Speak No Ill of the Dead, Part III

[Scott of Hyperborea]

Parts I and II of this story can be found here.

"Welcome to the Mattlore Devious International Airport, Stadium, Hospital, Copper Mine, and Ashram. The local time is 10:41 AM, and the temperature is eleven degrees Sorto. Baggage from flight 322 from Hyperborea is on Carousel 7. The current rugby score is: Brookshire Moose 11, Nelaga Eagles 6. Dr. Davidson to Intensive Care, paging Dr. Howard Davidson to the Intensive Care Unit, stat. Current production of copper is: point oh eight metric tons per minute. OM SHIVA OM VISHNU OM OM SHIVA OM."

Avane tuned out the neverending drone of the airport announcements and tried to concentrate her thoughts on the task at hand. That meant getting their baggage before some well-meaning security officer opened it and found enough ordinance to add "smoking crater" to the long list of structures associated with the airport. It also meant keeping Dr. Yymani Velchovion safe from the apparently large number of people who were trying to kill him.

About that...

Rei had grabbed Velchovion and pushed him under a row of chairs in order to protect him from a man who'd tried to snipe him at Sirris Airfield in Hyperborea. After some awkward introductions, he'd gotten down to business.

"A red-haired, Shirerithian-looking man just tried to kill you," he told Velchovion, in the middle of explaining to half a lot of Paladins why he had just tased a man in the corridors of a busy airport. They'd accepted his credentials as the owner of a licensed security outfit and as a former Paladin himself, but not without some argument. "And you were expecting it, else you wouldn't have hired us. So, do you want to explain what's going on?"

The professor handed him a ticket. First class to Shirekeep, plane leaving in an hour. Then, "I imagine he was a Cedrist fanatic. They've had it in for me for some time."

"No matter how fanatic, people don't just go shooting others for no reason," Rei said.

"Not entirely correct," said Velchovion. "In fact, the Thuggee sect popular in Babkha and Karnali during the late Abakhtri period viewed violence itself as a form of worship, and violence committed without motive as the purest form. This later evolved into the..."

Rei gave him that glance that practical people everywhere reserve for those prone to going off on intellectual flights of fancy.

"...but, ah, I see your point. No, this particular fanatic was probably after me because he disagrees with some of the things I've written about the Raynor era. It, ah, challenges certain orthodoxies, and some historical purists take offense at that sort of thing. Raynor I is something of a cult figure in mainland Shireroth, as you know. Viewed as semi-divine and the like."

"But what the stars did you write to make people want to kill you?" asked Rei. "That he was a child molester or something?"

"That he never existed," said Yymani.

"Flight 322, to Shirekeep is starting pre-boarding," said a pleasant female voice. "Would all first class passengers please give their baggage to the handlers and begin boarding the aircraft?"

Yymani had ended up sitting two seats behind Rei and Avane. They'd intended to question him further, but the plane had hit a spot of turbulence somewhere above Cimmeria, and been fired at as part of some conflict involving giant spiders around Nordland, and the seatbelt light had stayed on the whole time.

"Welcome to the Mattlore Devious International Airport, Stadium, Hospital, Copper Mine, and Ashram. The local time is 10:46 AM, and the temperature is twelve degrees Sorto. Baggage from flight 322 from Hyperborea is on Carousel 7. The current rugby score is: Brookshire Moose 11, Nelaga Eagles 9. Code blue in room 718, repeat, code blue in room 718. Current production of copper is: point oh five metric tons per minute. OM MANI PADME HUM. OM MANI PADME HUM."

"Dear," said Rei, "why don't you take Yymani and pick up our baggage and meet us at the front gate? I'm going to get us a car and a room."

"That won't be necessary," said Yymani. "I've got reservations for..."

"Does your hotel have bulletproof glass windows and room doors capable of withstanding a direct bazooka strike?" asked Rei. "If not, then why don't you let us earn that extremely high hourly fee you'll be paying us, mmkay?"

