And Their History From The Earliest Times As Desperate Prayers For Safety
The passengers all boarded, the Stadeskosken workers and Takki right away, Aesyo with her entourage later. That term encompassed Mr. and Mrs. Yajagan only, as the rest of her people stayed aboard the Miziyan Mazoiyan, or First Best, to wait for the resolution of an unanticipated difficulty. Desabas Aesyo told her shipmates about it with an Explorer's customary Verve during dinner in the captain's cabin. Her class was no mystery; the subjects of Yean Defiafi let no idea of hiding their status cross their minds, from the most deprived to the noble Desabases.
> Explorer
>
> Priestess of Oax
>
> LV 14 230/1000
>
>
>
> HP 597
>
> Muscle 33 (+1)
>
> Coordination 56 (+3)
>
> Verve 71 (+7)
>
> Sticktoitiveness 60 (+6)
>
> Discernment 40
>
> Gumption 72 (+5)
>
> Tit-for-Tat 43 (+2)
>
> Receptivity 48
>
> Panache 58 (+1)
Those were some big numbers, though her braid still surpassed them.
“First I was told they have to review my permits. They were very sorry about the whole thing naturally, but it had to be done to settle down the public. You'd have to be the most selfish thing on Egillen to complain, so I waited. And I waited for the rereview, and the rerereview, and how much do they expect me to bear? I won't say I suspect a plot to stop my Miziyan Mazoiyan from setting out, but why isn't everything possible being done to expedite this whole runaround so the world's first ship fortified by the Akard-Velgsin process that could never have been imagined just five years ago, the pinnacle of naval engineering, can shock the entire world? It's inconceivable! No thank you, I couldn't eat another bite.” Since the captain spoke the tongue of the sea but no Desurvyai, he could do nothing but smile paternally.
Dirant and Onkallant had more to say, or rather Loigwin Nein-Cadops-Bain and Mikaruvadran Yailt-Fops said some things conveyed through the medium of those two Adabans. The conjectures they related added to Aesyo's umbrage and at the same time confirmed the wisdom of her decision to go to Dubwasef herself to straighten things out. “Fortune has it out for me, but she can't make up her mind for long. I'm glad I ignored Captain Yajagan's excuses and brought him with me. Drastlifars listen to ship captains and not whatever you want to call me. Oh, he was talking all this nonsense about how he needed to keep the men disciplined and familiarize himself with the novel little lovely I was handing over to his care, but I put a stop to that. He's the type to fall in love and never climb back up, which worked out well for my Aircrem. Would you gentlemen be willing to distract him during our two days to Dubwasef so he doesn't worry himself into an early widowhood for my best friend?”
The request had sincere affection behind it, and remembering that later helped everyone on deck bear the particular singing style Captain Yajagan and Onkallant shared which prioritized volume and endurance. Even Takki dropped out, though she rejoined for a verse every few songs.
“They aren't bad singers, either,” she observed. “It's just hard on my throat. Foo! Ha!”
Both Dirant and Aesyo spectated Takki's halberd exercises, the one standing like a stern Adaban statesman and the other sitting on a padded stool adorned with floral designs somewhat removed from what tedious nature persisted in producing. Dirant was required to translate, as well as he could, conversations about oddities of nature and history. Aesyo had a store of those from the expeditions her father had been permitting her to take for years already.
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Not that they restricted themselves to such matters. “Now that I listen instead of being forced to listen, Mr. Onkallant is a promising baritone, isn't he? It's a shame developing that is unlikely to help him with . . . your very fine carrying company.” A last-minute adjustment to spare the feelings of her translator revealed Aesyo's opinion of his and Onkallant's social prestige.
As harsh as it was, someone sufficiently incentivized to do so might be able to retrieve the situation. In normal circumstances Dirant would not be that someone, but in addition to the “Delaosant's grandchildren” theory, the position of Itinerant Ritualist carried with it certain responsibilities such as assisting Onkallant in developing a financially meaningful new ritual when Desabas Aesyo rejected him, provided he changed his class to Ritualist, which presumably he could not. Failing that, Dirant felt an obligation to aid Stadeskosken's employees so long as they were not themselves at fault.
