Crow of the Ocean - PART 2 OF 3

The following is the second part of a book I've been writing on the train these past few months. If you've yet to read the first part, I reccomend you do so.

CROW OF THE OCEAN

PART 2

“Toss that over, we'll need one here as well!” Eskagi was ordered. Dutifully, he curled the poster into a crude simulacrum of a javelin and tossed it. “Ahhh! Why did you throw it, halfwit? What if it got dirty? What if you hurt me? Why can't you think for once?” Eskagi’s bossy companion complained shrilly. Earlier, she'd urged him to silence, which was ironic in view of what seemed to him constant outbursts. “If the poster was meant to be dirty, it'll get dirty one way or another! There is much else to worry about, much else whose favor must be won” Eskagi replied in a whisper, one that carried melodically across the distance between the two. A sound between a growl and a grinding choke was the only reply he got. “What's so important about each poster anyways? There's already one up over the school’s entrances, anyone out and about will see that one.” Eskagi tried to soothe his companion. She was Hettish, just like the princess, and the Hettish always had the most bizarre notions. The princess had once spoken at the maiden voyage of the sealiner “Castanugo”. Following some vague pleasantries and platitudes, she'd launched at length into a grand poem from Hetland’s grand tracts of lore. She'd gone on to explain the symbolism and the subtext, and drawn it all beautifully together as a metaphor for the ship and its important role. Eskagi had cheered and whooped, though he’d been rather solitary in his enthusiasm; most of the crowd had milled about in confusion. His companion was disappointing him - so far she'd been terse and angry, commanding and disrespectful, dismissive and lecherous. Despite himself, Eskagi was impressed that she could manage such a jumble of negativities without collapsing. “That. Will. Do. No. Good! When someone bravely climbs the school way arch to claim the poster for themselves, what then? When everyone from grandmothers to infants try to make their own copy, what then? When copies are used as wood for the fires of the grand rebirth, what then? We must have as many pristine, untouched, unblemished copies as possible!” Despite her evident enthusiasm, she kept her voice low. Though it wasn't as melodically pleasing as Eskagi's baritone whisper, it was a remarkable display of Hettish restraint. Eskagi looked down at a poster, then back at the one he'd thrown, evident doubt writ large on his lean features. The Hettish girl bit her lip and scoffed. “Just keep putting those up! We'll smell offal in the streets again soon. You think I'm stuck up, I know, that's how it is when you’ve grown up in Hetland” she said with a flourish, one that stank of self pity. “If you're planning on them being burned and scribbled on, why does it matter if they get a bit dirty? If anything, certain kinds of people would be intimidated by the sterility of the things” Eskagi said with a calm shrug. He noticed her flinch at his mention of ‘certain kinds of people'. It was part of a pattern, one where she'd shy away from certain topics and fervently prattle on when prodded on others. Though he hadn't yet figured out which subjects elicited each reaction, he found the whole affair somewhere between endearing and stupifying. “Don't talk that way! Or do talk that way, but… but make sure you're expressing yourself correctly! Right, I'm sure stodgy old Hettish scrambles your sentences!” The Hettish girl said with a condescending smile. More than condescending, she seemed genuinely pleased with herself. She turned back to the wall and slapped a corner of the poster between two stones. Then she fished out what looked like a coin from her pocket. She stuck the object onto the poster, and somehow it stayed up. Moreso, within moments the poster has straightened out fully, as if held by a hundred invisible hands. Then the poster climbed the wall, seeking out a perch of maximum visibility. “Do you think it is in Nakotebo’s character to place that here?” Asked Eskagi as he twirled a strand of hair in a manner that had he been a woman would've been considered seductive. “Why do you ask that now?” Asked the Hettish girl, her eyes fixed upon the slowly climbing poster. “You were fine with using this for the school, for the train station, and for the market message board” she said with a conviction Eskagi didn't think was warranted for such a banal question. Evidently, he'd hit upon another pain point. With a soothing calm well beyond his years, Eskagi explained himself: “No one cares what happens to those places, their air and dignity are beneath those of Nakotebo - those message boards and towers are tools, temporary, as permanent as a footprint on the beach. Those ugly streaks of white gunk your device leaves behind are no more damaging than the regular weathering those places see. But this wall, those streaks are not in its character!” Eskagi’s hands made wide sweeping gestures as he talked. As he finished, his hands clasped together as if in supplication. The girl cocked her head and furrowed her brow, twirled her exotically long sleeves in confused contemplation. She sounded strangely innocent as she replied: “But this wall isn't pristine. Look, there's moss growing between the cracks, chalky figures sketched by bored children, wads of chewed nabach sticking where they were spat” she turned her nose up in disgust at this last imperfection. “And it doesn't even serve a purpose! It's just tall and easy to climb, and it separates the game field from Schefran Boulevard. And it doesn't need to do that, because the game field is surrounded by a ditch, just like every other game field in two worlds!” Eskagi recognized real emotion in what she said, and for once he understood her perfectly. “Yes, exactly! Isn't it wonderful?” Eskagi tried to explain. “This beautiful Codan stone, blocks weightier than the mightiest of beasts, neatly packed together in cyclic regularity, serving nothing but to obscure! It's nothing so crude as an artistic statement, it's more… a wart, or maybe a freckle - a lovely freckle on the face of Nakotebo. And to mar it, make it ugly in its own right… it ruins the story, it tarnishes the image. Do you see?” And though Eskagi's eyes shone, it was plain his companion failed to see whatever it was he saw. A look of extreme unease crossed her face, one whose nature Eskagi couldn't divine. “It’s imported Codan stone, it can't possibly mean anything…” she mumbled, clearly uncomfortable. Her discomfort fell into that broad category that Eskagi affectionately labeled “Hettish sensitivity”, so he left it alone. “Where are we off to next? The sea sign? The Canper’s petitions? Or do we rendezvous with someone? I think it's about time I learned just how many people are involved in our movement!” Eskagi said lightly, hopping round the Hettish girl on restless thin legs, as of yet unfit for the boy’s growing height. Her eyes blazed something fierce in the dim lamplight that stretched from thick lampposts on either side of the boulevard. Without a word, she turned her back to Eskagi and walked east, as if to turn the wall and onto the playing field. There at the bend, under a statue of a great sportsman from ages past, she looked to the sky. Eskagi tracked her gaze. He didn't expect to see anything, until he noticed the strange cast of blue shadows streaked upon her face; she was looking at Life, large and low in the sky this time of the cycle. And though Life’s larger continent was now in prime view, its light, reflected and refracted through two atmospheres, shone a brilliant pale blue. The girl spoke softly and clearly, to no one in particular, and to the world, and yet to Eskagi alone. “People used to wonder if there was anything there, or if at least there used to be. If the name ‘Life’ was anachronistic, or ironic, or appropriate. It was something every lonely person could share - that wonder, that dream. And now, like so many other dreams, a Hettish busybody, too caught up in his own grandeur, has turned it into just another moneymaking venture” a warm ocean wind picked up, tousling both their hair into a frazzled mess. “Are you sure?” Eskagi asked, his pleasant voice in tonic harmony with the steady hum of the wind. Instead of asking “About what?” Or “Of course, I have never been so sure of a thing in my life”, the girl waited for the wind to die down before continuing. Her head now turned from the full face of Life to the dark expanse between Life and War. Each world sat at the edges of their view of the sky, the rest obscured by the cover of man-made long roofs and no less artificial shade giving trees. Conviction colored her words: “And there were the Tianyug, filling the vast blackness with their glorious past and shining future. And now they're gone, diminished to a few pale pearls and strands, not even enough to hint to the children of today that once there was a wonder up there” Eskagi too gazed up at the night sky, whispered what he thought was a comfort. “But there are new wonders. There are the thousand lights of cities and towns, visible to the naked eye when standing atop the cliffs. There are the grand gardens of Amaseida, and the monumental ships of cargo running back and forth from Astwyth to Waydaub. Surely there are heroes there too?” Eskagi had intended the question to be rhetorical, but it somehow came out genuinely quizzical - as if he genuinely wondered at the truth behind his sentiment. “Oh Eskagi, we have done so much to you, and you do not even know it.” the girl said sadly, then waited for Eskagi to catch up to her. Once he did, she raised a hand to brush his cheek. Her touch was gentle, though he'd shied away from it before when she'd tried similar intimacy. Eskagi never felt quite comfortable around the girl, though perhaps it was simply that despite their month of acquaintance he still had not learned her name. Tonight, the wind and the light and smell of salt told him that it was right to let her have her way. Still, businesslike, he strode forwards but a moment later and went back to demanding: “So what else is there to do tonight? I don't think Nakotebo will change its face or mind thanks to whatever we've done tonight, though you've promised tonight would be the big one.” Eskagi asked with his usual calm, not even a hint of anger or impatience marring his perfect diction. The girl replied in a lackadaisical manner, more careless than self assured: “Tonight has lit the flare, but… we should inspect our work once more, make sure everything is really in place.” Eskagi's distaste for this course of action was writ large on his face, but the girl wasn't looking at him. She was already walking round the long side of the playing field, back towards the school through a dark and circuitous route. “But why?” Eskagi asked, still without exasperation. “You’ve followed the rhythm of Nakotebo, now let Nakotebo respond. Hammering in your will only makes you seem petulant.” Eskagi tried to explain, each word carefully chosen to avoid both offence and coddling. The girl slowed her pace, enough that Eskagi could easily catch up if he so chose. He did not so choose. Disappointed, the girl replied. “Oh Eskagi, it's just for things like this that I need you. But these vile Hettish habits of mine die hard, I still see the world as a dead thing. And if it is in the service of a deeper harmony, then my undue insistence may be a blessing after all” they kept on walking, Eskagi pondering the expressed sentiment just as he pondered her formal choice of words. Both struck a lightly dissonant chord with his sensibilities. It was a feeling much akin to having forgotten something important yet replaceable.


