1 Soul Bound
1.3 Making a Splash
1.3.2 An Allotropic Realignment
1.3.2.21 Equality
A short while later the five of them were sitting with Etaoin around a private table in a side-snug at the Do Mori that Etaoin had charmed the barmaid into opening for them, despite it obviously being the best table in the tavern, with tasteful decoration and expensive place settings upon a linen table cloth rather than bare wood like the rest - the sort of table reserved in advance by business men aiming to gain advantage when making an important deal by impressing upon their guests a vision of how reputable and well established the business man was.
Bungo, determined to avoid being fooled a third time, cut straight to the chase.
Bungo: “Are you an actor or a confidence trickster? And what exactly do you want from us?”
Etaoin didn’t even pretend to be offended, and remained seemingly relaxed and openly friendly.
Etaoin: “By vocation I’m an honest hard working man, an Apprentice Printer who hopes some day to start my own niche press, once I’ve the levels and funding. But it is true that’s not the limit of my talents. Some would be ashamed to admit they have an avocation for pulling pranks, but not I. My pranks cause no true harm. They bring merriment, enrich lives and, above all, they train people to question what they see and assume, which in my opinion is a vital skill much lacking and one that will stand them in good stead when threatened by the greedy and ruthless. I am a Prankster and proud of it, and I use it to defend the honour of those who’d otherwise be despised as ignoramuses by the workshy students of Libri who feed their arrogance by treating all Basso apprentices as fools who’re easily tricked.”
Kafana was still recovering her stamina from her previous use of her Truesight still, and putting on her Diadem of Truth was something she’d prefer to hold in reserve. But she tried weighing his words against her inner instincts, reaching out to him with her empathy and trying to grasp the pattern of who he was beneath his masks.
Bulgaria encouraged him to keep speaking.
Bulgaria: “The value of getting people to question is often under-appreciated. A philosopher once dreamed about being a butterfly so immersively that he lost all memory of being a Covadan. When he woke up, he wondered for a moment whether he was a Covadan who’d dreamed about being a butterfly, or if he were actually a butterfly who was currently dreaming about being a Covadan. It was only once he questioned his previous assumptions, that he realised he didn’t have a reliable way to tell which was true and that in fact he’d never had good grounds for believing he was really a Covadan. None of us do.”
Etaoin: “Well and now I’m wondering of your profession too, so I am; for you’ve a rare gift for words and no mistaking it. It would be a strange butterfly that’d be able to dream of you and I, though, for they seem weak of mind and little interested in people who don’t carry flowers.”
Bungo: “I bet a dragon could dream of being you. Or a vampire, they’re smart. No wait, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. You didn’t answer the question. What is this ‘Greatest Game’ of yours? Another Flonking variant or chancy board game to gamble upon? What. Is. It. You. Want?”
He didn’t raise his voice, but the brittle control in his voice made it clear he was running out of patience, despite his normal love of discussing big abstract ideas - especially weird or unusual ones. Etaoin had lost Bungo’s trust, and trust lost once is much harder to gain a second time.
Etaoin put on a serious face, dropping the lilt and folksy charm from his voice.
Etaoin: “It is hard to explain, but I’ll try my best, and perhaps your friend Bulgaria will find words that I cannot. I sometimes refer to the prank war between Libri students and Basso apprentices as the Great Game, because it inspires and motivates the like-minded acquaintances who take part. Two great powers using the common people of Torello to contest a border between them, manipulating and moving them like pieces upon a game board, taking territory when there’s advantage, and withdrawing to reduce losses when outnumbered. The fight is one of minds and beliefs about what groups of people are like, rather than one of swords and physical bastions, but no less important because of it - status matters, and your status depends on what others think your status is.”
Bulgaria: “But you said ‘The Greatest Game’ earlier, not ‘The Great Game’.”
Etaoin nodded.
Etaoin: “I came to realise that the prank war was only part of something larger. Something that includes the way plays can make heroes or break them, poets can shape legends, and even the way that audiences affect the magic of Reality mages. I wish I’d been able to afford the student fees the university charges. The students are arrogant, but some of the scholars who teach - they really do know stuff. Not just facts but ways of linking those facts in patterns that help you see more, understand more.”
