Whimsy Is An Ornament For An Author In Proportion To How Unexpected Is Its Deployment
Giroflessor Peltla preceded the clutch of worshipers as was his privilege. For generations the Peltla family had been responsible for maintaining Mitistiggefokand's house in Wessolp, a clan prominent in the city's affairs and notable for the occasional instance of blondness such as in Giroflessor's case that spoke of an ancestral line which benefited from outstanding contributors from many tribes and countries. Nothing had changed in his generation except for declining support in the community for particular rites pleasing to particular gods. Seasonal festivals and worship of the pantheon as a whole seemed enough for piety to more and more Adabans, without mentioning those who cast away religious practice altogether. Still, many were slow to change their habits or else changed back after harrowing legal encounters they thanked the guide to the laws for helping them navigate. A couple dozen men and women accompanied him that day to pay their customary respects and give the place a good sweeping. All of them saw, when the door was opened, a divine vision.
The dying sun filtered through the intricately mullioned windows and the dust drifting about cast a halo about a man, or surely a messenger of the god himself, come from some region beyond to, evidently, sweep. The faithful felt ashamed at their negligence. As if in response to their shame, the messenger looked up.
“Ah. Hello to you. Is there someone among you in a position to receive a delivery for this temple?”
Giroflessor stepped forward and spoke calm words despite the joy leaping about in his heart as he wondered what blessing of Mitistiggefokand had been conveyed there. “I am the head caretaker, and so?”
“That is exactly what is needed.” Dirant took his statuette box from his rucksack, extracted the correct one, and held it out. “I was told, or commanded may be the better word, to deliver this likeness which an otter rescued from the Ontoffemmiror River.”
With unsteady hands the caretaker took it, and he knew at once it was their own. The faithful looking over his shoulder saw the same and fell to prayer while their head spoke to the messenger. “Astonishing! I am astonished. Our icon has returned and fortune along with it. Now tell me, you are Mitistiggefokand's messenger, must you not be?”
Dirant thought that question over. “There is an argument to be made that is true. Really I am a common Ritualist—“
“Ah! The god favors them, I am told.”
“I am told the same. And he bestowed upon me a ritual that allowed me to find this likeness that I might return it to its temple.”
Giroflessor nodded. “It all makes sense, your story, and there is pleasure in it to hear that a modern Ritualist is aware of the socioreligious responsibilities we all must bear. Many, it seems, care for nothing but research or commerce. Those are very good things of course. But the sacred ceremonies and usages must be seen to as well. Oh, what is all this speech-making? My name is Giroflessor Peltla, and our meeting is a blessing for me.”
“No less for me. My name is Dirant Rikelta, from Kitslof.” After that, Giroflessor insisted Dirant stay in his home for the night. There the host asked for and received a full account of the Holzd-spurred adventure, albeit with a few tactical omissions such as when Dirant tried to find out what kind of monster his god was or the time he ground Wessolp under his heel.
Mercenaries handled gate duty the next day. They waved their captain's ally through with grins of unseemly magnitude. Embarrassing, but that spared Dirant any chance of an awkward reunion with local guards which had the potential to increase his infamy, and so he ventured forth relieved from worry and responsibility both. He had completed his divine mission. It was more complicated than it had appeared at first, but nothing unmanageable. The mercy of Holzd, he supposed. That was that, and it was unlikely he would ever be assigned another. So what to do with the rest of his time off, or rather, time for himself?
His nerves objected to the once-attractive idea of enjoying the charms of Wessolp, if it had any. The obvious second choice, like someone who yearned to be an Administrator but settled for Functionary, was to return to Fennizen and lounge around the same way he did after work but for a larger portion of the day. That was hardly the stuff of the ideal vacation for all that many devolved into that in practice.
He might have opted to visit Todelk. His fellow Ritualist graduates had of course dispersed to the corners of Greater Enloffenkir or even beyond it, but there were younger students to harass and professors to ask about connections between the class and Holzd. Yet what would they say that was different? His godly encounter, if he told them of it, seemed unlikely to shake their confidence in the orthodox conception that rituals were a tool for manipulating reality that slowly improved by the continual efforts of practitioners and theorists who received salaries and university faculty positions in exchange. Maybe other schools thought differently, but . . .
Other schools indeed. He consulted his map, the big one, not the Wessolp-specific one Kelnsolt had permitted him to keep as a memento of their time together. Amlizen, the city which included among its attractions Sored University and its school of ritualism, the fifth-most prestigious in the GE, was farther west of Wessolp than Fennizen was south. However, he could ride to the state of Esmenloffen and take a boat down the river to reach Amlizen in two days or so, perhaps less, then ride back and arrive home just in time.
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The moment he started considering the particulars of the trip to and from Sored University, Dirant knew which option he had chosen. He turned his Stadeskosken horse's head toward Ritsuan, a riverside town according to the map. That same map warned him Patkaodotenlilk was squeezed between Esmenloffen and Likstalmitlof, those making up the three states that sat on the Haskiror River. He resolved not to stop there for his peace of mind.
