The submission process concluded quickly owing to the enthusiastic cooperation of Jiojjil, who declared himself so satisfied with what amounted to single combat given the involvement of a Symbol Knight that he conceded all pretensions to becoming Hacanthu on the spot. “I am minded instead to assume the name of Gabdirn Haubentlag, who is revealed as a hero with whom Jiojjil could have exchanged boasts and not for sure have come out the greater.”
It was a fortuitous attitude for him to take from the perspective of the victors, since even as they were finishing up there, the fastest among the humans who half a day before had enjoyed his hospitality with varying amounts of acceptance were reported to be passing by in a rout-like fashion, though the scouts phrased it differently.
“They're routing, sir.” That was the first report, and the second was that Zatdil, while triumphant, had lost close to the entirety of his forces in the nearly even trade which characterized skirmishes between fairies.
“Does he pursue, or has he stopped to replenish his forces?” Medant wanted to know.
The battlefield reduced the most wondrous phenomena such as routine resurrection to a mere matter of troop numbers. Regardless, the decision must be taken. Either course could be justified in the moment just as it would unquestionably be criticized by military historians later. Zatdil, unsurprisingly, did neither, or rather both, which had the same result. He started to run down the fleeing humans, turned back to drag his fairies to whatever accommodation the sky district had for revival, and then regretted allowing his enemy to escape him and changed his mind again according to the reports which came in faster and faster as Medant approached. Even when he saw a second force greater in number than what he had recently overcome, Zatdil hesitated long enough for the Ritualists to come within the range required to architrave, or to complete the Fairy Dance Ritual as they insisted on calling the operation.
Experiments conducted with the vigorous assistance of fairies had produced enough material to fill up a quarterly periodical focused on the history of dance for years, if such a thing existed, and the Ritualists had picked a favorite. Observers liked it too. The Lunar Step required the performer to describe the phases of the moon with his feet. The resulting spectacle raised several questions about the communicability of symbols, because to anyone unaware of the significance of the motions, the dancer appeared to be shuffling in a circle, perhaps searching for a button which came off his coat. To those aware, it still looked like that.
Aside from its virtues as a piece of entertainment, which, while considerable early on, faded with each performance, the Lunar Step confined the affected fairies to a small area and on that basis recommended itself to anyone so far lacking in delicate feeling as to desecrate the fine arts by abusing them for martial purposes. Zatdil gave in to the impulse as readily as a university student accepting a challenge from his peers despite the obvious hostile intent of the Adabans, Survyais, and one matchless Heweker coming against him unimpeded by the disturbing side effects of the clearly outmatched Fairy Fascination Ritual. The manuals on anti-fairy warfare sure to propagate with the rediscovery of that exceptional people would ensure memory of old-timey dance never again faded as the incautious cultural transmitters of the past had allowed it to do.
Arrows repeated their poor performance against Zatdil, forcing many to wonder if those stories of peasants helpless against fairies came about because of dependence on the wrong weapon. Had those inhabitants of earlier times thought to use double-bladed magical spears, the entire relationship between man and fairykind might have been altered. So insouciantly did Zatdil swat those shafts away that his dance attained a subtlety and elegance never displayed by inferior fairies during testing. The troops remaining to him on the other hand fell stricken and soon were enmeshed in the nets supplied to the army for the purpose of securing reluctant vacationers. Medant knew no reason not to use them on fairies, who remained easy to capture until they thought harder about their situation.
“And the same will serve for Zatdil,” he declared before ordering the largest, heaviest, and downright grandest net in the army stock to be brought up. He deigned to participate personally in its deployment, for although the better practice was to preserve the distinction between the feathers and the thinboots as he confessed in a later interview (despite not wearing any feathers then or upon the occasion itself), numbers have their own logic to them and he was short-handed.
Zatdil laughed at their efforts even ss the net fell over his head. “A thousand nets and ten thousand ropes, and fetters of iron too, are not enough to hinder me. Observe my deft steps learned over thousands of years and compare it with what you can manage with your thirty years at most!”
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Unless estimates of pre-modern lifespans overestimated by an incredible amount, the great fairy must have neglected his human studies. That made another field, since familiarity with the works of the great generals and military theorists would have aided him in realizing the enemy had ambitions beyond interfering with his performance.
