by G. Howell
Always more questions. It was becoming clear to the Mediators that their plans wouldn’t work as simply as they’d expected them to. And that really seemed to annoy them, which wasn’t reassuring at all. If things got too complicated there was one sure way to simplify things, and once again that was to get rid of the source of the trouble.
The most straightforward solution was to continue doing what I’d already been doing with Smither Industries and Chaeitch, but the Mediators weren’t so enthusiastic about that plan.
“No,” Rohinia rasped from the shadows, “That is not acceptable. Do you have any idea what other countries will say about that? That Land-of-Water has a monopoly on the information!”
“They’re saying that already, aren’t they? That was why his Lordship invited ambassadors from other lands to visit; that was a reason they sent me here in the first place.”
“There will be claims of favoritism.”
I glared into the flicking lamplight. “Favoritism? Why? I’m not Rris. I don’t have any preferences. Besides, the Guild is there to keep everything on the level, aren’t you?”
A hesitation.
“That means ‘keeping everything honest’,” I supplied tiredly and pinched my eyes. The contrast between the bright, modern screen and the unsteady lamplight hurt my eyes. “Look, do you want to try for a perfection which you probably will never get? Or do you want something that works and is fair and is a lot better than… than utter confusion?”
Two pairs of Mediator eyes reflected lamp flame; shimmering like oil on water. It was Jenes’ahn who surprised me.
“He might actually be right,” she said. “Look at this. We’re tangling ourselves up in this mess. Simple can be best.”
Rohinia growled, an actual growl. “And when countries start screaming about preferential treatment and Guild [something] interference?”
“If they start,” she amended. “You’ve seen the arrangements Aesh Smither had drawn up for the initial working agreement. Not perfect, but for the most part they worked, a? Governments were satisfied, provided they had access.”
“Not for long,” he rumbled. “The Guilds were already stirring.”
“And we can do better?” she said. “He can’t be everywhere. No matter how we cut the problem, there’s still only one of him.”
“There’s a disturbing image,” I muttered.
“We can’t [sequester?] him,” she continued after a quick glare at me. “The Guild taking charge exclusively? That would really get their hackles up. Continuously sharing him around isn’t practical, but what aesh Smither had...” she hissed and cast a hand over the bits of paper spread out across the tabletop in front of her and her eyes flared again in the twilight. “All this is too complicated to plan accurately for, so don’t try. You taught me that.”
Rohinia grunted.
“That arrangement is simple, and simple enough to be flexible: Establish him in a [something], and it might as well be in Shattered Water. Maintain Guild guard and supervision on him and people immediately around him. As interviews and tours are requested evaluate them on a case-by-case basis. If need be an office can be established. We have him secure, we keep governments placated.”
Rohinia rumbled and scratched at his muzzle. “Rot. All right. Take Mikah back to his pen and make sure his guards are awake. Then we’ve got to discuss this.”
“Ah,” I ventured. “Don’t I get a say?”
Each of the mediators ears’ flicked and eyes turned to glare at me. “Do you have anything valid to add?” Jenes’ahn asked.
“Oh,” I thought for a second about some outfits I’d know. The small companies that’d functioned so well and efficiently. Before they were bought out and absorbed by larger conglomerates. And inevitably, after assuring there’d be no changes, there were changes. Just small adjustment upon small adjustment until the efficiency that had made the small company effective and attractive was completely lost under useless bloat and procedures and restrictions. Simplicity had its place.
“No,” I shrugged. “Beyond what she just said, not really.”
A pair of exasperated snorts. “Thank you,” Rohinia said curtly.
As Jenes’ahn led me out I saw the older Mediator rubbing his grizzled muzzle and then grab up his half-empty glass of apple brandy and lap vigorously.
------v------
A few thin clouds drifted across the night sky. Under the glow of the quarter moon they were pale and insubstantial wisps blown across a backdrop of stars. Hillsides of grass stirred, invisible breezes chasing ripples across meadows and fields while hidden night insects rasped and whirred. From the eaves high overhead an owl launched itself in a ghostly silent glide to vanish into the branches of trees down in the palace gardens.
I leaned against the balcony balustrade and breathed in the night cool air. I was tired, but also restless, needing to stretch my legs before turning in. The balcony was about the only place I could go.
“You’re up late,” said a voice behind me. I glanced around at the Rris brushing the drapes aside. “What’re you doing out here?”
“Hi, Chaeitch,” I said and turned back to the night. “I just wanted to get some air.”
“Plenty of that out here,” he observed. A couple of seconds later he settled himself at the balcony, leaning on the stone rail a couple of paces along from me, staring out at the night with his muzzle shifting as if he was sniffing.
“The boat’s here,” he finally said. “Arrived this afternoon. Safely.”
“So it didn’t explode then.”
I heard his snort. “No. No it didn’t. But we’ll be able to head home shortly.”
“That’ll be good.”
