Before The Attendees Have Become Inured To Mediocrity
The Ritualist's life is ever one of obligation and study, the members of that class told one another every time they convened, but Dirant Rikelta felt downright merry as he relaxed in his seat. Before him on the stage was being performed a goslikenar of the highest type, which is to say a historical tragedy. Next to him was his guest, and regardless of her eventual opinion of the performance, the historical events which inspired it, or the art form as a whole, at least his invitation provided Millim Takki Atsa of the northern country of Pavvu Omme Os grounds to say for the rest of her life, “Oh, the peculiar Adaban form of theater known as goslikenar? Of course I know about it.”
A single narrator related the story lyrically, this one a deep-voiced man well-suited for the grave subject matter, while behind and around him mute actors added interest by their movements. Some of those were natural, some slow with dramatic intent, and some acrobatic to impress the audience, all according to the outcome of a negotiation among the writer, director, and choreographer. This particular writer was long since deceased, but still he had his say.
The painted backdrop (naturally a historian had been paid to acknowledge he had been consulted as to the accuracy of the depiction) and the orchestra below completed the production, though the latter made itself known but intermittently. Goslikenar called for music at specific moments which constituted a minority of the performance, unlike the equivalent musical theater of other countries from Chtrebliseu to Swadvanchdeu. Perhaps that was not so great a range of countries. Though those lands sat on the far west and east ends of the continent of Egillen, both had Dvanjchtlivs for their inhabitants. From Chtrebliseu to Obeneut and Pavvu Istis to Drastlif then. All the tribes outside the Greater Enloffenkir confederacy mocked or were puzzled by the art, but the Adabans, Riks, Ottkirs, Mabonns, and Hewekers within liked it this way. The near-universal opposition only hardened them in their preferences.
The characters came to a bad end, the upright judge and his enemies, all people who once lived and might have objected to their depictions in the present day. The audience collected its coats and umbrellas, necessary accessories for the season, before exiting the building. It was the Twelfth according to the Adaban reckoning of months, the last before spring, when snow and cold made themselves memorable, knowing that to be their last chance to endure in memory.
Dirant reclaimed a heavy black coat which he appreciated for its warmth-preserving qualities but had come to fear made him look like a warning stone of classical times, a tall dark slab painted some shade of pink or yellow at the top to warn people not to approach closer for fear of disease. Since he had the typical Adaban black hair up top, covering the forehead in the finest modern style though lacking somewhat as to the sideburns, nothing justified his worry. The common Adaban saw his presentable grooming and tailoring, added it to his confident expression, and placed him among the sons of the successful middle segment of society. That observation showed the common Adaban knew a few things. The common Yumin, in contrast, might describe him as someone who looked like he was deciding what to do with conquered territory. What imaginations those other tribes had.
His companion donned something taken off the backs of fire wolves, monsters which vexed farmers and shepherds with their livestock-melting maws but delighted fur-wearers appreciative of the contrast between the dark outside and orange-ish underside; more practically, a bit of heat lingered long after the monster died. More and more of the fashion-conscious warned against the increasing size of fire wolf coats and how they threatened to hide the natural beauty of the wearer or at least all her jewelry, but Takki, either out of a disdain for that opinion or more probably its lack of penetration as far north as she lived, felt no compunction about wearing enough coat to make her seem doubled in size.
Since she was of the Jalpi Peffu tribe, the increased height only prevented her from disappearing altogether among Adabans. Dirant decided against saying anything on that topic. Not because her relative shortness bothered her, but rather he imagined that leaning over far enough to reach her ear might lead to back problems later in life. Certainly he was still young, not even a year out of Todelk University's school of ritualism, the sixth-most prestigious such institution in Greater Enloffenkir, but the wise man cared for his future health and not merely the present.
“What's so funny, Ressi? Does tragedy make you happy?” Perhaps other attendees leaving the hall overheard Takki's questions and believed Dirant's name to be Ressi, but he doubted it. Ressi did not sound at all Adabanish, lacking as it did some sort of -nt or -nk, perhaps an -olt. Rather it signified “otter” in Usse and had been assigned as his first name to comply with Pavvu Omme Os standards. He possessed no desire to do so, but he answered to it regardless.
