Wind The Horns, For Foe Or Lord, Someone Comes
Never again in his life, Dirant presumed, would he travel at the speed he had on his holy mission to Wessolp, but riding with the Redrins came much closer than the Stadeskosken slog. The group flew around the Older Sister and rested in Mellolulyan, and from there reached Uviuvi in not quite six days against a rough estimate of nine or ten it would have required the trade mission's wagons to trundle that distance. There Dirant and Takki had their first view of the Suvozingedyai Sea.
“It is distressingly ugly,” the former said.
“It wants to hurt us,” the latter agreed.
The sullen gray waves visible from the hotel roof failed to delight tourists. Some hotel owners furnished their establishments with flat tops in order that their guests might look out over the surly gray waves and appreciate where they were compared to the sea they had left or soon had to endure. Often guests chose to extend their stays after a good view of that terrible sea. The Suvo or the Suvvo, as the man on the street of Greater Enloffenkir or Pavvu Omme Os referred to it when pressed to do so, had become the backdrop for innumerable sad poems and tales of exiles, murders, and hauntings.
Still, Uviuvi offered other attractions. For instance, a select audience enjoyed the one-time spectacle of a Kitslofer getting de-Adabaned and subsequently Yuminized. People bought clothes and had their hair cut constantly without thinking to sell tickets, which proved the lack of commercial instinct possessed by the masses. The Mercantile Fundamentals ability informed Dirant too late that maybe he could have squeezed something out of the servants and Takki based on how enthusiastic they seemed about the whole thing.
“Should we call you Dirant laHaderslant from now on?” Takki wondered. “Or can we make it more Yumin-sounding?”
“You have to stop pretending northern food isn't spicy if you want to pull this off,” Hugal warned.
“Dirin laHaderslin?”
“Scrape off that smug, slightly intimidating smile and paint on a happy one like we have,” Eyanya advised.
“My smile is not smug,” Dirant protested.
“Yes it is,” everyone but him insisted.
Unfortunately, the appeal was not of a sort that could be replicated and turned into a commercial venture. Perhaps liminality had something to do with it, the sense of passing from one existence to another. Or it may have been the questions raised, such as how many people would be fooled so long as he kept his Adaban-accented tongue still or whether he could be fully civilized with enough training.
Though Dirant somehow derived less entertainment than they from the whole thing, Uviuvi served him some intellectual stimulation at the pier from the sight of horses being guided up multiple specialized gangways into the ship chartered for the short southward trip. “Modern Redrin naval technology is something,” he observed, though not out of any knowledge on the subject. He had never seen a saltwater ship in his life. It all seemed very technical and competent to him however, much like Stadeskosken's daily operations.
“Isn't it?” Audnauj had seen a ship and even boarded one. His evident excitement stood on an informed foundation. “That's the future of the country, everyone thinks. The fleet. We're far too easy to invade, geographically. Our battles always happen on our land. The Battle of Egror, the Battle of Bachto, the Battle of Egror Two, all those. Why shouldn't Noiswawau ride over the border any time King Noiswawau feels like having a portrait of himself painted against a Redrin background? The next time he tries that, we'll put on a jubilee in his own ports and send him the bill.” The grasp Redrin nobles had on international relations and strategy, younger sons included, reminded Dirant that the awe-inspiring martial achievements of that group were verified historical truths, something possible to forget after spending enough time in Lord Audnauj's company.
The time for land-based travel ended, and if anyone developed concerns about the new sea voyage, he had reason. The ominous clouds, the eager spray, the mostly Yumin crew more interested in the foibles of the latest Dvanjchtliv lord to come to its attention than in knots and yardarms; every element conspired to make Dirant worry about sinking. The true maritime experience. It was a short journey at least. With less than a day's travel, he barely had time enough onboard to complete, in collaboration with Takki and gossip-satiated Yumins, a ranked list of Yean Defiafi place names, let alone imagine his own sea-bloated corpse as it drifted to some shore far from home or else sank to the rocky bottom. Engoyan Ifrazlim, or Doting Father, took the first spot by consensus, but a dispute broke out between adherents of Let's Go Swimming (Akkagafwarrefo) and The Optimists (Droinasbirvi).
