A Most Interesting Review
by Tavaan
When I started working for Illumination, they promised me ‘fame, riches, and not too much work’. And what do I really get? This.
Last An Tir I walk into Illumination, our shoppe where we serve tea, delicates, and generous helpings of our writings. I sit down to order some ‘Summertime Sear’, a hot pepper tea. Dearest Emily walks up and says –
"Why, hello there, Tavaan. Guess what?"
"What?"
"We’ve put together a mission for you."
Mission? My ears perk up a bit. "Like what?"
"You’re to be arrested."
And that’s how it all began.
Easy enough if I can fall back on being a member of Illumination. But I’m informed that if they know who I am, they probably won’t let us publish our findings, so it is of utmost importance that I not give away my true identity.
Now I know that many of you ladies out there are petrified with suspense at the thought that I might come to harm, but rest assured – I wrote this only two days later, on An Maad, and here I am.
First of all I had to go to one of the ‘lesser’ guardhouses where they wouldn’t know me by sight. Naturally, that meant going down to the Thieves’ District to get in trouble. Second, as an extra precaution, I had to get disguised, so that even if I claimed to be Tavaan of Illumination (say, if they started torturing me), they wouldn’t believe me! By this time I was beginning to wonder if my fellow Illumination-mates were hoping to have me conveniently disappear from the scene.
Nevertheless, I subjected myself to an illusory makeover at Masquerade and left for the Thieves’ District a distinctly different looking young man.
My crime? Stealing. And I was really supposed to do it, and, of course, then get caught.
Remember, I did this for all of you readers out there.
Due to the extremely embarrassing nature (shall we call it a debacle?) of my attempt at thievery, I shall not delve into a retelling. Suffice it to say that moments after I attempted to secure my entire financial future in a single despicable act, I was being roughly held down by two brutish young citizens of Aranor. And a moment after that, a rough-looking guardswoman was standing over me and shaking her head.
Woman? Hey, this was looking good already!
She manacled my hands as the two guys held me down, then motioned for them to get me to my feet. I was pushed and prodded over to the guardhouse, a squattish sort of building with a great view of nothing nice to look at. Hmm. The prospects seemed to be diminishing.
Inside I was ushered back to a small room that had no windows at all. The guardswoman sat me down in a chair with an odd sort of single post running up the back. This was to fasten my manacled hands to with yet another set of manacles.
"Pretty scared I’m going to escape?" I asked.
"Funny. Eldrus will be in here to talk to you in a bit. Relax."
Eldrus? Never heard of a name like that. Well, I thought to myself, might as well take in the scenery.
Nearly an hour later I had finally had my fill of the woodgrain on the three walls I could manage to see, and the door opened to admit . . . him.
Despite what this is going to do to my reputation, I have to admit that the very sight of the man sent an irrational fear through my body, and I found myself struggling at my bonds. There, I said it. But let me do a bit of describing.
Yes, I called him a man. But he most clearly was not. His flesh had a thick, grey quality, and it seemed stretched taut over his musculature. Said musculature, I may add, was somewhat more significant than I had probably ever seen before. His rich black hair was tied back in a thick tail, and his eyes were so dark that I couldn’t differentiate pupil from iris. He looked down at me like he was going to eat me.
"Ghaaaa . . . " I sputtered.
"The pleasure’s all mine," said Eldrus. He stuck out a hand, and I stared at the dark, unnatural hue of his long nails.
"Can’t shake, I see," he said. Then he looked over my shoulder, as if surprised. "Oh. You’re a bit incapacitated. Why do you think that is?"
"Um . . . "
He regarded me.
"It seems," he said, "that you tried to steal something. That true?"
His brutal features, his odd accent, his deep, piercing eyes all became too much.
"What in Lorenai are you?" I blathered.
He grinned and squatted before me. Even though I was in a chair, we were nearly face-to-face.
"No, no, no," he said. "Not Lorenai. I’m a faerie."
A meaningless dribble of sound gurgled up from my throat.
"Or at least that’s how your sages classify me. I’m Sereg."
"Sereg?"
"Sereg. Aranor’s only one, so far as I know."
I swallowed, my mind all too obliging in conjuring up memories of everything I’d ever heard of the creatures. Then I felt my resolve strengthen. What was I doing, shivering like this? I was a citizen of Aranor! I had rights!
"Who are you?" he asked as he took out a leather-bound book and a quill.