“It is the nature of theater to delight even as it incites anguish. And now, for the sake of the performers, I must not follow that claim with the true statement that I was thinking of something else entirely. Ah, and now yet a third subject intrudes.” It came to mind that while he knew Takki to be an Usse-speaking northerner, likely her auburn hair and lack of conspicuously rosy cheeks which artists often employed to distinguish the people of Pavvu Omme Os and Pavvu Istis caused Grenlofers to mistake her for a Mabonn who adopted a Pavvu Omme Os-style head scarf to stand out.
“Don't you agree you're having all these thoughts because nobody talked during the play? I knew Adabans could be patient, but you have to want to discuss what you just saw and heard, don't you?” She looked up at him, and her earnest face surrounded by all that was left of a fire wolf overcome by her Battler prowess amused Dirant further. What was that line about how all grapes are good to the man already drunk? It was from a different goslikenar, he knew.
“We do, and it is in this manner. The rest of the evening may be devoted to the topic. The agenda depends on the inclination of the participants who will extend or cut short their time together with these excuses: 'That is all there is to be said about so shallow a work,' or else, 'I see this work has such subtlety and depth that we must go on till we have exhausted it, for anything less is an insult to the writer.' The advantage of this approach is flexibility, though the indirectness may grow tiresome.”
The gestures the Jalpi Peffu employed had such mystery and subtlety in them as perplexed the foreigner, but the single wriggling finger Takki brought out related to approval from Dirant's experience of it. “Oh, I'm glad to hear there's a protocol. I don't think I can let you back out when I have so many questions though, so you'll just have to put up with it.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The pair set off on a stroll through the streets of Isarpezoltk past music halls, theaters, galleries, and every sort of establishment of cultural weight the city's government could pack within its limits. The state of Kitslof, much like many of the GE's members, enjoyed internal rivalries which only strengthened the cities involved, or at least those able to keep up. As for the rest, what was wrong with the humble life? Regardless, Fennizen to the northwest had grown in prosperity and attracted firms and businessmen, Entrepreneurs and Visionaries as well as Functionaries, Administrators, Workmen, and more, to an extent which caused a population deficit in its neighbors which they found difficult to remedy. Isarpezoltk responded by reforming itself into Kitslof's center of the arts and had succeeded well enough that a minority of the attendees of the first show of the goslikenar season lived there.
Certainly everyone then in the streets was there for some performance or exhibition. Clumps of people went along in no hurry from one engagement toward another just as Dirant and Takki did, emitting a gentle fog of standard opinions. More incisive criticisms waited for closed doors, since the chance some director or producer would hear an unkind comment uttered in the open approached one in that city.
Perhaps it was in response to those spontaneous reviews that so many of the buildings of stone and brick seemed to be weeping. In material Fennizen, the phenomenon would have been attributed without hesitation to the melting of that snow which previously made an ornamental layer over roofs and spires, but Isarpezoltk had gone to such expense in the hope of cultivating a more poetic atmosphere that it seemed unmannerly not to succumb to it.
To Adabans, at least. “I don't want you to think I wasn't aware of the format. Everyone knows there's only one speaking role in goslikenar because of all the jokes about it. What surprised me was the, um, paucity of detail. No one could solve a mystery like that.” Takki hopped over a puddle which Dirant chose not to challenge with his 35 Muscle and 44 Coordination. The odds were in his favor, but to leave the attempt to members of classes better suited to it was nothing less than a declaration of support for the twin principles of specialization and cooperation which undergirded modern society. He responded while he stepped around.
“Our writers must agree, for I believe they gave up their attempts to create goslikenar of that genre years ago in that period when it was definitely concluded that the singers would never allow any other performer to say a word. Subjects with a historical basis are popular because the audience either knows the story already or may have it explained afterward by someone who is doubtless eager to do so.”
“I need you to do that, then. Were they all historical? It was three stories, wasn't it? I wondered how someone could talk and sing for four hours, but then it made sense when they switched.”
“The main and secondary were historical and the tertiary comedic. Such an arrangement is common.”
“Ressi. I didn't laugh. Is that bad?” Takki twirled the tail of her head scarf she allowed to dangle over one shoulder. “It can't be. Nobody else did either.”
