First, Expect No Useful Result

  Dirant and his bodyguard proceeded to the room and were met shortly after by Gelfid Etenkloss and Wiuyo the bard. Dirant gave up on imagining what Mr. Nalfenk would have said about meeting three women at once on the grounds that he suspected himself to be grinning too much for reasons inscrutable to the others, behavior which must be regarded as impolite.

  The matter about which Miss Gelfid desired to consult him gave him a legible excuse to resume grinning, that time with brisk satisfaction rather than humor. After introductions, she addressed the issue directly. “Mr. Doltandon may be in peril.”

  “That is excellent news. Thank you for coming all this way to inform me.”

  “But Mr. Dirant, he hasn't been saved yet.”

  “So I understood.”

  Gelfid stared in stupefaction. Evidently the meeting was not proceeding along the lines she conceived. Wiuyo exploited the silence to deliver a philosophical speech. “A friend is someone who helps you, but a true friend is someone you help. Does that mean friendship is strengthened by suffering? It has to, but is the outcome of the bitter conundrum that friends rejoice in each other's problems? Yes, it is.”

  Gelfid cheered up straightaway. “That must be it. Am I not too simple to think about things that way? I need your help just because of that. Mr. Dirant, you amaze me.” Gelfid stood, curtsied, and sat again, a maneuver easy to perform in that boarding house because of the furnishings.

  Dirant turned to Takki and tried his best to craft an expression which asked if he should bother. Judging by her head shake, he succeeded in that even if the greater campaign was going against him. He grasped his tiny triumph to his heart while he listened.

  “The whole thing is Queen Ydridd's fault, which is nothing unusual. Mr. Doltandon has been employing a strategy of 'minimizing unfavorable encounters.' He doesn't let the fairies go out to fight in little bands like they used to, and if they do anyway, he tells them they are not welcome to come along when he goes to 'bully a weak baron for practice.' He relies as much as he can on tourists. Even I know that's the right thing to do, and I know not a single weapon.” Her Doltandon Yurvitas impression was coming along well.

  Takki jumped in with a question since she feared damaging the room too much to jump physically. “I'm sorry if this sounds presumptuous, but did they not try to train you in the bow? I was told that's universal here.”

  Gelfid hesitated to respond, but whatever reservations she held were weaker than her forthcoming spirit. “We were supposed to, but after we realized nobody was tracking how well we did, stopping seemed the smart thing. Am I not an adult now? I don't have to be ashamed. We had things to occupy us! We did! Important things. This isn't helping Mr. Doltandon. The point is that Queen Ydridd understands less than I do. About many subjects.”

  That last part seemed unnecessary to Dirant, who looked again at Takki, this time adopting a look intended to request an opinion on the notion that Miss Gelfid had become more bitter in her dislike than when Ydridd held her as a captive and compelled her to fill a role she detested. Takki jerked her head to indicate that while she could not compare the two states due to her ignorance of the earlier, certainly Miss Gelfid's present feelings included sincere aggression. Or if not, Dirant concluded such regardless.

  “She told Mr. Doltandon that if cowardice prevented him from taking on that general, he could at least do something about that pretender. She always calls Mr. Medant Denmarof 'that general,' and is it to make a point of her contempt or because she's unable to remember his name? We can keep to our own opinions. Have you heard of Ksori?”

  Some time elapsed before the audience realized the second question lacked the rhetorical character of the first. Neither Dirant nor Takki had heard the name, as it happened. Wiuyo added that though she had in the context of a dreadful tyrant's famous assassination by which Ksori freed his fellows from unbearable oppression, he presumably had been dead for quite a while, being a human who lived before she sprung into existence.

  “That sounds like a fantastic story. It might be worth writing a song about it if that hasn't been done already and if more details were available.” A bold effort on Takki's part made not without skill, but Wiuyo only confirmed there were a few and subsequently retreated into reverie as well as to the outdoors where invention might have its pastures. Takki, discomfited, looked at Dirant in such a way as undoubtedly expressed that historical inquiries were not customarily impeded by reticence on the part of the living.

  “Ksori is a fairy.” Miss Gelfid returned their attention to the present. “He's declared himself the fairy bandit king, not that it's a genuine title, and established a little realm of his own. Mr. Doltandon decided to restore the queen's confidence in him at Ksori's expense.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Dirant raised his hand. “It may be an error on my part to interrupt here, and my excuse is a surmise that a clarification on one point will make the narrative more intelligible. Mr. Doltandon did not initially evince any great desire to become a general, yet now he is seen to be desperate to preserve his station.”

  “That's right.”

  “Ah, it was wrong of me not to finish. Is there a reason do you know for his change in attitude?”

