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Sythyry's Vacation | by Bard Bloom |
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I have any number of other obituaries to write. I have started on three of them in the last hour, but they are making me morbid and morose, and I don't want to be either of those today. I am going on vacation in a few weeks, as soon as everything can be arranged! For the first time in, um, I guess 124 years, since my winter vacation with Floosh's village.
Well, not entirely on vacation. I am taking my work with me. My main job, still, is making sure that Vae doesn't do very much wicked to Vheshrame. Our relationship has changed a good deal over the decades. When we contend now, it is no longer as an ant (me) against a tiger (Vae). It is more like a kitten (me) against a tiger (Vae). Actually, Vae has been quite inoffensive for nearly two decades, though that is surely over. She has been a boy full-time, while she and Oixe were trying to conceive. That has now worked; Oixe laid a fertilized, living egg. Vae got to get one quick glimpse of it through a scrying spell before Oixe drove him off. Oixe will not let Vae, or any other nendrai, anywhere near the egg or the child until the child is old enough to take care of itself. The nendrai incubation period is a century or so, so I am going to go through another generation of friends before Vae gets to see her sweetie again. Vae is back to female: back to a winged female serpent, at that, and utterly miserable. A miserable nendrai isn't quite as dangerous as a deliriously happy one, but it's pretty close. Taking her away from Vheshrame for a few years seems like the best idea for all concerned. It may even make Vae feel better, which is not something that Vheshrame much cares about, but I do.
And I suppose I should write about Vae, for anyone coming to this journal for the first time.
The summary: Vae is one of the most awful and dangerously insane monsters on the World Tree, especially to her friends. She is an fearsomely powerful mage. When anyone asks her to help them, she loses all judgment and does something that might be helpful, generally an an overpowered and devastating way. She is quite sad. She is one of my best friends anymore, though I'm pretty sure that's illegal.
The details:
Vae (short for Vaisessasilmin) is a nendrai, one of three known instances of Nendrai lacrymosa. (I got to name her species myself though I consulted with her about it, since I live in Ketheria and people at the heart of civilization heard about my name first. Nobody else had thought to do it when we met her, everyone was too scared.) Nendrai are one of the half-dozen most terrible beasts on the World Tree. They are, in their natural form, bulky bipedal lizardly people with coarse features, some nine feet tall, with very long and agile tails. (Some of them, like Oixe, aren't quite like that, but they're all lizardly and all have those tails.) They have a few minor advantages, like tremendous vitality. If you stab Vae through the heart with a huge enchanted burning copper sword hard enough to kill three mighty Gormoror, she'll grin and speak nicely of your swordsmanship and not even consider dying like any polite prime would.
The scary part of the nendrai is always the tail. They can, at a tail-touch, cast exceedingly subtle and exceedingly powerful spells. There only a few restrictions:
This makes Vae a power to be reckoned with. She's probably not as dangerous as an average city-state in Ketheria -- though we have never exactly tested that, and we hope we never have to -- but she is not far off.
Much to her sorrow, Vae is not exactly in control of her own mind. She was designed by the goddess Gnarn, who rules the art of Mutoc and who is vastly cruel, to be an endless well of troubles for primes. Vae's primary blind spot is being helpful. If anyone is so foolish as to suggest that they need assistance to her, Vae will do something that -- in some interpretation -- might be considered helpful. She doesn't realize she's doing it until she's done it, and it's generally done in a way that's hard to undo. One time, for example, I complained about the rain. She surrounded me with a spell of complete protection from liquids, so that they always ran downhill in a great hurry, and, for Mutoc, "downhill" was always "away from me". That could have killed me of thirst, if my roommates hadn't found three ways around it, and it certainly wasted a bottle of expensive brandy.
After much doom, I made Vae a pair of magic earmuffs. When she wears them, they let her hear normally, except that they muffle things that they think she might interpret as requests for assistance. She can simply ignore that part of the conversation, or teleport off to a safe space and have the earmuffs report what was said, or turn them off altogether. They're not perfect, and they do make conversing with Vae difficult at times, but they cut down greatly on her accidental helping people to their sorrow. She usually wears them when she's with people.
Another lack of self-control is that Vae likes to get things from primes. And the word 'likes' is rather too weak. She got more physical pleasure from me passing her the salt at dinner than she did from fathering her unborn child, and that act was as pleasant for her as it is for most people. Once, some miscreant offered her a bowl of pea soup if she would build him a vast and well-defended floating mansion. It took her a hundred spells -- a hundred of her insanely-powerful spells -- but she did it. For soup. She hates this fact about herself, but she can do nothing about it. Unlike the helpful side, I don't have any answer for her on it. Indeed, it is official Vheshrame policy to exploit this flaw to the fullest.
My official, if officially unpaid, job in Vheshrame is "Ambassador to Vae". I have kept peace between us and her since she claimed our territory as her own territory 125 years ago. Technically, this has entailed visiting her with gifts every three days, and both of us pretending that it's simply an act of tribute between military allies. At various times, privately, I have thought that it was on the edge of rape. Maybe of her, since she doesn't at all like craving it or enjoying it. Maybe of me, since Duke Conturge forced me to do it for the first decade or so and I'm the one pleasuring her.
Also I am one of Vae's few friends and confidantes. Most people are scared of her. With plenty of justification, since she once turned all the Cani outside the city walls for miles around to wheels of cheese in response to a friend's child complaining that 'the Cani are bugging me!'. We managed to turn them back with a few hours' work... but we are lucky that she chose cheese, rather than ice cream, or it would have been a massacre.
Vae hates her arms and legs. When she is sad or in need of a kind of comfort that is largely unavailable, which is often, she turns into a winged snake. I understand this better than most people. Not that I have any such problem myself -- I am quite happy with my body -- but my long-gone long-time lover Mynthë, who was Herethroy, really wanted to be a mammal, and hated her insectile body. (At least Mynthë had the sense to ask me to deal with the problem, not Vae.)
Vae's mate is a female nendrai named Oixe. Oixe is a large six-legged three-headed nendrai with brazinion scales. She's not quite the sorceress Vae is -- she rarely gets better than complexity 50, which is still insanely complex. Her spells are more powerful than Vae's though. And she's far, far better in a fight. On their first date, they had a huge fight to determine which one would be the boy. Vae lost. Vae was thus male (via an easy Mutoc spell) whenever they met, and, when they were trying to concieve, male full-time for many years. I think that, once their child is grown up and Oixe can endure the company of other nendrai again, they get to have another fight to determine who's the boy next time 'round. In any case, Oixe lives a very long way off. Even Vae, whose Locador spells are mighty indeed, needed to teleport several times to get there.
(She's not wholly deprived of all contact with Oixe. They write each other love-notes several times a day and send them skipping across the World Tree with devastating Locador spells. They are thoroughly in love, after all. Still, Gnarn, in her infinite cruelty, has managed to come up with a way to reproduce that appears to hurt more than the Zi Ri way.)
When Vae cries, which is often, her tears are jagged blades of glass that force themselves out of her eyes. She then has to heal herself in order to be able to see again. With Mutoc, which hurts intensely. I have offered to make her an eye-healing talisman, so that it won't hurt, but she always refuses it. She doesn't like crying, and prefers to punish herself for it. We have had this conversation about once a week for a century now. I think there is a very practical aspect to it though; I think it adds tiny increments to her vitality.
In any case, I haven't seen Vae with arms and legs since Oixe laid their egg. Vae writes love-notes to Oixe with a pen in her snake's mouth. Vae is miserable, and a miserable nendrai is dangerous beyond words. Getting Vae away from Vheshrame seems like my civic duty, and giving Vae something to think about and enjoy seems like my duty as a friend. So, she'll be on vacation with us.
Strayway is my new sky-yacht.
I had been planning to buy a used sky-yacht of some fairly ordinary design, probably birdy or dragony. I was going to paint it blue as a minor concession to vanity. Not quite my own shade of blue. I'm not that vain.
I made the mistake of mentioning this at dinner in Castle Wrong.
Everyone:"We gasp in horror, Sythyry! Such a tedious ship would not fully express the crucial message, of Behold! Here comes a mighty yet deviant wizard! Your sky-yacht must be a gaudiness -- a spectacle -- a wonderment -- a flamboyance supreme!"
Me:"I suppose so..."
So I got an ordinary transvective skyboat, used, and started doing nighttime enchantments on it. Some illusions, some transformations, some other things, and some rather tricky Locador stuff.
Strayway is now in the form of a seven-armed silver and amber candelabra, with seven burning candles in its radially-symmetric spirally arms. The body is a big silvery vase, some fifteen feet tall and ten in diameter (Don't worry, it's much bigger inside.) The vase depicts certain selected standard and ordinary scenes from mythology and history which, while undeniably standard and ordinary artistic themes, if taken together, might suggest a certain interest in some topics which I am in fact interested in. A bouquet of greatly magnified flowers sprouts out the top -- or, rather, a greatly magnified illusion of anything placed in the centerpiece vase on the high table of the Grand Dining Hall inside. I plan to stick with flowers. Strayway is drawn by three three-headed antelopes made of green glass and green copper and green emerald, with scorpion tails ending in lampy gems. (Yes, of course they breathe fire. (Yes, it's real fire. Why would I make fake fire?))
Everyone:"Oh, no, Sythyry ... you didn't!"
Me:"Um, actually I did."
Everyone:"The Doom! The utter and highly characteristic Doom!"
This sort of thing is why wizards get a reputation for being eccentric. Wizards are not actually eccentric. Wizards simply listen to their friends.
(But I didn't dare show her in public for a decade after that.)
Some notable features of Strayway include:
There's more, of course. I have been tinkering with Strayway for two dozen years or more, in my spare time.
Nangbang, recently freed from his subterranean nap, and wrapped in black robes so that we could not see his dirt-dulled fur, did the same sort of introduction that the Great Priest of Iraz Varuun had. Nolotham incense instead of scathnard, and he ringed the altar in five black iron daggers instead of thirteen books, of course.
My offering was a small hezarion brooch in the shape of a dagger, with a tiny drop of a ruby at the pommel, stabbing a coiled serpent. I am a smith in good standing, so I am allowed to make this sort of thing. But I am not very good at making large things -- a proper dagger would have been not much smaller than myself. I have done that, as an apprentice smith; but I prefer doing jewelry.
And I prayed for a while, which, for Accanax, had a lot of Gormoror war-poetry, and chants of glorious spellbreakings. I am not much of a Gormoror bard, but, in theory, one does not need to be.
And then, between the words "and" and "then" in the Lay of Ghonbodak Gharbos, most of the world fell away -- in the sense of "someone very big and very strong and very intangible grabbed me and hoisted me off".
Coloration: Take a jet-black cow, without a single light hair. Kill it at noontime. Sew a few strands of silver thread into it. Leave it in a hot place until midnight. Now look at the hide -- from the inside, with your eyeballs pressing up against the flesh-side of the skin. Yeah. That color.
Scent: The bouquet of composting love letters. Yeah. That scent.
Magic Sense: In his heart, he had the dismal sparky traces of a spell cast to lance boils on the cheeks of a Cani boy who has not been able to sleep for three days from the pain. In his exostructure, he had the bitter leaden traces of a spell to break the free will of a cyarr warrior. You surely have cast both of those yourself.
Sound: When he spoke, his voice was like the death-cries of ticks or lice. When he was silence, his silence was the silence that comes when the ashes of the forest fire are cold. You know, those sounds.
Texture: When he embraced me, his touch was like the breath of predatory crabs who have recently dug up the new graves of elderly Herethroy scholars to feed upon their recently-dead flesh. I'm sure you're familiar with how that feels.
Taste: I didn't taste him. You might not have, either.
Shape: I'm not really sure.
"Oh, hello, Euphagy," I said. There's no sense being alarmed in the presence of one of the chief aspects or angels -- even after meeting him, I am not sure which -- of the destroyer god. If he had wanted me destroyed, I would already have been destroyed.
I continued being not alarmed for nearly two-thirds of a second.
(This is typical of encountering gods. Since they are some of the first people you met, even tangentially,
Then, on remembering that he was either a fraction of a god or one of Accanax' supreme servitors -- it seemed the thing to do to start with some flattery, to show I knew somewhat about him. "Hail, O Minister of the Quadrangles of Ruin, He In Whose Mouth Scorpions Are Destroyed With Mirrors, Great Catabolist of the Lanterns of the East, Hail!"
I shut up quickly when I realized I was quoting from De Heptarchia Mysteria. Or, probably, misquoting from De Heptarchia Mysteria, given that I haven't read it since my abortive attempt to get an undergraduate degree over a century ago. And De Heptarchia Mysteria is somewhere between whimsical and wholly made up in the first place. (I mean, who calls the seven creator gods the "Heptarchy" anyways? It's not as if they rule anything.)
The darkness who devours all things made known to me that I was the creation of the god of an opposing Verb. [Sythyry's creator god rules Sustenoc, the Verb of sustaining. -bb]
I cast The Infinite Grenade, which created a large spiky nut, detonated it in a shower of spikes, healed it back together, only to have it detonate again a few seconds later, and again, and again. One does not ordinarily cast attack spells at either a fraction of a god or one of a god's senior angels, and especially not attack spells that are mostly intended for packs of animals in caves. But this spell demonstrates that the three opposites of Destroc -- Creoc, Healoc, and the one he was complaining about, Sustenoc -- can cooperate with Destroc to produce a clever form of destruction. Which Euphagy seemed to take in stride, if he has legs, which I am uncertain about.
The darkness who devours all things made known to me that the god was aware that I was proposing to construct a device to thwart a champion of his sister -- the god's sister.
I'm afraid I did not react with particular bravery.
The darkness who devours all things interrupted me in mid-whimper and made known to me that the god was pleased. Pleased with my designs. Pleased with my treatment of his champion. Pleased with the destruction I would surely leave in my wake.
I got a quick glimpse of the world as seen from a god's point of view: the dome of the sky showing its curve like a roof overhead, the whole top of the World Tree a flat plate of streaky green underneath me.
And then I was back in the Temple of the Dark Trinity at Oorah Thrassen.
Nangbang:"We wasted that on a mere foreigner? We do not get such divine attention three times in a year, most years!"
Saza:"Lucky lizard! That's never happened to me!" (To which the answer had to be: "Of course not. You don't consecrate magic items, which is the only time it happens to anyone.")
La Hish:"Well, you certainly must fight us with it when you get back from vacation! Whatever this 'it' may be!"
Phaniet:"Are you all right? You look a bit wobbly." (This was back on Strayway, a few hours later.)
Vae didn't say anything to speak of. She did take her true form, which is a tall-by-full-sized-prime standards lizard with an exceeding long and flickery tail, and let me curl up against her belly for a long long time. With her terribly dangerous tail around me, and her clever sharp claws brushing my feathers. A monster who can challenge whole cities, and all she was doing was protecting and comforting me.
Comforting me from making a weapon against her, as she well knew. (We had discussed it beforehand.)
Not that it was too much comfort. In the face of the gods, we are kittens who have not yet opened their eyes. It was just one kitten comforting another.
When a mighty and influential wizard seeks to travel, there are many, many preparations to be made.
Actually, it's not so much the "mighty and influential wizard" bit as the
"travel" bit. Even if this trip turns out short -- two years, say -- I will
still need a fair bit of luggage and accompaniments and sundries and whatnots.
Also, I will end up bringing a fair number of impedimentia, memorabilia,
regalia, penetralia, dementia, catatonia, gene and so on.
Jyondre points out that it is possible to do laundry in Srineia. I somehow do not find this encouraging for how much I will have to bring.
Actually, it's not so much about what to bring as who. If I were a mighty and unencumbered wizard, I would have a very simple who-to-bring:
| Person | Role |
| Windigar | Primary pilot |
| Me | Primary tourist, auxiliary pilot, spender of the great vat of money |
| Vae | Auxiliary tourist, terrifying ophidian defense grid |
However, I am a mighty and influential wizard. Or, to be more precise about it, an influential wizard. By my family's standards I am a credible beginner of a wizard. Which is pretty good -- my half-sibling Hezimikkinen isn't a wizard at all; I have far outstripped zir already in magic. On the other paw, zie more or less rules Vheshrame except when we've got a very strong duke, and I am patron to a mere fifty-odd people and lose popularity contests inside my guilds, so I won't claim very influential either.
But I am patron to fifty-odd people at Castle Wrong and environs, and some of them are quite odd indeed. Indeed, I really can't leave some of them behind for even a couple of years, not if I hope to see them again when I get back.
Case in point: my Khtsoyis friend Grinwipey Snudthanks-Elps. Grinwipey doesn't technically live at Castle Wrong, but he might as well. He is, in my technically sophisticated opinion, the best seamstress in Vheshrame. He has a gift with the needle. When he embroiders jellyfish on a tunic, passing Orren feel hungry; and when he embroiders daggers, they check to see if their fingers are bleeding. I have been studying needlework for a century and more; it is a substantial part of my stock in trade; but Grinwipey exceeds me considerably, after only a few years study. As a senior member of the Couturier's Guild, I was his sponsor. We had a terrible political struggle to get him in: he was excluded on three votes, and only by dint of substantial bribes did he manage to squeak in on the fourth.
No matter. Grinwipey's productions cannot be sold within the city. Anybody rich enough to buy them is sophisticated enough to know who made them, and, thus, sophisticated enough to refuse to buy anything made by a Khtsoyis.
He sells some garments abroad -- far abroad, like in Aradrueia. The merchants who transport them get a substantial share of the profit.
Mostly, he works for me. Of course clothing to be enchanted must start off as the best clothing that can be made (unless, of course, it needs to be something other). Honestly, most of the time that degree of perfection is unnecessary, but I do want people to think of my works as beautiful and stylish, as well as powerful and effective. And when a particular and insanely fussy design is necessary, who would I have do it but Grinwipey? There is nobody who can embroider a glove with a pitcher full of arrows, using thread of stinging nettles and brazinion, like Grinwipey. Besides, he can heal his tentacles as he sews the nettles, Khtsoyis-style.
So, last year, we had a conversation that went sort of like this:
Me:"I'm planning to go on vacation."
Grinwipey:"Yeah, you go to the pond and get fobrulated by all sorts of Orrens and stuff, I stay here and do all the work."
Me:"A bit further than the city pond."
Grinwipey:"How far do you need to go to find a whimmy-jimmy swimmy big enough for you?"
Me:"Small enough for me, maybe? Srineia."
Grinwipey:"Aww, what in the name of Mircannis' gobbleblossom is Srineia?" (He is generally rather cruder when trying to sell a dress to a count or something, but we are old friends, and he tones down his vulgarity considerably for me.)
Me:Explain, explain, explain.
Grinwipey:"So this ain't no little trip of you jump in Vae's yamabloonie and pop off there for an afternoon?"
Me:"No, probably a year or two." (Which was my thought at the time. I am now thinking of longer.)
Grinwipey:"Well, you have yourself a sparrow-doodle of a fun time, Sythyry, 'n don't worry yourself about me, 'k? Khtsoyis are tough, we don't get ground down."
If he were here and not under my protection ... Hezimikkinen would probably intercede for him the first time as a favor to me. The second time, maybe not. The third time, well, you can only call on half-sibling ties so much. I probably wouldn't be away for a week before he had gotten kicked out of the guild, if not exiled from the whole city.
Me:"Exactly. Want to come?"
Grinwipey:"Why in the name of Hressh-Huu's squooshy vortex do you want a shoggy with you? If this is some way to get into my pants, you lose, lizard girl. I ain't got no pants." (Grinwipey is not the least bit traff.)
Me:"Oh, I'm probably going to end up doing some business there too. I'm bringing my whole workshop. That includes you." He pretends to be polite to me. I pretend I can get him to do what I want.
Grinwipey:"I'll check with the missuz."
She said no. But that was some time ago. The missuz is no longer his missuz, and, indeed, now counts as one of the people who would encourage him to leave town, on any pretext, or no pretext at all.
Lithia is sort of the other side of the problem.
Lithia is really my fault. Not that I cast the spells myself -- not that I have the spells, and for a good reason. Targeenniss is a Rassimel woman; Pleensy is an Orren man. Like many of my friends and associates, their love transcended both species boundaries and common sense. Unlike many of my friends and associates, they decided to unite their flesh in a child, rather than, say, asking a male Rassimal friend to sire a child on Targeenniss on Pleensy's behalf.
I didn't know. They didn't discuss it with me.
They did discuss it with each other. Anyone with any education knows that The Ritual of the Fertile Union isn't very good for the child. But they decided that their Transcendent Love, probably augmented by my magic, would take care of any little problems that arose.
So they got an karcist from the Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen to cast it for them. (Pleensy had borrowed two graces of Mircannis from my workshop to pay for it, too, though Targeenniss and I didn't find that out 'til much later.)
By the time that Lithia was born, Pleensy had done the traditional Orren trick of swimming off back to a riverbank fishing village somewhere. Targeenniss was no longer terribly confident in the powers of Transcendent Love to get her through to the birth, much less anything else. We had to invoke the powers of a Pretty Good Midwife for that. (I'm not a good midwife. I've had all the Healer's Guild classes in it, but I'm simply not big enough for the physical part, and, um, rather too liable to curl up in imagined pain at the thought of reproduction. Or at least wince at a bad time for encouraging the mother.)
And of course Targeenniss didn't mention who the father was to me until it was no longer concealable, after Lithia was born.
Lithia is a shifter hybrid. Lithia switchs back and forth between Orren and Rassimel, every hour or two. The transformation is painful; she says it feels like pinching her finger in a door, only all over, if she isn't using numbing spells. Staying in one shape for too long is even more uncomfortable, though. We don't numb that pain though, since staying in one shape for too too long can be fatal.
Some people say that it is a mercy that the constant transformations are rather bad for her body. Based on Healer's Guild books and some tests, I estimate that she will probably see her 40th birthday, but probably not her 45th. [25 - 30 Earth years.]
She's thirty now.
Targeenniss hasn't been the best mother to her. Targeenniss has confessed to me that she sees in Lithia her own stupidity and blindness; that she has condemned Lithia to a short and terrible incarnation for no better reason than her own obsession. Targeenniss has, in fact, contrived to spend nine of the last thirty years away from Castle Wrong, leaving Lithia to be tended by me and my other associates.
(Castle Wrong has, at any given time, two or three dozen people who cannot live in their proper place for more or less time. Mostly they are variations on doomed traff love stories. They come to me, for every traff cafe on the branch knows about Castle Wrong. I help them as best I can, which often is by providing them a safe and comfortable place to stay, with people who understand, and a job. Often the job is inside of Castle Wrong. I paid quite well to tend young Lithia. No baby is exactly easy all the time, but Lithia was the most miserable one I have ever dealt with, hurting so much so often.)
Targeenniss:"I hear you're going on vacation."
Me:"Sooner or later. Sooner, I hope."
Targeenniss:"A long vacation."
Me:"Some years."
Targeenniss:"Do me a kindness ... or, if I don't deserve a kindness, do one for my daughter."
Me:"What, does she still want to go to Vheshrame Academy?"
Targeenniss:"Not that favor. That won't do her any good." (Since Lithia would die a few years after graduating (among other reasons), nor Targeenniss nor the Academy nor I are particularly eager for her to go there, though I have sent some other children from Castle Wrong.) Bring her with you. She'll get to see the world, and enjoy a great deal.
Me:"Before world and enjoyment are ripped away from her." I no longer glare at Targeenniss about Lithia, but I cannot be wholly kind to her any more.
Targeenniss:"And she can't stay here; it's not safe."
Which is also true. Most primes consider shifter hybrids to be perversions of the natural order and the divine plan. It is hard to argue with this, since, when the topic has been mentioned to them, the gods also consider shifter hybrids to be perversions of the natural order and the divine plan.
The main disagreement is about where the blame lies. My opinion is that it is Targeenniss and Pleensy's fault, plus the fault of the ritual mages of Oorah Thrassen. Theologians generally agree that it's Gnarn's fault, as the dominant goddess of the ritual and a major force for cruelness in the universe; the ritual needed to exist for consistency, but did not need to be so easy. The popular opinion is that it is somehow Lithia's fault: shifter hybrids are everyone's both-females, and deserve every punishment for what they are.
It's not really safe for Lithia to be seen too much in public. In particular, she shouldn't be seen shifting in public. When I'm around and active, she gets some protection as the ward of the nendrai-taming wizard. When I'm away, well, "ward of the wizard who will probably back in a couple years or so" isn't nearly as much protection.
Besides, I am more next of kin to Lithia than Targeenniss ever was.
Me:"I should be glad if Lithia travelled with me."
Targeenniss looked relieved. It is much more convenient for her this way.
Targeenniss:"I'll go tell her straightaway, then, that she'll be going away."
Targeenniss can't be wholly kind to Targeenniss any more, either.
The Treasurer of the Smith's Guild stared at me over his long black muzzle. "I beg your pardon, Master Smith?"
"I am trying to pay my guild dues, Master Smith. If you are incapable of accepting them, you should resign your guild post and go back to making crude glass knives full-time." The Treasurer and I have been feuding for some twenty years, for various reasons, ranging from stupid (I flirted with his mate at a formal guild dinner) to intensely stupid (I tried rather vocally to get someone competent elected as treasurer in the last election, and failed). I am not recording his name because I do not want to encourage anyone to think of him very much.
"I am quite capable of accepting guild dues, Master Smith. I am simply not used to payment quite this far in advance," he said.
"Master Smith, your powers of foresight are an excellent match for your powers of accounting," I noted.
He glared at me and lashed his tail. Insults are rarely lost on Cani. "Master Smith, one might almost be tempted to treat this so-called 'payment of your dues' as some attempt to bribe or otherwise influence our honorable Guild."
"Yes. I am attempting to bribe or otherwise influence our honorable Guild to keep me as a member in good standing while I am away on vacation. Wicked of me, to be sure."
"But, paying your dues a century in advance?"
I breathed a little needle of fire at nothing in particular, to point out what species I am, and how planning a century in advance makes sense for me.
He jumped back. "Our accounting system only goes three years ahead!"
"It is you, not I, who claimed that you were an adequate treasurer," I pointed out.
He bristled. "You have something in mind. What if the guild dues go up over the next century? You are planning to underpay, Master Smith!"
"What if the guild collects interest on my advance payment? That should cover the increase and then some, Master Smith!"
He groaned. "Well, at least you will be gone for a century."
"Only a few years, I think, but planning ahead is often worthwhile."
"I advise you to travel longer, Master Smith! A pity to waste your century's prepayment of dues. Stay away long enough for me to be dead by the time you return, a state which I prefer to your presence," said the treasurer.
"Alas, Master Smith, that your stock of glass knives are too crudely-made to permit you hasten your transition into that state which you prefer!" I commiserated. He just sneered at me.
Zistacarri, his Rassimel apprentice, asked me, "Where are you going?"
"Srineia."
"Where?"
I explained to her. I shall explain to you as well.
Eleven world-branches down from the top of the tree (that is, on the twelfth ring of world-branches) is a ring of six branches; Srineia is the northmost of these. It is fairly newly colonized. I think that the oldest city on it, Eigrach, is younger than I am. It is still a frontier branch in many ways -- though Eigrach and Bephengy and Heleshario do boast some fairly high culture, including, crucially, plenty of excellent restaurants.
The Language: Srineia was colonized from several places, including Araldy on Aradrueia. The Srineian language thus isn't too far from Ketherian. Castle Wrong is conveniently provided with a Srineian exchange student Jyondre, who has been giving us lessons in Srineian. Yerenthax got the best of those lessons, which is how Jyondre ended up in Castle Wrong in the first place. (Jyondre is an Orren boy, and Yerenthax is a Gormoror girl, and their liaison is Highly Inappropriate.)
The Waters: Merklundum, the god of water, is a sleepy beast, and leaves the management of quite large and important aspects of his element to his angels and elementals. The water elementals of Srineia are particularly playful. So the branch is blessed with a variety of exotic aquatic features, like a braided river, some impressive waterfalls gracing otherwise flat terrain, and an exceedingly deep lake with a restaurant at the bottom. As a consequence, Orren are plentiful in Srineia, and, yes, that has something to do with my choice of destination.
The Monsters: This topic is quite important to Vae, since she will be intruding on someone else's territory. The dominant monster of Srineia is a chromodon named Shadrate. Vae has already sent a messenger, and gotten permission to vacation there for a time. There are, of course, lots of other monsters there, even on the flat upper side of the branch; the place is not very civilized really.
The Cuisine: Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored fish! Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored crustaceans! Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored insects! Brightly-colored and strongly-flavored spices! Dull-colored and strongly-flavored cheeses!
The Treasure: I expect I will want to collect a variety of whatnots useful in Aquador enchantments. Not that I do that many Aquador enchantments, but some, and it's never a bad idea to plan ahead. Jyondre says that some adventurers in Heleshario have recently found a Glory of Hren Tzen, which would be endlessly useful for me: I do do Sustenoc enchantments in great numbers. So I shall see if I can do some shopping.
I don't entirely know if it rates a two-year vacation all by itself. If not, I shall go somewhere else, or return home. I haven't had that much freedom of choice in ... ever, maybe.
I would expect it of the Orren.
We have any number of Orren around Castle Wrong. I cannot precisely take credit for it, and I have not at all taken advantage of it in many years, but we do have quite a few Orren here. It's not particularly a surprise that, say, Inconnu comes into the parlor while I'm meditating in the fire and asks to come with me. He is suddenly and deeply in love with Calla. Calla is a Herethroy co-lover who has lived in Castle Wrong for a decade. Calla is coming as the second cook, and the Herethroy cook since Herethroy can't eat meat and so we need a vegetarian cook too. Calla has been planning to come for well over a year.
Me:"Does Calla return your love?"
Inconnu:"Zie doesn't know yet."
Me:"That is not, initially, a very good basis for a relationship."
Inconnu:"I want to woo zir!"
Me:"You realize that you're going to change your mind in a few weeks?"
Inconnu:"That's not true! Jyondre and Yerenthax have been a couple for years! Are you saying I'm worse than Jyondre?"
Me:"Well ... it might not work out with Calla, and you might change your mind. And where will you be then?"
Inconnu:"It will! I won't! And ... um ... I'll be somewhere pretty exciting?"
Me:"Well, I did offer to pretty much anyone in Castle Wrong that they could come along, so you can. But we're leaving in four days. Can you be ready?"
Which is a silly question. Inconnu left his family home on three hours' notice, and has very little by way of possessions.
Inconnu:"Yay! Yay! Can I work in the kitchen?"
Me:"That's between you and the kitchen staff."
Anyways, that's not particularly surprising.
I didn't expect that Zascalle and Thiane would do the same thing. Though
rather less goofily charmingly.
Thiane:"Zascalle and I have talked it over, and we would like to come along on Strayway."
Me:"What about your children?"
Thiane (Cani woman) and Zascalle (Rassimel woman) have two young Rassimel boys, Feralan and Ochirion. They are actual honest-to-gods Rassimel, with no ritual magic involved in their conception. I believe that Este helped out with Feralan; I am not sure about Ochirion.
Thiane:"They will return from the voyage much better educated than they would be if they had stayed at home."
Zascalle:"And I will tutor them, and Quendry too."
Me:"Oh, dear. Quendry is coming?"
Thiane:"It is only natural that Quendry should come, since his mother Arfaen is."
Me:"She didn't mention that to me. The last I heard, Quendry was living with Arfaen's ex-family."
Arfaen divorced her Cani spouses a few years ago, but not before she had become Quendry's mother. Quendry mostly lives with his father and his dozen-or-so spouses, in a longhouse across town.
Thiane:"We just worked it all out with her. We're telling you now."
Me:"... Right."
So I interrogated Arfaen. We had a two-hour conversation, with witnesses and other assorted evidence, but it amounts to this:
Me:"You're bringing Quendry?"
Arfaen:"I need to get him out of town! Away from his father! Quendry is never allowed to have affan in anything! Quendry must not be raised as the runt of the pack!"
Cani live in big families, which you can call packs if you like. Status is very important: at any given time, one Cani holds affan in each topic. The affan-cook is in charge of cooking; the affan-singer, in charge of singing. Cani children must be allowed to have affan in things now and then -- among other children at least -- or they grow up warped in mind and spirit.
Me:"Are the enough Cani coming on the trip for him?"
Arfaen:"Myself, Phaniet, and Thiane. All adults, but we know what to do. It will suffice, or at least, it will be better than back in the longhouse. I hope we get invited to stay with our clanmates on Srineia now and then, which will be better."
Me:"Right then. Is taking him along legal?"
Arfaen:"No. Will you help him?"
Me:"Yes, of course."
If I had any sense, none of these people would be on board. But then, if I had any sense, there would be no Castle Wrong.
Everyone knows that wizards have their specialties. Corpador and Herbador, the magic of animal and vegetable materials, are the most generally useful, and anyone who has taken a highschool magic course can do at least something with either of them. Illusidor (illusions and images) can be amusing; Aquador magic (waters and liquids) can save a good deal of effort carrying water at about that age; Pyrador (fire, light) is useful in dark places and times, if the darkness is either the hard-to-see-in sort or being bothered by monsters. Airador magic is good for manipulating scents (very useful if Cani are about), or weather (if one is very good). Smiths naturally learn Durudor magic, for metal and stone and such, but it is so much harder (and metal and stone so much rarer) that it is of little use to anyone but experts. Locador magic, space magic, is quite practical really, for teleporting and making small spaces larger, but it is not popular. Tempador, time magic, gives more time, which I find invaluable but most people seem to find disturbing. Spiridor magic is good for making animated servants of various sorts; you will surely see Vae doing some of that, for she loves it; I do it now and then as well. Magiador magic concerns magic itself: to break spells, for example, use Magiador. Mentador magic is mind-magic, and is outright wicked. I am allowed to use it, circumspectly, but most people shouldn't and more decades go by without me using it than with.
(I do a lot with Locador, Tempador, and Magiador. People call me a "deep mage" for that. It's an informal term that means that I use the more obscure corners of magic. It's a useful specialty; it can provide more space and more time, which are always at a premium. That's not actually why I'm a deep mage though. Those are the Nouns that help me protect myself from Vae.)
Those are the Nouns. People can specialize in Verbs, and some do, but it's generally less common. Creoc is for creating things (and Herethroy). Kennoc is for information (and Orren); but, like the Orren, it is never perfectly reliable. Destroc is for destruction (and Khtsoyis and Gormoror), and none too popular. Mutoc is for changes (and Sleeth), and is exceedingly useful, as Vae demonstrates constantly. Ruloc is for control and manipulation (and Cani and Gormoror), and just as useful. Healoc is for healing (and Rassimel), and of much more limited scope. Sustenoc is for sustaining, making spells perpetual (and Zi Ri), and can be worked into a wide variety of situations if one is determined to -- as I generally am -- but it is not, by itself, all that helpful.
Those are the specialities that one thinks of first. The 7+12 gods that rule the Nouns and Verbs are connected to your magerium, willing to be of assistance in exchange for cley. There are other specialties. Your average highschool-trained mage has a dozen pattern spells grafted to her magerium: a dozen routine but useful things that she can do magically. A sorcerer might have a hundred. A wizard might have a thousand. (I don't.)
(Oh. A "mage" is anyone working magic, much in the way that a "washer" is anyone washing anything. Mages are more common than washers, I think: everyone probably washes something, oh, three times a day? I have no idea really; I could be writing through my wings here. But most people will probably cast half a dozen spells a day. A "sorcerer" is a skilled mage, a professional and then some; the top quarter of the Healers' and Smiths' guilds are sorcerers. The exact definition is imprecise: one is a sorcerer if one is generally described as a sorcerer, or if one can call onesself a sorcerer without inducing tittering in actual sorcerers. A "wizard" is a skilled sorcerer. Again, the definition is informal. My famous grandparent Glikkonen was the first wizard on the World Tree. I showed zir my one and only impressive trick a few years ago. Zie wanted one for zirself, and we made one together, and after that zie referred to me as a wizard to my half-sibling. So I'm using the word now; who am I to dispute with Glikkonen? Or, alternately, who am I to refuse the best recommendation and advertising in the universe? It's not entirely comfortable, but I am trying to get used to it.)
Spontaneous magic is child's magic. (Vae, in this regard, is a cosmic terror of a child.) You don't need to spend hours taking a spell out of a box and sticking it to yourself to be able to work magic: you can just tug on the relevant gods and throw a bunch of cley at them and hope something vaguely like what you want works. If you're moderate in your needs, adequate in your skills, and careful in your casting, it often does. If not, not so often. And even for experts it still goes wrong occasionally, and a great number of people who die in childhood are killed in spontaneous magic mishaps. I haven't sponted a spell in a decade, which is fine.
There are more obscure styles of magic. Spellbinding is hardly obscure anymore: it's the art of caging a spell in a stick or something, so that the spell goes off when the stick is broken. Or a myriad variations on that. Very useful indeed. Ritual magic is almost the opposite: an insanely complicated, heavily layered spellcast, often with massive effects. I am adequate at ritual magic; I studied it a dozen years for the sake of one (1) ritual spell. (Actually the gods don't like ritual magic very much.) Spellweaving is like spontaneous magic, only more so: very complex, very delicate spells that take hours to cast.
Everyone thinks that my specialty is enchantment. There are a few varieties of enchantment, but I mostly work in Greater Enchantment: concocting fancy spells as integral parts of devices, to that the spells can be cast without cley, an unlimited number of times. (OK, they're usually limited to a few times a day, but the devices last indefinitely.) One can do a great deal with enchantment: the city walls which can keep even Vae out are enchanted, for one useful example, and skyboats like the Strayway are piled with enchantments too. They can be quite practical. I am writing this with an enchanted pen that I made in school: a very simple bit of magic, but I still use it a dozen decades later. My very first one, a pitcher that pours out fourteen gallons of real water once a day, is still at use in the kitchen.
And everyone is right about my speciality. My specialty is enchantment. I am supporting Castle Wrong and Strayway and everything by making and selling a few devices a year. A single talisman paid for all of Castle Wrong, four large homes and their grounds, plus refurbishing them and furnishing them and more. (A while ago, the duke protected himself by various bound spells. A rival used Magiador tricks to neutralize them, and managed to get away with the duke's diary, much to the ducal humiliation. Now he protects all his bound spells with my talisman, and it would take a mighty wizard indeed to neutralize them with Magiador tricks. Or someone equipped with a counter-talisman that I have not made yet, but might, if Vheshrame politics called for it.)
Enchantments take a long time to make, even for me; I am busy for some time each morning working them. I keep pretending that I will stop while I'm on vacation, but the habits of a dozen decades are not so easy to break. I am loading my whole workshop into Strayway. Besides, I have an excellent trick here, which I might explain sometime.
But everyone is also wrong about my speciality. My speciality is needlework.
Specifically, the making of enchanted clothing.
Which leads inevitably, if long-windedly and obliquely, to the notion of indirect tourism.
(An apology for that. It has become clear that many people reading this are not primes -- if I use the word "monster" for you, please remember that "monster" and "non-prime" are essentially synonyms in my language -- and are unfamiliar with the peoples, gods, sorceries, silverware, and so on of the World Tree. So I am trying to explain more. Never fear! I will run out of topics sooner or later.)
The entire crew of Strayway will be wearing livery. At least, when people are working, they will wear it. When they are not, they can wear whatever they wish. But all the Cani will wear it generally, and Kantele and I as well, so I daresay people will wear it most of the time. Besides, it's sharper clothing than most of the crew have otherwise.
Insignia: The crew voted to take something imposing, something that says "We are the entourage of a Zi Ri wizard, so beware!". Thus: a shield-shape (for Hren Tzen, the Zi Ri creator god), with a bas-relief (sculpture, for Tenmen, the Durudor god and god of smiths) of a heraldic Zi Ri (for me) with a crest of blue feathers (for me) holding a book (for Iraz Varuun, goddess of Magiador and thus of wizards). Anyone who can read the iconography will either be impressed, or, more likely, be so educated as to be blase about the whole thing. For best effect, the insignia medallion will be made of brass and have sapphire-chip feathers, to say, "... who is so insanely rich and powerful that zie can waste metal on a mere belt buckle." (I suppose I was going to buy the create-brass spell at some point anyways, I suppose, but I had put it off a few decades.) Everyone gets one of these. Most insignia will be made of goldy-colored Sir Glass.
(Sir Glass being glass that has been "knighted" by a Sustenoc Durudor spell and is quite hard to break.)
Hat: Hats are essential. Dark blue-green, more blue than green, felt hats, short-brimmed, short and flat-topped, with a band of golden ribbon shot through with real gold wire, and a blue feather that -- despite many assertions to the contrary and at least one attempt by Inconnu to pull one out -- does not come from my wings. The ribbon is alight with small golden flames. Obviously-illusory golden flames, we don't want to alarm anyone, but quite visible and smellable nonetheless. Scented very faintly with arcthorieth incense, scathnard incense, and hot yulexion metal, to match the gods of the insignia; but not too much, which would be cloying. The Strayway insignia -- either the insanely expensive brass version, or the far cheaper ivory and glass one -- may grace the center of the hat. And by "grace" I mean "embarrass me every time I see it."
Vest and Sash: The same shade as the hat, of course, and plentifully supplied with shining gold-rimmed glass buttons. The skirt of the vest is fairly low, below the tailbase in bipeds. A golden sash, rather like the hat-ribbon, loops around the vest -- but it's part of the vest, because there was general objection to wearing separate sashes. (The Orren were uniformly sure they'd snag on things during Wild Rushes.) The sash has a scaly or feathery pattern on it, and the scales or feathers flow around the wearer, upwards over the chest and downwards on the back. The vest has two side pockets, and three inside pockets which are harder to pick and have been expanded by Locador spells. Those who cannot wear a vest wear similar ribbons. (Note to self: I need to sew a pocket in a ribbon and put way too much Locador in it, so I actually have a pocket for the first time ever.)
Caftan: A crisp white short caftan with modest lace at the collar, wrists, and waist. The caftan comes to the knees. Under the sash, it looks rather like a white shirt plus short skirt. It is tailored fairly close to the body. It is slit from mid-back to hemline for the tail. Those who cannot wear a caftan, don't.
Belt: A belt of chimeront leather, dyed in tight speckles of blue and green -- matching the hat and vest where they overlap, but visible individually in places, and altogether white in places. A brass buckle, optionally topped with an ivory copy of the ship's insignia, renders the belt insanely expensive too. I can replace the brass at the cost of a cley, but not the chimeront leather. Pouches of matching leather with matching buttons will be worn by people large enough to wear them.
Tights: There has been considerable debate, but we have decided, tentatively, on very dark blue-green (nearly black) tights, with decorative knee-buttons matching the vest, and stripes of gold ribbon down the sides of the legs. I refuse to spend magic on these ribbons until it is certain that we will keep the tights, or what. I can't wear tights in any case, so they are optional for everyone.
Slippers / Boots: Slippers or boots, of leather that ought to have matched the blue-green we used elsewhere, except the dye lots didn't, so they're just a shade off. (Grinwipey says they did, the horse leather just absorbed the dye differently than cloth or chimeront leather did.) At some point I'm going to do something about that, some day when I'm feeling exceedingly precise and don't mind collecting everyone's footgear for a few hours. The same buttons as elsewhere.
Eyes: Those who wish to change the color of their eyes are encouraged to choose shiny gold. I am doing so, but, due to a belated streak of conservatism, only the pupils.
I was lavishing money on the silly insignias anyways. And enchantment doesn't actually cost me very much, unless it's getting in the way of orders, and I don't have (or want) enough orders to keep me busy all the time anyways. So seven of the insignias are a present for Vae. A crucial sort of present, as they will keep her happy on the trip without requiring anyone to commit a crime deserving of multiple execution.
Seven of the insignia are sense-linked. Anyone wearing one of them and knowing the proper controls can scry on any of the other insignia. They provide: sight, hearing, smell, taste (if you dip the insignia into something -- silly, but magically convenient), magic sense, and two of Vae's cryptic senses that I can't understand or perceive myself but can transmit via an Illusidor scrying spell.
Oh, and the wearers can speak to and caress each other remotely, as well. The former is obviously quite important. The latter was largely accidental, but I'm sure someone will make use of it.
So: Vae can wear one. (I, of course, will wear another.) The other five will be on assorted volunteers from the crew, who will be given extra hazard wages for the day and required to go enjoy the cities we visit with them.
So Vae gets to experience the cities of Srineia. Indirectly, to be sure, but far more than a monster is generally able to experience a prime city.
I'm reasonably sure that these devices are legal, even if a nendrai is using one. The nendrai didn't make them, after all; I did. But I did place five courses of Opacity on them. Most people won't even be able to tell that they're magical. Just in case, really.
Windigar flew Strayway to the Halflight Gate, which is much more convenient to Castle Wrong than the actual port. We trundled to the gate with seven cartsful of afterthoughts, including:
Vae, of course, met us outside the gate, in the gazebo where she has met me every third day for a century. She was an immense beast that morning, towering over the gazebo, festooned with spikes big and sharp enough to intimidate Yerenthax. She towered monstrously over Strayway. She was holding a tiny basket covered with a blue checked cloth in her left forepaw, and wearing a huge set of fuzzy earmuffs.
Me:"You don't have a lot of luggage, unless that basket is larger than it looks."
Vae:"Not a bit larger, I am afraid, Sythyry. Not so many things do I wish to bring with me. The bracelet with the sliver of Oixe's egg is here. The healing talisman you made for me is here. The pictures of Greenspikes and of Strenata are here too. And what truly matters in life, save memories of friends, and sorcerous defenses? If anything important is forgot, I shall trot back and get it."
And she can trot back and get it. I can't, nor can any reasonable person I know. She travelled further to meet with Oixe.
Me:"Fair enough! How were you planning to get into the yacht, though? You're rather larger than it is."
Vae flicked one of the doorways with her tail. It stopped being a little hole in the side of the candelabra that was somehow big enough for primes and carts to walk through, and became a little hole in the side of the candelabra that was somehow big enough for anything, no matter how big, to walk through. I stared at it nervously, but it didn't break.
Me:"I'm not sure that that's a good idea; there's a substantial Locador enchantment on that already." Which is silly to say; Vae can see such things better than I can. "If you're going to do that regularly, I'll make some alternations."
Vae:"Not again shall I do that until I return in the Strayway to my home!"
Vae curled her tail around herself, and became a six-inch-long serpent, bright blue and green striped, with four pairs of dragonfly wings, wearing a tiny set of fuzzy earmuffs. She zoomed over to me and coiled around my foreleg.
Windigar:"Vaisessasilmin, I do hereby formally invite you to come as a passenger upon Strayway, and sail the skies with us, hither and yon, trunkward and outward, rollward and roll'gainst, beneath the eyes of the creator gods, until our paths do part us."
Vae:"The I do accept this invitation, to be your guest and passenger upon Strayway, and to abide by all your orders as we fly, until our paths do part us."
Me:"You have been reading historical romance novels, have you not, Vae?" Because nobody makes a formal invitation to a skyboat anymore; it was archaic a century ago.
Vae:"The novels that you brought me over the months and years and decades are the novels that I read! The blame for my historical romances falls fully on your back, Sythyry."
Windigar:"It is a nice bit of ritual, nonetheless."
Phaniet:"Besides, it's never a bad thing to get a promise of good behavior out of the monsters. Even if they can't keep it."
Vae twisted appearance around herself so we couldn't see her crying. But anyone who knows Vae knows that there were daggers of glass ripping her eyes behind that illusion.
Later, in her cabin, I asked her, for the hundreth time, "Shall I tune your earmuffs so you don't hear that sort of thing any more?"
She shook her tiny head, and denied me for the hundredth time. "Not a bit! The I barely even notice it anymore, and the tears and their healing are good for me."
Quendry's father did not choose to come in person to collect Quendry. Perhaps he does not like nendrai, or skyboats, or Khtsoyis seamstresses. Or perhaps he had better things to do. So he sent two of Quendry's not-quite-brothers, Cani boys a few years older than Quendry. I am not quite sure of their names, so I will call them both Broon.
They sort of wobbled around Strayway a few times, looking for the doors. The doors are not obvious. They are not exactly concealed, but they are part of the bas-reliefs on the vase, so they are not quite obvious either. Also, they look too small for a mouse to creep through, much less a whole prime. They're actually quite easy to find -- look for the holes with the most Locador magic on them. I should probably figure out how to install locks at some point; but at least our cryptic defenses are capable of keeping out two young Cani boys.
Finally Broon, or perhaps Broon, shouted at the antelopes, "Hey! Let us in!"
Windigar, deep inside the yacht, spoke into a shell that made his words loud and thunderous outside: "Turn right, walk straight at the wall, and you're in."
So they did, and wound up in a sort of cloakroom, panelled in grey leather, with pegs on the walls and a roaring fire, and a pool of steaming water in the corner for a quick bath, and nobody around.
They called out "Quendry? Quendry? Arfaen? Consort-of-Arfaen?"
Nobody answered. This is because almost everyone was on the other side of the yacht, busy with all sorts of last-minute tasks. Only Windigar and I, in the control room, could hear them.
Broon and Broon wandered around, noses to the ground. I can't smell very well myself -- I do fine for a Zi Ri, but that's nothing compared to a Cani -- but I imagine that the smells in Strayway must have been a bit confusing. We've had a hundred workmen in here over the last month.
After a while, they were thoroughly lost. It was time to be cruel. I flew out of the control room, straight for them.
After a while, I was thoroughly lost, too. The talking furniture wasn't much help, since they didn't know where Broon and Broon were.
So I missed the actual takeoff.
A third of an hour later, maybe, I caught up with Broon and Broon. They had gotten to one of the spare pantries, and were having a quick impromptu lunch of spiced sausage and hard cider. Spiced sausage from The Farm on Ghaln-Yastrou Park, which costs three lozens a pound [$30/lb, and food is generally cheap on the World Tree. -bb], at that.
"Excuse me," I said, because one always should be polite to people that one is about to be horrible to. "You are stowaways on my ship, and you are eating my most expensive sausage. I cannot permit this." Which is all technically true, even though I knew better.
"We're not..." started Broon, or, perhaps, Broon.
"But you are, indeed, and you should not be, for you are flying away from your homes while you are doing it. You must go back home now." I said, and teleported them to the Halflight Gate. I am not so good at agressive Locador spells as Vae is, but one does not need to be.
(Our first plan was to have Vae send the supposed intruders off, perhaps teleporting them rather further away, to Daukrhame or some such. It is the sort of thing a cruel and wicked monster would do, after all. But, first of all, I don't want to train Vae to be cruel and wicked any more than her own nature and natural upbringing requires, which is rather a lot. And, second, the kidnapping is about 1/3 my responsibility, with 1/2 going to Arfaen and the remaining 1/6 being spread around the ship; and I ought to do my own dirty work.)
And that completes the kidnapping proper, I hope. We'll be some cities away before we stop again, and Quendry's father will have no idea where to find us. Arfaen has written him a letter -- I have seen a dozen drafts of it -- explaining the situation in terms that do not actually admit to any wrongdoing or admit that there is any blame anywhere in the situation. It is just an unfortunate mistake, in her letter, but one that will not be corrected. We will send it to him from somewhere or other tonight, and then keep flying.
And, by the time I got back to the control room, it did seem quite dirty indeed. Arfaen had explained the situation to Quendry -- there had been a change of plans, and he, Quendry, was going to come with her and Mellilot and me and all on a long and wonderful trip. Quendry is young, but not stupid. I could hear him howling for his father and his pack.
His father who treated him wrong, in a way that Quendry even now might never recover from. But his father who had given him a place in the pack -- even though that place was "omega", the least of all -- and Cani love their packs, even when they are otherwise awful to them.
I'm pretty sure that we did the best thing for Quendry: for his growing up as a Cani healthy in mind and spirit, and even for his treatment over the next few years. But oh, the howling!
Bon voyage.
Three hours later, Mellilot tapped on the cockpit door. "Sythyry? There's something you might be able to help with, if you'd like. About Quendry."
"What is it?" I popped out, leaving the wholly capable Windigar driving the antelopes.
"Quendry's upset about missing his rag doll Snootloose. He's upset about a lot of things, but he's never gone to sleep without Snootloose before. Could maybe you get Vae to zap Snootloose over to Strayway?" she asked.
"No, for about seven plus twelve reasons. Mostly we are not asking Vae for favors; it always somes out badly. Don't even think of that. She'd probably turn you into Snootloose or something!" I explained calmly. (By "calmly" I mean "flapping my wings so much that I lost feathers.")
"Oh, no... don't do that ... we'll figure out some way for him to go to sleep ... I just thought I'd ask ..." she said.
"Don't give up on Snootloose. Let's try something else," I said.
So we tried something else, after we tracked him down.
Me:"Rheng, you're a thief of sorts, among your other skills, are you not?"
Rheng:"We are outside any city now? I am an expert thief. We are inside a city? I know nothing of any stealing."
Me:"Could you go to Quendry's longhouse and steal Snootloose?"
Rheng:"Quendry is the howling boy of the whole world; I go to escape his howling. But what is Snootloose?"
Mellilot:(explain, explain)
Rheng:"For this expedition, I demand the hazard pay!"
Me:"You're going to a very civilized city to steal a used rag doll. What risk could there possibly be?"
Rheng:"I am Rheng; I am the thief supreme. Yet, what if I am discovered?"
Me:"You might have to pay ten times the value of the doll. I'll pay you back in advance." and tossed him a lozen.
Rheng:"I am Rheng; I am the thief supreme! There is no coin large enough to repair my reputation, if I steal the rag doll!"
Me:"Here's a bound Veil spell, and two good teleports. Think you can avoid getting caught?"
Rheng:"I am Rheng; I am the thief supreme!"
Me:"Go, then, Rheng." We made arrangements to pick him up, and other arrangements if the first ones failed.
As a sign of how utterly important and crucial I am to the success of our mission and the well-being of all on board, I would like to note that (a) I wasn't there, and (b) I didn't even find out about it 'til afterwards. All conversations are made up -- I mean, all conversations are usually made up to some degree, but this time I didn't even hear the original.
Zascalle brought her children Feralan and Ochirion to see Quendry, in the kitchen. The boys knew each other; they were playmates when Quendry visited Castle Wrong. Arfaen got Quendry to stop howling long enough to say hello.
Quendry:"Hello." [Howls more.]
Feralan:"Hello, Quendry. What are you good at?"
Quendry:"Nothing."[Howls more.]
Feralan:"That's a pretty funny noise you're making there, Quendry." Quendry just looked mournful, so Feralan continued, "But I've got affan in funny noises."
Quendry:[crying more]"You mean I can't howl any more? I can't help it! I can't stop howling! Nobody can help me stop howling! I am going to howl and howl!" [does so.]
Feralan:"Quendry, if you want to keep howling, you're going to have to choof me to get affan in making funny noises."
So Arfaen talked Quendry into choofing Feralan. Technically, that doesn't make sense. Feralan is Rassimel, not Cani, so he's not really choofable, and can't really hold affan. But close enough.
Feralan:"OK, we're going to have a funny noise contest. Whoever makes the funniest noise, wins."
About half the crew of Strayway, including all the Cani, were there watching, and were deemed to be adequate judges.
Feralan:"All right, here's my funny noise. Bloop-bloop-bloop!" He wiggled his hands and ears.
Quendry:"Bloop-bloop-bloop? Oh! Bloop ... Bloop ...!" He suddenly grinned, and shouted, "Bloop-boop POOP!"
And that caught the press of concerned adults by surprise, and several of them burst out laughing. Which, of course, they were planning to do one way or another anyways, but it was genuine.
Ensemble:"Bloop-boop poop! Bloop-boop poop!"
Feralan:"You win, Quendry! Everyone thinks that's the funniest sound!"
And, apparently, it is the funniest sound.
Quendry went bouncing around. "I have an affan! I have affan in funny sounds! Bloop-boop poop!"
I was in the sorcerous library, discussing Matters of Grave Magical Importance with Vae (tiny six-dragonfly-winged snake, today) and Kantele (old Rassimel woman, generally). Specifically, we were discussing where Phaniet was, and guessing, wrongly, that she was getting some well-deserved private time with Este. Vae was a bit embarrassed. Kantele was not easy to embarrass when she was a young girl, and now she is an old woman and utterly shameless.
Thiane ran through the door. "Bloop-boop poop!" Thiane rarely uses such language.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Bloop-boop poop!"
Vae raised her head. "Oh! The diarrhea is upon you, and you know not the way to the toilet! The couch is the one to ask, not me!"
The couch proclaimed, "The third door on the left, painted a delicate and quite restful green color. I have no biological processes myself, but I am sure that the qualities of the room are most extraordinarily suitable for them! But hurry! The situation is urgent! Matters will quickly come to a head!" It squeaked agitatedly. "Rush, rush, zoom, zoom! I wish for no accidents upon my embroidery!"
We calmed the couch and the nendrai down, in that order, and interrogated Thiane.
"No, I'm just fine. But Quendry has affan in funny sounds, so you're going be hearing that one a lot." She explained, and Kantele and I rejoiced, and then we explained it to Vae, who didn't quite get it but flapped her wings happily anyways.
A commotion occurred outside. I looked out the library door. Half of the crew was parading down the corridor, Quendry leading, each one holding the tail of the one in front, chanting "bloop-boop poop!".
"Come, my mystical companions! We have important work to do!"
Vae didn't join, though. She is having a vacation from arms and legs, and in her serpentine form can't hold the tail in front of her and chant at the same time. She'd have to use some magic for one or the other. She muttered something about not having enough cley left (she can use cley in the usual way, but her insanely strong magic doesn't use cley). I think she didn't want to see who would dare hold her tail, and was making the first excuse that came to mind.
But it was a fun parade, twisting around in hallways that nobody has ever visited before, winding this way and that, and chanting Quendry's funny noises. We got lost, of course, and introduced ourselves to a long series of chairs with embroidered cushions on our way back. And Quendry was happily in charge of the whole adventure.
(I really must explore the whole of Strayway sometime. I built it in a convenient way, with created elementals doing most of the work; but I doubt that a tenth part of the ship has been seen by prime eyes yet. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the elementals had installed a swimming pool somewhere, or a jelly fountain or small conifer forest.)
In any case: bloop-boop poop for the win!
Jyondre has been teaching everyone how to speak Sriniean.
The vocabulary isn't hard. It's rather like Ketherian, mangled a bit in some pretty regular ways. Thiane has a bag on her leg; Sriane has a baglo on her legro. Grinwipey uses a club; Srinwipey uses a clubb. Sythyry casts a spell; Srythyry casts a spell.
The status markers, though. I will never get the status markers.
First of all, there are two kinds of status: social status and historical status. So, the children of the original colonists are important in the language in ways that the unhistoried never can be, even if the unhistoried are heroes and nobles.
Second, they use status markers everywhere. Actually they don't, but they can.
Social status:
| nob | Nobility |
| edu | Educated |
| low | Low social status |
| huh | Used when the speaker doesn't know the right social marker. |
Historical status:
| colo | Descent from the original colonists (and -- nobody else? heroes and jivu are OK? I don't know.) |
| hero | Heroes |
| jivu | People who have undergone the jivu ceremony, which I don't know much about, but it's pretty hard. |
| unhi | "Unhistoried". No historical status |
| dono | Dunno your historical status, bud. |
You can tack either or both markers on pronouns, so you can quite economically say "I -- an educated hero -- ask you -- a noble of newcomer ancestry -- to remove your(still noble and unhistoried) foot from my (still educated and heroic) tail." People only do that when they're really trying to make a point of status. Which you might do if you were high-status and trying to domineer someone, or low-status and trying to get a favor from someone.
Names can get one marker as a suffix.
Jyondre:(to the class)"So how would you refer to the Zi Ri?"
Inconnu:"Sythyry-nobo"
Jyondre:"Oh, great staring gods, no, no, not that!"
Inconnu:"Why? What does it mean?"
Jyondre:"It's a rather nasty word for a rather pleasant activity, and I don't think Sythyry is physically or emotionally capable of it anyways."
Me:"I am not utterly unskilled at pleasant activities."
Jyondre:"Well, this one is strictly cisaffectionate."
Inconnu:"Oh! Sythyry would never never never do that!" [He wriggled at me, which is nice to look at. But I am not taking lovers among my clients. That is simply not appropriate.]
Me:"Back to the language lesson, please."
Thiane:"Sythyry-nob"
Jyondre:"Exactly!"
Me:"Well, it's not quite a current title. Duke Conturge confirmed it over a century ago, but his successors have not done. They were more worried about Castle Wrong, and less about Vae. It's a species title, so they don't exactly need to confirm it, but ... I don't actually use it much. And it's just 'Esquire', which isn't a very big title anyways. If I'm trying to look like an important and respectable citizen these decades, I use a title like 'master-smith' or 'master-healer'."
Thiane:"Then Sythyry-unhi."
Jyondre:"No, you always pick a higher title if there is one. If zie's unhi -- and all of you are unhi -- use a social status title."
Thiane:"Sythyry-low?"
Jyondre:"No, no. Sythyry-edu, remember the -edu title?"
Me:"It is Sythyry-low, actually. I never finished the Academy."
Jyondre:"You didn't?"
Me:"I was spending too much time with monsters and lovers and things. So, Sythyry-low, or Sythyry-unhi. She's Thiane-edu, though."
Jyondre:"But you're the wizard, aren't you...?"
Me:"Yes."
Jyondre:"Oh, dear. It'll be very confusing to have Sythyry-low as the wizard and Thiane-edu as a subordinate. It could be troublesome in polite society."
Thiane:"I can be Thiane-low."
Jyondre:"No, no, no! Never give up your status markers!"
Me:"Should I do the jivu ceremony before we go?"
Jyondre:"Impossible, impossible! You know nothing of the jivu. And it cannot be done in Choinxeia."
Me:"What should we do?"
Jyondre:"Maybe Sythyry could be more assertive about claiming nobility, and everyone could call zir-nob as Sythyry-nob?"