The trip to Ritsuan resembled that to Wessolp except for a general lightheartedness which replaced Dirant's earlier fevered impetuosity. Now that he had an intellectual inquiry before him, he looked on the scenery in a more analytical light, such as wondering how people decided what to harvest when. The practical difference there was slight, but he felt it strongly. The bigger change came when he woke up in the mail boat he had caught at Ritsuan and felt only a bit sore.
“It seems a disgrace and an insult to my career if I say this out loud, but Horse Riding (Intermediate) may do more for me than any Ritualist ability I will learn in the future,” he said out loud to a mirror in a washroom located near the quays for the convenience of stevedores as he subdued his whiskers against perhaps a bit more resistance than Kelnsolt had from Wessolp's massed guards. “Remembering that incident makes it difficult to pretend it happened to someone else. I must improve in that area.”
Amlizen resembled Fennizen on the day of a fair. People walked a little slower, wore attire slightly harder to put on, and sometimes halted in the street to talk instead of hurrying along side by side toward financial opportunities. The locals seemed not to mind if an outsider made better time than they did, though. Dirant arrived at Sored University, or one of its buildings anyway (the students informed him the institution was spread around a few city blocks), shortly before noon. Either that or right at noon if the Amlizen's clocks mirrored its citizens in their attitudes toward punctuality.
As he expected, the faculty had its hands full with not doing anything while the students read texts written by the professors themselves, their friends, or experts in being published by aggressive businessmen. Of course they could set aside some time to enlighten an adherent of the noblest calling, but what caused him to ask about the possible religious underpinnings of the class?
“Earlier this year I was graduated from Todelk University, and . . .”
No more was necessary. Obviously he had learned nothing worth mentioning there. Anyone in his position would be curious about real ritualism. In fact, Tanseliaf Hellons, one of the GE's foremost Ritualists and the author of a number of books approachable for the lay audience yet nevertheless praised by the knowledgeable on ritualism, rituals, and rites, the last a term usually reserved among Ritualists for things that laymen erroneously believed to be rituals, invited him to his office for a discussion. Dirant of course accepted.
Professor Tanseliaf leaned back in his well-cushioned chair. With his piercing brown eyes and hair receding in orderly patterns, anyone would know him to be a true authority on something or other. That sculptor using Lord Mayor Odinol Emmofoken to personify Reason was well-advised to add Tanseliaf Hellons as Experience. “Now then. Todelk, eh? We must start from the beginning. Tell me what specifically you have in mind, for everyone means something different when talking about religion.”
Dirant told his story, this time including the part about monsters but stopping far short of his successes in infiltration and subjugation. “And what troubles me is that while the origin of rituals in superstition is understood so far as for one author to claim the art was fished from the dirtiest pond only to be polished to the most lustrous sheen by careful workmen known as Ritualists, I had never before heard of any association of the class with one god in particular. Yet librarians and temple caretakers know of it, and it is said to be common in the careers of Ritualists for them to have seen this god in their youth.”
Tanseliaf had kept his fingers steepled and made encouraging noises throughout the story. “This is a matter of great interest to me. I recall that the god Holzd claimed every class to be a priest of some god or other?”
“It is my recollection that he did. I was close to overwhelmed at the time, or far past it, and may be mistaken as to the details. He treated it as a matter of universal knowledge and not as a salient point in any way.”
“That ties in with my opinions. For a long time now I have grown more and more sure that all our abilities are granted by gods even as that ancient myth tells. I mean the one about how the gods favored humans above all creatures in the world.”
Dirant still had not decided whether he should have been embarrassed about his ignorance regarding the aspects of Paznitiklesdharbdigeng and so on, but this sounded like something he really ought to have known but did not. He shifted in his less-cushioned chair. “There is some myth of significance here?”
“I think so. When the gods convened every beast of the land as well as the fish and the birds and commanded them to provide amusement for them, and out of all those animals only humans did so, I previously wondered what sort of gods those were and whether we were to take them seriously. Today I must conclude that this Holzd as you describe him fits in well with that characterization. He laughs at our ritualism studies and loves us for it. Everything fits. I am sure the other gods have other tastes. Last week I paid for the opportunity to watch the dexterous tricks of the Acrobats executed by the best of them. Why should the gods not enjoy that sort of entertainment just as much?”
“I suppose so.” The young Ritualist reflected on his own education and what use he had made of it. Perhaps laughter was the correct response. “If it is not too aggressive to ask again, why am I hearing of these theories only now? My professors said nothing of it, and it is not flattery to say some of your writings were included in our coursework. Why not publish something about your growing certitude?”
“I did. Hold on.” The distinguished author stood and took one of twenty or so identical books from his shelves. “Here it is. Look.”
Tanseliaf turned the cover to Dirant so he could see the title. On the Divine Underpinnings of the Class System: That Class Abilities Are Gifts From the Gods Is Far From Disproved. His eyes widened.
“The reviewers loved it,” Tanseliaf told him. “They thought it metaphor of the highest excellence.” He shrugged. “I hope for a critical reevaluation later. There is little the author can do about such things. Most people read a review, not all of it but just the first few paragraphs and some snatches deeper in, and not the book itself. You can have this. I'll autograph it for twenty-four ezolas.”