There was no need to be quiet. Nakotebo was never quiet, not for those who knew to listen. Always the forest chittered away. Always an old man could be found singing a song of blood and memory. Always there were the musicians, children as young as eight and elders as old as eighty, whistling away five note tunes in variable rhythms. With the night always so alive, two youngsters out on a tryst attracted less than no attention - they were actively ignored by the other denizens of the dark. And if her dress and sleeves were long, and if her skin was light and her pallor blushing, and if he hung back hesitantly, and if he glanced about for something between salvation and distraction, it was no matter to those who dwelled in the night. Through a twisting alley, the pair came in visual range of the market and its imposing monolith of a billboard. Posters and advertisements stood tightly packed in drill formation, ready to unload a barrage of confusion upon any passerby foolish enough to gaze upon its visage without a clear goal in mind. For those who knew how to look, it was clear where lay the job openings, where lay the real estate scams, and where to find the juiciest of Ricongerakan summer fruit. These seekers and any curious stranger besides would all gravitate towards the inflammatory orange and black letters writ large upon the poster Eskagi had helped put up. A distinct trail of white gunk could be traced from the lower left corner of the board up to the poster. Whilst it didn't obscure that which was beneath it, no one wanted to stare at the gunk for long enough to penetrate its opaque visage. To the right of the billboard and just before the now empty stalls of the market lay a hub of communication booths. Eskagi glanced from the color coded booths to the ever visible silver probes that dotted Nakotebo's sky. He rather liked them, imagining the words written in the booths jumping from probe to probe, until they were far up enough that they could leap all the way to Extabon, or Waydaub, or Amaseida. He didn't think that was how any of it worked, but the image entertained him as he crouched there in the darkness, just out of view of the busy businessmen with affairs to attend from one end of the moon to the next. He mused upon the spectacle in a whisper: “The five Golden white booths connected to Extabon are so lacking that even at this hour, each holds a line ten men long. Of the three green booths of Amaseida, two are empty. Enxua, Codan, South Hetland, and all the regional booths are completely empty! What a waste, what a waste.” He’d planned on saying less, but found he had much to say. He was cut off by his companion, her knee in his back a biting rebuke of his noisemaking. He returned to silence, though not before she found time to insult him: “Buffoon! We're not here to ogle the writing booths. Just shut up for a minute, I can't see if the poster is still there” she'd made more noise than he had, but Eskagi didn't mind. He tried to find some semblance of comfort as he waited for his company to satisfy herself. Hopes of quick escape were dashed by a renewed hushing from the girl, alongside a wide eyed stare between terror and rage. “Look, you useless ape, look! That's why we need to check up on our work!” Her countenance could scare a shellclimber out of its hard won nook and a mother bird from her nest, but Eskagi took it in stride. She settled down slightly behind and above Eskagi, a vantage point that evidently gave her a clear view of the billboard and its surroundings. Eskagi, whose view had been fine to begin with, searched for what had alarmed the Hettish girl. His eyes found nothing, not until they followed his ears towards the edge of the communication plaza, where two men’s discussion was rather louder than the ambient muttering of the surroundings. His companion had ample commentary to spill: “Oh very clever, very subtle!” The Hettish girl muttered in the tones of a curse. “Very inconspicuous, loudly, clearly, brazenly inconspicuous! Almost enough to persuade, almost enough to impress, almost enough to convince me that you're real, that you represent Ricongeraka and Nakotebo all! Listen closely, Eskagi, I'll explain later!” She said with a relish, clearly unaware that her very interruption was the factor keeping him from properly eavesdropping. Confident that she was done for the time being, Eskagi leaned into position to better see and hear the conversation. “And it's good business in Amaseida, isn't it?” Said the first man, a tall, shaved, brown skinned creature of indeterminate build and suspiciously young age. His upper body was hidden by a long fisherman's shirt, his lower body by pants so baggy they could be mistaken for a skirt. “All these fools writing to their brokers and financiers back in Extabon, and for what? The exchange in Amaseida is just as updated, and a quarter the fees to boot!” The strange man continued, his mouth pulling into a high lopsided smirk. Alongside the tight glare, the effect was an unnaturally aggressive friendliness. Eskagi didn't know enough to place his Hettel accent, but it certainly wasn't anything Ricongerakan. This was in stark contrast to his conversation partner, lightly dressed in a nearly translucent one sleeved shirt and fine leather shorts barely reaching the knee. Lean and clearly muscular, the only oddity was the lightness of his skin. Though not unheard of in Ricongeraka, the pale shade was unusual in the mocha sea of the island’s people. But his accent was impeccably high class Waydaub, the clear nasal holdovers from modern Shanbila pronounced in his the hard ‘N’ and ‘K’ sounds. Besides, his messy beard was very Ricongerakan indeed. “Amaseida’s old trash, pal! Nothing new comes from there, nothing big! It's all Extabon, all the way! I've already gotten all my orders in to my broker, it's a great time alright! All the boys there should consider ordering their hour ahead of time!” The light skinned man said, a cheerful, gloating malice underlying his words. “Hour? Sessions are eight minutes, and they cost a pretty penny at that!” the darker man said in mock dismay. Though it was a natural enough response, something between the tone and cadence of the response reeked to Eskagi of artificiality. The rehearsed response continued: “Not that you'll get the full use of your eight minutes anyhow, unless your guy is right there on the other side to receive it, which he won't be! So you've gotta stamp your seal and add a final address, and add all that nonsense for the poor sorter to pick up and forward through the snail mail to whoever you actually wanted to contact! And sure it's safer than an ocean liner and quite a bit faster, but it's not really the instant communication we've been promised.” The dark man said with a tilt of his head, voice carefully rising so as to be heard by anyone in the surroundings. Eskagi would've believed the emotion genuine, people got emotional over far lesser matters after all. But now that he was tipped off that something was amiss, he could tell the men planned on being overheard. The properly dressed fellow leaned back in a manner Eskagi wouldn't have believed possible without a chair. He did in anyways, standing up. Then he replied, volume naturally matching his companion’s. It was so slick Eskagi almost missed the fact that the light skinned man had no real reason to be speaking so loudly. “If you order your hour ahead of time, you can be sure your guy will be there! Of course for that you'd need to make sure you arranged the hour ahead of time. Ha! You'd never be sure you'd both gotten the message!” Then he laughed, as if this classic problem in computer science was a joke to him. “Wouldn't he also need some assurance that the person on the other side is his agent?” Eskagi whispered. The girl hushed him violently. This too is a problem in computer science, though the solution of private and public keys is rather impractical for their system of communication. A password would probably work well enough. “Well it certainly sounds interesting, how would I order ahead of time?” The dark skinned man said, now striding nearer the other businessmen, and thus nearer the billboard. The bearded man followed, casting his gaze to make sure everyone's eyes were on him. Assured that they were, though they tried to hide it, he delivered his sales pitch loudly and nonchalantly. “Through this new Hettish company, they can arrange things you wouldn't believe! Time in a com booth, an audience with your elected representative or a corporate judge, royal attendance at an event you're holding, even securing precious cargo or personnel room on Skyleaps! Really, they do it all!” it certainly didn't sound like a sales pitch, for his grin was wicked and his tone sharp, as if he was genuinely gloating over this precious find. His companion seemed truly exasperated when he replied: “Everything’s Hettish with you! There are plenty of good companies based in Amaseida, there's even this new Lanckal based company that's a real find-” he was cut off by someone in line for a booth: “Hey! Don't talk about that! We'll count our money next year, don't let these dopes in on the racket!” He was immediately mobbed by his neighbors in line and in parallel lines, shouting confused complaints and pleading pathetically for more information. “What's this great company of yours called anyhow?” The man who'd interrupted shouted at the talkative pair, now standing right in front of the billboard. The surrounding shouts turned between the two topics. Such a cacophony was made that the jungle, never far away in Nakotebo, echoed their shrill cries in the chitter of bugs and the squawk of birds. The bearded man seemed about to answer, but first he turned dramatically from his scowling darker partner to the businessmen. Then he pointedly looked away from them, as if to the sky. But standing so close to the billboard, he couldn't get a clear view of the sky - all he could see was the poster. What he shared next was not the name of the company he seemed to be advertising. Instead, he swore quite violently. First in modern Shanbila, then classical, then Hettel, then three more times in what Eskagi thought were two more languages though he couldn't be sure. This tirade complete, he turned to his companion. “Is this garbage allowed to be posted? Advertising is too much, but you can call for murder? Spout foreign funded slander? Is that same half-nose paper pusher who fined me in charge of this? I bet he is, Kozext! I bet he wormed his way into the representative’s office three elections ago, and he's stayed there ever since! How many titles must he have by now? How many equally wormy friends must he have? I'd not be half shocked if he put this up himself!” The light man shouted angrily, the serious venom behind his words enough to shock the shabby traders into a semblance of sheepish composure. “Spineless crooks!” The Hettish girls muttered into Eskagi's ear. “Who?” Eskagi whispered back, his voice softer by far than hers. Though it wasn't quieter, its melody fit with the rustling leaves and the noisy jungle far better. She pinched his ear as a response, though not very painfully. The dark man, Kozext, had regained an air of lightness, his scowl having morphed into a consoling grin. “It's not as bad as all that, Adivadel. You're always getting too upset at these petty revolutionaries. It's just children having fun, like the ‘grand march’ through the main thoroughfare of High Oskisplin. Not everything is connected to your suit against the publishing authority; sometimes kids are just dumb” Kozext said warmly and personally, though it had the air of the theatric about it. But the context was so different to their previous spiel that Eskagi was forced into the conclusion that Kozext simply spoke that way. Adivadel expressed his disdain for these platitudes in no uncertain terms: “That grand march ruined two construction firms and a publicly traded steel processor. Dumb kids in the Paernidies got their island sunk by Enxua. Dumb words and dumber reactions kill people in Codan honor feuds to this day. If only they'd been reconciled harder!” Adivadel said with an incongruent smile, his eyes full of a wild malevolence. Kozext put a placating hand on Adivadel’s shoulder, then muttered something at him. It wasn't as conspiratorially suspicious as a whisper, but it was inaudible to any but Adivadel nonetheless. “Alright alright, I hear you. But I'm still going to take it down. No, I don't care who put it up or who they're friends with, and I don't care that I'm upset. I'm perfectly within my rights to find this offensive!” Adivadel said to the world. It had the timbre of an announcement, or a revelation, though as far as Eskagi could tell he'd simply gotten ticked off and was taking it out on their poster. The anger didn't offend Eskagi, though his companion was so furious she was growling a carnivorous snarl. “What a small, sniveling excuse for a Ricongerakan!” the Hettish girl said, her voice low no longer. If someone had been paying attention to their crouched perch past the dark edge of the night, they'd doubtless have heard them. The prospect didn't scare Eskagi, and evidently it didn't scare his companion either. “What would you judge him lacking in Ricongerakan character?” Eskagi asked innocently. The girl turned on him. She pondered the implied barb in Eskagi's statement: “You're Hettish. You're one of them, the ones responsible for breaking the sky and starving the wilds. What could you possibly know about Ricongeraka?” She considered the possibility that this was his meaning. Considered, and dismissed - Eskagi was simply too innocent for any such thought. A moment's pause, and she answered: “Connection” she said simply. Eskagi took it in stride, as he seemed to take everything. He turned back to the two businessmen, now joined by some of their fellows who had been in line for the booths. “How did they get it all the way up there?” One of them was saying, his back turned to them in such a manner that his words were barely audible over the chitter of night. Kozext was standing a pace away, his stance suggesting something between resigned disapproval and guilty complicity. “The same way anyone gets anything up high on these billboards: they show up illegally with a ladder and stick it up where only official announcements ought to be!” Adivadel answered the nameless man’s question. “Illegally carrying a ladder!” The Hettish girl swore. For once, Eskagi fully comprehended and approved of her sentiment. “Can we stop them?” She suddenly asked Eskagi, her previous condescension evaporating into some dread cloud ever on the verge of raining. There was a childish innocence in the question, in her strange wide eyes and infantile long dress. Eskagi couldn't parse the meaning behind the question, the underlying sentiment: was she asking his advice on how best to stop them? His assessment of their chances of success? Or was she asking for permission? Though it was the least likely of the three, Eskagi settled on the latter as her intended question. “I think we've followed our course” Eskagi began, carefully shifting his splayed weight into a position suitable for prolonged equivocation. “It is good to know these things we have not known before, the aspects of the world we have yet to consider. There is a river in that man, Adivadel, a river that runs somehow parallel to our track. And now it is that river’s turn to flow and shape, to swell with new rains and carve new futures. Should we stop that? Should we claim ourselves lords over the winds men dance to? Or do we dance in that wind as well?” Eskagi said in his soothing voice. The girl nodded intently, but a concerned, confused look crossed her face. Eskagi puckered his lips in disappointment at himself, at his inability to convey his thoughts in a language she'd understand. “Of course there are times to act! We are not leaves in the wind, not a fish in the currents or a crow on the ocean’s breeze. But look inside yourself, consider all you have done today - is it in you to do more? To shape more? Or is it time to be shaped instead? What about the world? Does it bear enough of your mark, or is something missing? If something is missing, go and fill it in. Otherwise, let the waters flow from wherever they may - do not empty yourself when the cup is full” Eskagi said with a deep, unusual sincerity. The girl seemed moved, her features settling into a gentle contemplation Eskagi thought strange for such a temperamental creature. The girl's thoughts bubbled to the surface, an unconscious whisper intended for no audience but herself: “But they'll never stop, they never wait, they just push and push until everyone is as dreary as they are, until every wild mountain has been leveled into a meadow for pasture. They'll never be satisfied with the mark they leave…” she trailed off, her train of thought returning to silence. Still, Eskagi noticed her hands fidgeting and her weight shifting uneasily from leg to leg. “Do you have it in you to carve yourself into the world in that manner? To ceaselessly chisel and chip away, writing your spirit in stark letters upon all under the stars?” Eskagi asked with a piercing stare. Hettel limited him, infantilizing the deep concepts he'd learned from Canpers, parents, and standings. It angered him, and that anger must’ve shown, for the girl shrank under his gaze. He hadn't the time to reconcile, to assure and assuage, to reassert his calm demeanor - for as soon as he'd asked his question, (which was not meant to be rhetorical,) a new voice entered the fray from around the billboard. It wasn't projected, like Adivadel and Kozext. Rather, the little man speaking was so naturally loud that Eskagi could hear him just fine.


