The Conscientious Citizen Is Encouraged To Learn The Techniques To Counter Such
“I know you said your Dvanjchtlivan lessi mie probably weren't a problem and you've been right so far, but I thought you'd like to know they're here again.” Takki held up a carved turtle which itself was holding a small mirror which, with some manipulation, reflected two particular people on the street outside. “I'm not sure they're actually following you right now. Maybe they just haven't found you yet.”
“Thank you.” The courtesy section of Dirant's brain took over speech while the rest dedicated itself to that news with the same intense focus as it previously applied to the problem of remembering which one was Sleet and which Hail. Hold on. “When lightning strikes, shorter is better,” he declared.
“Oh, that's not bad. I was thinking that because hail is usually bigger than sleet and . . . Well, it's all right if you didn't notice, Ressi.”
He had definitely noticed, just as he saw the expressions ranging from puzzlement to concern on the part of their companions. They got over it. Possibly they believed it to be a code of the sort he kept meaning to establish. What hindered him every time he remembered the idea was which items to include. “Run!” could be yelled openly in most cases.
The presence of those Dvanjchtlivs combined with a quick review of the hints Poiskops Bodan-Tin had dropped while juggling his twin wishes to maintain secrecy and brag brought Dirant to a conclusion he considered certain: A member of Drastlif's governing councils had been entrusted to provide a venue for negotiations between Prince Ozovramblidaj of Noiswawau and someone of similar importance. Upon determining that, Dirant worried he might be in trouble. He had already attracted the prince's attention, and his presence in Koshat Dreivis must be difficult to take as coincidence. Then again, when Noiswawau's intelligence apparatus found out about the popcorn ritual if it had not already, likely it would accept company secrets as reason enough for Dirant's otherwise inexplicable movements. A hidden motive always seemed more credible than an overt one, and for all that the royalty of Noiswawau preferred martial glory to pecuniary gain, the contrary inclination was easy to attribute to society's middle and to Adabans.
He managed to persuade himself everything would be fine when his love of truth insisted on appending the condition, “unless Stansolt does something upsetting, which he assuredly will.” Obviously Stansolt Gaomat knew of the meeting even in Dubwasef and had agitated to be included for that very reason. As for recourse, Dirant saw none. He would have to rely on Stansolt's discretion, unimpeachable so far as he knew, and maybe spend more time in the town's temple.
The Noiswawauans did pick up his trail eventually, both Battlers informed the quarry. That fact, along with the innovative popcorn facility, added some of the thrill and mystique of the big city to the place. A tourist felt twice as sophisticated as usual when buying and sending to her father in Pavvu Omme Os a kind of bookmark which fit around the side of the page and had inscribed on it the left half of a palm tree, brown and green against orange with every frond detailed.
“We're being followed, Ressi.”
“And so?”
“By someone new.”
“Ah.”
“He is not so good at it,” Ibir remarked. “You mean that young man with the drooping lip and the whiskers that are the herald of a beard, do you not? He may be an admirer who wishes to be noticed.”
Dirant decided against saying he had already noticed that Drastlifar but dismissed the matter after coming to Ibir's second conclusion. Though true, the moment had passed for him to be praised as perceptive rather than condemned as a sore loser in the competition to spot shady people, especially after Takki had been kind enough not to tell anyone about the time Chisops Dogai-Brein caught him unawares. In addition, he might turn out to be wrong. At least he had pointed out the bookmark first, even if he said nothing about its appeal to a bookish academic like old man Takki but remarked only that he had never seen such a style before.
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Eager to win acclaim in another field, Dirant devised a plan in the seeming eternity allowed him while Ibir and Onerid perused daggers and sheaths on the second floor, the surest sign of shared Myrmidonhood possible. The Battlers of course felt no urge to match their weapons and simply looked around the first floor, and there he made his proposal. “'Before war, intelligence.' A general I understand to have been successful overall said that. Therefore I desire to put your impressive skill to the task of learning whom this newcomer is dedicated to following.” He considered listing possibilities, but he had not yet learned the names of every single person in town. Even one Millim Takki Atsa might be the target if some rival hunter had hired thugs to follow her and discover what trophy she might claim there in the exotic south worthy of being mounted over the cold north's fireplaces so as to purchase a better and thereby steal her glory at the next congress of monster slayers. Unlikely, but an idea to suggest to Stadeskosken's recently established publishing wing.
