Interlude: From the archives of the Tala Police

[Nithi Kirenion]

Day of Wind and Apples, gold season, S'5906

Officers in Kas Phanton in the Ben Rakyad district were contacted by a Nejye Lalinkion, reporting the disappearance of her 22 year old son, Kabi Estumrion. She lived in the Mition Arhi district, and her son visited her often; she last saw her son four days ago, on the Day of Wind and Flowers, on his way to his job as an assistant programmer at the Oracle of Kandarvan. She didn't think it suspicious when her son failed to visit her the following day, but when he missed his sister's birthday on the Day of Wind and Birch, she tried calling him; when he didn't became worried and went to his house. He was not home, and his neighbors reported they hadn't seen him in many days. He had no plans to go traveling.

The train and flight records were searched for his name, without results; the rangers who guard the pass out of Tala had no records of him or anyone of his description leaving the city.

His colleagues at the Oracle of Kandarvan reported he had turned up for work the day his mother last saw him, but he'd had the next few days off and they had not missed him. One mentioned that he'd been going to see his girlfriend, a 20 year old lady from Naxariyyit named Zahe Likrasion, mildly well-known in the city as an enixion ainai.

When the Rhavakal found Zahe, she was sitting alone in her home, visibly distressed. She seemed unsurprised to hear that Kabi had disappeared, and volunteered to the officers that "he's not coming back, and I didn't kill him, not really, but I won't explain it, something terrible would happen if I explained it." Because the girl obviously knew more than she was telling, she was brought to the station for questioning.

Although completely unwilling to discuss what happened on the Day of Wind and Flowers, she was willing to discuss her relationship with the missing person. The two had been a couple for just over a year, having met at the Ainaifest party in the green season of 5905. She was originally from Talisre, but had come to Tala a few weeks before to study voiqyarkomrave at the university. Kabi was a native Talalin studying programming independently. The two had hit it off almost immediately, and although Kabi was slightly intimidated by her celebrity, they started dating and had become very close. On the Day of Wind and Flowers, the two were meeting so Kabi could help her program something for a personal project. Zahe refused to say any more, constantly insisting that "the world could be at risk".

Zahe was informed that the Paladins suspected she was insane, and she offered to submit to an examination by competent officials. After a battery of cognitive tests and neuroradiological surveys, it was concluded to the satisfaction of the Vankarha Rhavakal that she was sane.

Upon this determination, Zahe Likrasion was formally charged with the murder of Kabi Estumrion. The evidence was minimal - Kabi's body had not yet been found, there were no witnesses, and there was no blood or any other sign of any violence in Zahe's home or on her person. However, it was determined that her obvious association with the disappearance and her refusal to provide information was sufficient grounds for suspicion.

She was subjected to eight independent forms of lie detection, including the personal judgment of famed microexpressionist Skiri Lubion-nomai and the experimental model from Anshir that has over 80% sensitivity and specificity in controlled trials. Seven of the eight came out negative, and the only positive was via the skin conductance method which is known to have a high false positive count - the probability that she was lying based on the tests was calculated as less than 2%. A series of brain scans and hormone analyses were performed to determine whether she was psychologically capable of killing; the probability that she was was given as under 10%. A panel of trained Priests of Beauty (Litre Niphsakion, rating .79, Kavri Oldorion, rating .81, and Sihire Shibelion, rating .84, for a combined adjusted rating of .87) listened to testimony about her character, her relationship with Kabi, and her behavior on the days before and after the incident, and came up with a combined probability of .15 that she had committed the murder or been an accessory. By averaging the various forms of evidence together and extracting the mutual information, it was determined that the probability of Likrasion having directly committed the murder was less than .02, although all methods suggested she had been involved in Estumrion's death in some way.

Although no one was satisfied with the outcome, a Priest formulated the hypothesis that she had gone climbing in the crevasses north of the city with Estumrion, he had fallen (possibly due to some mistake of hers), and she had fled in terror and formulated the fear about "the world ending if anyone knew" as a delusion to justify her fear of telling anyone else about her part in the matter.

(these notes were added to the end of folder on a different piece of paper, and in different handwriting)

Because of Likrasion's fame as an enixion ainai and the relative rarity of murder cases in Raikoth, the crime made newspapers in several cities despite efforts to keep it quiet. Since then, several armchair detectives have tried their hands. Most come up with something approximately as prosaic as the official explanation of rock climbing + delusion too subtle for the psychologists to pick up. Others are obviously insane. Those between the two extremes have collected some interesting facts, which I record here in the interests of completeness.

Considerations of whether to charge Zahe with obstruction of justice were rendered irrelevant when Likrasion offered to do voluntary penance by joining the Rhavakal. She was assigned to Nightshade, the ray generally given to criminals who are joining the Rhavakal as penance for misdeeds, but after two seasons, her lot commander rejected her as psychologically unsuitable (reason given: too nice) and she was transferred to Fern. She remains in Fern ray and was recently reassigned to Cimmeria, where she was awarded the Black Opal of Virtue for breaking up a riot over educational reform in Uolrhaphen. The citation for the award mentioned her "suicidal determination to rush into extremely dangerous areas, and her exceptional and quite frankly spooky ability to come out unscratched." Although she was never informed, her commander at the same time issued a request for her to be transferred back to Nightshade for being "too creepy", which was denied by Central Command in Vanaphanam. She remains in Fern.

One of the High Priests of Beauty in Kalen, whose duties include the watching and care of the enixional ainai requested a copy of this case file. Because of confidentiality rules, he was refused. The High Priest put an unusual amount of political pressure on our station, but we successfully kept this file secret, although there is little in here not already publicly know. It was the principle of the thing.

There is a story, probably apocryphal, that during the height of public interest in the case, a man's curiosity got the better of him, and he went through all the appropriate rituals and petitioned the Oracle of Yaanek itself to say what happened to Kabi Estumrion. The volcano answered, as usual, with a cryptic allusion:

YOU CANNOT SOAR WHERE HE IS SITTING NOW.

[Harvey Steffke]

Out of curiousity, was this one ever supposed to make sense?

[Erik Mortis]

Must be the girl.. that make people make no sense...