In one of the books the older gentleman had suggested Gareth read, walking the red carpet was occasionally referred to as “The Pole Dance,” which conjured up images of a scantily-clad woman doing all manner of athletic maneuvers on and with a floor-to-ceiling brass pole on a stage. Similar to burlesque, but far more physical in nature and requiring a great deal more effort to make look effortless.
And a little seedy, when you got right down to it. Tonight’s arrival, too.
The auto-taxi deposited him at the curb behind a massive, hopefully-only-gold-plated limousine that delivered a well-dressed Grace and his barely-covered companion. They walked up the red carpet and were politely accosted at each of several reporter station, with cameras rolling. Famous people. Gareth hadn’t seen either face to be sure, but he had narrowed the options down to about four, all of them important.
He himself emerged to a flash of lights and whistles, but the man holding the vehicle’s door made it clear that he was to simply amble inside, in full view of everyone, but not stop and chat with any of the reporters, unless specifically accosted.
Aloof and mysterious.
And really, freaking self-conscious, but he mustered himself under the gravity of the scene and strode forward in a relaxed manner. He could ignore the various whistles and cat-calls emerging from the dimly-lit crowd behind the barriers and holding up cameras.
Right?
Five reporters, each interviewing someone. Gareth breezed by them at a slow cadence, glancing right and left, but not seeing anything outside his imagination.
Four identical Nari men, dressed almost as silly as the Pope’s Swiss Guard, defended the main hall from the riff-raff. The looks of appraisal sent his way were more along the lines of checking out the guy that had just walked into the wrong bar, to see if anybody really felt like doing anything about it. He had a head and at least one hundred pounds on the any of them, so they smiled.
“Ticket, please?” the closest one asked as Gareth approached.
He pulled the ornate card from an inner pocket and handed it over.
“Gareth?” the man asked in obvious confusion. “No last name?”
“That’s right,” he smiled ambiguously.
Let people fill in their own stories, Baker and Grodray and others had told him, time and again. That was the key to undercover work. Keep it all vague and you don’t have to track your lies later.
“Very good, sir,” the Nari handed the card back and stepped to one side.
And with that, Gareth was in the Great Hall itself.
Because of the Chaa, and their lasting impact on the culture, everything was huge. The building was an eclectic mix of Ionic and Gothic that shouldn’t have worked, but did. White marble flecked and striped with precious metals held up the roof and covered the floor.
The ceiling in here was forty meters at the peak of the low-pitched roof, with colorful banners hanging from everywhere and idly drifting in the breezes generated by open doors and the air conditioning system. The red carpet continued a four-meter-wide path up a flight of twenty, deep stairs. A Vanir could walk them individually, but anyone shorter would take two steps on each.
At the top of the stairs was an impressive bronze bust, fifteen feet tall, of a cyclopean Grace, tentacles in wild disarray and one, angry eyeball scowling out of the middle of his forehead.
Gareth checked the small placard at the bottom as he approached. He had seen pictures of the enormous head, but had never realized how big “The Art Critic” was in real life. Or what a lovely play on words it was, subtly tweaking all the artists in here and their fiercest enemies.
It put a smile on his face as he entered the atrium of the space at the top of the stairs, trying not to ogle the people around him. There were seventeen species represented in the Accord of Souls, and all of them appeared to be present tonight, in an array of outfits that left him too stunned to even comprehend, let alone describe.
Except there was a lot of skin visible, on both male and female, as well as fur, scales, and bark, depending on the direction he turned. Gareth concentrated on keeping his mouth from falling open, and headed in the direction of the open bar on the side wall.
He wasn’t there to be noticed, unlike many of the people around him. If pressed, he could only name on sight perhaps two dozen, at best, of the three hundred or so that would be joining him for dinner. Many would be offended at his ignorance, however unintentional, so he would keep to himself.
The bartender was a tall, skinny, Grace woman. Lanky and over six feet tall, she was probably used to looking down on her patrons. The expression on her face as she turned to her right to serve him was sour.
She stared at the center of his chest for a moment, and then leaned back to see him smiling above her. Her own smile seemed to emerge from behind the dour shell.
“Sir?” she asked, voice turning hopeful, after the gruffness she had sent after the previous victim.
“Red wine,” Gareth said simply. “The house blend is good enough for now.”
Gareth had no way of guessing which of the dozen bottles in front of him he might like, and wasn’t going to more than sip this glass anyway.
She overpoured him anyway and handed the glass up. Gareth took it with a nod.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, turning away before she pursued any conversation.
He did not understand the effect he had on women, but there was no denying it. Gareth knew he was considered attractive, but had never seemed all that impressive, back home.
Or maybe he just never paid any attention? There was only one woman for him, even if he might never see her again.
Gareth took a sip and meandered into the slowly-thickening crowd.
“No, it’s just hideous,” Gareth overheard two Grace, and older man and slightly-younger woman, well-dressed if conservative, discussing a painting that was hanging on a pillar.
Back home, art was something you observed from a safe distance, frequently behind a velvet rope, with the picture itself perhaps protected by a sealed, transparent container against aging.
But this was Orgoth Vortai, and these were the Grace. That was far too pedestrian.
One approached the painting and leaned close enough that a dozen or more head tentacles could touch the picture, absorbing a full-sensory experience of smell, taste, and texture to go along with the light. Many other installations in here included a musical element as well, so all senses would be engaged.
To allow the pitifully-under-sensed (the Grace’s occasional term for the rest of the Accord), there was a small table to one side, near the picture. Sets-of-three shot glasses held a red, an umber, and a green liquid: just a taste of each, with a number indicating the order to consume them.
Gareth stepped to one side of the two Grace, still arguing, and studied the painting itself. The oil appeared to be a land- and sky-scape at sunset, perhaps. Fierce crimsons bled up into salmony-orange and down into violets, but the over-all image was scarlet in nature.
Gareth nodded to himself and emptied a red glass into his mouth first. It held barely enough to give him a taste, but that was the point. Umber followed quickly, and then green.
One held the three in one’s mouth for a moment, swishing them around like a sommelier at a good wine, before swallowing. It was a complicated taste, almost sour at the outset fading down to an earthy sweetness after a few seconds.
“Mm-hmm,” Gareth hummed to himself.
The nearer Grace turned to him.
“Utterly atrocious, am I correct?” he almost demanded.
Gareth checked the image of the artist herself by leaning well forward, just to make sure, before he leaned back and turned to the two critics. They didn’t appear to be man and wife, although they might be of a similar age.
And he had absolutely no idea if the picture was any good. Or bad. Or how a Grace might experience it differently from a Vanir, or an Elohynn, like the one he saw over there.
But it didn’t matter, as the old master had explained to him this morning. Art was art.
Gareth fell back on the best line the man had taught him, for exactly situations like this.
“I like the way she exhausts her reds,” he opined breezily. “Refreshing.”
Both gawked, and then leaned close to taste it again, afraid they had missed something terribly important that a Vanir, no less, had caught.
Gareth giggled privately to himself and departed before he was called on to explain the random remark. As if he could.
Art was art.
He made his way to the next installation, wondering what any of it meant.