“Ho there, ho there, what do we think we're doing? Yes yes, all very well and good, but aren't we taking things just a bit too fast? You'll break your neck, or an arm, or something just as vital!” Said Bejkali, having finished his communication with Amaseida for the night. Adivadel turned towards him, though it was a rather comical sight for he was sitting atop Kozext’s broad shoulders. Bewildered, Adivadel didn't know what to reply to the strange little creature who'd accosted him. “The billboard, what are you doing to it? It's everyone’s, don't you know? Anyone can put anything up there, no questions asked! It's a core tenet of public law: that which is unowned is owned by all!” Bejkali continued in a fervor, the long vowel sounds mixed within the stressed syllables, cascading his speech into an incomprehensible disaster. “How’s he connected?” Eskagi asked his companion suddenly. Flustered and confused, she didn't think to obfuscate as she'd done before. “I don't know him yet, but he matches the description of a collaborator in Amaseida. An important one, but I'm certain his priorities lie elsewhere” she said with a squint, the surrounding darkness and intervening lamplight obscuring the features of the men in the fray. “Ignore him! Guipol, give me that stick, let's see if this white gunk yields to a thrashing!” Adivadel ordered from atop his makeshift throne that was Kozext. Guipol, the first businessman to join Adivadel in his mission, gave Adivadel a long pointed tree branch that lay on the ground. Kozext kept his silence, though displeasure was writ large on his face to all who cared to look. Even at their distance, Eskagi could make out the dreadful scowl on the dark man’s face. Kozext remained solidly stationary even as Adivadel's stabs at the poster grew ever wilder. Bejkali was shouting up at Adivadel, who was trying his best to ignore him. The surrounding businessmen shuffled uneasily, the sudden intruder casting their conviction into doubt: did they really care about some dumb poster? Were they not important men with important business to attend to? They wandered, either back to their now lost place in line, or away, back to their hotel rooms and financial advisers. “It’s stuck! What chemical wizardry made this piece of trash immune to sharp damage?” Adivadel complained to his dwindling audience. Bejkali shot him a piercing glare. Adivadel was unresponsive, but Kozext was obliging; he set Adivadel down lightly, so much so that he barely noticed. Kozext looked down at the little man, then around at the audience, frank appraisal apparent in his gaze. The group was small, Adivadel in the center stabbing upwards at the shockingly resilient poster. Kozext stood beside him, Guipol and another lanky man to his right. To his left, Bejkali was trying to stare down a stocky and balding man, without much success. Above Adivadel's continued complaints, Eskagi heard Bejkali's tirade. “So you approve of this kind of hooliganism? Obstruction of free speech, muting Ricongerakan voices? It's awful, awful, I tell you! That you're not even ashamed of it, you're not even scared to be so traitorously horrible, horrible!” Bejkali spat at the man, though his manner was calm besides the frantic hand gestures. Eskagi couldn't hear the man’s reply, for Adivadel was still ranting rather loudly. “Have we seen enough?” The Hettish girl asked Eskagi, fear and hope entangled in her question. Eskagi shook his head silently, which she took at face value. They returned to listening, Bejkali having by now expanded his rhetoric towards the group of five as a whole. “Is there anything you have to say for yourself, anything at all? Or are angry shouts all you're good for? Listen here, disagree in private however you may, you cannot obstruct the instruments of discourse, you simply cannot, you cannot! Just because you've been bought off with fancy titles and large incomes, you think you'll dictate to us how to feel! Less, you should have less influence! Your voice counts for less, not more, for all your power and greed!” Bejkali ranted, hands pointing frantically this way and that. Kozext looked from Adivadel to Guipol. Adivadel made a twisting motion with his right hand. Kozext nodded and shifted his head quizzically at Guipol. Guipol’s left hand scratched his chin. Eskagi was bewildered, Bejkali didn't seem to have noticed, and the other two men who’d been with the group took their silent leave. Kozext put a heavy hand on Bejkali's shoulder, cutting off his ceaseless whining. Adivadel picked up his rage and alongside Guipol continued stabbing at the poster. Kozext said something to Bejkali, something which shut the little man up. Then they took their leave, heading towards some dark alley or another. No one looked their way but Eskagi and his companion. “Who could've imagined they weren't alone?” the girl mused. And before Eskagi could pursue this or any other line of questioning, his companion took charge: “We can't let them have their way with us. Get a move on, we’re following”. Evidently, her flash of diffidence had passed.


“What hideaway corner had that brute taken our friend to?” The girl asked Eskagi. They walked briskly, though somewhat aimlessly, which Eskagi greatly disliked. “Slow down if you don't know where you're going!” Eskagi said in lieu of an answer. His companion stopped and let him bump into her, nearly knocking the pair into an embarrassing tumble. Perhaps she'd hoped for such an outcome, but Eskagi was quick on his feet and quickly rebounded, planting himself squarely face to face with the girl. “Very funny, but you've done what you wanted to, haven't you? And since you still won't tell me who exactly we're working with or how we're planning on bringing about any sort of change, isn't the night over?” The irritated words sounded strange when carried upon Eskagi's usual calm voice. The incongruence meant it took the girl a moment to parse Eskagi's simple request. She shook her head vigorously, and put as heavy a hand as she could on Eskagi's shoulder. When she spoke, it was as if she was lecturing a child. “Our little friend has been ‘escorted’ away by that Kozext man. If we let them be, our friend won't see tomorrow, or worse. All we need to do is make our presence clear, and he can't do anything. If we witness any violence, a court will string the offender up no matter who he is!” She said the last part with a strange emphasis, one Eskagi couldn't parse. As if Kozext was somehow special, as if the court would be forced to put down a prize hound dog. Eskagi began neutrally: “I don't think there are that many dark corners around here. The best that could be done is at the south end of Nakotebo, where some remnant of jungle sits between town and cliff.” He finished with a twist that was almost bitter. His companion looked pleased, whether it was at the information or the bitterness Eskagi couldn't tell. “We'll head there then. Lead the way!” She said with a relish. Eskagi didn't argue, and as he turned through the broad streets he heard a strange clacking from behind him. It was something that would cause an argument should he bring it up, though he suspected she was contacting someone. The silver probes hung in the air, glittering in their reflective glory. He glanced at them as he went, not for guidance but for reassurance of his own reality. His companion noticed the glances: “They'll be gone soon enough!” she said hotly. Eskagi supposed it was true. “They're rather pretty. And I can't remember a time without them. The streets of Nakotebo would feel rather lonely at night without them” he mused. What his companion thought about this remained a mystery for a while yet, for they’d reached the edge of Nakotebo. The lights from the market were visible over the low roofed houses, though the dirt path led into an impenetrable darkness. “I don't see anyone…” Eskagi murmured to his companion. He was warier than she'd ever seen him before, though it never crossed her mind that she might’ve pushed him too far. Trusting his instinct that this was the right place, she urged Eskagi to quiet as she raised a metallic earpiece to her right ear. She pushed a button on its side and waited a moment. “There, four houses down, there's a path into the jungle. They're there!” She didn't quite exclaim. She led the way as she rapidly clacked away at some hidden device Eskagi couldn't see. He knew better than to question her tools or plan, not because they were beyond reproach but because she'd give no account of either. So he kept his doubts to himself and followed as easily as if he trusted her implicitly. Not ten paces into the woods, he found himself forced to search for and then grab hold of the girl's hand. He could see neither her nor the path, but following her lead he found himself strangely sure footed. Eskagi thought it was a rather clever excuse for physical contact on her part; he never even considered that she was so caught up in her mission that she completely forgot about his presence. But forgot him she had, for purpose now filled her bosom and righteous fury tinted her gaze. Her gaze was already tinted by invisible auto adaptive lenses, leaving her view of reality rather worse for wear. Sight ceased being important as sounds of nearby violence arose to be a more immediate guide. “Unbelievable! A quick pulse, a torrential fury, who'd think it possible from someone like that?” Eskagi said into the blackness. His companion neither urged him to silence nor did she question the meaning of his statement. Instead, she pulled him to a standstill and pointed to a small clearing. Adjusted for darkness, Eskagi's eyes caught the dimly lit scene in unnaturally vivid detail. Kozext stood towering over Bejkali, a thick thorny branch grasped tightly in his gloved left hand. Kozext's attention was entirely upon the little man, yet he somehow seemed hyper aware of his surroundings. The bright fisherman's shirt he wore hung loosely around his large dark frame, casting him as an almost ghostly figure. Bejkali leaned on a tree, clearly at his ease despite the situation. He bore not a scratch upon him, and his eyes glinted with a predatory amusement. The tree he leaned upon bore the marks of recent thrashing, evidently from Kozext. There they stood, striking as strange a scene as ever Eskagi had seen, and their conversation in calmly fluid Shanbila completed the strangeness of the production. “It's a strange thing” Kozext was saying, the heavy branch swinging lightly in his grip. “agitators and revolutionaries, you'd expect some circumspection, some secretiveness. But you're a strange creature indeed, a tiger in a midget’s cloak. Who's behind your pay? Do you think I could trace it all the way back to one of the Amaseida based conglomerates? Or maybe a government? Does the heavy levy of the Enxua peasant end up in your pocket? How many years do you think one of them works to pay for an hour of your fomenting? All that waste, so many hours of so many lives, it could make a grown man cry” Kozext said with a flourished proficiency, the syllables clear and dense. Shanbila wasn't the most difficult of languages, but Kozext spoke as if he were a native. Only his sentence construction was strange, as if borrowed from some more agglutinative branch of the linguistic tree. If Bejkali noticed this subtle strangeness, he didn't let on. Instead he spoke as if Kozext had asked him a definite question with a definite answer, which was decidedly not the case. “I've every right to do as I please, and no browbeating can change that. I'm a free man under the law, and if you're lucky I won't remember enough details for any kind of law enforcement to catch you. Yes yes, it's a very dark night, the kind I hear they scare little Hettish children with. But there's nothing to fear from the dark, for heroes and icons shine brightly all thanks to it. There's no bravery with nothing to overcome, of course.” Bejkali said with almost a snigger. Eskagi didn't think it was the kind of sentiment that merited a snigger, thought it was indeed trite. Still, Bejkali hadn't had to bring it up if he didn't want to. Kozext refused to engage with Bejkali's trickery. Instead he grabbed the little man by the collar. Then he struck the bark over his head a few times. The sound spoke volumes, a thousand words compressed into a few definite “Thwacks!” Kozext released Bejkali, then motioned he sit. Bejkali remained on his feet, for all that it helped his stature. Kozext’s expression was blankly neutral as he laid the branch’s barbed tip upon Bejkali's shoulder. A wince of pain was evicted from Bejkali, yet he refused to sit. Without even a shrug, Kozext lectured once more: “There is more to life than a good name. There's more to life than bravery. You could see that with your eyes, if you saw the Paernidies. But unless I am as mistaken as a winter songbird, the evidence of your eyes means little to you. Little man, if you cannot trust yourself who can you trust? If you cannot even trust yourself, how can you imagine dictating to others upon any matters, much less those of state and conscience. Run along, little man, run along” Kozext said, though the imposing weight still on Bejkali's shoulders precluded any such course of action. Kozext reminded Eskagi of the old wandering Canpers, those wise men who seemed to be of another world. Their speech was often impenetrable to the layperson though their words were simple; wisdom lay in the score of implications hidden in each one of their prosaic words. Bejkali clearly understood what Kozext was about, though Eskagi had only the vaguest notion. “Only a little longer, and all will be clear, Eskagi dear” the Hettish girl whispered. Though Eskagi squirmed uncomfortably at her assumed familiarity with him, the expectation of enlightenment outweighed the discomfort tenfold. She looked at the unfolding scene with a distracted air, her attention split between Kozext and her communication device. It clicked loudly, but no louder than the surrounding symphony of nighttime drama that emerged from every bush and tree. Clearly, the birds were having a wonderful time of some sort or another. Bejkali shook his head slowly, pain writ large on his face as he underwent the motion. Once again, his reply left Eskagi less knowledgeable than before. All the more confusing for being spoken in Hettel. “Kozext, eh? What a name you've picked for yourself. Would anyone, anyone at all believe you were a Ricongerakan? Delightful, delightful to some! What an idea, that you could learn Shanbila and blend in as well as anyone. It's a noble, noble idea!” Bejkali said with as much scorn as he could force through the pain. Eskagi realized he didn't know if his companion had understood anything in the conversation so far. She didn't seem taken aback by the change in language, which confused Eskagi even more. He resolved not to wonder too hard at her oddities, as it only ever gave him a headache. Bejkali rattled on, though Kozext remained impassive. “Only you don't look Ricongerakan, and you certainly don't speak Ricongerakan, no indeed, no you don't! That alliteration, that repetition, it's a very Hettel manner of speech. Or perhaps even Gidardov? Gidarda is full of brutes, just like you, brutes who say each word three times, three times!” Bejkali said obliviously. When Kozext failed to rise to this bait, Bejkali elaborated upon the point he began. “Koz-ext. It's such a Hettel name it seems a shame to waste on your persona, a crying shame! Ext, like in Extabon, such an unfashionable word, but so useful, so useful!” Bejkali twittered against the pain, his repetitions more frequent as his distress grew. “Or maybe it's beautiful? Poetic and concise? Such a word, such a lovely word!” Bejkali stammered out, vainly hoping for Kozext to get drawn into a pointless argument. “It's a nice general word, it could refer to so many things, all of them places of one sort or another. But the most common usage is ‘dwelling’, only there's quite a bit more implied in that. Dwelling, like hearth and home. Dwelling, like a long break in an even longer journey. Dwelling, like safety in a harsh world. Dwelling, the highest goal, the most precious gem, the one light in a dark and desolate world” Bejkali uttered without additional repetition. Kozext tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. Eskagi wondered how he could tell such nuances despite the dark. Bejkali, sensing a weakness to exploit, hurried on. “And Koz. That's not a truly Hettel word, It's Codan. There's a hundred little Hamlet dialects, but Koz is a word shared by most. Most of the big ones at least, at least that, at least that!” Bejkali almost pleaded. His voice was frantic, yet he was far from supplicant. Anger and frustration bubbled beneath his babble. “Sworn guardian, or loyal guardian, or maybe just loyal friend. You've called yourself ‘loyal guardian of the precious dwelling’, in a mishmash of languages. It's funny, it's funny!” Bejkali almost shouted. To prove his point, Bejkali laughed. Mirth and amusement and bitter glee mixed in his laugh. Kozext lifted the thorny branch from Bejkali's shoulders before grabbing the still laughing man by the collar and holding him as if to throw. He spoke over Bejkali's laughter, and though his voice seemed no louder than before Eskagi could hear it as clear as a Canper's ringing call at a standing. “You speak in circles very convincingly. Is that a skill they teach in Amaseida? To weave a tapestry of dreams from the bare scattered threads of thought? No, don't reply” Kozext said, swinging the branch very convincingly. Bejkali closed his mouth upon the remark he'd intended to make. He listened to Kozext with a look of mild relief. “There'll be no more of this nonsense. You're certainly within your rights to say what you will. Perhaps you've broken no law on the books. But who do you think you're fooling? You seem to suspect me of some nefarious motive and of some mysterious commanders. And we don't appreciate suspicions, not when they're oh so wrong” Kozext said in a quiet leer, daring Bejkali to contradict him. Eskagi's companion swore under her breath. Eskagi was aware he'd lost the plot, for Bejkali's next sentence made no sense to him. “Are you saying that for the audience?” Bejkali asked despite the fear he obviously felt. Kozext's eyes widened, and for the first time Eskagi thought Bejkali had gotten the better of him. “But you're just what you seem to be, no more and no less. And it's no good, no good at all to try and convince anyone otherwise! And that you've yet to hit me is the greatest proof of it yet. You're an agent of the crown, the most obvious one I've ever seen! Who else -” Bejkali's confident natter was undercut by his falling flat on his back. Kozext had kicked his legs out, then kicked him in the ribs. Bejkali’s eyes looked up in wild amusement, the fear and trepidation gone out like stars in daylight. “Really, how dumb is our audience that you think I'm surprising them? Oh of course-” Bejkali had started talking, before Kozext cut him off with another kick. “How did you do it so fast? And I thought I'd carefully avoided getting drawn into an argument. Have we been here for even ten minutes? Well then, every swallow takes flight, eh? Let's find out just how important you are!” Kozext said as he bent to grab Bejkali by the neck. Bejkali squirmed and thrashed, but if Kozext was at all bothered by his resistance it didn't show. Kozext pulled something from a pocket and put it to Bejkali’s neck. Then he whirled around frantically, twisting Bejkali in every direction. All the dignity Bejkali had preserved was marred by the choked groans he let out during this process. Kozext had ended up with his back to a thickly trunked tree, Bejkali held close to him like a shield. Then the jungle rumbled, and ten painted figures, clad in only the barest of cloth, stepped out of shrubbery and foliage.


