Its Horrible Luster Shines Balefully Over The Dreadful Waters

So it proved. The Oskid rounded the horn and, six days after departing Ilstehost, approached Vigit Pikilif, the famed port which served as the capital of Gavaref before that country merged with the northern kingdom of Maims to form Drastlif. No longer a center of government, it remained the primary import center for the goods of Geft, that eastern continent from which in classical times the ancestors of today's Drastlifars sailed in search of a new home.

“That is how we reconcile their arrival with known history, yet it is the tradition here that this landmass floated over and joined Egillen all while the Drastlinez tribe merely stood on it,” Onerid elaborated.

Certain properties of Drastlif did suit better another continent entirely, namely how hot it was. Not unbearably so in the middle of winter, but travelers who walked aboard in their coats walked off wearing vests and light dresses. Anyone who had not yet changed, ascetics determined to withstand the southern sun for example, had a little more time to reconsider on account of the need to navigate among swarms of small boats in the harbor manned by Drastlifars who were chanting and waving signs.

“And is this some welcoming ceremony, or?” a passenger asked.

“It seems not, or else they direct their signs and yells the wrong direction entirely. I cannot think the Drastlifars so backward as that,” responded another.

Even Onkallant had nothing to say beyond, “Huh.”

Clarity increased as the Oskid approached, for the press of people at the harbor which from afar resembled a noisy rug resolved into a mob angered by one ship in particular. Nothing about the presumably invidious vessel struck those aboard the Oskid as significant unless it was the Survyais on its deck, and even there, Drastlif and Yean Defiafi maintained cordial relations so far as anyone knew. More than that, to the northerners, not even a supreme scandal such as an attempt to extricate a serial killer from the country before his punishment because of his relation to a high government official could justify all the carrying on. Drastlifars yelled, stomped, cried, fell into one another's arms, and took breaks on stools in front of mobile food stalls belonging to enterprising vendors. Perhaps Fennizen had adopted catered protests while Dirant lived in Todelk, but he had seen none, and the spectacle startled him.

The one significant feature which the besieged ship possessed, in the minds of more people than would admit it, consisted of one particular Survyai, most likely a lady from one of those ostentatiously wealthy Yean Defiafi families which novels and serials featured in such numbers as to exceed the entire population of the continent, so handy they were for stories.

“Is that not a woman?” Onkallant asked as he pulled together Stansolt, Banfol, and Dirant. The Stadeskosken passengers had assembled behind Onerid, in theory the highest-ranking among them as far as anyone could determine given they belonged to different departments. Did Hospitality Manager have precedence over Itinerant Ritualist? How did a worker actually in security compare to a genuine worker? “Is she not?”

The universally acknowledged if illogical obligations of a husband shielded Stansolt Gaomat should he choose not to respond. He took the option. Banfol Mektariken nodded. Dirant Rikelta, for his part, had as his first impulse to say something of this sort. “Ah, and I had believed her until now to be sea foam that congealed in a miraculous arrangement fit to give rise to a new mythology.” He dismissed that however as an empty, unjustifiable response to someone who had never wronged him. Instead he strove to meet Onkallant's attitude as well as he was able.

“Certainly it must be admitted by me that never before have I beheld so long and thick a braid before. I say 'beheld' for there is no other word for it. 'Seen' is wholly insufficient. The styles I witnessed in Yean Defiafi prepared me not at all. Beyond that, while the lady possesses other qualities I am sure, awe will not release me to consider them.” Indeed, the mass of light brown hair behind the woman on that far deck undoubtedly demanded to be introduced separately at parties and had its own luggage. More than half her weight must have been bundled in it, and a good portion of the rest had been used to create her hips.

“You're right about that, Mr. Dirant.” Admiration caused Onkallant to reveal an unguarded side to himself, which surprised everyone. They thought him fully unguarded as it was. “This is a secret, but you gentlemen deserve to know after the journey we've taken together. I joined Stadeskosken not for the pay or the reputation of the company, though those are fine things. I wished only to return to Drastlif, and the purpose behind it was romance. My philosophy has one principle, and it is that men ought to seek wives abroad. Nothing will move me from it. The man who marries the neighbor's daughter is a fool. A friend of the family is best kept as a friend. Here is the truth of it. A similarity of background causes too much presumption. Without putting forth effort to understand each other, where will we be? The common advice is all wrong. Ah, this is meant for Mr. Banfol. I know Mr. Dirant agrees with me already!” He tilted his head toward Takki as she leaned over the side in case anyone missed the implication.

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If said implication was unwelcome to anyone, it was not Dirant. He warmed to Onkallant by several degrees, though his loyalty to friends and brothers who sought domestic alliances prevented him from going over to his side entirely. “The matter is too complex for me to endorse a philosophy of one point only, but nothing can be truer than that the common advice of looking close to home is a disservice to many gentlemen. How often I have heard repeated General Ipparenolt's words about the womanhood of the various tribes divorced from the necessary context that he was giving a speech to his army before the Battle of Stlintotenlilk and not a dispassionate societal analysis.”

