Forty-three

"Really now?" Helmine asked, deciding that it was best to just look normal. Bored and frustrated. Yes, they probably were better at 'all that diplomacy business'. She resumed her meal.

"Yes, yes." Mendel glanced over her shoulder, momentarily switching one of her eyes (which she wasn't looking through, anyway) into what was in effect a powerful unidirectional microphone. Ah, there you are, and alone at last. Eeeexcellent.

She turned back to Helmine. "Now, you... yes, you'll be fine now. Heart rate's slower, anyway. You have fun exchanging one set of horizons for bigger ones, and I'll get back to what I was doing."

By the time Mendel reached the door, her glass fins had mostly grown back and the musculature was on its way back towards androgyny. De kept the hair, but shortened. Suitov treated anyone in female shape with kid gloves, and Mendel wasn't enough of a people person to find this amusing.

De winked back at Helmine before leaving altogether.

Helmine continued eating, not finding the wink at all amusing, encouraging or suspicious. It wouldn't stop her from keeping a round inside the rifle when she finally stepped outside, though, but she remained calm.

The food was good, though, and so she fetched some more. Payment, of course, was left on the counter. Whether or not it was sufficient, she didn't really care, paying what seemed customary in her realm.

A conversation from outside grew steadily more audible as it approached.

"...peace, or as peaceful as we were going to get. There was time for everyone to lick their wounds, behave themselves, even get on with life and pursue their hobbies - on which note, it seemed the perfect time to make a field trip." The speaker was recognisable as the elf Helmine had been speaking to, although the voice was distorted downwards.

The answering voice was rich, warm, masculine and spiked with humour. "I think I can guess what you're driving at."

"Really? Because I get back and it's complete uproar! I can't understand it!"

"Mendel, you once told me what constitutes most of your contemporaries' favourite hobby."

"What, causing arguments? ...Oh. I see what you mean." Both speakers had stopped moving, seemingly a few paces away from the front door of the building.

"Well, don't be discouraged. Peace, as far as I've observed it, requires upkeep. That isn't to say junkets are impossible, only... next time try making one when a great many noisy people are vying for your attention."

"That sounds counter-intuitive."

"Oh yes. Trust me."

"Hmm." There was a sound like a red-haired elf with fins vanishing.

Suitov strolled in out of the sunshine. His appearance was his usual baseline: neat, smart and a fair amount of black. "Good morning," he said on noticing Helmine.

She looked a little surprised -- to the point where she almost forgot that it wasn't polite to stare. Then she recovered, finding that she could still make polite gestures and speak politely, even if she hadn't quite understood the words. The meaning behind them she guessed. "Hello." Being tired and irritated did give her words an unintended edge, of course. For now, she stopped eating -- and watched.

He smiled, turning for a moment to open a window and fasten the shutters back.

Then Suitov tried saying "Pleasant day" in the few off-Shade languages in which he could hold a conversation. He watched for signs of recognition.

None were forthcoming. She simply shrugged, sighed mentally. Oh well. "Have a seat," she said, indicating a chair. Then she thought back a little and touched the area between her collar bones. "Helmine."

"Suitov," he said, gesturing similarly. He opened another the window on the wall behind her before sitting.

"I've called a translator," he said dryly.

A pattering of claws forewarned the arrival of a mastiff-sized black dog at high speed. The animal gained enough traction on the wooden floor to brake with minimal destruction, if not decorum.

"I was about to score!" the dog complained to Suitov, and his speech was somehow as understandable as Mendel's had been.

"Pleased to meet you," she said, then took it to understand that he was saying the same thing. But no. Helmine locked both eyes on the dog -- and looked bewildered for just about five seconds. She sipped her drink after that.

The dog grumbled, but sat on the floor nearby to his human, in Helmine's view.

Suitov said a few more words. His eyes were on Helmine all the time he was speaking. He could have done this non-verbally, but that would have been another layer of confusion.

The dog said "He says, I hope you don't mind if I draft in a translator at this point. This is my familiar, Basaltine." The name was literally represented as sound, and sounded like bazzle-tine. The idea of 'familiar' might have been interpreted as 'one of those animals magicians tend to have'.

Since this was someone female, after all, Basaltine sat up and begged for a moment. His tail, too, hadn't been able to keep still for long.

Helmine looked vaguely amused and, having been informed of Basaltine's nature, looked at Suitov as she spoke. The hound received only a cursory look. "I don't mind at all. This eliminates all manner of silly misunderstandings. I do deplore those," she said, "although I have to say your translator's nature surprises me quite some."