"Actually, it does," said Yymani. "The Ambassador Hotel. Built during Kaiser Ayreon's reign as a new Babkhan embassy, and designed to repel an angry mob with up to 24,000 pitchforks and 8,000 torches. Later confiscated when Kaiser Loki III expelled the Babkhan ambassador and turned into a hotel. We've got two rooms."

Rei gave the surprised grunt that person who has finally adjusted to the incompetence of others gives when presented with a reasonable suggestion. "We still need a car, though," he said. "And this, I am confident I can help with."

He took out his cell phone, began dialing a number, and walked off. Avane took Yymani's arm and walked him to the baggage carousel.

"So," she said, "Why are we in Shirekeep?"

"The Kaiserin Aurefiction Memorial Lecture at John Metzler III University," he answered.

"Kaiserin Aurefiction," said Avane, searching through her meager knowledge of mainland Shirerithian history. "Wasn't she crazy and unpopular?"

"Speak no ill of the dead," warned Yymani. "That's not just a Hyperborean superstition. It's actually quite common across different cultures, from mainland Shirerithian to Yardistani to Natopian and even to Ocian."

Then he softened. "But yes, Kaiserin Aurefiction was considered crazy and unpopular by many. But others insisted she was only saying what needed to be said. And the Kaiserin Aurefiction Memorial Lecture was started honor of that. By Kaiser Erik, himself one of her political enemies. It's once a year, and they invite someone...controversial. Someone who's considered crazy and unpopular, but who is saying something that needs to be said."

"I still don't get it," said Avane. "Why would they invite someone crazy to give a lecture?"

"It's a counterweight to orthodoxy," Yymani explained. "There's a tendency in academia for everyone to believe the same thing, whatever the most popular theory is. If someone has different ideas, they force zir out and put their fingers in their ears. So in Kaiser Erik's day, the faculty decided to hold a formal lecture where they all invite one of the most controversial thinkers of the day and listen to what ze has to say. I have the honor of being the 1408th speaker in the series. Your job is to keep me alive long enough to deliver my talk."

"I see," said Avane, as she spotted her baggage and made a lunge for it. "And how many people know you're here?"

"Everyone," said Yymani. "The lecture's been pretty heavily advertised."

Avane facepalmed.

"The university will be handling security on the premises," said Yymani. "But I need someone to take care of the odds and ends. Car trips. Hotel stays. People shooting at me in the airport lobby."

"How many people know where you're staying?" Avane asked.

"No one," said Yymani.

"Did you make the reservation online through an unencrypted channel with your credit card?" asked Avane.

Yymani nodded.

"Then the answer is that no one knows where you're staying, because you won't be staying there." She took out her cell phone and sent a text to Rei. "Looks like my husband will be finding a hotel for us after all. Also, don't look, but there are two people paying an unnatural amount of attention to us."

Yymani nodded again.

"We're going to go into that prayer room, very naturally," Avane suggested, and half dragged him into the prayer room. A few Zurvanites were making their mid-morning prostrations, and a Natopian was licking a stick of butter. A second later, Rei entered.

"Right," said Rei. He turned to the Zurvanites. "Did you hear the news? Baron Ardashir is in town, praying at the Ateshkadeh in the Northshire Quarter. He's issued a writ demanding that all local Zurvanites be in attendance at the ceremony, or he will consider it a suggestion that they do not consider his preferred temple good enough." The Zurvanites looked at one another, one started to mouth an "I didn't hear about...", and then ran off.

Rei turned to the Natopian. "You know," he said in a conversational tone, "that cow wasn't really made of butter. Margarine, that's what they say."

The Natopian looked horrified. "That goes against the revealed truth of our religion, granted to Nate Opeagh centuries ago. I can't possibly believe such a thing!"

"Of course not," said Rei. "And haven't you heard that the most popular form of margarine is called 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter'? The very fact that you can't believe it's not butter is incontestable proof."

"I'm a devoted butterist!" he protested.