  “It's a matter of too much modernity. We all expect to be paid for what we do by the terms agreed, or a little less. Or a little more for people with unusual skills such as yours, Mr. Dirant.” The outsized effect Doltandon's flattery had on her had convinced Dirant that her region was entirely ignorant of the practice, but she delivered without scorn and with a masterful hint of envy a tribute to his cunning the commercially minded Adaban liked to hear. Doubtless she belonged to the greater portion of mankind more used to painting the faces of others than having theirs painted, as Takki's countrymen phrased it for some reason presumably explicable after deep cultural study.

  With Dirant's cooperation cannily assured, Gelfid continued. “But it wasn't like that in the old days, we're told. The fairies still live back then essentially. Queen Ydridd sometimes gives her followers things like it's nothing just as in a period novel. Jewels, plates, saddles. Riches. Really it is nothing to her. Mr. Doltandon realized it wasn't nearly so profitable to deal with a queen and a fairy in a straightforward contractual manner. It is better to be a, ah, courtier is what it is called, is it not? Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “It was, and though I now am curious about the treasures amassed in Queen Ydridd's service, that is far removed from the matter under discussion. Please forgive the interruption, Miss Gelfid.”

  “My grandmother told me you can only forgive when you've been wronged, Mr. Dirant. As Mr. Doltandon has been. Maybe I should go straight to the end.”

  “Ah, no, every detail may be important.” Dirant caught a glance from Takki which had for its substance a doubt whether zealousness in hearing about Doltandon Yurvitas's misfortunes was commendable, to which he replied without words that his own pleasure notwithstanding, what he said was true. He was sure of the interpretation of that exchange because it consisted of her rolling her eyes and a smile on his part which he owed to be describable as smug, if not smarmy.

  “I'm very glad to hear it,” Gelfid said and sounded. “Some of the fairy upstarts are serious about improving their own property, ah, there are those modern ideas. They use every hour to fancy up their kingdoms. Ksori though, and I heard this from Mr. Doltandon, is more interested in the kidnapping business. You know how people are getting paid to snatch people away from their fun vacations?”

  Dirant nodded. He had assisted in a couple of those operations, fewer than he wanted but as many as his responsibilities allowed. Takki nodded while reminiscing about the many more in which she had participated.

  “I think they're entirely right to do it. These adventures read as very exciting and amuse the broadsheets perhaps, but, well, you understand as well as anyone, Mr. Dirant, but they are worse about it now that experienced brigands are giving out lessons. Who is the fairy who won't be made worse by that?”

  Dirant remembered his earlier impulse to chide Takki for bandit-related laxity, an accusation which events proved unmerited at the time. How whimsical time can be. Takki, for her part, recalled a different incident entirely and poked a little table in her eagerness to relate it.

  “When Miss Bodder wanted material for that article she was told to write about how the contrast between fairies and Adabans showed the failings of the latter all the more vividly, sort of like how we forget what luxury is until reminded of hardship, that's precisely the kind of thing she wanted.”

  “And she asked you? It is odd that a Dvanjchtliv should request assistance in criticizing us,” Dirant said. “We do so ourselves with ease, and our relations with ourselves are only slightly more hostile.”

  “I thought so too, but Miss Bodder has been dropped in a rotten bushel here because the contrast goes the opposite direction. She's far more kindly disposed to Adabans now. They, I mean you and also they, restrict themselves to her family name while keeping pretty distant overall, and while that depresses her, fairies insist her first name is stupid and they wouldn't want it even if she did something amazing. Oh, there's something I wanted to ask about GE standards of public behavior. If someone, a fairy for instance, walked up to you and said that, is it acceptable to cry then?”

  The nuances required careful consideration before Dirant answered. “With me specified, no. The expectation there must be indignation on my part at the offense against my parents and the man somewhere back in our family whose name I likely share. A crucial point there is that I am a native. A foreigner handled in such a fashion may be forgiven for a different reaction, the explanation being that she may be unsure that the crowd is behind her, and rightly so.”

  “Great. She did cry.”

  “Others saw this, or?”

  “Several Adabans did, and that was how I learned fairies don't care at all about social pressure. One gentleman was trembling with outrage, which I thought only happened in books. There were some threats too, but the fairies didn't stay around.”

  “There is confirmation of my supposition insofar as I am unaware of the incident. A chance to assign blame for improper behavior to a Dvanjchtliv with any plausibility cannot be universally rejected. As to the fairies, there is nothing to be done about them. Did you cry in public also, or did Miss Bodder tell you of it in a private setting?”

  “We were alone. Oh!” Takki flicked her ponytail. “Ressi. You're really confident that I cried at some point. Why is that?”

  “The deep and abiding empathy you possess which I have admired on many occasions.”

  “Oh.” Unable to think of a response, Takki desisted until Gelfid made a request out of her own curiosity, the slight sort interested merely in remaining aware of the current happenings rather than the pitiless kind which persists regardless of persons, places, and situations, generally possessed by a type of person found at times invaluable but for the most part annoying.