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Etaoin: “I saw the letter Lord Zeno sent Master Cardano. They say he’s the highest level bibliomancer in Torello, and if you ask him a question then, if an answer resides in a book anywhere inside his library, he can tell it to you without even needing to touch the book. I’ve never met him though. Who would trust a person like me inside a library full of books that cost more than the wage I earn in a year?”
He paused for a moment, then tried again.
Etaoin: “I do what I can to learn. I don’t just print books - I also read them. Working the press is labour hard enough to make the muscles ache but, for me, a printer’s apprentice is the best job I had a realistic chance of gaining. I have a vision in my mind I can’t rid myself of, and I keep hoping that the next book I read will contain an idea I’m missing, a way of looking differently at something that that will finally let me link a tangible thing I already understand the behaviour of, to what I sense, to what I’m grasping at the edges of.”
Etaoin: “The closest I’ve yet found was a book about the Etruscan High Kings, which mentioned an artifact each new King inherited upon the death of the previous one, in unbroken line, until it was finally lost along with the last of them, Thalimus. He was a dreamwalker you know? They all were. That’s what the artifact did, that’s how their dynasty held onto unquestioned rule for so long, over the kings and nobles despite their many treacheries and ambitions. A fascinating read, and I improved my prankster skills no end by studying their plots and plans.”
As he spoke his voice and face started to change back towards the charming persona he’d displayed but then he dropped the mask again, with a visible effort as though it had taken on a life of its own and needed to be fought down.
Etaoin: “Sorry, no, that’s not important. The important thing was a single footnote. A historian mentioning a theory just to disagree with it, that he didn’t even properly reference so I can’t track down the original thinker.”
He looked straight at Bungo, then at Bulgaria and each of the rest of them in turn.
Etaoin: “The thinker claimed that a dreamwalker can walk into the dreams of others just as you or I can walk into a neighbouring building. That, to such a walker, the dream was the reality - a more fundamental layer, perhaps the pure ideas from which the deities brought everything forth and which only the highest of mages can touch directly or even sense.”
Etaoin: “It sounds weird doesn’t it, like the ramblings of a drunkard. I’ve heard Irus the Blind speaking. He’s an adventurer, isn’t he? Tells it like it is, with no excuses about Cov not liking it. I think Irus is talking about the same thing the thinker was. A realm of pure ideas, pages and pages of facts that generate the world I live in. A library I can never touch, never enter, leaving me eternally second class. Inferior.”
Wellington: {He doesn’t have the words for it, but he’s talking about data. The 1s and 0s stored in the cloud by XperiSense, that are the stones and trees and NPCs and laws of magic and physics that make up everything Etaoin ever has and ever will experience.}
Etaoin: “The priests tell such pretty stories about you coming here out of the goodness of your hearts because Cov asked you to. But you come here by possessing the bodies of poor and desperate people. And I’ve listened to enough adventurers when they’re drunk to realise most of you aren’t all that nice. You may help some people, but you don’t take everything seriously - to most of you, I think your aim is having fun. You’re like rich tourists from Pentapolis who think we’re quaint, look offended if we don’t entertain them enough, and snigger to each other when they think nobody important will hear.”
Tomsk gave a mild reply.
Tomsk: “Harsh, my man, but not unjust. Yes, some adventurers are like that. Not all of them, though, and my guess is that over the next year you’ll find that Cov has good reason to fear the rise of threats against which you’ll be glad of any aid no matter how strange. The Red Death was just the start, and I’ll place money on it.”
Etaoin ignored him.
Etaoin: “You asked what I want from you? I don’t need your help with pranks. I’m not after your money or backing or items. I’d ask about your world and your help in understanding mine, if I thought you’d give me answers you haven’t already given the lukewarm leisure-thinkers of Libri’s Questology group. But what I really want is an honest answer to one simple question.”
Etaoin: “Am I your equal?”
Etaoin: “Not in wealth or skill or knowledge, or any of the other things that one person born in Torello might vary in from another such person.”
Etaoin: “Am I worthy of being granted an equal right to have my life, my happiness and liberty, be accorded the same weight as those of any other person, as Bembo declared? Judged upon my own individual merits, rather than upon those of my parents or place of birth?”
Etaoin: “Or am I fundamentally inferior, in a way no achievement of mine could ever escape or compensate for? A prisoner. A pawn. Flawed in some way that merits others treating me as a thing to use, to sneer at, to throw away when inconvenient.”
Beneath the raw outrage, Kafana could sense both hope and fear. Etaoin had dropped his masks at last.