A Refutation
After formulating enough hypotheses for years of testing, they fell to discussing the buildings as they passed and guessing what country and century they represented, badly. Taomenk's knowledge of historical engineering methods did not surpass Dirant's by so far as the latter imagined it must. Neither for example understood anything of the triangular building with a flat roof they interrupted their tower trip to circle.
“It may have religious significance. It is my impression archaeologists declare that to indicate to their colleagues they are at a loss while preserving the reputation of their profession against accusations often made by laymen.”
“It's nothing else but that. I allow they aren't always wrong.” Taomenk pondered a little longer. “A testing ground for new vehicles. Ah, that was a silly thing I said.”
They reached the tower not long afterward as measured in attention-grabbing sights, and if not for Taomenk's guess, the tower would not have qualified as one. The many purposes of such a building were well understood and there was nothing eccentric in its design. Moreover, nobody poked his head out of an upper window or dropped anything on them, both sure proofs of habitation. Taomenk rapped on the unadorned yet classy oak door regardless, waited a courteous interval, and started smashing a knife hilt against it.
“Perhaps they clap here,” Dirant suggested, whereupon he acted on his words by clapping twice rapidly. After a pause, he repeated the double clap with increasing vigor until the clamor resembled that produced by a Drastlifan drummer trying to beat time during a naval battle.
“I'm not trying to go deaf, Mr. Dirant,” Taomenk said. A few splinters came off the door as he did.
Dirant pointed at the marks the knife was making. Taomenk stopped instantly. They shared the same Adabanish thought: The owner of a tower who suffers it to be damaged must regard its imminent loss as deserved. They shoved open the door and entered.
The spiral staircase appeared in that tower also, an excellent environment for it. That and some papers were the only notable features in Dirant's view. He examined the sheets, of course without touching them in the manner of the respectful visitor to an archaeological site. “And is this the same writing I saw in the ziggurat, or? That is to say not merely the same alphabet, but the exact same writing.”
“That's good sense. One good compilation that has everything is better than a dozen incomplete ones. Efficiency and redundancy.” Confident the latter factor would prevent undesirable consequences, Taomenk picked up one of the stacks and flipped through it. “This writing has nothing of the geometrical excellence in Ertith script. Hm, but there is an awareness of absurdity which is more commendable at times.”
With an entire civilization labeled and filed away on the evidence of one untranslated paragraph, the two Adabans searched tables and cabinets on every floor, finding nothing more informative or the tools Taomenk expected. On the top level, they poked their heads out the windows. The view from there presented much the same attractions as the ziggurat version, and none of the structures visible from there struck Taomenk as especially promising.
There was something though. Dirant could not quite describe it at first, much as when he noticed the absence of wind before he understood it. He looked in a direction that felt right; his companion did the same, and neither spoke, as if to make explicit their suspicion was to expose it as false. But there was no mistake. Something was out there, in that direction. Breath arrested itself in Dirant's throat, his blood slowed for the occasion, and his hands adopted a perfect stillness suitable if an armed guard stood between him and a display of jewels. Then, because it grew louder though his ears perceived none of the intermediate stages between silence and clarity, he heard singing such as never he had before.
“Mr. Dirant!”
“Mr. Taomenk!”
The two threw their arms around each other at the same time and unquestionably for the same reason. “Mr. Taomenk, did a notion come upon you to head straight for that splendid voice through this very window, its height notwithstanding, or was it I alone who experienced it?”
“The same happened to me. There's nothing like quickness in recognizing problems. We saved each other there, I have no doubt.”
The pair withdrew from the window, facing outward with a mixture of fear, terror, and apprehension, if indeed those three terms did not point to the same emotion, and refused to separate before they reached the tower's center. Still of one mind, the two trotted down the stairs, reached ground level, and sallied in search of the song, worried about what would happen if they found it but dreading far more their regret if never they did.
By no means were they defenseless in an encounter. Taomenk had a knife on his person. Dirant also had a knife. That was to say nothing of their class abilities, which perhaps was the better course but one Dirant could not convince himself to adopt. “Suppose I intone the invented word loojweirloo. Thereupon the Fascination Ritual activates which immobilizes those who see the light it creates, usually. Please do not look at or above me if that happens.”
Taomenk grunted, but in a friendly sort of fashion. “I must review my abilities. Urm. No, nothing useful. What a class is Visionary, but how obnoxious it would be for me to complain. It's done me well. I will act as your vanguard, Mr. Dirant, and you can deal with anything.”
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While a kind sentiment, Dirant did not believe that he could. Regardless, he and Taomenk summoned whatever fortitude they possessed as well as their Sticktoitiveness (57 in Dirant's case) and Gumption (27, but 35 in practice because of the Ritual Development ability), whereupon they set off through the mishmash of architecture and beyond it to an ugly countryside. Clay colored a filthy brown and a gray suggestive of disease formed the ground as if the god who fashioned that region begrudged the inhabitants anything good on account of an overlooked sacrifice. Despite that, palms and poplars sprung up all over and tulips underneath, perhaps as rewards for erecting an ostentatious, possibly triangular temple. The occasional edifice did adorn the strangely fertile waste, perhaps built there after the city council rejected the permit applications.