Thiane:"Whatever makes sense"
Tingula:"Couldn't we just speak Ketherian altogether?"
Me:"Or use -dono and -huh for each other all the time?"
Jyondre:"No, no, you must know each others' history if you know each other! Everyone would know you were lying! No, the calling of nobility is best."
So we're going to pretend I'm really a noble, instead of the vaguely sort of as-long-as-nobody-is-pushing-anything only-really-inside-Vheshrame-city-limits kind of noble that I really am.
Thiane:"Wait, didn't you say professions plus history markers could be used as titles? So zie could be Enchanter-unhi Sythyry."
Jyondre:"Zie can't call zirself that, though. It's gauche for the unhi to use professional titles for themselves. And it would emphasize that zie's unhi."
Me:"Nobody would expect a tourist from Ketheria to have historical status, would they?"
Jyondre:"No, but ..."
Thiane:"What do Ketherian tourists do?"
Jyondre:"We don't get very many Ketherian tourists. You're surely not the first, but, well, you are the first that I-edu-jivu have heard of."
Inconnu:"Wait, are there really 144 pronouns? Twelve choices for species, times three markers for status, times four for history?"
Jyondre:"Nope. Three hundred and eighty. There are five choices for social status (nob, edu, low, plus 'huh' if you don't know and just leaving it off), and six for historical status (colo, hero, jivu, unhi, and 'dono' and nothing). Don't worry, they're regular. Also they're not used very often."
Inconnu:"Then why are we learning them?"
Jyondre:" Because they help you understand the twenty pronouns that you actually do use. Which don't use the suffixes, they're just different. They're for things like 'a prime of low status', and 'a Rassimel of colonial descent'." He later admitted that the twelve usual Ketherian pronouns are used too -- those tell species, but don't have any status markers.
Everyone but Jyondre: "Can we please fall over and die from the confusion and overwhelmedness?"
Jyondre:"No! Not until I cover verb forms!"
Everyone but Jyondre:"Merciless foreigner!"
(And, if you really want to know, there are a few verbs that can only be used by certain statuses. Nobles can say 'want-nob'; everyone else just says 'want'. (Actually the contrast is more like 'kippliwere' and 'want'. You wouldn't guess that the words had anything to do with each other.) And there are a few other verbs that can only be used about certain statuses. So I, as a person of low social status, would carry-low (or 'gleddah') a load, but if someone tried to say that educated Jyondre or Thiane would gleddah a load, they'd get beaten up or even mocked.)
Inconnu:[In Sriniean]"Sythyry must be our porter! Zie-low will gleddah all our luggage!"
(Much laughter. I would fit inside anyone's suitcase; I cannot carry such large things!)
Adjectives and adverbs are safe though.
Everyone but Yerenthax:"We will speak only in adjectives and adverbs! Truly! Wonderful! Truly wonderful!"
Jyondre:"Understandable?"
Everyone:"Unlikely! Greatly unlikely!"
Jyondre:"Socially-acceptable?"
Everyone:"Scarcely! Heinously scarcely!"
Jyondre:"Then the lessons will resume until morale and syntax both improve."
I am not going to write my journal in Sriniean though!
[And, as usual, the translation will be into normal English, and status markers will be handled elsewise. -bb]
The last flames in the sun flickered out at the traditional hour. It is pleasant to fly in a sky-yacht with giant burning candles around it; we bring our own light. Also we can be seen from tens of miles off, which would be a problem if we were pirates or city guards or adventurers or something. Fortunately we are tourists.
In this instance, we are tourists who are trying to meet one of our number, outside the little village of Goldenprallow. We were fairly sure that he was there, since we (Thiane, Vae, me) had seen a flicker of Locador, looking more or less like mine.
We hadn't decided on a specific spot to meet, just "near Goldenprallow". But, how hard could it be for a Sleeth to spot a giant floating candlabra in the night?
And it was fairly urgent to find Rheng, or at least, Snootloose. Quendry was exhausted, and crying in his mother's arms, and refusing to go to sleep until Snootloose was his once more. This had disrupted the kitchen considerably, since Arfaen was supposed to make dinner, and couldn't. Calla had graciously agreed to cook; but we are not proceeding towards getting organized. I suppose I shouldn't expect half of Castle Wrong to be very organized, even if we are living in a yacht now.
We circled around Goldenprallow a few times, slowly, listening for the roar of a Sleeth. No roar, no Sleeth, no Snootloose. Also no dinner for Windigar and me in the cockpit.
Two-third of an hour later, on the third time around Goldenprallow, a shout from the ground.
Ground:"Ahoy, the candelabra!" Ground was not a Sleeth. Ground was a Herethroy wearing armor and carrying a three-handed sword. We decided to be polite to Ground.
Me:"Ahoy, the ground!"
Ground:"What are you doing?"
Me:(explain, explain, explain)
Ground:"Well, you're scaring the village. Could you please make your way to the city skyport, and come back to Goldenprallow tomorrow if you need to?"
Me:"No, we're trying to meet a Sleeth here so the Cani boy can sleep. "
Ground:"Dern cryptic Zi Ri!"
Me:(explain, explain, explain)
Ground:"That's, um, very noble or something of you. Could you please stop circling the village, and land, or something that's not quite so spooky?"
Me:"Certainly; we don't want to annoy the natives. I apologize to them, in fact. Do you have any idea where the Sleeth might be?"
Ground:"No, I'm afraid not."
Rheng:"The Sleeth is here in the bushes these last two hours."
Me:"Why didn't you say so the first three times we were here?"
Rheng:"I am eating a spare gazelle."
Eventually we sent the knight back to Goldenprallow with a barrel of reasonably good wine by way of apology, and landed, and let Rheng aboard.
Me:"Did you get Snootloose?"
Rheng:"I am the thief supreme! Snootloose is in my left saddlebag."
Arfaen:"Wonderful!"
Quendry:"Snootloose!" [falls asleep instantly and has to be carried back to his cabin.]
Rheng:"And in my right saddlebag is the true prize of your desiring, rrai!"
Me:"Snootloose is also in your right saddlebag?"
Phaniet:"Has the nendrai been up to her tricks again?"
Rheng:"Rrai, you are the funny Zi Ri! Open my saddlebag, and behold!"
Phaniet did, running her hands through Rheng's backfur. Rheng stretched
luxuriously. One must always wonder who is doing what with whom
in Castle Wrong Strayway.
Then she opened the saddlebag, and stared.
Phaniet:"Great googly-eyed gods. There's a tail in here."
Rheng:"Do not exaggerate! In my saddlebag is only three-quarters of a tail!"
Me:"Leftovers from your dinner?"
Phaniet:"Hardly. A Cani tail, male, young adult. He ate garlic sausages and cabbage for lunch, probably at a cheap lunch-house by the public pond. He was very worried -- how long were you stalking him, Rheng? No, he's not scared, just worried. Angry, too."
Rheng:"Close enough for a Cani nose."
I can't smell. (I mean, I can smell, but not the way a Cani or a Sleeth can smell.) So I looked at the brown stripes on the tail. Many, many Cani have brown stripes, but who would Rheng want to maim?
Me:"Is this Quendry's father's tail?"
Rheng:"Close enough for Zi Ri eyes. You may now reward me thoroughly."
Me:"I didn't ask for his tail."
Rheng:"You employ a Sleeth, you employ the Thief Supreme! You do not ask. This is important! When you are in court, you must say, 'I do not ask for his tail! Give me the mind-spell of truth, I say it again, I do not ask for his tail! It is all the fault of the Sleeth!' But the Sleeth is the thief supreme, the Sleeth cannot be found."
Me:"Well, we're not going to court over this."
Rheng:"Rrai, no, we are going to Srineia instead! As we fly we will know that revenge is done! He crimes and wickeds at Arfaen, at Quendry, at Mellilot, at you! Today, he weeps because of crimes and wickeds! He would tuck his tail between his legs in his shame, but, somehow, he cannot!"
Me:"I think that rescuing his son from him was enough revenge. Besides, I didn't ask for this tail and I don't want it. I'm going to have to spend several cley to send it back."
The first cley was for Fresh Meat, which wards off spoiling. And the first complication there was, what power? It's a lot harder to reattach the thing while the spell is in force, and the more power, the longer the spell lasts. But my fellow master-healers at the Healers' Guild know what power I use, and they will think strangely of me (and that I am apologizing badly) if I don't do it as well as I can. So I did it the ordinary way (full power), and hoped that he didn't actually need it for a couple more weeks.
Tomorrow morning we're going to have to stop by some city or other, and send the tail back by post. With an apology, probably some incense. Arfaen will have to pick it out, and Rheng will pay for it. Probably from future wages. If we were on a schedule, we'd be off the schedule.
Me:(an impassioned lecture about how we should not take revenge for every insult, because we are traff and otherwise wrong, and would have to constantly fuss with revenges.) With most people I would take an ethical argument, not a practical one, but ethical arguments with Sleeth are not always very useful.
Rheng:"I do not see the problem. That is a good way to live!"
Me:"We get so many insults that we could spend every moment and then some on revenge, and still not get finished"
Rheng:"Stalking the Cani, biting off the tail of the Cani, these take one minute or two! You spend much more time waiting for me to finish my dinner, rrai!"
Me:(gets distracted, complains about that too.)
Rheng:(looks unimpressed.)
Fortunately he has no enemies in Srineia, so he won't go biting tails off there.
Nothing exciting is happening today! I hope!
I have finished my morning exercises (I seem unable to break that habit, even if I am on vacation). Now I am sitting in the flame of Strayway's starboard candle, being fireproof, writing lazily in my fireproof journal with a spell because my favorite pen is not fireproof. (I should do something about that.)
I am watching the scenery.
Down below is Choinxeia. Even I don't usually see it like this. We are somewhat over a mile up, by my request. I rarely fly this high with my own wings. The last time I did I must have been thirteen, adolescent, and utterly upset with ... I can't remember who or what. I don't think I was sightseeing in any case.
I can see both edges of the world-branch from here. Choinxeia, like most branches, is some fifty miles wide, and ... I don't even know how long. It's still fifty miles wide fifty-seven thousand miles out, I happen to know, and so are its side branches.
It's not perfectly flat on top. It's hard to tell from up here, but it's dished: lower in the center, almost a quarter-mile higher at the edges. Also it's tilted towards the main trunk, a lot less than that: maybe a mile's drop in three hundred miles.
And oh! Here's how you can tell it's dished! That squirming silver line is the Omblou, the main river of this part of Choinxeia. You can see it wiggling this way and that, but trying to stay towards the center of the branch. Of course it can't. The branch is combie over here. That means that there are dozens of short thin crosswise mountain ranges, running almost from edge to edge: ridges in the underlying world-bark. The Omblou can't go over them generally, unless there's a surprise valley or an energetic river spirit, so it makes little horizontal lakes on the outward sides of each range, and then spills over on one side or the other, pouring towards the main trunk as best it can.
It's wonderful territory for Orren, since it's full of lakes; but it's not very good land for anyone serious. Or at least not for big fields of wheat and lentils, and vetch for the cattle. If I remember the map properly -- and I am not going inside to look at it! -- we are over Ulmarn. The figs from Ulmarn are the best on Choinxeia.
Or I could look outward, away from the main trunk. Choinxeia is a very wide fifty miles under Strayway, but off in the distance that same fifty miles isn't very wide at all. I'm reasonably sure that that dot is home, is Vheshrame, but at this distance it's just a dot. It might be Daukrhame, or a small mountain. The branch wanders outwards, pops out side branches here and there, zigs lazily, zags just as lazily.
The sun is nearly straight outward along Choinxeia today. (That's part of why we chose to leave yesterday -- the sun won't be in our eyes as we fly. Or behind the main trunk, leaving a big shadow stripe, which is nearly as distracting.) In case you're from a different world where the sun is, I don't know, square like a star or something: our sun is a big crystal globe that rolls on a track in the lower part of the sky, eighteen degrees up from the horizon. It rolls around the whole sky in twenty-seven days, which we call a "month". [The actual word sounds more like "sunth" in Ketherian. -bb] Flokin, our brainless but hard-working fire god, lights it every morning, precisely at dawn.
(That is not an oxymoron. Dawn is frequently defined as the time that decent people get their cley restored, and it is somewhere between An Interesting Coincidence and A Highly Symbolic Gesture On Some God's Part that the world gets its main light restored at the same time of day.)
As I said, the sun is a crystal globe full of fuel. Flokin lights it at dawn. It must be a rather large globe, for the flame takes a long time to spread to the whole of the sun -- it takes precisely nine hours. Which is quite confusing when you think about it, since on some days (like today) the fire moves very fast at first; it has already covered seven-eights of the globe, and if it continued at that rate, it would have filled the whole globe by the second hour after dawn, not the ninth. It's going to slow down soon though, or, if it doesn't, it'll be the first time in 4385 years that it hasn't. Other days, it might barely have spread at all by this time, or even by half an hour before noon, but then it rushes to get the rest of the way.
At noon, the sun is full of fire. Immediately the flames start to die out. Sometimes quickly at first, sometimes slowly, but it always takes exactly nine hours to go all the way out. (After which we have nine hours of solar darkness in which to best admire our gaudy night sky, or sleep, or enjoy the company of members of the appropriate species, as you see fit.)
Yes, of course the sun drips sometimes, or flares up huge flames that scorch the lower stars until some elementals or something goes and polishes them. Doesn't yours?
Or I could look trunkward. "Trunkward" being one of our cardinal directions, viz., going towards the main trunk. Ketheria is the ring of nine branches at the top of the main trunk; it is where the primes were first created, 4385-4380 years ago, and the most civilized place in the universe. (Srineia, far outside Ketheria, is wild and strange and exotic, making it an excellent place for a vacation.)
I don't think Ketheria is going to be the top ring of branches for too much longer though, as Zi Ri ought to measure time. The World Tree has grown a lot since the first days, and the main trunk now stands hundreds of miles above Ketheria. Presumably it will sprout another ring of branches at some point. That shouldn't bother me -- more land to live on is a good thing, after all -- but it seems somewhat of a shame that Ketheria stop being the top of the World Tree.
(The other cardinal directions include: outward, which is away from the trunk. Rollward, which is the direction the sun rolls, and roll'gainst, which isn't. We also have 'north', which is the direction towards Reluu. Oh, I suppose I should mention the other big feature of the daytime sky. Our seven creator gods, Hren Tzen and Reluu and so on, sit in the middle sky. Reluu is usually a spiky silver crown, sometimes with Cani eyes or even a whole face. Hren Tzen is a Zi Ri with four bright rings. And so on. We're not so lucky as to have them stay there -- or, I suppose, to only be there -- but there they are, in case we wanted to forget who made the place.)
The main trunk, like the sides and bottoms of the world-branches, are covered with shaggy horizontal trees, huge vines the size of rivers, swaths of moss as big as city-states, and the occasional vertical desert of bare world-bark. It's possible to live in the Verticals. Many people do, but they're as likely as not to be Sleeth (who can get around easily there) or Gormoror (who enjoy a challenge). Lots of monsters do -- mainly because we have driven them off of the Flats and taken their lands and their treasures for our own; they would rather not live there. Most primes would call this a good thing. Vae and her non-prime friends aren't so sure. I call it an inevitable thing, and try not to fuss to much about who, exactly, it is good for.
Looking down, there's the ring of branches below Ketheria ... three hundred and some miles down? More than that? I can't remember exactly. Then the one below that, a bit further, and the one below that. They start getting a bit hard to see at the fifth one. We're going to the twelfth.
But first we're going to stop on the skybridge.
(Historical aside. There are three sensible solutions to the fact that there's not very much land to live on in inner Ketheria. These are: (1) use massive amounts of Locador to make more land; (2) colonize other branches; and (3) build more land in inner Ketheria. All three have been tried. (1) scares people more than it should, though it should scare them somewhat. (2) is very popular, except with the denizens of the branches we colonize. (3) is our next stop.)
I think it started out as a ring of wooden bridges around the main trunk, connecting Craitheia to Remseia to Aradrueia to Dentheia to Choinxeia to Braxeia to Mrasteia to Yistreia to Hybraeia to Craitheia. But we -- and by "we" I include two grandparents of mine, but it was before my parents were hatched -- expanded on the bridges. Now they're three-quarters of a mile wide, and fifteen stories deep or more. Made of wood mostly, with some rather substantial enchantments to keep them levitating in the right place. Not one enchantment -- that would be a bit big, even for my famous grandparent -- but, I should imagine, a separate enchantment for every quarter-acre or less. Lots of work for lots of enchanters.
It could be done without all that work. It could be done by spells, rather than enchantments. But spells can be broken by mistake once in a while -- or on purpose, for that matter. Enchantments can be, too, but they are considerably harder to do anything about. And if you're building cities, you don't want them falling down out of the sky whenever some child gets an exceptional spont cast to block her brother's insect-creation spell. Or, more seriously, whenever something gets a bit odd in the Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen, where you're invoking three of our nastier gods on a regular basis. There's often a bit of stray magic that needs breaking after that sort of ritual, I should think, and best if breaking it doesn't break your city too.
And Oorah Thrassen, our ancient (and generally successful) enemy, is our next stop. I will finally get to meet some of the sorcerers I have been contending with for the last few decades. It should be fun.
They are Up To Something.
Calla prepared lunch today. That's wrong, to begin with. Arfaen is supposedly the chef for breakfast and lunch, and Calla for dinner. (I presume that Arfaen is busy taking care of Quendry somehow today, and they will get back to the planned schedule soon. (Well, not 'back' since they haven't managed to do it yet.)) It's not that wrong, since Calla is one of the better chefs anyways. It does mean that lunch came out more vegetarian than I expected, since Mellilot was Calla's main sous-chef and other assistant, and neither Herethroy is very good at cooking foods they can't eat. But everyone but Rheng should be perfectly happy with: ground groundnut soup; leek tarts with gorgonzola; carrots and pears poached in wine; garlic risotto topped with little truffle-flavored custards and peppercream sauce, and some quite reasonable grilled eel from a store in Vheshrame for those who eat eel; and cinnamon chess pie with spiky fans of molten sugar paired with cucumbers pickled with mustard-seed to cut the sweetness.
This is rather fancier food than we generally ate at Castle Wrong. Not that we ate badly back home. But there the problem was feeding some fifty or seventy-five people, mostly very hungry from (1) long days of physical labor; (2) long days of bliss with someone they weren't generally allowed to enjoy bliss with outside; (3) youth; (4) misery; or (5) something else. Oh, and they paid it -- which is to say, contributed something towards it, either money or effort usually. Most people who lived in Castle Wrong for any length of time didn't want to feel like total freeloaders. (A few didn't mind being total freeloaders. After a bit, the rest of us didn't want them to be, so we made them do something, too.) So the food tended to be more towards the cheap, tasty, comforting, and nutritious.
Also, in Castle Wrong, people showed up to eat at all sorts of random times. One of the cooks' main jobs was to be sure that there was always a cauldron of lentils and rice or some such ready for when a half-dozen starving wrongfolk showed up at no particular time, and half of them having just been kicked out of their family homes for loving the other half too visibly, as happened one memorable afternoon. Or, say, a lizard sorcerer who got disorganized about zir day's work and zir time-spells, and showed up an hour after breakfast, so ravenous that zie could eat a whole egg and a half-cup of porridge. Which happened several times a week at one point, until I learned to bring a few spare meals to my workshop.
Since everyone is on vacation -- since everyone is on my vacation -- we are trying for "tasty, luxurious, and nutritious". "Cheap" is not so much of a concern. There's a substantial box of amber in a back room of Strayway. If that starts to run low, I will make a mighty talisman to sell. Any Healer's Guild chapter or city guard is going to want a Heal Truly device with unlimited uses. (Not just Heal Once, which can only be applied to a patient once each day, but an honest-to-gods Heal Truly.) I'm quite good at that enchantment, as I have needed quick cash more than once before, and as a Guild healer with dues paid a century in advance, I can get away with making and selling it.
So, poaching in wine, and truffles, and cinnamon chess pie. And five-course luncheons, with everyone eating at the same time except for (a) the children if they don't want to sit still that long; (b) the cooks and waiters of the hour; (c) the Sleeth; (d) the pilot, and (e) anyone who doesn't want to. So far nobody is (e), but it's only the second day.
((d) means that I'll either miss one meal a day so that Windigar can attend, or, when we're in civilized territory, we can stop Strayway somewhere and both of us dine.)
This is a rather long voyage. Even with the antelopes and a good pilot, Strayway rarely will go faster than ten miles an hour, and that for only as Windigar or I are working. So we have to entertain ourselves and each other. Putting on three or four feasts a day should help with that. Many of us enjoy cooking, and nearly all of us enjoy eating, so it'll be a constant source of boredom-deflection. I hope.
Which is a long-winded explanation -- I would say that I have become long-winded in my less-than-utterly-youthful age, only, after I read some of my old journal, I am pretty sure I was hatched wordy -- for the suspicious behavior I observed this evening.
Tingula:"I don't generally like pears, but these are quite nice."
Hops:"Waiter! My wife wishes another poached pear! Be snappy about it, and none of the pears poached in meagre wine!" (They're not married in any real sense, of course, but we are casual about usage of such words in Castle Wrong, at least when the cisaffectionate are not about. Grinwipey and the children evidently don't count.)
The waiter of the evening is Inconnu. Nobody talks that way to Inconnu. I am surprised that any of us talks to any other of us that way -- in Vheshrame, we were somewhere between 'informal' and 'polite' generally, and insults were discouraged. I will admit that I occasionally wish I could order Inconnu around that way. I can't, though. He has been known to get sarcastic when someone else tells him what to do, or even at a hint that someone else might even have a better idea for what might be good for him to do than he does.
Inconnu:"Yes indeed, m'lordre. It will be as m'lordre commands. No cheap wine ... indeed, we shall use the most expensive vintage for you that we use for any of our esteemed and highly honored guests. Not even the terrible and fearsome nendrai shall have better-wined pears than you!"
Case in point: he doesn't even know how to pronounce "m'lord". Not that he'd be saying that to me in any case, but obviously he's never said it to anyone.
Hops:"My wife!"
Inconnu:"Your wife, yes, your wife shall get the pears, absolutely!"
Hops:"See that you do, or I shall have you flogged with the keelhaul!"
Inconnu:"I shall see that I do, or I shall flog myself with the keelhaul for m'lordre's pleasure!"
I ... hope that's flirting. Or maybe I hope it's not flirting.
Umbers:"Can I help?"
Zascalle helpfully kicked Umbers in the leg. At least, I hope that's what that sort of muffled bump from under the table was.
Inconnu:"May I please be allowed to bring the proper comestables? If punishment is necessary, anyone or everyone shall perform it, as m'lordres find most suitable."
Vae thrummed her wings fretfully and flew around her bowl of pears and carrots a few times. She sits at a separate table. Some of the crew think that is because she is too dangerous to sit next to. (Ridiculous! She is too dangerous to be in the same skyboat as, altogether.) Actually it is because she eats as if she were a hefty and substantial nine-foot-tall lizard, even if she's currently a six-inch-long snake with six dragonfly wings, and that means she needs a very large place setting.
Me:[quietly] "Vae, if you'd like to talk, I don't mind excusing myself for a bit."
Vae:[putting up a spell that turns her words and mine into small porcelain bells painted with scenes of Sleeth kissing.]"The lesser foods, the dull bitter foods, I can eat those if it will bring peace with your friends."
Me:[with a tinkling of freshly-created bells] "I don't know what they're talking about. Everyone's eating the same food on this trip; all the omnivores at least."
Vae:[tinkle] "The worse wined-ones, though; those are the ones I could eat. Not the one who needs the best wine am I. The extra enjoyment already comes to me from the service; nothing more do I need." (She hates that extra enjoyment. I don't know what to do about it, other than have nonprime waiters for her in some for or another.)
Me:"I don't even know what they mean about that wine. I'm sure that all the pears and carrots were poached in the same leather cauldron at the same time, in the same wine. If they really did some with bad wine and some with good, I'm going to speak to Calla. The food's supposed to all be good.."
Vae:"And perhaps she made one batch with bad wine before she noticed it? And should she cast them out the window onto the lakes and mountains below us, uneaten? The backup dish they could be instead, for if anyone should be so very very hungry as to need it!"
Me:"I suppose that they could. Not that I can imagine anyone who's spending one day per day on this voyage being hungry. Calla's serving a lot of food. Anyhow, this is supposed to be as egalitarian a flight as possible. If anything, you get the best treatment; you and Lithia."
Vae:"The kindness that is, yes, but not the needful kindness."
Maybe bringing primes and monsters on the same flight wasn't such a good idea after all.
Hops:"Hey! What are all these bells with cissy stuff on them doing here all of a sudden? Waiter, if this is your idea of a good centerpiece, I'm going to have you knouted 'til your fur falls off."
Inconnu:"M'lordre, I do not know the provinance from whence they came, but we shall discover their provider and apply the most condign and recondite punishments."
Vae fled the room in a buzz of wings. I had to track her down -- she'd gone to her cabin -- and bring her a large tray of the rest of dinner. And assure her that, if anyone was going to punish her, it would be my job to, so she doesn't have to worry about killing one of my friends in response to him trying to punish her.
At least she's not crying this time. That would make her pears all bloody.
So if I'm to pretend to be noble enough to get the "-nob" suffix in Srineian, I need to practice. Or, if I'm to be an effective patron for a pile of socially-inappropriate friends and clients, I need to practice.
So I asked Quendry -- who is, of course, the Supreme Assistant, and has been running around the inhabited fraction of the ship wagging his tail a great deal and only howling a little bit -- to collect Hops and Inconnu for me, one at a time. I sat in state in the fire in a parlor (we really need to name more of the rooms on Strayway, don't we?), and wished that I had thought far enough ahead to put the fireplace higher up. It's hard to be intimidating to a well-over-six-foot-tall cricket-morph when one is a cat-sized lizard sitting in a fireplace on the floor.
Hops looked harried. She was wearing her livery, and twitching her tail this way and that, and walking on four feet but sometimes shifting to two feet and then back to four. It is particularly hard to be intimidating to a tall and brawny cricketmorph when she keeps thumping her black and red striped midlegs on the floor not two feet from one's muzzle. Retreating further into the fireplace -- which I did -- does not make one appear any more impressive. (I've always been particularly afraid of Herethroy feet. They are better armored than most people's feet, and I have twice had my paws broken by Herethroy stepping on them. That is really why I was in the fireplace.)
Hops:"What is it, Sythyry?"
Me:"I'm afraid I'd like to discuss that incident at lunchtime, with you and Inconnu."
Hops:"Oh, I thought you wanted something fetched. I am on duty now, you know."
Me:"No, not that. Quendry is on duty too."
Hops:"I don't see that what Inconnu and I choose to do to amuse ourselves is particularly your business."
I haven't been listening too much to wrongfolk gossip lately. I didn't know there was anything amusing going on between Hops and Inconnu. But, I reasoned, Inconnu is known to be fond of Herethroy -- he is pursuing Calla, after all. Hops is known to be fond of Orren, calling herself married to Tingula. And Herethroy are legally forbidden to be monogamous -- a law that we break at Castle Wrong, like many others -- and Orren usually aren't monogamous either. So it's some sort of lover's spat that spilled over. Or maybe Hops is just proving to Tingula that she likes her better than Inconnu. I've seen that sort of thing before, in cases of permitted adultery.
Me:"I'm sorry; I didn't realize that. Still, could you manage to do it in a way that doesn't upset the nendrai?"
Hops:"I did it in a way that didn't upset the nendrai. Hops upset the nendrai, not me."
Me:"Well, you were being obnoxious to Hops, and he was obnoxious back to you, and Vae got caught in the crossfire."
Hops:"So, we're not allowed to be obnoxious to our friends on this trip, is it?"
Me:"Not that, exactly. Just cut down on the nendrai jokes."
Hops:"Can't do that. At zero already. Besides, you need to talk to Phaniet more than me, for what she said when Vae came on board."
Me:"I did already."
Hops:"So: you called me in here 'specially to tell me to continue to do what I'm already doing, right?"
Me:"Um ... well, yes, pretty much."
Hops:"Can I get back to doing it?"
Me:"Yes. Sorry to bother you."
Most of an hour later, Inconnu bounced into the room.
Inconnu:"Hi Sythyrs! What's up? What's great?"
Me:"I'm afraid I'd like to discuss that incident at lunchtime, with you and Hops." (Since that wording had worked so well with Hops.)
Inconnu:"Oh, that was great!"
Me:"Making the nendrai upset is great?"
Inconnu:"No, not that part! If I've got to wait on people, it's so much more fun if I get to talk like a cross between a Darraden's waiter and a half-daft Academy professor!"
Me:"Yes, but you shouldn't bring Vae into it."
Inconnu:"I guess not. Vae's not waiting tables or anything."
I can follow Orren non-sequiturs as well as anyone can, and defend Vae better than most.
Me:"Vae is earning her passage in other ways."
Inconnu:"Like what?"
Me:"Minor things like protecting the yacht from sky-monsters. But getting the nendrai away from Vheshrame, is the biggest part."
Inconnu:"'Getting...'? That's great, Miss Sythyroid!"
(I wish he wouldn't call me that.)
Me:"Anyhow, she got upset at your little barb."
Inconnu:"Hey, how'd she do that? I was careful! I didn't say I'd treat her any worse than Tingula. And I didn't! There's only one pot of pears and carrots, and everyone eats out of it or they don't get their poachies."
Me:"Well, she thought you were going to. And she thought she deserved it."
Inconnu:"She's a monster! She'd know better than me!"
Me:"Yes, but she's a guest here, and we are being hospitable to her. For one thing, we want her to continue to do her main job of keeping the nendrai away from Vheshrame. For another thing, she isn't that much less acceptable than Lithia, say, or Hops, and those two aren't that much less acceptable than you or me."
Inconnu:"Well, I didn't mean to make her sad ... I'm going to go apologize to her!"
And he was out the door before I could say "Wait."
Well, I certainly can't catch up with an Orren in a wild rush. I poked at my insignia. «Vae, are you there and wearing this?»
«The place of honor it has between my middle wings!»
«There's a crazed Orren coming to try to apologize to you. Could you let him? And try not to do anything much to him for it?»
«The Inconnu that would be, already knocking at my door?»
(So I watched them, on the theory that, if there were any trouble, I could deal with it better if I knew what had happened than if I did not. Also, of course, I am nosy and eavesdroppy.)
Vae:"Hiio, Inconnu!"
Inconnu:"I'mheretoapologize! I'mveryverysorry! I'meversosorryyou'reamonster! I'msorryallover!"
Vae:"I, too, am sorry I'm a monster."
Inconnu:"OhnoIdidn'tmeanitlikethat! ImeantI'msorryIservedyoutehbadpears!"
Vae:"And did you serve me the bad pears? "
Inconnu:"NobutIshouldhaveservedyouthegoodones!"
Vae:"And were there any good ones?"
Inconnu:"Ohyesallthepearsweregood. NotthecarrotsIhatecarrots. I'msorryIservedyoucarrots!"
Vae:"Not a bit do I hate carrots."
Inconnu:"ThenI'msorryIservedyoupears!"
Vae:"Not a bit do I hate pears either!"
Inconnu:"ThenI'msorrybutIdon'tknowwhatI'msorryfor! ButI'mreallyreallysorry!"
Vae:"The apology you offer to me is the apology I accept."
Inconnu:"Ohthankyouthankyouthankyou!" He blinked a few times. "Ididit! I'malive! I'mstillalive! IinsultedthenendraibutI'mstillalive!"
Vae:"The life and the unharmed are still upon you! The congratulations are in order!"
Inconnu scrambled off, out of insignia-sight, chanting "I'malive! I'malive! Yeah!".
Vae said to me, «The apology is accepted; the Orren is unhurt; the monster is once again defeated.»
«Are you unhappy?» (Because she usually is.)
«Not a bit! Would that all my defeats were this easy.»
Quendry wandered back to the parlor. "Hello, Aunt Sythyry! I am still working! Is there anything I can do for you or get you now, because I am the Supreme Assistant!"
"You are indeed the Supreme Assistant. Do you still have affan in Funny Noises?"
Quendry hopped on a chair. (Yes, hopped. Bouncing on the cushion on one foot.) "I do! I have the affan! Bloop-boop poop!"
"Could you be supremely assistantly and go make funny noises at Inconnu for me?"
Quendry bounced around almost like an Orren. "I can! I will making funny noises all over him!"
| Player | Final Score |
| Inconnu | Unpunished and repentant |
| Hops | Unpunished and unrepentant |
| Vae | Elegant and noble |
| Quendry | Bloop-boop poop |
| Sythyry | Uneffective, and, for extra humiliation, now has a crush on Inconnu. |
This is why Zi Ri do not run the World Tree.
I was going to pilot Strayway during dinnertime tonight. But my incessant and excessive use of mighty sorceries has rendered my natural rhythms unrhythmable, so, halfway throught the dinner hour, I was ravenous.
(In case your native magic system, unlike mine, can actually make you hungry, I must point out that what I said is utterly ridiculous. I could cast spells until I could cast no more -- which is about sixty spells or so, and would take about eleven or twelve minutes -- and I would be no hungrier nor more exhausted than when I started. So what I said is entirely and utterly preposterous, or would sound that way to a prime. Nonetheless it is true. I will explain at some point.)
So, I parked Strayway over a convenient pond.
And then I looked out to see whose convenient pond it was. Two overdressed Herethroy youths looked back at me.
Me:"Ahoy, Herethroy on the shore! May I ask whose land this is?"
Herethroy:"Ahoy, the ... is that a skyboat? This is Granniston, owned by Baron Grannis. Who are you?"
Me:"I am Sythyry, a wizard of Vheshrame. May I anchor my skyboat here for an hour?"
Herethroy:"Sorry, don't know you. I'll go ask Mommy."
Other Herethroy:"Don't bother, it'll be the whole hour to find her and get back here. You may stay here an hour, if you wish, O wizard. Or over the public pond over there. Why do you want to stay over a pond anyways?"
Me:"Thank you! Because it's out of the way generally."
So I got to go to dinner afterall.
I did not make a grand entrance into the dining room. I usually don't. Except occasionally in Castle Wrong, where the door was too big and heavy and stuck for me to open by myself, and I sometimes would have clamour outside of it. The doors in Strayway are mostly lighter and not yet sticky, so I just slipped in, and took over Ochirion's plate as he abandoned it to go off and play with Quendry.
Which was an excellent opportunity to watch Inconnu from across the room.
Inconnu:"Hops! Hops! Come here this instant, you lazy sluggard!" He was at a table with Windigar, Jyondre and Yerenthax, all three of them looking dangerously amused. (Yes, dangerously. Three Orren and one Gormoror, remember.)
Hops:"M'lordre, I hasten to obey despite having all four hands full of delectable viands and potent beverages!" Which was true, at least if one considers barley-water to be potent. Perhaps it was spiked with something.
Inconnu:"Hops! Do I detect a note of disparagement in your voice?"
Hops:"Inco...M'lordre, I certainly hope you do not detect one, because, if you did, I daresay I should be sent to the brig and, um, be forced to wear nothing but brigandine."
[Ketherian wordplay, however lame, is translated into even lamer English wordplay. -bb]Windigar:"Do we even have a brig?"
Yerenthax:"Och, I've got a brogue!" (She doesn't.)
Hops:"Then listening to it would be a fitting punishment for disparaging you, if I had been, which I wasn't."
Inconnu:"Well, as soon as you have finished your so-called other duties, I order you to go to the pantry and get me some more butter! And none of that awful horse-milk butter you brought last time, either. I want the best butter!"
Hops:"Very well, m'lordre. You shall have butter fit for a wizard!"
I promise, I wasn't offended at that, not a bit. But I did have to fly over and talk to them.
Me:"Inconnu? Why are you taunting Hops like that?"
Inconnu:"Ack! It's Sythyry!"
Me:"Yes, actually."
Inconnu:"Windigar! You said zie was piloting!"
Windigar:"I thought zie was. Sythyry, who's flying the yacht?"
Me:"We're probably plummeting over the edge of the branch. Or perhaps parked over the famous pond of the famous Baron Grannis of Granniston."
Windigar:"Well. If you think your automatic guardians are sufficient to keep the baron's forces off, and if you don't mind getting a bit behind schedule, you may join us at table."
Me:"The schedule's pretty sloppy anyways, and the baron's children seem friendly. Hops? Could you do me the kindness of bringing me Ochirion's leftovers?"
Hops:[returning with the butter, then looking rather alarmed to see me.]"Um ... Sythyry?"
Me:"Yes?"
Hops:"What are you doing here?"
Me:"Trying to eat dinner. Failing, too, it seems."
Hops:"It's not about you! Really!"
Me:"Well, Ochirion was finished with it."
Hops:"Not the dinner..."
Me:"Oh, you are speaking of your mysterious feud with Inconnu? I am glad that it is not about me. I do wish that you and he would keep it private though."
Inconnu:"Sorry! Sorrysorry! Sorrysorrysorry!"
Windigar, Yerenthax, Jyondre:(Considerable laughter)
Me:"... what?"
Yerenthax:"It's not a feud."
Me:"Hmph! I am then sorry I did not recognize the sweet squeaky sounds of true love in their horrible threats and insults at each other!"
Inconnu:"Wellnonotreallypleasedon'ttellCallaanywaysyet"
Yerenthax:"Not that exactly either. They are playing at being nobles when it's not their work shift, and being downtrodded servants when it is their turn."
Windigar:"It's 'downtrodden'."
Yerenthax:"It's both,they're so miserable."
I sort of covered my head with one wing. "It's a game?"
Inconnu:"Well um yes sort of but not really because it's just a game."
Hops:"It's just a game. Nothing in it should give you any offense for the institution of nobility."
Yerenthax:"But they weren't sure, so they didn't want to do it around you any more."
Me:"I don't really care. Just don't upset the nendrai with it any more."
Inconnu:"See!Itoldyouziewouldn'tmind! Andyouweresoconvincedofthedoomthatyouhadmeconvincedtoo!"
Me:"And certainly don't do it around foreigners. Especially if they're real nobles. They might get offended somehow."
Hops:"And out come the complaints and restrictions and exceptions."
Me:"I'm trying to keep everyone safe!"
Hops:"Scared little lizard!"
Jyondre:"Fetch me another tankard of foaming barley water, aged a thousand years in the ancient cellars beneath our noble vessel the Strayway!"
Hops:"Immediately, M'lordre, or perhaps somewhat sooner if the tankards are clean."
It seemed far and away the best course of action, at that point, to sit in a very small parlor with a very big window and peer at the landscape zooming past. Windigar had given the antelopes their heads, and, I believe, some dried apples stuffed with chili peppers, and Strayway was rampaging across the sky at perhaps fifteen miles an hour. (I can't get her to go that fast.) I didn't want to distract Windigar too much when he was doing that.
Lithia was sitting by the window when I got in, sketching clouds and the world-spike over Ketheria in a thick notebook, looking very Rassimel and serious. She waved her tailtip as I flew in. "Good morning, Aunt Sythyry."
"And to you too! What are you doing?" I said.
"Nothing someone else couldn't do better," she said, and flipped the sketchbook closed. "I think the couch in that study back there is upset."
"I can't help pick it up," I said. Which is, in retrospect, not true. I could manage it with a simple little Ruloc spell -- that's not wizardry, nearly anyone could do that. But each of my spells costs one cley, and I only get so many cley a day, and I can do a great deal more with one cley. So I don't use magic for such things in the morning, unless I'm trapped under the couch or something. (Late at night, with my cley getting erased and replenished in a few hours, I am more casual.)
"It's not flipped over. It's distraught. It asked me to stuff it in the fireplace," she said.
"Heavens. I didn't know they were capable of that much emotion," I said.
She shrugged. "Well, you built it. Maybe you need to adjust it or something."
Which isn't exactly true. I built three gadgets which would render furniture intelligent, and added them to the mix as the interior of Strayway was crystallizing. It's a new technique -- the whole crystallization of houses I mean -- and I suppose might have some imperfections in it. I only vaguely understand how it works.
"I hope not. I don't know how to adjust it."
So we went to talk to the couch in the study. It was a large couch, a horseshoe round the fireplace, big enough for six Herethroy if they liked each other. Or alternating Herethroy and Gormoror if they were traff, I suppose. It was upholstered in tapestry fabric with blue roasts surrounded by baked carrots and turnips. It was rather ugly.
"You! You refused to grant my dying wish!" squeaked the couch.
"It's not your dying wish if you don't die," said Lithia reasonably. "And I don't want you to die."
The couch whined, "Destroy me, burn me, hurl me into the flaming chasm and let me become the floating ashes of peace!"
"I won't do that. Why on wood do you want such a thing?" Lithia asked.
The couch wailed, "The universe is a cruel and wicked place. The front door is calling to me, calling and calling. It seeks to lure me outside, so that I may pash myself into a broken heap on the ground below, and endure in sorrow and rain there forever."
"But you're sessile. You couldn't get to the front door -- you can't even get to the fireplace right in front of you," I pointed out. "Besides, the front door isn't sentient."
"The antelopes hate me too. They mock me. They flick their tails to me and show me their nether parts," continued the couch. "They are the demigods of Strayway, and they despise me."
"Well, the nether parts are because they're facing away from the yacht, so when you look out the window, that's the side you see," explained Lithia, quite sensibly.
"The chandelier! It brays how when it is lit, it will drip hot wax upon me, and the sting thereof shall be my eternal pain!"
I looked at the chandelier, but it wasn't intelligent either.
"I think you're making most of this up, couch," I said.
"And my very creator despises me and sides with my enemies against me! Oh, I have no friend in the entire universe, from port to starboard, from bow to stern, from sub-basement to observation deck! No friend, no ally, no consort! Deliver me to the embrace of the flames, merciful Rassimel!"
(to be continued...)
The following conversation has happened four times in the last two days, with four different people. The words were, of course, exactly the same every time, down to the intonations. I have transcribed them precisely, which is easy, because I have heard them so often.
Someone:"My lover, if I have one, or a companion otherwise, informs me that we're stopping at Oorah Thrassen."
Me:"Yes, for a few days."
Someone:"My child or children, if any, find this to be a terrifying prospect! I admit to considerable fear myself!"
Me:"Why?"
Someone:"I have not the slightest idea! It could not be the ancient emnity between Oorah Thrassen and our dear native city of Vheshrame, which has been the cause of a bouquet of parti-colored wars over the last several centuries."
Me:"We haven't been at war for a few years though. And not as much at all since, well, they mostly won the conflicts of the last century."
Someone:"But surely they are all taught in elementary school that the only proper treatment for Vheshrame natives such as myself is to disembowel me and use my carapace for a cradle for their children, should I happen to have a carapace, or to flay my hide off and tan it and use it for a cooking pot otherwise!"
Me:"Well, yes, I'm sure they are, but like schoolchildren everywhere they pay no attention to their lessons."
Someone else:(snickers.)
Being thus comforted on one point, they produce another one.
Someone:"Nor could it be the fearsome reputation that the Oorish wizards and the utterly alarming and murderous Gormoror Verticals-tribes who are their allies."
Me:"Nor? Oh, you're still listing things you're pretending not to be afraid of, just like the three people ahead and/or behind you."
Someone:"Well? Are you good enough a wizard to ward us from all of their spells and evil plans?"
Me:"No."
Someone:"Perhaps your tame nendrai is sufficient to the task, then?"
Me:"I'm sure she could protect herself."
Vae:"If I were present, which according to Sythyry always or never happens in these conversations (I'm not sure which), I would vehemently declare that I would protect the whole of Strayway at need."
Me:"In this situation, need is not very likely. My grandparents would get rather upset if Sazandigraa and I hurt each other."
Someone:"Relying on the terrible but incompetant wrath of Glikkonen is no great protection!"
Me:"And Yylhauntra and Verehinga and Myrihaaveinen, and Caathestaa if zie were still alive."
Someone:"Wait, all of your first-generation Zi Ri ancestors?"
Me:"Yes, in fact."
Someone:"But how can this be?"
Me:"My geneology is [(Yylhauntra & Caathestaa) & Myrihaaveinen] & [Glikkonen & Verehinga]. Sazandigraa has about the same grandparents, just arranged differently: [Yylhauntra & Glikkonen] & [Myrihaaveinen & (Verehinga & Caathestaa)]."
Someone:"So you're relatives?"
Me:"Geneologically speaking, I think we're the same person."
Someone:"But relatives make the bitterest enemies!"
Me:"Bitter like fine kathia, my friend. Bitter like fine kathia."
Being thus thoroughly and inexorably reassured on the second point, they must find a third reason to dread.
Someone:"And the central role and terrible prominence of the Temple of the Dark Trinity -- which is, after all, you observe, dedicated to their best guess of the three most fearsome of our collection of noxious and doomsome gods."
Me:"Well, it's only Gnarn, Iraz Varuun, and Accanax. If I were picking a Dark Trinity, I'd got for "Here", Flokin, and Iraz Varuun, the way they do in New Kottarnu."
Someone:"But Gnarn made the Sleeth and the nendrai!"
Vae:"If I were present, I would hiss and whisper imprecations and execrations towards my unbeloved and cruel creator goddess. And, as I may, in fact, be present: 'The wicked-enough one is Gnarn, for my taste.'"
Someone:"And Accanax made the Khtsoyis!"
Me:"And a Khtsoyis made your livery. Which I must say flatters your elegant and so-characteristic-of-your-species figure!"
Someone:"No flirting please! This is serious!"
Me:"I don't think the gods are any more or less likely to show up in person outside the Temple of the Dark Trinity than inside of it. If you avoid the main altar room, you should be as safe as you usually are."
Someone:"Well, of course I thought of all these explanations of why I should not fear this leg of the voyage already. They can't have anything to do with it at all. I expect it's the weather. Those clouds look as if they might fall on the skyboat and break it at any minute, or they would, if they were made of brick. "
Me:"Fortunately, they are puffy moist foggy things, almost alarmingly identical to every other cloud on the World Tree."
Someone:"That is comforting, Sythyry. Indeed, I am so comforted that I am going to indulge in a large chalice full of our most recreational brandy, strewn about with calming herbs and sprinkled with lavender perfume."
Me:"A pleasure to be of service to you."
The sun was full of fire, but we couldn't see it. There was a main trunk in the way. Seen from, I think, two miles away, the main trunk is an impressive towering wall, extending forever up and forever down, or it might as well. I ought to try to describe it more, but a hundred thousand poets have done so already, and some of them actually have some skill, so I won't.
We hadn't quite gotten to the skybridge when Sazandigraa came charging over to us. Sazandigraa drives a charming but quite conventional chariot through the sky: a white gazebo or tholos with ivy twining its pillars, drawn through the air by three immense pure-white geese. It's fast, though: faster than Strayway.
The geese honked in unison, "Ahoy, the Strayway!"
I teleported (from lunch) to the cockpit, and told my antelopes to roar back, "Ahoy, the Ice Gleam!"
"May I come over?" zie called.
"Of course! Please do!"
"Well, where do I come in? You've got any number of doors on that yacht."
"I'll meet you in the air!"
So I wasted another cley -- and it's only about noontime -- teleporting to the middle air between the skyboats. Sazandigraa did the same, and we hooted at each other and embraced in a tangle of wings.
Sazandigraa:"Coz! It's good to finally meet you in person, after all those letters and all those wars!"
Me:"Yes, indeed. May I invite you aboard the Strayway, wherein there is excellent brandy, and a slightly-in-progress and distinctly Herethroy sort of lunch already in progress?"
Sazandigraa:"Thank you! Let's go!"
Which gave me a chance to look at my closer-than-a-cousin. Today, at least, zie is more avian than I am. We both have feathers -- our line does run to feathers -- but zie has a beak, a rather elegant hawk's beak, looking carved out of blue malachite. Zir feathers are brilliant red on the back, shading to a white so white that it actually glows in the centers of zir wings. Zir flanks are azure, and dusted with glowing squares that suggest the forms of the stars. Zir underbelly switches back to red, with light-drinking pools of blackness right under the bright spots on zir wings. (I don't know what zie looks like without all the cosmetic spells. But then, I doubt zie knows what I look like without mine.) Zie wore only two ribbons, one of which contained a small arsenal of sorcerous weapons, and the other of which matched zir red feathers beautifully.
Sazandigraa:"Coz, it is every bit as gaudy as you said it would be."
Me:"Well, if I can't coat my skyboat with silver, what can I coat?"
Sazandigraa:"I heard that one of our half-cousins had just the same thought. But zie got the idea of coating zirself."
Me:"That sounds unwise. The last time someone did that, zie nearly broke a branch of the tree off." (Referring to a relative who, for reasons that probably seemed sufficient at the time, turned zirself into steel and grew to a truly monsterous size.)
Sazandigraa:"Exactly. It was one of Steelwings' children."
Me:"Metal styling must run in their family the way feathers do in ours."
Sazandigraa giggles like bubbles in brandy.
Sazandigraa:"Did you really populate the entire vessel with the transaffectionate?"
Me:"More or less."
Sazandigraa:"I hope you'll tell me which ones I should offend early, to avoid extraneous flirtations? I have made a solemn vow not to take any more mortal lovers."
Me:"I didn't bring anyone who particularly fancies Zi Ri. Not that I know of, in any case. If your assistant comes over, he may get a few looks he should be prepared to ignore."
Sazandigraa:"Really? Who, then, is your lover on board?"
Me:"Well, nobody."
Sazandigraa:"You've left someone back in writhing Vheshrame? A recent breakup?"
Me:"It's not writhing. And I've been rather single lately ... two decades or so."
Sazandigraa:"Another surprising choice for you! One of many, and none more surprising than staying in Vheshrame in the first place."
Me:"It's my home."
Sazandigraa:"Which doesn't mean you need to stay there. Inihithre is my home, and I make sure to spend a year there every decade. It took you more than a century to get out of Vheshrame even once."
Me:"I've been busy."
Sazandigraa:"When I say, I've been busy, I generally mean I have better things to do with my time than the insipid and tedious task you wish me to do, or something ruder still."
Me:" When I say it, I mean that I've just recently managed to get the nendrai to come with me, so I don't have to stay in Vheshrame and make sure she's peaceful. My main job is being the ambassador to Vae. Greater enchantment is just a little hobby for my spare time."
Sazandigraa:"Ah, the famous Vaisessasilmin has come here? She is perhaps the originator of these extremely creative -- and, now that I inspect them, Mutoc-based -- scrying spells?"
(I had rather intentionally not brought my scrying insigna. Wearing something that says "I'm a Zi Ri wizard!" when one meets one's far older and far more wizardly cousin seemed a bit too arrogant.)
Me:"Yes, that would be her."
Sazandigraa:"Mighty Vaisessasilmin, please forgive me for a moment, but I must obscure your attentions..." Zie did something with Destroc and Illusidor and Magiador. "I imagine she can claw her way through that if she wants, but it should take a little while."
Me:"She could also look out the window. Half my crew is."
Sazandigraa:"Just a quick question, at which I beg your honesty and mean no insult -- does she regard me as an enemy? For we have batted at each others' countries with spells several times."
Me:"You and I have done that too, and we're not enemies." [I am trying to be obscure and oblique in the good Zi Ri style. I meant, "no, not enemies". Sazandigraa knows the good Zi Ri style perfectly well, and evidently understood me.]
Sazandigraa:"You and I, dear coz, are coz and coz. I don't think I'm the least bit related to Vaisessasilmin, not unless one of our grandparents was telling some rather drastic -- if wholly understandable -- lies."
Me:"I daresay you would have noticed. For that matter, I daresay I would have too: your powers of Mutoc, while utterly worthy of a member of the family, are not drastically unusual."
Sazandigraa:"I must ask -- the rumors are thick in Oorah Thrassen. There are other kinds of relative than relatives by blood."
Me:"Vae's mate is a very nice three-headed monstrosity named Oixe. If either has been unfaithful to the other, I haven't heard about it, and I am Vae's confidante as well as her handler. I will admit that Vae is my oldest friend, and that I one of those who lusts after other species: but only primes."
Sazandigraa:"That is probably just as well. I shall endeavour to correct the rumors, if I hear them. So, to summarize: this shall be an ordinary visit with an enemy wizard and a nendrai, uncharged with particular hatred or peculiar love?"
Me:"I imagine that is enough danger for one day!"
Sazandigraa:"You will be staying for more than one day, or so I hope!"
Me:"Not here! In Oorah Thrassen, yes."
Sazandigraa:"Well, it's obviously not enough danger for the whole visit. Will you come to the Temple of the Dark Trinity with me?"
Me:"I should hope so!"
Mostly they went very politely.
Me:"Este, I'd like you to meet my long-lost cousin Sazandigraa. Saza, please meet Este, who is the Supreme Repairiste of That Which Is Splintered Assunder."
(Yes, we are on thusly informal terms already.)
Este:"It is my honor to meet you, Lord Sazandigraa."
Saza:"And it gives me great comfort to know that, should aught be splintered assunder in my dear coz' mysterious voyage, a Rassimel man of skill and dignity will be on hand to swiftly desplinter it."
See? It's not actually all that hard to be polite.
But sometimes this happens. Saza was sitting on Ochirion's shoulder, having just been introduced to the lad.
Me:"Grinwipey, I'd like [interrupted]"
Grinwipey:"I know what you'd like best, but my fudd-whucker ain't getting anywhere near your zoozoo."
Me:"That's not [interrupted]"
Grinwipey:"So I'll give you what you'd like second best, and me I'd like first best. Got my clubs right here, got your cousin right there. Ochirion, throw that lizard inna air, and we'll have some three-club music in whango-jango time!"
Me:"Grinwipey, I don't want [interrupted]"
Grinwipey:"Hey there, red and feathery! What kind of flowers you like on your burying shroud? I'm a good embroiderer, me! Lay you out like that pretty pretty pancake!"
Me:"Grinwipey, please [interrupted]!"
Saza:"Ooh, duelling time already? Sythyry, your champion is a veritable stallion of eagerness for a fight!"
Me:"He's not my champion, he's my seamstress!"
Grinwipey:"Ain't for Sythyry, 's for my uncle Eggnoster!"
Me:"What?"
Grinwipey:"Hey, red lizard, let's get shing on a wing and see if your blood matches your fluffies! You're brave enough to burn Eggnoster from the comfort 'n privacy of your very own lab while some snoofly little bit froddles you. Are you brave enough to go up sparrow-and-clam with me, right here right now?"
Saza:"Well, are you brave enough to spin the fancy keys with me?"
Me:"You don't have to accept that [interrupted]"
Grinwipey:"Sure as I can piss'n'whistle! Snaggardly little frosty-pet of an Oorish wizard!"
Saza:"Quite all right, coz. I won't hurt him very much, and then we'll get back to the proper etiquette with the rest of your crew."
Grinwipey:"It ain't gonna be this me that's hurting from cramming my good tolly-crack-up up your sweet little pishlet!"
Saza:"Quite so, my good squid, quite so." Zie produced a pair of ivory chopsticks from zir arsenal. "Whenever it meets your convenience, you may feel free to avenge your dear uncle."
Me:"No! Fighting! On! The! Yacht!"
Grinwipey:"This won't be so much a fight as it will be a pudding dance."
Phaniet:"No pudding dancing on the yacht!"
Me:"Grinwipey, stop that at once! Saza, I must apologize!"
Saza:"Well, coz, if you must, I suppose you must, but, seeing as I really did kill his uncle twice or thrice, I feel that I owe him a chance for similar treatment if he wants it."
Me:"You what?"
Grinwipey:"He gave my uncle the cacking pan and the churns! Couldn't statter for months afterwards, could poor old Eggnoster!"
Saza:"One pass at arms, my good squid, and that will be the end of the matter between us."
Grinwipey:"One pass at arms, you pus-crusted bustard, and that will be the giffering end of the matter! And of the tightness of your sphincters too!"
Vae:[whispered by a spell] "Not a bit was I teaching Grinwipey his manners, I swear it!"
Me:"Grinwipey! You didn't tell me you had a mortal enemy in Oorah Thrassen! 'specially one of my relatives!"
Grinwipey:"What you don't know, won't shuffle your duffle! Or maybe it will, haw!"
Saza:"When you are ready, my good squid."
Grinwipey:"That would be just ... about ... now." He curled a tentacle under his livery, and pulled out a club with a distinctly illegal spell on it .
Saza:"Oh, my. This could be bad."
Grinwipey had an intricately-carved spiked club, with a spell of mild oblivion on it. Anyone struck by it would forget (I estimated) the last three or four minutes, unless they resisted the spell. And it wasn't a terribly strong spell: any reasonable adventurer could fight it off, probably, or anyone willing to spend two cley for those memories. It wouldn't have worried me -- or Rheng, say -- that much as a weapon, and shouldn't have worried Saza either, I didn't think.
Grinwipey:"Yah, so very bad. Hey, you wanna know what's the one thing worse than me having a club with this Accanax-bootering forgetty spell on it?"
Saza:"I suppose I should find out."
Grinwipey:"Spiggin' right you should -- spiggin' right you will! The one thing worse is, m'aged mother has one too, and m'dear auntie in Inihithre also got one. 'n they're way-the-vootsies out of range of anything you've got."
Saza:"Well then." Zie put zir chopsticks away. "May I surrender now, please?"
Grinwipey:"Sure, and I think you ought to buy Uncle Eggnoster a nice bit brandy to cheer him up after what you did to him."
Saza:"I see. How nice a bit of brandy?"
Grinwipey:"Let's say, a hundred and seventy thousand lozens worth."
Saza:"That's quite a bit of brandy."
Grinwipey:"He's got a lot of forgetting to do, does poor Uncle Eggnoster. As do we all. Gotta forget those curses you put on him, and how unhappy they made him. Gotta forget about these forgetty clubs too, don't he? Only he doesn't want to use them on himself."
Saza:"Still..."
Grinwipey:"Aww, you look like you're startin' to appreciate the inconvenience 'n sorrow you put our family through. Seein' as that is rather what we're after -- the appreciating I mean -- I think we can appreciate the inconvenience you might have trying to get all that brandy shipped to Vheshrame. So we'll make you just appreciate the inconvenience. You don't have to buy the brandy yourself. You can just send the lozens to the Bank of Teleportin' Hexagons, and we'll do the actual acquisitions."
Saza:"I don't have that much money."
Grinwipey:"Well, I ain't about to ruin your family reunion by dickering. You don't want to look mingey and poor in front of your young cousin here, do you? We'll take it in kind."
Saza:"I suppose you will."
Grinwipey:"Some shoggy'll be in touch in a few days. Okie, that's all the pudding dance! Now go enjoy the reunion, spaggot!"
Saza turned to me, zir wings shaking. "Sythyry, may I speak to you privately for a moment?"
"Of course."
Zie popped us into a spare universe. "I need your help. And I suppose I owe you an explanation."
"If you want, Saza."
"I do. So you know the real story. Your Khtsoyis might embroider a bit."
"That is his job. Not blackmailing my relatives. I am going to point that out to him."
Saza shook zir head. "I suppose zie's got a hobby too. Or a tentacle in the family business, it sounds like. Anyhow. You're an enchanter, right?"
"You know I am," I said.
"I never got much into that. I tried a bit, but I hate getting up at dawn every day. Don't know how you and Grandparent manage it. I'm in the family trade of course, but not that end. Ritual magic." (Ritual magic is the art of casting exceedingly complicated spells that often exceed the bounds of what magic is supposed to be able to do. It is useful, but not terribly well-loved: by primes or by god.)
"I have noticed that. You generally defeat me with ritual magic," I said, which is roughly true.
"And I've got four households in four cities to keep up. Which takes a good bit of cash. And ritual magic is a spotty trade these decades: sometimes there's plenty of call for it in a year, and sometimes there's not. So sometimes I take work that's not really very good to do in cities."
"Like putting forgetfulness spells on nicely-carved wooden clubs?"
"Like mind-tying the Traitors of Tauvane, three hundred ... no, nearly four hundred years ago," Saza said. "It was a wicked end to a wicked business in all ways. There was a bit of an uproar in Craitheia about it. I won't try to justify what I did, but I lived in Tauvane at the time, and my house was one of the ones that burned, and my friends were some of the primes who died. Our grandparents didn't approve of the mind-tying ... lots of people didn't approve. They made me vow never to use Mentador ritual magic again."
I flicked my tail against the bumpy floor of the spare universe. "I suppose that those clubs were yours, then?"
Zie drooped. "I'm afraid so. I needed money; I usually do. A Khtsoyis chieftan from Dlesty -- that's a country thousands of miles away on Choinxeia -- commissioned them from me. He wanted someone far enough to be untraceable and unproblematic at home, his messenger said, and of course the clubs would be far enough away to be untraceable and unproblematic for me. And the price was very good."
"It could be very good indeed, if Grinwipey's uncle was going to get it back as blackmail."
"Get it back and more. I still have four households to pay for. I'm going to have to work my wings off, and scare up a lot of business," zie said with a sigh. "I hate having to work more than two or three weeks a year!"
"If I hear of anyone wanting ritual magic, I'll send them to you," I said. "I'll write to the guard in Vheshrame on your behalf, say."
"That will be a help. But there's the favor I need to ask."
I tilted my head, and wished my crest didn't sway when I did that. "What favor?"
"Can you get your people not to talk about this? A dozen of them must have seen it. If word gets back to Verehinga, I'd be better off cutting off my own head."
"I will do what I can. There were eight people in the room, and six of us are traff and used to keeping secrets. And if Grinwipey were going to tell Verehinga, he'd have done it already. For that matter, Ochirion is used to keeping his mother's secrets. I'll let them know it's important."
"Thank you." Zie twisted zir tail. "This is not how I wanted to introduce myself to you when we finally got to meet."
"Nor me. I didn't know I had your enemy on my yacht. I'd have left him at home."