Takki peaked out the window. “I'd really like to, Ressi, but it might be too dangerous to leave you alone.”
Quite a sudden concern when she had hardly been in the bushes watching his house all through the night, he began to think. The realization he could not be sure of that stopped him from saying anything about it. Besides, he came up with a better response. “My secret followers have returned, who, if nothing else, are witnesses.”
“You're going to exploit them for your own ends, Ressi? That's great. I was thinking about wheedling Mr. Stansolt so I could investigate, but that's a little too rude and not nearly as clever.”
“It would not have bothered me regardless,” Stansolt said.
His lack of enthusiasm fed Takki's own. “You do want to look into this person, don't you? Aren't you a Battler? Don't you want to reveal all that's been hidden?”
“No,” Dirant guessed he wanted to say. Instead, Stansolt bowed and said, “He will evade us however, or else be unworthy of our attention from the beginning.”
“It may profit us to know which,” Dirant argued. “If for no reason to hire him later to pass secret messages, though never have I attempted such a thing before.”
“Ah, well, who has?” Perhaps to atone for engaging in evasiveness a bare step short of dishonesty, Stansolt agreed to the plan.
At last the Myrmidons descended. “You all have the look of meeting participants who have come to a sure decision,” Onerid remarked.
“That's right. I'm not sure we should tell you what it is for scientific reasons.” Takki pondered the question, sinking into the splits as she did.
“Please don't, if that is the state to which it reduces you. Am I to act naturally, then?”
“You could do that, but it really would be better if you behaved like you always do.”
From anyone else humor might be suspected, but Takki's serious response only confused her audience until Dirant developed a theory.
“Takki, what are the connotations of 'natural' in Pavvu Omme Os, do you think?”
“Oh, something like crude, unsophisticated, unfinished, in need of improvement. Why? Is it different in the south?”
“Now that the subject is before us, I am unsure. 'Normal' or 'expected' are words that fit the idea as I understand it. That may be a regionalism.” Dirant looked to the other Grenlofers for confirmation.
Onerid simply flipped her fan open instead. “We must arrange a symposium on the topic, but for now the wise course is to prepare for dinner in the event we are again invited by the Stanops, a likely event at least for you, Mr. Dirant, because of your success.” With those words did Onerid, her previous mood restored, declare an end the afternoon outing and depart, naturally or perhaps typically.
Dirant tried to stroll at his customary pace, and already that was impossible from the second word. He failed utterly and came to concentrate on the mechanisms of the act itself. Soon he questioned how he ever accomplished the slightest physical endeavor, and whatever words one might use to describe someone breathing at different depths and feeling his own muscles as they worked in his face and arms, “natural” was not among them, whether in Pavvu Omme Os or anywhere else.
Not so oblivious as to ignore how he must appear, Dirant wrestled his thoughts over to popcorn so that he might relax. Would it bloom in Drastlif? Even he, an Adaban true, rarely exploited the countless popcorn opportunities available to him. That was the old popcorn though, the stale stuff soon to be left behind by the revolution the field was undergoing if the periodicals and journals to which Donnlink Espahalpt subscribed told the naked truth and not an optimistic version of it. Dabblers in Greater Enloffenkir had been experimenting with more flavorful strains and post-pop augmentations since the confederation's founding, but today's hobbyists drank their fill of the modern spirit and knew the failures of the past to be their own imminent triumphs. Then Dirant would make a bunch of money.
Whether a grin and occasional chuckle counted as natural in Greater Enloffenkir, no Drastlifar considered his manner exceptional in any way, least of all a friend of Poiskops Bodan-Tin who met Dirant at his guest house and informed him of that hospitable man's desire for Sajaitin Rikelta's company at dinner. Naturally he indicated his acceptance and, his two jobs of rituals and not looking behind him completed, set about readying himself for the occasion, a process which consisted of swapping his current vest for one less besweatened. Such is the basis of fashion, and all else but elaboration.