Scholarly Work Seems Often Nothing More Than That

The guests all admired the dinnerware Brudenyops Eibmen had managed to produce for that exhibition, and if the aesthetics did not appeal to them, certainly what he achieved in so short a time impressed. Afterward, Keiminops departed and was assaulted in the space between his house and his uncle's, conversationally. Dirant began the gambit. “Eizesl, your opinion is necessary to determine whether your uncle is to be bothered.”

Takki also had hurried to catch up to Keiminops upon leaving the house and spoke when he did not immediately object. “I was only wondering if the Stanops will let me buy one of those cups or if it's an insult to ask.”

A sad sigh came from Keiminops. “Buying a piece of your own trophy back. Another tragedy caused by recklessness. I'm sure your reason for dashing off and sending Eizesl Bavan-Ston to explain was beyond reproach, but even medical procedures that save lives have unwanted effects.”

Takki frowned, puzzled, but Dirant believed he understood the cause of the man's distant attitude. He said, “Our association with Eizesl Nein-Cadops-Bain, a very profitable one I may admit, in no way related to life's bittersweet side.”

He was right. Forthwith Keiminops stood straighter like a man who no longer feared for his position after an interview with the manager, or else like his uncle after the mastermind plotting his assassination skedaddled. “Of course, of course. Your chances are bad. Consider this scenario: I broach the topic to Uncle on your behalf very slyly, ever so cagily. He figures it out and makes you a gift of one, Seifis. That's far likelier. So why did you flee from town, if it's permissible to ask?”

“It is so permitted,” Dirant told him. Then he waited a few measures and said, “Did you conspire with Helsodenk Nifkleskir to murder Stanops Bodan-Tin?”

“No. Where is Eizeur Helsodenk? Do you know?” A sudden wind shows the worth of a sail, they said in Drastlif, but only if the sail takes it seriously.

Nevertheless, the reaction satisfied a Dirant willing to be satisfied. “He seems to me innocent,” he told his associate.

“I don't think he's lying right now, anyway.”

The consultation finished, Dirant at last answered the former suspect. “He ran away because he knew we would discover in Steiraf incriminating though not wholly conclusive information that he is responsible for multiple serious crimes.”

That sudden wind had more of an effect. A few blinks later, Keiminops had still not recovered entirely. He managed to say, “That's all true? I see it is, and here I know nothing. Well, I will pray harder and more expensively for Uncle to live long enough for me to become a reasonable candidate for the helm, because right now I don't have the awareness required.”

The two assured him that his ignorance derived not from his own incapacity but from the cunning of an elite cadre of secret-keepers. Moreover, the uneven distribution of stats and general abilities created at random natural detectives such as Loigwin Nein-Cadops-Bain and natural whatever-it-was-he-dids such as Keiminops Bodan-Tin. That shook him still more. When they parted, Dirant and Takki left a man confused as only the innocent can be.

The less prominent inhabitants of Koshat Dreivis enjoyed an unconventional evening entertainment of having foreigners ask if anyone knew where Chisops Dogai-Brein happened to be and if they knew of anyone who had ever cooperated in commercial ventures with Helsodenk Nifkleskir. They always gave the same answers, which were “No” and “The Stanops,” and worse than that, Loigwin Nein-Cadops-Bain evinced no interest in doing the legwork for them.

“That's fine though,” Takki claimed contrary to the available evidence after the manner of a genius detective following a hunch. “We can just wait at the edge of the marsh like dogs looking for their master.”

“Is that a flattering comparison, would you say?”

“You have to let go of your pride to solve the most worthwhile mysteries, Ressi. Don't you want to know more about those samples?”

“My pride relies on my accomplishments as a Ritualist only, and for that reason I must look in on the pavilion again before we depart.”

“Ressi, you've done that five times today. That's very admirable of you.”

“Thank you.”

When Dirant and Takki gathered at a gate, courtesy imposed a delay that they might permit the passing of tired Drastlifars in the other direction. The workers were undoubtedly still at it over in Steiraf, though. “The customs from one town to the next are corn and wheat, and how can we understand other countries?” Dirant declaimed while testing out a staff which he intended for the first time to employ one as an aid to outdoors survival instead of rituals. He theorized the goddess to whom it was sacred would approve so long as it helped him make his way back to the hearth. “Did that sound more Drastlifan than my usual speech?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Partly, but 'corn and wheat?' Shouldn't we be thinking of fish and tea? Oh, and you'd probably specify. Trout or salmon for instance. But I'm not sure why you'd want to sound more Drastlifan.” Though her halberd sufficed before, Takki had equipped herself with a cane for more elegant pathfinding. She also had removed the ferrule and sharpened the cane's end in accordance with the incorrigible nature of Battlers.