We apologized to each other for a while more, and then he popped the miniature universe and precipitated us back to ordinary reality. I stopped the full introductions, though. Phaniet, Vae, Saza, and I retreated to my laboratory, and did our best to discuss inconsequential and pleasant things. And offer soothing teas -- not brandy -- to my dismal cousin.
Me:"I am tempted to evict Grinwipey, if not outright execute him."
Saza:"I don't recommend executing him, coz. Executing his uncle did not work very well for me."
Me:"I'm entirely within my rights to evict him from my ship. In mid-air."
Saza:"I beg you to reconsider, coz. It is rather important to me that everything appear as normal as possible. I should very much dislike anyone asking questions such as, 'Why did Sythyry toss zir client and expert artist out of the skyboat all of a sudden?'"
Me:"Evicting a foulmouthed Khtsoyis is hardly that unusual."
Saza:"Though how you had managed not to notice that he was a foulmouthed Khtsoyis before now is somewhat of a mystery."
Me:"People may dismiss it as a lover's quarrel. I'm sure they suspect me as it is."
Saza:"I should prefer the pretence of utter and complete normality. And not for the sake of your reputation, coz. Though I do appreciate the offer of a sacrifice."
Me:"OK, nothing that awakens outside suspicions. I am going to go yell at him."
Because I am so very, very good at yelling at people.
I confronted my evil Khtsoyis in his bedroom.
Me:"That wasn't at all appropriate."
Grinwipey:"Neither's torturing a poor honest shoggie just doing his job. Neither's making those Gnarn-nuggering mind control spells."
Me:"You have an acute sense of justice, then?"
Grinwipey:"Nothing cute on a shoggy."
Me:"Stop acting cute, then."
Rather to my surprise, he did.
Grinwipey:"My point being, when my aged mother found out I was going out of town with you 'n the grail-tail for a few years, 'n visiting your relatives on the way, she comes up with a helpful little errand I can do. I'm just her messenger, is all. And just your seamstress."
Me:"Well, do you have any other messages or errands or ... anything else I'm going to be unhappy about when it happens?"
Grinwipey:"Nah, nothing I expect you'll be unhappy about. One more message, though."
Me:"Care to show me in advance? Your other choice being to float back to Vheshrame."
Grinwipey:"Can't really show you in advance, just ain't possible."
Me:"Then you'd better ... [interrupted]"
Grinwipey:"Aw, I don't mean to smutter your butter, Sythyry. All I'm sayin' is it's a message to you, 'n I can't properly show you before I show you, now, can I? "
Me:"I suppose I must genuflect before the altar of logic. But what is this message?"
So Grinwipey floated over and flipped a box open. Two bottles of excellent brandy, a box of excellent meditation incense, and a set of green ribbons. Underneath, a cloth reading: With Supreme Apologies. -e -g
Grinwipey:"'-g' is me."
Me:"Apology or no apology, I am still responsible for you, as your patron. If you involve me in any more plots against my relatives, I will ... prove harder to blackmail than Sazandigraa. I don't have any secrets bigger than the occasional crush that I don't do anything about."
Grinwipey:"Sure, me 'n m'aged mother 'n m'uncle and all are quivering all our tentacles at the thought of your wizardly wrath." He shook a few tentacles to make his point more plausible, though I didn't much believe it. "I'll be good as groundnuts from now on. Good as poodle-shagging groundnuts."
I didn't much believe that either, but ... I am trying to take care of him, out of regard for his art at least. And of course I can't evict Grinwipey without risking getting Sazandigraa's story revealed, if nothing else, and that's Sazandigraa's call.
Me:"It's hard to discipline a Khtsoyis who is holding blackmail materials on you, but I have done what I could do. Rather, what I could do without actively causing you trouble."
Saza:"I appreciate that."
Me:"What approach shall we take?"
Saza:"We shall pretend that it never happened. I am expecting to pay a great deal for this pretense. I want to get my money's worth."
Me:"Very well. We'll continue with the visit as originally planned?"
Saza:"That would be for the best."
Me:"May I help with the payment?"
Saza:"I would take that as a great kindness." Zie finished zir brandy. "I suppose it is time to go see what other surprises lurk amidst your crew."
Me:"None, I hope."
Which was an utterly vain hope, given my crew.
Quendry:"Uncle Saza! Uncle Saza! I maked you a wonderful sprize!"
Saza:"Sprizes are always wonderful, and so I thank you, Quendry Arfaen's-son." In a thousand years I suppose one learns the art of concealing one's emotions and being polite and cheerful in public.
Mellilot:"He worked all morning on it."
Quendry:"And I taked a bath, and I baked a bread rolls, and I shaked a rattle! That rhymes! It rhymes three times!"
Saza:"That rhymes too."
Quendry: [dancing around the room wagging his tail.] "A rhymes, three times ... some limes! All primes!"
Vae:"Not all primes, truly, but most."
Mellilot:"Quendry, the surprise."
Quendry:"The surprise!" He picked up a rather basic red cloth ribbon to which some glittery things had been attached with glue. "Here! This is your special Strayway wearing ribbon! Everyone will let you on the yacht when you are wearing this ribbon! It is special! This is you on the ribbon!" Saza looked rather like a picture of a squashed spider. "This is mommy!" Arfaen was an armless shape with an immense tail. "This is Ochirion!" Ochirion was a few tangled circles. "This is a talking couch!" It had some corners, in any case.
Saza wrapped it around zir neck as best zie could, getting glitter on zir feathers
Saza:"Why, Quendry, thank you. This is absolutely the best surprise I have received today."
Which was very true.
We were curled up together, politely, in the fireplace in my cabin to sleep. This is conventional manners for Zi Ri, I might note, and should not be mistaken for what it might mean if, say, two Rassimel were curled up in bed together, or two Sleeth. Even if I had been cisaffectionate, Saza was hardly in a receptive mood, much less a proceptive one.
Saza:"Sythyry, I am afraid that what I am going to say is unjustified, but I must say it. If I learn today that you were involved in this blackmail, I will forgive you, this year or this century as befits the circumstances. But if I learn about it tomorrow, I will never forgive you at all."
Me:"Fair enough. There's nothing to learn though. It was a surprise to me. If Grinwipey told me anything about it, he did it with such a slanty cant that I can't understand it."
Saza:"You've been taking rhyming lessons from Quendry, haven't you? I believe you. But if you are lying, I will be as unkind as I can arrange."
Me:"I had nothing to do with it. If you want to be sure ... do you have a truth-spell?"
I asked that with more than a little trepidation. Offering to allow zir to use mind-magic on me is somewhere between terrifying and disgusting. Even asking the question makes clear that zie is a mind-mage, which, though true, is not really a point I want to emphasize today.
Saza:"Yes, I do, as it happens. I'm very sorry. If I don't use it now, I am going to worry about it forever."
Me:"Saza, I would rather trust your sorcery than give you extra trouble. Coz."
So zie did. I stared at the spell to make sure it was Detect A Lie, which it was. It's not as hard for me to tolerate such things as for most people. I'm used to Vae casting mind magic on me, and breaking my ribs, and all sorts of things that are not acceptable in polite society. Somehow I've managed to be friends with her. Somehow I will manage to be friends with Sazandigraa as well.
Me:"I told you the full truth of what I knew and when I knew it; Grinwipey concealed it from me altogether, and I had nothing to do with it."
Saza:"Thank you, coz"
After which I had a sobbing cousin in my wings and fireplace, for rather a long time. There are no further interesting details, though.
We (the Strayway) have been flying a bit slower than we expected, mainly due to stopping a lot when both pilots were elsewise busy. So we (Phaniet, Vae, Saza, and me) were running late for our scheduled luncheon with the wizards of Oorah Thrassen. Which, naturally, meant hopping into Saza's conservative flying gazebo, prying Strayway's antelopes off the gazebo's geese, and charging at top speed to a spot in the middle air off the skybridge. Watching the sun roll out from behind the main trunk at exactly noontime was part of the aesthetics of the meeting. I'm pretty sure there are some Rassimel involved.
Kzip la Hish was already there. La Hish's skyboat was an even more conservative two-masted boatish thing, gleaming green. La Hish herself was also somewhat gleaming green, having dressed in shiny silk that roughly matched her airship and would not have looked out of place if she were working in a bank. Under the silk she's a very unremarkable-looking Rassimel woman with squirrel styling.
Otresto arrived just barely on time. No skyboat for him -- he doesn't have one. (And, of course, it Would Not Do for him to get a ride with anyone else.) He flew straight from Oorat Thrassen on a sentient wind spell. He's a Rassimel man with ridiculous lavender and crimson fur, and wearing an insane and traumatic confection of leather, ribbons, disks of five kinds of metal, and a draping velvet cloak. I think his clothes weighed more than Saza and I together. Despite that, they left his entire front side naked. They would not have looked out of place in ... um ... total darkness, I suppose.
Everyone:Introduce, introduce, introduce. Now shut up to watch the sun come out.
(OOC: Sorry, sick this week, so writing is slow.)
La Hish:"My goodness! I don't know precisely what I was expecting the famous Vaisessasilmin to look like, but I was not expecting quite so many and so colorful of butterfly wings! You seem like an insectile sort of blossomary!"
Which Vae does, today. She's a yard-long length of glittering blue and green chain, with a serpent's head at one end, and as many butterfly wings as she can possibly cram onto her surface.
Vae:"Thank you!" She can't blush, having no fur (though I use feathers to much the same effect), but she turned the air around her into a shower of tiny asterisks, spiralling downwards, which served much the same purpose.
Saza:"Yes, indeed. Few primes are nearly so willing to devote their very bodies to the purposes of art..."
Otresto:"I should not say that no primes do so. Though I, myself, prefer clothing."
La Hish:"Dear Otresto, if your clothing is a matter of art, it is a message of chaotic woe to the entire universe."
Otresto:"From behind only!"
Saza:"But why, dear Otresto, do you want to present a message of chaotic woe to the half of the universe that is behind you?"
Otresto:"My dear Sazandigraa, it is the central credo of the Temple of the Dark Trinity. Whereof I am now ecclesiastical chieftan."
Me:"That seems rather an important job ... but, why is it called 'chieftan'? The word suggests the warlord of a brutal Gormoror hill tribe."
Otresto:"If you had ever attended a meeting of the ecclesiastical störmgething, you would be surprised at the gentleness of the word. None so vicious as the devotees of the dark gods, disagreeing over a fine point of the wording of some minor and probably incorrect prophecy!"
Saza:"So, what happened to Nangbang?" Turning to me and Phaniet, zie explained, "The prior chieftan."
Otresto:"Nangbang is currently lying in a shallow grave in the hills of Mrasteia."
La Hing:"My word! Do I hear that you confess to killing dear Nangbang and concealing his body?"
Otresto:"Nothing of the sort. He is enjoying a period of a very immediate form of study in the more applied aspects of the theology of Accanax. I daresay he will stop short of actual decomposition, though his fur may take a few months to recover its proper lustre."
Phaniet:"What's he doing for air?"
Otresto:"Breathing through a reed, I should think."
La Hing:"Goodness gracious! Is this ordinary behavior for the ecclesiastical side of the Temple?"
Otresto:"Heavens of Staring Gods, no. How can you even ask such a question? Usually the live-burials are done in coffins full of dirt, inside the city proper. Quite a nice break from ordinary life! Would you like to try, Sythyry?"
Me:"I'm afraid that I am not currently such a devotee of Accanax as to require that sort of religious observance at the moment."
Otresto:"You won't be joining the störmgething for the course of your visit?"
Me:"I'm afraid not."
Phaniet:"Could I? I think that a day or two buried in a coffin in the Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen sounds quite relaxing. The skyboat's still a bit unsettled."
We were eating snails and drinking brandy, of course. What other food and drink are suitable for discussions of commerce and treason?
Saza:"I remember that flock of flaming geese you sent against us in ... 4338, was it?"
Me:"4335. I remember the year acutely; the war distracted me from my Smith's Guild studies."
La Hish:"Very nice work, I must say. I tried to destroy them with jets of water, but they didn't mind it a bit."
Me:"Which is the point of fire geese, instead of something more natural like fire cats."
La Hish:"But of course! And when they landed on the skybridge deck, they left a proper goose-mark of scorch."
Me:"And a plum pudding, of course."
La Hish:"Delicious pastry products do seem to be your signature in battle, O mighty wizard of Vheshrame."
Me:"It's how I was introduced to the art of wizard-wars, when the duke commanded me to get Vae here to teleport a breakfast box to everyone outside the city walls."
Otresto:"Ahem. Oorah Thrassen's retaliation was not a masterpiece of the art. It was due to an uninspired and now-departed colleague, who did not appreciate the subtleties of battle."
Saza:"Ah... those were good wars."
Otresto:"They were indeed. Very profitable."
Phaniet:"I'm not entirely sure that they deserve the name of 'war'."
Otresto:"How could they not? There is diplomatic discord; soon, there are mighty acts of sorcery, and then one city (generally Oorah Thrassen) has won and the other (generally Vheshrame) has lost. If that is not a war, what does it lack?"
Phaniet:"Blood, for one thing."
Otresto:"Pah, don't be ridiculous. What point is there in assembling heroes to fight and sometimes die? The age is past in Ketheria where a half-dozen warriors, no matter how mighty, could storm a city and destroy or conquer it. Now is the age of great magic. A flight of fire geese, carrying perdition rather than pudding, would wreck the sky-bridge. And if Sythyry can manage the one, zie can manage the other. So we must respond with ... with ..."
La Hish:"We turned all the bees in Vheshrame Mene into glass for the space of two minutes."
Me:"A good deal more devastating than providing pudding."
Phaniet:"Why?" She is technically clever, but sometimes not as devious as she might be.
Me:"If they can turn them into glass -- a rather challenging substance to manipulate -- they can also turn them into fire -- and thereby burn up all the crops and orchards and forests in Vheshrame Mene in a moment. Plus, of course, it would kill all the bees, so even if we did rescue the crops, they'd be hard to pollinate."
Phaniet:"... oh ..."
Saza:"Those were good wars. We should have another war, and sooner rather than later."
Me:"With Vheshrame?"
Saza:"With Vheshrame, or with any other suitable partner. I am not in a position to be fussy."
La Hish:"Ah, more gambling debts?"
Saza:"I have achieve a great mastery of the art of indebtedness. I no longer need to gamble to find myself greatly in need of money. Nor, even, do I need to spend a terch to do so. And that's the last I shall say of the matter, save that I do need money."
Me:"I'm afraid that Vheshrame is not in a position to oblige you at the moment. The city is neither as rich nor as powerful as it once was, and our concerns are closer to home."
Saza:"Except for your concerns, which seem directed at vacation on Srineia."
Me:"I am not Vheshrame. I am simply from Vheshrame."
Saza:"You and the honorable nendrai... [interrupted]"
La Hish:"The mighty nendrai."
Saza:"Is that the proper title?"
Vae:"The better title for us it is, truly. Not always are we honorable."
Saza:"I'm sure you are more honorable than most!"
Vae: turned the air around her into a shower of fluttering pink semicolons, by way of blushing.
Saza:"Now that's a fetching emotive gesture!"
Vae:"Not am I to be fetched though!"
Saza:"A mere pleasantry. In any case, you and the honorable Sythyry ... zie is honorable, isn't zie?"
Me:"As honorable as anyone of our lineage can be!" (Which certainly sounds like we share certain obscure and doubtless occult secrets. In fact, we do share one: our lineage likes to make obscure pronouncements that make it seem that we share occult secrets.)
Saza:"Well, we mustn't talk about that today." (See? Zie knew exactly what I was talking about.) "In any case, once the two of you return from your vacation, couldn't you manage to talk the Duke of Vheshrame into another sorcerous assault upon my poor, misguided, and utterly vicious country?"
Me:"I will, at least, mention your interest in the topic to Hezimikkinen."
Saza:"No, no! Better that it comes entirely from you!"
Me:"I think that the ducal budget for extravagant gestures at distant nations is rather low. Especially distant nations who have, on the whole, sent us home with our tails tied in knots."
La Hish:"Now, now, I wouldn't say you've done that badly. The plum pudding was excellent."
(Which is a tacit acknowledgment that Vheshrame's display of power was actually beneficial -- or at least delicious -- to Oorah Thrassen, while theirs was wholly menacing to us. While we didn't win the exchange, we were ahead for style.)
Otresto:"Well, if we can't start a war with Vheshrame -- and while their wizard and their nendrai are on vacation, we can't -- and if you're in such a Flokin-petted hurry to have a war -- who should we start one with?"
Me:"Maybe one of the Aradrueian cities? Lenkasia would probably make quite an excellent competitor."
Saza, who was about to sip zir brandy, choked and sputtered. La Hish stopped in mid-snail. Otresto looked distinctly, even incandescently, unpersuaded. Lenkasia has one of the best magic academies anywhere, with a dozen wizards -- several of whom far exceed anyone in the gazebo. Oorah Thrassen has the Temple of the Dark Trinity, a mighty center of priestly power; but Lenkasia has an actual goddess.
Me:"Ah! You don't simply wish to indulge in a wizard-war; you wish to win!"
La Hish:"Well, yes."
Otresto:"It's not strictly necessary of course."
Saza:"But we generally get paid a bonus if we win."
La Hish:"And of course we're less likely to get hired for the next one if we lose."
Otresto:"For some reason, duel-wars are still quite popular."
Saza:"And the Gormoror hill tribes produce some superb champions for duel-wars."
Me:"They do indeed." The Gormoror hill tribes allied with Oorah Thrassen are mighty and frequently-victorious. The Gormoror themselves are fierce and courageous, and the wizards of Oorah Thrassen have given them many mighty talismans over the years. They are rarely defeated in duel wars. Which, like wizard wars, don't quite deserve the name "war"; they are, in many cases, more of a bloody sporting event with consequences for international diplomacy.
La Hish:"Still, once you return, please do talk your Duke into declaring war on us. It's as much for your benefit as ours."
Me:"I'm sure it is." Which she can take as a 'yes' if she likes, but I don't mean it as one.
It may be callous of me to abandon my cousin in such a financial doom -- and my associate Grinwipey being responsible for that doom -- but I don't think that wizard-wars happening entirely for the benefit of the wizards are really appropriate. If we're going to expend vast amounts of time, money, skill, and cley on some spectacular workings of magic, why not on things that do some actual good?
(To which the standard answer is "What are city walls, water systems, and skyboats, if not things that do some actual good?" But there are surely other things too ... but the tricky part is to find something new to work on that won't step on the tail of some guild or other.)
Or, for a different dimension of callousness: Enchantment provides me a constant income. If the wealthiest people in Vheshrame aren't buying magic items, then I can (and do) make cheaper items for less wealthy people. I have made lightcasters, water-movers, fireproofers, salt-strainers, bread-speeders, and all manner of assorted tools and utilitaria. It is, on the whole, less dramatic and less imposing (and less expensive) than ritual magic. The effects of a complexity-5 [unimpressive] enchantment are no greater than my customers could achieve on their own with a spell they bought at the neighborhood store -- the difference being that an enchantment doesn't cost cley and a spell does. Which is a serious difference: being able to create five gallons of water at the cost of one cley is useful to save someone a trip to the well or fountain; being able to create five gallons of water every two seconds all day long can have a rather greater cumulative effect. But it is still the same spell that the housemaid can cast.
Ritual magic can do much more than other magic of the same complexity. It takes only a few minutes or hours to perform, rather than the weeks for enchantment. But nobody is going to go to a karcist to buy something cheap and practical. Ritual magic is for emergencies, for wizard-wars, for producing slow catastrophes like Lithia. A karcist charges hundreds or thousands of lozens per cley -- and sometimes it's worth it.
If Saza were willing to get up before dawn every day, money wouldn't be a problem for zir.
For that matter, zie could probably do a respectable business with bound spells, except that is beneath a wizard's dignity, since bound spells are sold in country fairs and market squares these years.
Or, for a third dimension of callousness: I don't like being called upon to help my cousin in ways I can't talk about even once, and starting a wizard-war would be a second variety.
Ah, well. The snails and brandy were superb, in any case.
I am displeased with:
Though I don't see that complaining at any of them is going to do any good.
Saza and La Hish all but begged me to consecrate a few things in the Temple of the Dark Trinity. They were hoping I'd be making weapons to use against Oorah Thrassen in some upcoming war against them.
I'm not that organized though. And I'm used to losing wars against Oorah Thrassen, so I'll probably just use the lesser but still generally adequate temples of those gods in Vheshrame, if it comes to that.
The Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen is: Gnarn (goddess of Mutoc and the Sleeth, and Vae's creatrix); Iraz Varuun (goddess of Magiador); Accanax (god of Destroc and the Khtsoyis and Gormoror, and Gnarn's younger brother). For those keeping records, we have enough good candidates to make a whole separate Dark Trinity with some left over, so don't be too surprised about any variations you may hear of.
And it so happens that I have a project involving all three. Something I've wanted for most of my life, in fact. A tool to destroy (Destroc) spells (Magiador), but focussed on Mutoc spells in particular.
Which is to say, a tool for betraying my oldest friend.
I filled up eleven pages in my work notebook fussing about whether it was better for me to sew the tool myself, or have Grinwipey do it. Me, because it's often better to make the things you enchant yourself, and I'm a pretty good seamstress, and because I'm still quite annoyed at him. Wipey, because he's far better than I am, and because it's good to get Khtsoyis involved when you're working with Accanax, and because I should either make peace with him or firmly not.
After doing lots of math, the last point made me decide. That, and by then I'd wasted so much time doing the math that I needed the extra tentacles helping anyways.
So we chatted a bit while we were working.
Grinwipey:"So, you going in to that myther-fiddling temple?"
Me:"Yes, of course. I generally do my own consecrations."
Grinwipey:"Y'know, I wouldn't just walk into the place of power of a snaggy-wing like that Saza cozza of yours. If I could walk, I mean. Just sayin'."
Me:"What do you think zie might do to me? I've shared meals and fireplaces with zir. You zie's pissed at -- and I am too -- but zie's not particularly unhappy with me."
Grinwipey:"Just 'cause you're the lickety-waffle wiz of Vheshrame." He finished embroidering a shattered draconic eye on his end of the ribbon, and showed me. It was ... not beautiful, but perfect.
Me:"So? Zie wants a wizard-war with Vheshrame. Vheshrame needs a wizard for that ... even one that uses breakfast foods."
Grinwipey:"Huh? Oh, hah ... you think 'lickety-waffle' is about breakfast foods? Sythyry, you're as naive as a virgin on hogo-pogo night." (Yes, I am. I don't know what hogo-pogo night is either.) "Nah, zie ain't gonna hurt you, but I bet zie fixes up something t'take your edge off."
Me:"Zie's not going to hurt me. Really."
Grinwipey:"Well, if zie twunks your bunks with a fash of funk, don't say I didn't warn you."
Me:"I won't." Because I have no idea what that means either.
I am not consecrating it to Gnarn -- I only get one Noun and one Verb, and the Verb is Destroc. But there is a polite little ceremony of introduction which I did do. It almost never does anything, and, in this case, it didn't do anything. But it's good to see the Temple for the first time somewhat before you do a heavy consecration ceremony.
The Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen started out in a spare lumber shack, used when they were building the sky-bridge. The first priests held informal services there, and were rather surprised at how attentive the gods were to them. They didn't want to tinker with success, so the heart of the Temple complex is the old lumber shack. The outer buildings are rather more imposing; they're the sorts of edifices you'd expect from a temple of [some of] our most wicked gods. Towers topped with fanged Sleeth skulls and vast glass crystals and writhing tentacles, and all that sort of tourist stuff. There's a public temple that's all black marble and dripping candles and wailing invisible choirs and suchlike doom. But that's for worship, not for work.
The true heart of power is the triangular altar made of some warped skybridge floor boards and three old wooden crates, in a dusty mostly-empty space. Seven crude clay lamps burning rendered mherobump fat float haphazardly on one side. (I don't think that they kill the mherobump for their fat; I think they buy mherobump corpses in the mherobump ghettoes of the nearby Choinxeian cities.) The decorations are sparse and undecorative: coils of rope in the corners of the room, a scattering of dead flies, the junk of some tools for enchanting floorboards to levitate.
A Great Priest of Iraz Varuun was waiting for me, so wrapped in incarnadine gabardine that I couldn't see zir species or gender for sure. Orren I think. He(?) burned sacred scathnard incense and set thirteen densly-written books around the altar, and silently invited me in with a wave of the blue-green flags on his wands.
I offered a miniature book bound in mnenorzion to the goddess, in which I had copied my old diary entry about the first time Vae had nearly killed me with a friendly helpful spellcast. (Yes, I used one of my own quills to write it, and another one as a bookmark. No, I didn't write it in my own blood.) The topic was chosen carefully: an explanation about why I want to break Vae's spells in particular, an emphasis that I don't want to destroy Vae herself, and an apology for making a spell-breaking item, which is not Iraz Varuun's top preference.
I prayed -- which mostly consisted of a lecture on fine points of the enchantment, which Iraz Varuun appreciates -- for most of an hour.
And that worked fine. The goddess's attention fell on me for a second and a half, like a very hot and peppery scrying spell, and that was that.
+30% on Enchantability, which is a quite respectable result for a consecration with a Noun God. I had made plans assuming +25%, which is more typical for this sort of thing in the Temple of the Dark Trinity. The extra can go for extra power, which is always useful.
That's how it's supposed to go.
The consecration to Accanax was nothing like that.
Nangbang, recently freed from his subterranean nap, and wrapped in black robes so that we could not see his dirt-dulled fur, did the same sort of introduction that the Great Priest of Iraz Varuun had. Nolotham incense instead of scathnard, and he ringed the altar in five black iron daggers instead of thirteen books, of course.
My offering was a small hezarion brooch in the shape of a dagger, with a tiny drop of a ruby at the pommel, stabbing a coiled serpent. I am a smith in good standing, so I am allowed to make this sort of thing. But I am not very good at making large things -- a proper dagger would have been not much smaller than myself. I have done that, as an apprentice smith; but I prefer doing jewelry.
And I prayed for a while, which, for Accanax, had a lot of Gormoror war-poetry, and chants of glorious spellbreakings. I am not much of a Gormoror bard, but, in theory, one does not need to be.
And then, between the words "and" and "then" in the Lay of Ghonbodak Gharbos, most of the world fell away -- in the sense of "someone very big and very strong and very intangible grabbed me and hoisted me off".
Coloration: Take a jet-black cow, without a single light hair. Kill it at noontime. Sew a few strands of silver thread into it. Leave it in a hot place until midnight. Now look at the hide -- from the inside, with your eyeballs pressing up against the flesh-side of the skin. Yeah. That color.
Scent: The bouquet of composting love letters. Yeah. That scent.
Magic Sense: In his heart, he had the dismal sparky traces of a spell cast to lance boils on the cheeks of a Cani boy who has not been able to sleep for three days from the pain. In his exostructure, he had the bitter leaden traces of a spell to break the free will of a cyarr warrior. You surely have cast both of those yourself, or know of them, do you not?
Sound: When he spoke, his voice was like the death-cries of legions of ticks and lice. When he was silent, his silence was the silence that comes when the ashes of the forest fire are cold. You know, those sounds.
Texture: When he embraced me, his touch was like the breath of predatory crabs who have recently dug up the new graves of elderly Herethroy scholars to feed upon their recently-dead flesh. I'm sure you're familiar with how that feels.
Taste: I didn't taste him. You might not have done, either.
Shape: I'm not really sure.
Clothing: Not sure of that either.
"Oh, hello, Euphagy," I said. I wasn't alarmed by the sudden presence of an aspect of a god, or one of his greatest angels (modern theology is uncertain about which he is). This is not a particularly unusual reaction to finding onesself in the sudden presence of a god. We have, of course, known the gods since roughly birth -- or before, for those who have lived more than once. So a normal first reaction to them is as to an old friend.
I continued being not alarmed for nearly two-thirds of a second. First reactions last only so long.
Then, on remembering that he was either a fraction of a god or one of Accanax' supreme servitors -- it seemed the thing to do to start with some flattery, to show I knew somewhat about him. "Hail, O Minister of the Quadrangles of Ruin, He In Whose Mouth Scorpions Are Destroyed With Mirrors, Great Catabolist of the Lanterns of the East, Hail!"
I shut up quickly when I realized I was quoting from De Heptarchia Mysteria. Or, probably, misquoting from De Heptarchia Mysteria, given that I haven't read it since my abortive attempt to get an undergraduate degree over a century ago. And De Heptarchia Mysteria is somewhere between whimsical and wholly made up in the first place. (I mean, who calls the seven creator gods the "Heptarchy" anyways? It's not as if they rule anything.)
The darkness who devours all things made known to me that I was the creation of the god of an opposing Verb. [Sythyry's creator god rules Sustenoc, the Verb of sustaining. -bb]
I cast The Infinite Grenade, which created a large spiky nut, detonated it in a shower of spikes, healed it back together, only to have it detonate again a few seconds later, and again, and again. One does not ordinarily cast attack spells at either a fraction of a god or one of a god's senior angels, and especially not attack spells that are mostly intended for packs of animals in caves. But this spell demonstrates that the three opposites of Destroc -- Creoc, Healoc, and the one he was complaining about, Sustenoc -- can cooperate with Destroc to produce a clever form of destruction. Which Euphagy seemed to take in stride, if he has legs, which I am uncertain about.
The darkness who devours all things made known to me that the god was aware that I was proposing to construct a device to thwart a champion of his sister -- the god's sister.
I'm afraid I did not react with particular bravery.
The darkness who devours all things interrupted me in mid-whimper and made known to me that the god was pleased. Pleased with my designs. Pleased with my treatment of his champion. Pleased with the destruction I would surely leave in my wake.
I got a quick glimpse of the world as seen from a god's point of view: the dome of the sky showing its curve like a roof overhead, the whole top of the World Tree a flat plate of streaky green underneath me.
And then I was back in the Temple of the Dark Trinity at Oorah Thrassen.
I didn't bother finishing the Lay of Ghonbodak Gharbos. Nangbang and I closed up the consecration politely but quickly. It had already succeed, probably too much.
Nangbang:"We wasted that on a mere foreigner? We do not get such divine attention three times in a year, most years!"
Saza:"Lucky lizard! That's never happened to me!" (To which the answer had to be: "Of course not. You don't consecrate magic items, which is the only time it happens to anyone.")
La Hish:"Well, you certainly must fight us with it when you get back from vacation! Whatever this 'it' may be!"
Otresto:"Ah, so you get to make your first divine relic? Congratulations!"
Phaniet:"So how good is it?" (I'm not sure. Regular techniques do not necessarily apply.)
Kantele:"Are you all right? You look a bit wobbly." (This was back on Strayway, a few hours later.)
Vae didn't say anything to speak of. She did take her true form, which is a tall-by-full-sized-prime standards lizard with an exceeding long and flickery tail, and let me curl up against her belly for a long long time. With her terribly dangerous tail around me, and her clever sharp claws brushing my feathers. A monster who can challenge great cities without worry, and all she was doing was protecting and comforting me.
Comforting me from making a weapon against her, as she well knew. (We had discussed it beforehand.)
Not that it was too much comfort. In the face of the gods, we are kittens who have not yet opened their eyes. It was just one kitten comforting another.
The original plan for this part of the trip was to write another pastorale, about how the Main Trunk looks as Strayway slowly spirals around it. Maybe later.
I realized that something was wrong immediately upon waking up this morning. Skyboats shouldn't list. (Waterboats shouldn't list either.) Strayway's floor in my smaller and cozier bedroom (where I had been for a day and a half) was tilted, ten or fifteen degrees. And what had woken me up was Kantele and Arfaen having a dominance contest just outside my door.
Kantele:"Sythyry is the master of this ship! Zie has just worked a great and terrible enchantment!" (Technically, I worked a great and terrible consecration. I still have to do the actual enchantment. Which is to say, I don't have the actual spellbreaker yet, just a strip of god-petted cloth that will make a fearsome spellbreaker after I'm done with it.) "Zie needs zir rest!" (Which had been true when I went to sleep, certainly.)
Arfaen:"My son is magnified with doom and trouble! The situation is miserable and dangerous! Our supplies of food are running low!"
Kantele:"Sythyry will conjure greater doom and trouble upon you if you wake zir up! You only see the gentle lizard, but zie can be terrible with torments!"
Arfaen:"We have already had the terrible with torments!"
Which didn't sound particularly good.
Me:"Good morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. I actually have no idea what day it is, much less what time." My wizardries have certainly scrambled any sense of time for me.
Kantele: [instantly professional and secretarial.] "Mid-afternoon on the twelfth of Hispis."
Me:"Oh, that's not too bad. Why are we running low on food? Didn't you buy some in Oorah Thrassen?"
Arfaen:"I did, but for a normal crew, not such a one as we have now!"
Me:"What, did we pick up more people?" I am not always so clever after I've slept for a day and a half.
Arfaen:"No! The monster cursed Quendry!"
Me:"Vae did? Or are we dealing with some other monster?"
Arfaen:"Vae, yes, your pet nendrai."
So we went to have a look at Quendry.
Quendry was a rather imposing eighty-some feet tall. Vae had helpfully wrapped some Locador spells around him, so that he could crouch in the corridor. But he still towered over everyone else. He stuck his tail between his legs when he saw his mother, and knocked Yerenthax over with it.
Me:"Oh, dearie."
Quendry:"Please make me back to right, Aunt Sythyry!"
Me:"This would be much easier several weeks from now, but I will do what I can."
This rarely works, but once in a while it does, so it's worth trying. Vae was in her true shape -- a tallish and ill-favored lizard, with arms and legs and no exotic wings. That's never a good sign.
Me:"Vae, could you please make Quendry his usual size again?"
Vae:"Oh, there's a sorrow on me, Sythyry, but your earmuffs didn't tell me what you said. And shall I take them off?"
Me:"Yes, if you would be so kind." She did, and I asked her again.
Vae:"Not ever in the world would I take back that present, and sweet Quendry so dearly wishing to be big!"
Me:"Oh, he did, did he?"
Vae:"The truly! The big enough to beat his brother in a wrestling choof when he gets back home, is what he wants, and he is that big."
Me:"Well, he didn't mean that big. He just wanted to be an older boy. Which will work better if he does it the natural way."
Vae:"Hah! Sythyry, the I understand now! Upon you is the thought that I have helped someone to their sorrow again!"
Me:"Exactly. You have done."
Vae:"But no! The exact thing he needs is the spell I have put on him!"
Me:"Well, why's he wailing and whimpering then?"
Vae:"The surprise! The many of people are waily and whimpery when they first get their gifting! The desired it may be, but the achievement thereof comes with happy tears!"
Me:"Those aren't happy tears."
Vae:"Sythyry, Sythyry, Sythyry! The knowing is on me fully when I do a good and desired thing, or when I do a terrible and abhorred one."
Me:"Yes, and you're right about a twelfth of the time."
Vae:"And this is that twelfth!"
Me:"Besides, he's so heavy he's making the skyboat list."
Vae:"The skyboat needs its fixing from you, then! Not so Quendry!"
So we argued for another third of an hour about it, but Vae was unconvinceable. One of the flaws in her psyche is that she can rarely understand that one of her favors is actually a doom, at least, not before it's been taken care of.
Vae:"The rightness is mine this time, and never shall you persuade me otherwise."
Me:"Well, if I take the spell off, and Quendry wants it back, you can put it back."
Vae:"The day seven years ago with the escaped bishop it will be!"
Seven years ago, Vae teleported a bishop of the Vheshrame countryside off to Mrasteia. When I heard about it, I managed to bully Vae into popping us there and trying to retrieve him. It turned out that he was actually there on purpose, surprising his long-ago linguistics professor (and, I gather, lover) on the occasion of his hundreth birthday. Vae doesn't always cause terrible troubles; sometimes she does just precisely what is most needful and helpful. (I suspect that this is part of her creator's evil design. If Vae were always doomy, or enjoyed the doom, we'd treat her rather differently. As it is ... you can't decently kill a cooperative, compliant and (when she is capable) repentant nendrai for kindness, can you? (If you can kill her at all, which would be a challenge for, say, the full powers of Oorah Thrassen.))
Me:"If it is such a day, you shall have a fine apology from me."
Vae:"The apology I await eagerly!"
Me:"Don't be so eager. I haven't made the spellbreaker yet. It'll take me hours and hours."
Vae:"The hours are cheap; you can spare them!"
Me:"You won't do it yourself as a favor to me?"
Vae:"The fool's errand is the errand you can perform by yourself if you wish! Not a bit will I come along on it!"
Which is what usually happens, but I had to ask.
For my own amusement, as much as anything else, here's how I broke the growth spell. Note that it was over twelve hours work for a quite competent wizard to break a spell which took Vae two seconds to concieve and cast.
The Problem: Breaking spells is hard in general. The most straightforward way requires a counterspell of about four times the power of the spell being broken. The other straightforward way, which is somewhat harder, requires only three times. That's about it for straightforward ways. Vae's spells are typically have more power than mine. I have tricks that she does not, and can exceed her power somewhat if I must: by ten or twenty percent, which is not nearly enough. So I have to do more work.
The Initial Examination: I stared at Vae's magnification carefully. She hadn't been exerting herself, so it had her usual -- overwhelming -- power, but no extra.
The Preliminary Weakening: A while ago, I made myself a hammer of lead and hezarion which weakens spells: a variation on a theme of Gnaw the Whining Spell. I brought forth this hammer and started whomping on Vae's spell. The first blow chipped off a satisfying quarter-or-so of the magnification's power. The next few did nothing at all. That is typical: it is generally the case that casting a modification spell twice gives the greater of the two modifications, not their sum. The sixth blow dinged the magnification a touch more, and the eleventh a little further. After twenty I gave up. In principle, the hammer can do an unlimited amount of damage to a spell. I daresay I could hammer on this one for a thousand years and still not cut its power in half. Still, the quarter-or-so is worth my effort. It makes the later steps much easier.
The Loosening: The next step is a spellweave to render Vae's magnification less firm in its attachment to reality. Spellweaving is a technique for constructing very elaborate, very weak spells, precisely tuned to the needs of the situation at hand. It is also a fussy topic, requiring (in this instance):
The Displacement: I have another magical implement, which looks somewhat like an egg beater and somewhat like a horse with far too many wings. When suitably applied, this implement can persuade a spell that it isn't quite cast as intended. (It works better the looser the spell is.) In this case, a vigorous whirling with its wings persuaded the spell that it was supposed to have been cast on a doll stuffed with Cani fur, rather than on an actual Cani, and that it was only placed on Quendry by mistake.
The Rededication: Another spellweave. This time, we persuaded the magnification that it only should work on dolls stuffed with Cani fur. We conveniently provided such a doll. Quendry had a great deal of fur, for use in the stuffing of it -- and Quendry's fur was particularly appropriate, since we could also intimate to the spell that it had been cast on Quendry by a quite natural mistake. Quendry was still under the magnification spell at the end of the second spellweave, but the magnification spell was looking quite mis-cast.
Getting Quendry to sit still for another six hours was not terribly easy. He was hungry; Strayway isn't set up for feeding such a large person. He was bored: his usual passtimes aren't suitable for someone of his current size. He was tired: we drew the circle big enough for him to sit in, barely, but not to lie down. (My workroom is only so big.) He was scared. He was ashamed.
The Transferrence: A fancy spell cast on a spell (such as the magnification) which is applied to the wrong [Corpador] target, for moving it to the right target. This phase I used to do as a third spellweave, but I actually bought a copy of the spell to do it straightaway seventy years ago, so this part is easy. When it works, which is about two-thirds of the time.
And that was that. Fifteen cley. A very long day's work for a quite skilled mage.
And one further problem: there is now a eighty-some foot tall doll stuffed with Quendry-fur in my workroom.
Quendry was suitably fed, bathed and put to bed well after his usual bedtime. Arfaen curled up with him.
Me:"Well, that was a pain and a half."
Vae:"Oh, no! And was I wrong, or was I right?"
Me:"I'm afraid Quendry is much happier being small."
Vae:"The so very sure was I I had the right of it this time!"
Me:"Not this time. But don't worry about it. It's good practice for me."
It is unfortunately very important to forgive Vae intensely at this point. If I try to make her feel guilty (e.g., trying to get her not to do it next time (which is beyond her powers)), she is likely to try to make amends. Which is usually worse than her first misdeed.
Vae: whimper whimper whine whine apologize apologize cry cry
Me: pet pet comfort comfort forgive forgive heal heal
Vae:"And when will you make the artifact to ruin my boons?"
Me:"Soon, I suppose. I don't know how long it will take." I have never enchanted a divine relic before; the situation is not fully or even adequately described in my coursework; I am rather intimidated.
Vae:"If I could, I'd keep you from needing it between now and then."
But we both know how unlikely that will be.
I was either asleep at the time, or disenchanting Quendry, or both, so I didn't see any of this. All I know about it is rumor. The Mural of Civic Virtues and Vices in Daukrhame portrays Rumor as a monster with two heads, vast ears stuffed with parsley and music boxes, vast mouths with flapping tongues. Its body is a mechanical sausage-grinder, though.
The scene: lunchtime on Strayway. Two dozen liveried wrongfolk are sitting at four tables, as a handful of their compatriots serve them a wonderful vegetarian feast. Few if any of them are fretting about the continued absence of their patron. More of them are fretting about the continued absence of meat. (Arfaen, whose job it is to provide a wonderful omnivore lunch, is busy with Quendry and me.)
Inconnu:"Umbers, dear sweet Umbers, after the last of the blueberry tart has vanished into the tart and non-tart alike, would you care to come with me deep into the bowels of Strayway, where many delights await?"
Umbers:"Are you sure those are the bowels you'd like me to ... never mind that."
Inconnu:"No, no, no-no-no! I didn't mean that! This was just an offer of a walk, you see! A walk, an explore, a peregrination sort of thing! Not an attempt to satisfy any carnal urges!"
Umbers:"Oh? Why not? The color and texture of my carapace displeases you?"
Inconnu:"No! Not in the slightest! I greatly admire the interplay of middle brown and reddish-brown on your smooth and only occasionally spiky thorax!"
Umbers:"So you are trying to take advantage of me."
Inconnu:"No, really, I'm not planning any sort of insidious or untoward situation!"
Umbers:"Oh, you don't like my reputation. I can understand that. You're better off associating with the Khtsoyis."
Grinwipey:"Hey! I don't want Inconnu trying to oogle me prandies! And he sure ain't gonna give me the wrip-wrap in some distant parlor!"
Inconnu:"I wouldn't do that!"
Umbers:"Why not? You call yourself traff, don't you?"
Inconnu:"Well, yes, I do.... I am!"
Grinwipey:"I ain't! He tries anything, I'll whopple his head 'til he turns tail, and his tail 'til he looks like a beaver!"
Inconnu:"I won't, I won't!"
Umbers:"Maybe you're not really traff."
Inconnu:"I am! I just don't want him to beat me up!"
Umbers:"Feeling a bit cowardly today, Inconnu?"
Inconnu:"No! I'm brave! I just want to be brave in the exploring kind of way."
Umbers:"Oh, you think there are dangers in the inner rooms of Strayway?"
Inconnu:"Oh, yes! Terrible dangers! Strange perversions of space and time which Sythyry's experimental spells caught up!"
Umbers:"And you wanted to bring me among the terrible dangers without warning or defense."
Inconnu:"I'd defend you, sure as eels is eels!"
Umbers:"Between the Zi Ri and the nendrai, eels might well be parasol demons back there."
Inconnu:"I'll fight them off! I'll stretch their stretchers, I'll rule their ferrules, I'll sprong their springs!"
Umbers:"A battle sure to lure me onto the nearest divan, legs spread wide."
Inconnu:"No! ... um ... or ... yes... or ... maybe."
Umbers:"Of course, the divan would probably start talking to us. What would you do then?"
Inconnu:"I'd stuff artichokes in its armrests!"
Umbers:"Oh, you don't like an audience when you conduct your flirtations?"
Inconnu:"No! The purest privacy, the utmost discretion, the strictest seclusion -- this is my watchword!"
Umbers:"Which is why you've been discussing this with half the crew around, so loudly that Zascalle is covering Ochirion's ears."
Inconnu:"No! This was merely an invitation to ... to ... "
Umbers:"Something you'd rather that Calla didn't find out about?" She waved a forehand towards the kitchen.
Calla: [coming out of the kitchen with a tray of grilled leeks] "What shouldn't I find out about?"
Inconnu:"Nothing happened! Nothing happened at all!"
Grinwipey:"And if'n anything had happened, he'd be a clubpuddle on the floor like the dashitzie."
Calla:"I see. Have a leek, Inconnu?"
Inconnu:"Oh! Yes! I love the sleek and elite leek!"
Calla smiled and patted Inconnu's head.
Rather afterwards, my devoted staff investigated the event, so that I didn't have to do it myself.
Jyondre:"Why did you turn him down, Umbers?"
Umbers:"I turned him down?"
Yerenthax:"He clearly wished to indulge in such pleasures as mammals may share with insects! Due to your teasing, such is not possible with you, nor with Calla!"
Umbers:[wiggling her antennae] "I don't think Calla is very much jealous. But he'll have better luck pursuing zir if he pursues just zir."
Jyondre:"Does he have much chance with her at all?"
Umbers:"I don't know. Calla is unfailingly polite to me, but she thinks she'd be better off associating with the Khtsoyis."
Yerenthax:"Did you do something dishonorable that the rest of us should know about?"
Umbers:"Kantele knows my life's story; I told her when I came to Castle Wrong for refuge. It's not a very proud story in spots. I didn't break my sword word, if that's what you're after; I promised to do some unsavory things for some bad reasons, and I did them, and I'm trying to have nothing to do with that sort of person or situation anymore."
Yerenthax:"There is a measure of honor in that!"
Jyondre:"So -- were you trying to save Inconnu's honor or attention for Calla? Or trying to put him off? Or trying to lead him on?"
Umbers:"Nothing like that. Just trying to get him into a Wild Rush. Didn't work, even."
I was awakened the first time around midafternoon the next day by a tremendous magical occurrence. Locador, it was, with Spiridor and Kennoc, and a tremendous weight of Mutoc. I decided, foolishly, that Vae was probably just trying to find the bathroom or some such thing.
I went back to sleep, and dreamed that Flokin (in the form of a three-headed bright-orange Sleeth) came to talk to me. "I lost a big and flamey-red silk handkerchief," It said. "It's right down there." It pointed at a vast patch of rippling red cloth that must have covered half a city-state on the world-branch below. "I want you to go find it."
"It's right there, isn't it?" I asked it.
"Yes, but I can't find it," the god said. "That's your job."
I would chalk this up to dreams being confusing, but actually it's theologically correct. The fire god is that confusing too. It says so in all the textbooks.
"I do hope I don't have a fever," I told the god. "All the textbooks say that the only dreams you talk in are fever dreams."
Then another magical occurrence occurred to me. This one was just Mutoc and Locador, but it was quite loud, and woke me up again.
I opened my eyes. I had somehow slithered out of the fireplace in my sleep, and was lying in a frighteningly undignified position on the dingy yellow hearthrug. It was a stylistic calamity, for my feathers do not at all go well with dingy yellow.
Floating in the air above my head were seven dull brown levitating ceramic mugs, their handles tied together with butcher's twine. One of the mugs had an intricate wooden spoon in it.
I quite diligently and sensibly breathed fire at it.
"Hey! And why are you breathing fire at me?" it demanded, blocking the flames with a thoroughly complicated spell that teleported them a hundred miles away. "Careful of the spoooon!"
Oh, dearie, I thought to myself. I've just tried to attack the fire god.
"I didn't know that that was one of your forms," I said apologetically.
"The I just got a spoooooon!" chirped the cups. "So I wanted to be some cups to go with it!"
Oh, dearie, but slightly less dearie than before, I thought to myself. I've just tried to attack the nendrai.
"I thought you were Flokin," I quite cleverly remarked.
"And why are you trying to destroy the fire god's carved wooden spoon?" she asked, quite sensibly.
I remembered my dream. "Do I have a fever?"
"Yes, the you certainly do," she said. "Not another explanation for your behavior or your hallucination-like reasoning can I imagine!"
"I'm not quite sure I believe you. For one thing, you didn't actually touch me to see if I felt hot," I said, rather crossly. I don't much like being woken up by nendrai pretending to be fire gods, you see.
"The acting-fevered is all on you, Sythyry," said Vae. "Not any need to actually touch you have I."
"No, I really want to know if I have a fever," I said, and rolled over and flew off. "Phaniet? Phaniet? Where are you?"
Kantele looked up from her desk. I imagine she was putting some papers in order, not that she ever lets papers get out of order. "Phaniet is in the solarium ... well, one of the solaria off that way, I think. Enjoying the view and a vigorous discussion with Este."
"I had better not interrupt her then," I said.
She curled her tail. "Este would surely appreciate the interruption." She grinned. "What, you miscast a spell and now there are cups following you?"
"No, that's Vae, being more than usually inexplicable. You can help. Do I have a fever?" I landed on her shoulder and pressed my neck to her nose.
She felt me with nose, tongue, and fingerpads, those being the main furless parts of her body that are suitable for touching her employer. "You do not have a fever. Why?"
So I told her about the Flokin dream. Vae buzzed around overhead, clinking together impatiently.
"Sythyry, that is a true manifestation of Flokin," she said.
"Oh, dear. I didn't really want to go questing," I said.
"Oh, it's not your manifestation of Flokin. It's from Bettangour's Tales of Gods, part of Yuzu's story. You read it to Lithia when she was four. It happened three hundred and twenty-nine years ago."
I blinked foolishly at her.
"As your personal secretary, allow me to recommend that you have a chalice of kathia before you attempt any sort of rational thought or purposeful activity," advised my wise secretary.
"The important advice is this!" clattered Vae. "Without such enhancement, I fear for the safety of my precious, precious spoon!" She wrapped the spoon in six-plus-twelve defensive spells.
They abducted me to the galley. Mellilot seethed leaves and spices, and filled a child's-size chalice for me, and an adult's-size chalice for Kantele, and ... "Vae, would you like some kathia?"
"The yes, the yes!" Vae can't easily refuse things that primes offer her.
"Um ... which cup of you should I pour it in?"
Vae turned back into a ugly, large lizard. "Not in me, not in me!"
I drank two and a third child-sized chalices -- I ought to have had an adult chalice, come to think of it -- and tried to make sense of the day. "OK. That wasn't the fire god. Flokin doesn't use Mutoc Locador spells."
"Not Flokin, not Flokin. The two nendrai who are dear to you use Mutoc Locador spells! And very sweet they are today! See? A spoon!", said Vae.
"Very well ... what about this spoon?"
Vae flickered excitedly from one shape to another: a tree whose branches were snakes, a cloud with glaring purple eyes, an obsidian statue of a Herethroy, herself. "The love letter is what Oixe sent me!"
"Oh, that's great!" I said. "You've been missing her all over the ship. That's the wooden spoon, I take it?"
"How did she send you a love letter? She's hundreds of thousands of miles away, and from what you've said, she's not very good at teleporting," asked Phaniet. (Magic geeks are, of course, aware that even Vae, for all her ridiculous Locador power, can't teleport from Ketheria to Oixe at once. And Phaniet is the geekiest magic geek aboard Strayway.)
"The special envelopes I gave her when I saw her last, when she was gravid. They do the teleporting, not my mate!" chirped Vae.
"Have you read the love letter yet? How do you read a wooden spoon?" I asked.
"The I've read it, the I've read it, the dozen times have I read it!" Vae became an abstract violet spiral, then a barrel labelled "Pickled Mushrooms" overflowing with serpents, than a purple cloud generously adorned with sprigs of lavender, then herself. She held the spoon out for me to read: the bowl filled with pastry crust, with letters branded on it.
Dear Vaisessasilmin. The I miss you. Not boring is tending our egg. The vast dungeon I am building. The traps, the tricks, the dooms. Not much can I tell you. The I would like to be able to. Not a bit can I though. If you find any medium-sized monsters who want a dungeon to live in, send them to me. The nights I curl up around the egg. The very safe I am keeping it. The pictures I have sent of it -- 0.38 millimeters already long is our daughter! Not yet do I know what species she will be. The eyes I think are yours. The love and battle with you I miss greatly. After our daughter is grown, the hunting trip together we must go on, for we never got around to that. The I love you. -- Oikusanghlirxat
"The picture of the egg she sent! The mate of mine is very clever and devious! The things she shares with me, are more than a guarding nendrai usually can! See, see!"
I looked at the spoon, but the crust had vanished. "Where?"
Vae bounced, becoming a bowl of boiling grass, a flaming chair, herself. "The left ornament on top of the spoon, that is the picture!" The spoon had three ornamental knobs, each with a tangly Illusidor and Mentador spell on it. I don't much like Mentador -- and that is an unusually tolerant attitude towards it -- but for my friend's sake, I put my paw on the left knob.
And was greeted with a very vivid view and very vivid memory of Oixe herself. I'm pretty sure it was intended for Vae and only for Vae. I can understand why Vae might be pleased to read (or experience) this part of the letter, though I am not generally one to look lecherously on lizards. Especially not my friends' lovers.
As I attempted to recover my usual composure and coloration, Vae said, "Not your left, I mean. My left."
This time I pointed at the knob with a somewhat trembly claw. "This one?" The spells on all three knobs were the same, in the same way that the same ink and same paper can be used for a fairy tale, a distinguished jeremiad, a work of pornography.
"The that one!"
So I stretched out my paw and touched the that one. (I still don't like Mentador, even when it's not slithering lizard lust into my mind.) Vae and Oixe's egg is a dangerous-looking thing, cute and cuddly as a durian fruit, with alert brazinion needles on its spikes. It was surrounded by obscuring spells: Oixe was apparently able to show us the egg itself, but not anything that might hint at its location or defenses.
Then the memory shifted, giving us an Eyes for the Small-ish view of the slowly-growing embryo. A tiny curled thing, mostly tail even this early, wriggling happily in a vast-to-her bath of eggyolk. Her face was barely developed: a quickly-sketched curve of jaw, a tiny bubble of a face.
"I think she does have your eyes," I told Vae. At least, I didn't see any evidence to the contrary.
Vae wriggled delightedly: a blazing spear, a leopard with piecrust wings, a tower of books inhabited by aerial shrimps, a pulsating vortex of light and heat swirling with cartoony heart-signs, herself.
Arfaen made breakfast this morning -- smoked fish stew with poached eggs for those who like flesh, which I do. (We should get Arfaen to cook more often. It is, after all, her official job on board.) Kantele was teasing Tingula about ... growing a carapace, I believe.
Ochirion came dashing into the galley. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Windigar says we're going to crash! On an island!"
"Is Windigar in the control room?" I asked him.
"Yes, he's there!" chirped Ochirion. "He told me to come and tell you!"
"It's not an emergency then, or Windigar would have called me. Or done something himself, more likely," I said. He's a better pilot than me.
Ochirion was adamant. "It's an emergency! It's an emergency! The island is swimming at us! We're going to crash! Oh, no!"
"That's pretty unusual, Ochirion. Islands don't generally swim in the sky," I pointed out.
"This one! It's swimming and swimming! Windigar showed me! I saw it swimming and swimming!"
"If Windigar is stopping to show you the sights, I don't think we're in trouble very quickly," I noted, sensibly.
"We're going to crash on a swimming, swimming island!" he insisted.
"I suppose I should check with Windigar," I admitted. "For I truly do not understand what you are trying to tell me, Ochirion."
I let him lead me back to the control room, and opened the door that only Windigar and I are legally allowed to open, and flew in. Windigar and Feralan were looking at the far-viewer.
"Ochirion tells me we're going to crash on a swimming island, Windigar," I said.
"Pretty much right," said Windigar. "I'm not planning to crash exactly though. Take a look."
I took a look. Then I turned to Ochirion and said, "My apologies! You are pretty much right!"
Ochirion stared at the far-viewer. "Is it an island? Windigar said it is an island. Does an island have sails? Is it a ship? Windigar did not say it was a ship. He said it was a island. He said it was a star island. But it is not shaped like a star! It is shaped like a kite! Why did he say it is shaped like a star? A star is a pentagon or a hexagon or a square!"
Windigar laughed. "I didn't say it was a star island. I said it was an inistella."
Inistella are very big kite-shaped glittery-scaled people. They are far too big to live on branches; they live in the open space between them. They do have sails: two above, four horizontal for the one chasing us. They often have passengers, or even colonists.
"Oh! Why is it an inistella?" asked Ochirion.
"I imagine it was born that way," said Windigar. "Unless it was a pestery Rassimel boy that Vae turned into an inistella."
"Did Vae do that? Oh, no! Is it Feralan? Did Vae turn Feralan into a star island?"
I had to inspect it. "No. It's not transformed; it's a real inistella. My question is, why is it heading for us?"
Windigar cocked his head. "I was hoping it's friends of yours."
"I don't know an inistella, or anyone living on one," I said. "And often ulgrane or other sky monsters live on them. You stay here, Windigar -- you too, Ochirion. If it looks at all dangerous, take Strayway away quickly. If that doesn't work ... don't attack first." We have various reasonably good escape tricks, and various reasonably mediocre weapons.
Sometimes inistella take prime passengers; sometimes ulgrane or other sky monsters. They make wonderful floating pirate bases. For one thing, they are rather dangerous warriors on their own: they are big enough and strong enough to crush nearly any skyboat.
"Right," said Windigar, and poked around with the far-viewer to find good places to teleport to.
"Where are you going?" asked Ochirion.
"I am going to find Vae," I said. "She is far and away the most dangerous thing on this ship, and I'd rather make sure she's awake before the fight."
"Why is she asleep? It is not time to sleep!"
"I don't know that she's asleep. I just want to make sure she's awake and aware."
"She's a where?", asked Ochirion.
"I don't think she is," said Windigar, "Maybe Grinwipey offered to pay, but I don't think she took him up on it."
"Ochirion said 'where'. Just for that, you get to explain your joke to him. In age-appropriate terms," I thundered (in my usual unimpressive hissy little voice.)
I flew off as quickly as I could, and gathered our defenders: Vae, Rheng, Yerenthax, Grinwipey, Kantele, Phaniet, and me. Only Vae and maybe me really count for much at a distance, but if we're boarded by ulgrane, the others can do a great deal.
A black giant spread its black wings and leapt off one of the houses on the inistella's back, flying far faster than I could. "What on wood is that?" whined Phaniet, who has never been much of an adventurer outside of the laboratory and the bedroom.
"He is a nycathath," said Rheng. Phaniet did not look greatly enlightened. "He is the large Cani with wings -- he is the bat-giant. In his armor, with his vast metal sword, he is a warrior greater than us, greater than our nendrai."
"I don't see weapons or armor," said Phaniet.
"He creates them with a spell," explained Rheng.
Phaniet shuddered. "So he's a terrible wizard too?"
Rheng snorted. "He has only one spell. But it is a very good spell. Our wizard and our nendrai together cannot match it." (Which is literally true; it is a spell of a dozen aspects, most of which Vae or I can exceed. Just not all at once.)
"Ahoy, the skyboat of the wizard!" shouted the nycathath in a voice of grand drums.
"Ahoy, the nycathath and the inistella!" shouted Yerenthax, nearly as loud and nearly as deep.
"May I come to you and land on your deck? For dire need is upon us, and a great sadness has come to us, and primes shall die if we do not act and act soon," said the nycathath.
"The primes here are my primes! If you kill even one of them I shall slay you with a variety pack of a thousand assorted pre-death and two thousand post-death torments!" hissed Vae.
"Not your primes shall die, but my primes!" proclaimed the nycathath.
"Hostage situation," I hissed quietly to Rheng and Grinwipey. "On my signal, you two zoom over and rescue whoever you can."
"Aw, I can't rush any faster'n a Herethroy humpin' a hat," grumbled Grinwipey.
"Hold on to Rheng. Teleport if you need to."
"You may land," said Yerenthax. "And deliver to us an explanation of your misdeeds."
The nycathath folded his wings, and landed on the balcony. (Strayway's balconies and decks are retractable, and generally kept inside, but fighting through windows is sometimes awkward.) "In brief: five Rassimel philosophers and their families dwell with us. Before yesterday, the most of them fell asleep, one by one. They will not wake; we cannot rouse them. They take neither food nor drink. We fear for them, that they will die."
"Plague ship, is your inistella," I said.
"But these are Rassimel: they are prime, they are the spawn of the healing god. What plague could touch them? It is we who suffer diseases, not primes."
"Actually there are four contagious diseases for primes: one for Rassimel. The symptoms are, first, unaccountable sleepiness; second, a deep sleep from which there is no waking; third, death," I said, in approximately the words of the second lecture of my Diseases and Maladies class a century before.
"What can be done?" demanded the nycathath.
"A routine Healoc spell can heal it," I said. "Nobody dies of it unless they're very unlucky, and quite careless to boot."
"Then bring your luck and your care to the back of mighty Doöaru, if you can, that our companions shall not die!"
"Aw, what a load of licorice-iced pony cupcakes!" said Grinwipey. "What is this, Stupid Catch The Traveller Trick Number Three? You're all like 'We've got this little puggly trouble and we're too stupided in the brain because we've been phelping each other front and back all day like a bunch of doik-fundered puffies, but you get to help us, you lucky wicky plucky vundervoips.' And then we get over there and -- Ooh, pissgargling surprise! All the dying Rassies are really a bunch of duffer-luffing ororosti! And you're all like, Oops, terribly sorry, natural mistake mister, I'm so fuddled from my erotic anaphoresis activities and skoonerdonking that of course I mistake strings of floating eyeballs for furry raccoon boys. Now I gotta kill you.' Sheesh, nycabuster. If you're gonna do a sponge-pounding trap on us, at least do one I didn't have heard of when I was three."