When next the two singers approached in their circuit over the deck like comets modern astronomers competed to identify and name as soon as they became visible, his plan was prepared. “Mr. Onkallant,” he called out in Desurvyai. Most of what he said next belonged to that language only by adoption, for Egillen's residents saw no need to invent substitutes for the technical heraldry terms which the Drastlinez had imported. “Repetition is the basis of improvement. How is this? Per pale vert and azure, an orle of twelve ipapobar, two kine gules within six corn slipped or and as many palms argent.”
“Ah, closer than close!” Onkallant galloped over and displayed his fan. “See here. The division here is not straight and is what is called engrailed, so 'per pale engrailed.' Also the attitude of the cows must be included or else they will both face the same direction with their heads up. The Station of Shields would have a fit if they heard of it. So it is 'two kine respectant gules.' But what a memory these Ritualists have! I had to grow up around this talk for years to learn it.”
Aesyo sat straight up in a jerk that lifted her off her stool for a moment and stared at the shield printed on his fan with her head turned a bit to disguise the target of her interest. Then she thought better of that and looked directly, since there was nothing strange about being startled nor anything improper about admiration for others. “Don't tell me that's an approved shield, or the novelty of a foreign family issued a legitimate Drastlifan coat of arms might drive me to jump into the ocean to learn if humans can breathe underwater suddenly.”
“I can restrain you if it comes to that,” Onkallant said while stretching his arms and legs in anticipation of the necessity. “For it is all true. My father's service as an ambassador earned him the distinction. My translator career is not so distinguished as his, but I had to return and check how they got along without us!”
Captain Yajagan laughed. “Miserably, sir, miserably! I'll have to ask you to set them right for our sake.”
Aesyo, meanwhile, had become deathly serious. “Mr. Onkallant, can we say your current position then is something in the nature of a hobby? Your father is an ambassador, you said?”
“Perhaps a diversion from the expected route more than a hobby. Of course I take the work seriously, I affirm before the boss's son.” He winked at Dirant. Next he clapped Dirant on the arm in case anyone missed the wink.
Seeing Aesyo's speculative look, Dirant considered himself to have done as much as he wanted to ensure the continuation of Delaosant Paspaklest's line, which was to make one remark. With that over, he hoped, contrary to his former position, that the warning his Divine Guidance (Hunch) gave him dealt with genealogical matters already resolved. It seemed possible. Time was dulling the awfulness he felt back then, as it did everything else. The cloudless sky above and Drastlif's southern coast with its palm trees and curving houses that seemed almost to be nuts grown from the ground and hollowed out to accommodate renters both helped with that. The only threatening thing out there was the heat; even Takki's halberd swung at emptiness for the lack of enemies to fight.
In that atmosphere of relaxed contemplation, Dirant ventured to raise a topic of cultural interest which touched upon personal matters. He thought he could get away with it because Onerid had gone below to escape her brother's troubadour practice. “Speaking of prestige and so, you are what is called an armiger, are you not? The reason is that you are permitted to bear arms.”
“It is so,” Onkallant confirmed. “I never understood the term. We have a shield alone, and a picture of one at that. I suppose we are to hang the real thing over the side of the ship we command. And so first I must buy a ship!”
“Yet you remain a foreigner. Moreover, your shield has little history. Suppose the idea is put forward of an alliance with an older family, perhaps one with that red square. This is all theory you must understand, until that is it becomes a serial under our publishing wing.”
“A theory about Loigwin Nein-Cadops-Bain, you mean?” Onkallant winked again to show he got it before becoming serious. “How that will end, I have no idea. Without too much injury to Loit, I hope. Ah, but there is nothing to that particular concern. An armiger is an armiger.”
“Thank you, Mr. Onkallant.”
“Nothing to it, Mr. Dirant.” Onkallant saluted and resumed his circuit while Dirant translated the exchange for Takki, who had become friendly enough with Onerid that perhaps an informed clarification of her social status interested her.
It did, but it left her disgruntled as well. “I'm missing all the important parts, Ressi. There was the chase back there, and I don't blame you for not coming to get me, and now this Desurvyai talk. Thank you for translating by the way. I really do appreciate it. Where are the secrets that need a Battler to lay them bare?”
“Dubwasef is said to be a different sort of place,” Dirant told her by way of consolation.