“The object is to prepare for the incorporation of Drastlif into Greater Enloffenkir as predicted by Eizesl Bodan-Tin, at which time we must begin to call him Eizesl Keiminops instead. Regardless, I'm ready.”

“Let's go!”

The jaunt across the cultivated countryside to the edge of the vast moistness led them into no assassination attempts, a fact which disproved theories about the cyclical nature of time. The memory of the incident did suggest a concern. For all that a Battler of any level starting from the first might be expected to thrash an Acrobat of however high a level, there was an immoral Brawny Knight out there. Furthermore, an Acrobat bent on an ungentlemanly form of violence might well tumble over to a Ritualist, stab him, and be on his way without bothering with any Battler entanglements, perhaps. Dirant had never plotted to murder anyone, some comments made to his brothers during their childhoods notwithstanding, but it seemed plausible.

He cleared his throat. “Here is a martial question.”

“I can't teach you anything about assaults on cities you don't already know, Ressi.”

“This is a skirmish rather than a campaign. A person, we will call him Helsodenk Nifkleskir, decides to eliminate someone who for this exercise is named Dirant Rikelta. What do you think is the likelihood that an Acrobat accomplishes that against the opposition of a Battler?” asked Dirant, and Takki's immediate laughter reassured him more than any argument could. She did make an argument while she was at it, and by the end of it he wondered that the Acrobat class attracted any recruits at all.

The marshes proved the impassive dullness of nature by reflecting not a single ray of the excitement which even then pierced Koshat Dreivis and illuminated every heart. It was quiet altogether. The two patrolled along the town-facing side of the tree screen for a time, and with every circuit Takki drifted closer and closer to the morass. Eventually an unwillingness to wait longer for what she might take overcame her, perhaps the inevitable result of mixing with Adabans. “I'm going to search a little deeper in,” she said in a normal tone. It bounced a little when she added, “If you climb a tree, you'll be harder to find and murder.”

Dirant looked up. “That is simply good advice rather than some sort of joke.”

“Oh, the funny part is that you really should do it. Ressi, what do you call a tree with an Adaban in it?”

“Please continue.”

“Kindling!” With that remark not conducive to relieving Dirant's anxiety, she took two steps toward the marshes and stopped again. “Do you hear that? Something different from last time?”

Dirant detached himself from the bark and turned to join her, making sure to tap ahead in the event his greater weight and lower Coordination converted safe ground into the risky kind. There he stood listening until he said, “While admitting my memory for monster cries is perhaps the worst of anyone on the continent, so far I hear ah!”

A sudden rumble surprised him by not setting the scattered pools trembling. “Either that is an unknown monster or Eizesl Dogai-Brein is shouting. I must resume my climb.”

“I'll be back as fast as I can, Ressi.” Caution restrained Takki from bounding across the marshes, but she unquestionably hustled. Dirant attained an elevated position which allowed him to watch her progress all the way to some sort of pillar he presumed had been erected as a trophy to celebrate a triumph by a victorious army disbanded centuries ago. That was as much detail as he could make out, for the dimming light of day was failing his poor Ritualist eyes, no doubt ravaged by all the peering inside boxes he forced them to do.

Whatever the pillar was in truth, Takki conceived a dislike for it. She opposed the thing entirely. The shining metal of her halberd struck repeatedly at the top portion until it broke apart, upon which occurrence the whole thing descended. He then saw three vague figures aside from the one he knew and from that realized Chisops and his bodyguards had somehow been snagged by a dais-cage, the silliest of the known monsters.

If it was indeed a monster. Opinions differed on the point. Certainly it triggered anti-monster abilities. Supporting the other side of the argument, it possessed no consuming maw, disintegrating blood, flame-resistant fur, obvious weak points, or any other signature monster trait. Instead it had the appearance, at first, of a platform made from polished wood or stone raised a few steps off the ground. When someone stepped on it, perhaps to practice a speech for the next public assembly, it elevated itself and formed at its top a cage to entrap the unwary orator for approximately four hours. Then it retracted and let the victim leave. If attacked, the bars crumbled far easier than did the actual material they resembled. The wood-looking version had found favor in the cosmetics industry on account of the subtle scents given off by the fragments.

The leading researchers and theorists had not yet resolved the dais-cage's enigmas. How did it move? No one had ever seen one do it. Was it a trap? If so, no monster ever dropped by to collect its catch. Some suggested the variety which did so had become extinct, a theory which impinged on old arguments about the extent to which monstrous species ought to be treated like tribes. There existed traditions of antiquity which identified the dais-cage as a creation of hermits who locked themselves inside for ascetic purposes. Hermits did so even in the present day, but only when they came across one; none claimed or exhibited the wherewithal to fabricate them.