The nycathath was rather nonplussed by Grinwipey's outburst. "Forgive me, but I don't understand." (I didn't understand a lot of the words either, except 'anaphoresis', and that didn't make sense the way Grinwipey was using it.)
"You're trying to lure us over for the old murderburger 'n flinch flies, sure as the dashitzie," explained Grinwipey.
"I beg your pardon?"
Rheng smirked. "You plan to bring us to the back of the Doöaru inistella. Then you kill those who go there. After that, you come back here and kill the rest of us. The profit? A very nice prime sky-yacht, even if the inistella cannot fit inside it."
The nycathath flapped his wings. "I intend no such iniquity!"
"Precisely what someone who intended such an iniquity would say!" noted Phaniet.
"My companions have a point. To wit: why would five wise Rassimel philosophers be caught unawares by the plague?" I asked.
"Who would expect that contagion could come to us, so deep in the sky?" asked the nycathath. "And they were tired for some time before; perhaps they were not aware of their disease, or perhaps they were too tired to understand the peril that they were in."
"Hoi, snoofter-doofting bat boy, I ain't been churfing my scruffles all night. I understand what peril I'm in," said Grinwipey. "And if'n you don't give up that chuppy little pot of turd-lard story of yours and at least come up with something interesting, I ain't even gonna give you the gun-blundered time o' day."
"Then I shall demonstrate my bona fides in terms that cannot be denied!" thundered the nycathath. He leapt off the balcony, his wings booming as they smashed the sky.
"One does pick up the oddest little bits of sky-wrack when one travels this far from Ketheria," I noted, when he was not quite out of earshot.
"Not greatly do I trust the beast!" said Vae, "Not likely is he to remain departed!" She clawed a few splinters off the edge of the balcon, and turned them into massive glass cardinals with razor-edged tentacles, and black Locador spikes crowning from their heads.
"I imagine the next move is for the inistella to try to crush us," I guessed. "Unless they're trying to capture the yacht altogether." I called to Windigar to escape energetically if the star island came any closer than the quarter-mile -- viz. one body-length -- it already was. I don't know how fast an inistella can pounce.
It didn't. The nycathath flew back to Doöaru, stomped into a hut, and came out with a stripey parcel in his arms. A quadrupedal horror bound it to his chest with some sort of spell. The nycathath spread his huge wings and flew leadenly towards us.
Kantele stared at it. "Or we might be wrong."
The nycathath approached, holding something that looked -- as best as we could tell -- like a sleeping Rassimel woman dressed rather informally. It was impossible to determine if she was a philosopher or not at this distance, though. He roared, "Again, I request that I may land upon your deck, and my dear sick friend Kazrie oa Stamps with me?"
"Yes, of course," I said. Vae's glass birds perched massively on the balcony, glaring at the monster -- the foreign monster, not their creatrix, who was busy turning the thready breezes into coiled serpentine distortions of distance, ready to strike at need.
The nycathath landed with a thump, and cradled the Rassimel woman in his arms. "The situation is straightforward and wholly innocent. I do nothing the least bit dishonorable."
"Yeah, yeah, that's what I always say when the guard catches me carrying an unconscious Rassy," said Grinwipey.
I spread my wings to fly towards the woman, for medical reasons. Phaniet grabbed my tail. "Careful, Sythyry. It's probably some trickier trap, like Wipey asked for."
"Right. Stupid of me," I said. I stared at the Rassimel-looking bundle with three senses, and the Eye of Mirizan and Melizan. "It looks like a sick Rassimel woman with a don't-fall spell on her."
"Right," hissed Rheng. "Monster, put the woman down there. Then retreat to the other end of the balcony."
The nycathath frowned. "Prime courtesy has its own distinctive flavor."
"Is that why you consider this 'Kazrie' woman your dear friend?" asked Phaniet.
"She is an exception," admitted the monster.
Vae hissed angrily and lashed her tail, dripping with strange Locador spells. "Not discourteous are my primes! Not happily will I endure their insulting, thou wicked beast!"
The nycathath sat on the far end of the balcony, crossing his arms, crossing his legs, and looking generally quite cross. "I am here as a barely-tolerated guest asking for a favor, and so I shall not investigate in any detail about precisely who is insulting precisely whom. I shall endure insults and worse, for the sake of Kazrie and the others."
Yerenthax and Rheng and some curling intangible discontinuities in space interposed themselves between me and the nycathath. Vae ripped her earmuffs off and stood by my side as I inspected my patient. Or, rather, as I checked her basic life signs (pulse: slow and weak. Breathing: slow and weak. Fur: limp and unlustrous. Temperature: cool, but that might be due to a recent flight. Eyes: closed, and dim and blank when I pried an eyelid open. Urine: unavailable.) I didn't quite remember if there was anything I needed to do about the plague, besides the basic spell. I didn't think so. But I hadn't looked at the topic in over a century.
So I cast Wake from Mircannis’ Endless Slumber in the obvious way. It is not possible to forget a spell, since spells are artificial limbs grafted onto one's psyche. But it is possible how to forget how to use one well, as with any other artificial limb one has not used or even thought about in a century.
She woke up promptly, opened her eyes, and stared at me. "Who are you, and what have you done with my village?"
"I am Sythyry, wizard of Vheshrame, and these are my companions. Your village and your inistella -- Doöaru, I believe his name is -- are over there," I said. "I am a Guild healer, and have just relieved you of the plague." (pulse: strong and quick and angry. Breathing: strong and quick and angry. Fur: still rather limp. Temperature: a bit warmer. Eyes: open, black, flashing. Urine: still unavailable.)
"Is that what it was? I thought it was just a bit of fatigue, maybe from overexertion or too much cold air," she snapped. "How'd I get it, anyways? I haven't been near any new Rassies in months."
I had to dredge up old Healer's Guild lessons for that. "The virulent principle can harbor for months or even years in wine and dried fruit."
"Oh, can it? I didn't know that," she said.
"Yes. It's almost as if Mircannis knew what the Rassimel were going to like to eat when she made them and made the plague," said Kantele. She got a glare from Kazrie for that.
Yerenthax didn't look away from the nycathath on the balcony, but she did turn an ear to listen to us as best she could. "It appears that the nycathath told the truth, or much of it. I do believe we owe our guest an apology."
Vae hissed, "Not a thing in the world do we owe him! The insults he brings to us, the favors he asks of us -- if not the outright traps!"
Yerenthax looked uncertain, but didn't feel like arguing with an irate nendrai.
Grinwipey said, "Oh, I'll apologize all right. I'll apologize myself purple in the whoon-pleasuring eyestalks. Not that I've ever pleasured a whoon myself, mind you, not with my eyestalks nor any other way. I'll do that right after he proves there's no trap really, and he pays for all the cheen-swiddling wizard's time and cley." His lack of disclaimer about me was notable.
"Well, I'm much obliged to you for saving my life, O Zi Ri," she said to me. "How much do I owe you? I'd just as soon pay you and be on my way."
I usually charge quite a lot per cley. (There are good reasons for encouraging people to hire lesser mages for the works that lesser mages can perform. (Not all the reasons are selfish. Lesser mages who get practice will eventually become greater mages.)) And we're far from a city, which generally increases the fees of most civilized matters. And this Kazrie certainly wasn't a fellow citizen. And her inistella and nycathath had alarmed my entire ship.
"Let's say, just standard Guild rates for the plague: sixty lozens," I said, because I am on vacation. She winced anyways. "But the actual problem is, if the nycathath is to be believed ...
"Why on would wouldn't you listen to Muot?" she snapped.
"We were uncertain about how much to trust him initially," I admitted. "In any case, he said that all the Rassimel in your ... village? ... "
"Commune," she said.
"... in your commune are unconscious with the plague."
17"Oh, great staring gods. Muot, is everyRassy really sick?"
Muot spread his vast ears. "You were the first, Kazrie, but not so long after, each of your conspecifics was asleep beyond waking."
"This is bad, Muot. This is very bad."
"Your kinsfolk are not in great danger," I said. "Or shouldn't be, unless you have a great many kinsfolk there indeed."
"Seventeen. We've got plenty of kinsfolk. What we don't have plenty of is lozens."
Grinwipey laughed. "First part of the air monster scam! 'Here ya go, wizzy lizzy. Cast your super-valuable spells with your super-valuable cley. Give us the big discount rate if you like, make house calls onto a flippin' super-dangerous monster back, but we're not going to lutsy-nutsy pay you anyways. If you don't like that, d'you know what we're going to do? We're going to die at you, like a bunch of sliggety-pokety lustards.'
"Wipey, please be quiet. People don't generally get the plague as a tactical move," I said.
"Quiet is what I am going to not be! You're the boss here. I'll be poached in garlic and spaggering coriander sauce if I'ma let you get cheated like a smipsy thokker!!"
"If I'm the boss here, I get to say what I'm doing."
"You're not that kind of boss," said Grinwipey. Everyone else nodded agreement. They're a bunch of spaggering mutineers, like a (some?) smipsy thokker(s).
"Muot, do you think the perdithorne would be willing to help?" Kazrie asked.
"Madame, they were most extravagantly worried and fretful when you fell ill," said the nycathath.
"May we pay in kind?" Kazrie asked me. "We can offer bound spells."
"You sayin' the boss's spellbinding ain't good enough?" asked Grinwipey. "You're a right jiggy rustybum, seeing as how zie healed you and all, and zir spell bigger'n a toastus-whump."
"All I am saying is that we don't have that much cash, so we'd like to pay in kind," said Kazrie.
"All I'm sayin' is that a Rassy who lives with a nycathath and a perdithorne on top of an inistella ain't a Rassy who you should trust with your life or even your penny-pipple," said Grinwipey. "And I know from the cheats 'n murderers. That I do, Sythyry."
Phaniet lashed her tail. "We can't just let two dozen people die of the plague. Even if they are sky pirates. I don't think they'll be attacking us, even so."
Grinwipey said, "Make 'em go to the nearest Healers' Guild. I don't trust 'em. Can't be more than a gobberdrobbing day or two from here. They got more time than a whore has sluppocks."
Kazrie curled her tail. "The matter is not so simple. Doöaru cannot fly close to cities, and we are not welcome everywhere."
"Pirates. I bisking told you so, Sythers."
A great deal of discussion was necessary.
| Concern | Resolution | Grinwipey |
| If I went to Doöaru, I would be in grave danger. | Muot the nycathath volunteered to be transformed into a harmless inanimate form by the nendrai, and stay on board of Strayway as a hostage. | He's gotta spleer-fexing trick up his wing. |
| Payment is not readily available. | Payment in cash is not essential. | You're gonna get cheated out the dunderplex, Sythyry. |
| It will use much cley, leaving little for other emergencies, such as a surprise attack by sky pirates. | Not that many. | You're gonna get your tail shecked like a turgid snail, Sythyry. |
| It's not our responsibility. | Plague is a generally bad thing to leave around. It's everyone's responsibility. | So's piracy! Besides, who cares if a bunch of durped sky pirates dies? They're the pozzy competition! |
| There's that giant inistella thing to worry about too. Even Vae would take a while to kill it. | It can't attack me while I'm on its back. And if it goes trying to smash Strayway, Vae -- with me -- will be in easy tailtouch range. | This whole situation is so sgoggered, it's like a vulture in a mortar 'n pestle. |
So Vae turned Muot into a sheet of black paper cut in the shape of a bat, with a very goofy face drawn on in crayon. She handed him to Tingula, who is very quick, and set eleven tigers' heads of angry flame dancing around her ready to pounce on the paper. Tingula cast a scrying spell, and I let her watch me.
"I have rarely seen you so aggressive!" I noted.
"If I am leaping into a trap, I may die, but many others will die with me!" Vae said.
Us: Me, Vae, Yerenthax, Jyondre (who isn't that tough, but insisted on coming along), and Grinwipey.
Them: Two scared perdithorne, one scared mherobump, two scared Orren in water form, eight scared taptet, and one inistella whose face was too far from me to be able to see. Vae said he smelled worried. Oh, and presumably sixteen unconscious, dying Rassimel of all ages, but we couldn't see them, presumably because they were sleeping indoors and we had teleported onto the back of the inistella, outdoors.
"They don't sheep-skacking look so dangerous, Sythyry. But hey, if I'm making a trap for you, it wouldn't sheep-skacking look dangerous," said Grinwipey.
Oh, and a bristle-tailed Kazrie. "They've taken Muot hostage. I know none of you were going to do anything the least bit impolite, much less aggressive. But see that scrying spell watching us? Don't do anything that anyone could even vaguely think was dangerous, or Muot dies."
"Are they going to hurt us, Kazrie?" asked one of the Orren. I am officially allowed to ogle Orren who are not my clients, so I did, a bit. He was very cute and slinky. And it has been a long, long time...
"I don't think so. They're not anywhere's law... they might be sympathetic even. They've got that nendrai with them," said Kazrie.
"Not a bit of sympathy will you find in us!" snapped Vae.
"Except for plague victims and other unfortunates," said Jyondre.
"And, speaking of plague victims, where are they?" I asked.
Kazrie pointed to one of the huts. "My family are in there."
I started flying. Grinwipey waved his clubs. "You ain't going in first, boss. That is the job for the guy with too many eyestalks and too much tough, sure as the dashitzie." Which was hard to argue with.
While he was looking around inside for traps, I looked around outside. Doöaru's back is covered with heavy scales, each one big enough for my whole sky-yacht to land on. Gleaming scales like flagstones made of single huge gems, lit by some internal lights or flames. This scale had many fruit trees on it, growing in barrels of soil. That scale has a hut, a flimsy thing of leaves and a few sticks, tied together fairly casually, its main support beams anchored to some protrusions in the underlying scale.
Grinwipey drifted out. "I think it's clear, boss. I don't like it though. Get the perdithorne to bring them out.
One of the perdithorne said, "We have no hands, O Khtsoyis, and we have only so many cley for our spells."
"I'll carry the children," said Kazrie.
"You will not dacking carry the children. I dacking want the perdithorne to use their cley," said Grinwipey.
"I apologize for my subaltern," I said. "But he seems to have put himself in charge of my security."
"It's not your security I'm worried about," said Kazrie, eyeing Vae's lashing, flashing tail.
"Quite reasonably, neither of us really have much reason to trust the other," I said. "But we are here to do you a favor, and I feel obliged to endure Grinwipey's sense of suitable protections."
Kazrie crouched and scritched one of the perdithorne, ruffling her visible and her invisible ear. "Csessa, please do me this favor. I am worried about my family, and all the others."
Csessa bristled a bit. "You generally do not preach such a servile role!"
"We are getting service, if we provide suitable conditions to get it."
Csessa bared her teeth at Grinwipey once, but prowled into the hut, and emerged with a distinctly ill unconscious Rassimel boy of perhaps twelve or fifteen years. I cast Wake from Mircannis' Endless Slumber on him, and he sat up. "I'm really hungry. Can I have some dry fruit before dinner?"
Kazrie embraced her son. "I'm glad you're OK. Sure, you can have some ... actually I'm starving too." One of the water-form Orren went scampering off to a different hut to get some.
The annoyed perdithorne continued bringing sick Rassimel out of the huts. I continued healing them. They were all weak and hungry from being sick for days, and showed no sign of trying to slaughter us. Eventually most of us relaxed, except for Grinwipey (eyes everywhere!) and Vae (who looked upset rather than scared.)
Seventeen wrung-out Rassimel. The plague is more debilitating than death itself, or at least more debilitating than death by having a sword driven through your heart followed by immediate resurrection. Or so my expert informants tell me; I've never done either.
Jyondre said, in Sriniean, "So, my Khtsoyis friend, do you-unhi still expect an attack by a squadron of exhausted limp grandparents and children?"
Grinwipey said, "Nah. It's the smicker-felking surprise I'm worried about. I know these guys have a surprise coming up soon, and I'm a star-stellated dodecahedron stuffed with coriander if my poor innocent little smicker doesn't get felked all the way to Daukrhame."
I looked to Kazrie. "You do have a surprise, don't you?"
Kazrie took a moment to swallow a great cud of dried apricots, and wash it down with a thin and curried broth of cockroaches. "We are a simple philosophical sect, O Zi Ri. You have seen all of us; you have seen our most subtle and dangerous wiles and our wickedest and most devastating arts."
Vae turned a dried apricot into a huge three-headed sixteen-horned bombasticus, with a hollow tail which presumably fired some sort of missile. "Not for a moment do I believe that."
"Even your mighty tail cannot mutate truth to falsehood," Kazrie said.
"Nonetheless, perhaps you could give a more complete account of your lives and your ways?" asked Jyondre. "Perhaps one that explains to some extent why you are living in the depths of the sky, with monsters as your companions and your very foundation? And why you are not welcome in prime cities, for that matter?"
"And how you're gonna pay for all the wizard's spell work that's just saved your gribbulating lives!" added Grinwipey.
One of the other philosophers -- Arvaky, I think his name is -- said, "They do have a nendrai with them, Kazrie. And I doubt they will kill us after working to heal us. It would be a waste of cley."
Kazrie drank more cockroach broth. "Very well. We are a philosophical sect devoted to the proposition that monsters and primes can and should attempt to live together in peace and harmony. This village is an exercise and an example thereof."
Vae turned the table into a swarm of furious flying spatulas. "Not a bit of truth is there in that proposition! The concept is vile, is wicked, is contemptable, is the most wrong thing!"
Doorwaying -- allowing monsters to come in to prime cities -- is generally and sensibly regarded as the worst crime available to primes on the World Tree. Of course these philosophers aren't welcome in civilized places. They are too close to doorwayers for anyone's comfort.
Kazrie quirked her ears at Vae and the spatulas, as the taptet ran around trying to put the bowls and cups and plates onto level spots on the inistella's scale. "You are, if I am not mistake, travelling with the healer and zir entourage...?"
Vae looked a bit cornered. (It's never wise to corner a nendrai.) "The Strayway is my home for the year and the next year, yes."
"So, is it not the case that you, yourself, are living with some primes?"
Vae grudgingly admitted that she was.
"I am no Cani to instantly understand all the fine points of the social dynamics, but you seem a bit protective of your companions, and they seem comfortable in your presence. One might even be so bold as to describe your relationship as 'apparently amicable'," said the doomed philosopher.
"The yes, the yes, that is all true," said Vae.
"So, one might be inclined to speculate that you, yourself, are an instance of precisely the sort of social organization that I am investigating."
Vae turned one of the spatulas into an inside-out capybara, speared it on a claw, and took a bite. "Not further should you investigate. The social organization is a terrible social organization."
Kazrie shuddered at the nendrai's snack. "Yet it is the way you organize your current society."
Vae bit off half the capybara's brain. "The saving-from-me we are giving to Vheshrame, as a gift. The cursings and hideous transformations I perform will all be on the wrongfolk. They are saving their home city from my depredations and my wickednesses, by luring me away with them."
Arvaky asked, "Wrongfolk?"
I answered, "Many of us are from an estate in Vheshrame called 'Castle Wrong'. Hence, wrongfolk."
Arvaky nodded sagely. "There must be a story there."
"There is," said Jyondre, "but perhaps the should not interrupt the battle of nendrai and philosopher."
Kazrie was well ready for the battle. "Well, I should imagine that if you live for any great length of time with primes, you will come to regard them as friends and allies. Muot -- the nycathath who is your voluntary hostage -- found that he was perfectly able to take us under his protection, so long as there were a suitable number of non-primes as well."
Vae took another bite of capybara, and turned the rest of it into a false memory of being tortured with red-hot copper needles by puppets. "And think you that every monster is like a nycathath? The friends and allies I travel with: yet I cannot protect them from the vilest danger they face. The I cannot even understand that I have been a danger to them, until after the injuries I wreck and torments I inflict have been repaired. The better protection for them would be if they were not my friends and allies; I might be less inspired to be helpful to them." One of the perdithornes got entangled in the memory, and was quite perplexed.
I explained, "Vae is happy to use her mighty magic to help primes in need. She is unable to tell what the need is, or whether she has been helpful or harmful. That must not reflect poorly on her general intellect and morality, which are quite worthy. Gnarn made her to be troublesome, and troublesome she is, despite herself."
Kazrie flicked her tailtip. "Accomodations must be made for the wickedness of the creator gods. Indeed, on the back of Doöaru, we have made some: no Cani live here, for perdithorne cannot endure the presence of Cani."
Vae snapped, "Not a bit should I live with primes, then, for I cannot trust myself around primes."
"You simply need to figure out what sort of mental tricks to do to be safe around them. Perhaps, remember to never help anyone without consulting an expert first," said Kazrie. In a calm and reasonable voice, considering that her tail had gone quite bottlebrushy.
"She can't remember that either. She is a well-designed monster," I said.
"The magic earmuffs that keep certain words from my ears help somewhat," Vae added. "Not always! The poor Quendry-child got his hideous magnification just the other day. The earmuffs knew what he meant by saying 'when I get bigger', but I was unable to know."
"Well, perhaps you are a special case," admitted Kazrie. "Though, even for a special case, you do seem to be an excellent illustration of my point. But special cases are, by their very nature, special. Most nonprimes are common cases."
"The nonprimes were built to be a doom and a trouble on the primes! The special cases are we all, each and every one. The dangers I bring include blatant ones, for I am a vast and huge monster. The dangers that taptet bring are all more subtle! The potions they brew are appealing but perilous. The small and enslavable servants, also, are what taptet appear to be, but they crave freedom and will take the most alarming risks to acquire it. The slower perils for you are taptet, but they are still perils."
"Nonsense! The taptet who dwell on Doöaru are friends and respected companions!" snapped Arvaky.
Grinwipey looked as innocent as a Khtsoyis can. "So how come you're the ones sittin' your grombuses on the comfy chairs stuffin' twiffish fruit treats into your yawning esophaguses, an' they're the ones carryin' the comfy chairs 'n bringin' the fruit treats?"
"Because we're the ones who were very sick an hour ago," snapped Kazrie.
"Yeah? Usually you wait on them with two hands and both noober-lapping feet, right?" said Grinwipey with a smirk. The Rassimel philosophers looked a bit embarrassed, and the taptet looked a bit annoyed.
"The venom-spiked fist of the gods is the fist that you are begging to have rammed into your faces and your bellies," said Vae. "The Strayway too -- but at least the crew of the Strayway know that they are asking."
"And wearing protective gear," I added, because I am proud of the protective gear, even if it doesn't work perfectly.
Grinwipey:"Well, all this theoretical philosopy of doorwaying is completely munger-banging fascinating and important, but you still haven't said how you're gonna pay the wizard for making those house calls 'n saving your lives."
Me:"Actually..."
Kazrie:"We'll have to pay in kind."
Grinwipey:"We don't want your kind." He seemed to relish the chance to say that, perhaps because people more often say that to or about him.
Me:"Actually..."
Vae:"The money will be better with us. The philosophers and their sycophants will simply use it to further their pernicious doctrine."
Me:"Actually..."
Kazrie:"Money is scarce here, perhaps because we are not in fact the sky pirates you suspect us of being."
Grinwipey:"I never sheepshoofing said you were good sky pirates."
Zuzmaan:" Please be gracious enough to accept bound spells from my mate and myself, which we will provide in great number if necessary." (Zuzmaan is one of the perdithorne, who are natural experts in bound magic.)
Perdithorne are also not prime.
Getting things from perdithorne does nothing at all for a nendrai.
Switching from "getting things from Rassimel" to "getting things from perdithorne" is a poor substitution for a nendrai.
Vae snarled in a sudden crest of fury, and turned a spatula into a tentacled thunderbolt. She was somewhat moderate, in the sense of not actually killing poor Zuzmaan, but the actinic bolt entangled him, hissing fiercely, burning his fur. He presumably whined, and stood very very still so that the thunderbolt wouldn't strangle him. The rest of us presumably yelped in alarm.
Me:"Vae? Please stop tormenting the poor monster. We're here to be helpful."
Vae: A passionate declamation, or, at least, a declamation accompanied by passionate gestures.
Nearly everyone else:A variety of other exclamations, generally appearing to be scared and/or angry
Me:"I'm sorry, but I can't hear you. That thunderbolt was quite loud."
Vae: A sudden transformation to doleful remorse, if her facial expressions were any indication. Or maybe she was reciting some of the shockingly erotic poetry that Umbers had been teaching her, for all I could tell. Admitting that you even have heard that stuff really ought to be accompanied by expressions of doleful remorse.
Several of the natives: ran away
Me: Sponted a group restore-hearing spell. I don't much like doing spontaneous magic: it is undignified. But I don't have a pattern spell to restore hearing to more than one person at a time. I shall have to get one.
Yerenthax: Calmly smashed a chair over Vae's head, then patted her between the eyes.
Vae:"Oh! The thanks are due to you, Yerenthax. And have I become impolite?"
Jyondre:"I'm sure there remain ways for you to be more rude, Vae."
Vae:"Oh, no!" She teleported off in a carnivorous blossom of Locador.
Grinwipey:"Well, thanks for that! You stink-arranging traff plungermongers have shamed off our churfle-busking ride home. Plus our goozey artillery in case the sky pirates get frisky for the three-club mambo."
Kazrie:"Out of curiosity, who will pay for the cley of the spell that you just cast?" Kazrie is very Rassimel; once she gets on a topic, she is unrelenting with it.
Me:"Actually..."
Grinwipey:"Maybe the same wheenwhacking person who set the nendrai off in the frimpin' first place?"
Me:"Actually..."
Kazrie:"She is a volatile person, and violently opposed to her own interests and those of her natural allies."
Vae: (returning after the word "is", in the form of a blindfolded loaf-sized snail) "She's also the one who transported her friends -- if she can still use the word -- here, and who has promised to return them home."
Me:"Actually..."
Grinwipey:"Actually you doorwaying bumpshooters gotta pay the wizard, lozens in my tents right now, or we'll show you what we're holding under our petticoats."
Jyondre: looked exceedingly embarrassed.
Me:"Actually..."
Kazrie:"Actually I am not entirely certain who best deserves the title of 'sky pirate': those whose methods and deeds have been entirely peaceful, or those who threaten frequently and cast shocking spells."
Me:"Actually..."
Yerenthax:"Actually the threats are Grinwipey's normal vernacular; he is just as foulmouthed and bloodworded to us. The spells are the deeds of an upset monster whose powers exceed her gods-blasted self-control. Fortunately her good will exceeds both of those."
Vae: glowed at the compliment.
Everyone else: turned away, or shaded their eyes.
Kazrie:"Actually, the deeds speak for themselves."
Jyondre:"Actually, so does the healing benefice given to you."
Grinwipey:"Actually, we want our skonderskunking money!"
Me:"Actually, I wanted..."
Grinwipey:"Actually, you want a date with those two waterform Orren that you've been drooling over every time I turn an eyestalk towards you, boss."
Well, yes, I had been.
Me:"Actually..."
Grinwipey:"Actually that's a great idea. Save on the epanaleptic whore bills."
Me:"I don't hire whores. And what is epanalepsis anyhow?"
Grinwipey:"You're on vacation, boss. Gonna wind up paying for chotting the old pottle sooner or later. Always happens."
Me:"Actually, I wanted to ask for an I.O.U., which they can repay at their convenience." I was hugely embarrassed by the whole scene, and wanted to be back at home among my usual wrongfolk as soon as I could. Even at the cost of not taking all of some horrible proto-criminals' life savings.
Grinwipey:"Sure, and it's going to be so backered convenient to lurp down and hozzy up your lozens."
Jyondre:"I wonder, could you accept something a bit different? Sort of in the way that a faithfully-married but unskilled couple might accept a but of tutoring in the amatory arts from a prostitute, or a city guard might accept clues towards the solving of a crime from a mind-mage? In both cases, without particular dishonor, even though the informant is not generally the sort of person that would associate with the former?"
Me:"What?"
Jyondre:"The philosophers have thought a great deal about how monsters can live with primes. I wonder if they might look at the arrangements we have for living with Vae, and suggest any improvements that might help the matter?"
Me:"That sounds better than an I.O.U. that will never get paid. Thank you, Jyondre."
I didn't get to talk very much with Bazamvey and Hark! (the exclamation point is part of her name, so don't blame me, please). The Rassimel were doing most of the talking. I had been eyeing them whenever I could, and they were quite pretty Orren indeed, all lovely sleek brown fur and quick eyes. And, after all the Rassimel were healed and sent to bed, they went sliding around on Doöaru's scales. They stayed in water-form all the time. This is odd, because they weren't generally in the water, but (a) some Orren can do it; (b) some Orren like to do it; and (c) it wasn't even close to the strangest thing going on on Doöaru's back.
So I invited them to breakfast aboard Strayway.
Which is not as inconvenient as it might seem at first. We had parked Strayway on Doöaru's back -- Strayway has a flat bottom, after all, and the antelopes don't mind being on the ground. (My not-good-friend Urgentia has made the last seven of his skyboats unable to land, despite having shapes that could reasonably be seen on the ground -- two of them were drawn by glass and ivory swans, but, for reasons best known to himself, Urgentia decided that they would be legless glass and ivory swans.)
I didn't have great actual hopes. Really, I didn't. They looked like husband and wife, though that's not always a limitation for Orren. We're not planning to stay on Doöaru very long: a day or two more at most. I've barely flirted with anyone in decades -- not a lot since Mynthë died, come to think of it, and that was about sixty years ago.
But that last is the reason. I need practice in flirting. Reading books and looking at pictures is only so helpful. Admittedly, some of the books and pictures may be interpreted as case studies and practica in flirting and related relationship issues ... though, in some cases, the flirting is cursory and the related activies are extensive and detailed and very, very enthusiastic. Pity real life isn't quite like that, or mine isn't, anyways. Umbers' used to be, until she escaped.
So, breakfast, with a bowl of scallops poached in shrieking wine (now soundproofed), a tray of egg and eel and elk and elm custard cut into little polygonal shapes (I'd asked for triangles, but got squares and hexagons too), and chalices of kathia with a few drops of perfume and brandy. Arfaen did quite a nice job. We were in a private parlor, with a low round teak table, no chairs, and three thin feather pillows on the table next to the plates. This is a comfortable luxury for small people.
Bazamvey:"This is quite pleasant!"
Hark!:"It's nice to get fresh fish! There's a pond or two on Doöaru!'s back! But we can't eat them all! Or we wouldn't have any left! "
Me:"Well, what do you eat there, ordinarily?"
Bazamvey:"Snails!"
Hark!:"We eat lots and lots of snails! They slither up and down Doöaru's scales!"
Me:"Scale snails!"
Bazamvey:"I like scale snail tails!"
Hark!:"I don't! Scale snail tail fail!"
So that was all very fine and giggly, and very Orren.
Me:(somewhat later) "Where are you from?"
Bazamvey:"We're from out along the branch!"
Hark!:"We're wandering wizards!"
Bazamvey:"We're sauntering sorcerers."
Hark!:"We're meandering mages!"
Bazamvey:"We're thravelling thaumaturges!"
Hark!:"We're eloping enchanters!"
Me:"Are you actually eloping?" Which was a question I had generally been wondering.
Hark!:"I think we're married!"
Bazamvey:"And I don't. Hark! didn't register the wedding properly."
Hark!:"I tried! I don't know how to write!"
Me:"You don't? You must have grown up in a riverbum village!" Which is a perfectly ordinary thing for Orren to do, and riverbums aren't always as determined to give their children a rigorous education.
Hark!:"I did! Sort of! Three of them!"
Me:"Oh? Why three of them?"
Hark!:"My parents kept getting kicked out! They used too much Mentador!"
Well, that's an unusual and a distressing thing to admit in public. I didn't really know how to respond, so I responded badly:
Me:"Oh, my! Bazamvey, what is your background?"
Bazamvey:"Much the same. Five villages."
Me:"Heavens."
Bazamvey:"Mentador isn't that popular."
Me:"So you're both the children of riverbum Mentador mages?" Which sounds quite odd to me. Riverbums aren't the sort of people that you'd really expect to learn enough Mentador to bother people -- much less to have enough money to by the requisite spells.
Hark!:"Oh, that! Yes! We're Mentador mages ourselves too!"
Which is not something that many people admit in polite company, much less like that. I was doing my best to look like an open-minded and friendly wizard. (Which I am, pretty much. Open-legged, too, though I hope it wasn't that obvious.)
Me:"What is your specialty?"
Hark!:"Mind control!"
I will admit that I checked various protective and investigative devices, as surreptitiously as I could manage. Specialists in mind control had best be specialists in teleporting as well, or something else useful for escapes -- if not actual combat magic -- for there are fewer less popular magical disciplines.
Me:"Really?"
Bazamvey:"Yes. Practical mind control. We help Orren domesticate deer and river-dolphins, by rendering the animals less fearful of people for a while. The Orren would feed the animals, and make friends with them. When the control spells wore off, the animals were still friends with the primes. That sort of thing."
Me:"Oh! Not controlling other primes."
Hark!:"We're not primes!"
Me:"You're not?"
Hark!:"We just look that way!"
Me:"..."
Bazamvey:"But once in a while we'd control primes too. One of our customers had a terrible habit of ripping out her own fur. She hated it, but she couldn't break it. A control spell was good for that."
Hark!:"Or that man by three ponds! He was too fat! He wanted to eat less! We made him eat less! He was happy!"
Me:"Wait ... you're not prime?"
Hark!:"We're norren!"
Me:"... really?"
Bazamvey:"Really!"
Me:"I didn't know there were any norren in Ketheria." By "Ketheria" I mean "Vheshrame Mene" here -- I have no idea about the rest of my native branch, much less the rest of Ketheria. I was a bit rattled though.
Hark!:"There might not be! We're not from Ketheria!"
Oh, right. We're not in Ketheria anymore.
Norren look like water-form Orren, which is to say, they look like animal
otters. They're smart and charming -- by all reports, and all my experience
with them too. They're pretty good at magic, especially Mentador and
Illusidor. They've got a poison bite, too, and they're very resistant to
magic, if I
read my reference books a long time later recall correctly.
They are monsters.
They are monsters of the most insidious and insinuative sort.
They're not specifically dangerous. They're not like a nendrai or nycathath, able to be a martial challenge to any prime hero in the world. They're not even like perdithorne, who hate Cani and fight them mercilessly.
They're just ... friendly.
They like Orren.
Orren seem to like norren, too. Except for the Mentador and the being stuck in
water-form, norren and Orren are two of a kind: charming, friendly,
exciteable, unreasonably attractive to Zi Ri, and all like
that. So norren often live in Orren villages -- until they get kicked out for
using their best skills and powers, I suppose.
Oh, and norren kind of like sneaking into cities, by reputation at least. I don't know if that's a compulsion, or just a fun thing. I haven't heard that they've done anything worse than, oh, go swimming in the public pond and see a puppet show, or some such -- or, sometimes, to cast Mentador spells on people. Harmless enough spells, but still, they are Mentador. Still, norren in cities is doorwaying. There is no worse crime. And the Mentador just adds unpopularity-or-crime to unpopularity-or-crime.
I think Pararenenzu must have made them -- zie made the Orren, after all. The alternative is too horrible to think about.
I did my very best to radiate aplomb, and, indeed, to appear as if I had always understood that Bazamvey and Hark! were not actually Orren, or might not be. I succeeded brilliantly, of course. I imagine I was able to close my mouth and stop gaping in a matter of mere ninths of an hour.
Me:"Ah! That's why you're travelling on Doöaru, with Kazrie and the other philosophers."
Hark!:"We want to live with primes!"
Bazamvey:"We like primes!"
Hark!:"Primes like us too!"
Bazamvey:"Except for the Mentador!"
Hark!:"We do jobs that real primes don't want to do!"
Bazamvey:"Important jobs!"
Me:"It certainly sounds that way. Mentador is not well-loved, but it is one of our twelve Nouns, and there are things that it can do that cannot be done nearly as well in any other way."
Bazamvey:"I'm glad you approve!"
Hark!:"I'm glad too!"
(I don't actually approve, but I have the diplomacy not to say that.)
I didn't rush the rest of the breakfast, I really didn't. I did my best to be polite and friendly, and, after I recovered from the surprise, I think I sort of managed it and had some more good conversation. But I didn't flirt any more either.
I'm going to count this one as "a narrow escape".
While I was busy not in the slightest degree seducing Bazamvey and Hark!, Windigar was out having a conversation with Doöaru. I gather it went something like this.
Doöaru:"Good morning! How are your passengers getting along with my passengers?"
Windigar:"Less tense than at first, though I don't imagine that your problematical passengers are ever going to be very friendly with my perverted passengers."
The physical arrangements of the conversation are not so obvious. Wingidar was sitting on one of Strayway's occasional balconies. Strayway was sitting on one of Doöaru's scales. Doöaru was not sitting; he cannot sit. He was gliding slowly downwards, in the general direction of Srineia -- and in the general direction of most of the inhabitable universe, I suppose. He had produced an Orren-sized illusion of himself on his back, through which he could presumably see and hear.
Doöaru:"Perhaps my problematical passengers profess portentious paradigms and pretend perfection? Perhaps your perverted passengers prefer polyamorous performances and prominent protrusions?"
Windigar:"You may be wrong, you may be right, but you are certainl alliterative."
Doöaru:"It's natural for inistella. It comes from the fins, you know." The image wriggled the backs of its wings.
Windigar:"I didn't know."
Doöaru:"They are the alluring ailerons of alliteration! Or so the females of my kind tell me."
Windigar:"Oh? What are the courtship habits of inistella like? We who dwell largely upon the land -- and weakly in the water! -- are unaware of such aerial attractions." He can do it too. I presume this is because master-pilots are taught about vessels with sails and those without.
Doöaru:"Well, in the Month of Moveable Marriage -- Trandary, you call it -- in each Year of the Yum -- as we term years which, when divided by fourteen, have a remainder of three -- we gather in an inverted vortex over Vulturia. We hold dirigible dances and poetic promenades. At the end of the month, each individual inistella must mark a mate, pick a partner, select a spouse. Afterwards, we indulge our inclinations for copulation, procreation, dissimulation, aggravation, elevation, desparation, destination, and disintegration for seven years. Then comes divorce and a certain while of solitary exploration."
Windigar:"Isn't the current year 313 x 14 + 3?"
Doöaru:"Is it? Oh! It is!"
Windigar:"And the current month is Hispis, so your Vulturian vortex vows should have evolved about two weeks ago..."
Doöaru:"Alas! Arithmetic gives me the lie! Perhaps you could tell me some lies about the courtship habits of the Orren, and then we'll call it even?" [OOC note: I didn't intend the current year to be the Year of the Yum; I can't divide 4385 by 14 in my head. Oops! -bb]
Windigar:"Well, it is our invariable custom to concern a Cani to gingerly introduce us to a Gormoror who will happily point out a Herethroy who will cautiously indicate which Khtsoyis who will recommend a Rassimel who will select a Sleeth to zero in on a Zi Ri who will find a spouse for us." (In case any reading monsters are uncertain, this is not how it is done.)
Doöaru:"A complicated arrangement!"
Windigar:"But very prime. That's why I'm working for Sythyry -- zie's the last link in the chain. When we return to Vheshrame, I shall have my necessary and nifty nuptuals!"
Doöaru:"How charming!"
Windigar:"Charming indeed, and indescribably romantic. Unfortunately it's not true: I have no guarantee that Sythyry, or anyone, will find a spouse for me. And the Strayway is not the best place to seek one: the Orren here all prefer Rassimel or Herethroy."
Doöaru:"Alas indeed! I share your trepidation about marital prospects; women seem to prefer clippers or trefoils."
And the conversation continued in mutual sympathy.
The moral quandary of the day is not how to treat Vae. The philosophers made a few suggestions. Vae absolutely refuses to the suggestions which are hers to do -- e.g., it would be very helpful if she announced her presence with a display of miniature fireworks and the scent of burning violins or something. With that, everyone would be constantly aware of her presence, and would be careful to watch what they say. Vae rejected the idea as undignified and immodest and humiliating. I am not quite sure why someone who generally lounges around the yacht in the shape of a snake with seven butterfly wings thinks this, but there you are.
She might, however, try to map the borders of her most unfortunate compulsion. A brave, brave volunteer (Yerenthax?) will make increasingly importunate requests for assistance, and we will learn just how much self-control Vae has before being helpful. Perhaps, in time and with practice, Vae will be able to increase her self-control. I expect to spend many days fixing our brave, brave volunteer.
(After which, we sent the philosophers and their monsters on their way. Grinwipey emphatically exclaimed at how they had cheated me, and how it would be choons with glorzy jelly if he could cheat people so easily out of so much.)
No, the actual moral problem is this.
We (and by 'we' I exclude myself) were at lunch in the galley, enjoying a very fancy salad buffet made by Calla the night chef, who is, once again, compelled to be diurnal. Calla had prepared a batch of herring croquettes for those who need to eat meat.
Lithia:(Orren phase)"These are very good herring croquettes."
Thiane: (waitress of the meal) "I'll be sure to tell our poor kitchen-slave Calla that you said so."
Lithia:"Inconnu?"
Inconnu: [Looking at Lithia with his mouth full of croquette.] "Oh no, what, what?"
Lithia:"The croquettes are delicious. Also, they are filling, being composed of herring, powdered biscuit, pureed turnip, butter, and eggs, and then deep-fried. A few of them would be quite filling indeed, especially for people who have been complaining about hunger lately."
Kantele:"Who on wood has been complaining about hunger lately? Calla and Arfaen have been cooking constantly -- to say nothing of Mellilot, Thiane, Blenny, Inconnu, Tingula, Umbers, Zascalle, and the boys. I imagine I'll be begging Grinwipey for new clothes by the time we get to Srineia, and that is not many more days."
Lithia:"Never mind. They're just excellent herring croquettes."
Inconnu:"Right! They are!" He emptied half the tray of croquettes into his purse.
Kantele:"Inconnu! Are you the greedy glutton today, or were you just been immersed up to your ears in the Astral Sea of Rudeness as an infant? What on wood was that about?" (I do not know about any such mystical realm as that.)
Inconnu:"NO! It's not what you're thinking!"
Kantele:"A remarkable utterance. Would you care to tell me what I am thinking, as well as what the truth of the situation is?"
Lithia: [sighing] "Inconnu!"
Grinwipey:"Stinking little excuse for a skeef-wronching butter-and-bread you are, Inconnu!"
Inconnu:"No!"
Kantele:"Oh, my. Grinwipey's involved in whatever-this-is, too. This can't be good."
Grinwipey:"It ain't stuffed-up-Mircannis'-yanabloonie bad either."
Kantele:"You'd better tell me more."
Grinwipey:"Aw, sure thing, old woman. Up in the Cathay row, the lizard breath asked us, 'Hey, these these foozers are all on the scuddery vay, and they're nearly ready to be vimpered and get the glootie, so go ratch them, spango?' So we're like 'Dotch, dotch, we're rostic with the mangeree baking in the skates-and-sled , and the old limp-and-sink is coming with the cley.' And got told back, 'Razzers, but the gin-dorms are full of gin, and the snapping's coming up with flattery!' So we says, 'Nah, the frain can dummel on the pancakes, we're not a delivery service, but maybe we are.' So it's no gnawing on anyone's fudd-whucker, see?"
Kantele:"In point of fact, I do not, as you so eloquently phrase it, 'see'."
Lithia blinked at Grinwipey. "I was there too, I've been getting swearing lessons from you, and I didn't understand what you said."
Grinwipey peered one eyestalk at her. "Cathay Row is Ketheria, see? Skates-and-sled is from rhyming, you can figure that out."
Kantele:"Lithia! Perhaps you would be so good as to explain the situation."
Lithia:"Um ... can I talk to my stepmother? Zie's probably going to understand a bit better..."
Kantele:"Pleading with Sythyry for mercy already? What trouble have you caused now?"
Which lead, inevitably, to interrupting my discussion of enchantment plans with Phaniet, sitting on the emo couch in the library.
Kantele:"Sythyry, I regret to inform you that your stepdaughter has been conspiring against you."
Grinwipey:"Sythyry, I regret to inform you that your secretary is a blunkwad who shunders profligate prebs in her spare time. Under the sickens and wipes!"
Me:"I don't understand either of you. Actually, I think I have a better idea of what Grinwipey means than Kantele, which is pretty alarming."
Kantele:"I think the perpetrators had better explain themselves!"
Yerenthax, fierce in her bloodstained pink armor, shoved two youths forward: a Cani boy with golden retriever styling and an Orren girl with bright, bright eyes, both dressed after the fashion of the skybridge cities.
Me:"Who are those?"
Dorze:"I'm Dorze." He curtsied and wagged his tail politely and looked generally apologetic.
Lost-Eyes:"And I'm Lost-Eyes." She curtsied too, but looked defiant.
Kantele:"They should be tossed out of Strayway. With bound Heal the Awful Wound spells so they don't stay dead when they land." She was snarling in a way that one does not usually associate with social secretaries in their nineties.
Me:"Why? What are they doing on Strayway in the first place? I didn't invite them."
Kantele:"Exactly. You did not invite them. They are stowaways! They must be sent on their way as quickly as possible!"
Lost-Eyes:"We're not stowaways! The Zi Ri wizard said it was all right!"
Me:"I did?" As the only Zi Ri and the only wizard on board, I was understandably confused.
Lost-Eyes:"No! The other one! Sazandigraa!"
Me:"Why is my ever-so-generous cousin sending stowaways onto my skyboat?"
Kantele:"Lithia and Grinwipey and Windigar and Inconnu did it!"
Grinwipey:"Don't get your tail stuck down Shax Shay Shaz' wax-way-waz, Kantele!"
Me:"Now I am hopelessly confused."
But the explanation was very simple.
Everybody:talk talk talk interrupt talk exclaim talk proclaim talk yell TALK!
Me:"Perhaps, um, Dorze could explain himself?" After somewhere between 7+12 and 712 variations on that request, he was permitted to do so, or close enough.
Dorze: something about how Lithia and Sazandigraa ...
Me:"Maybe start by telling me who you are, aside from being a Cani boy name Dorze, and, from the beginning, how you came to be asking Lithia and Sazandigraa for passage on Strayway?"
Dorze:"From the very beginning, if it pleases you, m'lord. My family was never well-off. My mother and father and some others died in a house fire when I was nine. Who was left was only one uncle, but he'd gotten the kids out, so he had seven of us. He couldn't take care of us all, so he sold some of us off. He sold me to Kzip La Hish."
Lithia:"And that's bad enough! We should be helping him get free!"
Kantele:"You will rescue Dorze, but you will not rescue Blenny?"
Lithia:"What?"
Kantele:"Blenny is indentured to Sythyry. For that matter, your mother was indentured to zir, too, before you were born."
Me:"And Este is, and Umbers, and ... what did we decide about Arfaen?"
Kantele:"No, Este has been free for two years. And I have been free for forty-two. Arfaen is not indentured at this point. She may take a contract when we get back to Vheshrame, if Sythyry needs better legal standing to keep Quendry with us."
Lithia:"That's different. That's just a legal maneuver."
Me:"Rather in the same way that a contract of marriage or apprenticeship is a legal maneuver. Anyhow, Dorze? Pray continue."
Dorze:"Well, Lost-Eyes and I knew each other a lot, her mother and La Hish work together a lot, and Lost-Eyes was over a great deal. We ... well ..."
Lithia:"They fell in love, mother, despite being different species. Just what Castle Wrong and Strayway are all about, in case you had forgotten."
(I haven't actually forgotten. And I'm not actually her mother, she just calls me that when she wants me to be responsible for her or some such.
Dorze:"Yes, we fell in love. La Hish didn't approve at all, she forbade me to see her any more."
Me:"Just out of curiosity -- and out of knowing how much legal trouble Lithia has gotten herself into -- what sort of provisions did you have for breaking your contract?"
Dorze:"A year's notice, plus repayment of whatever she had spent on me."
Lost-Eyes:"That was a lot! She had set him to work as a spell-scribe, copying spells into little wooden boxes. She'd bought him a pile of spells for him -- he owes her for all of them!"
I suppose that's fair. After all, he does own the spells (and it is physically impossible for him to give them back), and when he has bought off his indenture, he'll be able to go into business as a spell-scribe on his own with them.
Kantele:"How much is she charging you for them? Retail price, or what?"
Me:"Kantele, are you being sympathetic to his cause now?"
Kantele:"No, but I do want to know the details."
Dorze:"I don't know. I've never bought a spell in a shop."
Me:"Well, tell me the last couple spells, and how much she charged you."
Dorze:"There's Tapestry of Rippling Splendor for seven thousand lozens, and Magic Resistance of Iron for seventeen."
Me:"That's less than retail price, at least. It's rather high for spell-scribe rates. How much do you get paid for each copy?"
Dorze:"Two percent."
Me:"How does that compare to free spell-scribes?"
(Nobody knew, so we asked Zascalle, who said that ordinary non-indentured spell-scribes in the employ of a typical wizard get, by age-old custom, 43%. But wizards -- or other businessmen -- who do a lot of business in selling spells prefer indentured scribes. The wizards have to invest a goodly amount of money or time in each spell the scribes can write. A scribe can, in principle, learn a spell, and then decamp and set up a shop stall in another city selling it, and the investor's recourses are quite limited. Indentured scribes have more trouble escaping without paying their debts -- if only because foreign cities are likely to pay attention to indenture contracts.)
Lost-Eyes:"So you see, La Hish was a terrible, terrible mistress!"
Me:"She was rather exploitative. I've certainly known worse."
Lost-Eyes:"Well, Dorze started last year with five years left in his indenture if he worked as hard as he could, and ended the year with eight left!"
Kantele:"I've certainly known worse too."
Me:"Truly! Kantele's indenture ended forty-two years ago, and she still hasn't figured out that she can leave me."
Dorze: [Loyally, because he's a Cani] "Well, I did complain about it and she did promise to stop having me buy spells. The eight years is still about right."
Lost-Eyes:"And you trust her to keep her word? You could take her to court if she doens't, but what'll they say -- 'You signed the contract (or your uncle did for you), and she's being lawful and treating you well, so you live with it. The law's not on your side when you're indentured."
Lithia:"It's not! There's nothing fair about it!"
At about that point I noticed that Lithia was actually in Rassimel phase, but wearing an illusion that she was Orren. She doesn't usually do that.
And, for your reference and mine, here are some details of three contracts from Castle Wrong, prepared by Kantele for the purpose. Plus Dorze's contract.
| Topic | Blenny | Umbers | Kantele | Dorze |
| Reason | Abandoned, crippled child who couldn't take care of herself. Under a moderate amount of Ducal pressure, I agreed to accept her into my household. | Umbers left her native village and came to Vheshrame as a peniless, naive country bug. She quickly fell in with the worst that Vheshrame has to offer, including some relatives of Grinwipey, and found herself working jobs lacking in legal, moral, or financial value. When she escaped, she asked to be indentured to place herself firmly under my legal, moral, and financial protection. | When Kantele defied her parents as an adolescent, she was tossed onto the street with only the clothes on her back -- and those clothes scorched from an angry maternal Fire Flower. She took refuge in the early Castle Wrong. We discussed a number of options, including living at Castle Wrong the way most of the residents do. She decided that she'd take the one with the most value to her: getting an education, and paying for it by her indenture. | Sold for his own support, by his uncle. |
| Duration | Until terminated by mutual agreement. (Note that I can't simply evict her or toss her on the street. An abusive indenture-holder who was trying to get rid of her could make her miserable to force that agreement. Castle Wrong puts up with worse than Blenny, though.) | 12 years: a typical term. After which, we hope Umbers no longers needs protection. | 30 years. A very long term, but Kantele wanted (and got) a very expensive education and had no better way to pay for it. | Indefinite term at first. It was made definite a few years ago, as "Until his debt to La Hish is paid off." Except that she can, in effect, order him to increase his debt. |
| Requirements on the indentured: | Serve me to the best of her abilities. Since her troubles are both physical and mental -- she is not very smart, and she is stuck between land and water forms -- this is mostly housecleaning. Which means she works about as hard as non-indentured people like Inconnu and Mellilot and Tingula: she's at her duties several hours a day. She is rather in the gate district [Earth idiom: bottom of the totem pole] and probably gets assigned more latrine-scrubbing than the others. That's probably because she can't complain as effectively as the others, not because she's not free. | Serve me to the best of her abilities, with certain exclusions that she asked for and I was happy to accept. Umbers mostly helps take care of the children, on Strayway. Not as much as the parents -- Arfaen is a particularly attentive mother -- but quite a bit. | Be an assistant to my then-secretary by way of apprenticeship, and to take over as my secretary proper when my then-secretary became my then-not-a-secretary-anymore. | General obedience and working in her scribery. |
| Requirements on the indenturer: | Provide suitable ("and generous" in the words of the standard contract that we used) food, shelter, clothing, education, entertainment, spending money, and so forth. According to Zascalle, Blenny costs about half again as much as a live-in servant would. She was quite hard to educate; we needed to hire a special tutor to teach her to read, and even now her arithmetic is rather more surprising than accurate. "And generous" is left by law entirely up to my interpretation. I have some idea of what the usual range for indentures like hers is, and I try to be in about the top sixth, but not actually the top. The bottom third or so doesn't even seem suitable to me, much less generous. | Protection, plus room and board and clothing and spending money and such. I am specifically forbidden to employ her as a concubine or prostitute (I don't), and she is specifically allowed to have five nights out of every nine free to spend in whatever bed she wishes (she does). I am, naturally, allowed by Vheshrame law and custom to exert myself rather more forcefully to protect my property than I am to protect my friends. I don't much want to get into a fight with the Khtsoyis quarter of town -- less so after seeing Grinwipey wipe my cousin's grin off zir face -- but we hoped that they would not want to get into a fight with me either. (And they mostly didn't.) | Education, plus room and board and clothing and spending money and such. Not Vheshrame Academy, but she did have two years in a university in Daukrhame. | Providing suitable food, shelter, and so on. Dorze's education was rather focussed on the few topics that make for a good spell-scribe. He can concentrate quite well; he has a great deal of cley. He's not terribly good at magic himself: she found no particular reason to have him able to cast the spells he was copying. |
| Afterwards: | I expect Blenny to be my indentured servant as long as she lives, unless, by some miracle, she is able to take care of herself at some point and wants to. | No particular plans at this point. I don't think Umbers will stay in Castle Wrong, somehow. Which is fine. Unlike Blenny, Umbers can take care of herself; unlike Kantele, I am not training Umbers for a job I particularly need filled. | At the end of her indenture, Kantele took a four-month vacation, and then came back to Castle Wrong to continue to be my secretary. We renegotiated her contract. I'm paying her a lot more now, plus room and board. Not clothing when we were in Vheshrame, but on Strayway I'm providing clothing for everyone. She gets lots more vacation time than when she was indentured, too. | Unclear. |
Anyhow, indentures are one of the most formal legal and social instruments available. They're weaker than adoption, but stronger than simply hiring someone. They place some obligations on the indenture holder, and, potentially, lots of obligations on the indentured. They aren't exactly undignified, not quite like being a slave, but they certainly aren't dignified. And they're risky for the indenturee: law, custom, and balance of power favor the indenture holder. I am wimpy, and tend to treat my indentured servants the same way I treat everyone else who lives at Castle Wrong. This is not exactly unusual among indenture holders; but neither is it unusual for indenture holders to want to get every terch of value out of their contracts.
Rowyn asks an aggressive question: Let's say that Kantele, after completing her education but some decades before finishing her indenture, did something you found wholly unsuitable, like fall in love with a norren. She then desired to leave your service so she could pursue a relationship with her chosen norren. How would you react?
Shurhaian modifies it: Falling in love with a nonprime is a bit much to put into a hypothetical situation, no? o.o (Falling in love with an orren Sythyry zirself was interested in, seemingly mutually, now... and making plans to take said orren somewhere far away...)
And it's an interesting and vaguely relevant question, with a complicated answer, so I'm going to answer it here, at length, and Rowyn and Shurhaian will Learn What It Is To Ask An Aggressive Question To A Zi Ri.
Actually, there are three sorts of answers. There's the answers about me, a rather mild traff Zi Ri. There's the answers about how a stereotypical (non-Zi-Ri) irascible wizard -- let us call her Flip La Lich -- is likely to behave. And there's the answers about how a stereotypical Cani nobleman -- let us call him Count Pointer-Count -- is likely to behave. (Of course these cases overlap: La Lich is probably rich and influential enough to do nearly anything that Pointer-Count can do, and Pointer-Count could hire La Lich or someone like that if he was sufficiently motivated.)
My answer to Rowyn's question as posed: I'm relatively not fussy about arrangements. Kantele leaving would have been somewhat of an inconvenience, since my previous secretary was retiring and I was counting on Kantele as his replacement, and, if she had left, I would have needed a replacement replacement. (Umbers leaving would not be a particular inconvenience, and Blenny leaving would, honestly, be a convenience.) If Kantele had the politeness to ask me, "Sythyry, I'm in love with Hark!, and I need to move out of the city to be with her", I imagine I would complain a while, try and fail to talk her out of such a stupid stupid thing, and then figure out some sort of arrangement to let her do it and to at least pay me back for the money I had invested in her education. (Which was a lot! Tuition, and an allowance somewhat bigger than my ~mother~ gave me when I was in school -- I wanted Kantele to learn how to dress and act like gentry, and of course I wanted her to have a good time and regard me as a generous patron. Which she did, and she did.)
If Kantele had had the poor grace to simply elope with Hark! rather than negotiating something, there are a few things I might have done. (None of my indentures have quite done that. People usually take advantage of me in other ways, like Pleensy "borrowing" two graces of Mircannis.) But things that I, myself, might do include:
(Aside about me: I think I would be more offended if Kantele were betraying me to take up with another Rassimel. I am much more tolerant of wrongfolk behaving badly than I am of wrongfolk ceasing to be wrong. I expect I'd be more cross if Kantele stole my lover, of course; what do you expect? (Though that would be extremely difficult now. Note to self: take steps to make it easier.))
Flip La Lich, our stereotypical irascible wizard, has a few other choices at the top of her list -- as long as Kantele hasn't gotten too far away. For, if Kantele lived in La Lich's manse, there are surely arcane connections to her that can be found: shed fur, worn clothes, an old toothbrush, a note with her signature on it. Through these, La Lich can cast a variety of punative spells.
First of all, note that La Lich can't legally kill or maim Kantele. If Kantele is outside the city-state, La Lich might choose to kill her and most likely will never face criminal charges -- but I think the querents were mostly interested in what is lawful and customary, not what is possible.
So, some spells of torment that are fashionable at the moment include:
Short-term versions of these are legal for use on indentured servants at the master's discretion ... well, the first and third anyways. I'm not sure about the Prolongation, since that actually draws blood. In the case of an escaped indentured servant, "short-term" may be construed as weeks. In the case of one who has fled to another city-state, it may even be perpetual. The victim can, of course, come back home to plead her case in court, but (1) that amounts to a return to servitude, and (2) the court will probably order the wizard to turn the spell off, nothing more.
Count Pointer-Count, our stereotypical Cani nobleman (probably liver, lemon, or black-furred), has a different set of easy options. His spells are not so mighty -- though hiring La Lich to cast spells is entirely possible, if he is angry enough. Most wealthy and powerful people employ a few adventurers or guards; if not, they can hire them easily enough. These people can be sent off to bring the forces of law, custom, justice, and ferocity to the escapee. This has the advantage over the wizardly approach of being, in effect, unlimited of range. It is somewhat less accurate.
On the whole, law and custom favor harsh treatment of indentured servants who try to break their contracts. Not as harsh as for slave -- slavery is generally punishment for some prior and severe crime, and law and custom really don't like that punishment being evaded. But harsher than for other forms of service, or other contracts. In general, indentures permit the master plenty of flexibility in punishment. Ridiculous as it may sound in my case, I'm legally allowed to hit Umbers as hard as I like, as much as seems appropriate to me, as long as I don't break her carapace or any other significant injury (or, because it's in her contract, unless it can be construed as an act of concubinage).
In any case, all these punishments rely on the escapee being fairly close. Should the escapee manage to get a couple hundred miles away -- e.g., by stowing away aboard someone else's well-guarded skyboat -- the master's options are limited and expensive.
Now, aren't you sorry you asked the question? Or, at least, aren't you sorry someone asked the question?
Kantele:"In summary, Dorze is an escaped indenturee of your friend and colleague Kzip La Hish in Oorah Thrassen." Dorze said nothing, but wagged his tail quietly. Kantele continued, "And of course similar troubles come with Lost-Eyes."
Lost-Eyes:"Much less trouble than Dorze! I am a free woman, unencumbered by legal obligations."
Kantele:"You are a wicked sort of free woman, if your concept of 'trouble' is merely 'legal obligation'!"
Lithia:"Kantele! That's not fair and you know it."
Kantele:"Bons mots aside, Lost-Eyes is, if anything, more troublesome to have aboard than Dorze. Lost-Eyes, please be so kind as to explain your ancestry?"
Lost-Eyes:"I am ultimately the descendant of forty-eight Orren from Inihithre. They had several hundred names among them, and I can't quote them all."
Me:"That is not particularly specific. Every Orren now living can say the same."
Inconnu:"Not exactly! My mother's girlfriend knows all the names of the first-created Orren."
Lost-Eyes:"I am therefore less unusual than Inconnu's mother's girlfriend, and even less likely to be troublesome."
Kantele:"Your parentage, wicked girl!"
Lost-Eyes:"Oh, just an Orren couple in Oorah Thrassen."
Kantele:"The male of that couple being Nangbang, until recently the chieftan of the ecclesiastical störmgething of the Temple of the Dark Trinity in Oorah Thrassen. And, incidentally, he served as High Priest in your so-very-eventful consecration not long ago. That is the man whose daughter has stowed away on your skyboat."
Me:"Lost-Eyes? Has Kantele explained the matter properly?"
Lost-Eyes:"Not a bit! She didn't explain that I am the adult daughter of Nangbang -- I have been officially adult for weeks now."
