He had considered the claim to be humorous exaggeration and troubled himself to learn the usual phrases (from “How much does that cost?” to “How much does that cost speaking honestly?”) only for experience to confirm its complete truth. The most intricate conversation he had with a local occurred when he mused aloud on the topic of the milder change in temperature between day and night there as opposed to that in Fennizen. A Wawamder, and if he preferred a different term he ought to have been more forthcoming on the point, scrutinized him as if gathering evidence of a potential debtor's character and resources before agreeing to a loan. The man then pointed to the Northern Sea and said, in Adaban, “The sea's influence.” Dirant thanked him in Ashuraluon, a display of his willingness to conform to island standards which failed to prolong the encounter.
He had little more to do with fellow foreigners. When he arrived at the harbor, the mark of distinction for the town of Wawamd, he sought the offices of the company called Konental as instructed and discovered them to be contained within a single house, a small one. Three men occupied the place and shared the burden of rent, that division of cost and the pleasing wooden exterior, spruce he was told, being the two compensations of the arrangement. They were Hlindol Lehaodaf (Branch Chief), Radalim Estarant (Accounts), and Osintant Desonkir (Intermediary Service Supervisor). So enthusiastic was the branch chief that he encouraged Dirant to join their financial compact. The size of the building was such that if asked to accommodate all four at once it might be forced to apply to a construction company for an extension, but that never occurred save at night, and the doctors most creditable in the chief's opinion held that a sleeping man was advised to curl up.
That was it for Konental. Before arriving, Dirant had wondered why a firm dedicated to breeding animals of ever more use to humanity and facilitating economically productive transfers of said animals would request from another company involved in dissimilar fields the loan of a commercial Ritualist accustomed to mitigating the deleterious effects of decay on produce.
Though unable to conceive of a reasonable explanation, he had retained confidence throughout his journey in Stadeskosken's management as far as making pecuniarily rewarding decisions. Silapobenk Rikelta, son of Stadeskosken's founder Haderslant Rikelta and presumed heir to its chief position, had demonstrated his acuity in business by increasing the salary drawn by the company's itinerant Ritualists. Since Dirant filled the sole position indicated by that title, he considered the raise to be highly judicious in its application, salutary in its results, and not to be questioned on the grounds that its recipient was another of the founder's sons when one considered the good services he had done the company and the complete absence of favoritism of that sort demonstrated before then.
“The condition to continue earning your salary has already been decided.” Silapobenk, or Silone outside of office hours, proceeded to the next topic immediately upon declaring the raise without pausing to allow Dirtwo, or Dirant during office hours, a break during which he could plan the uses to which he would put his extra thirty ezolas a day, an amount of money far from contemptible.
Perhaps Dirant ought to have questioned deeper what heightened expectations accompanied the augmented pay, but he still possessed the confidence of the specialist that his present work deserved more compensation and the optimism of the young that others might recognize the fact. He simply said, “That is gratifying to hear, since I have learned to detest leisure when enjoyed by others and feared that to be an idiosyncrasy before now.”
“That is a sign you are ready for management. A request has come from Konental.”
“Is that the entire name of the company, or? Suppose I look in the directory for it.”
Silone ignored that as he did Dirant's subsequent attempts to get him to say the firm's full name which by chance the latter knew to be Konesmatkir Rit Entalmizol Rit Olnol. He dedicated himself to the delivery of instructions as if a herald on the eve of battle. After the details about when and whither the Ritualist was to travel, he added a final statement. “It has been decided that in addition to your immediate responsibilities, you have standing authority to explore avenues for expansion. The command is vague and therefore appropriate for the unpredictable.”
“I understand and intend to rely on that so heavily that you will regret ever saying it,” Dirant promised.
The regret however was all on one side when he reported and learned the request had been sent on behalf not of a manager responsible for transporting exotic dog food for over-moneyed pet owners but rather a new employee of no importance aside from that conferred by his true employer. That is to say, if Stansolt Gaomat requested personnel possessed of particular talents, the espionage apparatus of the state of Sivoslof and its cooperators throughout the GE were willing to find the people. Following a short meeting with the three authentic resident Konental employees, the chief directed Dirant toward the fake one, whereupon Stansolt briefed his new aide.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“The situation is this. You will be proud to learn that the products of Adaban forges are more in demand than ever, but there is worry about the destination of several recent arms shipments.”
