A Third Of These Graves Were Dug By Errors, And Half Those Made By Others Than Who Fill Them

“We don't interfere unless we have to, right? If this is his scheme to get out of Yumin traditions, we should support him,” Takki whispered. Dirant nodded.

“By giving him a course in scoundrelry. Or would that be poor payment for the hospitality of the Yumins? No, we must interfere to the least degree our consciences allow.”

“Ressi, I know you're babbling because you're worried, but you don't have to.” Her gentle warning retrieved Dirant from the land of nonsense.

Though neither Battlers nor Ritualists had any abilities related to tracking, they managed to keep up with a Jobber whose sole precaution was to look from side to side as he walked. Not to mention that Audnauj did that not to catch furtive pursuers but rather as part of the military science drilled into him from childhood during an education appropriate for a scion of the warrior aristocracy. Always scan the horizon ahead and to the sides for enemies while trusting the men at your back was how he did things, which worked much better when riding to meet Obeneutian pillagers than when sneaking away from the fair.

Yunderfinsh maintained a wood nearby as a ready supply of lumber for garish houses. Paths ran through it, plantings were regulated, and cuttings were yet more regulated for the benefit of the town, or at least the people able to bend the relevant policies to their advantage. On a normal day there were Yunderfinshers working in or passing through that leafy district, but during the fair nobody could be seen aside from Audnauj, his stalkers, and a woman.

A Survyai women dressed in keeping with the strain of dangerous modesty popular in Yean Defiafi, though against current fashion she allowed her blonde hair to fall in ringlets rather than hiding its slight curliness. One look at her posture brimming with impatience and her mocking smile and anyone sensible would place her in the category of “people to get to know better when I get tired of not having problems.” Takki mimed a hammer and chisel, and Dirant nodded. That had to be Desonn Sheglei, the famous horse-sculptor and crime-lover.

“I'm so glad you came after what that terrible Glainai Gabas tried to do,” Sheglei said or perhaps expelled. “I never knew him to be such a villain as he is. Why, he told me that I would be found guilty if I went back to my lovely home, as if I had assisted in his foul plot!”

“You didn't?” Audnauj asked. “I had come to believe, well, the whole thing was suspicious. Very confusing, too, overall.”

Sheglei nodded, an act which for her somehow required the entire body. “That's just the word for it. Confusing. Puzzling, even! Positively enigmatic, but what really matters is that I'm so very sorry about not completing your statue. Oh, but that's the Colorist in me coming out! I shouldn't be thinking only of that when there's so much else: your revenge, my situation . . . our future . . .” She had been stepping forward all throughout that speech, which might have been intensely interesting for all Takki and Dirant knew. She understood none of it, and he had gotten lost long ago with his Desurvyai (Basic) and interest in other matters. Still, he was able to give his partner the gist of it.

“She's lying,” he translated.

Takki nodded, readied her halberd, and raised her voice to say in Adaban, “If this is a private assignation, what are those thugs doing behind those trees?”

Audnauj drew his saber forthwith. In response, the men Takki had identified grabbed their nets and ran away pell-mell, the seven of them far too aware of their chances against members of more elite classes. Desonn Sheglei joined them, yelling as she went, “I could have talked my way out of that, you goats!”

After Dirant related that incriminating statement, Takki asked, “Do you think she could have, Ressi?”

“No. Her mistaken conception comes from presuming we are Lord Audnauj's underlings. It's my fault for being dressed this way.” He picked at his gray jacket.

“It's a good thing you came, however you're dressed.” Audnauj trotted over. “Could have been trouble. I received a message, but what are you two doing here? Something . . . private?” His eyebrows raised as he looked back and forth.

“We came to fetch you, Lord Audnauj,” Takki said with a bright smile.

“It is so. The Punishing Unction Ceremony no doubt is soon to begin, and though we lack details, it may be something most desirable for you to undergo after all.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“You think so? Well, let's be going then!” Audnauj ambled back to the site of the fair with a friendly hand on each shoulder.

The Punishing Unction Ceremony met their expectations and gave Audnauj what he needed, which was to be rolled around in a shallow pool of oil (ritually enhanced for extra odor) by Yumins who refused to let him out until he admitted how stupid he was. Dirant had attended the smellification ritual and learned the class ability Ritual Revelation, which warned him when someone else completed a ritual nearby. The meaning of “nearby' depended on the specific ritual, as demonstrated when he could barely sense the completion of that one despite being right there.

Every participant in the ceremony confessed to some flaw or other, and there was a competitive aspect in striving to reach the appropriate level of contrition in the fastest time without coming off as insincere. Once released, the penitent received a quick, firm massage to work that oil in. Very firm, especially for suspected fakers. Audnauj's habitual sincerity prevented any problems in that stage of the proceedings.

