Enact Whatever Measures You Intended Beforehand Without Regard For The Points Raised

  Takki hustled Dirant out of the room past Wiuyo and down the staircase which a week ago he would not have understood to be scandalous. At the bottom, she confessed herself to be engaged in a ruse.

  “Yes, and what is the aim? Though before that, allow me to say that your false explanation for your behavior has convinced me to adopt it as a genuine practice.”

  “I've always wanted to do it, but I was never in any clandestine meetings. Nobody this way. Um, these may be bad guesses I made, but I had the impression you were going to refuse to come along. Then I would have to tell you I think you're making a mistake, but it isn't for a reason that I'm sure we want Miss Gelfid to hear.”

  After peeking around a corner, Dirant returned. “The first projection is correct at least.”

  Takki looked up the stairwell in case of a spy roosting at a higher elevation. “So I can put forward my argument? Here it is. It's bad for anyone to make every decision based on slights and grudges, you'll be helping other people, you'll get paid, I'm definitely going, and most importantly, what if they aren't mistreating that man at all? The safe supposition is that they are, but what if he really made a deal? He might be sitting there at a big table where all the brigands declare eternal brotherhood over the most sumptuous dishes right now during our conversation with Miss Gelfid, who's so worried about him. And with Miss Wiuyo, who isn't at all. They're laughing and calling for their most exalted prisoners to bring in more food just to humiliate them. Probably one of them sticks his foot out to make one trip, some owner of five ships who finally was persuaded by his associates that sitting in an office all day gnawing his desk isn't how he should repay himself. Can you see it, Ressi? Ksori enters, bows, and proclaims this is the start of the new bandit era. You shouldn't believe that exactly is going on, but if you don't go, thirty years from now you'll have persuaded yourself of it. You'll curse your own complacency. Whereas if you do come with, I'll hold him down so you can thrash him a little bit, and I'll be careful not to let you go too far. Now I await the argument of my honorable opponent.”

  She had told him of the unorthodox positions her countrymen espoused to prepare themselves for careers in public debating or simply to improve their facility with the language, and on those grounds he might have dismissed the speech as mere practice. He did not. Putting aside the absence of any sign of amusement in Takki's voice or manner as well as the warm concern transferred from her cautioning hand to his arm, a vision came to him of Doltandon Yurvitas as he rose through positions of honor in his homeland not just unimpeded but accelerated on account of his deeds throughout fairyland. Never again need he suffer a single setback unless he changed his class back to Colorist in a fit of nostalgia. When that time came, the sure knowledge he had once suffered at least a portion of his deserved comeuppance would suffice to prevent such news from becoming intolerable. Moreover, the other captives, presuming there were some, deserved consideration, if not from Dirant than from a Ritualist who might as well have the name Dirant as any other.

  “Is it too much of a disappointment if I concede right away?”

  “A little,” Takki admitted. “But I do think you'll be better off.”

  “I will then do so and manufacture objections later.”

  A fashionista may start reading a novel and, upon raising the subject in company, learn that all society had pretended to have read it eight years earlier. The theater aficionado aware of every play currently in performance and the sentiments each incurred both popular and critical often hears of condottieri doings on no earlier day than that which brings him to an uncle's house for a relaxed weekend. The expert conversant with the latest discoveries in an archaeological field is easily surprised when he is compelled by civic ordinance to vote and discovers he knows none of the candidates even by reputation.

  “That is understood, and yet there is less explanation for the fact that everyone except me has heard of Ksori,” Dirant mused. “I have even participated in a few private operations. Is everyone simply averse to bothering me with disturbing rumors, or?”

  “It's a shame you haven't had more opportunities, Ressi. Rescue jobs are surprisingly remunerative for the effort. On your problem, I think you're forgetting that some of that man's volunteers deserted when Miss Gelfid's behavior started rumors, and then they bruited them in turn. Cascades like that have brought down governments.”

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  The fairy bandit king had surpassed all other petty chiefs in notoriety before Gelfid finished her inquiries, less than a week after the meeting. Just as she reported Doltandon had said, most upstarts preferred to create picturesque, indefensible headquarters such as open gardens, mansions in various styles, piles of sand under which they dug tunnels as if they yearned to take on the form of ants, and cottages composed of four different materials. Those vanity strongholds fell the instant any significant force of fairies, mercenaries, or Medants came against them.