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“The historical context behind Droinasbirvi has so many twists that people would think it was fictional if there weren't records. Aren't you fascinated when you think about how all those people tried to get instantly rich off gold, only to end up owning land with some of the most productive iron mines on Egillen instead? It goes up and down and up again like the finest stories.” Millim Takki Atsa presented the case, complete with hand motions that described the undulating arc of the story.
For all the crowd-winning theatricality deployed against him, Dirant Rikelta took up the opposed viewpoint without hesitation. “Yes, and the locals are entirely convinced that story is the finest ever told, sure to win the heart of the tired traveler. They say the name of the city, grin, and wait for the question, and we are the rude ones if we refuse. It is an irksome transaction that leaves richer no one involved. Let us consider Akkagafwarrefo instead. The meaning is evident from a single look at the location, not to mention the swimmers ever in the lake as if the artist painted them there. It's a bright, welcoming name with none of the condescension often suffered by the traveler in Yean Defiafi.”
“Ressi, countries don't exist for foreigners to feel welcome in them. Wayfarers have to expect inconveniences.”
“I agree with that, and might think better of the name if even the residents of Droinasbirvi gained something from it. Instead, they are surrounded by the pernicious message that optimism is the particular quality of fools who thrive only through luck. Anyone from that city is destined to become a pessimist from fear of mockery.”
“I don't think we should be so fast to conclude that.”
“Yes, and you are able to say so as a daughter of Rattap Tuik. The Droinasbirvians are less fortunate.”
If neither qualified as a master debater by Pavvu Omme Os standards, the fault lay in those who decided such things and permitted the title to Evokers alone, or else in the Evoker class itself for having unreasonable requirements. What was special about 60 Coordination and 48 Verve, in the end?
The tastes of the participants could not be reconciled, but both foreigners concurred in not giving Gwin Gardalihm a high spot when they moved on to a transcontinental version. Pretty Port? No surer sign could there have been that Yean Defiafi lay behind them. Still, names were but names. What substance did Redrin, that Yumin cake with Dvanjchtliv icing, offer the traveler?
Wooden buildings of one to five stories that looked to have been planned as simple rectangles before necessity attached sheds and extra wings gave an impression of earthy practicality that was undone by their color schemes. Not white or red or blue or green, but all of those and more combined to form nothing the average, non-artist Adaban could interpret as patterns, historical scenes, religious symbolism, or anything else of decorative significance. The offices and warehouses along the harbor and the houses farther inland bore such disordered swatches of paint that the most plausible explanation involved a mob of people going at the thing with no plan.
“Of course we all go at it with no plan. Haven't you ever put up a house before?” Eyanya looked puzzled at the question.
“Don't act dumb,” Takki said as eloquently as her Yumin (Basic) learned shipboard permitted. The servants had remarked she spoke the language like someone amazed at simple magic tricks, and Dirant still had not figured out how to interpret that description. “You know houses in places other look unlike that.”
Hugal admitted it. “I try not to hold it against them either, but it's just natural to come together as a community to erect a home and then throw a big party where everybody paints it as fast as possible. Maybe that's why Adabans are so tense all the time.”
“We know it's why Dvanjchtlivs are. Get them into a good house party and they loosen right up.” Eyanya paused. “You have to get them drunk first.”
Dirant watched Audnauj smiling his unaffected smile as he accepted the best wishes of every official who could make time to be noticed by a lord. “Truly he is more a coiled spring than a man.”
Hugal, without moving his arms, raised one finger to point discreetly at Onzalkarnd. “There's one who needs a good painting.”
Dirant shook his head. “His rigidity is an institutional requirement. He becomes friendly and talkative as soon as Audnauj pretends to sleep in order to sneak out at night and meet shady sculptors. Ask him sometime to recite a specific passage from the Beisgaignu. He knows it. He can hold forth on any epic poem I know, which is perhaps a smaller number than it would be wise for me to admit, and recommend more to suit any taste, not only epics but historical, tragic, and comedic poems as well.”
Hugal grimaced. “Eyanya, we'll never be able to find out if that's true or not.”
“You're wrong there, Hugal.” She mimed swiping a brush, and Hugal smiled.