Flaring with indignation, Smithy stood in the center of the flat stone surface on the barren dream island they called Moot Table. He knew that in this matter he had justice and custom on his side.
“I called you all to a Judgment because they are meeting in the flesh to plot against Pozhar!”
Smithy turned in a circle, challenging the eight other Agents. Peddler and Gardener did not deny this charge; they continued standing beside one another calmly, content to observe how the rest of the Agents would react to this unprecedented news.
Two of the people this morning were new to Moot Table; Smithy stared at them, wondering whose side they would take, though he recalled from his own experience that one’s first trip to the dream island might be so disorienting that these newcomers probably would understand very little of the proceedings. Pozhar was mightily displeased that Mìngyùn had chosen this as the moment to take renewed interest in the world of humankind.
“And you know about these meetings—how?” Healer looked troubled.
“Pozhar has friends in Slagos who saw them,” answered Smithy. “Peddler doesn’t wear that gold cloak in his natural life, but his yellow hair and bells”—he gestured toward his own hair—“are unmistakable.”
“I met them in Vertia’s Garden too,” broke in Spinner, the Agent newly anointed by Mìngyùn. Since her arrival a few moments ago she had been distracted by the costume her Spirit granted her, which was a gown of gossamer threads so fragile they looked as if they would tear if you touched them. She had paced this way and that, watching the gown shiver, and her hands still grabbed the golden pendant around her neck. Apparently, she had just broken through her fascination with these fripperies to concentrate on business.
“Well, to be strictly accurate,” continued Spinner, “I went to the meeting merely as myself, and it was while I was there that I became Mìngyùn’s Agent.”
Smithy eyed her balefully, though if his gaze intimidated her she did not show it. He could tell this one came from the upper class, which he resented.
“Plots and more plots!” growled Smithy. “We are supposed to meet here, all open and aboveboard, to discuss our differences together, not sneak around behind shrubs in the Green Isles. Secret meetings lead to secret maneuvers and factions.
“Of course, you don’t care.” Smithy pointed at Water Bearer, whom he considered the prime conspirator. “You’re willing to break all the time-honored customs of the Spirits to help your precious, murderous princella. But I hope that the rest of you now realize how underhanded Peddler and Gardener are.”
Smithy turned to the two Agents just mentioned. “Will you tell us why you met? Or what you discussed?”
Peddler and Gardener remained quiet, though Peddler shook his head and the damn bells braided into his hair tinkled. In another circumstance Smithy might have allowed himself to enjoy hearing these delicate chimes. Gardener, as always, peered around like a mad owl, mesmerized by having his vision restored during their meetings on this enchanted isle. (Smithy would never admit it, but he also found hearing sounds again disorienting and disquieting.)
“No? See, they connive against us still,” Smithy grumbled.
Water Bearer, an elderly woman with frizzy hair, tried to fend off Smithy’s insinuation. “I had nothing to do with this,” she said with her hands in the air. “This is the first me and Nargis heard tell of it.”
“Actually,” said Spinner calmly, “now that I learn that conversing in the flesh is a violation of protocol, I feel duty bound to tell all of you about another meeting of Agents in the Green Isles, though this earlier occasion was purely accidental and stayed on human concerns.”
“Aye,” said Sailor, who was the other novice to Moot Table, with a graceful bow. This man was much younger and more fit than the last Sailor, though he too wore a gray Lorther braid.
Sailor continued, “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Spinner, in your new role.”
“And you, Sailor,” she answered, with a smile that Smithy suspected contained secrets.
Spinner addressed Hunter. “And unless I am sorely mistaken, you too sat at my table a few weeks ago, did you not? At that time, I was insensible of your true vocation, but perchance you knew Sailor and me?”
“I did,” admitted Hunter. “I can smell Agency. I don’t expect the rest of you to have noticed, but you all emit a distinct aroma, not unpleasant, rather similar to pineapple sage.” The dark-haired young woman in hunting garb sniffed several times.