All the while the singing's volume remained constant, deceiving the travelers into doubting their progress until they began to hear an instrumental accompaniment. That too skipped the intervening stages between non-existence and perfect volume. No one but a trained musician could have answered the resulting questions such as, “What goes on here?” and, “By what means may we leave this place?” Musicians often heard that sort of thing, at least during the earlier part of their careers.
At last they found the singer. She sat on the barrier around a well, singing and plucking away like any bored Omme might but distinct in certain features. Normally a description of someone's hair as “golden” embellished the fact of blondness in a universally accepted manner, but the metallic glitter of the veritable curtain draped over the singer's shoulders and back was enough to cause embarrassment in any poet who had misused the word previously. When she glanced up at the approaching listeners, she revealed another peculiarity. Nobody ever compared his love's eyes to rubies save perhaps a doctor who had cause to be concerned about her health, and so the novelty was all the more startling. More mundanely, Dirant knew of no country in which the modern woman wore a tunic, though historically instances of such sartorial customs existed as proved by many a poem and portrait.
The collective impression of the stranger spurred one thought in Dirant: “The Fascination Ritual's effect may not apply to this person.”
> Ability Ritual Applicability (Fairy) gained.
“Mr. Taomenk, it happens that, ah, please permit to check again.”
“The same for me, Mr. Dirant.”
> Ritualist
>
> Priest of Holzd
>
> LV 9 320/1000
>
>
>
> HP 293
>
> Muscle 36 (+2)
>
> Coordination 44 (+5)
>
> Verve 43 (+4)
>
> Sticktoitiveness 57 (+6)
>
> Discernment 69 (+5)
>
> Gumption 27 (+4)
>
> Tit-for-Tat 43 (+2)
>
> Receptivity 88 (+7)
>
> Panache 46 (+4)
>
>
>
> Class Abilities
>
> Ritual Judgment
>
> Ritual Completion
>
> Ritual Memory
>
> Ritual Delay
>
> Ritual Substitution
>
> Ritual Development
>
> Divine Guidance (Hunch)
>
> Ritual Applicability (Fairy)
>
> Ritual Humility
>
> Ritual Revelation
>
> Ritual Flair
>
> General Abilities
>
> Adaban (Fluent)
>
> Heweks (Fluent)
>
> Yumin (Fluent)
>
> Tabidgeir (Intermediate)
>
> Dvanj (Intermediate)
>
> Drastlimez (Intermediate)
>
> Usse (Intermediate)
>
> Desurvyai (Basic)
>
> Saueo (Basic)
>
> Mercantile Fundamentals
>
> Horse Riding (Intermediate)
>
> Class Perception (Divine)
>
> Negotiating Fundamentals
Indeed he had read the notification correctly, and the details confirmed his latest ability did what the name suggested, that is, it allowed him to determine if a particular ritual affected fairies the same as it did humans (though without details as to the differences) or at all. “Yes, I learned a fairy-related ability.”
“As did I. Well. There's nothing for it but to remember our tales and press on. Not every fairy story ends badly for the hero, Mr. Dirant.”
That was true. Not everyone who wandered into fairy halls was torn apart by fay hounds while still alive or strung between two boulders, one for refusing a fairy king's gift and a second for accepting it. Sometimes a human came away unharmed or even rewarded, as in the incident of King Aspagart Ibilosh Eukiroich which was attested by numerous witnesses and accepted by historians. He once gave hospitality to a stranger without even asking his name, handed him his cup personally, and when the traveler made to refuse, swore whatever was inside was his. The stranger smiled and drank, revealing at the bottom the largest emerald in the king's treasury, but rather than becoming irate at the trick or fearful at the magic employed, King Aspagart congratulated his guest on his unexpected bounty. Later the king was returning from a raid, for he was of the Obenec, and saw that same man standing next to a curiously radish-shaped rock. The man insisted on returning the hospitality. He bade Aspagart lift up the rock and take anything that was under it. The nobles and attendants objected, but the king obeyed as readily as he ate, hunted, or distributed the spoils. He pulled up the rock, and he pulled and he pulled, and as he did a grand palace rose below. The fairy king, for so he was, congratulated the mortal king on his new residence, and that palace inspired wonder for centuries, though by that time it had long since been destroyed.
Then there were the in-between outcomes. Takki had told him about Two-Century Pakkset, and while later adaptations exploited the tale to mock the mores of people two centuries earlier, the original account suggested Pakkset merited sympathy for all that he lived through his fairy encounter. Dirant's current surroundings suggested the sort of supernatural realm in which six months meant a century too much for him to want to think about that for long. He checked his watch, and seeing it as slow as ever, decided there was nothing to be done there.
Modern speculation about the wrath fairies would doubtless hold if they had continued to exist into the present on the grounds having all the world taken up by humans so that they had no space for their mystical woods, enchanted hills, and bottomless lakes did not encourage him. That was the fourth grouping of fairy story, and three of them warned Dirant and Taomenk not to be in the situation they were. In addition, his Ritual Applicability (Fairy) told him plainly the Fascination Ritual most certainly would not have its typical impact on the fairy before them. Even so, they had their knives and their courtesy, and the Adaban who wanted more than that could justly be accused of greed.