“Allow me, as unworthy as I am to speak even for myself, to express to you gentlemen what an honor it is for our Yean Defiafi to have hosted travelers of your quality.” Doltandon Yurvitas said that with the benevolent condescension of the true subject of his kingdom which made clear their aforementioned quality was quite low and in need of improvement, while his unfeigned pleasure derived from his presumption they had gotten a little during their visits. In Taomenk's opinion Yean Defiafi's infrastructure required betterment more than he did, a stance with which Doltandon freely concurred. From there they discussed the country without reserve, its virtues and its failings alike, and of course the personalities.
Dirant had met in person only a single one of Yean Defiafi's countless luminaries, and that someone notorious rather than honorably famous. “And Glainai Gabas remains imprisoned as of the last report, though it is no surprise if a criminal of his aptitude and daring is abroad while a well-compensated substitute keeps his place. Any judgment of my character based on the people I encounter is beyond my power to contradict. I met nobody of the more respectable sort such as that Judge Dolityu Bars about whom the broadsheets were so exercised at the time for a reason I no longer remember. Later I made the acquaintance of the charming Miss Desabas Aesyo and her entourage in Drastlif, which is something.”
“Judge Dolityu Bars!” Yurvitas snatched his hat off his head to throw it on the ground, realized the trouble he would have replacing it, and placed it down before picking it back up as a symbolic representation. “Mr. Dirant, here is an aid to your memory. The reporters swarmed around him because of a most infamous act. Glainai Gabas has transgressed the provisions of many law codes, but what is he? No one expected better. Judge Dolityu Bars attacked the laws of society itself that are immutable and sacred, or at least they were. But who is left to defend them? Who can be bothered to remember?”
Some men, when moved to wrath, enter such a frenzy as has the power to terrify all about them regardless of their physique or known class abilities. Doltandon Yurvitas belonged to the other type. Had he been armed, armored, and flourishing an authorization from his king to cut down anyone who interfered with him in the execution of royal business, not a single person would have taken him seriously. He wrung his hands dramatically, a gesture rarely indicative of imminent action, and kicked the ground at each step with intensity sufficient to dig out a latrine. That would come in handy later.
“Judge Dolityu Bars,” and he meant the name itself to be an accusation, “devised innovations tending to upend the genial customs our noble ancestors established as a joy for their descendants. He decided to dispose of his legacy, throw it in the lake, destroy it utterly, just to avoid the projected blow to his pride that his heirs would, combined, surpass him in wealth when his was added to theirs.”
“Ah, that was it. He donated his art collection to a city. Thank you, Mr. Doltandon.”
“That was the first wrongful allocation, the first step on the staircase of iniquity which gives the blackened heart a route to the sky that it might add to night's darkness! Righteousness has the moon and stars as its guardians, nothing else. Judge Dolityu Bars dispossessed his lawful, or we do not transgress to say his rightful heirs, because of habitual meanness of character, the sole requirement to be a judge in this country. That was enough to consign him to the ranks of scoundrels, but he went further than that. The respectable gentleman is discrete when he commits a crime. Judge Dolityu Bars told everyone. He took out ads! Dyai's look! The interviewers he picked gave the deference he wanted. They listened to the nonsense he grabbed off the shelf of rhetoric to dress up his actions and repeated it to the public as if it were a text compiled from decades of a sage's writing rather than ramblings explicable by senility. The low character of his heirs, and how the expectation of leisure can ruin a person faster and surer than leisure itself, and how he formerly thought he owed to the society which brought him up his own upright service and a second generation, but after seeing that generation grown he realized his heirs were nothing but impositions on the public patience. Obviously he did the whole thing as a ploy to get his name in the broadsheets removed, for once, from the phrase, 'gets it wrong in signal ruling.'”
Whatever might be said about the justice of Doltandon's complaints, his diatribe on the topic made the journey seem to his companions an inconsequential thing no longer noticed. They could have marched for three days straight provided he had enough grudges to occupy seventy-two hours, and at the moment none doubted that he did.
“Even I didn't know to doubt interviewers before that incident, so how can I blame those who listened credulously? Soon parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts were disinheriting shocked scions as casually as they decided to go swimming. It's now our kingdom's favorite sport! The wealthy Drastlifar on vacation takes to the tennis courts and finds them filled with lawyers writing new wills, each one scored on its cruelty, its pettiness, and how convoluted are its provisions. Split your house into its different wings, bequeath each to a different institution and the shed to your grandson, and you receive a point. This is the conduct we show the world now.”
Believing Doltandon Yurvitas to be finishing up his speech, Taomenk tendered a few words of rough comfort. “You don't have to be anywhere they don't want you. Just earn your place, as you are.”