"Absolutely. The pantomiming becomes boring quickly," Basaltine relayed. "Basaltine, among his uses, is a linguistic universal donor." (Or 'can speak with almost everyone'.) "He's far from harmless, but he won't harm you.

"Also, he is incredibly handsome."

If she'd counted the phrases Suitov had spoken, or indeed noticed the cheeky look on the mutt's face, Helmine might just have twigged that this last line had been ad libbed.

"He's also incredibly cheeky," Helmine said a hint dryly, only looking away from Suitov to pick up her drink again. "So then," she said after she had taken a sip and swallowed. "I'm Helmine. I just arrived a moment ago and had a very interesting discussion with Mendel concerning the nature of this place and the nature of many places. You were talking to..." she had to pause "...it yourself, I think?"

Basaltine licked his nose in delight and shuffled forward a bit, apparently unwilling or unable to stay still for long.

"I'm Suitov." (Another literal sound, sweetoff, with only a faint hint of the literal meaning of 'winter'. It was just a title to him.) "And yes, I was talking to Mendel just then. He wasn't trying to recruit you, was he? He knows that isn't allowed. Or, rather, I should say it knows. I have difficulty getting used to these sexless beings...

"Anyway, if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them."

"If it did, I ignored that bit well enough. I don't think it did. And, ah, questions. Perhaps we should start with who you are. After all, I would prefer to know who it is I'm asking questions from. For example, I'm but a soldier. Most recently, anyway," the silvery-haired young woman said, half-smirking at the strangeness of the entire situation. She was also trying to read Suitov: her green eyes wouldn't rest.

"Ah, good." The human seemed at ease; pale, at least, but consistently and uniformly so. He wasn't shifting around or guiltily dropping eye contact. None of her questions appeared to bother him - perhaps even the contrary, because Suitov was susceptible to curious people, after all. He had been observing her too, having a tendency to try to gauge quickness of eye and thought.

"I'm a rural magician by background. I've worked with soldiers on numerous occasions, though. This building's mine but I am not running the business. I have spent a little time recently investigating this area and, well, found more puzzles than solutions."

"So you are the owner. I see. You will find my payment for the food on the counter; that is how Mendel said it would work here, at any rate," said Helmine in that same, somewhat too clear and a hint arrogant way of speech. Her quickness of eye and thought, well, that was for him to say. "I did not get a satisfactory answer from Mendel concerning the workings of this place -- and perhaps area --, so if it isn't, hm, classified or such, perhaps you could humour me. How is this kind of... gap possible?"

Far too soon for him to judge. "Until we have someone to tend bar and run the kitchen, that's right. Thank you." Suitov didn't look round at the counter.

In any case, Suitov had asked around about the previous establishments at the Cross'd Roads. Operating at a loss was part of the business plan. It was most of the business plan. Along with earthquakes, poltergeists and random attacks of wizard. If that airship came back he was taking it hostage until he'd found out how it worked.

"I'll tell you as much as we know so far about this gap. The central part, the meeting of the roads and the bits of ground immediately adjacent, all stays roughly static. Beyond this area, though, the landscape, even the sky, changes frequently. It seems that at any time any of the paths out of here might connect to completely different worlds. And as for the sky, can't say for sure, but I have seen flying creatures definitely unlike anything at home."

Suitov thought it was an awful shame there were no lakes. Or caves. A dreadful shame.

"As for how any of this works, I haven't the faintest idea yet." He wasn't ashamed to admit it, either. The whole thing was brilliant. Magic! "I can tell you I haven't seen any sign of guiding intelligences," he added.

"Well, that's reassuring. I suspect guiding deities could be quite a problem when attempting to sell the estates," Helmine said, thinking about what he had said. "That's all quite remarkable and erratic. I don't suppose you have noticed any manner of patterns or signs that connections might share? A certain kind of sky, a certain type of... world?"

Helmine frowned and, almost without thinking about it, flicked a piece of sausage over to the dog. It was still difficult trying to wrap one's mind around the concept of multiple worlds. Were it not for the lucidity that she sensed from this man she would have thought she was dreaming.

"Thank yoooou, you're my favourite chick ever," Basaltine put in off his own bat, wriggling closer and sweeping the floor.

Suitov leaned forward, clearly pleased for a chance to talk about it. "I've noticed that everything that turns up here is able to survive here. By which I mean breathe the air and, to some extent, eat the food. That's what has me curious. The few that haven't have at least had the magics or equipment to enable them to survive. Now why that could be is a question fit to keep someone awake at nights."