We May Regard The Most Entertaining Among These To Be Exercises In Gathering “Evidence” When There Is And Can Be None

  What they got was more work, though after an enthusiastic if bewildered reception at the camp. Missing Ividottlofers rushed home, those who stayed told tales impossible to believe if not for the fairies about, and also a bunch of fairies were about. The reporters had so much to write about that some considered hiring scribes, though after a few trials they limited themselves to locals. The mysterious universality of fairy language did not apply to writing.

  “The full and complete account of the journey takes all my time by itself, and I have so much else to report,” Aptezor complained once at lunch.

  “You're on to the full and complete account already? Just preparing the public is too much for me.” Kodol happened to be nearby, as did a large number of people since they were in a cafeteria at the time, their drafts spread out next to the soup.

  “By preparing the public, do you mean advertising your service, or?”

  “I mean the preliminary article which establishes some people at the camp are talking about fairies and that this reporter will investigate for signs of illusions, cults, and food poisoning and so.”

  The veteran said that in the same inflection one might use for the observation that the weather looked to rain later, but young Aptezor reacted as if he had been informed for the first time that athletes sometimes lost intentionally. “What's the purpose of doing that? Is it to stretch out the story, but no, there is too much to write as it is.”

  “Aptezor.” Kodol dropped any scrap of formality which might interfere with the heartfelt advice he had decided to impart on a junior at risk of losing his way. “If you send your guys in Amlizen a story about fairy adventures without a wagonload of reservations and disclaimers their conclusion must be that they accidentally hired a lunatic.”

  “But—“

  “They'll wonder how it happened, but they'll find an explanation that blames nobody in particular. 'The sun is hotter out west.' There, the whole thing is settled.”

  “But—“

  “'But everyone saw the fairies.' Did they? Everyone here did. Your editors aren't here, and they're the ones who matter.”

  “All the other articles will report the same facts.” Aptezor's objections had the form of requests for clarification rather than arguments, appropriate for someone of his age and experience in fields unrelated to applying the lessons of condottieri to violent disputes between fairy kings and queens, a category in which he stood preeminent.

  “The other articles will report there are unbelievable rumors about such-and-such, with such-and-such reported fully and accurately so the public understands the rumors. We avoid lawsuits the same way.”

  “My editor told me not to waste space.”

  “Let him take them out.” Kodol looked at Aptezor's face, earnest and uncomprehending, and gave up. He had seen too many reporters remove stones from the bridges under own careers to try to hold one up on his own shoulders.

  Not only reporters struggled with the inevitable discrepancies between local and abroad perceptions of recent events. In that same cafeteria, people were trying out a novel custom of collaborative letter-writing. A goslikenar claimed that company made guilt harder to hide but easier to explain, and as it stood, explanations were the hard part. After extensive consultation, Medant Denmarof for one adopted the path of cowardice by applying a thick coat of vagueness to his letter home when it dealt with matters other than the plain fact of his current good health. He did include a few lines expressing his gratitude to Edol Mikstifoken for alerting someone positioned to act, at Dirant's request.

  “Edol I remember more than you, or I did prior to our latest meeting. Is your desire to ingratiate him to my relatives a confirmation of an ambition of his I suspected, or? I am unconcerned either way, but I like to have a reason to write what I do.”

  “It is a matter of uncertainty to me as well, though less out of any reticence on Edol's part than because of my similar lack of interest. Even so, it cannot be harmful to emphasize a point which is both true and not a criticism of us.”

  “Is that how people from your city talk about everything, Ressi?” The exasperation in Takki's tone exhausted itself with that and was replaced by detached academic interest; perhaps her own letters incited the former and the distraction from them facilitated the latter. “No, I don't see any potential for that to be true. You have to be explicit about contracts, and I know how seriously you take those. If I wrote an essay about how much more you could get done if you weren't trying to be clever all the time, do you think anyone would read it?”

  “Yes, and afterward we would persist regardless,” Dirant predicted. “It is nothing but a reluctance to discuss the affairs of others too openly. To satisfy your natural, pardon me, unaffected curiosity, I may tell you this worthless information that we are unsure of the depth of feeling between my friend Edol and his friend Miss Medarig, Mr. Medant's cousin.”

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  Takki peered at the two Fennizeners. “Is that really all you know about it? I'm not sure which answer would indict you more, so please forget I asked it. Introduce us later so I can figure it out for you. All right, I've decided. This time I'll just say I learned a new ability but I'm not sure of its function. If anyone asks for the name I'll reveal it's Fairy Battle. I can talk about the fairies directly in a third letter. Maybe not the ogres, though. It's incredible, isn't it? Fairies, trapped underground for so many years that we can't find any overlap in our histories to help us make an estimate.”

  “I have been reconsidering fundamental ideas, such as whether there still exist fairies in other places, hidden,” Dirant said.

  “There aren't any, Ressi.”

  “Suppose however that there are.”

  “I'm not going to do that.”

  “Mr. Medant?”

  “Maybe in the Obeneutian wastes. Fairies like desolate terrain more than the stories implied. Other than that, it is impossible no one would have noticed. Is it not?”