"If you can believe the cow was not butter, if you even admit the possibility, then we can hardly call you 'devoted'. At best, you're an agnostic, not fully certain either way. But if you can't believe it's not butter, then ipso facto, it is I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, which is a form of margarine. But don't take my word for it. Talk to your Archon."

"I'll do that!" said the Natopian angrily. "He'll know what to do!" And he ran out, sweating the sweat of one facing an existential crisis.

"Right," said Rei. "Now we're alone. Yymani, take off your clothes." A brief second of protest. "This is no time for modesty." He began taking off his own. When he had finished, he handed them to Yymani, along with his hat.

"When we leave this room," he said, "I am going to be you, and you are going to be me. That means you walk a long, confident gait, like a younger man. I'll need your staff. Avane, you'll go with Yymani to the front gate. Inquisitor P has the car waiting for us. You'll have to help him walk if he has any trouble. I'm going to make life interesting for our pursuers." Dressed like Yymani, he walked out of the room. Avane counted to thirty, then took Yymani and followed.

"Fast," she said, "but not conspicuously so."

When they were five meters from the front gate, they heard a shot, then an explosion.

"Oh good," she said. "Now we have an excuse to run." And she grabbed Yymani, broke into a sprint, and practically dragged him out the door and into a waiting limousine.

"Avane Anshirion," said a smooth, polished voice with a slight West Kildare accent. "Lovely to see you again."

"Better get going," said Avane. "Let's try the Raglan Hotel. Rei's in the middle of something. He'll catch up with us." Then: "Yymani, this is the Inquisitor. He used to be in charge of enforcement for the Imperial Inquisition before he retired due to political differences with the new Judex. Now he runs an outfit here with which we've had very profitable relations in the past."

"Truth warm," said Yymani. "I'm Yymani Velchovion."

"Yes," said the Inquisitor, "I figured you would be. Not a big fan of our glorious founder, are you? You're lucky I'm a Kildari. The mainland Shirerithians can get pretty touchy about that sort of thing, as I'm sure you've discovered."

Avane's cell phone rang.

"Rei! Are you still at the baggage carousel?"

"Well, I'm at the smoking crater where the baggage carousel used to be," said Rei. "Look, I'm legally in the right here, but I don't have time to argue it with anyone who shows up. Tell the Inquisitor to pick me up in front of the electronics factory on Leto Street."

"How are you going to get there?" asked Avane.

"I'm making my way through an old copper mining tunnel right now," said Rei. "At the end, there should be an automated system of mine cars used to deliver copper to factories around the city. If I stow away in one of the cars, it should take me there underground the whole way, and I can sabotage the track to make it hard for anyone to track me or follow me."

"Sounds like a plan," said Avane. "Inquisitor, to Leto Street, if you would."

The Inquisitor slammed on the brakes, then made a hard right turn. Someone behind him yelled an obscenity. The Inquisitor pressed a green button on the dashboard, and an oil slick shot out from the back of the car, sending the obscenity-shouter into a road-side fruit stand.

"That's exactly the kind of temptation I would have had to learn to resist if I didn't have legal immunity," said the Inquisitor. "Now, where were we? Oh yes. Kaiser Raynor. Yymani, I admit I stopped paying attention in history class after a teacher made me learn all the little fiefdoms of the Feudal Holdings Act era. But I know Raynor built the Keep, conquered Goldshire for Shireroth, defeated the demon Rrakanychan, and preserved the Chas Modanian rituals and artifacts that lend the modern Shirerithian court its glory. Yet you say Raynor never existed, and all the historians I know speak very highly of your work. What's up?"

"Tell me something," said Yymani. "Who's the Kaiser now?"

"Anandja I," said the Inquisitor, "of course."

"Yes," said Yymani. "Full name, though."

"Anandja du Grifos."

"Fuller."

"Anandja du Grifos me'Raynor."