Kantele:"An impressive claim of maturity, to be sure. One wonders what sort of amazing displays of rationality and sensibility you will exhibit when you are months past that miraculous date. Still ... where do you live?"
Lost-Eyes:"Nowhere. I'm running away from home."
Lithia:"She got you on that one, Kantele!"
Kantele:"She did indeed, and she evaded the question. Where did you live before you ran away?"
Lost-Eyes:"Well, that was mostly with my parents."
Kantele:"So, these two stowaways are closely associated with two mighty wizards and priests of Oorah Thrassen."
Lithia:"Only one of each!"
Kantele:"In any case, with more mighty priests and wizards than are present on Strayway. Thus they bring to us trouble in generous baskets spilling over!"
Grinwipey:"Well, tell 'em to put it in the larder with all the other trouble we brought."
Me:"They do bring us a good deal of trouble. Dorze, Lost-Eyes, can you tell me how you got onto my skyboat?"
Lost-Eyes:"We've been in love forever! Years and years!"
Dorze:"I don't think that's forever to a Zi Ri."
Me:"It's close enough at your age though. Pray go on."
Lost-Eyes:"My parents were scandalized. They're very proper and formal Orren. They want to be important; they want everything done right. Well, I'm wrong and Dorze is wrong, but we want to love and live together anyhow."
Kantele:"You certainly know the right word of 'wrong' to catch Sythyry's attention. That sounds contrived to me, as if you know zir history."
Lost-Eyes:"If it please you, we do know something about zir history, about Castle Wrong and all. If we'd been in Vheshrame, we'd have moved in there, sure as death."
Kantele:"If we'd allowed you!"
Me:"We're not that picky. We let Inconnu in, after all."
Inconnu:"Hey! Chirp!"
Me:"Please continue, O stowaways."
Lost-Eyes:"We asked Sazandigraa for help. Zie is known to be somewhat sympathetic to such matters, and zie is not particularly afraid of La Hish or Papa. Zie told us to wait a few months -- this was a few months ago -- and to ask you for asylum when you came to visit."
Me:"A sensible plan, which you are about to get around to?"
Dorze: [with much tail-wagging] "Yes, please. We are a pair of traff lovers, fleeing an unjust situation in Oorah Thrassen. May we please place ourselves under your protection?"
Me:"May you please explain, before I decide, how you came to stow away on my skyboat?"
Lost-Eyes:"Sazandigraa was supposed to introduce us. We'd made arrangements with zir on the eighth of Hispis. Zie didn't want to do it then, though."
Grinwipey:"Well, ain't that a Reluu-rumping surprise!" (No, it is not. Grinwipey had just blackmailed Saza, and I am not surprised that Saza was in no mood to help the couple.)
Dorze:"Zir secretary put us off a couple of days. It was a better idea to take asylum right as you left, anyhow."
Lithia:"But you'd done that big consecration, and you were asleep, and we couldn't wake you up."
Me:"Fair enough."
Lithia:"So we talked it over, and decided to let them on board. We thought you'd approve of them, anyhow. Half the people on board are your clients under about those terms."
Me:"Yes, and I insisted on interviewing everyone who came to Castle Wrong before they moved in, too."
Lithia:"They're not exactly moving in. They're just getting passage to Srineia."
Me:"Why are you going to Srineia? It's not particularly a good place for traff couples. You'd be better off going to Vheshrame."
Dorze:"We need to be out of range of Kzip's spells and Nangbang's influence. Srineia is better."
Me:"Fair enough. Lithia, why didn't you check with me when I did wake up?"
Lithia:"You spent the whole day breaking Vae's helpfulness, and then went back to bed. Then we were going to, but we got that call for help from that inistella."
Me:"Why not this morning, then?"
Lithia:"Well, we're out of spell-range now, and it's not much longer to Srineia. It didn't seem that important to bother you for just a couple days' passage."
Me:"I see. Any other surprises?"
Everyone, eventually:"Not that we are willing to admit at the moment."
And now I am sitting in a fireplace, thoroughly annoyed at everyone except loyal Phaniet, trying to figure out what to do.
Sythyry the Shipmaster: The custom among shipmasters and sky pilots is not to tolerate stowaways. Particularly obnoxious ones can simply be tossed overboard, with a spell to help them survive the landing unless they are unlucky if you are feeling kind. Ordinary ones are to be let out at the next port of call. This is an important custom, according to my guild training. If stowaways are treated with no unnecessary kindness, fewer people will be inclined to stow away.
Also, I am rather annoyed with Saza and Lithia for taking such a troublesome liberty with me. Saza, I suppose, may feel that it is a fair exchange for the pile of trouble I gave zir. Lithia should know better.
Sythyry the Traff: They're not the first wrong-matched people to show up on my door and ask for my help. (Of course, usually such people stop at the door until I invite them in.) If they had started out politely, I daresay I might well have helped them out ... maybe; see the next paragraph for the troubles. And they did try a couple times to be polite before they decided to stow away.
Sythyry the Wizard: I'm going to be dealing with Kzip and Nangbang for a long while. Kzip is presumably as immortal as I am. Nangbang may or may not be; I don't know. Starting out my relationship with them with "I removed your indentured servant and your daughter from your city so that they could indulge their unnatural lusts without your masterful and parental attentions" is unlikely to lead to a comfortable, friendly relationship in any sort of near term.
Sythyry the Reasonable Person: I certainly owe Nangbang gratitude, if nothing else, for his help with Accanax. I imagine he is not terribly delighted at his daughter's vanishment. Returning her to him would be an act of kindness to a person whom I sort of owe such an act to. Kzip's claim on Dorze is a widely-recognized legal claim, and any reasonable person would feel some obligation to return him, too.
Sythyry on Vacation: I don't feel like flying back up to Ketheria at this point. We're quite far from it. I suppose I could put Dorze and Lost-Eyes on a skyboat headed back up. Which would mean paying their passage out of my own accounts; they certainly didn't bring enough money for it. And I'd have no particular assurance that they'd stay on that skyboat.
Sythyry with the Pet Nendrai: If I were truly annoyed, I would introduce them to Vae and ask her to help them out. I can't imagine what she might do. I'm sure it would be devastating. I'm nearly that annoyed with the stowaways, but I don't think I want to be as random as Vae would be.
I will do what I will do, of course. I've mostly made up my mind. But what's your advice?
Thank you, O monsters and such who read and reply. I was going to stop at the nearest port and toss the stowaways off the ship (from a height of about five feet) and let them fend for themselves. But after reading and musing on all the discussion, I will not. I will let them off at my next port of call in the ordinary course of things, which, with only a minor change of plans, will be in Srineia. In the meantime, I need to borrow a few envelopes from Vae.
I tracked Vae down! She was playing The Serpent of the Vortex with Ochirion and Quendry. She was in the shape of a serpent with a row of butterfly wings down her back, unmatched both stylistically and aerodynamically.
Me:"Hallo ... will you be much longer at the game?"
Quendry:"Yes! We won't be much longer! No! Yes! I'm going to roll a seven and then I'm going to win!"
Me:"Are you now? I was actually talking to Vae."
Vae:"Not so long will the game be if Quendry rolls a seven!"
Me:[in the Nice Language -- a horrible language which Vae forced down my mind a long time ago, and which nobody else around here speaks.]"And you wouldn't dream of ensuring that Quendry rolls a seven, just so you could get out of the game?"
Vae:[also in the Nice Language]"Not that! The happy game it is, and already have I asked Quendry and Ochirion for a rematch!"
Ochirion:"What? Whaa-aa-aat? Did you call me a porcupine, Vae?" I suppose "for a rematch" sounds a bit like "is a porcupine", if you are seven years old.
Vae:"Not that! And would you like to be a porcupine this afternoon, Ochirion?"
Me:"I hope you ask Zascalle or Thiane before you transform their children."
Vae: [suddenly rueful] "The I hope I do too."
Quendry picked up the dice and rolled a seven, completely fairly. He moved his pawn the obligatory seven steps to the serpent's head.
Quendry:"I win! I win the game! Can you believe it? How could I roll a seven? I rolled a seven and I win the game! How did I do that? It was a seven! It was four plus three! How can that be seven? It is seven!"
Vae:"The very good move, Quendry! Congratulations!"
Me:"Not that he was at one of the three places in the game where the player can actually choose what to do." I hate that game.
Quendry:"You are both very good players! I am happy to play with you! You make me happy! But how can I win? How can I roll a seven and win? It was three plus four! I mean four plus three! It is seven!"
Me:"Vae? While he's drunk on his victory, could you give me some envelopes, to write to Kzip La Hish and Nangbang back in Oorah Thrassen?"
Quendry:"I am making up the dance for seven! Here it is! The dance for seven!" He cavorted awkwardly. "Ochirion, come dance the dance for seven with me!"
Ochirion:"I'm dancing the dance for seven!" He might have been, too, but I couldn't see how his dance and Quendry's were at all the same.
Vae:"The certainly!" She transformed some cookie crumbs into ferocious Locador scroll-tubes.
Here's the first:
Dear Kzip,
Your indentured servant Dorze the spell-scribe has stowed away on my skyboat. I'm afraid I was unaware, and, indeed, unconscious at the time that it happened. The Sky Pilot's Guild, of which I have the honor to be an associate member, recommends that I put him aground at my next port of call, which will be Eigrach in Srineia. But I recognize your particular interest in this stowaway. If you like, I will lend you (with Dorze as your agent) the money to buy him passage on a skyboat from Eigrach to Oorah Thrassen -- when I can find one; Srineia has little direct commerce with Ketheria. I am not sure how likely he would be to stay on such a skyboat all the way back to Ketheria, since he has, already, recently attempted once to leave your service. Various other arrangements are possible as well. I expect to spend at least two months in Eigrach; you could, e.g., send an agent here to collect him -- assuming of course that he does not wish to flee further; I have few effective and legal means of restraining him. Or at any rate, you can send a letter to him urging him to come home (or whatever course of action you wish); I enclose two return envelopes, courtesy of the nendrai Vaisessasilmin.
With apologies for any perplexities or expenses I have directly or indirectly caused you, I remain, your hmbl srvt, Sythyry.
And here's the harder one.
Dear Nangbang and family,
I regret to inform you that your daughter Lost-Eyes was discovered stowed away on my skyboat. The Sky Pilot's Guild, of which I have the honor to be an associate member, recommends that I put her aground at my next port of call, which will be Eigrach in Srineia. According to Guild rules, that should be the end of the matter for me. However, I recognize that you may wish for your daughter to have better treatment than that. I would be happy, for example, to lend you (with Lost-Eyes as your agent) the money to buy her passage on a skyboat from Eigrach to Oorah Thrassen -- when I can find one; Srineia has little direct commerce with Ketheria. I am not sure how likely she would be to stay on such a skyboat all the way back to Ketheria, since she has recently left home and shows no great eagerness to return. I expect to spend at least two months in Eigrach, and would be happy to keep your daughter comfortable and safe there. My sky-yacht lacks prison facilities, and my friends lack suitable training; I'm afraid that, if she stays with us, she will do so of her own volition. In any case, I enclose two envelopes; you may write to her as well as me, and urge her to do what you think best.
With apologies for any perplexities or expenses I have directly or indirectly caused you, I remain, your hmbl srvt, Sythyry.
Perhaps I can behave morally and legally towards everyone concerned, even.
Nangbang sent me his answer almost instantly:
Sythyry! You are a traitor of honor, you are a traitor of friendship, you are a traitor of the camaraderie of devotion to the god Accanax! May each of our feathers be devoured by a separate furious chub-beetle! Not only do you steal the attention of the dark god that was properly intended for a native wizard, but you have the utter unmitigated overbrewed tea to kidnap my daughter! Additionally, you are a spineless and amygdalate weasel of evasion and cowardice! In your obliquely-worded and pusillanimous missive, you take pains to gloat extensively of your capture of my defenseless daughter, but you miss the key feature of the etiquette of kidnappers everywhere! You have not named your price. Well, I can start the negotiations as well as you can. I offer seventeen thousand lozens and a promise not to seek immediate revenge. But this crime cannot go unpunished forever, you infamous squamous menace! -- Nangbang, who is not as powerless as you might think!
I am fairly sure he was Wild Rushing while he was writing this -- the letters are scribbled and frantic. Which is reasonable if he thinks I kidnapped his daughter, I suppose. Still, I hereby swear off Orren for life again ... none too impressive an oath, as I haven't so much as kissed one diligently in years.
Kzip took only a moment longer, and took a rather different approach towards utterly misunderstanding my utterly clear letter:
Oh, that's all right. Dorze is a fine spell-scribe, but I can spare him for a while. Do I understand properly that you have some spell that you're planning to teach him and have him copy? If it's an interesting spell, and if you bring him back home in -- let us say -- two months, I can count the spell as the price of his subindenture. Let me know. Sorry (and, honestly, just a bit miffed) that you couldn't arrange this with me personally when you were in Oorah Thrassen. But I suppose that making arrangements with the Destroyer of All takes precedence. Anyhow,
I don't think she read more than a dozen words in my letter; she filled in the rest with what she would have done in my place.
It is a particular character flaw for a Zi Ri to be impatient. I have a particularly flawed character, and in more ways than just that.
Dear Nangbang: I didn't kidnap her. I'm not asking for ransom. She came aboard my ship without my permission. I want her off of it. I could just put her off at the next port of call. But I thought you might have some opinion on the matter. -- Sythyry
And,
Dear Kzip -- No, I don't want a spell scribe. In particular, I don't want your spell scribe. I could just put him off at the next port of call, but I thought you might want something in particular done with him. -- Sythyry.
From Nangbang, or, rather, from his wife:
Dear Sythyry -- Plz. accept aplgz. for prev. msg. Wild rush. Found elpng. ltr. fr. Kiss-Eyes. Nangb. v. distraught. Hirng. assssn. -- Pulla
An assassin? A thousand perplexeties and bewilderments pierce the mind. These include:
So I tried to poke them with a sharp stick, thus:
Dear Pulla and Nangbang -- Are you sure that's a good approach? I don't think it's legal, even in Srineia. Nor do I particularly approve of assassinations on my skyboat or on my vacation. Nor does the nendrai. But if you have a less drastic alternative, please let me know. -- Sythyry
From La Hish:
Dear Sythyry, this is utterly unacceptable and must be rectified immediately.
To La Hish:
Dear Kzip. Fair enough, and, under suitable conditions, I may be willing to help rectify it. But, if you wish any particular rectification, please tell me what you have in mind.
My spies are everywhere!
(Unfortunately that's not true, or I would have found out about the stowaways much sooner. But it is much more encouraging than to say, "People sometimes tell me things.")
So the scene -- Zi-Ri-less -- is set in a parlor somewhere. A fretful Lithia is confiding in some of her closest friends (Yerenthax, Jyondre, Thiane). Who immediately afterwards betrayed her to me, of course.
Lithia:"Yerenthax, could I ask you a question?"
Yerenthax:"With wingèd words and wisdom wide / Your hearing ears are soon supplied. Not one of my best staves, I'm afraid."
Lithia:"I don't need staves ... can you tell me about, well, Orren?"
Yerenthax:"I can tell you many things about Orren! But what do you wish to know? You are half an Orren more Orren than I!"
Lithia:"I'm so confused, I don't know what parts of my personality are Orren and what parts are Rassimel and what are just some trash the gods wanted to get rid of."
Thiane:"Whatever the gods think about you or not, we love you."
Lithia:"What I want to know is, can Orren fall in love with more than one person at a time."
Yerenthax:"Never! They must not! The cheating churl who chafes my chest / ... ... ... strikes forth staves beneath my best."
Jyondre:"What my one-and-only true love is trying to say is, some of us do, and some do not. We're not like Cani, for whom monogamy is unimaginable, and we're not like Gormoror, who are betimes moved to violence if their lovers are even conceptually unfaithful. Not that I would ever be even conceptually unfaithful! Sorry not to be very helpful, but if you want consistency, do not look to the Orren."
Thiane:"Let's see. Windigar and Blenny aren't attached. Inconnu should not be much of a problem; if you are in your Rassimel phase and smile at him too much by mistake, he'll think you love him out both ends. The problem is more prying Inconnu off your rump, not getting him there in the first place. You wouldn't be asking Jyondre in front of Yerenthax if it were him. I hope you're considering courting Tingula?"
Lithia:"No ... not Tingula ..."
Yerenthax:"And not my Jyondre!"
Lithia:"Not Jyondre."
Thiane:"That leaves the stowaway Orren girl."
Lithia nodded sadly.
Jyondre:"She's traff. You'd be better off in Rassimel phase, I should think."
Lithia:"Actually, I don't want her to know I'm a shifter hybrid. I've been wearing my illusion spells."
Thiane:"I don't think that will work well for any sort of long relationship."
Lithia:"It doesn't have to last forever. Ten years at the absolute outside. But I don't mind if it's less than that. One night with her would be more lovers than I've had my whole life."
To which there was much sympathy.
Jyondre:"I don't know her heart. But at least Dozer or whatever her boyfriend is named is Cani. He is more likely to share than, let us say, a larger and more delightful creation of Reluu might be."
Lithia:"Dorze is quite grateful to me, even if the help I gave him didn't help very much."
Jyondre:"You might try to ask him, then. If he is your ally, he will be far and away your best ally."
Thiane:"But don't expect much, from trying to romance upon a traff Orren. "
Lithia:"I know! Anywhere else there'd be nothing at all strange about one Orren girl and another."
Thiane:"Why don't you fall in love with Windigar? He's Orren and not traff."
Lithia:"And a lot older than me, and he knows my nasty little secret. And it's not like I can get a crush on anyone just by wanting to -- much less having them get one on me."
Thiane:"True ... let me know if I can help anysohow with Lost-Eyes."
Instantly -- by which I mean "within six or seven hours" -- Jyondre and Yerenthax told me about it.
I hope things get simpler once we actually arrive in Srineia.
Dear Sythyry: Not that kind of assassin. A character assassin. This is a very serious situation for us. We do not appreciate ridicule. I daresay that you have never particularly feared character assassins. As you are well-known to be transaffectionate, foreign, and monster-friendly, there is hardly much more than can be said. In the case of my daughter, all threats remain possible! I demand your immediate assistance and cooperation in this! My daughter must return home to me, her tail tucked in shame between her legs! Fortunately the actual shameful stories and bitter innuendo shall remain on Srineia, and nobody of importance shall ever hear of it! Your assistance in this matter is crucial! You must supply money and necessities to Far-Eyes! But in restricted quantities! She is forbidden to enjoy Srineia! But she must be provided with the fare for return passage to Oorah Thrassen! Alone! -- Nangbang.
I haven't been so thoroughly insulted by someone who needs my help in at least a week and a half. Unless I'm forgetting something.
Me:"What, precisely, did you tell your parents when you left?"
Lost-Eyes:"I don't remember exactly."
Me:"Well, approximately?"
Lost-Eyes:"Something to the effect that I'd married an elderly Orren knight-adventurer from Aradrueia and gone to live there. I could't quite bring myself to mention Dorze."
Jyondre:"But they knew about Dorze. They were scandalized, you said."
Lost-Eyes:[Looking a bit evasive.]"For a while."
We applied a variety of interrogation techniques. The unfeigned admiration of Lithia did the trick.
Lost-Eyes:"I distracted them with other scandals. I gave cley to one of the sorcerers at the temple, for one, and hinted that I was going to do it professionally. I told them I was going trying to move to a riverbum village in Mrasteia. That sort of thing."
Kantele:"Not bad strategy, that. There aren't all that many things worse in the eyes of society than being traff..." Lost-Eyes looked a bit shocked at the word. " ... than being transaffectionate, if you prefer. Cley-selling will do it, though."
Lithia:"You're so clever. I wish I could be like you." She petted Lost-Eyes's tail. Lost-Eyes did not seem much put out by this.
Me:"Your parents want you to return to Oorah Thrassen, in shame."
Lithia:"Feathermom! You wouldn't make her, would you?"
Me:"Lost-Eyes and her parents are less important to me than my crew and my vacation." Everyone else looked a bit uncertain what I meant. This is entirely appropriate. I didn't know what I meant either, or what I wanted to do with the stowaways. Fortunately, being cryptic is one of my supreme species abilities, and nobody asked me to explain.
Lost-Eyes:"I'm not going to go anywhere without Dorze."
Lithia:"You're not going anywhere!"
Kantele:"Except Srineia, for starters."
Me:"What we do from there depends on how you behave, I suppose."
Everyone else looked confused at that. But I knew exactly what I meant. If Lithia's love is requited, I'm not going to toss her sweetie off the ship or send her back to Ketheria. Lithia's time is so short, and the general distaste for her species so great, I cannot really deny her what little joy she manages to scrape together. If not, I don't much feel responsible for the stowaways, except to treat them decently and/or in accordance with law and custom.
I am avoiding the decision. I am glad to have a convenient way to avoid the decision.
For our convenience and safety, the city guards of certain cities of the lower branches patrol the sky. Indeed, the sky here is more dangerous than in Ketheria. Our recent encounter with the inistella and insane philosophers suffices to prove that. It did not surprise us greatly to discover a substantial military force, nor that they were rather interested in us.
The battle-barge Duncan's Glory looks rather like a regular barge; indeed, I suspect that it a recommissioned one. It's a long flat skyboat with two top sails and two side sails. It is none too fast on its feet -- not that it has feet per se, unlike Strayway. I don't think it needs to be. It has been refitted (or maybe fitted, though I expect re-) with a respectable device that can telepop it a quarter-mile a dozen times a day. The long flat main deck is used to good effect. It has four big ballistas and four fire-onagers, and a quite appealing battle-pergola heavily grown with unfamiliar but presumably highly magical vines.
Accompanying Duncan's Glory is the xebec-o-war Soothing Ointment. Soothing Ointment is a trim and nimble skyboat, with two sails and two flappy wings. It's built for ramming, too, with a bowsprit of a metal spike all ablaze with a harsh consuming flame. She's got only one big weapon otherwise: a ballista loaded with a huge harpoon.
And the third of this martial trio is the luzzu The Terrible Bean. Small and fast, she is, and with a fierce sentient flame in her painted eyes. She's got wings like a dragonfly, and a tail like a scorpion, and a brace of net-casters and another harpoon-ballista. I would expect she can use them on her own, if her crew is otherwise occupied.
We were drifting down at a nice safe speed around Beltheia, presumably in the sky owned by Dossimar. Duncan's Glory was suddenly in front of us, with a loud flatulent thump of Locador magic. (I have gotten used to Vae's teleporting, which is somewhere between plangent and piquant and very very pointy. Primes don't teleport like that generally; but we do not teleport so much as Vae. Duncan's Glory was particularly noxious about it.)
"Ahoy, the Duncan's Glory!" shouted Windigar from the control room, presumably reading the name from the side of the war-barge. (I was in my workshop, quite busy with an enchantment, so I didn't actually know much of what was going on.)
"Ahoy, Strayway!" warbled the pilot of The Terrible Bean, popping out of a cloudbank on our upper starboard. Soothing Ointment oozed from behind the thick growth off the world-trunk, coming towards us off our rear underneath port.
"Sorry to trouble you, but you've come to the domain of Dossimar," called a Gormoror man from the deck of Duncan's Glory.
"Our periplus agrees with you on that point," called Windigar. "What is the significance of this, beyond our proximity to your presumed city-state?"
"Well, first things first," shouted the Gormoror. "Have you seen any monsters lately? Ulgrane in particular, or hugeng? They've been a terrible pestilence on the skyways lately. Or any other dangers that you care to mention?"
"That we have not," called Windigar. "An inistella with a peculiar crew, but that was days ago, and not aggressive."
"Excellent. The reputation and the might of Dossimar is keeping them off!"
"The skies have been clear, to be sure," said Windigar.
"The might of Dossimar is considerable! Note the ballistas and fire-onagers behind me; note the ram and harpoon on Soothing Ointment; note the tail and net-casters of The Terrible Bean!" boomed the Gormoror.
"Your armament is formidable, to be sure," said Windigar, who was beginning to get the point.
"Our armament would, however, be barely consequential without the skills of our heroes. The great sorceress Oonanau herself rides in The Terrible Bean. Lorquan the Episcopicide is even now waving to you from the mast of Soothing Ointment. And I am Drogimargue the Nendrai-Slayer."
"Respectable names indeed!" said Windigar. "I will confess a regrettable ignorance of the deeds and sagas of Beltheia. Did you really kill a nendrai?"
"I did!" boomed Drogimargue. "Bahalizonne the Lar lies dead, grilled and devoured by the citizens of Dossimar, and my hand the hand that drove the axe-blade through his spine!"
("Anyone you know?" asked Kantele to Vae. "The N. varigatus who died here a decade or so ago," Vae answered. "Not a personal friend was he, but once he played chess with Oixe and I was jealous.")
"Well, that must have been a battle worth an epic and a half!" called Windigar.
"I shall be most glad to declaim them at a suitable time! But first, a practical matter. The heroes and warships whom you have hired to protect you in this airspace are puissant and potent, and, additionally, numerous. Their rates are quite cheap considering their quality and number!"
"Your choice of vocabulary is notable," said Windigar. "Perhaps the respected and noble speech of Beltheia differs slightly from my native Ketherian. But a mistranslation seems to have snuck in -- one which we will surely both laugh about. In my dialect, the word 'hire' means 'requesting the labor and services of someone, for pay'."
"I fear that -- alas! -- we must laugh most quietly. For that is indeed an elegant and succinct synopsis of the situation!" boomed the nendrai-slayer.
"I am afraid I do not recall requesting your labor or service..." said Windigar.
"Is your memory so friable, so subject to the gremulations of even miniscule smalliments of time? For did you not recently enter the domain of Dossimar?"
"Well, I would seem to be there now," said Windigar, lashing his tail annoyedly in the privacy of the control room.
"Which is, of course, protected most mightily by myself and my fellow heroes! Hence, you have hired us!" proclaimed the Gormoror.
"Ah ... The paperwork was unaccountably delayed," said Windigar. "We entered relying solely upon our own defenses, which are considerable even by the standards of a martial wizard of Ketheria." He knew exactly what was going on. "And, to avoid further administrative effort, it will suffice for us to depart without troubling you or anyone else for an actual hire. In any case, we are well-used to dealing with nendrai and other such minor inconveniences; they do not dare pester us." Which is approximately true, though by "us" he means "Vae".
"Do not fear, captain of the Strayway!" said Drogimargue generously. "The paperwork is a mere trifle! In any case, we must not let mere administrative matters stand between you and true safety. Behold, even now Oonanau exerts a mighty spell to protect you from horrors teleporting to assault you! Unfortunately it also restricts your own craft's ability to teleport ... but do not fear! You are surrounded by the protective aegis of the warriors of Dossimar, as an infant Cani of a martial clan is swaddled by the hardened leather wrappings of its mother!"
"Perhaps the paperwork can be disposed of," said Windigar. "What are your rates?" He scowled, and scribbled notes to Yerenthax and Vae.
"Our rates are modest, even negligable! A mere eighty lozens per person aboard your craft! Plus, of course, the six hundred for the cley of the spell that Oonanau has already cast. And should any more cley or life's blood be necessary in your protection, be assured that the same highly favorable rates will apply to it." (For those uncertain about World Tree prices: these are quite high. I rarely manage to charge half of that for a cley, for one thing.)
"Splendid. How much do you charge us for shooting a ballista bolt at us? Or other of your siege weaponry, which, perhaps by coincidence, is better suited for assaulting skyboats than monsters?" asked Windigar.
"Two hundred lozens, or more if the bolt has been ensorcelled," said Drogimargue with a smile.
"I imagine that it will not be necessary," said Windigar to Drogimargue. "I will consult with our accountant, to see how the funds are most easily acquired."
To Yerenthax and Vae and Kantele, "Well, what should we do now?"
There was a quick council of war.
The first part that they told me about afterwards was this. (It actually occurred in less detail halfway through.)
Nearly Everyone:"We must consult Sythyry, for this is zir skyboat, and, ultimately, zir money."
Kantele:"Sythyry is performing a particularly delicate enchantment." Which was true, in fact. "Disturbing zir now might ruin it." Which is false; Accanax does not want it ruined. "As zir secretary, I recommend that we deal with the situation ourselves." Which is excessive, since, by the normal World Tree time, I would be finished in three or four ninths of an hour. I'm sure they could have delayed that long.
Nearly Everyone:"Very well! We will spare Sythyry any trouble or indignity from this situation!" I'm sure that nobody actually said anything like this, though several people told me they did.
Not that I think I could have done any better than they did.
Windigar:"We're facing three warships -- we're surrounded by three warships. They've all got weapons for attacking skyboats: onagers, harpoon ballistas, rams. Strayway is neither defended nor armed against such things. If we fight ship to ship, I promise no great success, nor even much chance of escape."
Yerenthax:"There are other ways of fighting. Vae, do you want to slaughter primes?"
Vae:"And why would I want to slaughter primes? The primes are the ones I love, second to my mate and child."
Yerenthax::"Even the one calling himself nendrai-slayer?"
Vae:"Not so comfortable am I of that, truly. The money is not so hard to come by, but friends are scarce and troublesome to replace. The toll is not so very large, is it?"
Zascalle:"It's ridiculous for a toll! Three thousand lozens! A month's budget for all of Castle Wrong, to pass a single harmless branch on our travel!"
Yerenthax:"And the honor! Surrendering so easily would bring us scorn!"
Vae:"No so much shall we speak of it. The one who surrenders can be I -- no great quantity of honor have I in any case. The money shall I replace, somehow or other."
Windigar:"I don't much like paying. But, like Vae, I like being killed even less."
Vae:"Not that did I say!"
Windigar:"Well, I don't want any of us to be killed, and neither does she."
Jyondre:"That goes without saying! Nobody on Strayway should die; that is our ultimate concern."
Kantele:"With the possible exception of the stowaways... but even there we are responsible."
Windigar:"How about this? Vae, can you take arcane connections to the money we pay them with, so that you can teleyoink the coins back to Strayway?"
Vae:"Yes, but also no."
Windigar:"I don't understand."
Vae:"Not a bit of teleportation can be done under Oonanau's prohibition. But the prohibition shall not last so long, and it can be removed in other ways."
Yerenthax:"Can you do it, though?"
Vae:"The most likely. The sorceress may have further tricks against it; I may or may not be able to sneak around them."
Windigar:"So ... We pay the toll. We leave. At the edge of the pirate's territory, we try to take the money back; then we flee as quick as we can. Most likely we succeed, taking off with honor and treasury both intact. If Vae somehow is prevented from getting the money: at least we -- she -- tried, and we all survive."
Kantele:"I approve of this plan, so far. Does anyone have a better idea?"
Nobody did. Zascalle opened the safe, picked out thirty big round hundred-lozen coins, and gave them to Vae to taste and gather connections.
Windigar:"Ahoy, Duncan's Glory and Drogimargue! We have assembled your toll, and shall send it over!"
Drogimargue:"Excellent! You need not trouble yourself with sending it, for, as a convenience to you, I shall come over in a sky-skiff straightaway!"
He did, in a little blue flying raft of a thing, landing on a balcony. He was a tall and mighty brown-furred Gormoror, with a vast two-handed enchanted metal sword strapped to his back. Talismans and gnawed bones dangled on thongs from his armor, and his boots were of nendrai-skin.
Windigar:"And here you are. We offer suitable and even generous thanks for the safety you provide, and hope that your services are not necessary again."
Drogimargue:"Ah, excellent. One more formality and you may be on your way." He set off a Roman candle, showering blue fireballs in the air.
Windigar:"What's that?"
Drogimargue:"The customs inspection, and, of course, the tally of passengers. You would not wish to accidentally exclude anyone from the fee, of course! We should both be so sad."
Oonanau's spell melted like ice. A dozen smiling prime warriors teleported next to Drogimargue, shoved past Windigar, and boarded Strayway.
Drogimargue:"I notice that your fee is, in fact, somewhat incomplete. You have neglected to pay for the cley to teleport the inspectors: twelve hundred each, as the spells were bound, and another twelve hundred for the return teleports as well. You are nearly thirty thousand lozens short. I do imagine that the owner of as gaudy a skyboat as this will be able to produce the money -- or the equivalent in goods -- in short order, though."
Windigar:"I do wish that you would present us with the full tally as soon as possible, so that we could settle up and be gone." Windigar is wise, with a nendrai-killing warrior in front of him. If he had objected too violently, we would probably need another pilot.
Drogimargue:"A sensible request. It is currently impracticable, as the precise extent of your expenses has not yet been determined. It may, perhaps, be necessary to spend a few more cley searching for hidden crew members. Or, as sometimes happens, a passenger or two will object to our routine and reasonable requests; the fee schedule for violence against us is quite steep."
Windigar:"I have noticed that your fee schedules are generally quite steep. Do you have any small fees?"
Drogimargue:"In point of fact, we do. We provide light refreshments gratis. I am about to partake of some arrack; may I offer you some as well?" He took a hearty gulp from an ivory hip flask, and offered it to Windigar. Windigar held it to his mouth and pretended to drink.
The intruders split into four groups of three, and wandered around the interior of Strayway a bit. I suspect that they were not expecting quite such a large interior.
The first group headed into the corridors and got lost.
The second group followed the radience of power and headed for my workshop. I was finished for the day. Indeed, I had been finished for the day for most of the day (as I measure time, which is not so simple). I had then had a full night's-worth of sleep (still on the same day), and was lying in the fireplace reading a storybook (not in the fireplace.)
Oonanau:"Hey! Open up in there!"
Me:"Who is this?"
Oonanau and a pair of Rassimel warriors burst into my workroom. Bursting involved breaking the door down with a mace. I was not terribly pleased at this. Oonanau is an oldish Cani woman with pure white fur, wearing iron chain armor, holding a sparkling dagger in one hand and a sparkling shield in the other.
Me:"Let me rephrase that. Who are you, and why have you broken my door down?"
Oonanau:"Never mind that. Hand them over."
Me:"I beg your pardon?"
Oonanau:"You've got a room full of heavy magic items. Hand them over."
Me:"Indeed. Allow me to start with a Holocaust War weapon that I happen to have close at hand." I am not always so very quick on the uptake, but some situations are clear enough.
Seven-winged burning thing: The seven-winged burning thing does not precisely speak. It expressed delight at the opportunity for some exercise, in part by emissions of intense purple light, and in part by immediate and eager exercising.
One of the Rassimel:"Oh, dearie me, Oonanau. A good portion of the left half of my body is well on the way to becoming overdone." (His actual words were more succinct.)
Oonanau:"Pah. Zie's not a sorcerer. Zie's just got some magic items. Take them from him, Rassies!"
Me:"In point of fact, I am no sorcerer. Indeed, I have not bothered with that title for quite some time; I have quite outgrown it."
One of the Rassimel: "Sprex!" The utterance triggered a bound spell which teleported him away -- probably to one of the warships and a much-needed healer.
Other Rassimel:"Chovio!"Another bound teleport, though obviously bound with a different command word.
Oonanau:"Oh, bother! They've both popped off!"
The seven-winged burning thing fluttered its wings delicately at the loss of two playmates, and then pounced at the third. Oonanau's protections were more extensive than the Rassimels', and she cast a nervous Grand Armor Turning Pyrador to help her avoid it.
I counted my cley. After a full day's enchanting (I'll explain that later), they were not so numerous as I might like at the start of an invasion by an unknown number of warriors and sorcerers. I let the burning thing dance with Oonanau, and flew for the cabinet where I keep certain tools and devices suitable for the occasion.
The seven-winged burning thing pounced at Oonanau. Her Grand Armor and general nimbleness got her out of its way, but the fringes of three wings brushed against her armor, melting a few links. Oonanau struck at it with her sparkling dagger, and cut off two of its wings.
Me:"Not bad, but I've a trick worth a half-dozen of that." Spending a cley seemed worthwhile, if she was that dangerous.
That trick is Dancing in the Garden of Statues: far and away my most complex spell. I traded a great deal of work for it, and have not had many chances to use it for serious purposes. Hopefully I won't have too many more on this vacation. All things became still when I cast it, and the burning thing's tongues stopped in mid-flutter. All things except for me and the things I wished to have something to do with, that is. I grabbed a glove, an arrow that never flew, and a tiny drum from the cabinet: the first things that came to paw, and perhaps not the best choices. They came alive (or at least active) as I touched them. I flew back to the statue-still Oonanau, deprived her of her sparkling dagger and shield, and, abusing the poor glove's side-enchantment of strengthening horribly, stuffed the severed flaming wings into her armor. And that was all the spare time that Garden had made for me; all things resumed their normal movements.
Oonanau:"This turn of events does not greatly please me!" (Also not her exact words.) "Chovio!" (Her exact word. It set off a bound spell that whisked her away.)
Usually-seven-winged burning thing: expressed annoyance that its exercise was so soon over.
Me:"I wonder what that was about?"
I packed the burning thing back where it belongs, incidentally repairing it, and had the arrow take me to Strayway's control room, where I hoped I would find some answers. Of course nobody was there, so I teleported around for a few moments before I remembered about the seven insignias. I am sometimes quite smart, and sometimes ... not.
When I arrowported back to my cabin to get my insignia, Strayway crunched and rocked terribly. Duncan's Glory was firing her onagers, and they had taken off one of our candles.
The third group was: one Khtsoyis with three metal clubs, one red-and-brown Cani wearing red-and-brown armor with a downright scary staff, and one a cheerful Orren woman wearing a short green waistcoat and a long green veil, far and away the most dangerous of the three. They cornered Kantele, Jyondre, Yerenthax, Zascalle, Rheng, Umbers, and Vae. This was easy enough, for they were near the balcony for Windigar's sake. Vae, incidentally, was a naked Orren girl of about twelve years, with a garland of buttercups around her brow and a silver bell on her tail. (The bell was to remind her not to do anything magical. (It never works.))
Khtsoyis Pirate:"Hand over all your cash, jewelry, and magic items, and nobody gets hurt."
Rheng:"We should have Grinwipey here. He could translate."
Cani Pirate:"The concept is actually reasonably straightforward. Even a Sleeth should be able to understand it."
Zascalle:"We've paid our three thousand lozens. That's plenty."
Cani Pirate:"It will pay Drogimargue's salary for the week. I need to earn mine too, wouldn't you know?"
Orren Pirate:"Times are hard all over! Especially for you!"
Rheng:"Perhaps for you as well, rrai! Now we dance the dance of claws and spells!" He crouched, ready to pounce.
Cani Pirate:"Now we dance the dance of brains and hostages!" He grabbed Vae in one arm and held the dead crow's head on his staff to her head.
"But why did you let him do that?" I asked her afterwards.
"The he wanted it so very much," she said. "The things that happened later had not happened yet, also. The defense spells I set aside for his convenience. Not so he could beak me, but so he could hold me."
Which is to say: nendrai are crazy; only a little bit of their minds are truly their own.
Yerenthax:"Vae? What are you doing there?"
Cani Pirate:"She is my hostage."
Vae:"The yes! I am being his hostage!"
Yerenthax:"Come down from there this instant!"
Cani Pirate:"Actually, ma'am the dense Gormoror, the whole point of being a hostage is that she can't come down from there. I'm holding her tight, and if she moves, I'll have this here crow staff bite her ear off. Maybe take a big gulp out of her brains."
Jyondre:"No, you won't. Vae, you're being ridiculous."
Vae:"Not a bit ridiculous am I being! Not a single prime have they harmed or tried to harm. The comfort is as much here as there for me -- he can hostage me all the hour if he departs peacefully in the end!"
There was a confused sort of impasse. My friends greatly had the martial advantage, but the martial advantage refused to be martial, and was generally helping the enemy. The enemy, for their side, thought that they had the advantage, and refused to believe that the small Orren girl mattered as anything but a hostage.
The impasse was complicated by the sudden arrival of another Rassimel warrior, escaping from the seven-winged burning thing, teleporting next to the Orren Pirate.
Other Rassimel:"What are you waiting for, you idiots? We've got to act fast! There's a Zi Ri sorcerer in the back bedroom, and zie's all pissed off!"
Cani Pirate:"Rightie-O. Zascalle, you must pony up, right away, or I'm killing Vae."
Vae:"There's not to be any killing. At all."
Oonanau: [teleporting in] "Orren Pirate, can you please put me out? That cursed lizard crammed some flameystuff under my armor."
Confusion reigned for a few moments. Then Strayway crunched and rocked terribly. Duncan's Glory was firing her onagers, and they had taken off one of our candles.
Oonanau:"Right. Grab and run time, guys. This skyboat is going down in flames."
The fourth group -- two Cani of brindled mastiff styling, and a Rassimel man holding a mace in one hand and a wand in the other -- soon came to the room where Arfaen, and Mellilot were trying to keep the children calm, and Grinwipey was trying to keep them safe.
Grinwipey:"Hey, I got three clubs, you got three shanderbucked guys, works out all right."
They had a bit of a scuffle. Grinwipey got killed twice, saved twice by Heal the Awful Wounds. He was only wearing two of them, so the third time he stayed dead. The Maceimel tossed his body in a corner.
Brindled Man:"So much for him. Are you two fine women going to interfere?" He grabbed Ochirion by the arm.
Arfaen:"What are you doing to him?"
Brindled Woman:"Just a bit of a hostage-taking, miss. For convenience to encourage you to pay your bills, y'know." She grabbed Quendry, and the Rassimel took charge of Feralan.
Quendry:"Mommies! Don't let them take me away, mommies!"
Brindled Man:"Mommies? The bitch I'll believe is your mommy, but the other one's a bug-girl."
Quendry:"She's my mommy too! Mellilot! Make him let me go!"
Brindled Man:"Wait, are you two scrompers?"
Arfaen:"I don't know what you mean. Let my son and his friends go this instant."
Brindled Woman:"They are, can't you smell it?"
Brindled Man:"Bug-lover! Feh! Bet you did it with the shoggy there too."
Arfaen: assorted furious denials and demands, all of them ignored.
Brindled Man:"What she needs is a taste of a real Cani or two to remind her what's what."
Arfaen and Mellilot: assorted angry disagreements.
Brindled Man:"Hey, Brindled Woman, you want first turn, or do I get it?"
Brindled Woman:"I've got affan. I go first." She tossed Quendry to Brindled Man. "Right, scrompey-bitch. Lick tight and lick good, or Brindled Man's taking off your son's tail." She started unlacing a bit. Strayway crunched and rocked terribly. Duncan's Glory was firing her onagers, and they had taken off one of our candles.
Quendry:"Mommy! Help! No! Don't do that to Mommy!"
Vae heard Quendry screaming. She hissed, "And what are your friends doing to my primes? The now I excuse myself from being your hostage!"
The Cani Pirate holding Vae said, "Quiet, little girl." Then Vae curled her tailtip around his staff, ringing her bell, and teleported herself and the staff to Quendry. The council room erupted in a hideous melee, with five angry and rushed pirates assaulting six or seven assorted wrongfolk. The wrongfolk didn't have much of a chance. In a moment, some of us were broken, and some fled. The five pirates took what money they could (mostly from Zascalle's body), and started to rampage down the corridor rather haphazardly. Duncan's Glory's onagers knocked another candle off of Strayway.
Vae appeared in the nursery, still a young and nude Orren girl, twirling the crow-staff in one hand. "Not a thing like this you must do to my primes!" she proclaimed, and then burst into giggles from the pleasure of having gotten something from a prime.
"What is with these people? First the shoggy tells us no, then the bug-scromper tells us no, and now the flippin' little girl tells us no. You need to learn to say 'yes'," said Brindled Woman. "You 'specially," she said to Arfaen.
Vae twirled her stolen staff in a delicate lemniscate, laughing a laugh like tiny golden bells rung by a fairy, enlivened rather than distracted by her forced pleasure. She hooked out Brindled Woman's lungs, some Locador sleight allowing the crow's beak to avoid the Cani's flesh and bones and armor.
Brindled Woman stared at Vae in fear and pain, her eyes pleading. Vae chirped, "Yes! The yes I say to you! You can have them back!" She twirled the staff backwards, and flipped Brindled Woman's lungs into her face. Brindled Woman did not seem to be terribly grateful for their return. She did lose consciousness, for which I imagine she was grateful. She did not regain it.
Mellilot took the opportunity to scuttle over and slap her bound Heal the Awful Wound on Grinwipey. Wipey poked up his eyestalks and moaned a bit. "Sorry as the dashitzie, couldn't do much for you."
Vae smiled quite sweetly at the other two pirates. "The menu for brunchtime murderings is a choice for you! The we have a very fine conversion of the heart and circulatory system to a nest of stinging wasps, served on a bed of arugula and accompanied by a light whipping by a peri armed with nettles. The or we have a slow and elegant disembowelling accompanied by a sweet sherry gravy, always a classic, and but not to be considered meagre, no matter how familiar it becomes. The and finally, as today's special, we could turn your fingers, tongues, and genitalia into unfriendly and slightly poisonous serpents, who are only under your control with your full concentration. The protracted death, which may appeal to those who find life so sweet that they want to suck it down to the last drop. And Sir Brindled Man, which will it be?"
Brindled Man, not quite understanding the situation, started to strangle Quendry. "Drop that staff damn quick, girl, or the kids all die."
Vae flicked her tail once, twice, thrice. The children's fur became furious masses of lashing animated iron quills, each quill tipped with corrosive flames. They struck at the pirates, again and again in a rain of vicious burning pricks. The pirates had no real choice but to drop the children. The children, perhaps more upset than the pirates, fled to Arfaen and Mellilot; Vae let her spells lapse before they attacked the women.
"But why did you do that, Vae?", I asked her later.
"The I wanted the pirates to let go of them in a hurry," Vae explained patiently.
"But why didn't you teleport them away, O mistress of Locador powers beyond nearly anyone I know?" I asked.
"Not a bit did I think of it!" she admitted. "The bit of a fury I was in, I fear me."
(I fear you too, Vae my friend. Indeed I fear you.)
"The very wise choice you have made, Brindled Man," said Vae in a silky-sweet voice. "The fingers you use for murder, and this shows that your fingers should ne'er be yours again." She touched him, and gave him many serpents to wrestle with.
"And for you, Maceimel -- the disembowelling, I believe?" He tried his very best to kill her with his mace. Space and time bowed in obedience to her tail: the first blow of his mace removed half his belly; the second opened his chest; and there was no strength in him for a third. Vae took his mace from him and trickled her scalpel-clawed fingers in his entrails.
Maceimel moaned "Sprex!" and teleported back to Duncan's Glory. Vae produced a round doorway in nothingness, reached through, and dragged him back. Three pirates, one of them a very burned Rassimel being tended by the other two, expressed an assortment of displeasures and alarms. Vae continued to vivisect him jauntily as the children wailed.
(Grinwipey quite mercifully broke Brindled Man's skull with his clubs while Vae was distracted, if I understand what Grinwipey said properly.)
"How could you do that in front of the puppies?" Arfaen asked later.
"The good I thought it would do them, to see such a revenge," Vae said.
"But they're puppies!" Arfaen yelped.
"I'm not a puppy anymore, and I'm glad I didn't have to watch," I said.
"Not so well do I understand. Always a joy it was for me to see my mother torture an enemy!" said Vae. She looked at Arfaen's face. "Not the same way it is for Cani or Rassimel puppies, then?"
"Not in the slightest! They'll be puking up nightmares for months!" barked Arfaen.
"As they would if they had seen us raped," added Mellilot. "So thank you once again for saving us."
"Yes ... thank you," said Arfaen, who was rather less certain. She has endured considerable time with unwanted lovers -- albeit friendly spouses, which I suspect is a rather different matter. I do not know whether it is a difference of degree or kind though; I hope I never understand perfectly. She could have endured this too, I think.
"The sorrow is on me for doing it in an unsuitable manner, though," said Vae, and two daggers of glass and blood trickled from the corners of her eyes.
Boots thumped in the corridor outside. A pirate barked, "That sounds like Brindled Man screaming in there!", and kicked open the unlocked door.
"Oh, no! More pirates, Mommies!" wailed Quendry.
"The Brindleds!" wailed Oonanau. The Cani Pirate who had been holding Vae tried to grab her again. She was having none of it, though, and teleported him three hundred miles in the sky, to fall or rescue himself as best he could. Other Rassimel became a small wooden rocking-horse, just Quendry's size. Cheerful Orren got two steps away down the corridor before she became a bright red rubber ball with blue stars painted on the side. The Khtsoyis and Grinwipey traded insults, or, perhaps, taught each other insults.
"You were much nicer to that batch than the others," I noted afterwards.
"The they had been much nicer," said Vae. "The Cani Pirate even petted me once or twice while he hostaged me. The year can pass to the next year between times a prime will do that!"
"Fly, you fools! This is an enemy beyond you all!" barked Oonanau, or words to that effect. She grabbed Cani Pirate's staff, which Vae had dropped, and said "Sprex!" so that her bound spell took her to Duncan's Glory.
"Pleasure droppin' in on you like this. Look m'up if y're ever in town, Wipey," said the Khtsoyis pirate, and sprexed off as well.
Vae screamed in rage. "The staff, the crow staff! The crow staff is my staff! The Cani Pirate I took it from!" She leapt through her round doorway to Duncan's Glory, whirling her stolen mace. Two pirates got in her way -- in the sense of not getting out of her way quickly enough -- and she disposed of them, one getting knocked off deck with the mace, the other by transformation into a short curving roadway to Oonanau.
Oonanau, being a sensible sort of sorceress, took the instant to teleport to the Dossimar city gate and bolt through.
"The crow staff, the crow staff that is mine!" howled Vae. "The Orren has taken my crow staff into the city!" She could not retrieve it through the city walls, so she set to work getting revenge.
"Why did you want the crow staff? It was all bloody and lungy!" asked Feralan rather afterwards.
"The things I get from primes are hard things for me to give up quickly," said Vae.
"Oh.... I don't have a crow staff. I'll give you a cup with a pelican drawn on the side!" said Feralan.
"The please, the please!" moaned Vae.
Zascalle took Feralan aside after he had given her the cup, and told him that giving presents to the nendrai was not always a good thing.
Drogimargue, hearing a commotion from inside the skyboat, kicked Windigar in the belly and ran inside. He found a roomful of incapacitated and dead wrongfolk, and no pirates; he roared to find his companions.
Windigar picked himself up and prodded at his insignia, hoping to get Vae's attention. Vae was beyond any interruption at that point. I, however, was looking for clues about what was going on; I noticed, and arrowported over, and got a few essential hints.
So Windigar and I and the re-seven-winged burning thing rushed into the council room. The burning thing politely distracted Drogimargue, where by 'politely distracted' I mean 'attempted to grill alive', which is quite polite under the circumstances. Drogimargue fought back moderately effectively for a bit, and then decided to sprex off. I fluttered to the wrongfolk and used most of my remaining cley on several advanced healing spells.
Resurrection is only generally possible within a few minutes of death -- a variable few minutes depending on how quickly the spirit of decedent gives up and returns to the relevant creator god. Dancing in the Garden of Statues is an excellent way to arrange to resurrect a half-dozen people all at the same time, since the time I spend in the garden doesn't count towards the limit of resurrection.
Then we followed the footsteps, and the advice of the furniture, and came to the parlor with the children and the civilians and the dead pirates and the door to Duncan's Glory.
A dozen or so pirates surrounded Vae on the deck of Duncan's Glory, including Drogimargue the Nendrai-Slayer. They were terribly outnumbered by Vae. And by Vae's elementals. She had turned a wind into a seven-headed lightning bear, and Drogimargue's sword into a mushroom with a poisonous gaze, and someone else's forearm into a spiky Locador demon. Vae was mostly ignoring the pirates, except when they somehow got a spell or a sword within six feet of her, at which point she produced another elemental to interfere with them. They were not her concern.
The pirates were not fighting Vae out of personal fear, or professional obligation. They were fighting her out of civic duty.
I joined the pirate's cause when I saw what was going on, of course.
Vae was ripping up vast tracts of countryside. She'd demarcate an area of some twenty or thirty acres of fields or countryside. She'd carefully transport all the people and animals in it into the nearest village, for she is a tidy monster. (And by "tidy" I mean "happy to fill villages with all manner of beasts and pests and vermin."). Then she would arrange for the direction "up" to mean "towards the city of Dossimar, and with a force a dozen times as great as usual", rather than its usual meaning of "upwards". Everything in the region would fall heavily towards the city. First the loose things, fallen logs and ponds. Next the weakly-affixed things: houses and trees, plants and buried logs and loose soil. Finally the rest of it: all the soil down to the world-wood.
The avalanches could not actually break the Dossimar city walls. But the enchanted sphere rang like a bell struck by Tenmen's hammer; it squashed to a hideously oblate spheroid, and then rebounded. The towers and homes on the edge of the city were cast down and ruined.
And by this time there was quite a dike around Dossimar: soil and detritus piled high. The gates of Dossimar were buried; and the moraines draped on the walls loomed far above the tallest buildings of the city.
"Vae, Vae!" I called to her. "Please don't destroy the city!"
"Of course I will destroy the city!" she snarled. "The sorceress in the city Took. My. Crow. Staff!"
I know this mood. I have seen it before, though never with quite so much devastation. "I'll bake you a cupcake if you come back to Strayway."
Vae grinned excitedly at me. "And with chocolate frosting?"
"Certainly!"
She jumped up and down once or twice. "Let's go!" Then she stopped and looked at the city, as if seeing her handiwork for the first time. "The bribe you're offering me. And did I do another wicked thing this time?"
"We'll discuss that when we're back on Strayway," I said.
"The meaning of that phrase is 'yes, and a most extravagantly wicked thing', is it not, Sythyry?" Drogimargue rammed a blazing metal-tipped spear through her heart. She rather absentmindedly teleported the spear to me; the wound wasn't serious enough for her to bother with. "And if it is so terrible, can I still have the cupcake?"
"Come back home, and you can have the cupcake."
She dispersed her elementals, took a crossbow bolt through one eye, and came home. I insisted on healing her, because I know from a century and more that it is very, very, very important never to piss the nendrai off.
As I did, the shots of two ballistas and three flame-onagers wrecked various bits of Strayway. Windigar used the replacement quick-escape device then, and took us a dozen or two miles out of range of ballistas and flame-onagers.
I baked for her, and healed people while we waited for the cupcaked cooked. I was more or less out of cley, but we are a very friendly ship, and many people gifted me with cley and embraces. [Transferring cley to someone else requires a close hug. -bb] Most of them wanted bound Heal the Awful Wounds, and, for those who had enough cley today, resurrection spells as well. Tomorrow, I will spread bound defenses around even more.
| Topic | Us | Them |
| Deaths and other injuries | None that stuck. | Brindled Woman, Brindled Man, Maceimel; we did not see fit to resurrect them. Several temporary deaths on Duncan's Glory, but I'm sure none of those stuck. Presumably Cani Pirate survived as well. Unknown numbers of innocent victims from the smashing of the city: perhaps none, perhaps many. |
| Money | Lost a few thousand lozens | Gained a few thousand lozens |
| Booty | A magic mace, a magic spear, a sparkling dagger, a sparkling shield; various equipment from the captives that we haven't sorted out. | Nothing to speak of, though Vae still complains that they Stole. Her. Crow. Staff. |
| Captives | Three lost pirates; Other Rassimel; Cheerful Orren | None |
| Other Damage | Two candles and a great deal of architectural damage of Strayway | Dozens of acres of forest and farmland ruined past all repair; moraines of debris and dirt surrounding the city. |
I suppose we won on points. Unless we (Vae) killed a lot of people we (Vae) didn't intend to in the city, which presumably counts against us.
It didn't feel like a victory in the slightest.
Me. This sort of thing is precisely what I've spent the last 124 years trying to keep from happening. Vae wrecking the countryside and assaulting a city, that is.
Us. We are demoralized and scared. Vae and I took pains to put up three scores very loud and blatant magical defenses: huge buzzy spells that cradle the ship as a sea urchin's spines and shell cradles it. A dozen exceedingly menacing elementals circle us constantly now, glaring outwards with the faces of legendary devils, their limbs and wings abristle with weapons. Not everyone finds this comforting: it is very much short of city walls. I have promised that, as soon as we can find an otherwise safe place, I will defend Strayway with out-and-out city walls. They won't be Vheshrame's walls, but they'll probably be better than Dossimar's. (Note to self: tracking down that Glory of Hren Tzen in Heleshario is more important than ever.)
The Children. The children were beside themselves with horrors. (And some of the adults too; as soon as I write this, I am going to go where nobody can see me and indulge in an episode of the utter shrieking fantods at Phaniet.) The families with children were discussing what to do next: whether Strayway is safe enough for them, or whether they should ask to get off at the next city, or beg to go home to Vheshrame. If the latter, I will indulge them, and do my wall-working in the safety of Castle Wrong.
Strayway. I no longer have a beautiful, flamboyant, and spectacular sky-yacht. I have a half-ruined sky-yacht that will need massive repairs before it is completely safe to live in, much less impress people with.
The Fourth Group of Pirates. All dead, and not in nice ways either. Which does not distress me greatly: however it was that Brindled Woman had affan in ... whatever she had affan in ... she cannot have come by it in any decent way.
The Captive Pirates: Currently transformed into harmless objects. The best plans are (a) to deliver them to the Sky Pilot's Guild for justice, or (b) to forget about them and leave them transformed. (a) is particularly cruel, as the Sky Pilot's Guild does not greatly approve of sky piracy. (b) is particularly vengeful, as they will not be reincarnated normally until the harmless objects are destroyed, which may be some long while. It depends on the character of the Sky Pilot's Guild in the next port.
The Other Pirates: I don't imagine that they will be quite so eager to attack the next ship, having had such a terrible loss on this one. Nor do I imagine that Dossimar will be quite so willing to encourage them, having had such a destruction due to them. (We didn't ask many questions of our captives, but we think that the city condones the pirates to some extent -- as far as I can tell, they impose smaller tolls on trading ships, but the pirates decided on their own that a rich prime's yacht could be soaked for more.)
Vae: Any hope she has of being recognized as a decent and civilized monster any decade soon are ruined. She nearly destroyed a city -- not out of justice, as might have been acceptable, but out of anger at someone stealing from her. She cried herself to sleep, with me listening and wiping the blood from her face tonight, and I expect, for several more nights.
My Warriors: Yerenthax, Rheng, and Wipey are not feeling terribly proud of how well they fared when outnumbered and surprised by pirates. The fact that they mostly weren't equipped -- Yerenthax was fighting with a knife and no armor against enemies with swords and chainmail -- doesn't count for much. Also most of them are recovering from being dead.
Dossimar Mene: They lost about a square mile of arable land, and what remains to them is clawed through and through with vast canyons reaching to world-wood. The city is nearly buried: though its walls have kept the dirt out, it will be quite hard to get in and out without flying or teleporting until a vast quantity of soil has been moved back to the canyons. I don't know about damage to people or the city.
City Walls: For all that I'm planning to protect Strayway with the best walls I can manage in the space of a few months ... city walls are not the absolute defenses everyone is taught they are. To be sure, Dossimar's walls didn't let a bit of Vae's dirtstorm into the city. They couldn't have stopped her from burying it in soil altogether. Cities are safe from direct intrusions, of course ... but a clever and terrible monster has other assaults.
Vae: Vae has managed to acquire one small sliver of sanity. She took pains not to kill innocent people and animals in the countryside. This is not at all natural to a berserk nendrai. It is a pitiful triumph, but retaining any measure of personality and morality in that state is remarkable.
Drogimargue: Few indeed the heroes who can boast of surviving two furious nendrai.
Sky Pilot's Guild: One nest of sky pirates substantially weakened.
If anything like this happens again before we're properly (which is to say 'insanely') defended, (1) Wake the wizard up! (2) Take every measure to get far away quickly! (3) Negotiate payment without letting pirates on board! (4) Warriors get their armor and weapons at the first hint of danger! (5) Try not to piss the nendrai off!
Many people at breakfast this morning looked rather haggard. Some had an excellent excuse for it, having been killed the day before. Grinwipey, killed more than once, was floating in the corner, too exhausted to move much. Not too exhausted to swear, of course. "'morning, lizards. You look punch-soaking pleased with yourself this morning."
"And do we?" asked Vae. She did not. She was wearing a heavy bovine body very poorly supported by five thin arms, so that she was walking on hands that really couldn't hold her weight. Her dozens of udders, each bristling with inflamed and scarred teats, dragged on the floor beneath her. Even her tail was a little bovine paintbrush sort of thing. Her fur was marked with the symbols of doom and mourning. The only part of her that actually looked like her was her head, as if she couldn't think of any way to make it look worse.
"Nah, you look like a lump of cud someone horked up," Grinwipey said.
"Which should not be ta'en as a great startle," said Yerenthax. "For it is how I feel this morning." Jyondre refilled her kathia chalice, and got a tired smile from her.
"I know why you're so shaky, Yerenthax, and Rheng and Kantele, and certainly why Wipey is," I said, trying to get people to stop insulting the monster who had saved them. "Arfaen, did you get killed and I didn't notice?"
Arfaen shook her head. "I got nothing worse from the pirates than words, really."
"I know evasive when I hear it," I said. "What are you not telling me?"
Arfaen shook her head and tucked her tail between her legs. "It's nothing really, not compared to Grinwipey, or Yerenthax and Rheng and Kantele."
"I continue to know evasive when I hear it," I said.
"I'm not evading! We just didn't sleep very well last night," said Arfaen.
(Note to self: while I do know evasiveness when I hear it, sometimes it's perfectly fine and proper for the evader to evade.)
"I had a nightmares!" said Quendry proudly. "I had a nightmares that Dad had hired pirates to make Mommy do too much sex with Cani. So she would forget Mellilot and me. Then we'd have to go back home and I wouldn't have affan in anything and they'd put liver in my bed and make it go all stinky and wormblown. Then they'd make me cut up my favorite tree so they could carve it into insect dolls and they'd put those into Mommy too. And ... "
Arfaen hugged Quendry. "You don't need to tell the whole dream."