  As for reactions outside of correspondence, Medant took the path of courage and stayed at Iflarent's Hideout in case a rescue operation became possible. He also accompanied Mr. Taomenk, the one man working harder than the reporters, on his expeditions between worlds in order to map the fairy realms and create an accurate reference table for distance equivalences. Fairies willing to cooperate in the endeavor abounded, at least in the camp, since the unwilling either returned to fairyland or ventured into the wider world which they hoped to be as much changed as indeed it was.

  “Should we not do something to restrain them?” the common man wondered.

  “Certainly not,” Atkosol Tellanstal decided. “The proposal is impractical, immoral, and inappropriate for a private venture to undertake.”

  He stated the second and third objections, listeners familiar with rhetoric suspected, merely for style. The first sufficed. As soon as the fairies realized they could slip their bonds magically and the humans admitted none of their confinement methods anticipated prisoners able to move themselves between realities, the common man's idea became impossible until some relevant class ability was uncovered. Preventing fairies from wandering away could be labeled as immoderate, unholy, and asymmetrical for all that words mattered. The Egillen continent had to deal with the fairies as it could.

  “Provided they are indeed fairies.” Even in the camp, let alone in Amlizen's editorial offices, some doubted. The substance of those doubts, Nalfenk Migolkir hurried to clarify, was unrelated to the disappearances, the uncanny other world, or the inscrutable powers possessed by an entire population hitherto unknown. “All of that is well attested. The question is whether this is not rather a human tribe which, isolated by unexpected geological movements either gradual or sudden, did not over generations become separate from the normal type of human, much as we see differences between Dvanjchtlivs and Drastlifars, to the extent of developing its own class, Fairy, to which all now belong.”

  The controversy, declared in the camp's figurative town square, had its impact. Secret classes charmed the imagination nearly as much as extinct races, or more so depending on one's preference in literature. Neither was it possible to deny that many class abilities applied to particular other classes; the opportunities for specialization within the Subjugator class on that basis were long understood. The old stories meanwhile said nothing about anti-fairy abilities, not that King Aspagart Ibilosh Eukiroich as an example had any occasion to gain such during his civil encounters with a fairy king.

  “The ritual instructions are explicit on the subject, though they are open to assorted complaints on other grounds.” Dirant's remark transformed the matter into a dispute far fiercer than what he anticipated, for Nalfenk responded with an unexpected accusation.

  “There is a Ritualist who pretends to esoteric knowledge of fairies, ghosts, spiritual occurrences, and all manner of nonsense. He writes for that contemptuous publication which reverses profit and ethics in its priorities and as a result sells the baldest falsehoods to the public under the guise of withheld truths. The Broadening Mind is of course the unfortunate disease to which I refer.”

  That remark in turn broadened the field of argument. “The Broadening Mind is not so detestable as you make it, Mr. Nalfenk. Admittedly its writers are mistaken about everything except for the spelling, but they provide us with hypotheses.” Taomenk Genarostaf seemed capable of forming his own outrageous hypotheses, but then a doctor can never have enough patients.

  “That may be,” Nalfenk allowed. “One suspects any such utility is unintended, but the issue of intent is fraught. This is my hypothesis: This Mr. Dirant Rikelta is that very Thlaklesta. His unnatural inquiries prove it. There is nothing illegal in that of course, and I would forbear to mention it save its relevance to his credibility.”

  A serious accusation, some might say. Nalfenk Migolkir, for instance. The rest of the tourists and laborers drawn in by the hubbub did not place the same importance on The Broadening Mind and its pseudonymous contributors as did Mr. Nalfenk and perhaps other employees and affiliates of The Scientifically Minded Gentleman's Primer. They merely wanted to talk about fairies.

  One listener was willing to stretch her interest far enough to touch the topic, though not in a sense at all in sympathy with Nalfenk's views. “Ressi, are you padding your income with literary endeavors? If you are, I don't think we should tell my father about it. He'll insist you go respectable.”

  “I have not, though had I been aware of the demand for such a thing . . . ah, but the niche evidently is already filled. Mr. Nalfenk, is it possible for you to estimate the income of this Thlaklesta, or?”

  Umbrage meant nothing to a writer such as Nalfenk when given an opportunity to educate a receptive audience. “By no means, I regret to say. That publication hides everything, from the names of its contributors to its business practices. Even the identification of Thlaklesta with a Ritualist is supposition.”

  “Based I suppose on the choice of name.” Dirant, while not a reporter, liked to give the occasional lecture himself. “Ninmegaltant Inshilken, nicknamed Thlaklesta, was a Ritualist influential in the struggle to regularize ritual instruction formatting, the need for which is evident in the fairy rituals mentioned earlier. He is over a century dead, it must be said to prevent the obvious conclusion.”

  “Is that so? I was not aware. Only that certain touches suggested the class to my colleagues. Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Dirant.” Nalfenk bowed.

  “It is nothing compared to my pleasure at having this false identification dispelled.” Dirant bowed as well.

  “Ah? I am unaware of any proof you are not a correspondent who scrounges for peels and processes them into swill.”