"Um, Erik."
"Umerik," he repeated, scrawling in the book. He raised his eyebrows. "No surname?"
I got brave. After all, he had only asked the question to make a joke of me. "Do I look like I’d have a surname?"
He nodded and jotted something down.
"You’ve got a record with us now, Umerik. Not a good thing to have. Why are you in here?"
"You tell me."
He nodded again, nonchalant. "Stealing an emerald necklace. Ripping it off a lady’s neck, requiring her a visit to the healer’s because of the laceration you left. Necklace worth . . ." he whistled quietly under his breath and looked up into my eyes, ". . . thirty-two thousand silver."
I smiled weakly. "Hey, at least I have good taste, right?"
"Right," he said, doing that obnoxious nod once again. "Where do you live, Umerik?"
I bristled this time, and then suddenly realized that he could check on my residence. I stumbled.
"I’m, um, from out of town. Selarum."
He jotted that down. As he wrote, he said, "You’ve come a long way to do some stealing, haven’t you Umerik."
"It’s just Erik, alright?"
"Fine, Justerik. Do you realize that you could be required to work as a city slave for, let’s see . . . over three years? You see, you have to pay the woman back the necklace’s worth."
"What?! Do I get to keep the emeralds, then?"
He looked at me, a little perplexed, it seemed. "The necklace isn’t yours, is it?"
"No."
"Then you give it back to her, apologize, and all you’ll have to do is earn thirty-two thousand silver to pay her back. Of course, if you have that much right now, we can just pay it up and be done with it."
I blinked.
"That’s what I thought. So you pay her that extra to make sure that she realizes that your apology is real. Of course, since we can’t trust you to hold an honest job, you’ll have to work for the city. Probably picking up poopbarrels."
"Poopbarrels?"
"That’s the non-official term. You’ll learn all the proper language to use starting tomorrow. You’ll have a passage of schooling and practice. . ."
His words droned on, but I wasn’t hearing them any more. Suddenly this was actually scary, for real. Now is the time, I thought. Illumination can go find a good mudhole to soak in – I’m getting myself out of this!
"Look," I said. "This is my first time stealing. Can’t you have a grain of pity?"
"Your first time? I’d wager that you’re over here stealing because things were growing a bit too close in Selarum."
I was quiet. He was making a pretty good argument. What could I do? Attempt blatant lies? The word on the streets of Aranor was that they had diviners to find out whether you were telling the truth or not. So a lie could just get me into more trouble! But wait. I was in this deeply, and what was I here for, anyway? To discover how things really are.
"Look, Eldrus," I said. "I’ve made a big mistake. A really big mistake. But this truly is my first time stealing, and I had no idea that the punishment in Aranor was that I’d have to pay back for the same price of what I’d stole. I mean, if I had just stolen a pastry, it wouldn’t be so bad, right?"
"Unless you repeated your mistake."
I nodded and cast my eyes down.
"And there’s no way out of this, is there?"
"Afraid not."
"None at all?"
He looked at me for a moment, then sat back in his chair.
"I suppose," he said, "that if this really was your first time, we could consider some leniency."
I looked up and nodded hopefully.
"We’d have to send over to Selarum to find out. You’ll have to pay for the messenger service."
"I’d do that."
"Good. And you’ll have to stay here as a city slave until it’s worked out. Probably a moon or so."
I swallowed. After all, I had a date on the night after the morrow’s. Suddenly it was too much.
"You can’t do this to me!" I wailed (all the cute girls out there can substitute ‘demanded firmly’ for ‘wailed’). "I. . . I’m part of Illumination! My name is Tavaan! I’m innocent."
"Really."
"Yes!!!"
I had broken down, it was true. Records were checked, I was taken down to the illusion shoppe where my true identity was confirmed, and I was told by Eldrus that there was no problem whatsoever with me publishing my little adventure, seeing as Illumination was officially endorsed by the Queen. Still, just before I left, he took me aside and ‘suggested’ that my next treatise would be about how difficult it is to be a guard and deal with people like myself. My promise duly given, I escaped back to Illumination and reported my findings.
The lesson? Simply put, I think we can all see that the guards are pretty no-nonsense, especially for a regime that reportedly is pretty forgiving. Of course, one must remember that the item I stole was pretty significant, but still, here’s my warning to would-be thieves – make sure you don’t get caught, ‘cause they’re none too friendly in the guardhouses.