Quendry wagged his tail. "It was awful! Mommy let me sleep between her and Mellilot."
"I had a nightmare too," said Kantele. "I dreamed that the pirates killed everybody on board."
"Even me?" asked Quendry. "Why did the pirates kill me?"
"I don't remember very clearly. I don't hold on to my nightmares to enjoy them later! Something about some birds that we were trying to hide from them," said Kantele.
His mother wagged her tail, "Because you were too cute to live."
"In dull despair, and dream-distracted / we are too weak for poem protracted," staved Yerenthax. "Not one of my best."
Jyondre rubbed his girlfriend's ursine head. "For your saving my life yesterday, I will gladly listen to a thousand such staves." (I'm pretty sure that the pirates killed Kantele as soon as Vae teleported off, and then Yerenthax and Rheng held them off briefly while Jyondre, Zascalle, and Umbers fled.) Yerenthax leaned her head tiredly against Jyondre's forearm.
"I had a nightmare too," said Umbers.
"Oh, no! What was it?" asked Inconnu.
Umbers shrugged her mid-arms. "Nothing worth going over. I dreamed I was back in the underground clubs, servicing ... never mind who. And they made me cultivate mushrooms in between customers. I hate growing mushrooms."
"I'll never make you grow mushrooms! I don't even like mushrooms!" chirped Inconnu.
Umbers tapped him on the muzzle. "You won't make me do anything. Just because of last night with you doesn't mean we're married, or even that we're going to have a next night. It just means I was lonely and sad, and you were handy and entertaining." Inconnu looked so sad and wide-eyed that Umbers had to flatten her antennae and say, "Doesn't mean we won't have a next night either. But we're definitely not married." Inconnu brightened.
"It was a bad night of dreams," said Zascalle. "Having your children attacked by pirates and you not even there to protect them can do that."
"Why, what was your dream about?" asked Kantele. "For nothing shows a dream to be a harmless and evanescent phantom more than explaining it in public."
"My dream wasn't a harmless devil-scent phamtom!" barked Quendry. "It was a nightmares! It smelled like a burnt pig trotter with mustard and jam and poop on it!" Which might be true, for all I know.
"I dreamed I was doing the books for Castle Wrong -- I dream about that quite often," said Zascalle. "And nothing added up right, and the charges for apples kept getting higher and higher every time I looked at them. And V..." She looked around. "Well, someone said that Ochirion was getting cut in half by pirates, and I couldn't come save him until all the sums were done and staying done." She shook her head. "Nothing much of a surprise there."
"There's a sorrow on me for troubling you so, even in your dreams, Zascalle," said Vae.
Zascalle flattened her ears and tail. "You didn't ... it's all right ... Actually it's totally unfair of me to dream that, since you actually saved the children."
"The children of Strayway I saved, to their terror. And did I kill many children in Dossimar, think you?"
I bated between them. [That means, I hung on to the tapestried back of a chair and flapped my wings hard. My translator suggests I define that for some reason.] "Though there is an accounting sort of question I had for you, Zascalle: will we be able to pay for the repairs of Strayway, do you think? Or will we need more money?"
Zascalle didn't raise her ears a bit. "A few spells and a bit of cheap carpentry, and it will keep the rain out. We can board off the broken parts of the interior, so that the children don't fall through the floor or some such. We can at least get to Srineia that way."
"I know evasive when I hear it, really," I whined. "And I don't want a boarded-up sky-yacht. I want a fine one."
"It's been an expensive trip so far, Sythyry, and we didn't bring as much cash as we intended to," said Zascalle. "You cannot afford to fix Strayway back to her original beauty with just the money you have on hand."
Inconnu wiggled his tailtip -- he had somehow insinuated himself into Umbers' lap. "Can't you use lots of Healoc Herbador to put it back right?"
Phaniet shook her head. "The underlying enchantments are shaken and wrenched; they need to be repaired simultaneously, or the skyboat will never fly properly again."
"Can't Sythyry do that?" asked Inconnu.
I picked up a spoon and pretended to hammer a nail into his head with it. "I am not much of a carpenter. I can do part of it, but not all."
Inconnu stared at Este. Este shrugged. "I'd be glad to try if that's what you really want."
"Meaning no insult to my husband ... my husband is no crew of shipwrights. He and Sythyry could do a fine job in a pinch, considering that they are only two people and the job should properly require two dozen," said Phaniet, curling her tail with Este's.
"Also it would be a bit of a waste. Sythyry can earn more in a week than we'd spend on the two dozen shipwrights," added Zascalle.
"If I find the right customer," I noted. "I can earn a million lozens in a month, but not every month ... and not every decade, even. I've only done it once. And, for what it's worth, my nightmare was that the city I sold it to sent the pirates by way of complaint."
Jyondre looked up from behind his pink barbarian. "I'm sure that a city on Srineia will want better walls: Bephengy or Heleshario, if not Eigrach. Our best sorcerers are not much for wall-building."
"How are they as shipwrights?" I asked.
"Adequate, I should think. Eigrach has a modest shipyard, and Heleshario a specialty maker of racing-boats," said our native guide and expert on all matters Srineian.
"Well, we're not that far away. I suppose we're better off limping to Eigrach as quick as our emerald antelopes can carry us, and seeing how we can repair the boat there," I pronounced. "Arfaen, you were chief amongst those who wanted to return to Vheshrame earlier. What say you?"
Arfaen said, "I ..."
Kantele pricked up her ears, interruping. "If we head straight for Vheshrame, we will be passing close to Dossimar Mene, where we have recently stirred up the pirates and rendered the general populace amazingly displeased with us."
Arfaen said, "Yes, but ..."
Phaniet added, "Only, this time, we will be flying a crippled and sluggish skyboat, and the best of our warriors recovering from a bit of death."
Arfaen said, "Yes, but I ..."
Kantele stood up, her tail all a-bottlebrush. "To be sure, the nendrai would be eager to fight." Vae did not look to be eager to fight: she was curled up backwards on the floor, chewing on her tail, her udders poking out, in a position that surely would have been impossible for anything with an actual spine. "I daresay she won't stop with ruining one city-state this time."
Arfaen said, "Yes, but I think ..."
Quendry wailed, "I want to stay with Mommy and Mummy! I don't want to go back to the longhouse!"
Yerenthax stood up, with some difficulty, and said "I should like to hear Arfaen's actual opinion before trying to argue her out of it."
Arfaen said, "Thank you, O Gormoror. I think that I would rather have some city walls around me soon, more than Vheshrame's walls around me rather later. I would rather travel in a skyboat that Sythyry has properly armed and armored -- more than in a broken one, and more than any more precipitous means that may be available. I would rather not explain to my husband what became of his son and his tail just now. I am not feeling any braver than yesterday, but my cowardice is less tightly focussed. I will stay with us through Eigrach."
Hops brought out a cauldron of soup made from dried shrimps and garlic. "Hey, m'lordres, Calla the exhausted Herethroy night cook made this for your breakfasts." She glared at Arfaen. "Calla's having nightmares about having to cook every meal for the whole crew for the whole trip, zie is, and that nightmare is coming out real."
Everybody:"We want city walls and no more pirates! Can't we get to Eigrach faster?"
Me:"We're already flying all the time." I am, rather guiltily, standing two shifts (18 hours) as pilot. This is not, strictly speaking, approved by the guild, but I am sure to get a full shift's sleep (9 hours) after each one. Windigar, whose attitude towards time is rather more sensible than mine, is standing the other one, split in two 4.5-hour halves so I can get my nine hours of sleep between them.
Everybody:"No! Faster, faster, faster!"
Me and Vae:"Yes, but it's not a wonderfully good idea."
Everybody:"Do it! We have surely run out of doom for this leg of the voyage!"
Me and Vae:"Doom is not an exhaustable resource."
Phaniet:"Well, if we do thus-and-so, or such-and-such, the dangers are scarce, are they not?" She is my assistant for very good reasons.
Me and Vae:"Yes... Scarce ... well, more scarce. "
Everyone:"Do it!"
Me and Vae:"Well, um, OK..." Neither of us is particularly a leader, nor particularly good at denying our friends.
Two-thirds of an hour later, we were in the sky eight miles over Eigrach. Most of the two-thirds of the hour was discussing details with Phaniet. The travel was only a few minutes. Locador magic is very effective and powerful magic.
The reason one does not generally use this much Locador on a skyboat, especially a skyboat containing as much Locador as Strayway does, poked a dozen mile-long black fingery spikes (Technically, I believe that it has only a single finger-spike, but that it is in several places at once) though the injury our skyboat had left in the world's outer rind. Which isn't actually part of the world per se; it's just a sort of a coating or shell just outside the world that keeps nasty things from coming in and bothering us. Except, of course, when we wound it by too much Locador magic. Locador magic is very effective and powerful magic, and that means that it has consequences now and then.
Me:"Oh, dearie."
Vae:"Oh, dearie, to be sure. The trouble and a half it is, when such a thing comes to visit."
Phaniet:"I was wrong, wasn't I?"
Me:"Yes." I'm usually nicer to her.
Phaniet:"What do we do?"
Vae:"The fighting. The troublesome fighting. If we are lucky, a god will come to us and help us."
Phaniet:"Is that likely?"
Vae:"If Oixe had not been with me the other time I faced one, yes, probably Flokin would have chased the being off after I died."
Phaniet:"Oixe isn't with you now."
Me:"I'll do what I can." I'm not nearly as dangerous as Oixe -- for that matter, Vae isn't nearly as dangerous as Oixe.
Vae and the Vindication -- which is surely an unusual name for such a creature, but it is what I called it, short for "Vindication that I Was Right And One Should Not Overdo It With The Locador." -- got into a bit of a battle royale. The basic disagreement was over whether the sky-wound was to be big enough for the whole of the Vindication to come through (the Vindication's opinion), or not (Vae's opinion). The sky-wound obeyed them both quite happily. I tried my best relevant spell. The sky-wound ignored me.
So, the Vindication tried to distract Vae. It shattered one of its finger-spikes, and sent the shards as spiralling darknesses to attack her directly. I tried to stop them with spells, but they ignored me. Vae, who is much stronger and more experienced at this sort of thing, was able to block them, but at the cost of many seconds -- during which the Vindication had stretched the sky-wound much wider. We could see its four eyes peering at us, arranged in an equilateral pentagon with eleven mismatched sides.
Vae started tugging the sky-wound closed. The Vindication let her, and shattered another finger-spike. (I'm not sure how this works if it has only one finger-spike. Confusing abomination, that Vindication.)
That simply would not do. If Vae blocked the shards, the Vindication would open the sky-wound enough to get its whole head through, and then the rest of it, and that would not be particularly good. If she didn't, we would all die quickly from the shards, which was certainly preferable but still not a good idea. And Vae was the only one of any use in this fight, and she was overwhelmed by the Vindication's speed.
I'm not Oixe; I don't have any fraction of her native violence. But I do understand time reasonably well. I cast Dancing in the Garden of Statues on her. She seemed to teleport eleven inches that way, presumably because she wasn't quite standing still when she was Dancing. The attacking shards had become peanuts and show tunes all at once from her defensive spells. And the top of the sky-wound had gotten a bit stitched up; she must have had a bit more time than she needed.
So I cast Dancing three more times on her, giving her two full minutes and some to do whatever she wanted without the Vindication interfering. I would have kept casting, except after the third, she left a note saying "The we have won already" over my eyes.
I looked. The sky-wound was closed. Scarred terribly, as always with Vae's Mutoc-based healing, but closed enough to keep the Vindication out.
Arfaen:"I thought I saw some ... black lightning or something? Any idea what it was, Sythyry?"
Me:"Well, yes."
Vae:"Not a thing to worry about was it."
And so we didn't.
But I don't want to hurry that way again.
The first thing Windigar noticed about Srineia was the clouds.
(In case you care, the first thing I noticed about Srineia was the fact that our hurryup spells had botched. The first thing that Lithia noticed about Srineia was that Lost-Eyes kisses like a girl. (I don't know exactly what Lithia means by that. I don't believe that Lithia has enough breadth of experience at kissing to be able to tell girls from boys from co-lovers from the osculation alone ... I don't think I could do it, and I've kissed reasonably broadly.) But that is what Lithia and Lost-Eyes were busy doing while we were travelling. (According to a later report. I was not snooping. I would not snoop on them. Ordinarily I am quite happy to watch Orren kissing -- indeed, it is a favorite watchment of mine -- but Lithia is my pseudo-child, and I am rather annoyed at Lost-Eyes.))
Anyhow: the clouds of Srineia. As Jyondre promised, the clouds over Srineia are often froliose. I don't think that Srineia is the only place that has froliose clouds, but I have never seen them before in person. Froliose clouds are spherical in shape, pure white over most of their surface, but have a single cloudy-black shape on their northern side: today they were showing horizontal bars with a small circle at the west end. Jyondre doesn't think the actual shape has any significance. Srineian scholars disagree, or, at least, they have kept careful records of the shape-of-the-day for quite some time.
Windigar knows better than to fly through froliose clouds. They evidently leave everything sticky and reeking of rotten lavender.
Far from the first thing that Vae noticed was the shark-mouthed cat sort of thing that appeared next to her from a smallish blossom of (to the magic sense only) dark claws and spikes. "You-nob have come most noisily to my home territory!" the beast exclaimed.
"The yes! The greetings I make to you, O mighty Shadatei, and the thanks for allowing me to make this very temporary visit to your home territory, after which I shall be returning to my home territory which is very far from here and does not border on here and which is where I considerably prefer to live in any case! The name of me is Vaisessasilmin, but you may call me Vae if you wish, for everyone else does."
This, then, was one eighth of the chromodon Shadatei, the terrible monster who claimed a great deal of Srineia as his territory. Vae, incidentally, claims Vheshrame Mene and some significant space on either side as her territory. The rest of us ignore these claims: it is a matter of monster law or custom, and who cares about that? Well, aside from monsters.
"I-nob am less worried about the length of your stay than the manner of your arrival, O mighty Vae. Something extraordinarily dangerous peeked at us from beyond the universe," said Shadatei. Of course any great beast would notice such an intrusion, though most primes would not.
"Oh! That!", said Vae. It had been nearly eighteen minutes since we had nearly destroyed the branch; the event must have slipped Vae's mind. "We put it back. It will not return."
"You-nob are permitted to explain further," said Shadatei. From which Vae gathered that she was, in fact, encouraged to explain further, and she did.
Shadatei scowled, his teeth shining brilliant orange and purple. "I-nob would prefer that you refrain from such extreme actions on my territory henceforth. If you-nob are unable to defend yourself from prime pirates, I shall be glad to curtail their activities for you, or even destroy them outright."
Vae bristled. She was in a familiar shape as a long-tailed dull green serpent with (at the moment) fifteen butterfly wings along her spine. She fluttered her wings fiercely. "Not so hard is it for a N. Lacrymosa to take care of a few pirates, or a few dozen pirates! The other half of their city-state is what in a fury I would not destroy!"
(The subtext made explicit: Nendrai can work more terrible spells than chromodons, and are more terrible in battle. Not that chromodons are weak exactly -- they are among the great beasts, after all -- but they are dangerous in a different way. I doubt that Shadatei can cast any spell I can't, and I can cast many that are beyond him. But there are eight of him, all thinking cooperatively and quickly, and able to cast spells through each other. In a battle, he would shower us with dozens of substantial spells to each of ours (though I would presumably offset his advantage with generous use of Tempador). If we killed the body he was using, he would teleport it off and heal it, giving us no particular victory. If we killed it beyond healing, then the remaining 7/8 of him would plot a most clever and dreadful revenge -- and they are well-known for their revenges. In any case, Vae is more than a match for him in a battle, but Shadate would be most difficult to actually defeat in any lasting way.)
(Sub-subtext: "great beast" is one of various words that the mightiest monsters on the World Tree call themselves. Nendrai, chromodons, scyanturges, and a few others use the word. The rest of us generally don't.)
"I-nob am glad that you are willing to display the competence that one might expect from your species. Destroy whatever cities you are inclined to in Srineia; it is my territory, and I care nothing for the cities. But leave the husk of the world alone."
Vae fluttered her wings, then curled up. "The I will."
He snarled at me, "That goes for you too, prime."
"I will admit that I have no great desire to become the plaything of a Locador demon, and, thus, I agree to your terms without complaint. Indeed, this is a resolution which I made myself, some seventeen minutes ago," I said. I hope this is polite, or at least, matchingly polite.
He snarled at me again -- this time his teeth were crimson and black -- and turned to Vae. "I-nob wish you a pleasant visit. Indeed, a relaxing one, without the need for any of those remarkable exertions which your kind is known for. And, of course, without conflict with any other great beasts."
Then the curved and straight claws of an unimpressive teleportation spell embraced him, and he was gone: some few hundred yards outside of Strayway I would estimate.
"Charming monster, that," I said to Vae.
"Oh, yes! The I hope to spend more time with him. Not when I have just endangered him so, though; that's not a good start."
"I was trying to be sarcastic, actually," I said.
Vae pouted, which is challenging with a snake's face. "The few enough friends I will have here. Not so much should you denigrate the ones I can expect to have."
And she didn't accept a spoken apology either. The scene ended where such scenes often do: in the kitchen, baking cupcakes.
Monsters may teleport in on each other unannounced, the way Shadatei just did. People do not. So, we landed Strayway by Eigrach's trunkward gate, and Kantele wrote a letter. It went something like this.
[Occasional status markers will be written to show that speech is in Srineian, or where they are relevant for the story. In most cases they will be omitted. -bb]
From the wizard Sythyry to the mayor and nobility of Eigrach, greetings. I-nob have arrived in Eigrach Mene some weeks earlier than I had expected. I should be grateful of an opportunity to present my credential as ambassador and enchanter at your convenience. With great respect, Sythyry.
I am technically an ambassador of Vheshrame. I am not the ambassador to Eigrach of course. I am the ambassador to Vae. Nor does Vheshrame have any real need of an embassy in Srineia. But there is no reason to be rude. So I have an official scroll from the Duke promising eternal friendship with Eigrach. Puffery through and through, of course -- I believe that Oorah Thrassen has a dozen such scrolls -- but a very polite sort of puffery.
So Kantele hired a porter to take the message to the mayoral mansion.
"What does Eigrach look like?" asked Lithia.
"It's all woven," said Kantele. "I've seen chairs and baskets like that, but never whole houses."
"It comes by the name 'Wicker City' honestly," said Jyondre.
"Well, they do quite impressive-looking things with it. Every house by the gate has two or three spires or onion-dome or a grand spiral balcony at the very least. Sometimes the onion domes are on sideways. There's one building that has got to be a brothel; I can't see any other excuse for the number and arrangement of sideways onion domes," said Kantele.
Jyondre grinned sadly. "Oh, that would be the Ord Bord. It's famous. My parents sent me there for three days once."
"Is that a usual sort of treat on Srineia?"
"Hardly that. They had found me with my first reciprocated crush, and they wanted to be sure that I would never have such a crush again. Some parents might have beaten me, and some might have scolded me. Mine were enlightened. They sent me to Ord Bord for three days with a purchase order for all the Orren I could screw, and hoped that the experience would teach me never to lust after Herethroy again."
Yerenthax chuckled. "And...?"
Jyondre grinned. "It worked! I have never lusted after Herethroy again. Now I devote myself wholly to Gormoror."
Yerenthax smirked. "Your parents will be happy, I take it?"
Jyondre shook his head. "I somehow doubt it."
Lithia raised her illusionarily-Orren head from Lost-Eyes' shoulder. "Will you win another trip to the brothel from it?"
Yerenthax declaimed, "From fearsome flirts, and fuck-for-fee / we both shall fly, my love and me!"
Lithia threw a pillow at her.
Having sent a useful and polite letter to the government and aristocracy of Eigrach, it would be impolite to simply wander around Eigrach on our own. So we waited from morning until late afternoon. Probably greeting foreigners was not anyone's most important job, in Eigrach. It certainly wouldn't be in Vheshrame. We dressed in our finest and most formal clothes, and waited.
The sun was more than halfway out [accurately placing the time at somewhere between nine minutes and nine hours after noon; Sythyry is being intentionally vague here. -bb] when a smallish and haphazardish procession passed by the wicker bordello, out the gate in Eigrach's unimpressive wall. When our Extremely Assistantful Lookout (Quendry) noticed them and sounded the alarm, we descended a staircase and formed our own medium-sized-ish and haphazardish procession to meet them.
The Herald Harulse was a tall Herethroy woman, brilliant green of shell, with spark-twinkles tied to her antennae and a sort of caftan of alternating stripes of purple and shell-matching green. She carried a staff covered with bells in two hands, and a large bullhorn in the other two.
The Mayor Mmixamk was a pure-black Cani man wearing formal purple robes and black ribbons that would not have been out of place on a minor official -- a baliff, say, or a minister's secretary -- of the Duke of Vheshrame's court when I was young. If he came there today, he'd look like a clown. Still, he wore the ceremonial diamond-and-copper tiara of mayoriality.
The Sorceress Aiziju was a brick-and-white Rassimel woman with tight stripes on her fur. She was the only one who had not dressed formally for the event; she was wearing a stained ex-white tunic and a pair of quite revealing shorts. She is 378 years old last 17 Oix, and looks at least twice that. She is the only person on Srineia that I have met before.
The Others were a half-dozen assorted notables of assorted species whose names and ranks I would have to ask Kantele to tell me.
Harulse:"Bow, bow, bow and become mitescent, ye foreigners and dwellers in pessundated lands! Now approaching you in all dignity and honor is the grand and unequalled Mayor of Eigrach!" She was using her ceremonial bullhorn; it was not needed from ten feet off.
We bowed, because that's good manners. Aiziju winked.
Harulse:"Now, by the amorevulous command of the great Mayor Mmixamk, you-huh-dono are permitted to rise, to stand up straight and erect for the first time upon the noble soil of Eigrach Mene!"
So we did that too.
Mmixamk:"Ah, yes, quite a pleasure, quite, welcome to Eigrach and all that, it's definitely, promoting tourism, distinguished, very much so, highly, Ketheria, extraordinary. Lenkasia, was it?"
Kantele:"We are pleased to present the Ambassador from Vheshrame, and the credentials thereof, to the most lordly and supreme Mayor of Eigrach!" She held the parchment out to the Mayor.
Mmixamk:"Oh, Vheshrame, Vheshrame, that's the place, wonderful, so happy, not very many, but plenty, don't you know?"
Harulse:"The great Mayor of Eigrach deigns to accept the embassy of the noble city of Vheshrame to the noble city of Eigrach!"
All of the attendants cheered, so we all cheered too. The formalities continued similarly for two very long minutes.
Mmixamk:"Welcome, happiness, prosperity, all of that stuff, lots of things, it's about time, don't you know?"
Harulse:"The Ceremony of Bewelcoming is Concluded. Our Visitors from Afar are officially permitted to place one foot and then another upon the soil of Mother Eigrach, and, from doing so, to perambulate this way and that all through our noble country! By which it is to be understood that visitors from Vheshrame are forever to be welcome in the noble country of Eigrach!"
Kantele:"Wonderful! Would you-nob care to partake of a modest repast of traditional Vheshrame delicacies?"
Mmixamk:"Oh, quite important, any time now!"
Harulse:"The noble Mayor of Eigrach respectfully declines your invitation, but wishes to invite you to a modest repast three days hence at the Mayoral Palace."
Me:"We are delighted to accept."
And, so saying, the Mayor and two of the attendants wandered back to the city, and the rest stayed and chatted as several liveried wrongfolk set up folding tables and chairs on the lawn. They brought forth some of our traditional delicacies: poptaloops, skewered chub beetles with chili cream, skewered mice in the style of Mrasteia (which have over the last century become a staple served at every restaurant in Vheshrame), and this and that and the other. Nobles and wrongfolk partook, and chatted, and it was reasonably friendly.
Aiziju:"Ah, Sythyry. I-hero am glad you've come. And I do hope you're here in a professional as well as a personal capacity."
Me:"Well ... which profession do you need particularly? Healing? Sewing? Smithwork?"
Me:"Well ... which profession do you need particularly? Healing? Sewing? Smithwork?"
Aiziju:"Enchantment, of course."
Me:"Oh, that profession."
Aiziju:"Have you abandoned the teachings of your master so quickly?"
(Aiziju is under the misconception that I was ever Glikkonen's student. Reasonable enough, since we met at a celebration of Glikkonen's 4300'd birthday and nearly everyone there was a former student of Glikkonen. (I would have studied with zir, but zie never wanted to live in Vheshrame for very long, and I couldn't leave the city for very long.) Aiziju was slightly out of place, having been Glikkonen's wizard's assistant for most of a century herself. The terms of their parting were not excellent, though I do not know the details.)
Me:"No; I've just been doing a great deal of craft enchanting lately."
Aiziju:"Well, we can discuss the techniques later, if you think it advisable."
Me:"With all due respect, Phaniet -- the Cani holding hands with the Rassimel over there -- is a perfectly fine wizard's assistant to me."
Aiziju:"I don't mean to criticize your assistant in the slightest ... actually, a warning: she might not want to be quite so affectionate with another species in public here ... but if we might have a bit of privacy?"
Me:"Well, of course. Private from Phaniet?"
Aiziju:"Not at all, if she is your assistant! This is a matter of enchantment, after all."
So, rather later, in the parlor with the suicidal couch:
Aiziju:"Would you like to know the circumstances behind our request, or simply the request itself?"
Me:"My dear Aiziju, we are here as tourists!"
Aiziju:"Forgive me -- for all my time working for Glikkonen, I did not quite master the Zi Ri idiom."
Me:"We are here to experience the branch. Knowing the circumstances is part of the joy of travelling."
Aiziju:"Well, perhaps you may think that Srineia is recently colonized. By some measures, such as the history of Vheshrame or the life of a Zi Ri, it is." (I wonder if she has me partially confused with Sazandigraa.) "But in its own terms, it is not. The firstborn children here are dead of old age. The cities are mature and starting to get powerful. The monsters are being beaten back to the Verticals. In all ways, Srineia is civilized."
Me:"So we had heard! Indeed, this was part of its interest and appeal."
Aiziju:"In particular, some fine points that the first settlers left unsettled are becoming more relevant. The precise boundary between Eigrach Mene and Heleshario Mene -- is it still partially demarcated by the line from the town of Jungus to the top of the Zonsmi Oak?"
Me:"A topic that is surely a matter of great concern for people living near Jungus, to say nothing of the family of sparrows nesting atop the Zonsmi Oak. And, at a guess, even more so to any number of lawyers and nobles in Eigrach and Heleshario?"
Aiziju:"Well, I doubt that a single bird comes close to the Zonsmi Oak. You should go see it, from a safe distance. But you are right about the lawyers and nobles. The discussion employed a great number of them for, oh, twenty or thirty years."
Phaniet:"But no more?"
Aiziju:"But no more. The Zonsmi Oak has taken upon itself to wander another mile and a half, generally towards Heleshario."
Me:"Oh, inconstant oak!"
Phaniet:"What sort of an oak tree is it?"
Aiziju:"I should not describe it as an oak tree at all, though the resemblance is clear enough. In any case, what is the border now? The line from the town of Jungus to the Zonsmi Oak? Or to the Zonsmi Oak's previous position? And, if so, which one -- the one of last year, before its current fit of wanderlust, or the one of seven years ago? Or perhaps the original one from the first days of colonization, when the agreement was made -- if we can figure out where that was?"
Me:"Lenhirrik, the goddess of plants, must love the lawyers of Srineia, so well does she prosper them."
Aiziju:"When the Zonsmi Oak wanders a few hundred feet at a time, I agree with you. The current change is too drastic for lawyers; it is several square miles of territory. Our noble and subtle mayor Mmixamk wishes to declare war over the matter, following the customs of civilized lands."
Me:"Forgive me, but are you quite sure that Eigrach is in the right in this matter? An impartial observer might observe that the boundary has moved considerably in Eigrach's favor, without particular compensation to Heleshario."
Aiziju:"Oh, the justice of the situation is clear enough. We are trying to grab a chunk of wild and debatable lands, no question. If the Oak had wandered the other way, we'd be just as vehement about the prior boundary. Nobody but that idiot Harulse thinks we're in the right."
Phaniet:"Harulse is the idiot?"
Aiziju:"Don't let the mayor's speech problem fool you. He's quite smart, and you can tell that if he's got pen and paper. Harulse is a complete and utter idiot."
Phaniet:"Ah. So, about the war? What sort of war did you have in mind?"
Aiziju:"Just a simple little duel-war: a few heroes from one side, a few from the other."
(We've had more vicious wars than that in Ketheria over a few square miles of land. Bear in mind that few countries are bigger than fifty miles by fifty miles, so five square miles, say, is a significant slice of land indeed.)
Me:"I do hope you're not inviting me to be one of your champions. I am not much of a brawny mercenary warrior!"
Aiziju:"We do not lack for suitable and enthusiastic heroes! But we are a bit low on armaments. Our greatest warrior uses a one-charge Shattering Sword, and another uses a Mountain Mace, can you believe it? And the warriors of Heleshario know the command word for the Shattering Sword, so it wouldn't be much good."
(Shattering Swords try to, um, shatter things that they hit, when a command word is spoken. If your foe knows the word, she can make you waste the sword's single charge for the day on something useless. Mountain Maces are nice clubs: they are light most of the time, but become quite heavy when swung downwards. In skilled hands -- or tentacles, more likely -- they are somewhat deadlier than a metal mace. Neither of these is a particularly imposing magical weapon.)
Phaniet:"Those are both recipe enchantments. Is Srineia lacking in Great Enchanters?"
Aiziju:"Not completely lacking -- I do some -- but our specialists are few and not quite up to Glikkonen's standards."
Me:"I, too, am not up to Glikkonen's standards. Ask me again in four thousand years, and I may be up to zir standards of to-day." My voice had a harsh edge to it, which Aiziju understood immediately.
Aiziju:"Oh, heavens, we're not asking you to make Holocaust War weapons! We'd rather give up the whole Zonsmi Triangle than have anything more serious than a duel-war here. We don't want to burn the branch off, great staring gods!"
Me:"So you wish to have some more conventional weapons? Simply of higher quality than the quotidian efforts of the local recipe enchanters?"
Aiziju:"Exactly."
Me:"May I ask an impertinent question?"
Aiziju:"Well, of course..."
Me:"What is the relationship of Eigrach and Dossimar?"
Aiziju:"Not very good, I'm afraid. We have had rather less contact with the upper branches since Dossimar raised their tolls, then raised them again. Actually, there have been some rather extreme rumors about Dossimar in the last month or two." She hesitated, so Phaniet and I stared at her. "Well, an accusation that their navy took two skyboats passing through."
Me:"I should believe that. They had raised our toll to thirty thousand lozens plus a rape, and they didn't seem done with raising it."
Aiziju:"Oh, my. What happened then?"
Me: «A somewhat carefully edited and phrased version of the history from previous entries. »
Aiziju:"That is not utterly out of keeping with the wilder rumors."
Me:"So: I would be glad to exchange some enchanted weapons for the labor of carpenters and shipwrights. But I should not be so glad if the weapons were to be used in the style of Dossimar."
Aiziju:"I am certain that some such exchange can be made. And we scorn piracy, murder, and rape, as do all decent people. I, who was born in Ketheria, would hardly be living here if it were a violent or vicious place!"
Me:"Excellent. Phaniet, and Zascalle my accountant, perhaps would be better than I for discussing the detailed arrangements for payment and repairs?"
Aiziju:"And I'm sure that their counterparts in the city would be delighted to discuss matters with them. You and I should discuss the specifics of the weapons, of course."
No doom this time! That's allowed, isn't it?
Late last night I called together my most trusted friends and advisors, and, in particular, those who are the most favorably-inclined towards monsters among us.
Me:"Who among you plans to go into Eigrach tomorrow?"
Everybody but Vae:"I do!"
Kantele:"What, aren't you going to visit the city for which you have so long been questing??"
Me:"Yes, but not tomorrow. The day after will do. I think Vae deserves some company today."
Vae:"Not so needful. The many days I spent alone at home. The solitude is not so unfamiliar -- and here the furniture will speak to me."
Me:"True enough, but I'll be here too."
Arfaen:"Shall I stay here to cook for you and such?"
Me:"We can manage."
Kantele:"You did not call together your most trusted friends and advisors (and, in particular, those who are the most favorably-inclined towards monsters among us) late late at night to tell us that you would be scrounging in the kitchen tomorrow." Kantele is sensible.
Me:"No. Remember the insignia enchanted with scrying spells?" Some did, and some did not. "It is time to use them. Who among you would be willing to wear them, knowing that Vae -- and me as well -- will be watching you for some of the day?"
Arfaen:"Me!"
Mellilot:"Beloved? Are you sure? We might want some privacy."
Me:"We won't look if you obviously want privacy!"
Arfaen:"I am sure. I am nervous and worried, and I would even go so far as to say I was skittish. If something happens to us, I want the wrongfolk to know about it. And come rescue us if need be!"
Mellilot:"Fair enough."
So I flew over and buckled an enchanted insignia on her belt. This is every bit as awkward as it sounds.
Phaniet: [After a brief consultation with Este.] "I'll take one." She buckled it on herself.
Jyondre:"I am the tour guide in any case! One or two more observers are just fine." I gave it to Yerenthax to buckle on, mindful of everyone knowing just how much I like to have my head right there on an Orren.
Me:"Lithia, I would like you to wear one as well. As a matter of safety: you're the most noticeably wrong of any of us."
Lithia:"What, don't you trust the illusions you cast?"
Me:"I'm trying to keep you safe."
Lithia:"You're trying to keep me chaperoned, is what you're trying to do. I'm an adult, feathermom."
Me:"You're a vulnerable adult, Lithia."
Lithia:"So's Hops, and I don't see you making her wear a scrying-piece!"
Well, I was going to try to give it to Umbers, because she was probably the most fun to watch. But Lithia had a point. So:
Me:"Hops, would you be so gracious as to take the seventh and final scrying insignia?"
Hops:"Well, all right. Tingula and I can put on a show."
Me:"That's quite all right. Anyhow, Lithia?"
Lithia:"You called my bluff!"
Me:"I want your time in Srineia to be doom-free!"
Lithia:"Then you shouldn't have come along."
I suppose she's got a point, unfortunately. But I made her take the insignia, and Hops too.
Zascalle:"Did you, or did you not, say that the people wearing scrying insigia got double allowances?"
I could hardly say 'I did not', after that. Though I think I did, actually, not say it.
Me:"Well, as long as it includes me, sure."
Zascalle:"How much are you paying yourself, again?"
Me:"About twelve times what I deserve."
Everybody:"Can we go to bed now?"
Me:"Yes. Good night!"
I couldn't, though, since I'd just had a full night's sleep an hour ago. (I have been abusing time a bit, as I often do.) So I acquired Este -- Rassimel don't need that much sleep -- and got rather trounced in two games of diamond chess. That took us to nearly midnight, so I let him go back to his sleeping Phaniet, and performed The Terrible Enchantment of Great Evil privately in my laboratory. (Don't worry. Despite the name, there is no actual evil involved, other than that it is done at midnight.)
Twenty-eight hours later (which is to say, a generous hour after Este trounced me, or time for a long period of enchantment, plus a long nap), I left my workshop. Lithia met me at the door.
Lithia:"It's pretty fun to scry on you when you're in there. You're zooming around like the most frantic insect that ever was."
Me:"I should think so, at thirty-six to one speedup! Did you learn the deep and subtle secrets of my craft from your spying on me?" I know about two secrets that aren't in standard advanced textbooks on the topic, neither of them easy to steal.
Lithia:"I was just making sure that you weren't watching me."
Me:"Well, you can always take the insignia off and leave it in a different room, if you're actually trying to be private. Why, were you up to something?" (The last because I know Lithia reasonably well, and think she was.)
Lithia:"Distracting Lost-Eyes."
Me:"Did she need distracting?"
Lithia:"Yes, actually. She's learning to share Dorze -- with Inconnu, you know -- and not having the easiest time of it."
Me:"I didn't know. Dorze seems to like Orren."
Lithia:"He sure does. So now both of the stowaways are dating wrongfolk. Just in case you were still thinking of tossing them off the ship now."
Me:"I suppose not, anymore."
Lithia:"Glad to hear it. G'night, feathermom, and no scrying on me 'til the morning, please?"
We hugged in the hallway, and departed for various destinations.
Lithia, Treacle-Eyes (Lost-Eyes got a new name), Dorze, and Inconnu strolled through the gate together, as the first tourists from Strayway. (I had insisted that Jyondre and Yerenthax be first, as the safest couple, which, in the grand Strayway tradition of obedience and strict adherence to the dictates of authority, did not happen.) Treacle-Eyes and Lithia were holding hands, in case anyone would get the correct but wrong idea about who was doing what with whom.
(We are not exactly sure what the Srineians know about our personal matters. The decoration on the outside of Strayway, which emphasizes transaffectionate mythic scenes, seemed like a very fun idea in Vheshrame. Down here, where we are not so well tolerated, the amusement value is less and the nervous value is greater.)
They passed through the gate, which did not notice anything strange or upsetting about them. (Eigrach's walls are not really very good. I made my scrying insignia to get around Vheshrame's walls, and I could have gotten away with much less effort had I believed that any prime city would have walls like Eigrach's.) They walked a few blocks down Via Hoglolo, peering this way and that.
Everything is different in Srineia: everything. Not vastly different, but somewhat. Inconnu knelt to inspect the street. It was not a boardwalk. Instead, it was paved with diamond-shaped blocks of wood six inches on a side, mostly but not all cut transversely, and set into the soil underneath. We do not do that in Ketheria. The paving along Via Hoglolo proved why we do not do it. The street can't be very old -- a few decades at most -- and already the paving diamonds are tilted and sinking.
A Herethroy street vendor balancing a big tray of bunnish sorts of things on her head waved to them. "You-dono must be welcome to the city of Eigrach and newly come!"
"We are!" answered Lithia, not quite daring to speak Srineian.
"Where you-huh from? Up the tree? Pordaal maybe? Dossemar?"
"We're from Vheshrame," said Lithia. The bun-seller waved her antennae blankly. "From Choinxeia, in Ketheria."
"Oh, you come a long way! You better have to be so hungry! Buy a bunn! Buy a bunn!"
"We just had breakfast!" said Inconnu.
"I want a bun," said Dorze. "Treacle-Eyes, do we have enough money?" He had just had breakfast too, of course, but he was being Canical.
Lithia produced a handful of terch. "My treat, and I'll have one too."
"You eager for the good Eigrach foods! I have genuine Srineian pea custard, sweet and spicy! I have chicken and mustard greens! I have honey oyster! Hey, get one for your girlfriend! Every Orren likes honey oyster!" The Herethroy took the tray off her head and presented it to the wrongfolk with a flourish. She was wearing a flat square wooden hat with pegs in the corners, which presumably matched holes in the bottom of the tray.
"I'll take a honey oyster, for I am a very good Orren," said Lithia -- which probably meant that she was a Rassimel at the time. The vendor skewered her bun on a two-pronged wooden fork and held it out to her with a mid-hand. "And Dorze?"
Dorze looked. "Pea custard," he said, with a curl to his tail. I presume he was picking the cheapest one. The vendor skewered one of those too, and held it out with her fourth hand.
"Five terch plus three terch is eight terch for two sweet, sweet bunns!"
Lithia counted terch to her, "... six, seven, eight, and a ninth by way of thanks." She glanced at Dorze.
Dorze smiled, wagged, his tail, and took a bite of his bun. "Oh, this is delicious. Say, O honored Herethroy seller of buns, could you answer a simple little question for me?" This being what he and Lithia were actually buying for their nine terch.
"O honored Ketherian traveller, for you I will answer a question of a thousand!"
Dorze wagged his tail. "Since we're tourists and foreigners, of course we look stupid. Could you tell us what the stupidest part of how we look is?"
"Aww, you do not look like stupid! But I am so surprised you have no hats. In Eigrach, everyone wears a hat on each and every head!"
Four wrongfolk and several scriers looked up and down the street. Herethroy in bowlers and busbies, Cani in miters and berets, Rassimel in bicornes, tricornes, and Phrygian caps, and one fearsome Gormoror warrior with a massive confectionary straw hat covered with fake insects. "Oh! That's quite true!" Inconnu was wearing the hat that went with his livery, but Lithia prefers not to wear livery, and of course Dorze and Treacle-Eyes don't have livery. "Could you happen to recommend a good hat-shop?"
"Preferably a fairly cheap one? I'll ask a bun from Lithia, but a hat is a bit much," said Dorze.
"I recommend Tabshiobrasa! There, there! Walk down Via Hoglolo outwards, away from the gate and from the trunk, and then come to Via Ocken! On Via Ocken you must turn right, rollwards, a right turn upon Via Ocken towards the double arch. Past the double arch is a fountain were you may drink -- is that bunn so spicy, truly? -- and past the fountain is Tabshiobrasa! In that hat shop you may adorn your heads with both style and fashion!" said our informant.
"That way on Via Hoglolo, then right on Via Ocken, past the double arch and the fountain. Thank you very much!" said Lithia.
"And the bun is spicy, but it is a wonderful spice and a delicious one," said Dorze.
Back in the parlor, I flicked my wings. "Good thinking by Dorze. Where are the Assistants?" After a while, Ochirion, Feralan, and Quendry were assembled. "O Supreme Assistant, Extreme Assistant, and Grand Assistant, could you go tell everyone who's going into town today that they ought to wear a hat? Umbers, thou Assistant to the Assistants, could you make sure they don't get too distracted while they're doing so?"
Umbers looked at three children running eagerly off in fourteen directions. "I'll do what I can."
Inevitably, Phaniet and Arfaen started off by dragging their families (Quendry, Mellilot, and Este) to the local headquarters of Clan Coryn. Inevitably, getting there was a bit of a quest, involving heroically asking for directions and mightily looking at streetsigns. And peering at every Cani that they passed by, until, at some length, a Cani passerby caught their attention.
Arfaen:"O Cani passerby, could you-huh tell me where I might find the headquarters of Clan Coryn?"
Cani Passerby:"Clan-cousin, I-colo-nob should be glad to assist you in this matter. For know thee-unhi this: that the headquarters of Clan Coryn are located in the green and grey longhouse all set about with arken trees at the roll'gainst end of Via Tydirdi. And all around it has been erected a fence of sharp spikes and interspersed thorns and prickers, so that certain riffraff shall not enter there. It is the longhouse of Lord Bwipin, esteemed of name and memory, and into his august presence few are permitted to enter."
Arfaen:"Oh, dear. Well, I suppose we don't really need to visit Coryn. Two of us are auxiliary members of Denn ... do you-colo-nob happen to know where Denn's headquarters might be?"
Cani Passerby:"Hah! Clan Denn? Clan-cousin, thou-unhi surely art moved to jest! For who might go to auxiliary Clan Denn, when they might go to Clan Coryn? Know thou not that, in Eigrach, the headquarters of Clan Denn reside in that realm of despair and despondancy and meagreness that is the fourth floor of the building whose first three floors are inhabited by the guilds of bakers and of cobblers, and whose fifth floor houses a branch of the public library of Eigrach? "
Arfaen:"Well, I am a baker..."
Cani Passerby:"Even so! How could such surroundings compare to the sweet terraces of Via Tydirdi, the garden of fragrant lilies which even now are in bloom, the gracious kitchen wherein at any hour of day or deepest night one may find our expert garde-manger and her assistants working mightly to prepare the finest terrines, pates, and sausages in all of Eigrach?"
Back in Strayway, where we were watching, Vae asked me, "The word 'our' is there! The such great luck Arfaen had, to pick from all these crowds a senior member of the Clan Coryn household!"
To which I had to answer, "Well, he is wearing the Clan Coryn emblem on his hat, bigger than his ears."
Vae reared her butterfly-eared head at me. "And Sythyry, why do you smell embarrassed by that?"
"Well, the emblem is a stylized nendrai."
"Not a bit of one is it!" proclaimed Vae. "The long tail it has, but wrong is the face, more wrong are the ears, even more wrong the eyes, and nothing the slightest bit right is the body. The Clan Coryn minister must come here to me, and I shall help him to get his emblem right!"
"I think it's the same emblem that the whole clan uses, all across the tree."
"The world-wide clan offices are where I shall go, then!" said Vae, and it took me rather a while to persuade her that going there today would not fix the emblem any time soon, even if they instantly cooperated to change their many-century-old artwork. And it's expectable that they know what nendrai look like, and they are being deliberately artistic. And, of course, Vae's subspecies did not exist when the artwork was made.
Phaniet:"You have persuaded me, at least, and we do not yet have an affan-holder in matters of tourism and visitation. O Clan-cousin, I-unhi gather that you are a person of some importance in the local clan, if not in the branch's or even wider. Perhaps you could write a note of introduction to this Lord Bwipin? We should not like to intrude upon him unduly, but neither should we like to ignore our clan obligations, for we are newly come to Eigrach."
Cani Passerby:"Indeed, I shall do more than that! My sorcerous errands having been completed, I-nob-colo shall return home and introduce you to my brother-brother in person!"
Arfaen: [to Quendry]"And that is why you must pay careful attention to people wearing your clan symbols."
Cani Passerby:"Indeed, young gentleman! And, while we stroll through the lesser streets and inferior avenues of Eigrach's gate neighborhood, may I introduce myself? I-nob-colo am Jempjinga, treasurer of Clan Coryn upon all of Srineia; tree-mage; and, not incidentally, brother-brother to Lord Bwipin."
Phaniet:"And I-nob-edu am Phaniet, assistant to the ancient wizard Sythyry."
Quendry:"I'm Quendry! I have affan in funny noises and talking to the furniture!"
Arfaen:"I-unhi am Arfaen, chef in the household of Sythyry, and mother of this charming young gentleman."
Jempjinga:"And your non-Cani companions?"
Phaniet:"This Rassimel is Este, our carpenter; this Herethroy is Mellilot, factotum."
Jempjinga:"And your families?"
Phaniet:"My loyalty is entirely given to Sythyry and zir household. I have never married." [Which is quite an unusual thing for Cani, and not exactly true of Phaniet.]
Arfaen:"My husband and spouses are in Vheshrame still." She flattened her ears just a hint.
Jempjinga curled his tail a quarter of an inch, spread his whiskers a touch, and said, "Hm."
Arfaen froze, tucking her tail between her legs. Phaniet winced. Quendry howled, a high mournful howl that got half the street watching them.
"And what just happened?" asked Vae.
"I don't know. I don't speak Cani very well," I had to admit.
"And must I re-educate this Jempjinga, either with a display of excessive force, or a span of time in the body of a different species starved for affection?" hissed the suddenly angry nendrai.
"I can't imagine that being good idea," I said. "And we're certainly not doing it from here."
Not long afterwards, an assortment of wrongfolk and Eigrachters came to the sweet terraces and blooming lily garden of the great longhouse on Via Tydirdi. It was a palace of a longhouse, a vast meringue-topped dessert of spires and crenellations and twists and balconies, all built out of pure white wicker and adorned with beads of bright rainbow glass. It was one of the fancier houses on the street, and Via Tydirdi seems to be one of the fancier neighborhoods of the city.
Jempjinga:"Behold! The headquarters of Clan Coryn in Eigrach; the headquarters of Clan Coryn in Srineia; and, through my wife Frise, the county palace of the Plipil March."
Arfaen, Phaniet, Este, and Mellilot: Admiring exclamations! Entirely deserved admiring exclamations! Architectural comparisons with various count's residences of Vheshrame and Oorah Thrassen, emphasizing that they are smaller than this one, and carefully not mentioning that the counts in question are not Cani and thus have smaller families! Particular admiration of the white elegance of the building, as contrasted with the gaudy polychrome of the surrounding manors!
Quendry:"You have a rabbit! Right there! In the lily garden there is a rabbit! It is brown and hoppy! What does it eat? I do not know what it eats! Do rabbits eat lilies? Maybe there are mushrooms! Mushrooms under the lilies!"
In due course, they entered the meringue. A pair of busby-hatted Khtsoyis wearing the family's colors (viz. white highlighted by white, with glass beads) floated lazily by the door. "G'day to you-nob-colo, Jempjinga."
"And to your-low-unhi-selves as well. Where are Bwipin and Frise? We have notable guests," said Jempjinga.
"Bwipin is in the solarium slurpin' down his-nob-colo kathia like he's a pig and it's raisin stew. Frise is disportin' her-nob-colo-self with the butler, probably got his pointy pointy superintendant crammed up her eagerly waitin' fishycakes right now, if you know what I mean and I think you do."
Jempjinga curled his tail a quarter of an inch, spread his whiskers a touch, and said, "Hm." Nobody howled at Jempjinga's fearsome displeasure, though the Khtsoyis did curl up in a ball. "No need to interrupt. When she and our spouse are finished, please inform her that I request the honor of her company in the solarium."
"That's rather a lot of detail for the doormen to know," I mused to Vae.
"The hearing and smelling of the countess the Khtsoyis can surely make. Well ... not so sure am I of the smelling, but of the hearing, definitely. The wicker walls are none too solid," said Vae.
I listened, and I thought I could hear a bit of cisaffectionate marital attention going on in the distance, too.
Jempjinga lead the wrongfolk to the solarium. Which was a wide round basket of a room, roofed over with lacy wicker arches and occasional panes of glass. A tall and wolfy and nearly spherical Cani man wearing stained velvet stood by a bench, evidently trying to teach a dozen potted plants to sing. A substantial glass kathia-pot stood at the end of the bench, a quarter full; the Khtsoyis had been right about his potations.
Jempjinga:"Bwipin! Behold, the visitors from Vheshrame have come among us, and behold! Three of them claim to be of Clan Coryn. Leave off your melismatic lessons and perform your duties, my brother-brother!"
Bwipin:"Ah, well. Welcome, welcome! Have you come to present your credentials, then?"
Phaniet:"I tail-waggingly affirm so!"
Jempjinga:"Bwipin, perhaps you could see to this woman Phaniet, who is of higher status, and I will take care of this other woman Arfaen?"
Bwipin:"I don't see why not." He peered at Este and Mellilot. "Blasted glad to welcome you two here also. Vlemo! Vlemo, where are you, you slow bug? Get your many-balled tail over here! Can't you see we have company for you to attend to?"
A white-and-white-and-glass liveried Herethroy co-lover trotted into the solarium, proclaimed various polite things, and lead the non-Cani off to a parlor and started to fill them up with sweetmeats, sweet sausages, Kathia, and perry.
Bwipin:"Well then. Clan Coryn, are you?"
Phaniet:"Yes I am, since birth."
Bwipin:"Ah, yes, very good. And what year would that be?"
Phaniet:"4320. In Vheshrame."
Bwipin lead Phaniet to a more private and better rainproofed room. A substantial and stout bookcase held a substantial and stout collection of books, titled "Clan Coryn". He picked out volume 1 (Ketheria) from the 4300-4319 series, whuffed annoyedly, put it back, and picked out volume 1 (Ketheria) from the 4320-4339 series instead. He shuffled through it. "Vheshrame, you say? Father's a baron? That's your natural fur color, right? Could you sit up there for a moment? I'm a bit too stout to reach."
Phaniet hopped onto a bench, turned her back, and lifted her tail. He planted his nose under it, sniffing carefully. "H'm, well, yes." He consulted the book again, consulted her tailbase again. "Ah, you've washed with strong rosemary soap this morning."
"Yes, I'm afraid I did. That's what we've got on Strayway."
"Blasted troublesome for presenting your credentials though. I could barely smell the churfnard and praegilium under it!"
Phaniet rubbed a finger across the bottom of her tail and sniffed it. "Very true. I'm quite sorry, Lord Bwipin; I wasn't thinking this morning. I was half asleep and all." (Not true! She was up for quite many hours between dawn and the hour after dawn! And we have several kinds of soap too. She knew what she was doing. She didn't want to smell too much like Este.)
"Ah, I never get up before noon when I can help it, myself. But I want to get that chorus working, and my plants are most active nowabouts."
Phaniet hopped off the bench. "So, am I myself, according to the register?"
"Blast it, I think you are!" he exclaimed, and embraced her closely. "You should do me the great courtesy and favor of wearing this emblem ... where is it? ... hah, there, it's gone and hidden itself in the box marked 'Clan Emblems'." He gave her a ribbon with a small ivory stylized nendrai seal on it. "May I tie it upon your arm?"
"Yes, if you please!" she said, and he did.
"Now then. Would you like any assistance from Clan Coryn? Introductions? Invitations to social occasions? A temporary marriage into a local longhouse -- which isn't quite a Coryn matter, since of course you can't marry a Coryn, but I'm sure we could find someone suitable."
"Introductions and invitations would be most appreciated, Lord Bwipin." said Phaniet.
Bwipin wagged his tail. "I'd be blasted happy to do that! Your father's a baron? You're the assistant to that wizard? I'll introduce you to myself!"
Phaniet smiled and wagged back. "You are too kind, Lord Bwipin!"
"Just a bit, m'dear, just a bit! This far from Vheshrame, we can scarcely see the difference between a courtesy title there and an actual one! And it'll get Frise to stop chewing my tail too. Still! As your friend, I must tell you -- we have the most excellent opera in Srineia. What performance would you like to go to? Bromabu or The Dibbing of Jaraz?" (I had never heard of either one -- they sound Srineian in any case -- and Phaniet cares less for the arts than I do.)
"The Dibbing of Jaraz, of course!" barked Phaniet. "How could I possibly choose the other?"
"Excellent, excellent!" And they chatted about clan matters and opera and singing plants and sky pirates for the next two-thirds of an hour, as if they were old and dear friends. Which I guess they were, Cani-style.
Quendry:"Jemp-jinga? Do you know that you have a squirrel in your yard? I think it eating mushrooms! Maybe also cheese! Does a squirrel eat cheese? I think maybe your squirrel eats cheese!"
Jempjinga:"We have hired it at the exorbitant price of three fine cheeses a week, payable in full every third day, for the sole purpose of entertaining distinguished young visitors from Vheshrame such as yourself. And keeping the mushrooms under control.."
Arfaen:"Quendry, please don't bother the gentleman."
Jempjinga:"Madam, chatting with the young and innocent is rarely, if ever, a bother." He tilted his left ear by a very careful eleven-and-a-quarter degrees. Or something. I couldn't see any gesture, but Arfaen cringed.
Arfaen:"He had nothing to do with it."
Jempjinga:"No, I should think not. Young master Quendry, I have three granddaughters not far from your age. Perhaps you could figure out which of you has affan in decorating tails with ribbons?"
Quendry:"Can a squirrel tail be decorated with ribbons? Maybe a mushroom can be decorated with ribbons!" Arfaen hugged him, and he ran off to play with the clan Coryn girls.
Jempjinga:"And now we come to the matter of your clan standing."
Arfaen:"Well, I was born to clan Denn, auxiliary clan Coryn. I had to change when I married a Denn man."
Jempjinga:"He would be the father of your charming and innocent son, I take it?"
Arfaen:"He would."
Jempjinga:"You are estranged?"
Arfaen:"We are divorced from three years."
Jempjinga:"You did not see fit to change back to clan Denn?"
Arfaen:"The situation was not propitious."
Jempjinga:"I should imagine not. Ah, Frise. Please allow me to introduce Arfaen, the cook to the visiting wizard, from Vheshrame."
Frise:"A pleasure to welcome you to Eigrach, good Arfaen." She was another pure-white Cani of some rather elongated breed, and wearing flowing (and quite revealing) robes of white gauze.
Arfaen, Frise, Jempjinga:A variety of politenesses and courtesies for some nine minutes.
Jempjinga:"Arfaen is presenting her credentials in Clan Coryn. However, she is an adulteress, and, indeed, not even the most decent sort of adulteress. I do believe she's taken up with the Herethroy currently nibbling on sweetmeats in the parlor, if I am not mistaken."
Vae:"And how does he know that? She never said any such thing."
Me:"I have no idea."
Frise:"Goodness gracious."
Jempjinga:"The question being, of course, who knows precisely what?"
At which point a phantom Cani hand caressed me about the head and wings. I rather jumped. One of the more accidental features of the insignia is that one wearer may thusly pet another, which had engendered some small amusement when it was first discovered. I was uncertain why Arfaen (or Phaniet) was petting me just then; neither of them had done it ever before. (Nor in person, in case you are pruriently keeping track.)
Arfaen:"Well, Mellilot knows most of it, I will say."
Jempjinga:"As one might expect."
Arfaen:"Phaniet, of course, is my confidante. I have no secrets from Phaniet. Nor from Thiane, who tutors Quendry."
Frise:"Indeed."
Arfaen:"I am sure that other people suspect. We are aboard a skyboat, after all, and the quarters are rather close. But there are no other Cani aboard, save my son and, lately, a stowaway of no great interest. I should be surprised if any of my friends were unaware of it, or found it upsetting."
Frise:"Right."
Jempjinga:"Of course there is a good deal that you are concealing."
Arfaen:"I'm not!"
Jempjinga:"And if you believe that, Frise, you are more of a greengrocer than a countess capable of producing substantial rewards at a mere whim."
Arfaen:"I won't be doing anything disloyal!"
Frise:"But you already have, haven't you?"
Arfaen:"I have not!"
Jempjinga:"Few people can lie to me successfully, and fewer can lie to Frise."
Frise:"I can see by your face that you are trying to be a honest girl. I don't imagine it can have been that bad... but you'd best tell us what it was. "
Jempjinga:"And a fine time you'll have on Srineia, if we refuse you for being a liar and scoundrel."
Arfaen petted me again. Rather roughly! It would have tugged my feathers, if it were actual touch rather than simply displaced sensation.
Arfaen:"It wasn't much."
Frise:"Tell us!" She stood in a traditional Cani pose of assertion of dominance, ears high, tail high, that sort of thing.
Arfaen:"I've been having a bit of an affair."
Jempjinga:"With Mellilot?"
Arfaen:"Cheating on Mellilot, I mean. With an Orren boy from the skyboat."
Jempjinga:"Such is the honor of the transaffectionate, I suppose. You'll be having affairs with five others soon, I imagine." He flicked his tailtip a whole inch to the left.
Arfaen: Tail low, ears flat, and so on.
Frise:"But you might do better to explain the rest of it, whatever that may be."
Arfaen:"Syth ... someone important on the skyboat has their eye on the boy."
Frise:"You can say the rest of zir name, dear. We are quite aware of the wizard's proclivities."
Arfaen:"I'm sure Sythyry would be very upset if zie learned about me and Inconnu. Please don't tell!"
Vae:"And have you been seeking Inconnu?"
Me:"Not particularly. He is quite pretty, but he's so very young, even for someone his age."
Vae:"And why would you be upset, from what Arfaen has done?"
Me:"I have no idea what Arfaen is going on about. Or why she keeps poking me."
Jempjinga:"Full information is necessary for the clan! But it can be kept confidential. For a greater or lesser length of time."
Arfaen:"What would you have me do?"
Jempjinga:"Nothing that would cause yourself or your companions the least bit of trouble, of course."
Frise:"But if you chance to hear of your wizard discussing making weapons for other cities of Srineia, well, letting your friends and dominants in Clan Coryn would hardly cause the least bit of trouble for yourself or your companions."
Jempjinga:"And you could keep your little betrayal of your betrayal of wedding vows secret."
Frise:"And there might well be some gifts. From your friends in your clan, of course. Nothing would be surprising about that."
Arfaen rubbed around my ears, quite hard.
Arfaen:"I'm only the day-chef. I don't hear about everything. But if I do hear something, my superiors in Clan Coryn will hear it as well."
Jempjinga:"Ah, excellent. You are, in the end, a sensible girl."
Frise:"Can you give her the clan-tags, Jempjinga?" Of course Frise herself isn't clan Coryn, since she's the wife to someone who is.
Jempjinga:"Of course, since you request it, my dear. I must say that if you dishonor yourself again -- say, by concealing information that you have sworn to provide -- I shall have you stripped of your Coryn membership. I don't imagine your reputation could survive that, especially given what else it's had to endure."
Frise:"Of course Mellilot and even Inconnu are your own private matters. I can't imagine that your clan will have anything much to say about it. I can manage my husband, I'm sure, should the situation arise."
Jempjinga:"Well. Should her membership need to be ruined, rest assured that no secret will remain unrevealed."
Frise:"I can't imagine how such a fate as that would ever come to such a sensible girl as our Arfaen. Do you like codelieth perfume, Arfaen?"
Arfaen:"I usually can't afford any."
Frise:"Just a few drops, dear, but you won't want to be using too much, what with that Herethroy and all." She gave Arfaen a tiny glass teardrop of a bottle.
Arfaen:"Oh! This is quite nice!" She sniffed it deeply, and wagged her tail with a dangerous ferocity.
Frise:"My pleasure, dear!"
Jempjinga: [who had left to get a clan emblem from Bwipin, and just returned] "And here you are." He handed it to Frise, who tied it on Arfaen's arm.
They were polite (Jempjinga) or friendly (Frise) for a presumably carefully-calculated nine minutes or so. Then Quendry and three cute little puppy-girls skipped into the room.
Quendry:"I have affan! I have affan in purple ribbons!"
Arfaen:"You certainly look like you do!" Which he did. One of the girls was wearing nothing else, and the other two were rather entangled.
Quendry:"They have an oyster bed! In the back yard! It is full of water! Oysters like to sleep in water! Now, the oysters are sleeping with purple ribbons in the water!"
Jempjinga:"Oh, dear. I shall have to have the gardener untie them. "
And they were all perfectly friendly, just as if the Eigrachters hadn't just bullied Arfaen a few minutes before.
Vae:"And what was that about, and what just happened?"
Me:"I hope Arfaen is willing to explain."
Vae:"And why did not they check that Arfaen was in the clan, the way they did Phaniet?"
