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The dispute lost the interest of the onlookers. They had decided in favor of the Symbolic Hypothesis already and transferred their focus to the element which absorbed Atkosol from the beginning. In addition to the murals of the painted and mosaic varieties, a third leg of that many-limbed creature known as Art waited for inspection, and a fourth or even fifth as well depending on the inclusion criteria. On a tiled floor, each tile marked with notches of unknown significance, sat several statues. The statues made the third leg, the tiles a fourth, and for the fifth some large stones, their tops flattened by artificial means and inscribed with assorted lines, often in grids. Whether those counted as sculpture and, if not, as art, remained to be determined. The idea of game boards had been suggested upon the first discovery of such an item, and so few had been found since that little supported or contradicted the notion.
The sculptures which were unambiguously such fell within the usual Ertithan style and indeed were excellent examples of the type. The human figures caused present-day critics to question their humanity on account of the unnaturally round heads with simple open circles for mouths as well as their general lack of detail. If they were clothed, nothing about Ertith dress could be concluded; if naked, nothing about anatomy. The animal figures, similarly deformed, were easier to rationalize as monsters.
While every element in that chamber had its precedent, the number of mostly intact statues, three of the humanesque sort and three of the clearly inhuman along with two of the flattened stones, gave that chamber an eminence sure to impress the readers of The Scientifically Minded Gentleman's Primer and drive them to extremes of envy of the correspondent honored by fortune, as unscientific a notion as that may have been, with the chance to be present at that startling debut. Mr. Nalfenk did seem to be enjoying himself greatly, nor was he alone.
Shame therefore attached itself to the visitors who encountered a limit to their fascination with the single chamber despite its unique properties of archaeological importance. One could stand still and admire for only so long, and some had begun to slide toward the exit when Mr. Gabdirn rescued them from embarrassment by declaring nothing more could be concluded on the spot.
None of the other chambers possessed the concentrated interest of the Statue Garden as it was already called, but to call them worthless was to commit such an insulting falsehood that only the kind of person who called himself “Pots” would think to do so, which indeed he did. To the tourists, the most distinct of the other chambers had to be what they promptly named the Archive after its resemblance to the libraries and document collections of the present day.
Several parallel walls jutted partway into the room, and in each was carved rows of niches. Many of those held papers of that peculiar Ertithan type which frustrated archaeologists by fading to an illegible, blue-tinted condition. Others housed rectangular cases of a sort none of the experts recalled seeing before, nor had the most assiduous studier of The Scientifically Minded Gentleman's Primer or yet more technical publications read of anything like them. A smattering of small items shoved far back in their niches resisted identification, since the people adhered to their instructions not to touch.
“Many rituals were performed here.” Dirant made that remark after entering without anticipating the reaction his words immediately incited.
“But Mr. Patklenk examined this chamber before us!”
“Are we in danger? Are the rituals in danger?”
“Will you stand there mute like a guilty politician or tell us the details about them heroically?”
“Ah, it is nothing but lingering energies,” Dirant clarified before clarifying further that “lingering energies” was a term of art referring to traces of a previously performed ritual and held no power to accomplish anything. While optional abilities existed which allowed their owner to derive information from those energies, he had learned none of them. Likely Mr. Patklenk had. They were more relevant to his field.
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His assurances, made with all the goodwill of a mostly honest man and the expertise of a graduate of Greater Enloffenkir's sixth-most-prestigious school of ritualism, immediately encountered a sharp refutation. A sound which resembled that of a cabinet dropped on granite by impatient workers who had neglected to remove the plates and dishes beforehand in their haste startled the Archive's explorers for a moment only before vigorous shaking shocked them yet more, as if someone had picked up the entire room to right it rather than the cabinet alone. The timid and the quick-witted fell to the floor while the habitually stolid stood or pressed themselves against the nearest wall. Precious artifacts from humanity's infancy tumbled out of their niches, many of them cracking or crumbling into fragments as a result.