"Exactly. Anandja of the line of Grifos of the line of Raynor. And, in fact, every Kaiser since the beginning of this empire has had the last name Raynor. Now, when it is written that the Osmanis ruled Eliria for several centuries, we do not in assume that there was one man named Osmani who did such things. We believe there was a long line of people, all named Osmani, whose individual accomplishments have been forgotten and who all blend together as the Osmani rulers. I believe something similar happened in the case of Raynor. Many Kaisers, all of line Raynor, accomplished many great things, and later historians mistook them for a single man."

"No one made that mistake," said the Inquisitor. "We've had Raynor I, Raynor II, Raynor III, all the way up through Raynor XII. Raynor I ruled a long time, sure, but well within the life-span for a man of that era...they all had wives and children and so on, and...ah, here we are."

He pulled up in front of the electronics factory. Rei was waiting outside. He was completely covered in copper dust. His skin, his clothing, and his hair all had a shiny copper color.

"Inquisitor," he said. "Glad to see you." He got in the car. "What's going on?"

"Yymani will be giving the Kaiserin Aurefiction Memorial Lecture at JM3U tomorrow," said Avane. "He will be arguing that Kaiser Raynor I didn't exist. This has enraged nationalists and Cedrists everywhere, who are trying to kill him. We're heading to the Raglan Hotel for the night."

"Good," said Rei. Then: "Raynor didn't exist? But I read Bukolos' accounts of his campaign against the Mercajas when I was a young boy. Are you saying none of that happened?"

"Maybe," said Yymani, "you should wait until tomorrow. I've been preparing this lecture a long time. I hope it will answer some of your questions."

* * *

Several hours later, after they were well rested and Rei had made a bold but ultimately futile attempt to wash some of the copper dust out, the four of them sat around a table in a private suite of the Raglan hotel. The Inquisitor was saying grace, in his Cedrist way:

"Mors, Lord of the Cycle of Life and Death, forgive us the animals we kill, and grant us new life from their life. Just as we ourselves will someday die, and our own life bring forth new life, as it has been forever. Amen."

"Amen," echoed Rei, Avane, and Yymani. There was a sudden knock on the door.

"I'll get," said Rei. He left the dining room, turned down a corridor, and opened the door.

Five heavyset men in army fatigues stood there. Two had knives, two had guns, and one had some sort of complicated Boomist weapon whose mechanism was impenetrable but whose function was obvious.

"That's him," said one. "That's the guy."

"No," said the other. "The guy we want is a Hyperborean. This guy's from Brookshire or Yardistan."

"Looks Hyperborean to me," said the first.

"No you idiot," said the other. "Hyperboreans have fair, purplish skin. This guy's skin is all copper-colored, like someone from the far south."

"Oh, yeah," said the first guy. "Uh, are there any Hyperboreans staying around here?"

Rei took a deep breath, then responded in a heavy Yardistani accent. "Zere were sree of zem, shust left zis afternooin. Said zey were heading for ze Zurvanite vire temple in ze Voreign Kwuarter. Apparently Baron Osmani's zere oor somezing."

"Thanks," said one of the thugs. "The fire temple, is it? Ha. Going to be a whole lot more fire there by the time we're done with it." The others laughed, in a humorless thug sort of way.

"Klad to be of service," said Rei, still in an accent. "If ze Zurvanites don't immediately hand ze Hyperboreans over to you, tell zem you were sent by ze man zey met at ze ahrport zis morning. Zat'll put zem in a kwuoperative mood." Then he slammed the door.

"I don't think we'll be bothered any more tonight," he told the others. "Better finish dinner and get some sleep before the big lecture tomorrow."

[Jonas]

Always fun to read this kind of stories. It also learns the reader a bit about Shirerithian history.

[Aurangzeb Khan]

Very good. Naturally enjoying the Zurvanites walk on parts

[Andreas the Wise]

Can we expect more after your exams are done, Scott?

[Kaiseress Anandja I]

I hope so. Scott will also get a position in the Imperial government then for the first time in a while, if he still wants it. More on that will be forthcoming.

[Harvey Steffke]

Aww, it really looked like the Eagles were going to make a comeback for a minute there.