“See? Everybody loves it,” said a conspicuously oily Hugal. “Which of you wants to go next?”

Dirant resisted the allure. “There is no need. I have eight brothers, many failings to regret, and there is much mud in my home city because of the river.” The Yumins accepted that explanation with wise nods and some commiseration.

Takki began to show signs of panic when they turned to her. Although the relevant pamphlet said nothing on this point, Dirant conjectured from his travels among the immaculate towns of Pavvu Omme Os that the Jalpi Peffu rated cleanliness highly among the virtues. Therefore he was already devising excuses before she shook his sleeve and gave him a look that said “help” in any language either of them knew.

“Unfortunately, my associate here still struggles with the language. Her honest admissions of fault are liable to be misinterpreted. Perhaps it is better to wait until she has advanced her studies further.”

“Sounds sensible,” one of the Yumins said.

“Yeah, we'll think she's being honest when she isn't.”

“Accidental cheating is what that is. Deception without malice. Can't be tolerated in a fair, not at all.”

The Yumins settled for dragging a mill operator over and throwing him in, which he doubtlessly deserved.

The travelers rose late the next day for understandable reasons. So did everyone else in town for reasons identically understandable. Audnauj and his cortege, after enjoying eggs soaked in some kind of mild hot sauce for breakfast, set out in the direction of the Yehg Sirrir. The fact that Redrins thought that was an acceptable name for a river was the second-worst thing Dirant knew about them, the first being Yumin fairs. They would follow that to the Arch Sea, a body of water which Redrin, Greater Enloffenkir, Noiswawau, and Drastlif, the countries that bordered said body of water, all agreed in calling it that in their various languages.

The Yunderfinshers bowed to Lord Audnauj Olzenchipt Stavripdeu Blawraj with as much respect as was in other countries reserved for someone who had not been rolled around in oil, which helped dispel any suspicion on the part of the non-Yumins that they had been subjected to an elaborate practical joke the day before rather than a long-standing tradition. Some doubt remained, though. Perhaps it was a town of excellent actors.

Audnauj, who preferred to think the best of people but realized there were limits, even if he placed those limits in the wrong places as a matter of course, sought to assure himself of their innocence in this respect by bringing up the subject in a clever, indirect fashion. “So, uh, does it happen often? That sort of thing? You know, with the . . . everything?”

“Every year,” Hugal affirmed. “But Master Audnauj, if you've taken an interest, every town has its own twists on the basic idea. You could spend all your time touring fairs. Everyone would be happy to see you.”

“No, I don't think so. I have the eardron to look into, and besides that, I'd hate to have my presence make the common people self-conscious.” Audnauj frowned. “Admittedly, recent events convinced me the effect there may be a tad more muted than I feared, but there's still something to it, eh?”

“Understood, Master Audnauj.” Hugal dropped back from the lead and into Yumin as he addressed the other servants. “I'm starting to get this impression that the fair shook up the people. Any of you livestock feel the same?”

“So it isn't just me.”

“I don't get it either.”

“We have some unbiased observers.” Eyanya jerked her head toward Dirant and Takki. “Ask them.”

“Sure.” He waved them over. “How do you guys do things? I mean as far as stuff.”

“He wanted to be vaguer of course, but we need to teach you some valuable words,” Eyanya told Takki.

“I'm thankful. One thing that we do in Pavvu Omme Os is we all bring dishes that are not the same. That way we can eat things that are not the same.”

Dirant went next. “That's a classic in the GE as well. Also we often invite a guest to deliver a short speech. Attendees pay extra to sit with the speaker at dinner. A variant is to invite poets or singers to perform who are both popular and within the budget.”

Takki wiggled her index finger up and down in a gesture that evidently meant something different for Jalpi Peffu than it did for Adabans, which was nothing. “That's good. My father does those many times each year. Another history thing is that we dress up in old costume and do again an old event that happened.”

Dirant followed up on that, and if the Yumins were only becoming more perplexed about what foreigners considered a good time, they ought not to have asked. “Ah, we wear masks for that rather than the raiment of yore. Often professionals conduct the reenactment these days in a practice that is widely decried. It denies the young a chance to gain a moral education by their participation, according to people forced to do it in their youths. By the way, you have not yet told them of your debates.”

“Will you help me? The words are hard to get right.” The pair inflicted on the Yumins an account of the spectacular confrontation in Mosso Eksu between Luas Taikko Hinmi and Eksu Pui Hikku and refused to relent in the face of frowns, yawns, tears, and the time one of them almost fell out of the saddle before Hugal propped him up.