Dirant laughed for her, and for the entire audience while he was at it. It was consequently a short laugh. “There is no expectation that you will. Inside a Hippo Bag is a moral comedy and therefore not funny. It functions to rescue the audience from the tragedy of the main story for the duration of the interval. In moral comedy, the characters get what they deserve, more or less, and reform is possible. Another example of the type will soon be enacted when I proceed to a restaurant and order dinner, which I deserve by virtue of having money. And will you join me for that, or?”
“I see this work has such subtlety and depth that . . .”
“Are you certain you are not an Adaban?”
Dirant was comfortable in regard to that virtue. In addition to the salary of a company Ritualist, which the bachelor free of bad habits found lavish and the gambler with four wives in three towns so far from sufficient as not to be worth mentioning, the sale of an artifact of the Hoduuri civilization to an interested collector had contributed 3,500 miskhanenar to his personal treasury. That was a stock of silver coins nearly equal to four years of his salary, and he had invested most of it as quickly as he was able into ventures likely to be profitable such as Onlova Pilnostoreska, PonnDonnTonn Construction, and Kelnsolt Aradetnaf. Beyond all that, another source of revenue had opened up even more recently. Nothing more was required to ensure a good mood in a Fennizener.
As for Takki, she could afford some salt herself, not that she was paying. The income of an Omme hunter had nothing admirable about it as far as consistency, though the valor which secured those unpredictable bounties surely must win praise. At least the amounts when they came were often large. The hoarbirds had come to Pavvu Omme Os and been forcibly removed, leaving Millim Takki Atsa with both pay and time to go see a show down south. “There shouldn't be anything big until the annual irruption,” she told the Ritualist less acquainted with the cycles of monsters.
“The annual irruption, then, is that event called the Spring Storm here, or? When monsters emerge in such numbers that we all must drop our private business to assist. Even I am called upon to provide various disinfectant and immunization rituals devised for the purpose.”
Takki looked around the table in concern until Dirant nudged a salt cellar toward her with a movement too subtle to be perceived by someone lacking at least the Discernment required to qualify for the Battler class. Not all Adaban restaurants had such conveniences, and if anyone had suggested Dirant chose that place for the very reason that it did, he would have been pleased to have his consideration recognized. Takki supplemented the salt already present on her lamb dish and resumed the conversation. “That must be it. Spring Storm. That's a reasonable enough name. A lot of cultural differences are like that, aren't they? When anything will work, you can just pick one and it'll function well enough. Then there are things I have a harder time understanding. For instance, in the one story, the second one, wasn't it? Were we supposed to admire that High-Boot Gang? I really think they were being treated as the heroes, but they're just robbers, aren't they? I don't think that would work in Rattap Tuik.”
The occasion seemed unfavorable to reproach Takki for suspecting Adabans to be more supportive of robbery than Jalpi Peffu who rejoiced in countless stories of raids and outlaws, but he stored it for later use. “This is the art of arranging goslikenar performances as a set. The audience must have its interpretation of the secondary affected by the primary. In another context the High-Boot Gang might be lauded for the daring of its members, but when contrasted with the history of an energetic and dispassionate enforcer of the law unjustly come to ruin, our sympathies must be against the criminals.”
“Oh! That sounds very artful, but does it really happen? I mean, have you seen that secondary performed with a different primary?”
“I have, and the iniquity of the government in the primary was so deep that it prepared us to accept any crime of the private citizen as a lesser thing altogether.”
Takki leveled a menacing fork at him. “Ressi, is that really artistic, or is it a scheme to get you to attend repeat performances so they don't have to pay as many writers?”
“I question the existence of a dichotomy.”
Such was the nature of the discussion over dinner and past it. Takki did not become a lover of goslikenar by the time she retired; explanations, clarifications, and justifications are not what endear entertainment to the audience. Even so, she gained a more intellectual sort of respect for the cultural products of Greater Enloffenkir, a foundation for further exploration in the future if she wished, and points to bring up in conversation back home which would assure her a reputation for being well-traveled and cosmopolitan. Dirant retired as well, satisfied that he had done his guest a service and wary of dragging out the night too long. However much he wanted to taste Isarpezoltk from floor to ceiling, which was little, he needed to get up the next day, look in on some things, and return to his work in Fennizen.