“You can't have someone from the Kenptititi in Nakotebo! Not in their colors at least!” Eskagi shouted. All fourteen people were shocked by this pronouncement. Least shocked were the ten newcomers, unaware of Eskagi's usual manner and therefore unsurprised at his outburst. Appraised beforehand by the Hettish girl, even his presence was no surprise to them. Next was Kozext, who’d immediately suspected a tail of some sort when he realized his secrecy had been broken. Bejkali, bewildered at the reversal in fortune, remained bewildered, perhaps not particularly at Eskagi. Eskagi himself was surprised; at himself, at the newcomers, and most of all at his companion for being so dim witted as to invite in such exotic and disagreeable creatures. Finally, the girl was shocked most of all. Something of her mental image of Eskagi shifted and strained. Even something in what Eskagi represented seemed suddenly in doubt. She stood at the precipice of revelation. Then old arguments and old lessons kicked in, her better sense short circuited by long practice of being ignored in favor of fashionable counterculture. “All will be well Eskagi, old rivalries are but fading breeze on a short summer night. You heard the words as well as I did - this man, Kozext, is an agent of the crown! That's what matters, that's what matters!” She said unapologetically, pleased with her usage of what felt like a very Ricongerakan phrase. Eskagi was given no opportunity to reply. One of the newcomers, his arms painted and his body thick with hair, strode into the clearing and hollered something between a war cry and a teacher's roll call. He gestured to another man, middle aged and thin. Feathers stuck out of his hair and bracelets, and though their color was unclear in the moonlight, they were obviously from a panoply of different birds. Eskagi too strode out of his hidey hole, and looked the feathered man in the eye. In the tense silence, Kozext tried shuffling back into the woods. Eskagi thought it unlikely he'd be able to evade these strange feral people, but Bejkali spoiled the attempt before it could be called one. “Don't let's argue, don't let's argue! We're not friends, boy, of course we're not, but we can get along, get along I say!” Bejkali shouted, heedless of Kozext's squeeze about his neck. “You're going to kill me? Very believable, very believable! You're strange, you're strange, you're strange I'll grant you that! You're even violent, you could even kill! But you didn't, and if you're not going to, why keep me so unpleasantly? Get him off me, get him off me!” Bejkali pleaded with the newcomers. Two of the remaining eight, zigzagged with tattoos and scars across their bare torsos, started towards Kozext. “Might as well kill him, we're better off without his meddling” the feathered man said. The two continued towards Kozext, despite both their protests. “Idiots, idiots, idiots! What do you think you're achieving? Why do you imagine you're here, and not back in whatever smelly cave you call home?” Bejkali tried to catch their attention. Kozext took a different approach. “You're not really going to kill him. If it didn't matter what happened to him, you'd let sleeping dogs lie and let me do as I please to the little tyke. Don't posture, who are you trying to impress?” Kozext said plainly, angling to get something from his pocket into his hand. Said hand being pressed to Bejkali's neck, it was proving no mean feat. The two assailants reached Kozext. Still holding Bejkali, he gave up on whatever he'd been trying to reach. Instead, he ducked out of their grasp and kicked the first’s feet out from under him. As he did this, he swung Bejkali in a wide arc, missing the second by a wide margin. Still, he was kept at bay as Kozext dashed towards the feathered man. He chucked Bejkali towards Eskagi and grabbed the feathered man by his overflowing long hair. The feathered man took this with much more aplomb than Bejkali had, which rather endeared him in Eskagi's eyes. Bejkali leaped to his feet almost before he hit the ground. “Good men, good men, wonderful wonderful!” Bejkali cooed and clapped, his small stature lending credence to the idea he was a small child enraptured by some display of fecal amusement. Kozext had somehow fished out a small syringe from an invisible pocket, and he now held it to a vein on the feathered man’s arm. Of the nine others who’d come with the feathered man, one was still on his back, one held back at the edge of the clearing, and the rest stood in various poses of readiness about Kozext and his captive. They paid Bejkali no mind, which Eskagi thought the strangest thing of all. “Who are you?” Eskagi asked Bejkali with a light tap on the shoulder. Bejkali whirled to look him in the eye. For a moment, suspicion marred Bejkali's face and a pensive frown took the place of his previous merriment. He glanced between Eskagi and the Hettish girl, then broke into a wider grin than ever before. “Crow and Parrot! Something was wrong, something was wrong, they never told me you'd been assigned to escort me! But all's well, all's well, all's well I hope!” Bejkali said with unbridled mirth. “No one assigned me to anything! And no one can!” Eskagi replied, though he said it in as friendly a manner as could be imagined. “Parrot, are we done here?” Eskagi continued, savoring the proper name he finally had for his companion. She'd rebuffed any attempt at a pseudonym and had been utterly unwilling to impart her true name. But she clearly couldn't shrink from the codename Bejkali had bestowed upon her at that moment. Instead of arguing the point, she pulled Eskagi in for a hushed conference. “I told you, he's something different, don't tell him a thing! He's almost worse than Hettish somehow, for all that his hair is green” Parrot whispered aggressively at Eskagi. Eskagi decided to nettle parrot: “I don't know, seems he knows a lot, seems he's in tune with winds and memories. So answer me: are we done here?” Eskagi said with renewed placidity. Parrot gave him such a strange stare he almost recoiled - her eyes bulged and her hair stood on end. Even her usually flirtatious touch was now turned to an aggressive grasp. “Better move, better hurry, better run, run along!” Bejkali interrupted their conference. “Think we're safe, think we're done? No luck, no luck! Kozext will be done with those halfwits anytime now, anytime!” His words were frantic, but his hands were clasped motionless before him. Eskagi realized Bejkali wasn't truly concerned at the possibility that Kozext might overpower his assailants. Eskagi looked to the clearing, where the feathered man was doubled over, the needle laying on the ground. Kozext was grappling with two wiry men and a woman, one of only two in the whole party of savages. There was a strange lack of lethal weaponry about the scuffle, and though Kozext seemed rather the worse for wear he wore neither scratch nor tear upon his light fisherman's coat. Soon enough, Kozext seemed to be on the backfoot. “Come come, nothing to see, nothing to see! Justice to be sure, it'll be justice and right and true and natural, but it'll be gruesome all the same. Mind our stomachs, mind our stomachs we will!” Bejkali said to Eskagi. Parrot agreed with Bejkali on this point. “Yes, we should go. Now we can be sure our fires are lit and unquenched” she said. As they turned to go, Eskagi shot a last glance at the scene unfolding in the clearing. Kozext had been arrested, his face a motley of bruises and scrapes. Held tight by two men at each side, the violence seemed to be over. Eskagi couldn't believe it. His briefly regained calm was lost again. “No! I can't stand by and have the Kenptititi trusted in this or any other matter! To have them trusted over me! In Nakotebo! In the crescent!” Eskagi shouted to the world. It was addressed to everyone present, but mostly to Parrot. He strode out of the brush and towards the invaders. They mostly ignored him, insteading laying eyes on Kozext and the feathered man. “You've brought your Canper here? Into Nakotebo? And now what, are you going to tickle this brute to death?!” Eskagi gestured to Kozext. Their Canper was on his feet, feathers ruffled and eyes blazing in the dim lifelight. He stood imperiously and spoke in a jumble of classical and modern Shanbila. Eskagi expected he made himself intentionally unintelligible. “Airs and assumptions, cries and laments. What do you know of our work? What do you know of the suffering, of the loss? Of cleared jungle and blotted skies?” the Canper said angrily, his nouns being in the older tongue. Instead of ‘Gwerd’ for Jungle he used the much more impressive ‘Tagadwer’. Instead of plain old ‘Shima’ for sky, he used the poetical ‘Bokmen ca Tianyug’; literally ‘ Eternal house of the Tianyug’. When Eskagi answered, his Shanbila was aggressively colloquial. “I don't know anything about your work! And you're right, I should! I belong here, I stand here, whilst you merely drift through. My roots are in the crescent, yours deep in the bowels of some nameless volcano or other. What suffering, what loss, what right have you to stake claim to Nakotebo? To bring a Canper, fully clad, past his domain? Without invitation or calling? And this man, this invader, why should you have anything to do with his treatment? What claim have you to justice here?” Eskagi wanted to shout. He didn't, as he thought it'd make him look petulant. Instead he spoke as calmly as he ever had to Parrot, the soothing baritone clashing incongruously with his aggressive tone and street slang. The Canper didn't recoil, yet new sweat shone disgustingly upon his aging forehead. “Why should we have a claim to justice? Haven't we captured this foul monster of the night? Is Nakotebo so grand that the Kenptititi are nothing more than your obedient slaves, to do your dirty work, leave you the heavy burden of choice?” the Canper said. His flowery speech covered the wavering of his voice. Parrot remained somewhat bewildered by the entire interaction; by the forgetting of both Kozext and Bejkali. She was rather distraught by the whole argument, all the more so for the challenge of following the Canper’s speech. She knew ‘Jenmoli apil gascedo’ couldn't be anything good. She'd have been greatly disappointed to discover it merely meant ‘foul monster’ and nothing more meaningful. Eskagi stood his ground, for the Canper's argument wasn't very convincing. “Who ordered you to do anything? Who permitted you to do anything? If you broke into my house I wouldn't thank you for installing a light, I'd kick you out of my house!” Eskagi said, his calm fully restored. The Canper scrunched his features into something disgusting. But Eskagi wasn't done. “And what would you do with him? Let him off with a warning, slap him on the wrists? Or maybe you'd lavish him as chieftain of some nameless hole in the ground? Wouldn't that be a fine punishment?” Eskagi said with cheerful disdain. Parrot was rather upset at this turn of the conversation. She hoped the Canper might rebut something of what Eskagi said, but when he did it wasn't in the manner she hoped for. “Think you that viciousness and stolidness be identical? True, we shall not kill this man on the spot, whatever his unclear transgressions might be. No, the truth shall come to light and then a decision upon his fate will be reached. And if he is as guilty as you assume him to be, his fate shall be worse than Nakotebo could fathom. Nakotebo is so decisive, is it? Welcome any visitor, do you?” He said with a sneer. Parrot couldn't follow the logic, but Eskagi clearly could. “Guilt! Trial! High justices in their cream colored robes, handing down royal justice from Extabon on high? Facts! Evidence! Are we patent lawyers in Amaseida, arguing the fine print of a new engine valve? We are not unwelcoming for having rejected you! We are not callow to have the good grace to distrust whatever sense of justice you might claim” Eskagi's words had the intonation of cheerful camaraderie, which angered the foreign Canper all the more. Parrot wondered that neither his followers nor Kozext seemed to have anything to say. The feathered Canper seemed ready to order some violence upon Eskagi, his gaze and gestures turned towards his followers. Eskagi went on, heedless of the danger. “What justice could the Kenptititi have? Justice is the weighing of law with circumstance. Judgement is born of free men, free to think, free to act! What freedom to think have the Kenptititi? Every waking minute you're slaves to something some ancient Canper mused! Would you even deign to listen to testimony of one of the lower castes? Would you trust his judgement, obey his law? Would a Kenptititi sign a contract without his Canper's consent? Would he marry without it? Sleep without it? The worst thing to come of the petition is that your vote is as good as mine when it comes to Ricongerakan matters!” Eskagi's voice was light and merry, the tone carrying his scorn with cheer and delight. Kozext chuckled at Eskagi's speech. Parrot disliked the whole turn of events, but she disliked this most of all. “Shut up!” She yelled at Kozext, heedless of having forestalled the Canper from his fiery reply. “Is this a great victory in your eyes? That you've sown division and mistrust between people, broken them into tiny hateful little categories? I hated your look the second I saw it, and every second since has only proven me right! Is it so I suffer? So I know that Hetland is a devil's refuge, and that all that comes from it is pain? How much shame is enough for animals like you? You're as bad as the queen! You're worse than Anneli! You-” her tirade was cut off by Kozext's uproarious laughter. To Parrot’s dismay, his captors made no attempt to restrain his outburst. “Do I look Hettish to you? Everything tonight, has it all been about you? The green little creature, your Ricongerakan friend, these wild savages, they couldn't be a thousandth as disastrous as you'll be one day!” Kozext shouted with almost as much joy as Eskagi could channel. But it was a drunk and primal thing, where Eskagi's incongruous calm was angelically refined. Parrot was so taken aback that she barely noticed it when the Canper collapsed where he stood. Bejkali whooped with joy, Eskagi stood stunned, Kozext laughed all the harder, and one of his captors rushed to the Canper’s aid.