“Which is?”
“Unknown.”
“Ah.” For all that an impulse arose in Dirant to quit his commercial position in favor of burnishing his academic credentials which had sprung into existence upon the publication of An Initial Survey of the Use to Which Ertithan Ritualists Put the Symbol-Related Prolongation Ritual and the Variations of It Employed by Patklenk Ost and others, he being one of the others, he had not yet divorced himself from the practical world to embrace the abstract and therefore could not pretend to be wholly without curiosity.
“There are organizations which can bring themselves to ignore incidents of that sort, but mine is full of worriers. We lose twenty minutes of sleep out of every hour when we contemplate crimes perpetrated by an outside organization under the guise of an approved Grenlof operation. Our inquiries have traced the shipments to Ililesh Ashurin, but not farther.” Stansolt Gaomat belonged to that set which not only referred to Greater Enloffenkir as Grenlof rather than the GE, but also treated it in other ways as a single country, the citizens and subjects of its various states united in patriotic purpose. “The matter is of interest but not urgency, and under those conditions my superiors agree there can be no better occasion for testing the applicability of Ritualist class abilities to our work.”
Hearing that, Dirant began in his heart to yearn for the university. Divine Guidance (Hunch) had intrigued Stansolt when he learned of it, but the attitude of the Ritualist whose status listed the ability differed. He regarded it as a contingency to be employed only in circumstances themselves to be avoided; to call upon it at other times amounted to loading himself down with supplies, cooking gear and such, for a trip to the bank which he could no longer complete on account of his equipment having become too bulky to fit through the door.
And yet Dirant did it. The professional Ritualist daily patrolled Wawamd's streets as ordered, entered public establishments, and withdrew to vantage points approved by Stansolt. When convenient, he let his mind lapse into a state of unheeding concentration, of unfocused keenness. No hunches came, and his anticipatory anxiety devolved into grumpiness. He had spent his birthday aboard a ship, his sullen faculty for memory insisted on repeating, and while Adabans did not make much of an event of that, his collection of pens which his father ordered given to him every year would forever be one short.
Deprived of other occupation by the apathy of the locals, he had cause to congratulate himself on acquiring a number of older issues of The Broadening Mind to peruse during his assignment. That publication had only recently penetrated the unconscious bulwark everyone must erect around a selection of written works or else ruin himself in ceaseless reading, and the universal reaction to it intrigued him, the reaction being that it was full of falsehoods. Furthermore, one of its regular columnists was conjectured to be a Ritualist and therefore a model for anyone of that class questioning his present employment.
The Broadening Mind's articles covered a surprising range of topics, from the heterodox scientific theories he expected to warnings about monster outbreaks to theater reviews. What he also did not anticipate was the bold claims of the headlines, “The Mystery of Pearl Cultivation Is Solved at Last by Scientific Bravery,” for example, and the complete failure of the articles to match their tone. The writer theorized that byproducts of glassmaking processes dumped into the ocean contributed to the Ottkir pearl industry. The obvious rebuttal that thriving glass manufacture did not elsewhere accompany significant pearl production went unaddressed, but then, the article when read without regard for the title dealt with little but musings on the chemical aspect of glassmaking.
Dirant read further, thinking that were he to master the house style, that house might accept another paid Ritualist. In many articles, a question was raised and not given a definite answer even as the rest of it seemed to presume one. If it began by asking the reader if a particular Ertith mosaic depicts an earthquake, it ended by relying on said earthquake to explain the city's abandonment. Putting the house aside, the style of presumed Ritualist contributor Thlaklesta convinced Dirant to agree with that presumption based on subtle indications such as the proportion of articles purportedly written from and about places of greater interest to that class than to the general public. Granted that a city such as Aomalp, beyond the importance of its school of ritualism, provided to a great number of people habitation, employment, and leisure away from all that working and putting up with family, Aemuiax in Saueyi by contrast was a name encountered a dozen times per page in authoritative Ritualist texts and nowhere else aside from guides promising the most original tourist experiences. They probably praised Wawamd as well. It had much to recommend it to the traveler unafraid of solitude.