Me:"I guess they weren't trying to blackmail Phaniet."
Arfaen and Phaniet and families wandered around Eigrach for the rest of the morning, but returned to Strayway for lunch. Arfaen explained the blackmail to me. "I'm sorry about telling you about Inconnu that way ... I didn't want them to discover anything about Quendry's legal status."
"Quite all right," I said. "Inconnu is a bit of a ship-wide resource; if he's had fewer than half a dozen lovers since we set off, I shall eat all the feathers on my left wing. In any case I don't do more than admire my clients from afar."
"I'm sure he was hoping you were Sythyry's lover yourself," said Phaniet. "That would be much more helpful to him."
Arfaen whined, "But what will I tell Jempjinga when he asks?"
"You will tell him the truth about the conversations you overhear on topics of interest to them," I said. "If there's something I don't want them to know about, I won't discuss it around you."
"Arfaen, you need not worry so much," said Kantele. "This is not a war, or, at least, we are not at war. This is a contest to get the best of Sythyry's enchantments. Most likely, if Jempjinga discovers someone offering a hundred thousand lozens for some great working, he and his faction will offer two hundred thousand. Which may leave many people greatly upset, but will simply leave us rich. So of course he wants spies: but not to our disadvantage." Kantele is very smart... (Note to self: get Kantele an understudy. I want her eventual replacement trained in her cleverness.)
"For my part, I'm not worried. I'm upset that Eigrachters are mistreating my clients," I said. "I do not wish to permit this. But I do not know what I can do about it."
Kantele smiled. "Perhaps we can pass a few gentle words to a few people that, if Eigrach is not a sufficiently friendly and companionable sort of place, we will go elsewhere in a hurry. And bring our wizard and our mighty workings with us."
"I'd like to punish Jempjinga," I said.
"No, or not yet," said everyone else for several good reasons, like: contesting the greater nobility of a foreign city one is currently living in is a truly bad idea.
(And we explained to Arfaen how to use the insignia to write notes to each other secretly, too, so that we don't have to simply pet each others' heads -- or whatevers -- and hope the other understands. The notes, incidentally, are seen in a part of the visual field that is ordinarily not usable -- as if they were written behind your head, but you can somehow see them anyways. I will write them «like this».)
Phaniet:"That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is, is anyone scrying on us now?"
So we investigated, and, in fact, no fewer than five people were scrying on us. (Possibly more, if they were quite subtle about it.) Phaniet waved at them.
Me:"I'm certainly not going to put up with that."
I dragged Vae and Phaniet into my workshop, and sent Umbers to the section of the library which has been placed on a high shelf and the couch instructed to yell at the children if they ever try to go anywhere near it. (Not just the stuff that we keep on high shelves, of which we have more than actually fits on the high shelves, so we keep the more romantic or tedious ones on lower shelves and the more anatomical ones on higher shelves.)
Eighteen or nineteen hours later Vae and Phaniet and I trooped out of the workshop, and brought certain newly-constructed bits of equipment into one of the very unused parlors, and ... waited another while longer for Umbers, who had had only a little while for her chore. But she did come, with a basket of books and other supplies.
Umbers had selected the eighteen-volume collected works of a gentleRassimel pseudonymously known as "He Who Has Excavated And Flown". [Very loose translation. -bb. [I presume my translator has chosen that particularly bad translation as an euphemism for certain relevant activies. I neither understand nor approve of this choice. -sythyry]] In public, in Daukrhame some decades ago, he was a reasonably dignified and unremarkable baron, quite devoted to the proper ordering and prosperity of his town, and cultivating one or two side businesses -- making fine paper was one of them. In private, he skimmed the best paper from his business, and wrote and drew upon it. Extensively, and, after a few years, rather skillfully. And with a focus on certain specific themes. Some of them quite dear to me; Castle Wrong and Strayway are my, far less creative, expression of my devotion to those themes. Some of them were quite specifically anatomical: he was very fond of depicting partial and complete hypertrophies, and certain blurrings of species and gender boundaries, and certain activies not all of which are physically possible. In his old age, when tremors prevented him from writing much and drawing at all, and impending death rendered him more or less immune to caring much about popular opinion, he published at his own expense a chronological retrospective of his oeuvre.
I have two sets. (One because he was a friend of sorts and a notable, even beloved, member of the community, so I bought one rather quietly; and the other because I was so quiet about buying the first that Castle Wrong didn't know I had done, and bought me another for a birthday present.) I presume that my diligent and/or berserk clients who packed part of Castle Wrong's library into Strayway thought that, if I had two copies, it was an essential reference work and one copy should certainly accompany me to Srineia. It is not, by any means, the most extreme or exotic material in my collection -- and there are a few pictures that Mynthë and I found distinctly inspirational -- but it is certainly an excellent example of an obscure and specific Rassimel obsession in action, backed by plentiful money and time and even skill.
Oh, and most cisaffectionate people who even glance at a few pages, especially of the later volumes, request a large basin of water and coarse sand with which to scrub the memory from their psyche.
Umbers:"Here you are ... it's a bit ... well ... you remember what my job was before I came here? This is worse. You must never, ever let my former employer know that anyone likes anything like the contents of this book."
Me:"It's not that bad, really."
Phaniet:"Look at this." She opened the eighteenth volume at random.
Me:"Yes, I do know the general material ... Heavens, that's bigger than my entire body, though to be sure it is lovingly, even beautifully, portrayed. ... I hadn't actually read that far. Mynthë and I didn't get much past book five or six."
Phaniet:"And this...!" She flipped a page. "It's bigger than my entire body!"
Me:"So it is. Quite dramatic. Yes, this will do nicely, Umbers." Though I did later reserve the second book (less naive than the first, less devoutly exotic than the later ones) to read later on. I expect I will more be remembering reading it with Mynthë, and consequently mourning, than anything more fun. I do that once in a while.
Umbers:"Ooh. That's not half bad."
Phaniet:"No. It's 49% bad and 50% awful."
Umbers:"Well, I like it."
Me:"The artistic and erotic merits are not relevant. We are using it to provide a show to those who seek a show from us."
Then Vae and Phaniet and I did the last few things necessary. We produced a crowd of sentient illusions, and commanded them to read the seventeen volumes, and then to enact such scenes from them as could fit inside the parlor. And we arranged that scrying spells peering at Strayway would see the inside of the parlor, and nothing else, unless by an act of mighty sorcery and will the scryer were able to tear the focus away for a moment.
Phaniet:"And after watching that for a bit, even a mighty sorcerer might be rattled."
Umbers:"It's not that bad. Next time Inconnu wants to play, I'll bring him here for inspiration. Or intimidation. If he's inspired and not intimidated, he will deserve whatever use of my body he wants!"
Vae:"Not much of this day's labors shall I inscribe to Oixe."
Me:"Let's lock the parlor door. And leave the key next to it, for Umbers and anyone else who wants to watch. As long as nobody stumbles in on it without warning, I'm not too worried."
I was going to go into Eigrach immediately after breakfast this morning. Unfortunately, it was an excellent and substantial vegetarian breakfast, produced by Calla and Mellilot. Not unfortunate for its own sake: it was delicious and nicely varied, consisting, as it did, of griddle cakes with strong cheese and olives, sweet apricot puddings, carrot halvah, onion salad, artichoke pie, tarrissy, and this and that of leftovers.
But, after breakfast, Thiane -- one of our useful collection of Cani -- went 'round to the kitchen to see which Herethroy had been crying into the puddings, and why. Which I didn't particularly note at first, for I was chatting with a rather limp Grinwipey and a rather bouncy Phaniet. But our conversation ran long, and so did theirs, and they were still talking when they came out to pick up the dishes.
I first noticed when I heard my name.
Calla:"That won't help. Sythyry's totally on her side."
Thiane:"Yeah, but maybe you can use that to your advantage. Phrase it as 'getting her out of work', instead of 'helping you', or something."
Calla:"No, I don't want to be any trouble to anyone. It's fine really. It's not like we won't be here for months."
Thiane:"It's not fine. It's not fair, and it's making you very unhappy."
So I called to them.
Me:"Sorry to eavesdrop on you, but ... what's wrong?"
Calla:"Nothing to speak of."
Me:"You are speaking of it already, with Thiane."
Calla:"Well, it's nothing big. You've got more important things to worry about. Like getting the ship fixed and keeping the pirates away."
Grinwipey:"And gettin' zir yanabloonie all over some swimmy's sweet, sweet jam."
Me:"I think that we are getting the ship fixed soon, and there are no pirates nearby."
Calla:"Never mind, Sythyry."
Thiane:"Do mind. It's your friend."
Me:"Oh, dear. What has Vae done now?"
Thiane:"Not that friend."
Me:"Nearly everybody aboard is my friend, though that may be pushing it in the case of Blenny, and I am not at all convinced about Dorze or my stepdaughter's new girlfriend. Could you be more specific?"
Thiane looked oddly shy. Mellilot tapped antennae with Calla. "It's really all right."
Calla:"If I must. It's Arfaen is the problem."
Me:"What about Arfaen?"
Calla:"Remember what we decided about the kitchen schedule?"
Me:"Yes..." That being, seven days a week, Arfaen is to produce breakfast and lunch and Calla dinner, and the other two, vice-versa.
Calla:"Well, we haven't been keeping to it so much."
Me:"I had noticed a few deviations here and there."
Calla:"Nearly every day."
Me:"That often?"
Calla:"No."
Thiane:"We've been en route for, what, twenty-four days? And Arfaen has gotten Calla to take over nineteen meals."
Grinwipey:"That's dacking close to one a day. Some days more'n one."
Me:"And some days less than one, too. Hasn't she taken over a few meals for you too, Calla?"
Calla:"Yes."
Thiane:"A very few meals. Two, or fewer."
Grinwipey:"If'n it's fewer'n two, it's finger-slumping gotta be one, don't it? Or is there some kinda integer that you civvy gombered-up primes know that us simple shoggies don't?"
Thiane:"One of them was a lunch that she asked Calla to do, and then Arfaen came in halfway through to take over. Does that count as a one, or a half, or a none?"
Grinwipey:"Well, I'll be muppered with a dupper and left out to shump. You did find an integer like that. Daft tweezey little grownders!"
Calla:"And I know that Arfaen has a troubled puppy and a ... well, a lover, Mellilot..." Mellilot nodded grimly. ... and I know Arfaen's been getting more than her fair share of doom and all. And I know she started off with a bigger portion of the cooking than me, two meals to one-and-nighttime. And I know I'm single and not even dating anyone very much just now. But I still think I deserve some rest once in a while."
Thiane whispered quietly to her, "Calla, that was very well done; it was brave of you to say all that."
I put a very wise and/or sagacious look on my face, and chewed wisely and/or sagaciously on my tail tip until it wisely and sagaciously bled.
Me:"I knew that Arfaen was being a bit light on her share of the cooking. I did not know it was getting to be such a trouble for you. I will see that the situation is redressed, and not slowly either."
Calla:"I don't mean to be a trouble to you, Sythyry, or anything like that. Thiane put me up to saying it..."
Me:"Right, she did. Thank you, Thiane, for putting her up to it and making sure I knew about it."
Thiane shrugged, and rubbed at a spot on a table. "Seemed like the thing to do."
Grinwipey:"Thiane sez, 'Glad to kick you inna ribs 'til you ain't quite so dense as a load of multiply-compressed bricks, lizard girl'. Sure as shift Mellilot wasn't gonna go squeal on her girlfriend.'"
Mellilot:"Arfaen and I need to settle our differences privately."
Me:"Oh, dear. That doesn't sound good."
Mellilot:"It's not good. You can hear all about it from the rumormongers tomorrow or the day after."
Calla:"I really don't mean to be causing any of you any trouble. I can do the extra work, really I can."
Me:"I didn't bring you on vacation be a galley slave. For the next three days you are not to do any cooking. What Arfaen doesn't do, we will find someone else to do -- Este and Umbers and Zascalle perhaps. And have some of it catered from outside."
Phaniet:"Poor Arfaen. She's had a rough month, and nothing better is coming up for her."
Me:"Poor Arfaen, and, apparently, poor Calla, upon whom the shadow of Arfaen's rough month has fallen."
Mellilot nodded grimly.
I had to scold Arfaen. I did a mediocre job of it, since I am a Zi Ri and she is a Cani. And she actually has had a terrible month: some her fault, yes, and some mine, and some neither of ours.
After that, as a recreation of sorts, I brought five small assorted objects to the headquarters of the Sky Pilots Guild in Eigrach.
Which was the first time I had actually gotten into Eigrach myself. So of course I needed a hat, because everyone in Eigrach wears a hat. I have a much smaller head than any other adult in Eigrach, and more of a feathery crest too, so getting something in a shop is not much of a choice.
I asked Grinwipey to help make one for me. He said, "You want a hat, lizard girl, you go make yourself a vorple-fooping hat. I got killed three felting times, y'blunkwad, and my tents are as wobbly as the cobbly-knobbly after it's done the bobbly, so I ain't giving you no regelatinized help even."
So, rather late in the morning, I acquired an extra 4/3 of a day in which to
make a hat, and used far too much of it. I ended up with a spiky thing of
blue leather and swashes of azure brocade, with a few blue glass globs on
silver pins stuck here and there to provide extra support for some
structural flaws add some very expensive-looking accents in case anyone
was unclear on which blue Zi Ri I was. (In case you have lost track, I
am the only Zi Ri of any color on Srineia.)
So I flew out of a window, under a froliose sky. (The clouds were still perfectly spherical, but today they have a five-pronged curl-handled fork sort of a thing on the northern side.) And finally made it actually in to Eigrach for the vacation I had been promising myself for several decades.
Except of course for an errand. Or recreation of sorts.
The official Grand Guild Hall of the Sky Pilots Guild is a suite of seven rooms on an upper story of the actual skyport. I flew around (not through) the city, with liberal use of my teleport arrow, to avoid getting lost. This attracted some attention, which was good, because Glishe was there when I arrived. (Glishe is a tall and gawky Cani with bright pink fur and matching pink formal robes, and, of course, a tall and gawky pink miter. He is also the guildmaster.)
Me:"Good day! I-nob have come to present my credentials as an auxiliary member of this ancient and very important Guild, an honor I have from the generosity and dignity of the Guild branch in Vheshrame."
Glishe:"Ah! I-nob was wondering when you might arrive to do this errand!"
Me:"Forgive me; I have an unseemly tangle of obligations. It seemed wise to keep the nendrai company yesterday; she is dangerous when she is morose."
Glishe: [not suitably intimidated] "Right; your senior colleague Windigar mentioned the situation to me when he presented his credentials earlier. In any case, I believe he was the pilot when you actually approached Eigrach...? Is something the matter?"
I tried to stop remembering mile-long spiky black fingers from outside the universe.
Me:"Oh, nothing much. We hurried a bit on the last leg here. Which is another matter I wished to discuss with you, actually."
Glishe:"Well, credentials first, for the sake of proper procedure."
So I presented to him certain secret recognition signs, the details of
which are really quite silly are far too arcane and important for
me to describe, because my inferior command of the Ketherian language and my
even more inferior translator would surely detract from their considerable
dignity and, somehow, render them really quite silly.
Glishe:"Honored Auxiliary Pilot Sythyry, we are pleased to welcome you to the Guild of the Sky Pilots in Srineia!"
Me:"And I am quite equally pleased to be here, especially after all the doom on the voyage."
Glishe:"Oh, there was doom?"
I spilled five assorted small knick-knacks on his table. "I generally live a straightforward and uneventful life, but occasionally it is otherwise. Pirates assaulted us in the sky off of Dossimar. Here are five of them, nicely restrained courtesy of my friend the nendrai."
Glishe picked up a bright red rubber ball with blue stars painted on the side. "This is a pirate?"
Me:"That is a pirate. She is a cheerful Orren woman. She killed a reasonably skillful Sleeth in fair combat, and stabbed my ninety year old secretary in the back as she fled."
Glishe:"I daresay she may stay a red rubber ball for a little while. I presume you wish to put them on trial here?"
Me:"I do, in fact."
Glishe:"By any chance, do you know if this cheerful Orren woman was involved in the band of Dossimar pirates who pillaged the Iglomo of Crown a few weeks back? A sky-barge out of here, you know."
Me:"I haven't spoken with her. My guard-Sleeth is still a bit under the weather, and I very much don't want to train the nendrai to attack primes."
Glishe:"Well, I daresay that will come out in the trial, one way or another. Perhaps you have some affidavits that attest to her piratical deeds?"
Me:"I have some witnesses, at least."
Glishe:"All from Vheshrame?"
Me:"I'm afraid so."
Glishe:"That will not give them much dignity in a court in Eigrach."
I glared at him, because I thought he was trying to keep the pirates from getting tried.
Glishe:"I beg your pardon; why are you glaring at me?"
Me:"Because these sky pirates have assaulted me and broken my ship, and I wish to bring them to justice. Clawy, bitey justice."
Glishe:"Why, of course! The Guild of the Sky Pilots does not approve of piracy! We wish to make justice as effective as possible, though, and the quality of witnesses will, of course, matter."
Me:"Are truth-testing spells legitimate in court, in Eigrach?"
Glishe:"Yes, though your opponent and friends are allowed to interrogate you under them; we do not encourage mind-magic in Srineia!"
Me:"I will endure truth spells. I daresay that the murder victims and perhaps some others will as well."
Glishe:"The offer is a good one ... I do not know how matters rest in Vheshrame. A native who made that offer would probably not have to keep it, though the possibility is there ... but here, you and yours might well find yourself under truthspell in court, having made such an offer."
Me:"We have endured far worse than that from the pirates. I shall be glad to tell the truth here, even with a spell."
Glishe:"Very good. Well, tell your story ... actually, pause a moment, so that we may acquire lunch and other guild officials."
After a luncheon -- the most alarming food was a small pastry shell, the size of a quail's egg, full of a puree of green onions, green basil, green cheese, green peas, green fleas, green gages, green pages, green phages, green beans, green scenes, green 'zines, green preens, green prunes, green prones, green pranes, green brains, green plains, green trains, and green grains -- and considerable discussion of piracy, I think I may get some justice for my pirates. (And by "justice" I mean "judicially-approved public repeated executions ending in death".) Sky pilots really aren't fond of pirates, and these ones in particular had been troublesome.
I am, every once in a while, pleased to be part of a sophisticated pan-arboreal civilization with great traditions and great world-wide organizations. A monster from Vheshrame mene could not, I think, get any sort of immediate alliance from the monsters of Srineia, to say nothing of assistance in justice. (Well, I suppose Vae could manufacture her own justice, or revenge, as she saw fit, but most others could not.)
As threatened, Harulse manifested her brilliant green and exceedingly shiny self at the front door of Strayway, wearing a brilliant green caftan embroidered with many brilliant green insect shells that matched her own. (They are not fragments of Herethroy shell -- or, at least, if I were making that caftan, they wouldn't be. I would use the shells of one of the gaudier but less tasty varieties of chub-beetle, protected by a bit of Sustenoc, which are available for about three lozens a pound in the sewing supply stores of any self-respecting city in Ketheria. (I haven't gotten to a sewing supply store in Eigrach yet.))
Harulse:[standing in front of Strayway, looking a bit lost about where the front door is.] "Ye currently ruriculous visitors, I bid thee, obstrilligate not my invitation, instead, with great impigrity, grant me admission! "
Everyone:"What?"
Phaniet:"Let's let her in."
So we did.
Harulse:"The hour of sodalitious delights approacheth apace! Temerate not, O foreigners; instead you shall vicambulate to the pavilion of the great mayor Mmixamk!"
Me:"This is the modest repast he mentioned, I presume?"
Harulse:"Yes, yes, O airgonauts."
So Phaniet and I made our final preparations, which included an undue amount of hat-repair. Kantele tried to engage her in conversation, but Harulse preferred to sit in the library, browsing around in our older and more comprehensive dictionaries. Occasionally she would spread her antennae with glee, and scribble some particularly obscure find in a small and well-thumbed notebook bound in pale leather.
When Phaniet and I were suitably dressed -- Phaniet in a black sheath and triple-cloak of silk, and me in proper ribbons mostly, plus that cursed hat -- we extracted Harulse from her research.
Us:"We are ready to go!"
Harulse:"And the nendrai? We have prepared the repast in our most boscaresque region, without the city walls. Famelicose or not, she must attend!"
Vae:"The I am allowed?"
Harulse:"I rarely practice fallaciloquence!"
Vae:«And what does that mean?»
Kantele:«It means, yes.»
Vae:"The wonderful!"
Me:"The you do know what you're getting in to, don't you, Harulse?"
Harulse:"Let us simply be gaudiloquent."
Vae:«And what does that mean?»
Kantele:«It means, no.»
So we went. Around the city, not the more direct way through it, because we had a terrible monster with us, so eager that she couldn't stay in one shape for three seconds at a time: a cloud of butterflies, a rowboat loaded with barrels and ballistas, a rampaging maypole, herself.
Wicker seems to be reserved for buildings inside the city. The Mayor's pavilion is a small fortress actually, with a short wooden wall all around, and four archery-and-sorcery towers at the corners (each with three city guards), and a two-story central keep with a big flat roof that's suitable for even more archery and sorcery, or, in the most dire emergencies, a small picnic with visitors and monsters from Ketheria.
(And nothing has said "This is a foreign world-branch, and, indeed, a newly-colonized one" nearly so much as this pavilion. In Ketheria, a pavilion outside the city would probably have a strongpoint somewhere, but would be mostly devoted to, um, pavillioning. Monsters simply don't come that close to the city without being (a) noticed, (b) deterred, and/or (c) Vae. Srineia has no such tradition and mechanism of safety, and relies on more basic fortifications.)
This was lost on Vae.
"The we're all invited and all!" she warbled. "The grand and elegant entrance we shall make!" A leaf became a bridge of frozen kidneys, dyed alternating purple and orange, arching over the fortress walls. She surrounded it by a whirling tube of astringent winds, then a spiky sheath of magic-corroding owl feathers, then an honor guard of bats with blazing tails. "Oh, the I should make it beautiful too!" She added a decorative flourish of burning flowerpots fluttering around on burning butterfly wings, and another of rippling banners embroidered (unimpressively) with many, many candelabras.
A dozen city guards took aim at us with bows and mystic staves.
Vae took the shape of a twelve-foot-tall demon with seven tusked mouths and seven arms holding seven blazing flags. "Not a single-jivu sort of-edu attack-nob is this! The-unhi invitation-edu is-nob with me-edu!" She made a hash of the Srineian, which I found reassuring: she hadn't done her usual Mentador tricks to learn the language.
The guards, ignorant of Vae's actual wickednesses and language patterns both, took their jobs seriously. "We are betrayed! The foreigners have betrayed us!", one of them yelled. Spells of entanglement and paralysis becames spells of scent distortion and vegetable transformation when they struck Vae's shield. Other spells of entanglement and paralysis entangled and/or paralyzed Phaniet and me.
Vae picked up Harulse and waved her at the tower. "Not like that, not like that! The invitation is ours!", she proclaimed, in seven voices speaking not quite in unison.
"Save me!" wailed Harulse in a regrettable moment of comprehensibility.
"They've got that dunce Harulse!" cried the sergeant of the guard. "Get her free!"
"Absolutely, haven't we just!" yelled the mayor frantically. "Underneath it all!"
I have previously noted that Eigrach's and Srineia's magic is not the most sophisticated. The walls are far inferior to those of Vheshrame, or even to what I could build. Their magic weapons, similarly, are not of the highest quality. And of course there are many more monsters in the area than there are in Vheshrame.
Yet, Eigrach and Srineia survive, and prosper.
They do so, naturally, by the strength and skill of their heroes. At home, the city guard are tolerably well-trained at arms, and spend an hour or two each week studying with an arms-master. Mostly they patrol the city or stand by the gates and let everyone know that the city is Well-Guarded. Here, the city-guard has a great deal to do by way of actual fighting against monsters. Their training is practical rather than theoretical, and it is not confined to the occasional lesson. The Eigrach city guard is quite good.
Three Cani flew at Vae's face, menacing her eyes and tongues with quick dancing blades. She hissed, and bit one of them. A daring Herethroy teleported next to her, and whacked off her hand with a huge three-handed sword. Harulse fell to the ground, and two Orren dashed out and scooped her up.
"Never, haven't we enough, exactly!" yelled the mayor.
Vae, still protesting obscurely that she was invited, crammed the Orren guards and Harulse into a pocket universe. Since this looks just the same as, say, disintegrating them or transforming them into air, the remaining guards redoubled their assault. Vae, crying a storm of bloody shards by this point, disembowelled the Herethroy guard and one of the Cani, grabbed her severed hand, and teleported off in a complete and miserable huff.
Sometime or other while that was going on (the details are obscure), I got unparalyzed, and Phaniet got free entirely. So some city guards shot three arrows into my chest, and one into Phaniet's shoulder, and shouted for us not to move or cast spells. So we didn't, until Vae had left.
The remaining guards surrounded Phaniet and me, pointing seven hundred very sharp and dangerous things at us. "Foreigners! You -- do -- not -- move!" growled the sergeant. Which we didn't.
"Never, quite thoroughly, absolutely!" wailed the mayor, dashing down the fort's stairs. A few other Eigrach notables, including Phaniet's new old friend Bwipin, followed him. The injured guards reembowelled themselves.
I was bleeding rather a lot, so I healed myself. I didn't move a bit, I swear it, but evidently the sergeant counted spellcasting as moving. So he stabbed me through the ribcage. Which was, in my professional opinion, about as much of an injury as the three arrows had been. Very annoying. Also very painful.
The mayor tackled the sergeant from behind, knocking him to the ground, and punched him in the face a few times. The sergeant looked puzzled and not very badly hurt.
Bwipin said, "Phaniet, you weren't attacking us, were you?"
Phaniet wagged her tail. "No. The nendrai just has taste for the dramatic now and then. You can tell when she attacks you though; the sky is full of the most terrible elementals, and she picks up hills and whomps you with them."
The mayor scribbled on a bit of paper: "I never intended anything of this sort to happen. I am quite thoroughly embarrassed, and will make absolutely any sort of apology that I can!" He waved it at the sergeant, and then at me.
"Let me heal my assistant and myself, to start with," I said. The guards put their weapons down.
Phaniet shook her head. "Draw this arrow out and stop the blood, but wait a bit on healing the wound." So we did that. She looked quite a mess, with her triple-cloak all rips and shreds, and her black silk dress ruined with her blood. I healed myself all the way. The sergeant looked a bit ashamed.
"What happened to Harulse and the Orren guards?" wrote the mayor.
"Over there, stuck in a pocket universe," I said.
"Unhurt?"
"I can't tell from here," I hissed, and then remembered how to do it. "Actually I can. No extra spells cast on them."
"This isn't at all what we intended," wrote the mayor, and another half-page of apologies.
"Boss, you go make sure the nendrai is calm," said Phaniet. "I'll stay here and explain matters to the Eigrachters."
("Boss" here is evidently used in the sense of "The one whom I tell what to do.")
So I stared at Vae through her insignia -- she was getting one of our parlors on Strayway all bloody, from her wrist and both eyes (being back in her usual big-lizard shape) and another dozen wounds from where she was biting her flank. I wasted a cley getting there in a hurry, and another one putting the hand back on, and a third making myself large enough to hug her properly.
And spent the next hour and a half trying to return her to what passes for sanity in a N. lacrymosa. She was furious at herself for starting a battle by mistake, for ruining the one and only invitation that a prime had given to her in the last century (this clause was revised several times until it became factual), for letting the guard cut off her hand, for grabbing Harulse, for not just teleporting to the top of the platform. And, above all, for having yet another mental blind spot with which she can terrify or horrify primes and not realize it until too late. She's actually noticed this one before; she just can't remember having it.
(The only way that I managed to stay calm for Vae-petting was that I promised that I could have an episode of the utter shrieking fantods at Kantele when I was done.)
There's only so much comfort that anyone can give. Most of what she's desparing about is true.
I didn't mention it last time, but I had tied a few strips of silk cloak around Phaniet's arrow-wound, as a makeshift bandage. She didn't want more. «For tactical reasons, Sythyry. It's easier to make someone feel ashamed of attacking you if you're dripping blood on them.»
«I suppose. If you start to feel dizzy, scribble to me and I will be over straightaway. Or even get a healing spell from that Cani guard with the Healer's Guild insignia on his baldric,» I nattered at her. She had barked at the Cani healer when he tried to help her before.
«Are you hinting at something, Sythyry?»
«Am I? Like what?»
«Like that scolding the mayor isn't worth my life.»
«Right. It's not.»
«I am so surprised,» wrote Phaniet. «If you insist, I won't die, though. Hmff!»
«You misspelled "hmph".» If you can't be useful, be pedantic.
Phaniet started off rather directly. "Well, that was quite an informative and effective introduction to Srineian civilization. A few more etiquette lessons and you might start to catch up with the sky pirates of Dossemar. The nycathath has you utterly outclassed, though."
The mayor gestured impatiently to Bwipin. Bwipin curtsied to him, and then sat heavily in a creaky wicker chair. "Yes, and we're blasted sorry about that, too, Phaniet."
"If I had known what dinner parties were like on Srineia, I would have dressed appropriately. Enchanted chain mail would seem to be de rigeur. Or outright world-amber armor for a state ball, I should expect."
"Well, yes, you might say that. We're a bit provincial down here, I do admit, Phaniet; we're not used to nendrai," said Bwipin.
"And I suppose springing a formal court occasion on the poor monster was your way to try to get used to her? What did you expect, anyhow? That she'd come in wearing flowers and ribbons like a Zi Ri, and behave all elegant and charming? My lords, recall: four days ago she gave Dossimar Mene a vast ruining, from which it will not recover in four years, or perhaps forty."
Mmixamk nodded. "Happy dream." He scowled, and wrote "We simply wished to make her happy. We never dreamed it would end so badly."
Phaniet laughed. "End so badly? Lord mayor, what makes you think it has ended at all yet? By my reckoning, there are three mighty powers on Srineia; you have injured two of them not a quarter-hour ago. And I somehow doubt that Shadatei will exert themselves on your behalf."
"Well, we certainly don't want this to become a military occasion," said Bwipin.
"Then starting off the evening with arrows and three-handed swords brings a remarkable risk of misinterpretation," said Phaniet. She poked at her arrow wound, and wiped blood on a napkin.
Bwipin wagged his tail, holding it low. "A blasted good point, which indeed might have occurred to us had we had the opportunity to discuss it with the guards. Didn't work out that way though. So the Mayor has authorized me to make some concrete apologies."
Phaniet wagged her tail. "Concrete apologies sound like just the thing to keep Dossimar from looking like a little morning chalice of kathia before the main devastations."
"Well, for Sythyry we have available a quite nice house in midtown, recently vacated by a baron and family in fact. Six assorted Orren as servants there, plus an excellent Cani chef who could be transferred there by breakfast-time tomorrow," said Bwipin.
Phaniet flattened her ears. "Precisely why the wizard would want to abandon zir new skyboat -- in which are stored an unimaginable array of useful and delightful mysteries, and upon which zie has spent about half your lifetime working -- to move into this house in midtown, is beyond me."
Bwipin curled his tail. "We could sweeten the arrangement somewhat."
Phaniet handed him the sugar-bowl and a soupspoon off the banquet table.
Bwipin considered it. "A Herethroy indentured-woman of quite magnificent stature and elegant carapace, and known for being distinctly generous with mammals, especially after her chances for marriage were eliminated recently. I am certain she would charm you thoroughly."
Phaniet barked, "Hah! Sweetening my corner of the chalice is certainly necessary, but you must present me with a beverage which Sythyry and Vae will be willing to choke down first. Case in point: offering Sythyry some haphazard townhouse is all very well, but a townhouse with six servants is expensive to maintain. Supporting half a dozen impecunious Eigrachters is hardly the delight that it may seem in the abstract."
"Seven of them; the townhouse -- more of a mansion really -- comes with a seneschal," said Bwipin. "But yes, I do see the point. Wherefore I promise that the city will pay their salaries."
Phaniet snorted. "Hardly the only expense of running a mansion. Are we to accept whatever hand-me-down furnishings the bungalow currently endures? I doubt it has sufficient gardens; can you truly expect the wizard to perform zir mystic meditations without fresh cut flowers? The reek from its cellars and middens may be considerable: incense of quality will be essential! And so forth!"
"The city will be glad to pay for these things," said Bwipin.
"Perhaps Sythyry will consider this sufficient ... though I suspect that your guard's driving a sword through zir chest after zie had already ceased hostilities -- and by 'ceased' I of course mean 'had never begun' -- may render zir unusually hard to please today. Having a few rib-bones broken can do that even to the sweetest-tempered of Zi Ri. Now comes the more troublesome part: how will you placate Vae, who is, first of all, the more likely one to destroy a city; second of all, the one who actually lost a body-part; and, third of all, unlikely to have much use for some hovel or other in the city."
"Well, we are prepared to present her ..." started Bwipin.
Phaniet leapt up and barked in his face. "Bwipin, you shall do no such thing! If you wish to deal with Vae, you must hire Sythyry as your intercessor! A careful adherence to this regimen has preserved Vheshrame in perfect safety for centuries! You must do the same -- anything else would be folly!"
Bwipin crouched and tucked his tail between his legs. "Truly? ... We are blasted new at this bit about having a nendrai in the city-state. The chromodon isn't an eighth part so fussy."
"Did you try cutting bits off of him?"
"Not this one," said Bwipin.
"Probably wise," said Phaniet. "In any case, you must proceed sensibly here. If you wish to placate Vae, you must hire Sythyry to do it. Oh, you could try to do it on your own ... but the whole point of this conversation is that you don't want your city-state destroyed, isn't it?"
"That would be just about the point of it, yes. Does zie take money for placating Vae, or do we need to track down more promiscuous Orren for zir?"
"I imagine money would suffice." Phaniet was careful not to claim that I had actually gotten money for it ever before, which I have not, exactly. (Nor promiscuous Orren, for that matter.) "After a while, the promiscuous Orren get expensive to feed and house. And zie can only really use a dozen or so in a day, anyhow. Beyond that they start to blur one into each other."
Bwipin regarded Phaniet with very wide eyes. "A dozen a day? Is that really ... ? Well, we'll pay zir for it."
I completely agreed with Bwipin about a dozen Orren, when Phaniet told me about it later.
Bwipin wagged his tail. "Now, we have a few things that Vae might like." Phaniet lowered one ear a twelfth of an inch, so Bwipin added, "Though we'll go through your blasted Zi Ri to offer them of course. We already agreed that, Phaniet. No need to get furious about it."
"I suppose not," agreed Phaniet. "My arrow-wound is aching, is all... no, thank you very much, I'd rather have my friends take care of it back at home. More comforting that way, you know."
"Right then," said Bwipin. "We've managed to track down a rather nice hunting lodge -- constructed for the benefit of one of our distinguished counts of the last decade, wouldn't you know? But abandoned a few years ago when she lost interest in hunting and replaced it by an interest in geneological research. Blasted lot easier to carry out when you're missing a leg, right? So I'm afraid the lodge has a bit of an infestation of hugeng. It's in the Verticals, you see. A spot of cleaning-out -- our guards can do it, it'll be a bit of an apology for them, and they blasted well ought to apologize."
Phaniet wagged her tail slowly. "I can remember that. I'll have to discuss it with the lizard though. The little lizard I mean."
Bwipin nodded vigorously. "Discuss it 'til you're blue in the ... any body part you blasted well like! Nobody from Eigrach will be watching, I can tell you that!"
"Oh, dear, what are you hinting at, Bwipin?" asked Phaniet.
Bwipin snorted. "I think your last party blasted seven information-magi!"
Phaniet rolled her eyes. "I think they blasted themselves. They shouldn't be scrying on Strayway, anyhow."
"They learned that right enough!" said Bwipin. "Ho, does your big lizard like polished stone? Ach, who doesn't? The Mayor has a granite-topped desk, showing an intricate floral pattern in dyed granite and rubies. At least, he says it's an intricate floral pattern. Looks like some sort of giant soul-devouring space squid to me. But I suppose most things do if they're depicted in dyed granite and rubies. In an attic in the Mayor's palace, if you want to sniff at it. The Herethroy dusted it off just yesterday, you won't sneeze too much."
"Stone space squid table, one," said Phaniet. "I understand that."
"And, oh, what was that other thing, Mmixamk? -- Right, the stone swords. I do hope she likes stone. Five ancient stone scimitars, from some lost pre-prime civilization here, sharp as Flokin's cute little pinkie claws. I cut myself on one and bled all night from it. Not the sort of thing you'd put in your enemy's hands! But we're thinking that Vae's not our enemy and this way we'll show it."
"I don't think they'll make Vae much more dangerous than she is. After all, if she's chopping your guards' heads off with ancient stone scimitars, she's probably not throwing acres of countryside like an angry child throws poptaloops," noted Phaniet.
Bwipin poured himself a chalice of kathia, and then two more for the mayor and Phaniet without asking if they wanted some. "They cut both ways then. Double-edged scimitars, hah! They cut both ways!"
"I think I understand that too, then," said Phaniet, lapping at her chalice without much noticing it.
"Then there's the usual list of stuff and oddments. Incense, food, money, gems, clothing -- whatever we can buy in the city, really."
"In Vheshrame, Sythyry did a great deal of shopping. I imagine zie knows all about how to do that," said Phaniet.
"Think she'll accept all that and call it even?" asked Bwipin.
"I haven't the faintest idea. The only one I know who's injured her this much and she's still on social terms with is her mate. I don't think you did enough damage to impress her quite to the point of copulation though," said Phaniet. Bwipin looked a bit worried, so Phaniet added, "Actually she's quite loyal to Oixe; you needn't fret."
The conversation drifted around after that, and for not very long either. Phaniet did not have to feign weariness, or even blood loss.
Back aboard Strayway, Phaniet gave me some cley -- that is one of the traditional though unspoken duties of a wizard's assistant -- and I used it to heal her, while she told me about her negotiations.
"Thank you for doing that. I'm glad I didn't have to," I said.
"You look a bit on the half-melted side," she said. "Your feathers are drooping, and they've gone a sickly yellow-green all down your right side." Which they weren't and hadn't.
"I certainly wasn't in shape to deal with a mayor, or even a baron. Vae's been quite enough work; rather more than usual. She's quite upset: bit her heart out three times in the space of an hour," I said, exaggerating somewhat. "You deserve a token of my appreciation, though, too," I said.
"Beyond the healing spell?"
"The healing spell that you paid the cley for? Certainly, more. How about a couple of hypertrophied Herethroy?"
She snorted. "I'll stick with my normally-trophied Rassimel, Thank You Very Much."
Everyone Else:"They cut off Vae's hand? They shot Sythyry full of arrows and swords?"
Me, Vae, Phaniet:"Yes, and they shot Phaniet too, but not as much."
Everyone Else:"Why is there still this city called Eigrach?"
Me, Vae, Phaniet:"They had pretty good reasons for attacking us. Also, they didn't hurt any of the children or anything."
Everyone Else:"When do we leave? Where do we go?"
Me, Vae, Phaniet:"We haven't quite given up on Eigrach yet."
Everyone Else:"Why on wood not?"
Me, Vae, Phaniet:"Well, we have to get Strayway repaired. Also it was just a misunderstanding. Also we had a harsh and awful trip to get here, and we don't want to totally waste it. And they did give some pretty nice and grovelly peace terms."
Everyone Else:"Ooh, grovelly peace terms? What do we get?"
Phaniet:"I didn't know that Sythyry was sharing."
Me:"I don't even know what you negotiated for -- is it shareable?" This was not strictly true, though less false than it might be. I hadn't gotten the details from Phaniet yet.
So Phaniet explained.
Inconnu:"They're getting zir seven Orren? What, don't they think I can take care of zir?"
Umbers:"You're busy taking care of me now."
Dorze didn't say anything, but he looked hurt. (Evidently the stowaways are thoroughly integrated into the crew now, and I'm going to have to spend the next three and a half centuries apologizing to La Hish and Nangbang.)
Me:"And you're not taking care of me anyhow."
Inconnu:"I can handle every non-Orren on this ship and still have energy for more!"
Rheng, Lithia, Grinwipey, Vae:"Not me, Thank You Very Much."
Treacle-Eyes:"Um ... you're an Orren, dear." She evidently doesn't know any better. Lithia is going to have to tell her sooner or later. .
Lithia:"I ... oh! He said non-Orren? I missed that." I don't think that counts as telling her.
Inconnu:"As if I would touch an Orren?"
While the youngsters were flirting or whatever, some of the more serious and sensible people thought more seriously about the situation. By "sensible" I very much do not mean "sensible".
Me:"Inconnu's powers of lizard-pleasing to be ignored, I'm not really sure I want a townhouse or mansion or whatever this is. Do I, Kantele?"
Kantele:"I'm sure I don't know. I suppose it could come in handy for something. And it's free."
Arfaen:"Gifts of people are never free."
Windigar:"I wouldn't mind a place to stay that wasn't on board Strayway. Not that I mind being here, but being on the skyboat all the time and not getting to fly it is rather getting to me. And having a few more Orren around -- I mean proper Orren, not like Inconnu -- wouldn't do badly for me either."
Inconnu:"I didn't hear that!"
Este:"Plus the rest of us could stay there if we're out late in the city. If it's conveniently located and all, at least."
Phaniet:"How could you not want it? I worked hard to get it for you, Sythyry!"
Jyondre:"And it would emphasize your nobility. Obviously you must be noble: you own a mansion in Eigrach!"
Me:"OK, I'm an ignorant Zi Ri. I suppose I can at least go and look at the place."
Phaniet:"And the Orren who work there! You need an Orren or two, boss. You need one so bad I can smell it across the room."
I cast a scent-destroyer. Phaniet shook her head. "Not that kind of smell." Cani can be quite annoying indeed.
Vae had been sitting in a miserable tangle all conversation. Now she spoke up.
Vae:"The woe and the vileness it is, that I should attack them and make them give me stone swords and stone tables."
Phaniet:"Well, you didn't attack them. They attacked you, at least first."
Vae:"Not so calm or safe was my well-guarded pathway of kidneys in the sky! And should a nendrai wear a fortress when she goes to visit a fortress? Not a bit should she!"
Kantele:"They should have waited to attack until you did something the least big aggressive!"
Vae:"Not! The by then it is too late! If I am alive and within seven hundred miles, it is too late!"
Me:"That's ridiculous, for many reasons, which you know quite well."
Vae:"Not ridiculous, but only true! Not a hunting lodge, not a sharp sword, not a stone table shall I take from them! The apology I should make to them, save that I know that doing so would bring further doom!"
Phaniet:"Technically, the fact that you are allowed to know that means it's not true." Vae peered at Phaniet mournfully. "That's not how everything works. Just about you giving presents and being helpful to primes."
Vae:"The curse am I from one end to the other. Except the other is actually eighteen curses. Not shall I accept a single terch from Eigrach by way of apology. The apology I'd give, if I dared."
She stomped over to the window -- taking a sort of smallish elephant shape to stomp more effectively -- and did something extravaganant to the wind, with Pyrador.
Everyone:"Oh, dearie."
Vae had turned the strong rollward wind into a vast ball of angry red flame, floating over Eigrach as if it were tethered by a very long and fireproof string. On the side of the ball was written, in letters of eye-aching poisoned lightning, O ye miserable and fear-wracked primes of Eigrach, I pour out unto you the apologies. Not more shall I intrude myself upon your prostrate and quivering land! Imagine that I were absent a thousand miles hence. Pretend that I were inert, asleep, drugged with the dismal fruit of the quen-vaah vine! Consider me gone; forget me; wake not with the fear of me driving you from your comfortable beds! Ignore me -- Ignore me -- Ignore me!!!"
Everyone:"Um ... Vae? I don't think that will work."
Vae:"And how could it not work?" And couldn't understand any of the possible problems.
(You may have noted that I did not fret about getting a salary for tending Vae. I absolutely deserve one.)
Vae had just written a whiny letter to all of Eigrach, on a huge fireball which she had tethered over the city.
Most of us just sort of stared at it. Some with the bogglement of, "Aieee! Vae is so very very scary!", but most with the bogglement of, "Aieee! Vae is so very very emo!" I was in the "so very very scary" camp myself. I officially allow her -- or anybody -- to be emo for at least nine hours after getting a hand cut off.
Phaniet reminded me, "Hey, Sythyry. You're on the Eigrach payroll for dealing with nendrai messes now. Gonna go fix it?"
"Oy, yes. I suppose I ought to," I said. "Kantele, could you see if Vae can understand that she should take it down?" Kantele tried, but Vae couldn't.
So I flew up there and crammed the fireball into a pocket universe. This is the right approach because (1) that way nobody will accidentally fly into it and get fried, as might happen if I made it invisible or something, and (2) actually breaking the spell is hopeless 'til I get that cursed artifact made.
After which, I flew back down and curled up in Arfaen's lap and demanded petting like a Sleeth all through dinner, despite getting a few scowls from Mellilot. Which is going to be a problem later for at least one of the three of us, and probably more.
And I'm sorry if this is coming out whinier than usual. I officially allow myself -- or anyone -- to be emo for at least nine hours after getting pinned to the ground with a sword through the heart.
I avoided everything avoidable for the next two days. That includes you.
When I dared come out for breakfast yesterday, everyone in the skyboat asked me, "What about that wonderful palace in the city full of slinky, slinky, sleek, sleek Orren?"
"I suppose we could go take a look," I mumbled into a chalice of kathia.
"Yay, we're going to have a palace!" cheered everyone, and danced around, in some cases waving bottles of wine. At breakfast time, yet.
"You already have one!" I snapped, and knocked over my kathia by mistake, and slunk back to my workshop and avoided everything avoidable for the rest of the day. Strayway is every bit as palatial as years of lizard-effort and hundreds of thousands of lozens can make it. Admittedly, much of the money was spent on magical experiments that didn't all work very well, and some parts are better described as 'upsetting' rather than 'elegant', but it's not that bad.
The next day we set off to look at Glynubla House. Which, as it turns out, is
on Via Tydirdi, though a bit closer to the main roads than Bwipin's mansion.
It's not quite as huge a mansion as that, though it's a substantial layer-cake
of green and purple wicker, frosted with pale yellowbuttercream
carved wood. Four stories, sixty windows (invisible wood, not so expensive
as glass).
The seneschal is an Orren man named Totalie. He's middle-aged and middle-heighted and middle-weighted, and has orange stripes dyed in his cheek-fur, and, today, was wearing a very smart caftan sort of silk thing with an abstract diamond-and-hexagon pattern of crimson and hezarion threads. Good work, too -- as fine as anything I've ever sewn, though of course Grinwipey could do better.
"Good day to you, and welcome to your new home of Glynubla House," said Totalie. He seemed rather bland -- rather carefully bland.
"Hello, and glad to meet you. We haven't exactly decided that we're moving in here; we'd just like to see it," I said. Totalie seemed rather taken aback, as though he couldn't imagine us not moving in.
"Well, then. The Grand Hall is through these doors..." And so it was. Grand, too, by provincial Srineian standards. Not by my standards, which are admittedly rather warped by my own Grand Dining Hall. Admittedly, I don't need a dining room three-quarters of a mile long on my skyboat (I only have one by mistake), and I don't need one that ridiculous in Eigrach either.
We were toured around the bottom two layers of the cake-mansion, all fancy rooms. The decorations were old -- in the sense of "obviously not purchased with me in mind". Lots of portraits of dignified Orren judge-ish personages. Vases of perpetually-frozen flowers. Wooden sculptures of warriors killing monsters -- some of the same Orren who were in the portraits. A rack of glass-edged swords and long spears. Very conquery sort of place.
When the sun burned full, two Orren servants brought out trays of fish sandwiches, boiled peas with butter, chub-beetles marinated in wine.
Phaniet sniffed at the peas, shrugged, and passed the plate to Arfaen without taking any. This is notable, because Phaniet ordinarily likes peas.
"Is something wrong with them, Phaniet?" I asked her. A bit nervously, because, not only had I taken some peas, I had eaten some already. They tasted thoroughly unpoisoned to me, but I am not a Cani.
"No, not really," she said. So I stared at her a while. "The butter's a bit off though."
Totalie curled his tail. "Please excuse, please. We bought supplies when we first heard you were visiting, but that is now a few days past."
"They're not bad really," said Arfaen. "Not quite fresh."
"I shall speak to the kitchen staff about it!" said a very worried Totalie.
"Perhaps I can," said Arfaen. "We've various ways to keep food fresh -- we've got a box of peas from Vheshrame a month ago that's still a bit better than these. I think these got left out on a counter for a couple of days, and the butter, too."
"Well, that must have been an oversight," said Totalie. "We've always had the best food here, and never any trouble with keeping even fish fresh for days."
"The bread's a bit stale too," noted Kantele. "Another three-day-old purchase, I suppose."
"I'm very sorry," said Totalie, and fidgeted in his seat. He did take a large scoop of peas, drizzled sweetened vinegar on them, and gobbled them up ostentatiously.
"Do you have a suite of rooms that I could use for sorcery?" I asked, because it was required and because I had finished my lunch already.
Totalie wagged his tail, which is odd for an Orren. "In fact, we do. Let me show you them." He stood up from the table, leaving a half-plate of peas and beetles. "Shall we see them while the others finish their lunch?"
"Sure."
So we climbed two flights of stairs. "The former owners' children had their chambers up here." It certainly looked like it, with a playroom of toys -- all ages, baby to adolescent -- in one half, and three nice bedrooms in the other half." "There are plenty of stories in these rooms. In that corner, the former baron, as a twenty-one year old [14 Earth years] Orren lad, quite happily made a gift of his virginity to his best friend."
"I suppose it was a convenient place," I said, for want of anything better to say.
"His best friend being a Cani boy," added Totalie.
"Cani certainly make excellent friends," I said, for want of anything better to say.
"And what do you think of that?" he demanded.
I was starting to get irritated. "Yes, the rumors about me are quite true. If that's what you're after. Try to blackmail me with them and I shall laugh in your face: everyone who cares the least bit about my personal life knows that I am traff."
Totalie leap upon me, grabbed my neck in one hand, and jammed his mouth over mine: perhaps the least romantic kiss I have ever had. Certainly the only one where I have ever felt it necessary to breathe fire into my partner's mouth.
When I answered Totalie's strangly kiss with fire-breath, Totalie at least had the grace to release me and leap back, eyes full of clattery madness, shivering with a Wild Rush. It was Not Cute under the circumstances.
Rheng came roaring up the stairs, his tail streaming behind him; Sleeth can hear better than other people. Phaniet and Arfaen followed in a frenzy, and Yerenthax thundered up after them. Totalie was quickly surrounded and pinioned.
"So: shall I treat that like an attempted rape, or an attempted murder?" I asked Totalie.
Totalie's voice was muddy with pain, and, I should imagine, blisters on the tongue and palate. "No, no, nothing like that!"
Arfaen snarled and shook Totalie's shoulders. "What did you do to zir, you putrescent mushroom?"
"I, I didn't, ow," mumbled Totalie.
"Strangled me and tried to lick my tonsils," I said. "Held me by the neck and shook me around, too," which was somewhat of an exaggeration.
Rheng put a heavy paw on Totalie's mouth. "Perhaps your own tonsils are itchy, rrai? Perhaps I scratch them for you?" Totalie whined.
Phaniet tugged Rheng's harness. "Stop, stop. This is perplexing in a confusing sort of way. I can think of several proximate goals that the gentleman might have attempted. Was he trying to kill Sythyry?" Totalie was shaking his head, but could not speak under Rheng's paw. "Perhaps -- but why use his bare hands, and why try to kiss zir?"
Rheng snorted. "Perhaps he has the poisonous fangs. I know stories of such Orren!"
"I know stories of such norren, myself," said Phaniet. "Conversely, was he trying to rape Sythyry?" Totalie shook his head again. "The practical issues of forcing a wizard are boggling. I cannot how it could be sensibly attempted; I should use blackmail, myself, if I were so foolish and wicked as to try such a thing. Can it be that Totalie is foolish, wicked, and astoundingly impractical? Well, yes, it can, of course it can, but perhaps there is another explanation."
"I don't much care about another explanation," I said, because I was rather cross. "If we were at home I'd take him to court for assault. As a foreigner I don't expect I'd have much chance of success here, though."
Phaniet, who is a loyal and extremely helpful assistant, ignored me. "I suspect that there is more going on here. Rheng, let the gentleman talk."
Rheng laughed. "I let him talk. Does Sythyry's kiss let him talk? Or does he enjoy the blisters and the burnings." He moved his paw off Totalie's mouth.
Totalie squeaked, "They said that's what the Zi Ri wanted!"
"They did, did they?" I hissed. "Who are they, and why are they ordering abuse on my behalf?"
"And is that them watching now?" asked Phaniet.
I checked, and half a dozen people were scrying on us. "Phaniet, make them stop watching." Which she did, quite adequately.
"Right," said Phaniet. "This sounds like an annoying little misunderstanding. Let's clear it up by providing a better and more true understanding, shall we? Arfaen, let him stand up and fetch him some water, would you be so kind?"
"I don't want a conversation with him. If he touches me again I shall burn the part he touches me with off," I said. My loyal and obedient clients ignored me.
Totalie lapped water from a chalice. "I thought zie likes that sort of thing. I asked, really I did. I was trying to be the best seneschal I could. I need to understand what the new lord wants and needs for that, don't I?"
"The new lord wants and needs Totalie punished for assault. Don't do anything illegal, or not very illegal anyhow, but maybe Rheng could claw him in the process of pulling him off of me, perhaps," I said. Everyone helpfully ignored me.
Phaniet looked alarmed, and wagged her tail placatingly to Totalie. "Oh, dear. You talked to one of the information mages, didn't you?"
Totalie nodded. "Oh, yes. Glekjinga gave me lots and lots of details."
Phaniet's ears drooped. "Then you deserve an apology. One of our defenses backfired."
"Why does he deserve an apology? I think he should be apologizing!" I
noted in a whiny justifiably upset voice.
"I suspect he'll want to apologize quite a bit too," said Phaniet. "But actually I think we cast a fireball and are now complaining that our house is burning." She turned to Totalie. "So, who did you talk to about Sythyry, and what did they say?"
"Well, of course I talked to lots of people, anyone who knew anything. Glekjinga is one of the, well, he was 'specially interested in foreign wizards. He's an information mage, Rassimel you know..."
"And rather easily spooked," said Phaniet.
"I wouldn't know about that. He'd been ... well ...", said Totalie, and faded off.
"He'd been scrying on us at home, is what he'd been doing. Which isn't a thing we much approve of," I said. "Though he's a branch-width more polite about it than you are."
Totalie nodded. "Yes, that's it, exactly. So he knew what you'd like, I thought, and how best to negotiate with you. He said that you, well, liked being grabbed by the neck, and, well, never mind the rest." Everyone stared at him and motioned him to continue. "Well, and, to be passed around like a bottle and give a treat to all the males in the room with your mouth and neck."
I hissed and flapped my wings in a fury. Everyone ignored me, except Arfaen, who petted me, just as if I weren't four times her age.
Phaniet shook her head. "Actually, scrying on a wizard of Sythyry's subtlety is not as accurate as might be hoped. That was not actually Sythyry that Glekjinga observed; it was an illusion. Designed more to entertain than to instruct, if you must know."
Totalie stared at me. "So you don't..."
"I do not. I very definitely do not. Haven't done anything even remotely like that for ... longer than you've been alive. I am very fussy about my choice of lovers," I said. "And being held by the neck isn't a bit appealing, either."
Totalie dashed the rest of his chalice of water onto the floor, and threw himself after it. "Then I am lost -- ruined! Doomed forevermore!", he said, as he wobbled into water-form.
"Now he sounds like part of Sythyry's household, rrai!" said Rheng.
(Yay, we made it past Hispis! I hope Thory is a more peaceful month for me than Hispis was...)
After the morning's enchantment work, Phaniet tapped my wing and set me down in the enchatment room's fireplace. "Now I will tell you about Totalie."
"Do I really have to hear about that nearly-a-rapist?" I muttered.
"Yes, you do," said Phaniet, wagging her tail. I guess she has affan in, um, whatever is going on. "After you and Rheng stomped out, the rest of us made with the advanced interrogation techniques on Totalie." (I made Rheng escort me back to Strayway. I feel better with a dangerous Sleeth around for protection, especially after being arrowed and sworded and throttled recently.)
I arched my head up. "What did you do? Start burning his fingers off, I hope?"
Phaniet shook her head. "No. You're the one who wants revenge. I wanted actually useful information. We gave him a healing spell for his burnt tongue, and took him out for eel tarts and the local fermented and distilled beverages. Then we took him back to Glynubla House and Arfaen made sure he was on our side. We learned rather a lot."
"One hour he has his hands wrapped around my throat; the next, he is enjoying delicious treats at my household's expense. Cani loyalty is indeed a perplexing thing," I said, which is very rude.
Phaniet's ears drooped. "We're protecting your interests and trying to make sure things come out in your favor. That's loyalty, I would say. If you want actual revenge on Totalie, you might ask the Khtsoyis to find some distant cousins to help out, or the Sleeth if you want it done directly in style. But wait 'til you've heard the story."
If I had external ears, they would be droopy too. "I suppose that if I know the whole story, I will have to declare Totalie utterly innocent, and probably my best friend if not my actual lover?"
Phaneit shook her head. "The story is not quite that good. But, well, you -- and all of us, but mostly you -- are the target of a massive psychosocial assault."
"Oh, lovely. Are you sure it's not a sorcerous assault? I have some idea what to do about that."
"There's sorcery involved, of course: the scrying spells. Mostly it's psychosocial. And more determined than skillful."
I rolled on my back and waved my paws in the air. "Can you explain what you mean by that?"
Phaniet wagged her tail comfortingly. "According to Totalie, who might be missing some clues, the general opinion in Eigrach is that you have been exiled (or, for the generously-inclined and well-informed, self-exiled) from Ketheria for excessive perversion, and that you are flying around looking for a new home as far as possible from there. Why else would a Zi Ri wizard load zir household up on a skyboat and bring it through pirates and peril to the other end of the civilized world?"
I snorted sparks. "Arrogant Eigrachters, to presume that this is the civilized world! I make no such claim about it. And I didn't bring my whole household, just half of it. We are going back home sooner or later ... or perhaps sooner or soon."
"They do not wholly believe your explanations in your correspondence, especially not the straightforward and truthful ones. They seek to find deeper meanings. Unthinkable, that a Zi Ri might speak or write in anything other than the most obvious and direct manner!" Phaniet grinnned at me; she has often complained when I am particularly Zi Ri of speech. (I'm not usually too extreme about it, not compared to some of my conspecifics.)
"So they are trying to keep me from settling here, by heart-skewering and attempted rape if necessary?", I asked.
"No, or not exactly," said Phaniet. "They want you to settle here, in Eigrach, and provide the wonders of advanced Ketherian wizardry for their city. And especially not for their neighbors. There is a certain amount of clumsiness and working at cross-purposes among the lords of Eigrach to get this to occur, though. Totalie's story may be exemplary. Let me tell it to you."
"We're still not up to the story?", I asked, or whinged, as the case may be.
"Totalie, before he started his new career as a doomed majordomo -- a majordoomo? -- was a flower of the minor nobility. Third and last-to-date Baron of Glynubla, if I remember correctly. He was the young Orren lad whose virginity was mentioned in the nursery." Phaniet waited for me to react, so I stared at her with my most impassive lizard eyes until she continued. "He was not, perhaps, the best of barons. He has been described as rash, impulsive, ungracious. And quite traff -- a series of Cani and Rassimel consorts graced the nursery and later the master-bedroom of Glynubla House."
"One might think he'd have learned somewhat better traff manners than to grab me around the neck," I noted.
"He learned the local traff manners, which are not precisely identical to those of Ketheria. For one thing, the traff here are very quiet about it. Mentioning one's own transaffectionate tastes to a member of another species is tantamout to making a pass; it is simply not said in any but the most immediately practical situations. Indeed, it is generally not discussed at all by the principals, at least if one of them is Totalie: his affairs were conducted in darkness, silence, and shame. And by guesswork (occasionally butressed by prior investigation) about who wanted what done with whose what. He was thunderstruck when Este and I kissed in front of him the way husband and wife do: I don't think he's ever seen such a thing before. Anyhow, from his point of view, he hinted at his availability to you; you made a direct pass at him; he accepted as he thought best fit your tastes; you burnt his tongue."
"That is a ridiculous way to look at it," I said. "He should be ashamed to be so ashamed. And so stupid."
"It's certainly not how I conduct my affairs. For another thing, it is good traff manners here -- which is to say, bad Srineian manners, because it is a distinct sign of being traff -- to adopt some characteristic mannerisms of the species of one's desire or experience. That is how one signals one's availability to another, here. Remember that if you're ever trying to actually seduce any Orren. Fake a wild rush or something."
"Oh! That's why he was wagging his tail!", I chirped, suddenly remembering that the point of being in a foreign place is to experience exotic peoples and learn their customs. "I thought that looked odd -- I even wrote it down. So, that was him flirting with me?"
"Hah, Sythyry is back!" said Phaniet, wagging her tail. And I was more cheerful than I'd been in days. I actually do like understanding people and learning strange customs and all of that. More than being stabbed or strangled, at least. "Anyhow, back to Totalie. A few years ago there was a bit of a legal problem. This is the frontier, so a baron is supposed to defend his townspeople against monsters. He rushed out alone against a hugeng, got trounced, and lost two villagers. They weren't terribly happy, the survivors I mean, and appealed to the mayor for a new baron instead. They don't like his reputation; it reflects badly on them."
"I generally approve of Orren in their wild rushes, but Totalie's seem less than pleasing," I noted aloud.