The Kenptititi warriors shot worried glances about themselves. “Why aren't you doing anything?!” Parrot cried angrily. They sheepishly continued their silent Congress. Of the four outsiders to their group, only Eskagi knew why. He was delighted to explain, but it didn't particularly show, seeing as he'd already tuned his voice to its most pleased and jovial when arguing with the Canper. “The Kenptititi aren't like the Nakotebo, or much like many other Ricongerakans for that matter” Eskagi began. The anachronism of his reference to Nakotebo as a proper tribe fell harshly on Parrot’s ears. For their part, Bejkali and Kozext hadn't even noticed. “You see, at some point in the distant past, they decided to honor their Canper. Every tribe honors its Canper, but the Kenptititi took it a step further than most. They won't do anything without his approval, least of all speaking to outsiders, least of all to the blood-hated Nakotebo. Or maybe they just won't speak at all in his presence, no matter the company? Oh they're such queer and dainty folks aren't they!” Eskagi crowed triumphantly. Kozext howled with laughter, but Parrot was confused and didn't mind saying so. “He can't be their Canper. I… I wasn't told anything like that!” She admitted bitterly. “And whatever I know or don't, why would the Canper himself take on a dangerous mission if he's so important to them?” She tried to argue rationally, and sounded all the more hysterical for the effort. “Are our Canpers unimportant just because they're not our gods?” Bejkali interjected wistfully. Eskagi smiled at him, a genuine and brilliant smile. Bejkali didn't quite know what to think of it, and settled on discomfort. “Who knows how or why they do anything. If he's dead from that needle, they'll decide someone else is ‘Canper soumou’, a temporary Canper, however that works. Then he'll order Kozext to be killed in revenge. All's well that ends well!” Eskagi said cheerfully. Parrot and Bejkali thought this a fine fate for the dark man. Instead of looking stricken at the dire news, Kozext’s face was spread in a half mad smile. “Oh but whoever he is, he's not dead. He was a mite frail, so he'll be out a while, but he's not dead, more asleep than anything else. Can't very well kill me over that, can they? And I didn't go attacking them, so they've really no claim against me at all!” Kozext announced merrily. Parrot couldn't stand the argument, couldn't stand the thought it might somehow hold sway. “Nonsense! Nonsense!” She cried, her fists and face raised skywards for emphasis. “You forfeited every right, every possible protection when you accepted the crown’s pay! What right have you to be in Ricongeraka? What right do you have to sway the thoughts of Nakotebo? And you assaulted a dignitary of Amaseida! At best you're guilty of double assault, at worst I don't know what!” Parrot said with a wide sweep of her arms. Bejkali was on the verge of saying something, but he was cut off by the one warrior still content to remain on the sidelines. “You do not know” he said in faltering Hettel, the words hardly comprehensible beneath his thick jungle accent. “The ways of the island, or the dignity of our stock” he said with some difficulty, then paused. Bejkali hadn't the patience for these slow enunciations. “Wonderful, wonderful, all well and good! Now, no more arguments, no more threats, we'll all be as friendly as friendly can be, as friendly as can be! Let's get rid of this man and be done with it, be done with it!” Bejkali pleaded with the gathering, hands twirling once more. He seems about to go on in this inane manner, but the warrior stared him down into sulky silence. “Not yet.” the warrior said slowly. “There is still much to do. We are still in much debt. This night shall last for years in our memory, for it is the night our strike began” he said in slow deliberation. Parrot was enthused by the prospect, but Eskagi was dubious and felt no qualms in voicing his hesitation. “You've got a tongue, how lovely.” Eskagi said with a cheerful tilt of his head. “Now you can argue with the Canper over whether you've violated our spoken and unspoken agreements. What do you think he'll say? Do you think he'll concede his rights and allow you to ride roughshod over his jurisdiction? It'll be a fun discussion I'm sure. He's available all hours of the day, at least he's meant to be. Must be tough, being such a helpful Canper!” Eskagi said with a grin. The warrior’s glare turned to Eskagi. So released from its imposing weight, Bejkali picked up the conversation’s thread with alarming haste. “You’ll get nowhere that way, Crow old boy! I talked to him today, I did! Him and the princess, plotting and planning and scheming together!” Bejkali announced in dramatic airs. All eyes were on him now, but he took the attention as encouragement instead of scorn. “Yes yes, our Canper, dear Canper of Nakotebo, was in some deep conference with the foreign Princess, our royal foe! He won't deny it, nobody could deny it! Almost every day he sidles up to her as she prowls our streets in search of some wrongdoer, almost every day! Crow old boy, you must've seen it, how could you miss it? How could anyone miss him, with those beautiful red feathers drawing every eye from the cliffs to the sea? Oh yes, oh yes, the princess pales in comparison to his elegance, she pales!” Bejkali went on. His audience seemed unconvinced. Worse, they thought he wasted their time by going on about appearances. Bejkali would've sworn at his blunder if he wasn't too busy correcting it. “For all that, he sidles up to her. Yes yes, for the good of Nakotebo to be sure, to be sure! But he takes the trick too far, too far by half! Even in those small things he might influence, he refuses! Why, when I brought him a petition for the good of Ricongeraka, he flatly turned it down! He had to go and consult the princess before deciding whether or not to give his seal of approval! This was no matter of empire, no matter to be handed over to the distant overlords! He cannot be trusted, I say, and I say it with a heavy heart, a heavy, grieving heart!” Bejkali finished with a grave downcast look, as if in deep mourning. “You bring me much comfort, little man” the warrior said in his slow awkward manner. Bejkali smirked in response, a hesitant movement born of lingering doubt as to the Kenptititi’s intentions and goals. Eskagi’s planned response was interrupted by Kozext's renewed struggle. He was kept down with almost gracious ease, and though his eyes blazed in fury and his movements remained constricted, there was no sign of outward harm. Bejkali's remarks weighed heavily on Eskagi's mind, but instead he assayed the warrior. “Are you really not going to do anything about this foreigner? Even after he killed your Canper?” Eskagi asked impishly. Kozext balked, then laughed again. Annoyed, the warrior checked the fallen man’s pulse. Satisfied, he turned to answer and looked Eskagi in the eye. “As the dark man says, he is not dead. And as you have most certainly surmised, he is not our Canper. Our Canper sits safely upon his ancient chair in the bearing heart of Kenptititi, as he has since the first Canper dispensed wisdom upon us from that very seat. And we shall hold trial, and if his arguments are sound he shall be let free, as we have told you” the warrior said with linguistic confidence he had not previously possessed. Eskagi’s eyebrows knit in puzzlement at this sudden fluency. Kozext let out a groan of anguish and disappointment, which was promptly ignored by all. Parrot was enthused and reinvigorated, and before Eskagi realized it had happened, she had her right arm around his shoulder. Had he not so obviously been drawing away from her, it might've been called a comradely embrace. She didn't seem to notice his reticence as she nattered blithely: “That's a wonderful thing, isn't it? You must see, Eskagi, how it's a wonderful thing! This night is indeed a very great night, the greatest Nakotebo has known!” She smiled around at the gathered Ricongerakans with a look of wild exultation. Kozext alone was spared this gruesome attention. Eskagi turned his head to look at her. Her breath quickened with excitement at the prospect of her fantasies. Then she saw the piercing anger in his gaze, and her breath quickened for quite another reason altogether. Still looking at Parrot, or perhaps through her, he spoke to the crowd as a whole. Despite the fury in his eyes, his tone was as jovial as ever. “Nakotebo has known many very great nights, nights to echo past such temporary upheavals as we now experience. We have welcomed the great treasure fleets of the freezing south, we have seen the siege engines of Waydaub shatter upon the cliffs. The last red-tails fly our skies and the last of the wild beasts roam our waters. Don't speak of this, this shuffling struggle in the night, as if it is one of those wonders. And whatever the Kenptititi may do, it certainly isn't great, most certainly not when done in Nakotebo!” Eskagi didn't budge his gaze the slightest degree as he spoke. The Kenptititi warriors sniggered at Eskagi's speech, and he practically chortled as Eskagi numbered the wonders of Nakotebo’s past and present. The other warriors joined in the subdued amusement, the total effect amounting to a rather ominous hoot. Eskagi answered the snigger with continued calm joviality. Yet his stare remained intense. It burrowed into Parrot as effectively as the Kenptititi greenworm, that harbinger of slow protracted agony. Parrot was unaware of the creature’s existence, but she'd have thought of it had she known of it. “Have you greater things to be proud of? Do you delight at your long history of mob justice? What's next, you'll call Nakotebo primitive or superstitious? When I boast I boast of things that would bring pride and joy to any man, be he a Nakotebo noble or the poorest dirt peasant in the Paernidies! That you snigger at these wonders shows only your shriveled hearts and dulled souls. Parrot, these men are brutes of the basest nature. They delight at violence and ruin. Perhaps they have their place in this night’s flow, but even if it's a necessary part, it is a despicable one. Go on then, what more do you have planned?” Eskagi made the question a mockery, his tone identical to that used when asking babies rhetorical questions. The warrior refused to engage in the argument Eskagi was clearly hoping for. Instead of asserting Kenptititi’s great achievements and lasting legacy, he merely pointed to Parrot. “We are here on your accord. Is there more to be done? Your little dwarf is safe, yet you still seem troubled.” He said, all traces of discomfort at the language gone from his voice. Parrot let go of Eskagi and looked around uncomfortably. “You're wrong, Eskagi. This is a great night.” She murmured to Eskagi. She didn't look to see his reaction, for she raised her voice in a practiced war cry: “To the princess’s mail!” The warrior shrugged, Bejkali smiled, and Eskagi blanched. Kozext was too busy despairing about his fate to notice. “Through the jungle, then.” Said the warrior.