The tremor ceased after a few seconds. Most of the Archive survived, as did Dirant's reputation once people stopped glaring at him long enough to consider they had never heard of a Shake a Room Occasionally Ritual.
“Though perhaps the Yumins have invented one,” Dirant said to Takki.
“It's almost a given, isn't it?”
The tourists withstood the ordeal, and for all that bruises were not the medals bestowed by courage itself that scars were, the story of where and how these were inflicted would be a matter of boasting at many a social function afterward.
Atkosol, Doltandon Yurvitas, and Patklenk Ost ran in to examine the chamber shortly thereafter. The lack of serious injury pleased Atkosol despite his lack of legal or, in his view, moral responsibility for the well-being of the visitors who, after all, had invited themselves and stayed at their own discretion. “Yet the man who denies that an explanation is welcome when the matter at hand is one of general interest, or rather interest that ought to be more general than it is, is the man we must ignore. A statue was lifted. I pause there, for you know the passive voice is a curtain that hides many a crime. Here I use it because the name of the person who lifted it is irrelevant. I commanded it be lifted. My aim was to find further passages, but my accomplishment was to cause this disturbance for which I am heartily sorry.” Atkosol bowed in conclusion.
“That was the most I have heard him say in more than a week here,” Dirant told Takki. “It is also the first evidence in that time which supports the claim his former career was as a politician, and a successful one no less. A complete accounting requires that I specify that we have at no time been engaged in conversation with each other, and it is nothing but chance that I sometimes hear him say 'Yes' or 'No.'”
“He does have a good tempo, doesn't he?”
No further calamities occurred for the rest of that day, unless the failure to find an entrance to an even larger ziggurat stuffed with statues uglier still counted, which it did not. Everyone from the most academically minded to the least, that being Mr. Kodol, had been given enough material to satisfy him and consequently smiled benevolently over all the world like a textile merchant overseeing the unloading of a cargo from Stegzi.
Ividottlof, a town in the state of Enpasatosalkir, elected a mayor on a set schedule. He in turn proposed a deputy mayor for the populace to confirm or reject. If anything more need be said about Ividottlof, it was to a foreigner, and not one from Egilof, Tabiligdum, or Beriskirofen, either. Even the theoretical foreigner had no reason to be informed about the details unless he belonged to that category of traveler who enriches his published journals with commentary calculated to increase his reputation as an incisive discerner of social reality. “Where is the Adaban found among these solid dwellings and places of business, one or two stories, of wood and of stone, unexceptional in any land? He is found in the reflection of the street slabs kept clear of debris both artificial and animal and polished beyond necessity, to a mania even. He is found in the mayor's residence, not because he is there but because he is not. Nothing is. There are open halls on his estate, empty, used for assemblies and sports but really intended to store supplies, hammocks, and every sort of ammunition, for anxiety afflicts the Adaban unless he has ready his fortifications; he will withdraw to them as soon as danger threatens, and what danger that is, how can I imagine it, who am but a Survyai?” That sort of thing.
To which the Adaban replies, “Yes, and that is the reason for our flourishing,” and carries on as he was. Dirant Rikelta traveled straight to Siltwo's house without stopping to peruse travel journals for exchanges such as that. He had at last yielded to the fraternal will, and the welcome he received from Siltwo and his bride, Elsifad Oftansklen, could hardly have been improved. Aside from Siltwo's effusive friendliness which still unnerved Dirant, the food alone could quench the curiosity of Fennizen's gossips who were befuddled by the marriage of one of their most desirable sons, a man blessed both cosmetically and financially, to an undistinguished daughter of a town called Paokelp which was invisible on the majority of maps. Silapobant's siblings never considered there to be a mystery, unless it was how he succeeded in finding a woman shorter than he was. The flagrant injustice they committed against their brother's moderate height with that claim caused them to persist in it all the more stubbornly.