“I can vouch,” continued Hunter, “that this second meeting did not involve matters related to our Spirits. It was … a dinner party. The wine was excellent, but I don’t particularly care for fish. No amount of preparation can cover up the fishy scent.”
“A dinner party?” Smithy said, confused. “Then leave it aside; it has no bearing on the matter at hand.” He wanted to return to the issue of secret plots.
“What say you, Mason?” Smithy asked.
“About what?” asked ‘Chamen’s Agent in his cloak of stone dust.
“About Peddler and Gardener and Spinner meeting outside of Moot Table!”
“I’m curious,” Mason responded. “What’s it like to talk to an Agent in the daytime? How did you recognize one another? Were your Spirits listening then as they are now? ‘Chamen is not always with me; sometimes my Spirit attends to business far away from Rortherrod.”
Oh, he’s a hopeless fool, thought Smithy, not attending to the responses as he turned his body around to gaze at everyone surrounding him. Healer avoids my gaze. She’s in league with them too, even if she didn’t travel to the Green Isles.
Mason walked over to prod Peddler and Gardener with his questions. Detecting a break in the formal proceedings, the new Sailor crossed to bow to the new Spinner; then they whispered together like old friends. Only Healer and Water Bearer kept their positions at the edge of the circle, though both assumed uneasy frowns, and Water Bearer chewed her finger.
Hunter took advantage of the pause to beckon Smithy, who gave up his central speaker’s position to cross to her side.
“I confess I am troubled by this news,” Hunter said in a low voice. “The Wind treasures freedom. My Spirit is not pleased by factions and hidden meetings.”
Although he was not skilled with words, Smithy tried to find the right note. “Ghibli grasps the heart of the matter. The issue lies not just with this or that pet human, however favored or disfavored. It is the principle of Spirits being in league against each other in conspiracies. In this case they team up against Pozhar, but what if at some later time, factions teamed up against Ghibli and tried to hem in the Wind?”
Hunter stood still, consulting with her patron through the interior connection they all shared with their individual Spirit. “We agree, Smithy, that factions violate the fundamental trust of Moot Table. How would you have us help you?”
He whispered, “Where do you abide in waking life?”
“I was born in Agfador, but I ran away from home when I was quite young. When need arises I make my living as a street performer—juggling, acrobatics, that kind of thing. I move from one nation to the next.”
“If you tracked down the pet woman who is the root cause of the quarrel…”
Hunter laughed. “I’ve already picked up her trail. She leaves a distinctive scent behind her: a mixture of many animals with bergamot and chamomile. Ghibli, as usual, moves faster than all of the other Spirits.”
Spinner interrupted the separate conversations with a raised voice. “Mìngyùn prompts me to speak,” she said. “Am I correct that to take the floor I should enter the center of the circle?”
Healer, who presided over proceedings at Moot Table, answered, “Yes, Spinner. That is our way.”
The new woman walked into the middle and addressed them all in ringing tones. “Mìngyùn bids me speak of something much more important than Green Isles meetings or dinner parties.
“Your Spirits may believe that their destructive actions have passed unnoticed—a small fire here, an earthquake there—these things often happen without ill will, from human causes or from our Spirits’ casual stretches, releasing natural tension. However, Mìngyùn has noticed. Mìngyùn is displeased. More than displeased.
“Mìngyùn bids me convey that your Spirits will cease these attacks upon each other’s realms. Immediately.”
“Your Spirit has no right to order us about!” Smithy shouted. “Why is Mìngyùn even meddling? What’s this sudden interest in humankind?” His loud outburst was followed by stunned silence.
Smithy tapped his fire tongs against his chain mail, making (to him) a pleasing clank. “Our Spirits will be at peace when the Nargis heir is dead.” As ever, when he became very angry at Moot Table, a crown of flames appeared upon his brow.
“All of this destruction over one woman?” said Spinner, still calm, indeed maddeningly so. “This is more than irrational. It is folly. You are using her as a proxy for long-term grievances, is that not the case?”