“That's it precisely. I must remember the specifics, since before now I've been dismissed as an oaf ignorant of history when I spoke against the general.” Onkallant and Dirant at last clasped hands with equal enthusiasm.

“Are you ready to go ashore?” Onerid asked in a flat voice. “Or did you forget we all said we would, being so busy with your babble?”

“Find a foreign husband, little sister.”

“Rgh!”

“Ah, and if you fellows wish to appear local, not that I advise it, try not to look happy when you step on land. It's bad luck if the sea begins to suspect you don't like it.”

Most of the travelers took Onkallant's advice as far as not bothering with that custom, being modern ladies and gentlemen who eschewed personifying the elements. The rest simply did not believe that was the local practice in the first place, though indeed it was.

While many of the Oskid's passengers had Vigit Pikilif for their ultimate destination, it served only as a stop for the Stadeskosken employees. The branch office in Dubwasef awaited them a few days more to the east, but as it made no difference whether or not they spent a day on shore while the crew resupplied and did the necessary scrubbing and such, none refused the chance.

Once down the gangplank, consensus ended. “The hubbub has my interest,” Onkallant said, “but do you need a translator, or?”

“We planned to go out together, Takki and I,” his sister assured him.

“I want to find a watch,” Takki elaborated. “We never need one in Pavvu Omme Os where clocks are placed regularly at intervals specified by law, but it's different when I'm on the road.”

Onkallant shrugged. “Possibly more difficult than you think. This isn't Zeboni or Dubwasef. I'm sorry to say it, but all of Drastlif's innovation? That stuff's for foreigners. Well, I leave everything to you, Hospitality Manager.” He walked away from the group, waving his arm high where they could see it above the milling Drastlifars.

The others, perceiving the shopping trip not to be a private endeavor and the tumult to be better avoided, decided to go along with their second translator till something changed their minds. Actual shopping, for instance. Onkallant's parting words had encouraged them in that regard.

When they advanced beyond the port facilities, the change that startled the travelers was not the difference between that city and their homes, which they expected, but rather the transformation of Onerid Paspaklest. Walking briskly along, she raised her fan and never again put it down. When open she held it before her face while she talked, and when shut it was because something of interest needed pointing out or some gesture had to be made. It seemed its own source of wind as its owner opened it, snapped it shut, and whirled it around with the precision of a Battler-wielded halberd that knocked missiles out of the sky.

“There may be something to what my brother said,” Onerid admitted. She flicked her fan at a nearby building. “Do you see the scalloping on the windowsill there? Such is a component of the Bibailin style, which for some several centuries has been regarded as out-of-date. Of course for that reason it is sometimes employed in a new development, yet here it appears almost the standard.”

The nuances of architecture, aside from the scalloping Onerid pointed out, escaped Dirant, Takki, Stansolt, and Banfol. They saw only a series of round buildings of pale wood topped by darker roofs which arched as if the architect was thinking about putting up a dome but stopped halfway up and decided to finish it off with a nice little slope. Their guide assured them larger houses possessed a central courtyard and noted a few specimens that described more of an oval or were straight for some length on their sides. There were rectangular edifices also, ones not intended as residences. Temples, workshops, smithies, and other practical buildings belonged to that type. Nothing resembling a square won favor with the Drastlifars no matter how it begged to be built.

As for the styles the inhabitants preferred for themselves, the men wore jackets, white shirts, and often bright cummerbunds between the two. Those entitled to do so had their coats of arms sewed into their jackets. Some few wore a stole which bore a shield near either end of it. Those were servants of the arm-bearing families, Onerid explained.

The pants Drastlifan men preferred tended toward the baggy near the hip, their shoes toward the small. The arrangement gave the impression of tapering like Onkallant's coat of arms, especially below their various hairstyles and beards that prized volume over either length or orderliness. Above all that, to the delight of the Grenlofers as must be inevitably felt when another country pays one's own the honor of imitation, they wore hats with wide, wide brims. There was the nuance that Adabans normally wore those hats on trips between towns and not within them, but the more acute desire for shade down south explained the difference. In that aspect of dress three of the travelers fit in, though not so thoroughly as Onerid with her fan.

For the men about carried a fan or even two somewhere on their person, hooked over a belt or tucked partly behind a cummerbund, while the women had theirs open and before their faces with the exception only of matrons calling for their children to behave. Some, the wealthier-looking ones, manipulated those fans exactly in the manner Onerid did.

“I wanted to try out the basics, but maybe it's better to rely on indulgence for foreigners a little longer?” Takki had her halberd and no fan, as usual.

“That continues to be my advice, yes,” Onerid replied. “Our tutors trained us in this for weeks before they let us even touch a fan in public.”