  The reporters assured the public the conquests did not proceed so smoothly as that. Each battle, whether highly exciting or pleasantly ludicrous, bore its peculiar points of interest sure to delight the discerning reader. For example, the maze garden one fairy aesthete created was not overcome without cleverness. The obvious stratagems of cutting through the hedges or burning the place down entirely confronted the strange resilience which characterized the unnatural flora there and slunk off, embarrassed. Neither did a policy of turning either right or left exclusively yield any profit, for the owner retained the right to remodel his garden with his guests still inside. What allowed the attackers to prevail in the end was a decision to offer the unsuspecting fairy chieftain the gift of an invasive plant treated by modern horticultural techniques for improved proliferation capability. Certain readers, doubtless after shuddering and inspecting their own gardens, wrote the editor to insist the term “improved” ought to be reserved for other applications. “The latest proposal by the Entet will improve the laws by banning magical treatments intended to worsen the spread of unwanted varieties.” That was the sort of article they wanted to read.

  The broadsheets of course did not dare promise that, bound to deal in facts rather than fantasies as they were, but they could continue to bring to the public those whimsical, fable-like incidents as relief from gruesome accounts of battles between fairies which duty demanded their correspondents relate.

  “Does anyone know any synonyms for 'savage' I haven't used yet?” Kodol asked once, still in his customary good humor but revealing some exasperation as he ran down his list. “Brutal, inhumane, uncivilized, horrid, barbaric, untrammeled. I'm tired of saying all that. Does anyone know a better career? How hard is it to do rituals?”

  “What is your Receptivity?” a Ritualist within hearing asked.

  “That isn't it,” Kodol said. “I'm staying where I am, but I like to hear that people are doing well for themselves.”

  Compared to those, the base Ksori inhabited seemed a veritable Bairgui. Though Bairgui had been taken several times throughout history by the concerted efforts of mighty armies, never was the task accomplished without a campaign worthy of inclusion in the appendix of some military history or other. One scholar claimed to have found numerous instances of the phrase “might as well attack Bairgui” in writings which suggested it once functioned as a proverb. Others disputed his theory on the basis that a proper consideration of the context revealed all such references to come from plays and biographies in which attacking Bairgui was a contemplated action, and in some cases seemingly one considered to involve no greater difficulty than any major siege, which was great enough.

  So it was with Ksori's fortified den. Mercenaries preferred to attack softer targets, but the more confident among them did not shrink from a heavier task. Because Ksori's ne'er-do-wells had been as active as the rumormongers, the bandit district soon enjoyed the highest density of ransom per square acre in fairyland. Promised a Ritualist to accompany them, though two would have been better (and three too many), several bounty hunters agreed to Gelfid Etenkloss's proposed venture.

  Onsalkant Tlol and Onsalked Otnilk, the Brawny Knight couple, fit their helmets over black Adaban hair they wore short for convenience in that very regard to signal their readiness for any hard deed. Auemoieu, an adventurer from Saueyi who had a mysterious past and an assumed name which resembled a vocal exercise, contributed a two-handed sword he wielded with prodigious strength and Battler skill. Furthermore, his height was such that a wilderness scout accustomed to climb trees for better vantages might mistakenly scramble up on his shoulders for the purpose.

  Then there was Skadlif Derogillen, a Duelist known even to Dirant and Gelfid if not to Takki. Among living condottieri, the most illustrious may have been Istent Aradetnaf, but not far behind was that same Skadlif, who attained such fame and success that he tired of it. He completed all outstanding contracts, dissolved his band, and retired as a captain only to reappear now and then to instruct a promising student, take away a prize from some competitor who overestimated his own excellence, or to offer milita training to a state bedeviled by highwaymen. Despite all that history, his reddish-black Mabonn hair had just begun to gray, a sign of how early he won his reputation. The minute he agreed to join the elite team was the same he became its commander, all without discussion.

  Nobody merited mention in comparison to him, and the consequences of that fact proved the value to people who wish to be remembered of signing up promptly. The various Battlers, Duelists, and even Reciters who joined after Skadlif were lucky to place in a list an interested reporter compiled, and the ones rejected fared still worse.