“‘Chamen only started the quakes because Weirandale has not returned its Truth Stone,” Mason put in defensively. “‘Chamen has a right to insist that its treasures be returned.”
Spinner held up her hands for silence.
“In Pilagos, where I have lived for many years, we cherish a funny anecdote. It goes like this: Two brothers set sail for Orchid Isle, but soon they lose their way. The younger brother says to the older, ‘We’re lost.’ The elder brother says, ‘Aye, you’re right. We’re completely lost.’
“Then the older brother says to the younger, ‘The most important thing to do now is figure out who’s to blame.’”
Several of the Agents chuckled at this story. Smithy realized that Spinner had succeeded in turning the meeting away from his goal.
“Who started this conflict and who is to blame are not material facts when Spirits toy with disaster,” she continued with quiet authority. “Mìngyùn insists that this destruction cease forthwith.”
“Oh, yes, please, it must stop,” put in Gardener, who to Smithy’s mind had always been a weakling. “The trees, the fruits, the grains—drowned, burned, or swept away. Such a waste.”
“And so many innocents have died and suffered,” added Healer.
“If Pozhar stops starting fires, Lautan will create no more tidal waves,” said Sailor as if he—a first-timer at Moot Table and wearing that ridiculous sea-foam hat—had the right to bargain. Smithy couldn’t quite place this new Sailor; his hands and skin showed the marks of hard labor, but his bearing was proud, almost regal.
Smithy had called for this Judgment to expose other Agents’ sneaking around, conspiring against his country and his Spirit. He certainly had not called this Moot Table for Mìngyùn to give Pozhar orders. Instead of shaming his fellows and calling a halt to their deceitful behavior, Spinner had put him in the wrong, stealing the floor away from him.
Smithy strode back into the center of the flat stone, tapping his tongs against the ground while his crown of flames stretched higher.
Frightened, Gardener covered his eyes while Water Bearer took a couple steps backward, spilling more rainbows. Though he towered over her, Spinner did not yield the speaker’s position.
Healer broke in, “Can we come to some resolution? What say you, Peddler? Will you promise not to break our protocols in the future?”
Peddler hesitated, and that Spinner—who seemed too smart for her own good—answered instead. “Protocols are important,” she conceded. “We all work better when we can trust one another to abide by the same rules. But one might inquire if procedures per se are the highest aim of this gathering. Pray, forgive me; I am new to your company—what is our foremost goal?”
“We meet whenever one of our Spirits believes another has encroached on its realm, powers, or people,” Healer answered Spinner. “We gather to reason together and come to a Judgment. Smithy called this meeting.” Healer cleared her throat. “By our traditions, if you and Mìngyùn wish to raise different matters, our procedures would have you convene a separate meeting.”
Spinner inclined her head toward Healer and ceded the middle of the stone, though she did not step all the way back to the circle’s perimeter.
“I demand a Judgment censuring the plotters and forbidding future meetings or putting into action any plans that were discussed outside Moot Table!” shouted Smithy. “All in favor?” He held his fire tongs high in the air. None of the other Agents voted with him, though Hunter turned sideways and whistled into the sea breeze, detaching herself from the proceedings.
The moment grew intolerably tense. Healer shifted her weight on her feet and said, “I think we can make no more progress at the present time. Let us return to our lives and consult with our patrons. Perchance, at a later time, we can find the harmony and agreement that prove elusive at this moment.”
With a clap, Healer dissolved Moot Table. Smithy woke up in his tent in Alpetar, grinding his teeth.
But his first thought was not anger at the other Spirits, but a flash of self-consciousness. In his waking life he had long ago adjusted to his deafness and knew himself complete, even superior to those who didn’t use their other senses as well as he did. Every time he left Moot Table, Smithy had to reexperience an unsettling transition. After the noise of voices, wind, and surf, a welcome silence pressed in upon him, familiar and warm.
This reminded him of his proud separation from others, as Pozhar stood alone against all the other Spirits.