Displeasure at the unfolding events had shifted from Parrot to Eskagi. As they followed the Kenptititi through the blinding dark, Eskagi had ample opportunity to contemplate how things had gone so awry. The Kenptititi’s presence in Nakotebo was the most awful of developments, a blight upon the winds and tides that graced the shore. The jungle howled and hollered, and Eskagi was certain there was a mournful note underlying the din. His bemused tolerance of Parrot’s antics had for the first time been cracked. His growing distaste for the girl led him to hang further back in the group. At the back were Kozext and two warriors who served as his captors. “Make a run for it, I'm sure you're a match for two of these stick thin gruel eaters.” Eskagi suggested helpfully. Kozext returned this sudden amiability with a vague roll of his head. “I know my way in the dark, Nakotebo boy. But I don't know it as well as these fine fellows. While I'm fiddling with my instruments that reveal the night jungle before me, the Kenptititi will already have gained on whatever paltry lead I might make. Besides, these forests truly are dangerous.” Kozext said as he walked, seemingly pleased at his present state. Eskagi was unsatisfied with this non-explanation. “I couldn't believe that if I tried. No doubt you have some equally convincing explanation for your presence at the plaza tonight. And no doubt Parrot would balk at whatever you say, for reasons far beyond anyone as simple as I.” Eskagi said tonelessly. This earned him a pitying chuckle from Kozext. “Where's your cheer gone? Parrot got you by the heart?” Kozext used the Gidarda expression with such aplomb that Eskagi couldn't help but feel foolish. “Why does an agent of the Extabon crown use Gidardan turns of phrase? Is there a Gidardov section of the internal police?” Eskagi tried to put a playful wink into his words, yet his discomfort was all the clearer for the effort. “So many assumptions, so many questions. Even in jest, how could I answer that wouldn't confirm whatever it is that you suspect? What could sound more guilty than protestations of innocence? So believe what you will, boy of Nakotebo. Believe I'm an agent of the crown sent here to disrupt your idyllic island paradise. Believe I'm a Gidarda psycho, bent on blazing a path of destruction. Don't get too caught up with what I say though, what would Parrot and the dwarf think?” Kozext said in much the same cheery tone that Eskagi so often employed. “What would they think? That I'm colluding with you? And if I did, it'd only serve them right wouldn't it!” Eskagi replied with the same blithe air. Kozext raised his eyebrows neither in denial nor in confirmation. “The dwarf lies through his teeth as easily as his fingers dance their absurd knots. Parrot thinks I'm something between a child and a crush, and the Kenptititi are the most despicable lot ever to breathe Nakotebo's sweet air. I'm really no worse disposed towards you than any of them!” Eskagi said in as friendly a manner as he could. Being talented and trained at such manners, this was very friendly indeed. Kozext laughed at the remark. His foot caught in one of the many snarled roots of the dark, forcing his captors to drag him to his feet. They did so rather gently, which Kozext commented upon: “For all your complaints these Kenptititi aren't half bad. I've seen rougher handling by security staff at seaports and train stations” Kozext said in intentionally accented Shanbila. Eskagi snorted in amusement, though the remark wasn't truly humorous even if it had been good natured. “Their manners might be as fine as the most dignified of servants. That's just why they're such a blight! The Kenptititi are less than servants, they're slaves! Slaves to their Canper, slaves to some ancient book of laws, slaves to a hundred different traditions of nebulous origin. I called it a book of laws but it's no such thing, the Kenptititi don't have books, their Canper decreed against books when they were first introduced by the treasure fleets. So even their own laws are still etched in great stone slabs, in the old blocky script that can be chiseled into those unyielding behemoths of hard mineral” Eskagi spoke with an air of great authority on the subject. The Kenptititi, for their part, ignored him completely. Kozext smiled but didn't laugh. Instead he queried: “Is your hatred widespread in Nakotebo? This enmity between your tribes is a new thing to me. Especially seeing the distance, why, what grave incident could've occurred between people separated by chasms and inland oceans? Blood feuds are old things, older than the binding shackles of iron rails and leveled forests.” Kozext said in something nearing a wistful tone. Eskagi happened to know the answer to one part of the question and not the other. He hadn't cared enough to learn of how, before even the treasure fleets graced Nakotebo's shore, his ancestors had carelessly torched wide swathes of forest in Ricongeraka’s north. If he'd given it any thought at all, he'd assumed the Gifajipu mountains were some climactic variable separating lush Ricongerakan inland from the arable coastal stretch. No one there that night knew any better, and so the point went uncontested. “Even at a slower pace, insults and disputes can grow into hatred. Just a decade after the treasure fleets left Ricongeraka for their doomed voyage, Kenptititi had a Canper madder than their usual fare. There were preachers and speakers in every city and tribe, from great Waydaub to rich Amaseida, and even welcoming Nakotebo. No one had heard anything good about the little tribe that worshiped its Canper, and they certainly won no converts in Nakotebo! There was an ancient Talotau nest in what was then the town square. A bird hadn't graced it in centuries, nests are one time things, but it was still a monument. Talotau nests are the most majestic creations, truly fit for the birds that create them. Twigs and branches are layered geometrically to form a sturdy and symmetrical structure. Snakes and reptiles, the Talotau’s usual victim, line the connections between various layers of the nest. Their colors are amazing, so bright and vivid, clashing yet complementary, the birds must have some aesthetic sense. And of course, there are the remnants of the eggs, plain things perhaps, yet somehow endlessly elegant, and hard as rock to boot. It was a sight to behold, I'm sure, and all there in the town square! Well, the preacher from Kenptititi didn't like it. Perhaps he thought it was ugly or disrespectful or idolatrous, or perhaps he was simply as mad as his Canper. Whatever the case may be, he took it upon himself to remove the nest. I don't know how he did it, but by hook or by crook he successfully removed the nest from its central perch. The nest is gone to this day, and no one forgave the Kenptititi. I suppose most people just forgot.” Eskagi said in answer to Kozext's question. Kozext chuckled, his eyes so downcast in obvious embarrassment that the laughter came off as self deprecating. “I can't imagine Gidardan youths knowing so much of local history. Too busy chewing nabach, too busy imitating Hettish manners, too busy following the gossip of Extabon’s worthless poet celebrities. I'd thought I'd learned everything there was to learn about the Kenptititi. But a blood feud that's almost four hundred years old! I wouldn't have thought it possible in Gidarda or Codan, let alone Ricongeraka.” Kozext said, a question clear in his voice. Eskagi picked up on the thread without hesitation: “Oh I call it a blood feud, but very little blood has been spilled. Things are all the worse for it! There's no history of mutual slaughter. If there was, maybe I could hope for violence to erupt so we could finally wipe them out. But no, the dispute has ever been a long and petty thing, more ink on paper than sweat on the battlefield.” Kozext raised an eyebrow, and miraculously Eskagi understood his exact meaning. “Their distaste for books wasn't enough to stop them from composing volume upon volume of legalistic jargon to spread far and wide. Officially they're ‘Compendiums of letters’, not books, which is better than an excuse for the legalistic Kenptititi; it's a point of pride! They're proud of circumventing their own precious strictures. They use the same trick to publish reams of preachy condemnation, quite popular in academic circles I'm sure. I've never read them, and no one in Ricongeraka ever will now!” Eskagi lectured, a note of triumph entering his voice at this last equivocation. This time Kozext's facial expressions were hidden by the lack of light, or perhaps Eskagi wasn't looking at him. Kozext found himself following up with less circumspection than he'd have preferred: “Now? What's changed now?” He asked with feigned disinterest. Eskagi answered without delay or suspicion: “The whole library was burned, most importantly the Kenptititi's compendiums. Why, I thought it was common knowledge!” He said with a grin. This time Kozext couldn't regain his footing on time, and so stumbled and fell flat onto his face. His two captors were momentarily surprised. They shot each other a series of puzzled glances before realizing Kozext was still on the ground and in no way restrained. They picked him up with appropriate abashed care. Eskagi chortled at this development, and though Kozext found much to admire in the Nakotebo boy, he was beginning to irritate. The smell of ocean salt, never a rarity in Nakotebo, sank upon the four lollygaggers with its immediacy and nearness. No one had said any such thing, but it seemed clear that Eskagi would be needed elsewhere once they were clear of the forest and onto open beach. Sensing the urgency, Eskagi asked the first question that came to mind: “Why did you stab that Kenptititi man? What good would it do to knock him out?” Eskagi thought it was a decent question, all the more so for the chance Kozext might give it an honest answer. “Thought he was their Canper, or representative or something. That they'd run around like headless chickens without him.” Kozext answered glumly. Eskagi took a moment to ponder this, which was a moment too long; they'd reached the beach. Open air and nightlight hit them with all the force they could muster. Eskagi breathed it in with a reverie Kozext thought religious. Just as Eskagi had composed himself enough to form another question, he heard Parrot’s now grating voice upon the wind. “Layabout! Why are you back there with the villain? Come explain something, right now!* She shouted at him from some distance ahead. Eskagi briefly entertained thoughts of resistance. Then he shrugged good naturedly at Kozext, and strode away towards Parrot in long lanky bounds.