There was a pause. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him fiddling with his pipe, his stubby fingers tamping flakes of dried leaves down into the bowl. “You seem a little distracted,” he said.
“Uh? Oh,” I waved a hand with an airy attitude I didn’t feel, “I’ve got Mediators debating what they’re going to do with me. With these meetings they’re finding out some of the problems we had. You know... and from the sounds of it execution is still on the table. Nothing serious.”
“You’re still concerned about that?” Metal scraped. Sparks flared – brilliant little stars falling. blink, blink, blink into the bowl of his pipe.
Now I snorted. “You think that’s not reason to be?”
“I think they’ve already decided you are useful,” he said and puffed carefully. A tremulous glow appeared in the pipe’s bowl. He stopped puffing and held the pipe out, regarded it. “They’ve decided you’re a resource and they can manage you.”
“They’re trying to do that,” I sighed. “I’m just thinking they’ll decide the whole thing is unworkable. Easier to get rid of the problem than manage it.”
“Huhn,” he grunted and puffed a cloud of smoke. “Well, that would make a lot of people very unhappy. A decision like that might be seen as a mistake of [something] proportions – disposing of an utterly unique and irreplaceable resource. Also, if they do that, then they’re admitting they were... not entirely correct in their estimates. And if you haven’t noticed, Mediators don’t like admitting they were not entirely correct.”
I stared at clouds chasing each other past the moon for a while as I thought that over. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“I thought it might help,” he waved a shrug. “Then, there is something else that might take your mind off your problems.”
“What’s that?” I asked suspiciously.
“Hurr, it’s going to take a day to provision, so her Ladyship has decided to have a farewell reception.”
“A reception. One of... those?” I ventured.
“A.”
“ohboy” I sighed.
His chitters wer
e accompanied by bursts of smoke that dissipated into the moonlight. “Hai, come on. It’ll be better than sitting around dealing with bureaucrats who’re petrified of the sight of you.”
“Instead there’ll be hundreds of Rris staring at me,” I grumbled. “You know that’s not my idea of fun.”
“Huhn,” he breathed smoke again and tipped his hand philosophically. “Look on the bright side: at least there’ll be good food and drink.”
The promise of alcohol. At least that sounded good. Well, the drink part; their idea of good food tended toward the more exotic parts of various animals. “Ah, some strong drink should bear some of the burden.”
“You know drink isn’t good for you,” he reproached.
“I read a book saying as much,” I said absently. “Changed my life.”
“In what way?”
“I gave up reading,” I said.
He choked on his smoke.
------v------
Morning was bland: muggy and concrete-gray and still and overcast with the sun just a brighter glare through an otherwise featureless sky. The monochrome overcast hung around most of the day, just dull and monotonous, like the last-second meetings our hosts and the Mediators tried to shoehorn in. They dragged out a too long for comfort and were too brief to really accomplish anything.
I remembered an old saying: a single word explaining why humans hadn’t - and never would - achieve their full potential. That word was ‘meetings’.
The Rris saw me smirking to myself as I stared out the windows at the overcast, but they never asked. They probably never really knew what it meant.
With later afternoon came clearing skies. A breeze came up; the humidity dropped. The gray dullness that’d covered the sky was fractured into wisps and clouds and spreading patches of blue. One of the petitioners from an artisans Guild was asking about paints when a steward came in to quietly hand a note to the Mediators. Rohinia broke the seal, read it, then folded it and laid it on the table. Then he politely but firmly told the Guild members that their time was up. They bristled. The Mediators ushered them out.
There was time to prepare before the evening’s festivities. Time for a contingent of Rris servants to descend on me and I was subjected to another barrage of clipping and brushing. Chaeitch and Rraerch thought I still looked a little wild. They debated and dickered for a while and then decided my hair would look better tied back. I’d look more civilized, perhaps more ‘tame’. That was a word they used apologetically. So a couple of the attendants fiddled for a while and finally pulled my hair back, carefully making sure it lay straight, and managed to secure it with a silver clasp they produced from somewhere.
Then I had to deal with that pairs’ idea of ‘tasteful’ and elegant clothing, and that was difficult: I don’t care that their sense of color isn’t as well developed as mine, there’s just no excuse for purple and green. One of the more subdued sets of trousers was supposed to be black. To Rris eyes I guess it was, but to my eyes it was a patchwork of black and very dark purples and reds. It didn’t matter that they wouldn’t see it. I could, and those colors just grated. Finally, we agreed on something that would suit. I could suffer with the brown velvet pants and scarlet tunic, and the Rris approved of the polished brown leather vest tooled with silver-inlaid rococo. And since there were no Rris cobblers, of course, the moccasins would have to do.
“Much better,” Rraerch pronounced me and reached up with both hands to pat my beard. “Now, about tonight, you’ll...”
“Behave?” I suggested.
“A. Exactly,” she said. “You won’t bare your teeth at people; you won’t insult anyone. You will be polite and gracious. And this time, rot you, don’t go running off this time, a?”
