept a Silence the Creative Wizard spell when I went in, which curtails spontaneous magic, but don’t be ridiculous; the guard-mage who cast it didn’t have enough power behind it to make it last all night, which means that it’s not going to do very much to me. They really ought to back it up with Spellbinder’s Despair, which blocks bound spells, but that’s far too expensive for them to afford unless they know they need it, and I’d sent off all my bound spells.

Escape Plan Number One: Spont any of a number of protection-from-Magiador spells (Tune the Magic Resistance would suffice and then some). In a few minutes, the Wizard in Helpless Fury would wear off (that spell only lasts a few minutes; the cornice casts it every few seconds; usually I resist it by reflex, being well used to resisting magic (Thanks, Vae!), but once in a while it does get to me — but not so if I had any protection from it.) Then I have my full spellcasting back, and can teleport out if I want, or whatever.

Flaw in Escape Plan Number One: (1) I had more Locador than I knew what to do with, from enchanted tools artfully concealed or cached an infinite distance away, so working on tricks to block that curst pattern-stopper spell was beside the point. (2) I didn’t want to escape.

(1) stayed true.

(2) stopped the moment I saw my cell.

Sekhidi: “This is not an unusual situation. The fact that you are foreign and Zi Ri has nothing to do with the fundamental issue of violating the laws concerning the proper treatment of tofyofs.”

Sekhidi is a stern Orren man, crouched on a judicial sphere. (Which is a big wooden ball, about three feet in diameter, very highly polished and slippery, upon which judges sit at formal hearings and trials. I think it’s either flat on the bottom, or anchored to the floor somehow. It doesn’t roll when he moves.)

Arfaen: “I’m not zir tofyof! Zie’s not mistreating me!”

Sekhidi: “Do you deny that you were zir consort? That you are zir employee and subordinate? That zie is not paying the required escrow salary?”

Arfaen: “Those have nothing to do with it! Zie’s paying me plenty and then some to be in the crew, and doing big enchantments and curse-breakings for free too! “

Sehkidi: “That has everything to do with it. It is a textbook example of an illegal implied tofitude. You should be getting the required protections and benefits. You are not, yet zie is enjoying the benefits of your copulations.”

Arfaen: “And I’m not sleeping with zir because of the pay — but because it suits my mood!”

Sekhidi: “Oh, dear. Do you have a barrister?”

Me: “We have a solicitor.”

Sekhidi: “That won’t do. You need someone who can advise and represent you in hearings, Miss Arfaen. Everything you have said so far is harming your case. You too, Miss Sythyry. We certainly don’t want any legal mistakes, and we are not trying to deny you any sort of justice while in the process of making sure that justice is done.”

So we tried to hire a barrister, which is just like a lawyer, except that a barrister doesn’t do things that a solicitor does. (I think that, in Hanija, solicitors work with people who have not been charged with crimes, to try to keep them from committing crimes. Barristers are for people who have been charged. Hanija is idiosyncratic.)

We were not allowed to hire a barrister. Instead, we were required to hire two barristers: a maternal Cani woman named Khohu for Azliet, and a sharply-dressed and astringent Rassimel named Shirahung for me. This took most of the afternoon to arrange.

In private with Shirahung, in a small but very comfortable closet in the Palace of Justice:

Me: “So, you’re here to have me proclaimed innocent, are you not?”

Shirahung: “Well — are you innocent?”

Me: “Technically no. But Arfaen was willing — actually she asked me.”

Shirahung: “Well, you’re innocent of rape, that way. Which would be quite fortunate if you were, in fact, accused of rape. Did you fornicate with Miss Arfaen without benefit of marriage or tofitude?”

Me: “Yes.”

Shirahung: “And you are her employer?”

Me: “Yes”

Shirahung: “Then you are guilty. This seems clear enough.”

Me: “And this from my barrister, supposedly devoted to my cause?”

q

Shirahung: “My job is only to prove you innocent if you are, in fact, innocent. Most of the time — and yes, most of the time, for few innocent people are brought to court — my job is to reduce your sentence as much as possible.”

Me: “I suppose that will have to do.”

Shirahung: “So, let us discuss extenuating circumstances. Were you drunk — and, best if Miss Arfaen had actively taken a strong part in intoxicating you? She is your chef, after all.”

Me: “I’m afraid not.”

Shirahung: “Hm. Were you in some other way particularly vulnerable to her advances?”

Me: “I was unusually sad; I missed my spouse, who has been dead for some time now.”

Shirahung: “Excellent! And was Miss Arfaen exploiting this fact to take advantage of you in a moment of weakness?”

Me: “Wait — are you trying to blame Arfaen for the incident?”

Shirahung: “The more punishment that falls on her, the less will fall on you.”

Me: “Unacceptable! She may not be my tofyof, but she is my client, and I will protect her!”

Shirahung: “Client? This is interesting and perhaps helpful. Tell me more about this foreign custom. Perhaps I can argue that it counts as an approximation of tofitude.”

Me: explain, explain.

Shirahung: “Wait, she had other lovers? And you did not punish her for it? That makes that argument all but useless.”

Me: grumble, grumble

Shirahung: “Still, her sluttiness makes our job easier. She can get quite a large measure of blame that way.”

Me: “No. Try to reduce out combined punishment. I won’t be dumping guilt on her as a way to get it off me.”

Shirahung: “Don’t tell me how to do my job, foreigner!”

Me: “If you are working for me, you will do what I need done, or you will do nothing whatever!”

So we hissed and growled at each other for a while, and he agreed that he would work on the approach of saying that Arfaen was some sort of hideously inappropriate foreign variant of a tofyof to me already, and perhaps the judge would reduce the sentence based on that, but he certainly didn’t expect that line of reasoning would do much good, and if he were hiring a highly-skilled professional he would certainly not get in his way.

(Which is why this matter really stung. I have been taking quite good care of Arfaen by any reasonable standards. The fact that I haven’t followed the forms that Hanija requires is true and undisputable — but I have done quite properly and even generously by her by the forms of Vheshrame, or by the rest of the world. I have committed the crime, to be sure; I have broken the letter of the law; I have kept the spirit quite well. In my opinion of what the spirit ought to be.)

Shirahung: “Of course, Miss Arfaen’s barrister will not be doing that. She will be trying to make you out as the one most deserving of punishment.”

Me: “Fair enough. I’m richer than Arfaen, and tougher than her, if it comes to corporal punishments.”

After this discussion, we tried to return to the judge. We waited for nearly two hours, while he judged two other cases. And then it was fairly late, so the judge went home, promising to see us first or second tomorrow morning.

So they tossed us into prison for the night.