He found her in a hushed conference with the Kenptititi warrior who'd taken command. He wondered why she bothered with the secrecy, out here where no one could eavesdrop but the other Kenptititi. “All's well with our allies and their stomachs?” Eskagi interrupted. The feathered man who'd seemed to be a Canper was still carried by two warriors, though by the glances they shot each other Eskagi could tell they wished to set the body down. The remaining four warriors loitered aimlessly, and Eskagi briefly wondered why they were present in the first place. Then he considered that they hadn't known they'd need two people just to carry a body, and forgot all about it. The warrior shot Eskagi a withering look, whilst Parrot simply stared into the distance. Eskagi only now took notice of how often the Kenptititi seemed to communicate wordlessly. He briefly wondered whether they could somehow speak through their gaze before discarding the idea. There was no great reason to disregard the possibility, but Eskagi couldn't bear to imagine the hated Kenptititi coming up with anything so clever or effective. “Our stomachs are perfectly well, Nakotebo boy. The girl needs you.” He gestured towards Parrot. As they were huddled rather near each other, the gesture ended up grazing Parrot’s shoulder. Eskagi turned his head towards her with glacial speed. She didn't notice the slight, instead rattling off her demands in haughty Hettish manner: “Where is the princess's mailbox? Is the area surveyed? By people, devices? In the sea or in the sky? How fast can we get there and back into the forest?” Parrot said more in the manner of an interrogator than a conspirator. Eskagi breathed deeply and raised his eyebrows quizzically. The two stared each other down for long moments, interrupted only by the Kenptititi warriors kicking sand out of boredom. Finally, Parrot's gaze flinched. Eskagi began speaking just as she was on the verge of softening her request or perhaps apologizing for her brashness. “It's some ways further south, in the shadow of the southern cliff. If you climb the eastern path, you can see the boat coming in every so often. There's no cove or bay down there, just gentle sloping sands. The mail is loaded on a small skimmer which swims along to the mail box, deposits its load, then swims back to the boat. It folds up on itself in the most remarkable way, really worth a look.” Eskagi answered, his partial reply an intentional ploy to draw out some further concession. The ploy instantly failed, as the Kenptititi warrior followed up: “All that detail, from so far away? Is all Nakotebo one living, breathing creature?” He said mockingly. Eskagi was disappointed at the pushback, but had no issue equivocating the question away. “Oh, you and Parrot can see in the pitch darkness of the nighttime forests. I can see from the cliffs to the distant shores. We all have our talents!” Eskagi said, something of his usual upbeat attitude creeping its way back into his speech. He followed this up with a genuine chuckle as he continued: “If I can survey the area, surely someone else can as well! Despite the darkness, life and war and the Tianyug shine brightly tonight.” Parrot narrowed her eyes at Eskagi's dismissiveness. The warrior shuddered at the irreverence in so blithely calling upon the ancient heroes. The three stood in silent standstill, each waiting for the other’s word. Sensing the stalemate would continue, Parrot broke the silence: “Onwards then, south!” she crowed desperately. The Kenptititi's followed without question. After a moment, Eskagi did too. The whole course of events brought Kozext's words to mind. “Like headless chickens indeed. Only they've found a parrot to think for them!” Eskagi murmured to himself. The mailbox came into view after a few minutes of silently trudging through the sands. Parrot fiddled with another device, one carefully hidden from Eskagi's view. Something beeped and she cooed with delight. “Done! Now we'll just need to destroy the thing and we're safe.” Parrot announced to the group. Realizing she hadn't explained herself, she went on: “No transmission and no reception will work, not here, not for a while. Whatever devices are set up, they'll do no good until someone comes and digs them up to check the records. We'll simply have to destroy them.” Parrot said in as pleased a tone as she'd allow herself. Bejkali, so silent Eskagi has forgotten his presence, spoke up questioningly: “Surely there are devices hidden in the rocks and cliffs? Thermal sensors, narrow shutter lenses, all the newest trickeries that cross the patent office in Amaseida, and fresh tricks aside!” Bejkali said as he twisted his left hand in simple circles. Eskagi was rather disappointed in the gesture’s simplicity. Parrot shook her head as she answered. “It's too dark for any visual detection, and thermal detection will do nothing more than show that someone was here, which will be known anyways when our work is discovered. Besides, how do you think most of these longer range devices work? Transmission and reception, and none of it's working right now. No, the only threat would be something simpler, something that picked up on the vibrations in the air then stored whatever it heard for later transmission. Luckily, they'll have to be quite near the mailbox to do any good, and we'll destroy them anyway!” she said with an authoritative air. Eskagi accepted the explanation without question as to the mechanics of it. She seemed knowledgeable, in that way Hettish people generally were about intricacies of the world. The Hettish public was well regarded, or perhaps envied, as the most generally literate. Bejkali was less immediately accepting, his deep familiarity with cosmopolitan Amaseida inuring him against any charm or dazzle that Hettish origin might hold. “I've never heard of any device that could interrupt the actual functioning of probes and cameras. If it could be done I'd have seen it, or heard of it, or made millions off it by now!” Bejkali objected strenuously. He was ignored by everyone, which he found endlessly frustrating. He was still complaining as they came up to the mailbox. Parrot finally deigned to answer him: “If all else fails, then by tomorrow our voices and faces will be blazing emblems for all Ricongeraka to see!” the warriors and Eskagi looked at each other dubiously at this pronouncement. Kozext and his captors were still lagging behind. “How? Why? Why are we doing any of this?” Eskagi asked as he grabbed Parrot by the shoulder. She looked back at him with warm fondness, her voice sweetly condescending as she answered. “Why? Eskagi, you know why! The Tianyug are cast from the skies. Your Canper has abased himself and Nakotebo in the eyes of the world. So many dreams are crushed, so many ancient hopes die out every day. At times by the lash of the whip, but mostly by the slow grinding monotony of everyday life. Yes, Nakotebo is rich in body, but its spirit is dying; every day, the forests hum quieter and the waters grow ever more tranquil. Where are the whirlpools and leviathans? Broken and shattered by wavebreakers! Where are the verdant green wings of the Zasngi parrot? Run away, deep into Ricongeraka’s heart, in those few refuges where the wild still rules. And yes, that means the Kenptititi, though you dislike them for reasons I cannot fathom. But surely you've realized these aren't the Kenptititi that stand with a seal of approval from Extabon? These are the wild few, as there are from every tribe in Ricongeraka. And every day the wild few are a few wild more! And it's why you're here, Eskagi, why you showed up that night in the first place, curious and open. Because Nakotebo is curious and open. But every day it grows less so, it grows less so!” Parrot had begun calmly enough, but her speech had grown excited and energetic by the end. Eskagi's first reaction was to wonder how Bejkali had infected Parrot with his hideous tendency to repeat the end of his sentences. His second reaction was one of revulsion at the realization that not only were the warriors around him Kenptititi, they were so zealously Kenptititi that they chose to live in the forests, away from the prying eyes of civilization. He wondered at their earlier claims to have a Canper sitting in his ancient chair. Did they still pay heed to the official appointed from on high? Had they been unable to elect themselves a substitute? The explanation very much appealed to Eskagi, and he chortled aloud at the oxymoronic nature of a Kenptititi rebel. Parrot tried to hide her horror at Eskagi's seeming amusement at her speech. Despite her efforts, dismay shone through. Eskagi smirked in amusement at the expression, and even the Kenptititi warrior raised his eyebrows in what might be called bemused pity. Eskagi spoke before Parrot or Bejkali could give another speech. His voice was as delightfully melodic as it had ever been. “Setting all else aside, how has our Canper debased himself? By refusing to sign on to some nonsensical Amaseida scheme? Weren't you all dreadfully suspicious of the Amaseida dwarf, whose name we don't even know, just a little while ago?” Eskagi stuck a thumb in Bejkali's direction. Bejkali seemed ready to answer when Parrot cut him off. “Get to work! Everyone!” In response, a Kenptititi warrior drew some small hammers and axes from a pouch. The warriors and Parrot began their gleeful work of destruction. They began by spilling out the mound of letters that had been recently placed there. Bejkali sat to the side, looking out at the sea. Eskagi went to talk to him, but felt a primal revulsion at the thought. The odd little man seemed barely human in the worst way possible. His oddly colored hair, his excited hand gestures, his strange manner of speech, his nebulous origins and motives. The only thing Eskagi felt confident about in regards to him was that he was from Amaseida. At the very least, his interest in Nakotebo stemmed from interest in Amaseida. Eskagi couldn't imagine a sentence worth sharing with the dwarf. Alone then, he circled the group as they split wood and tore paper. He knew that a small vessel would come a bit before daybreak to pick up the letters. From there, their fate was unknown to Eskagi, but he couldn't imagine it took the Princess very long to get her mail to its destination. It suddenly seemed a very funny and fitting idea to delay the group until such a time. Maybe the Kenptititi would all be identified and arrested, and then the whole lot of renegades could be rounded up out of the forests of central Ricongeraka. As he mulled over these fantasies, he noticed letters blowing in the wind. Why they didn't simply burn the lot was beyond Eskagi; he guessed it was some Hettish revulsion of fire. He picked one up from the ground, began reading out of a mixture of impetuous brooding and boredom. The date affirmed it was written that day and the address showed Extabon as the destination. Eskagi tore the envelope open and began reading.


“Dearest mother,

Your childhood seems a thing of ethereal envy to me. Every letter you send stirs my heart with longing and melancholic self pity. Gidarda, for all its faults, is surely a grander stage than Nakotebo. It's easier to tell you now, at a distance, when you cannot interrupt or contradict: I wish I’d been in your place. I wish I was somewhere where I mattered, instead of deeply mired in imperial minutiae, Ricongerakan minutiae, the daily grind of letters and pleas, the pointless and boring details of children's lives. And the Canper's simpering attention, his meek obeisance. He asked me for advice about a petition to the Canpers! If a royal is giving a Canper advice over that, why not have the chamber ask advice from the high circuit court? Why not have the Codan high priest obey the minister of agriculture? What's the point of separating powers if all anyone wants to do is put them back together?