I thought about that and then smiled at her. “I’ll try, but...no promises.”
“Oh, rot,” she sighed.
------v------
It hit you as soon as you stepped into the hall: the wash of heat and the fug of smoke and wax and paraffin. Thousands of oversized candles blazed in the crystal chandeliers suspended from the high ceiling. Finely cut and shaped glass split and refracted the light, fracturing it around the hall and making it seem brighter than it actually was. Standing beneath them you could feel the heat from all the candles. Not that that was such a good idea – as well as heat and light and sooty smoke that was already staining the frescoes overhead, those outsized candles also gave off a steady drizzle of wax. It was quite possible to get a hot dollop dropping onto your head, which explained the relatively empty spaces beneath them.
If those spaces were relatively empty, the rest of the ballroom was crowded. Individuals and small clusters swirled and circulated, seemingly aimlessly about the ballroom or out onto the terraces beyond. Occasionally individuals would merge with other groups; occasionally larger groups would fragments into smaller parts resulting in a pixelated chaos of movement and color.
Rris in their brilliant finery created an almost overwhelming visual cacophony. Bright colors mixed and swirled and clashed; metals and jewels glittered as the crowd swirled. I saw polished steel and copper and even wrought iron fashioned into accessories that ranged from ceremonial armor and headdresses to intricate jewelry. A Rris was wearing nothing save a complex weave of silver filigree twisted through her fur like ivy climbing a building; another glittered like a waterfall in a vest covered with polished leaves overlapping like fish scales. Where there was cloth the hues were bright and saturated, tending towards the blues and yellows and greens. What reds there were leaned toward the orange range of the spectrum, towards strong tones similar to the ones I wore. Subtlety wasn’t so popular. Probably it might not even be noticed, and those people were there to be noticed.
And no matter how bright, colorful, brilliant or garish their costumes were, I still stood out. From the second I came in through the doors and stood at the top of the staircase. My entourage may have considered my attire subdued, but not even a Rris lord wearing a vest made from countless little interlinked gold and greenstone eyes got anything like the stares I got by just standing there. The noise in the room had been a susurrus of Rris voices; hundreds of them blended into a sound remarkably like a fast water over shale. That noise had almost cut off as I entered with Chaeitch and Rraerch, Mediators and a mix of Land-of-water and local guards following like the tail of a comet. The atonal improvisations of the cluster of musicians over by the doors, too engrossed in their own playing to notice much else, suddenly seemed quite loud.
I waded down into that sea of color with a pair of shadows at my heels. The Mediators had made no concessions to glamour or style: their clothes were the usual well-worn utilitarian brown and black leathers, complete with fades and stains from sun and rain. The pair lurked at my shoulders like a pair of small, tatty thunderclouds in the splendor of the ballroom, there as bodyguards and to make sure that nobody tried bringing up topics of conversation that were on their prohibited list. In that they succeeded admirably. In fact, seeing them lurking there seemed to scare most Rris off: there was a noticeably less-crowded circle that followed me across the room.
It was a reason I felt uncomfortable in crowds and why I particularly hated those occasions. No matter what I did or where I went, I stood out. In that sea of color and glitter I stood head and shoulders above the tallest Rris in the room. Wherever I looked there were alien eyes staring back, predominantly amber, but also the occasional glacial-green. And there were so many of them in so much decorative paint and makeup that the faces blurred into generic features. I could have been looking right at someone I knew and never recognize them.
“Ah Ri’hy,” a Rris materialized from the throng, strolling over to me while two associates hung back a little. He carried a fine crystal goblet with some clear liquid in one hand. A pair of small spectacles were laid across his muzzle and he was wearing a light kilt and green velvet vest set with light
ing-like threads of lambent red stone beads running through it. And if he was someone I’d met before, I didn’t recognize him, but I was supposed to be polite. “There was some debate as to whether your guardians there would let you out this evening.”
“Oh, you know Mediators: they would never want to miss out on all the fun of a party,” I replied.
He chittered and took a moment to lap at his drink, his tongue flashing pink while he eyed my escorts over the rim of the broad goblet. “From what I’ve heard you seem to be quite entertaining at formal receptions, but I suppose they will [something] such antics.” He huffed something that may have been a sigh. “And you are due to leave us?”
“Regretfully, yes,” I said. “Tomorrow morning, I believe.”
“A shame,” he said. “There were still a lot of questions,” he said and waved a shrug and sauntered back into the crowd. Whoever he was.
It went on like that. For the most part the crowd tended to drift out of the way of me and my little entourage as I crossed the ballroom, but there were enough Rris bold or desperate enough to approach. I dealt with them as the moment warranted. There were those who were courteous and engaged in harmless small-talk. They may well have had other agendas, but they weren’t about to press them there and then. With others I felt there were things they wanted to ask but with a pair of mediators right behind me they had to constrain themselves to chitchat. Some of them were twitching openly; their eyes never quite locking on me, as if they could delude themselves into thinking they were actually dealing with a Rris.