The soldiers drew the net tighter, bringing the weights closer to their victim's feet, and the fact that Zatdil continued his exhibition of antique moves regardless wholly justified his misdirected bragging. Fairies both free and trapped began to clap along, and the hardest discipline alone prevented Medant's troops from doing the same. Some of the Defiafis did join in, as might have been expected.
The spontaneous show of appreciation in no way prevented Medant from closing up the net, drawing his sword, and presenting it to Zatdil tip first. “You must surrender, sir.” The drama of the circumstances spurred that honest young man to say something which he did not know for sure to be true.
Zatdil himself likely had doubts. Certainly he stared at his captor's sword in the manner of a music tutor who for the first time has encountered what he previously regarded as a myth fabricated by incapable instructors, a tone-deaf student. The first thing he thought to say puzzled the immediate audience and, when reported, sent historians scrambling for any reference to the events mentioned. “An Omega Master lost to Hacanthu, but I never heard of an Omega Despoiler like Zatdil Akavinnux Scaurrdex Ikakach losing to a human. I wonder what happened to them all.” He pondered while Medant stood amazed. “Very well. You are no Hacanthu, but neither am I a verang. Take these spoils to display in your triumph.”
So saying, he squeezed out of his fake armor without leaving the net, another feat of dexterity difficult even for the highest-Coordination Acrobats, and kicked it as far out as he could. In one day Medant Denmarof under the banner of Lommad Okliten with the backing of Atkosol Tellanstal, three names likely to endure forever in an obscure reference text, overcame two fairy kings. The accomplishment, notable and meritorious in itself, also ensured the swift end to sudden disappearances from the human world outside of researchers interested in the guest world, the details of fairies in their fabricated environment, and the opportunity to study Ertith Energy in a regular manner conducive to proper experimentation.
“What a regrettable circumstance it is that the war drags on,” Medant commented in the dining hall. While the need to consider carefully what information about the local condition was wise to transmit had passed, and along with it the advantages of communal letter writing, the impulse had turned into a habit. Whether the rest of the GE would embrace the practice could not be foreseen.
After reading messages from home begging him to leave that awful place for the sake of his parents' peace of mind if for no other reason and encouragements from mercenary pals to keep the war record coming, Medant had paused to reflect. Dirant, whose familial correspondence ran more toward requests that he comment on a plan to rent out Stadeskosken Ritualists for anti-fairy operations, also reflected. Not on the rental scheme for which his own actions provided the model, but on the ever-shifting circumstances brought about by war.
When Jiojjil and Zatdil succumbed, the remaining fairies lost some of the complacency of centuries. The fortification of Ishtu's mountain feared by Medant had been accomplished. On Ydridd's side, Doltandon Yurvitas embarked on a program of recruiting voluntary collaborators who responded better to a Subjugator's imposition of discipline than either fairies or kidnapped humans. As for those, Taomenk's maps and the tunnels rapidly expanded by tireless fairy labor facilitated transportation which was not used exclusively for good ends; abductions or perhaps willing departures of humans, it was difficult to tell which, had been seen within the limits of Ividottlof itself.
The culprits so far as that could be ascertained belonged to small realms which had emerged during the weeks since Medant's triumph. Petty fairy chiefs who decided their ideas of which people deserved inclusion in the ranks of the strongest had been too fixed for too long were attracting followers, forming miniature domains on the outer borders and in the gaps left unclaimed subsequent to the dissolution of the beach, sky, and desert districts, and engaging in mischief. Lommad expanded her city district at a respectable pace, but dozens of rebellious islands formed nevertheless.
Then there were the problems not directly related to fairies. Deputy Mayor Paosolt Tobalilk's first responsibility after he returned to town and resumed his office (to the pleasure of the citizenry, which was fond of him) consisted of putting up a fence around Cowsick Point. His picked crew settled on a respectable distance from the marker, figured how much material was necessary, and got to work, whereupon several of the members vanished until a friendly fairy helped them return.
The expansion of the area of concern troubled everyone who had cause to consider it. Atkosol wrote to various Symbol Knights involved with their class's theoretical side. The few responses received thus far stated that the identification of the curious midway point between the human and fairy worlds as the guest world was probably correct and that they had not the slightest desire to investigate personally. Far from that, they thanked Mr. Atkosol for helping make their minds up to take their vacations right then, and in the opposite direction from Ividottlof.