"Not the best Orren rushes I have seen, to be sure. Nothing much happened until last month, when, all of a sudden, Totalie was tried in semi-absentia for negligent homicide, transaffectionate perversion, and various other crimes, convicted, and stripped of his title and most of his property. He is not the most inappropriate of the local nobility, I might add. "
"Drastic, by my standards, but a worthwhile noble must protect his subjects," I noted.
"Anyhow, after the trial, he was told that you were going to get Glynubla House and his former domain. He was installed as the seneschal; after all, he knows the property better than anyone except the people who actually live and work there. His job was to, in effect, make you very welcome and very comfortable in Eigrach. And more than just his job. 'If you have a noble title again, Totalie, it will be a courtesy title from being the wizard's favorite catamite.', they said. Or perhaps it was 'If you come to the mayoral palace again, it had better be with the lizard's organ in your ass.' So you can see he was eager, even desperate, to take any encouragement he got."
"The city assigned him the job of seducing me?"
"Exactly. An ex-noble known to be traff, and of your preferred species -- what could be better?" asked Phaniet.
"Someone who, oh, likes me. Or whom I like. Or who has any manners, or grace in seduction," I answered.
"Which they might have thought of if you'd been cissy, or if the local manners had been different, or if they hadn't seen our illusion," said Phaniet.
"Nobody sensible could believe that illusion," I said.
"With the amount of detail and effort we put into it, anyone could believe that it was something we cared about. Plus I know for a fact that two couples and one threesome of real people have been going to that room for some recreational inspiration," said Phaniet. "Este gets all competitive about it, in a very good way."
"I'm glad it's good for something. We probably ought to take it down and make another one with more sedate themes, though." Sometimes my extradimensional correspondants have excellent ideas -- often they do, actually. Sometimes they get to me before I've made them impossible, even.
"Pity, but I suppose I see why," said Phaniet, but looked either meditative or devious. If I were a Cani I'd know which it was.
"Not now, anyways. I'm exhausted." Which was true: the hour after dawn had been a very long day. I am trying to do a great deal of enchantment in an impossible hurry. I went to sleep in the enchantment-room fireplace, and Phaniet on the cot in the annex.
Me:"Jyondre, my Native Guide, how is it that you did not mention the peculiar meaning of mentioning that one is traff here? To wit, that when one declares onesself traff, one is, in effect, making a quite direct pass at the person to whom one is making this confession?"
Jyondre:"Is that actually peculiar?"
Me:"You have seen the wrongfolk sit around the parlor for hours at a time discussing the theory and practice of transaffection!"
Jyondre:"And split off by twos or threes afterwards!"
Me:"We split off by twos or threes after nearly everything; most of us are attached. I am referring to the peculiar Eigrach -- or Srineian? -- custom."
Jyondre:"But it is not a peculiar Eigrach -- or Srineian -- custom. It works just as well in Ketheria."
Me:"Oh, does it?"
Jyondre:"When one finds oneself wedged against the flank of a vast and quite appealing Gormoror woman due to the fortunes of seating arrangements in a floor-meeting in a Ketherian dormitory --- fortunes which one has arranged carefully based on rumors and suggestions --- and when, after the meeting is over and most of the participants have left, and one is still wedged up against her flank despite the couch being not a bit crowded in either direction any more --- and one mentions that one is traff in the shyest and most casual of tones --- one may well find onesself kissing within the next minute. And within the hour, being told that, should one sleep on the wet spot and, slumbering, slip into water form, that she would find that circumstance amazingly cute and be suitably moved. And within the day, each declaring that they have found true love in the other."
Yerenthax:"You exaggerate slightly! That bit about the wet spot -- well more than an hour. Nearly a dozen!"
Jyondre:"The prosody works better my way."
Yerenthax:"Bah! Set it to Gormoror staves! That is how truthful boasting is best declaimed!"
Me:"I suppose I can't deny that that confession works in Ketheria too. It's not the only way to present one's intentions there though."
Jyondre:"Nor in Srineia. Merely the best."
Which got him a well-deserved and ferocious Gormoror kiss from Yerenthax, and an end to further interrogation by me.
I called it Festina Lente: "Make Haste Slowly." Which isn't precisely what is intended by the original aphorism, but it will do well enough for a name. It is not my best work, but it is tolerably good, nonetheless.
I had Kantele call in a few Eigrach notables for the formal presentation: Aiziju as a matter of professional courtesy, and Lord Bwipin to represent the busy Mayor Mmixamk, Muekar the duelist, and, of course, Rehit, the dour and rather elongated gentleRassy for whom the rapier was made and who will use it in duel-wars. We served light Mrasteain refreshments in one of our many parlors -- we carefully picked one that had a good deal of pirate damage, to remind them that work was to begin on Strayway as soon as the first of the magic weapons was delivered.
Me:"Rehit, once you are finished with the spicy mouse, if you will be so good as to open the long shallow ebony case on yonder cabinet..."
Rehit nodded, and strode over to the cabinet, flipped the two ornamental shell latches up, and threw open the casket. "Oh, shine thee Mircannis! It's beautiful!" I had expended artistry upon it, in my three-day afternoons. Technically I am a jeweller, and technically Festina Lente is a very large and very useful item of jewelry. The quillons and lower blade are set with fine golden and silver wires in fierce arabesques, and the brilliant dots of back-lit rubies to punctuate them, and the pommel is a drum-in-crown in ivory and iron.
I nodded, just a touch grimly. "I do not work by halves, Rehit. Take it up." He lifted it. It was perfectly suited to his hand -- unsurprising; it had been his second-best rapier before I started on it, and I had tuned it to him two parts more. "The secret commands: let me teach them to you." And then, a few minutes later, "Try a few passes at arms against Muekar."
They fought there, a whirling pointy whisperwind of quick weapons. Rehit was rash by design, and traded a slash on his knee for a little pinprick in Muekar's thigh. After which the tempo of the battle changed. Muekar lagged: not exhausted, but becalmed in the usual wind of time. Rehit sped up: not pressing the attack, even fighting a bit relaxedly, but far quicker.
"Point the first," I said. "Festina Lente can steal somewhat of your opponent's time. Just a second or two out of every six or eight: but enough to give you the time for several extra blows. Not necessarily even just on her; you are truly made swift; she is truly made slow. Indeed, you need not do this to your foe: you can steal from a friend as easily, or your foe's horse, and you will have speed though your foe does not have slowness."
Rehit stepped back, then charged at Muekar in a fleche that left a long wound in her arm. Muekar, still becalmed, parried as best she could; but by the time she got to riposte, Rehit was on her far side, and had his guard well up. "I know how to use that to considerable advantage, O wizard." Which he clearly did.
"Point the second, and lesser than the first:", I said, "Festina Lente can catch fire. She is not so fearsome as burning swords go, but she will not grow so hot as to hurt your hand as you wield her. Use this against foes too resistant to magic for the first power to work, or, if you are pressed, to take better advantage of the extra seconds you have from the time transfer.
Rehit nodded, and set Festina Lente ablaze, with a swirl of thready blue-white flames. "How about not burning me, Rehit?" asked Muekar, her voice a touch deep from lost time.
"Point the third and last and least:", I said, "Festina Lente can heal you a significant amount. It is only temporary healing, and, like many another temporary healing, the second use is lesser than the first, the third than the second, and the fifth nearly useless. Nonetheless, you may find that it lets you duel for some moments longer, and that may turn a loss to a victory. You carry the same spell bound on a bead on that cord about your waist; Festina Lente's spell is perhaps a half again as good as yours." (Dissecting someone else's bound spells at a glance across the room is definitely showing off, but this presentation was as much an act of dramaturgy as thaumaturgy.)
"I had not expected that," said Rehit. "We had discussed no such feature. I cannot complain; it is a bound spell I always carry, and often wind up using."
"At times the labor of enchantment goes better, at times it goes worse. When it goes better, you shall get laignappe," I said. "I am honest and generous." (Which is true, except when I'm not.) "Festina Lente has a single main limitation: Twelve uses of its powers each day. Total, not per power."
Aiziju, who knows more than most people about great enchantment, nodded. "I have heard a little of sharing charges."
"It seemed appropriate. Sometimes he will want one thing, other times another, other times a third. He can spend the rapier's force on whatever is most useful that day. As a dueling weapon, in particular, he is unlikely to encounter more than one or two battles in a day," I said. "More power is available, of course, but the cost would be higher, and it would be more than a single week's work, even for me."
Aiziju tugged her shorts down and scratched a brick-red buttock, which is very rude, but she can get away with it I suppose. "Which leads me to another point. You did this in a single week?"
"You listened to part of the discussions; you advised Rehit about the details of the flaming sword. I made it to your specifications, plus the laignappe. It has been only a bit more than a week since then."
"How did you do it in a week though? You weren't Orren-crafting it -- that would take you all day and all night, and I know for a fact you've been at the city at noontime and at the fortress in the early afternoon!"
I shrugged, flickering my wings so that the feathers gleamed in the light of the burning sword. "My grandparent Glikkonen could do more in a week, I'm sure. I am not the wizard zie is."
"Well, yes, you are not Glikkonen," she said, mollified enough to let me avoid the question. She is not Glikkonen either; but she worked as zir assistant for some long time. And did not learn many of his secrets of enchantment: as I understand, she assisted in matters of spell-invention, not enchantment.
Rehit turned to salute me with the sword's last flames. "O Zi Ri, I pronounce myself well-satisfied. You have worked wonders of enchantment and beauty; you have made miracles of speed and elegance. And you have been generous and forgiving beyond anything I could possibly expect."
"You are welcome, Rehit. Just don't ram this one through my ribcage, please. Once was enough."
I admit to being satisfied by the resulting wince.
I have, in principle, forgiven Totalie for his -- in his opinion -- awkward and rather painful response to the -- still in his opinion -- pass that I made at him. In practice, I do intend to treat him reasonably, but I don't want to go back to Glynubla House very much, nor to see him again any time soon. (Which is hardly how I expected to think of the first traff Orren I met in Srineia, but this vacation is not going according to plan.) Fortunately I do not have to.
Me:"Este, Arfaen, could I impose upon you greatly and terribly?"
Este:"Sure thing! I'm not busy today." He looked a bit put off at not being busy: we had expected the shipwrights to come today and start the repairs (which Este would keep an eye on), but they had sent regrets.
Arfaen:"After lunch, if you don't mind. I'm trying to be good and not make Calla do any extra meals."
Me:"There's not a great hurry. It doesn't even need to be today. You two were fairly friendly with Totalie, weren't you?"
Este: [laughing] "Fairly friendly, to be sure." I stared at him. "Nothing that Phaniet would be jealous about. Sure, I'll go for friendly."
Me:"Could the two of you give him a few lessons in Vheshrame-style transaffection and the manners thereof? "
Grinwipey:"Hoy, take him to the cellar and tie him to a chaggering chair and pedagogue him 'til his eyes fall out!"
Me:"I'll leave the details of your instructional policies to you. If you're taking him out to lunch or something, I'll pay, though."
Zascalle:"Speaking of which, I wasn't successful yet in getting money from Vheshrame -- not yet -- but the Mayor's accountant gave us a letter of credit, so we're not quite broke."
Me:"Are we close?"
Zascalle:"There's plenty of money in your accounts in Ketheria. Down here, we're paying a lot, and for things we didn't expect to, and running rather low."
Me:"Oh, dear. Thank you, Zascalle."
Kantele pinioned me on the dining-room table with an innocent stare, and asked, "And how have you found Eigrach as a tourist destination so far, Sythyry?"
"Dismal," I said.
"Have you actually been in Eigrach yet?"
"I was in the city when Totalie attacked me, in fact."
"Have you been around there yourself any other time?" she interrogated.
"Not much," I admitted, because I was pretty sure she'd been tracking me. "I popped into the gate and looked arounce twice. Not a bit more though."
"Why on wood not?"
I tied my neck and tail in knots trying to explain that I'm the only Zi Ri on the whole branch and when I get near the Eigrach gate everyone stares at me. "They get more touristing out of me than I do out of them. It's not fair really."
"So go as an Orren girl!" she said, and slid a small wooden casket across the table to me. I knew what's in that casket; I had made it for Mynthë decades ago. It is a short feather wand, with which you may transform yourself into another prime species. (For up to 81 hours, but you can transform back to yourself when you want to, which Mynthë rarely did but everyone else who has used it usually does.)
I used it. It is considerably more awkward to be a naked Orren girl lying on a dining-room table than a naked Zi Ri. (One always looks about the same when one casts Cloak to become another species, unless, for some reason, one looks different. I have been turning into a college-age Orren girl since I was college-aged; I have never much tried to be anything different.) "And I'll be needing clothes, too," I said.
"In that parlor -- or maybe that one? I can't remember which", Kantele said, pointing off to the side of the Grand Dining Hall, which has far too many parlors and other doors off of it.
(Digression: I am shy about putting on or taking off clothes. I am not particularly shy about being seen unclothed aboard Strayway; it is a perfectly dignified way for a feathery lizard to appear -- though I do generally wear ribbons if I'm in more public. Most bipeds wear clothes most of the time in public, of course. Being nude and Orren in my own skyboat among my adult friends is a touch unusual, but, if I don't think about it, doesn't actually feel different than being nude and Zi Ri. If I do think about it, it feels rather dirty, perhaps because I mostly did that sort of thing with Mynthë. Being clothed and Orren feels a just touch dirty; the tickle and pressure of clothing makes me a bit more aware of my body: or, more exactly, the body I am currently using that is not precisely mine. But putting on or taking off clothes is quite embarrassing -- perhaps because I am not very good at it, or perhaps because I cannot avoid thinking how I look while I am doing it.)
I wobbled strode with a slightly cautious dignity into that
parlor, wherein I interrupted two friends doing things that they Absolutely
Should Be Doing Together In Private. I yelped loudly enough for people in
Oorah Thrassen to hear, excused myself in a hurry, and scurried into the other
parlor.
"You look a bit shaken. What happened in there?" Kantele asked.
"Blenny and Quendry are playing diamond chess," I said. "I don't want to wiggle furry breasts at either of them."
"Sorry, sorry," said Kantele, who wasn't, much.
So I went into the other parlor, and investigated Kantele's choice of clothing. And stuck my head out. "You're trying to get me laid, aren't you?"
"Well, you're not, and I think someone ought to," said Kantele. "And if you're not going to avail yourself of certain eager youths on-board who are devoutly hoping to complete the full set of other-species lovers before they turn thirty." (That would be Inconnu, unless I've missed a decade or so and one of the kids has grown up an awful lot.)
"I am not wearing this around Eigrach," I proclaimed. "And you know very well that it's about seven flavors of immoral to sleep with my hirelings, henchmen, servants, or clients."
"For which reason you carefully made most of the traff-folk in Vheshrame into your hirelings, henchmen, servants, or clients," said Kantele.
"Not true. Just the ones who needed help," I quite accurately corrected.
Kantele shook her head. "Which turned out to be most of us, at least at one point or another. In any case, we're not in Vheshrame any more. There must be hundreds of traff-folk hidden in that city out there. Go out and claim one or two of them! You wouldn't be the first wrongfolk to!"
"Not wearing this!" I whined.
"It worked fine for me," said Kantele. "In case you were wondering where I've been the last few nights."
"Out of mourning, I take it?" I asked, somewhat unkindly. Her consort died a few years ago.
"Dearie, I was out of mourning two months after he died. You, I'm afraid, have been in mourning for Mynthë since before I met Hithiat, and that was fifty years ago."
I thought about that. "Right. I am now persuaded that either (1) I should wear these interesting garments, and use them, or (2) I shouldn't get involved with mortals anymore. I'm not quite sure which."
"Well, since you're putting the clothes on, it looks like (1)," said Kantele.
"I'm going to wear livery over them, though," I said. It made sense to me -- pretending to be an Eigrachter is too hard, pretending to be any sort of local not much better, and wearing Strayway livery is pretty much advertising that I'm traff, anyhow. And if I do meet someone, and get to the point of removing the livery, discovering the interesting garments underneath it probably won't hurt the mood a bit.
I cornered my Native Guide in the parlor. One of the many, many parlors.
Me:"Jyondre, I am looking for, well, ..."
Jyondre:"If those clothes are intended functionally, I believe I know what you are looking for."
Me:"Yes. That."
Jyondre:"I am no longer available! The large ursine personage wearing pink armor, upon whose lap I currently am sitting and whose well-armored bosom I am attempting to nuzzle without great success, renders such offers nugatory! In any case, I am traff -- there, I have said it! -- and you are currently of the least appealing species to me."
Me:"I am performing background research, not asking for practical assistance!"
Yerenthax: [After peering at my suitably-Orren-flat but nonetheless well-decorated chest for a moment.] "While leaping out to look for lust, she shows the shine of brown-furred bust!"
Jyondre:"I believe we are monogamous, O mighty Yerenthax?"
Yerenthax:"We are! But any Orren is a suitable subject for poetic inspiration!"
Jyondre:"You may classify any further ogling I perform of our friends or appealing strangers as 'seeking poetic inspiration'."
Yerenthax:"I shall! Of course, I shall expect staves in no great time from that inspiration."
Me: [Rescuing Jyondre] "In any case, Jyondre, do you have any advice about how ... and where ... ?"
Jyondre:"Nupyup Pond, conveniently located on Via Nupyup. There are several public ponds in Eigrach, but Nupyup is the one you want. The cafés overlooking the pond provide ample opportunity for dryfolk to watch us as we swim, or, in particular, as we sunbathe on the side of the boardwalk nearest the road, and chat with passers-by from a naked vantage point. The bushes in Nupyup Park beyond it provide an adequate amount of privacy ... or I understand some of the café's rent rooms by the hour. Most the bushes and rooms are for Orren with each other, mind you -- or, simply, the lower reaches of the pond, where mud and pondweed obscure anything you might be doing -- but neither bushes nor headwaiters are overly picky about the precise details."
Me:"Actually, I'll bring my own portable room. To store my clothes in when I'm swimming, if nothing else."
Jyondre:"Should you find an interested personage, proclaim that you must be off, either to room thus-and-so, or thus-and-such a grove. If your interested personage is truly interested -- sometimes they change their mind or become cowardly -- they will be along in a few minutes."
Me:"I suppose traff-folk here are better off not being seen wandering about hand-in-hand?"
Jyondre:"That would be heartily unwise. Ah, one other important bit of manners there. A cocked or turned hat on a non-Orren indicates interest -- or bit of sartorial imbalance. If one tries to fix their hat twice or thrice, but it always is crooked, then you may safely presume interest."
Me:"But that's not actually making an offer?"
Jyondre:"Offers are made with words -- a few words -- and then all words are dispensed with. I presume you remember how to do that part. Afterwards, a moment or two of cuddling if you feel brave, then depart separately."
Yerenthax:"Dismal and morose!"
Jyondre:"I prefer our current arrangement! Though I am not sure I am brave enough to do it in public in Strineia."
I put on Strayway livery, set my hat at a jaunty angle. I slipped a fairly powerful ring on one finger and a few other useful tools and items into the ring's pocket universe. All things I made myself, though some took a week or two of professional work, and some were haphazard nonmagical artifacts of a quilting class some decades past.
And I couldn't think of any way to put it off any more, short of admitting that I was too scared to do it.
Eigrach has some sights. I saw some of them. I think there's a statue ... maybe two statues ... and a spirally zigguratty public performance space which doesn't have anything playing at it just now. There was a church or two. And I think a government building with a spider-dome.
I'm going to have to redo all the sightseeing sometime when I'm not thinking about Nupyup Pond and its consequences.
(OK, I exaggerate somewhat. I had already scried all of these sights, and I spent a rather spectacular third of an hour climbing around on the ziggurat. But I did want to get on with the hunt.)
Nupyup Pond is a chubby S-shaped pond of a respectable size for a city pond. Rollward of it is Nupyup Road, with its row of cafés and suchlike. Then is the boardwalk and mudwalk bank of the pond. Then the pond proper, with two little islands in it -- one with a concession stand, the other with a muddy hill. On the other side, accessible by swimming or two bridges or walking around, is Nupyup Park, which is an ill-groomed tangle of very useful bushes and orchards.
In the late morning of the fifth day of summer, it's quite full of Orren: fifty? A hundred? Orren of all ages. Mostly in water-form sploshing and chasing each other and sliding down the hill into the pond. Another dozen or so were resting out of the pond, reading on the boardwalk, or lying on the mudwalk, near the water so as to stay in water form conveniently.
The first hard part was clothes. After fussing so much about putting them on, in private, I naturally had to take them off, in public, because anything else would be unusual. This is traditionally done quickly, and if anyone was particularly watching, I couldn't tell.
I put my clothes into a pocket universe for safekeeping. This was unusual. Eigrachters wouldn't need to do that -- I presume, at least, that Eigrachters don't steal from Eigrachters. Jyondre didn't bring anything valuable there, I presume. I'm from further off, and have some quite valuable devices with me, and I'm not going to have them snatched and held for ransom if I can help it. So, pocket universe. (It was either that or bring the Sleeth with me to keep an eye on them, and I didn't want kibbitzing or hunting advice.) That got a some attention, since it's a powerful Locador spell.
I left my livery-hat out: to claim space on the boardwalk; to signal my interest as Jyondre had noted; and to explain that I was from the Strayway. Presumably the local traff-folk could have paid particular attention to rumors about us, and might be expecting us to behave like ... um ... like I wanted to behave.
I jumped into the water, and felt the familiar petting of turning into waterform. I swam around the slide island. A few older children beckoned me up onto it, and so I clambered out -- fur full of water, for I am not so good at staying in waterform when I am dry -- and slid down one of the twisty muddy paths with them. And played chase with a few adults, too. And generally acted like an Orren in a public pond for a while.
Then I took a huge deep breath, and swam down to the deeply muddy parts. One of the adults I had been swimming with chased after me, swimming close, brushing my belly and legs with his tail as he zoomed under me. He rolled to swim upside-down and give me quite a nice view. I grinned at him, and he curled back to grin at me. I nuzzled his cheek, and he turned his head a bit to collect a bubbly rushy underwater kiss. (And yes, I do know how to kiss underwater.)
The water was muddy -- nobody could have seen us from ten feet off -- and the pondweeds were thick. Coupling underwater has to be fast -- even an Orren needs to breathe eventually -- and we could have accomplished it without the least bit of trouble. (I know how to do this part too.)
A long time ago, about a century by now, a dinner party at Castle Wrong turned into a philosophical discussion with practical implications. If one is a cisaffectionate Orren (say) and a friend who was born Herethroy or Zi Ri (say) comes to one with Orren fur outside and lechery inside, is it proper and moral for one to accept? Or, if your considerations are more concrete, is it pleasing or disgusting to accept? In that social circle, of seven guests, four thought it was moral and/or pleasing. A good part of my pond experience was with those four and Mynthë, over the year or so which followed.
But that was in Veshrame, which is one of the most generous cities of all about such matters. This is Eigrach, which is distinctly less so.
I'm not going to go lying to someone for the sake of laying with them.
Not even the implicit lie that I am an Orren just because I look like one.
So I turned away from him and headed to the surface. He looked a bit offended. I sloshed onto the mudwalk, then to the boardwalk under the cafés, and dripped and dripped. And tried to see who among the non-Orren was watching me.
My Strayway hat was still on the boardwalk where I had left it. In water-form, I could nearly have curled up inside it; wearing it as hat was impracticable. I curled around it, instead, and waited for Thory's noonish sun (dripping two long curls of flame, as it happened) to dry me off.
At a table, with a half-empty chalice of kathia and a mostly-empty plate formerly of guinea-pig and noodles, was a tall and handsome black-furred Cani man wearing a slightly wrinkled plum waistcoat and a slightly tilted plum beret. He held a wood-bound copy of Basically Bereft in one hand, occasionally glancing at it, mostly gazing across the pond.
I caught his eye, and smiled. He fidgeted with his beret, but couldn't seem to make it go flat on his head. This, by Jyondre's advice, was quite encouraging.
I stretched up. "Hello, O Cani of Eigrach!" My seductive repartee is peerless and brilliant, honed by over a century of, um, neglect.
He nodded cheerfully down to me. "Ah, hello. I mean, well, hello."
At this point I realized I didn't have a good idea how to proceed. My usual manuals of tactics recommend acquiring targets of conversation from materials readily at hand. "Forgive me, but I'm new to town. I mean, newly arrived. What is Basically Bereft about?"
"What, what?" He blinked down at me, then at his book. "Oh, that. It's a book."
"Ah, a book ... we have them in Ketheria as well," I said. "What is it about, if you don't mind me asking?"
"It's about my-colo grandparents, and others, arriving here with very little, carving out the first of the city-state of Eigrach from the forces of General Gerxghar," said the Cani. He adjusted his hat, which still didn't sit quite properly. "My wife's sister-sister wrote it."
"It sounds interesting! I know regrettably little about Eigrach, and about the inhabitants of Eigrach and their ways. I should like to look at it! Is it in a bookstore about here?"
He nodded. "I imagine it could be bought in one with relative ease. I appreciate your interest, to be sure."
"Or perhaps you could tell me somewhat about it." My fur was nearly dry by then, and my watershape slipped away like water through my claws. I put my hat on, rather off to the side. "Ho. I think I should go get dressed first. Perhaps behind that crimson-flowering bush on the other side of the island..."
He smiled wide, and I scampered off. This was going to be fun!
...
Ten minutes later, no Cani had shown up. I peeked out. The Cani gentleman exchanged a sizzling glance with a strapping and dripping Orren man striding purposefully from Nupyup Pond to the café. The Orren scampered up the stairs to the second floor. The Cani paid his tab in a relaxed and unrelated manner, and sauntered into the first floor of the café. A moment later a black-furred hand closed the drapes on a second-floor window.
Well, Eigrach is a small city. Probably the people who come to Nupyup Pond for noontime assignations on the fifth of Thory have also come on the fourth, and third, and the fifth of Thory the previous year as like as not, and they have their regular patterns and their regular playmates. A newcomer has to work harder.
Actually, the black-furred Cani's rejection left me rather baffled about how to proceed. I went back to the pond for another swim (and got a glare from the Orren I had kissed, and from an Orren woman who was probably his wife), got out after a bit, and tried the trick of sunbathing on the boardwalk wearing only my hat, cocked.
Sunbathing is not actually very warm, even in summertime. Firebathing is more satisfying ... but probably not advisable in Orren form. Either my disguise or my fur would get ruined. So I manipulated my fairly powerful ring, reached into the pocket universe, and pulled out the Quilt of a Thousand Neckties. (It's not a magical quilt, despite the name. It was my project in a quilting course, made out of scraps used for neckties and cravats. It took approximately forever to make -- and that's with generous use of Tempador magic. It is a comfortable quilt for a Herethroy to cuddle up in, and that means it's an immense quilt for a Zi Ri to make. (The Herethroy got to cuddle up in it for about two years, including the night before the day zie died, and that's a bit sad so I'm not going to talk about it any more now.))
It's not a massive space-distortion on the scale of Vae's best, to be sure. But it has a good deal of force behind it, mostly potential rather than actual in this case. Half a dozen people noticed, and at least glanced at me.
One glanced, and then stared.
I helpfully stared back. He was Rassimel: perhaps sixty [40 Earth years -bb], brown-furred with thin black rings here and there, distinctly chubby, thin-tailed. His eyes were huge, half again the size of a regular Rassimel's, and an alarming bright green. He wore a dramatic cloak embroidered with green leaves, with a silver walnut as a clasp: the professional costume of a tree-mage, and, if he could afford that much metal, a successful one. He sat alone at a table at the next café over, with a chalice of wine and a chalice of kathia. He fidgeted with his green bicorne hat, and smiled nervously.
It was time to either pounce or run away. And I didn't feel like explaining myself to Kantele and Jyondre if I ran away.
"Substantial spellwork there, O Orren," he said. (I am going to count this as me pouncing for the sake of explaining matters to Kantele and Jyondre.)
"A useful bit of Locador, if one is away from home and wishes to carry one's clothing and quilts into the pond," I explained.
"Well ... You look chilly. May I offer you a chalice of kathia, from the excellent kitchen of the Café Triumphant?" he asked.
"With such a name, drinking any other kathia would be an admission of defeat!" (Also to be considered pouncing.) I dried off a bit on the quilt, folded it up, and shoved it back into the pocket universe. The Rassimel watched with interest. I sat next to him, nude except for a somewhat rakish hat, and ordered kathia with honey and cumin from a young and idealistic Herethroy waiter.
"I-edu-colo am Thenel," he said.
"You-edu-colo may call me-[uninflected] Bluelark," I said.
"The pleasure is all mine, Bluelark!", he said politely. Then, in a quiet voice, "But, by 'substantial spellwork', I was not merely referring to the Locador talisman which provides you with portable and private storage space. If you will forgive the mention of the fact, there is a Mutoc Corpador spell about you, with an shiny finish and crisp symmetrical undertones which suggests that it not from a pattern spell. Quite elegant really."
"Clearly, little escapes you, Thenel," I said. "Indeed, there is such a spell. Your perceptions are precise, and your descriptions are detailed. I take it that you are a tree-mage of significant expertise and breadth of knowledge?"
He smiled a bit nervously. "I am the assistant master for the Srineian Guild of Tree-mages.
"Ah, an important position indeed, if you are second in a branch-wide guild!" I said, because I know my guildmasters. "And, I daresay that, if you are observant enough to tell the provenance of my Mutoc spell, you know what it is?" Which is not quite a given, but mostly people who are that good at magic analysis can make a good guess.
He nodded, and said, in quite a quiet voice, "I take it that you are not simply the user of the device, but its author as well?"
"Your perceptions are keen indeed, if you can tell that! I couldn't myself, not without at least a glance at the device and some of the enchanter's other work," I had to admit.
Thenel fiddled with his bicorne hat again, setting it straight. "I didn't, actually. You've just got so many bound spells around you that I can't imagine who else you could be. Well, presumably Vaisessasilmin couldn't get through the city wall without being noticed, and I don't know how many bound spells a nendrai could carry anyhow but it doesn't seem like a very nendrai thing from what I hear, so that leaves only one choice," he explained. Well, there is that. A good mage can carry a dozen or so bound spells, no more. Thenel had eight; presumably he had others elsewhere, or maybe had had a good day of sales. I've got forty-three at the moment.
"Oh, well done, sir, well discovered," I said. "Forgive me for the deception: but I wanted to present a bit less of a spectacle than I do as the only member of my species on the entire branch, flapping blatantly through the city streets."
"I quite understand. From time to time I do not dress in leaves and silver acorns, even in my own city," he said. "I admit that I was curious to meet you, though I anticipated that it might more likely happen during the repairs on your skyboat than discovering you sunbathing in the fur by Nupyup Pond."
"Ah, well, the fame of Nupyup Pond has spread even to Ketheria," I said. "Though the Café Triumphant is not so famous. Perhaps because their triumphant kathia takes so long to arrive."
Thenel frowned. "The waiter is new. Zie does not understand who eats at her café. Rather, zie knows who eats are zir café, but does not understand that, as we are paying zir, zie must conceal zir disapproval. Is this a problem for you in Vheshrame?" He glanced significantly at an older waiter, who waggled her antennae and took our young and idealistic one back for a brief lecture.
"I certainly have had trouble now and then over it ... I do hope we're talking about the same thing?", I said. The older waiter brought my kathia. I picked up the chalice and lapped out of it. (Walking on two legs is no longer strange to me, but picking up a full chalice I think I will never get used to.)
"Yes, I'm sure we are, if there is any truth behind certain stories that have been circulated, but for the moment, let us continue to refer to it obliquely," he said, and emphasized his point by making quite sure that his bicorne hat was obliquely on his head. "For such are the manners of Eigrach."
So I obliquely described an incident of my youth, when I had made my home -- the future Castle Wrong, which was a rental house at the time -- uninhabitable by most of us, and tried to apologize to my housemates by getting them rooms at a pleasant bed-and-breakfast. The proprietors were far ruder than the waiter at the Cafë Triumphant: they served a Herethroy meat, for one thing. ("And one should never sleep with one's housemates, no matter what the circumstances," I noted.)
"A pan-arboreal precept of great wisdom, that!", said Thenel, and told of the doom that came to Ijith and Reneghell for violating that. He kept his pronouns species-generic, using only the tags indicating that Ijith was older than Reneghell.
"An admirable story, and I admire the fine points of your narration as well." I licked the bottom of my chalice clean: the triumphant kathia is as good as any I've ever had.
Thenel swirled the last of his wine, and drank it. "Bluelark, if you are finished, I wonder if I might bring you to my workshop? I'm sure it is nothing compared to yours, but it is close, and private, and there are no naïve waiters, or, for that matter, roommates."
"I should be delighted!" I said. "I should like to find a private place for donning my clothes; it is a personal quirk, or even a failing. Or, should that not be convenient, a place where popping into a pocket universe in person to change would be less notable."
"Well, the café rents private rooms by the hour, but that would seem a touch excessive for merely changing your clothes. May I offer the parlor of my workshop, which, with heavy drapes on the windows and a substantial bar on the door, offers all the privacy that one could wish? It is a mere block and a half from the far end of Nupyup Pond."
"Convenient, that. I shall be glad to accept." I reached into nowhere and brought out two Ketherian third-lozens (struck in Daukrhame and Oorah Thrassen, as it happens), and left them: quite a large tip, but a message of sorts to Herethroy and Rassimel alike.
My adventurer's sensibilities suggested: 1/2 chance that he will try to extract some wizardly favor from me; 1/3 chance that the evasive flirtation that I was pretty sure we had been attempting would become less evasive; 1/6 chance that I will need some of the weapons or those forty-three bound spells. These are excellent odds, really. I have worse ones every morning in the Great Hall on Strayway.
Thenel's shop ("The Tree-Shaping of Thenel oa Iretario", if you're ever in Eigrach and need a good tree-mage for one purpose or another) is the bottom floor of a three-storey wicker cylinder of a building. A reasonably splendid cylinder, and obviously grown, so I had to ask, "Is that your craftwork, Thenel?"
"Yes, as it happens, it is. No better way to show that I trust my work to be safe than to live and work inside of it," he said with a grin. Wicker doesn't need to be painted, if you weave it from withes of many colors. Thenel had chosen an abstract spirally sort of pattern, deep greens and browns at the floor level, rising to a spire of light blue and light white. I inspected it with magic sense: Sustenoc Herbador rendered it stiff, and other Sustenoc spells protected it from fire and wind.
"Nice work, there. The main spell has very clean lines, and the other two sort of echo the structure of the main one, only smaller and softer," I said, because it was true and because Thenel obviously had been paying attention to the aesthetics of his spellcrafting. "I don't often see that sort of work."
Thenel wriggled happily. "I'm glad you noticed!" (I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't been peering at my spells earlier, of course.)
"I don't see that sort of construction very often," I said. "How did you manage to do it?"
"Well, those are the lasting three spells I cast the most, professionally," said Thenel, and waved a hand around at the city of wicker-crafted buildings all about. "A good friend invented them for me. I mean, they're standard spells, but the standard ones are all mripsis-flipsis when you look at them. These line up nicely."
"That doesn't sound very easy to arrange," I said.
"It's not ... one's two quanta more complex than it ought to be, and one's one," he said. and we neeped about spell invention and magic analysis and the pride of construction for at least a third of an hour, as he showed me around the bottom floor. A workshop full of wood and tools for working with wood, and three power chimes. A storeroom full of the raw materials for making wicker. A parlor set about with heavy drapes and tapestries with a substantial door, which is where we ended up -- with all talk about me getting any more dressed having been forgotten.
"Three power chimes. You are doing quite well for yourself, truly!" I said. In Ketheria, one power chime would be cheap at thirty thousand lozens.
"Ah -- passably, passably. The best native enchanter in Srineia has a recipe for power chimes, and makes them when business is slow otherwise," said Thenel. "I picked three of them up for fairly cheap when her son was about to go to school in a place that was not so cheap ... I believe you know Jyondre?"
"Of course! Jyondre inspired us to come here at all, and taught us all we know of the Srineian dialect, as well. Of course his education would have cost a great deal. Though he did not mention his maternal specialty to me," I said.
Thenel chuckled. "I hear there's a professional rivalry between those who perform recipe enchantments and those who perform great enchantments."
"Not a rivalry. Recipe enchanters serve a valuable purpose: to wit, they keep
people from importuning me with certain minor and tedious requests," I said,
which is the traditional answer of a true enchanter. "Also, if I were trying
to build a general-purpose spell power improver, it wouldn't be nearly as
cheap as three power chimes, and you couldn't smash it with a silver hammer if
you really needed lots of extra power, either." Which is friendlier to
recipe enchanters than they deserve true enchanters generally
are; it is untraditional to admit that they have any value whatever. Though,
of course, they do.
Thenel smiled. "I've been tempted to do that once or twice, to cast some spell or other with twice or thrice my maximum force. It's never really been worth breaking a very valuable tool to do. If I'm on my deathbed and have no heirs (which seems likely at this point) I may do it, just for the glory of the thing."
Aha! Now, Thenel, I believe I understand you -- or something crucial about you! You are one of those mages who loves magical power. Not, I think, one of the power-hungry sorcerers who occasionally takes over a city and rules by dread mystical strength until the townspeople get annoyed and kill him. Such do not like magical power for its own sake. You, Thenel, love magical power on purely aesthetic grounds: the texture as it pours over your magerium, the radience of a strong cast spell. That is why you are so good at magic analysis: so that you can better see the power.
You also like precision. This is a good thing. Mages who simply work hard to get lots of power frequently wind up as candles visible from three branches away. A dramatic fate, to be sure ... but not, I suspect, your fate. Unless you're dying anyways, of course.
That is why you paid so much attention to my spells, and why my ring caught your interest so quickly and thoroughly.
Well, you're not the first such person I've ever met. People like you tend to show up around wizards, after all. I have two or three, but I left them at home. And I think I know better how to deal with you now.
And if you ever read this, I shall be so embarrassed, I shall appear as a candle visible from three branches away.
In the middle of a long discussion about spell power, Thenel said, "One doesn't want to add too many extra Nouns and Verbs to a spell, of course. Your power -- and whether you can cast it at all -- will be governed by your greatest weakness, not your greatest strength."
"Depends on who will be using the spell, and why. I've got a few spells that use all seven [Verbs] and twelve [Nouns]," I said.
"Oh, really? I've never seen one with all of them. What do they do?"
I grinned a whiskery Orren mouth. "The easiest one I know is a polyphasic defense spell. It's not a very good defense spell for its complexity -- which is fifty-five -- but I use it more often than any other spell."
[Spell complexities can be measured in two ways: the number of cley required to learn the spell, giving numbers like Sythyry's 55, or in quantum levels. The two are equivalent in a simple way: one quantum level equals five cley to learn. Ketherian academic magic -- and the World Tree sourcebook [which you can order from us if you want one] -- use the number of cley. Thenel speaks in terms of quantum levels, which is technically correct but sounds foreign to Sythyry. -bb]
"Eleventh quantum? I haven't grafted anything like that -- I couldn't cast it in my best combination," said a wide-eyed Thenel. If I were Cani, I would have sniffed surreptitiously to learn a bit more detail on what he was feeling; but he seemed nicely impressed, as I had intended.
"May I cast it for you -- on you, even -- by way of demonstration? I have work to do later, but I can spare a cley or two I imagine," I said. Being allowed to cast a spell on someone is not such a huge act of intimacy; any professional mage does that to customers regularly. (Well, maybe not Thenel so much as most, whose magic concerns trees and whose customers are not trees.) But it does open the possibility that other requests concerning each other's bodies may be made.
Thenel arched his tail up. "I should be delighted to see it!"
So I cast A Whole Raven and a Half on him. "I don't know about that," I said, inspecting the spell with magic sense. "It's not nearly as elegant as your spellwork: it's six spells all crammed together."
He looked too. "No, but it's quite strong. That's your regular casting strength, not hammer-cast or anything?"
"Hammer-casting A Whole Raven and a Half rather defeats the purpose. That's my basic casting," I said. He looked curious. "Oh, the purpose is to to cram all 7+12 into a single spell so you exercise them all at once on an adventure. It's a bouquet of basic defensive spells, which so you might get some value on an adventure ... I don't expect you'll need them though, unless nrex pour through the floor in the next few half-hour."
"You're an adventurer? I didn't think many wizards were," he said.
"Wizardry is my hobby. Nendrai wrangling is my actual profession," I said. "Adventures are plentiful, and usually desperate and miserable no matter how much magic I've got."
"I see ... I suppose I see. I try to stay in the city walls myself," he said.
"Very sensible of you. I'd do that if I could, but bringing my work into the city would rather defeat that purpose."
"Well ... may I ask a favor? Out of more of a personal than professional curiosity?" said Thenel, his ears a bit low.
("Oh, so it's one of those afternoons," I thought to myself. "Charm the wizard and then get some wizardry done, curse it. Oh, well. He's nice enough to get two cley's work out of me. No spellbinding though.")
"Ask away! I might say 'no' of course," I chirped.
"Might I look at your magerium?" he said a bit shyly.
[The magerium is a psychic organ of the prime body, connecting the mind to the spirit. It looks like a tree, with (for primes) 7+12 main branches which connect the primes to the gods. Pattern spells can be grafted on, as subsidiary branches. A glance at a magerium tells a great deal about one's magical stature -- and, incidentally, tells if one is prime or not. Looking at one involves a close stare with magic sense, and is somewhat more intimate than previous inspection of spells this episode. -bb]
("Oh, it's not one of those afternoons!", I thought to myself.)
"Well ... if you'll show me yours, too," I said. For the sake of the phrase, as much as anything else. "Remember I'm a Zi Ri, not an Orren, so don't expect a Kennoc god connection."
He leaned close, slipping an arm around my shoulder for balance, and peered. "Good gods, you're symmetrical!"
"I am, actually," I said. I glanced at Thenel, who looked like a reasonable Rassimel tree-mage: Healoc god-connection (as all Rassimel have), all Verbs of sensible professional strength, a good bit of Herbador, lesser expertise in Pyrador and Airador and Corpador, and more Magiador than strictly necessary. A few dozen grafted spells, mostly Herbador variants, with the strongest being complexity 30.
"Very much ... what, do you study all 7+12 equally? One course in each of them, in turn, or what?" he asked. "Do you try to maintain the symmetry of your magerium on purpose?"
"Not that. It's from mostly adventuring rather than studying that much. Spells like that A Whole Raven and a Half are quite useful for exercising everything evenly. Even if they're not so pretty."
"You're pretty, though," he said.
I smiled a big bristly smile. And, since his arm was still around my shoulder, leaned a bit, nuzzled his whiskers up, and kissed the corner of his mouth.
"Um, I don't ... I mean ... never ... " he mumbled, and slipped his other hand to my hip and started caressing me: nervously and eagerly.
"May I say something that's pretty obvious and you probably already know?" I said. He just nodded, still rather nervous. "I have been married, in the most important of ways if not in law, to a Herethroy, though zie has been dead for decades. I am happy to enjoy the company -- and the body -- of a delightful and clever member of any prime species, save my own. Which is to say: if you do not move your hand this instant, I shall lay my hand upon you in the same sort of spirit."
He glanced at the windows (drapes drawn), the door to the parlor (open), the tapestries around the room (stable). "I'd heard rumors of that," he said, "I've never quite been able to resist a pretty and powerful Orren girl myself." He cast a spell to close and bar the door, presumably so he didn't need to let go of me.
Indeed, he did not let go of me for quite some while, nor I of him. And, since the door was closed and the curtains closed and all, I shan't be giving further details.
Orren are wonderful lovers because of their enthusiasm and energy and flexibility. I still think that they are the best on the World Tree.
But Rassimel are wonderful lovers because of their intensity and attention to details. At least, if you've caught their attention right, which I had.
It was a truly well-spent afternoon.
Being a patron is sort being a noble, except that you didn't have the dignity
or money or standing or whatever to buy an actual title, and you have no
actual authority or power. Briefly, the arrangement is: the patron takes some
responsibility for the lives and fortunes of zir clients. In exchange, the
clients supply doom when the patron is running short support
the patron's pretensions, form the most loyal and active core of zir faction,
and generally make some attempt to be helpful, gracious, agreeable, or
whatever.
Some patrons in Vheshrame include:
Clients are people who have a patron. Most of the crew of Strayway are my clients. Mostly I pay salaries or allowances to my clients, or provide other things -- serious health-related spellwork for one, temporary or permanant housing for many, loans, whatever is needful. We do not have formal arrangements generally.
Employees are people whom I pay a salary for and with whom I have a contract. On Strayway, this is: Grinwipey, Kantele, Rheng, and Windigar. I have a lot more control over employees than I do over clients. I could, in principle, fire Grinwipey based on whatever the contract says, which I would have to ask Kantele about. (Firing Kantele would be difficult.)
(Phaniet is not an employee, though I pay her more than anybody. The exact duties of a wizard's assistant are not, in all cases, something that one wants to commit to writing. (My translator wants me to explain that bit of innuendo. One duty of a wizard's assistant is to ensure that the wizard has enough cley for zir workings. It is possible that this could involve the assistant donating her own cley -- of course this never happens to me -- or even, should her supply be insufficient, find some elsewhere somehow. And supplying cley to others professionally is somewhat less dignified and respectable than prostitution, on the World Tree.))
Indentured Servants I have described elsewhere. These are the people I could really order around, and whom I am very much obliged to protect. Currently this is Blenny, Este, and Umbers. I could have ordered Este to try to seduce Totalie, though that is not recommended practice and he would not be required to obey.
Subjects are the subordinates of a noble. I don't have any, not exactly being a noble. A nobles' subjects are more likely to be cooperative than a patron's clients, but far less than a typical indentured servant.
Friends: I do hope you know what friendship means. More or less everyone on board, except the stowaways, is a friend. With only a few exceptions, they would not be my clients if they were not friends.
The actual authority of a noble over zir subjects is only moderate. I've been a family friend of the counts of Gloun for most of my life. Every once in a while they want to do something substantial with their estate -- Levande Gloun wanted to move a village closer to the highway and open an inn and recreational spot. Her villagers refused. The debate went on for over a year, and, ultimately, the villagers won. (Levande, with her own money, opened a smaller version of the inn and recreational spot than she had originally wanted, with mostly hired employees rather than subjects. It did brilliantly, except that it was too small.)
And Levande was a countess; the highest rank short of the ruler of a city-state.
Now, certain orders must be obeyed. Nobles are (in an often-violated principle) the ones who are most responsible for guarding their subjects against monsters. When they say "Everyone get to a safe place," everyone must get to a safe place. Or, when the Duke said "Sythyry, go deal with the nendrai," I went and dealt with the nendrai, even though it meant, eventually, flunking out of Vheshrame Academy, getting killed, and generally getting into the habit of having doom every third day and sometimes more.
The actual authority of a patron is rather less. A patron doesn't have any military authority, since, generally, we're not actually responsible for defending our clients. (It's a bit less clear for me, since I am responsible for defending my clients from Vae, and out here we're all defending each other. They generally obey me about Vae and other immediate dangers.)
Still, if I hint that I want something done, my clients might go and do it.
Note that word "hint". Zi Ri are renowned and/or reviled for our use of indirect or allusive language. I'm fairly straightforward for a Zi Ri, but not always, and I am yet young in any case. So, when my clients are being helpful, they often try to do something that they think I hinted at. Mostly they're right, too -- the arguments about who would do what job on Strayway were fairly endless, but I complained vaguely to Zascalle about it, and she told everyone I was upset, and the next day everything was settled.
Not all hints are intentional. Rheng went and bit off Arfaen's husband's tail, on the grounds that I probably wanted him to. (I didn't.) (Also I couldn't fire him, even though he was an employee: one does not fire one's guards immediately as one heads off into dangerous places.) In such cases where the hint is intended, the patron is expected to deny it afterwards in any case. I suspect that half of my crew thinks I did want Rheng to bite that tail, and three-quarters of the crew approves.
Anyways, explicitly telling everyone "I will never command you to seduce anyone for my purposes" would be taken as a suggestion that my clients should figure on their own who to seduce and why, and, like as not, that they should be doing more of it.
If this all sounds very Cani to you -- who do you think designed our social systems?
I scolded Arfaen ... not exactly in public, but carefully making sure that Phaniet and Mellilot were in earshot, and Quendry wasn't. "It is not my wish that Totalie be made so very happy. The last time I saw him, he did try to strangle me, after all. I want him to understand decent behavior. A theoretical understanding would have sufficed; a detailed practicum in the advanced points was rather beyond my intended course of study. My real concern is for the happiness and well-being of the wrongfolk. Including, in particular, you and your family. As, I hope, is the real concern of everyone on board."
"Yes, Sythyry," she said, and curtsied, and scurried off. I drooped. Phaniet darted after her -- Phaniet is a very good client, and knows exactly what to do without being told. Arfaen reportedly dumped a great deal of misery and self-loathing upon Phaniet, who comforted her suitably and assured her I was not going to evict her and Quendry from Strayway so far from home no matter what.
Which I am very definitely not going to do. She is, after all, a client, and one does not do that sort of thing to one's clients.
Then I slithered over to Mellilot, and apologized a bit incoherently since I don't exactly know what I'm apologizing for, and let her scold me as much as she dared, which isn't all that much. Then I promised to give her marriage-analog as much support as I could, and she thanked me a bit grimly.
I suspect it's too late for any help, unfortunately.
Yesterday, we got an apologetic letter from the head of the Shipwrights' Guild that an expert in the topic of skyboat repair would arrive today (the 10th) at the hour before noon, or not much later, to perform a preliminary inspection and investigation to determine what tools and workers and materials are needed.
Me:"I could imagine greater speeds on their part."
Kantele:"I could also imagine lesser speeds on their part. Indeed, I need not merely imagine them -- I have seen them!"
Me:"I suppose it would be rude to insist that the expert come this afternoon or some such."
Kantele:"I am beginning to wonder if we might not want to seem more rude and insistant, and less polite and accomodating ... but that may be at the next sign of inadequacy on their part."
Me:"Which I expect to come at the first hour after noon tomorrow."
And today started with a pair of surprises ... and not my usual sort of surprise, either.
The first surprise was at two hours past dawn, when Phaniet and I and Vae-the-serpent were sitting in (or near, for Phaniet) the fireplace in one or another of the parlors, discussing Locador things which had wandered very far afield from the practical ones we had meant to discuss. Blenny knocked on the door and called out, "Syffery? Ffere's a Rassy fromma guild look at ff'ship."
"Already? Well, show them in, and I'll be down in a moment," I said. I had Phaniet brush the ashes off of me. Vae took care of herself -- both the ash-removal, and the healing (she's not fireproof, but she insists on joining me in the fireplace anyhow).
The second surprise was waiting for me in the parlor near the front door, looking extremely nervous and tailtwitchy. Under his green leafy cloak with the silver walnut at the clasp, and with his thrysus leaning in the corner and his bicorne hat on quite straight. He was brown-furred with thin black rings here and there, distinctly chubby, thin-tailed.
And I knew things about him that were not visible to see. The fur around his waist is rather thin, for he wears his belts too tight. He tastes of cumin in certain ways. He finds power quite appealing.
And there were some important things I didn't know. Like, what the manners are for meeting someone in legitimate public circumstances for the first time, when one has met them disguised in illegitimate private circumstances.
So I sort of boggled and fluttered in mid-air for a bit, and let him take the initiative.
He made a deep and carefully formal curtsey. "Ah, good day. I take it you are the wizard Sythyry? I had not expected to have the pleasure of meeting you; I understood that enchanters are generally busy of a morning."
I smiled. "And a good day to yourself, O Rassimel tree-mage. My day's labors were finished early. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit -- for, indeed, I believe it shall be a pleasure to make the acquaintance of an illustrious mage of Eigrach?"
He looked about two-thirds relieved. "I am Thenel oa Iretario, tree-mage and carpenter, associate member of the Shipwrights' Guild. And it is a great pleasure to make the acquaintance of a mighty and subtle deep-mage and wizard of Ketheria. I have volunteered to execute the first steps in the repairs which you have requested."
Phaniet carefully avoided quite glancing at me inquisitively.
I stood on the air. "Allow me to introduce my assistant Phaniet, and the nendrai Vaisessasilmin. Their friends, among whom I hope you will come to number yourself, refer to them as Phaniet and Vae." Which is about as much of a "yes, it's him" as I could think of at the moment.
We spent several more minutes on formal etiquette -- slightly discordant formal etiquette, since the manners of Eigrach depart somewhat from those of Ketheria. I often think of such minutes as wasted minutes (and I am no more fond of wasting minutes than you are, even if I have a quite plentiful supply). This time I was quite glad to have the formalities. I knew just what to do, in a situation that could have been quite awkward and confusing if there had not been a proper script.
But all safe things must come to an end. Etiquitte required only so much. Vae departed, to go hunting with the chromodon I believe.
"I have never had the pleasure of having a skyboat repaired by the guild of Eigrach," I said. "How shall we proceed?"
"The first step, of course, is to assess the damages, and, knowing them, to plan in detail what sorts of efforts and materials will be needed. Then the materials and laborers will be accumulated, and the works performed, in a cheerful and eager manner. It is a straightforward enough procedure, and one which has been repeated innumerable times, with variations," said Thenel. I wished I knew if the echoes of double-entendres I heard were at all real.
"Simple in outline, to be sure. The details may be more complex, for the damage was extensive; I do not know that we have catalogued it all ourselves. May I have the honor of being your guide about Strayway, as I did much of the original construction myself, and, in all truth, should be glad of presenting much to a discerning and clever mage who, I suspect, is capable of appreciating certain fine points?" The best I could do at the time; I was rather nervous.
He looked, in Phaniet's estimation (which she told me afterwards), 37% happy and 19% nervous. (I just saw "happy and nervous.") "If you can spare the time and attention for such a minor matter, I should be quite glad to get the full benefit of your experience and skill." Perhaps a double message, perhaps not.
Well, there was no help for it. I was going to have to force an explicit conversation to clarify our position, even if that's very much not the Srineian style.
"Well, then," I said, "Let us start in the least likely of all places, saving perhaps my clothes-closet. In my workroom on board there are the original plans for the Strayway -- that is, all the available notes on the work I did. And, for that matter, a lace banner of illusions, suitable for showing you the forms of the ship before the pirates' efforts. Phaniet, in the library there is a folio of green leather containing the original original plans for the skyboat that was to become Strayway. Could you do me the kindness of hunting it down and bringing it to, let us say, my workroom, in a third of an hour?"
She knows as well as I do that the folio is ordinary brown leather. I was quite sure I didn't need to tell her to take the full third of an hour fetching it.
Thenel and I, alone in my workrooms. Which are rather a place of power: three dozen assorted significant enchantments, a guardian or two but never mind what (but they've been given different instructions since the pirates), a variety of oddments which might come in useful for enchanting this or that, a small shrine to all 7+12 gods, a reference library ... and a moderate apartment in which I spend about two-thirds of my days, and Phaniet about a sixth of hers (note to self: by working with me, Phaniet has shortened the number of years of her life, though not the number of hours. I owe her a replacement for those years, if not outright immortality. This is a common arrangement for wizard's assistants; Aiziju could not have made her own immortality talisman either.) So various recreations and relaxations, too.
Thenel looked around, rather wide-eyed. "What ... well, what did you mean by bringing me here?"
"I wanted to discuss how matters stand between us," I said. "There are several choices."
"We've got only nine minutes," said Thenel. "Less whatever time we've used so far getting here and all. And Phaniet might arrive early."
"Phaniet knows better than to arrive early," I said, and activated an engine of considerable thaumaturgical power. "And that nine minutes will last us for a significant fraction of an aeon, if we like."
He gasped, which I was expecting. He does like powerful magic.
Then he scowled, which I wasn't expecting. "So, what do you want? My power chimes?"
"I beg your pardon?" I had to say.
"Well, if it's not the power chimes ... oh, is this going to be a public humiliation?"
I looked around the room. "I might not be the most canical and socially adept of lizards, but getting you alone in a room to chat doesn't sound like the best approach to public humiliation to me."
"Later. Exposing me to my guild and all."
"I think we're from different world-branches. Where I come from, we generally try to be nice to people with whom we have spent an extremely pleasant afternoon," I said.
"I see," he said in a flat voice. "You want to use me again."
"Not if you feel that way about it. Look. You're here in my place of power, where the very space and time will do what I ask them. What do you think I will do if you refuse to couple with me again, or even to discuss the matter?"
He looked around nervously. "I can't guess."
"I will have Phaniet and Windigar show you around the ship, and I will probably sulk for the rest of the day. After which, I will be cordial to you in public, and not see you in private," I said.
"I am utterly confused," said Thenel. "Do you want, well, more, or do you not?"
I flicked my tail. "I enjoyed our afternoon together. If we can arrange a mutually-tolerable arrangement, further such afternoons would not displease me. But if I must enter you into the list of once-lovers, I shall do so. It is a reasonably substantial list --" (as long as I don't compare it with that of a third of the crew, who are generally less cowardly about such matters than I am) "-- and sure to get longer still. Which is fine."
Thenel looked quite perplexed. "Am I to blackmail you, then? How?"
I snapped, "You could tell Phaniet that I slept with the most confusing Rassimel in the world!"
Thenel flung himself into an armchair. "I'm not trying to be confusing ... I ... Is Bluelark anywhere on board?"
Which was, if anything, more confusing. "In a drawer ... if you see her, could you explain yourself a bit better to her?"
"I think so."
So, from that drawer over there, I took out a short cloak that I had originally made for Mynthë, but as her not-quite-legal family, I took back when she died. And became my usual Orren self.
Thenel screwed his eyes tight closed. "I have another Orren lover. I think she's a chimneysweep. She threatened to reveal to ... everyone ... that I was sleeping with her."
I tried to be sympathetic, for (I thought) I have heard such stories often enough. "A troublesome sort of lover. I try to be better than that."
"You don't understand. She'd reveal it only if I didn't join with her again, when she was swimming in Nupyup Pond and I was at one of the cafes," he said, panting in a near-panic.
I didn't quite understand. "She blackmailed you into ..."
"Into being her continuing lover. That's how it's done, sometimes, in Eigrach. We don't talk about it as if it was a proper, an ordinary sort of affair."
"That's a bit ridiculous." (It's not. It's a lot ridiculous.)
"It's how it's done," he repeated.
(And, when I discussed it with Phaniet, long afterwards, it began to make a bit of sense. If he's being blackmailed into doing it, he's not responsible for it -- it's not his choice. Or so he can pretend.)
"Well, I'd rather do it the Vheshrame way, if I do it at all, and that means, we decide what we want to do, and then we do it, rather as if we were pleasant people who liked each other," I said.
He flattened his ears, to go with his closed eyes. "How can you talk about it?"
"In Ketheria, we often talk so much about it that we never get to actually doing it," I said. "But simply saying 'I'm traff' doesn't amount to an offer of intimacies, for me. Just a basic statement of fact."
"It does for me ..." said Thenel. "It does in Srineia."
"Then let us discuss the matter indirectly," I said, because I am trying to be a pleasant person who likes him, and such a one would probably not browbeat him into submission. "Why did you come here this morning?"
"The Shipwrights' Guild -- I am an adjunct member -- needed to send someone. I volunteered. I was hoping to see you again, you understand," said Thenel, very quietly.
"But why come now, early in the morning, when you weren't expecting to see me?" I asked.
"I was hoping that you'd be busy enchanting, that I would not need to see you again, you understand," said Thenel, very quietly.
Well, that makes nonsense.
"Well, I am standing here, slightly to your left, as Bluelark. You can see me if you like, or keep your eyes closed nine minutes more and I'll break the spell."
Thenel smiled a touch. "I suppose that you, who are my customer, may choose whatever shape you like." He opened his eyes, and looked at me with a considerable hunger. "I never, ever have been able to resist the appeal of a furred wizard-woman."
I wasn't specifically trying to appeal to him exactly that way exactly then, but:
A considerable time later, and with both of us in a rather better mood, he asked, "What time is it in the outer world? For I perceive the mighty ramparts of Creoc Tempador about us, but from the evidence of my body's languor and my sense of time, I have emperiled my mission and doubtless my reputation in Eigrach by dallying far, far too long."
"Nearly four minutes have passed since we sent Phaniet off. For almost two of those we have been in private time. We have many hours left: or many more than that if we want them." I yawned too. "Tell me, if you will: have you ever napped (qua napped) with an Orren, or is that simply not done in Eigrach either?"
"I have not done," he said, his voice not entirely steady. "If I may confirm that which you are hinting about, I generally meet certain sorts of acquaintances for an hour or two in a lazy afternoon, only, and keeping all possible secrecy about it. And not very often, though the threat of blackmail has recently made it somewhat more frequent."
"Well, I usually have a nap at this time of day, and you're welcome to join me." He agreed. We discovered that my cot was not nearly big enough for even one of us -- reasonable enough, since it's my cot -- and spread blankets on the floor, in the middle of the big Diagram of Tyr-Agruuniel painted in one of the spellweaving chambers.
A considerable time later, we arose and finished off most of the bread and dry fish, and folded up the blankets for a surprisingly needful later laundering, and chatted about Tyr-Agruuniel and various other bits of magic theory and such, but not another word about transaffection. I turned back into a Zi Ri, and let time return to its usual languid pace.
Phaniet knocked on the workroom door at precisely the appointed time, and we let her in, with her tail wagging and a big brown portfolio. She obviously knew instantly what we had been up to -- we had washed ourselves, but not the laundry -- and she just smiled. "Did you find your notes on the skyboat, Sythyry?"
I blushed 'til my wings caught fire. "No, I was giving Thenel a bit of a tour and got distracted." And flew over to the right bookshelf and pulled forth the right notebook, and brought it to the table. And then we got to actual work.
Sythyry's Vacation is copyright 2009 Bard Bloom. The World Tree Role-Playing Game is copyright 2001 Bard Bloom and Victoria Borah Bloom.