Every time I’ve brought up the subject of my unhappiness you've been dismissive. But surely you must realize the boredom of my existence? I don't petition you for anything, dear mother. You couldn't get me out of here if you battered away at grandmother for a hundred years. Oh mother dear, sometimes I wonder why grandmother wanted father to marry you. Did she imagine Gidarda would be stabilized by the marriage? Did she imagine it to be the first step towards a fifth member of the empire? Whatever she thought, she couldn't have been pleased with the anarchy that tore the country apart. But you've always been sanguine and evasive about the topic. I suppose that in your reply you'll just dismiss these ramblings, you'll answer whatever else I write.


Mother, you must think me so harsh and ungrateful! To confront you with your past and do nothing but complain about my present. The truth is I'm scared, mother. I'm writing this letter weary and scared, unedited and unrefined. Just after this I'll be writing a petition to grandmother once again. Only this time I'll request an explicit bodyguard in lieu of early escape. Clever, isn't it? She'll acquiesce to the one if not the other.


Don't think I'm frivolous! I'll need the bodyguards, I'll need a whole special forces team by the time my year here is up! The Nakotebans have begun rioting. Supposedly they'll take part in some larger uprising once things get bad enough. Bad enough! For Ricongeraka! For Nakotebo! It's the most ridiculous thing. First they burned their library down. Then some girl made a speech in school, and I'm certain she would've used violence if she could've. I can't write the details you'll think I'm lying or exaggerating! But no, these people are really so stupid, so insipidily insufferable, as to propose revolution in response to… to what? I couldn't even tell you why! Oh, they spout some nonsense, but really? Tianyug? Amaseida traders? If they're so bothered about light pollution, they can shut off their power grid! They can elect politicians to do that, Extabon won't complain over the savings.


Oh mother, this letter is so disjointed! You must think my mind is addled. Maybe it is! Maybe my madness demands I return to Extabon at once! Only if that were the case, grandmother would send me right back to Ricongeraka next year. And I'd have mountains of new letters to reply to! Only none of them are as nice as yours, mother. Only you bother to adorn your letters with lovely still life pencil sketches.


I think you should talk to Shinag, he might be having some troubles with the Aldelord of Kaltera soon. You are the family’s expert on Codan, for all that you're Gidarda born. I wouldn't worry too much about an old fashioned Codan honor feud, but there are some very pesky Codan lawyers around these days.


Missing you from the bottom of my heart,

Anneli Endonter, of the house of Apogee.”


Eskagi read the letter with a mixture of bemusement and impetuousness. Unknown reserves of pride found their way into his heart as he read. Nakotebo, boring? Nakotebo, unimportant? All his and Parrot's actions, stupid and benignly unthreatening? Despite his own misgivings, or perhaps thanks to them, Eskagi was deeply inflamed. He reread Anneli’s treatment of the Canper and contemplated its meaning. What was the underlying sentiment? Was she trying to abdicate responsibility? Or was she being ironic, complaining over the power wrested away from the royal family? Eskagi racked his brain over the bewildering familial relationship between mother and daughter. His head filled with wisps of half-truths and apocrypha about Gidarda, the princess’s mother's homeland. He convinced himself he'd already known this aspect of royal genealogy, though in truth he'd never known much about the royals and their doings. Parrot and the Kenptititi were still busy visiting ruin upon the letters and mailbox, though not much remained to break: the metal was unrecognizably gashed, the letters torn and scattered, the wood splintered into particles. Eskagi looked up from the scattered debris to search for Parrot. “Find anything?” Eskagi taunted as he laid eyes on her. She was standing with her hands clasped behind her back, her gaze fixed immovably upon the sea. “Is this all a joke to you, Eskagi?” She answered contemplatively. Eskagi could feel the change in her voice, some newfound determination. He mused that perhaps she was psychotic. Then he thought back to Anneli’s treatment of the Canper and he found himself matching her cold, distant rage. Bejkali was busy kicking sand just a little ways off, his occasional yelps of complaint a blemish on the otherwise serene moment of camaraderie. Eskagi started towards him, determined to shut him up one way or another. The warrior Parrot had spoken to earlier was suddenly between them. His stance was a movie, the numerous scars upon his bare chest speaking volumes, and his poised manner painting the picture. Despite the earlier threats, the Kenptititi were determined that Bejkali remain unharmed. Eskagi turned back towards Parrot, his reply as relevant as hers had been: “Surely there are people other than the Kenptititi who align with the cause, who know the forests of Ricongeraka even through the night. I cannot fathom why you'd bring them here. So long as that remains unanswered, yes, this whole operation, everything we've ever done: it's all a joke! As absurd a comedy as the Extabon degenerates have ever come up with in their drug addled hazes.” Eskagi said to her, his tone still jovial despite the bitterness. The warrior answered instead of Parrot. “Nakotebo boy, what is in your heart? Is there anything you swear by, anything you'd kill for? Is petty discontent all your soul can conjure from its depths?” The warrior asked seriously, his Shanbila as crisp as a Canper's or teacher’s. Eskagi laughed at the absurdity of the accusation. “Petty? Posters are petty! Rummaging through mail is petty! You ask what is in my soul, I answer what is in yours! Laws, dusty and old, ignored the moment your conscience conflicts? Ideology, stories told by disaffected layabouts who wouldn't know an ocean liner from a Skyleaper? Why do you do any of this? What’s so deep and true that you think to mold reality in your image? What are your depths? Shallower than a puddle of urine!” Eskagi shouted back at him, anger and hate finally shining through his almost eternal grin. The grin he still wore, the grin Parrot found so fascinating. Without tearing her eyes from the ocean, Parrot answered the challenge. “I don't know what's in your soul, Eskagi. What drives me? The same thing that drives you! You don't see it, but Ricongeraka is fading, just as Codan has faded under centuries of Hettish proximity. What's in my soul? The roaring crow of the ocean! What do I hear? The distant parrot of the street! Growing louder every day, drowning out the cries and the screams, the stories and the songs, the chitter of the night and the pounding of the heart! Whatever it is you love about Nakotebo, it'll all be gone - melted into the drug addled haze you so despise.” Parrot shouted into the wind. There was silence for a time, broken at intervals by cawing birds and shifting waters. Eskagi took in what Parrot had said. He thought of Codan Aldelords; in his imagination, they were wrestling bears in the snow, or cooing over a newly bred bloodhound twice as tall as a man. He imagined them toasting to each other's feats of arms, the heads of hunted deer hanging over the fireside. He imagined them arguing over honor, over duty, over all those tiny quibbles that had led to the wars known as the reconciliation. Then he thought of what Anneli had written to her mother. And he thought of the pictures of Codan lords waving gaily during state sponsored parades through the streets of Extabon. And he thought of what the letter had said about the Canper, and what Bejkali had claimed earlier. He had never been to Codan, never seen the rolling hills and jagged mountains. He'd never braved the woods in high winter, he'd never considered the great scrolls of family history, etched in stone and parchment from time immemorial. And now he did. In all their simplified, caricatured glory - a picture built from a thousand anecdotes, half remembered or hastily concocted. And though he'd never paid the matter any heed, it suddenly seemed the most beautifully precious thing in the world. And again, he thought of what Anneli had said: ‘pesky Codan lawyers’. Was that all they were? Ornaments in a parade, bit players in Hetland’s grand game? And the Canper was ever more malleable! Ricongeraka so much more pliable than Codan! At least Codan had been fought for, Ricongeraka had been given up without a whisper! At that moment, most everything Parrot had ever said or done made perfect sense to him. And that which was still a mystery suddenly seemed deeply, meaningfully enigmatic, instead of childishly impetuous.


“Am I the last to see it?” Eskagi asked no one in particular. “To see what? That our actions are not the meaningless barbarity of confused savages?” The Kenptititi warrior replied with a hint of a smile. His words were sarcastically biting, but his tone was somewhat friendly. As if he knew Eskagi had tipped over some edge of incredulity and was suddenly pliable. “We don't love each other. We don't have to. But you can imagine that whatever it is you love about Nakotebo, we have something similar in our hearts for Kenptititi. And so, not out of hatred of Nakotebo or disrespect to its Canper, we find ourselves here, uninvited. Because we were called. Because something has to be done, and if we don't do it then no one else will.” The warrior went on placatingly. Eskagi smirked self-effacingly as he mused: “Still, it couldn't be Waydaub? Or Amaseida? Or one of a dozen other tribes? It had to be Kenptititi?” Eskagi asked almost seriously. The warrior answered in the same light vein: “Who knows? Maybe this is the dawn of a new friendship. Or maybe the Tianyug can only respect us and aid us once we've put aside our old quarrels. Those missives by the Canper Association always say something along those lines!” The warrior said, grinning back at Eskagi. Eskagi found himself warming to the man, and found himself revolted at his own thawing. He glanced about as he attempted to compose himself. “It seems we're done for tonight, for all the talk we've had. So, shall we head home?” he said distractedly. Parrot turned to face him, Bejkali perked up, and the rest of the warriors surveyed the wreckage with pride. Parrot’s face was full of disappointment, the grave sadness of unfulfilled dreams painted in her every feature. There was no excuse for loitering, no hearts left to stir, no agents provocateur to unmask and shame. They walked back towards the forest in almost companionable silence. They were halfway through that darkness when Eskagi's eyes shot wide, a shot of fear and hope and wonder piercing its way through from his subconscious to his speech center: “Where's Kozext?” He asked with a breaking lilt, a reminder that for all his bravado, he was not yet fully clear of puberty. The group walked another step. Then they all turned to face each other. They tripped over snarled branches and slippery mud in their desperation. They clung to each other and to their surroundings. Finally, Parrot enforced a semblance of order and marched the group right back out towards Nakotebo. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest decision, but it was theirs to make. “What now, what now?” Bejkali muttered hurriedly, his green hair sticking out in the sudden brightness of the streetlights. “Three of you will go back to find our tribesmen. Two of you will evacuate the old man. Zerpoliv, you stay with me” the Kenptititi who'd spoken to Eskagi earlier ordered emotionlessly. Eskagi hadn't the presence of mind to notice he'd ordered the only woman he'd brought with him to go pick up the stragglers. If he had, he'd have thought it somehow shameful, though he wouldn't have known why. As it was, a single thought consumed him, one that had landed upon him with all the force of an artillery regiment busy in bombardment. “What next?” The Kenptititi asked Parrot, still bewilderingly deferential towards the Hettish girl. Eskagi spoke up before Parrot had gathered herself: “We have to kill the Canper.”


There was no doubt in anyone's mind as to which Canper he was referring to. Parrot's eyes shone with an adoring zeal. Bejkali contorted his arms into a parody of human flexibility. The Kenptititi stared as vacantly as they had the rest of the evening when a course of action was suggested. Nearing the Canper proved little harder than nearing the mailbox - easier, for there were no surveillance devices anywhere around. Any such device would've been a grave insult to the Canper’s dignity and privacy after all. Eskagi insisted he be the one to do the deed, and no one objected. Eskagi was offered shelter with the Kenptititi, but he laughed the idea right off - he'd live or die a free man in Nakotebo. Parrot positively swooned. The five took a moment to consider the desired effect of this action - was it to stir the people against the Canpers? Against the house of Apogee? For Nakotebo or Ricongeraka? Or were they simply killing the Canper and hoping nothing more came of it for now? Much deliberation left them no nearer a decision and much nearer sunrise. Then Bejkali brought up his conversation with Anneli and the Canper, and everything cleared. It couldn't be more perfect if they’d have framed Anneli herself for the murder.