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“Oh, I haven't been disinherited.” Beyond the simple entertainment of watching someone become agitated over a situation which would never affect the listener, this particular confused polemic which already had attributed the judge's actions to three distinct motives was delivering twists more surprising than those in the most thrilling serials, even the ones which stopped bothering to make sense after they ran a little too long. Dirant and the fairies enjoyed it tremendously. Insensible to the reactions, Yurvitas continued.
“But everyone knows what it means when your aunt hints that your behavior is not all it could be and mentions she attended a dinner engagement recently with such fascinating people. Officers, poets, judges, diplomats, architects, judges . . . That's how it starts, as subtle as that. They think they are subtle, that we missed the secret message. The reward for preserving the family dignity by refusing to acknowledge such an unnatural suggestion is this! The hints become heavier and heavier, as does the heart. Mine dragged me low until I quit my class, my beautiful Colorist, and embraced a crude new career. One day Yean Defiafi will awaken and rub its drowsy eyes, see its most distinguished children engaged in unworthy labor as if born to it, and recoil at what it has done, looking on the situation as a nightmare.”
To despise this pampered inheritor of presumably above-average wealth for his forceful resentment over being coerced into taking regular work of the sort every person but a few did as a matter of course, and not in manual labor but in supervision at that, would doubtless be the impulse of the greater part of humanity. Dirant numbered among the lesser part. He sympathized. He did consider Yurvitas's histrionics to be unnecessary, unhelpful to himself let alone broader society, and more amusing than most theatrical performances which claimed to be comedies on the thinnest of evidence, but he sympathized with someone who had cause to suspect his future would be other than it was. That was before he heard an argument from the agitated scion which raised his support higher still.
“They are free with that term, 'low character.' They use it ecstatically. Very well, but where did we get that low character? Why did we persist in having it despite the gentle, desperate instruction of our relatives? That is the implied scenario, and here is the real. They said nothing about our low character until Judge Dolityu Bars used the term in an interview. Not a single time, none of them! Why should they have? Our characters conform to their expectations. From the cradle we learned to smile at people we dislike if their influence could advance a cousin. I studied the social graces, not the best way to swear after dropping a hammer on my foot. I mixed with the genteel, not the ordinary, and learned how to deal with them. They trained us to be charming and are surprised when we continued to charm in our own interest. 'Make excuses for me, but never lie.' They are the same. Am I incompetent as is implied? I haven't learned all the Subjugator abilities to which my level entitles me, that's how recently I changed class, and I run the most active work crew in the kingdom. Adabans recognize its value! A Subjugator, and with such effort.”
Deprived of any other visual complement to his speech, Yurvitas flashed a portion of his status in a most Survyai-esque manner.
> Subjugator
>
> Priest of Wui
>
> LV 18 19/1000
>
>
>
> HP 487
>
> Muscle 31 (+1)
>
> Coordination 63 (+3)
>
> Verve 45 (+2)
>
> Sticktoitiveness 36 (+2)
>
> Discernment 37 (+1)
>
> Gumption 40 (+1)
>
> Tit-for-Tat 18
>
> Receptivity 60
>
> Panache 54
That he had required two gains in Sticktoitiveness merely to enter his new class impressed the audience with his commitment, as did the unquestionable superiority of Colorist in suiting his stats on account of his 54 Panache. The bare facts behind the rhetoric could not fail to move those who saw them.
“Tell us more about Judge Dolityu Bars,” a fairy said.
“Yes! He seems interesting. I've been thinking about changing my name. I've had this one for eons now.”
Yurvitas had exhausted himself too far to do anything but look chagrined at the reception his story elicited. The moment had passed for Dirant to say he for one understood, but he did so regardless.
“I understand too,” another fairy commiserated. “You're sad that someone is asking outright about interesting people when we're so close to finding out ourselves. I can't believe we're finally going to escape this dead city.”
That was the first Dirant, Taomenk, or Yurvitas had heard about a desire on the part of the fairies to leave with them, not to mention about obstacles to their doing so. They had presumed fay powers removed all restrictions on travel. Dirant almost asked a question before he thought to try a new approach.
“This fairy realm is surely equipped with everything necessary,” he said. There was a statement open to disagreement, if the fairies so chose.
They did. “The only reason to come here is to watch the strongest five fight over who gets to be Hacanthu.”
“I wish I were strong enough to compete. Hacanthu was the greatest in history.”
“Sometimes I join in the fights, but it isn't that good.”
“I watch as many battles as I can.” That was Wiuyo. “They're poor material for songs though. Nobody here knows anything about war. Zatdil thinks he does. But what is war? I can't write a worthy song about it until I know.”
“I want to sit behind a waterfall.”
“I remember storms being exciting, but it's been so long.”
The fairies went on expressing their fondest wishes and desires, their most grievous discontents. Fortunately, not a single one said anything about wanting to transform humans into trees or not having enough humans around to turn into trees. On fortune's reverse side, the fairies refused to elaborate on any intriguing points which arose.