28. Compassion

His eyes widened, the corners of his mouth turned up sharply, and a feeling of intense satisfaction came over him. The sun was out.

No sooner had he observed the fact than Dashvara stepped away from the open door of the barracks, took a small table and a chair, and set both outside on the wooden boards that surrounded the building. Immediately afterwards, he took a knife and a piece of wood he had salvaged from a felled tree and sat down comfortably, placing his bare feet on the table and rolling up his pants. Immediately he felt the warm rays of the sun on his skin. He looked up at the sky, just above his head. It revealed an incredibly, wonderfully blue hole.

How wonderful life is, huh? he thought, still smiling.

After many long minutes of well-being, he heard footsteps in the barracks. Arvara, Lumon, Alta, and the Triplets were still sound asleep after spending the night on patrol. Makarva was in the tower, alone, because it was daytime after all, and in the daytime, there is not as much danger.

Dashvara glanced back and saw Tsu appearing through the door, properly dressed in his dark blue uniform and white Doomed belt. Of course, he was holding his flute in his hand. Smiling, Dashvara greeted him with a nod, and as the drow settled down, sitting on the floor against the wall of the shack, he began to use his knife to blow splinters from his piece of wood. Soon after, Tsu began to play his flute. According to Sashava, he played horribly. Dashvara didn’t think it was so bad. In any case, he liked to hear his music.

He continued to scrape the wood, his eyes riveted on the mist that still floated on the tops of the twisted swamp trees. A small slope of about fifty paces separated the barracks from the tower and the palisade, and a hundred separated them from an inextricable mass of vegetation that stretched endlessly toward the east. The meadows of the Communes died there as if the border had been cut with an axe, abruptly, more or less clearly. Of course, the Doomed took care of clearing the edge by pulling up any sprout or bush. To let the swamp invade meant to let death invade.

The cawing of a crow sounded. Dashvara saw the black bird land on the high branch of a tree. Not very graceful, those birds, he thought. And he looked down at his piece of wood. The melody of the flute was cheerful and fast, but Tsu could have blown as hard as he could into his instrument and neither Arvara the Giant, nor Alta, nor Lumon, nor the Triplets would have woken up. It would have taken a real alarm to rouse a Doomed man from his sleep.

Dashvara glanced north. The captain had left with his patrol a few hours ago to clear a section of the edge. Sashava was about to return with his. And Pik and Kaldaka had gone to Rayorah to buy supplies with the donkey.

A little peace and quietness never hurt, Dashvara rejoiced.

Then he heard the buzzing of a fly, and he squinted, trying to look for the cursed one with his eyes. A few minutes later, however, his attention was distracted by the distant thud of hooves. He frowned and Tsu paused his music for a moment in anticipation. Finally, they saw a rider appear to the west, riding quietly down the gentle slope toward the marshes. The horse was pristine white and what came on it looked like an official. He was heading towards the barracks.

“What do you say, Tsu?” Dashvara said, his voice bored.

The drow shrugged his shoulders. His expressiveness had not improved much over the years.

“That you’ll be the one talking to him,” he simply replied before picking up his flute again.

Dashvara sighed but nodded.

He waved to Makarva in the tower to let him know that he had already seen the rider, and without removing his feet from the table, he continued to carve his piece of wood. He would have never imagined, three years ago, that he would one day overcome his lack of patience in carving figures. The Border could work miracles.

Soon the rider stopped near the wooden platform. Dashvara did not look up. Demons, let him introduce himself first. The visitor did so.

“Hello. I’m the new border inspector,” he said in a sonorous voice. “I’m here to see if everything is all right at Compassion.”

Dashvara raised an eyebrow and finally looked up to detail the individual. He was young, with a plump stomach, blond hair, and a white inspector’s uniform. Yes, there was no doubt about it, he was telling the truth.

“Good morning,” he replied at last, after a silence that had made the pale eyebrows of the official frown. “Don’t worry: everything is fine at Compassion.”

He looked down at his piece of wood and continued to carve it. The inspector put his foot down and said in a slightly more strained voice:

“I have orders to review all of you. A decree was signed a few weeks ago that says…” he paused when he saw that Dashvara didn’t seem to be listening to him, but he continued, “that says that from now on you will receive visits every two weeks.”

What? Every two weeks? Dashvara looked down at the floor when he saw that the official had dared to climb onto the platform with his muddy boots. He sighed. And continued carving.

“Where is your boss?” the inspector asked after a silence. His voice no longer reflected tension.

“The captain is on patrol,” Dashvara replied, looking up.

“Captain?” the inspector repeated. There were no captains among the Doomed. But there are among the Xalyas, federate, Dashvara smiled inwardly.

Tsu continued to play the flute softly. Out of the corner of his eye, Dashvara saw that the inspector was fidgeting, nervous again.

“Could you stop carving that?” he asked after a silence. Dashvara did not answer. “What are you carving?” he added. He seemed more sympathetic than the previous inspector, Dashvara considered. The previous inspector, the Persnickety, would never have bothered to ask what he was carving. He scanned him before smiling.

“What do you think?” he said.

The inspector shook his head.

“It doesn’t have a concrete form yet, I can’t guess.”

Dashvara, this time, smiled broadly. This reminded him very much of a conversation he had had with an old Shalussi sage long ago.

“What does concrete mean?” he asked.

The inspector arched an eyebrow, and to Dashvara’s astonishment, reached into his bag, and pulled out a book.

“I’ll read you the definition, soldier,” he announced, half arrogant and half amused because he knew his reaction had surprised him. He flipped through a few pages and cleared his throat before reading: “«Concrete. Adjective that designates what is real, tangible, and perceptible. Antonym: abstract». Satisfied?” he asked with a small condescending smile.

Dashvara huffed. Indeed, he doesn’t look like the previous inspector.

“Satisfied,” Dashvara agreed. Then he heard the fly again. Damn fly… He saw it, lying on his little table.

The inspector opened his mouth.

“Listen, maybe I can start working without your boss. How many of you are in the barrack…?”

He let out a small scream of terror as Dashvara, thrusting his arm at lightning speed, stabbed his dagger into the table. He almost laughed: he had killed it! It was the first time he had ever done it. He withdrew the tip of the knife from the wood and rejected the fly’s corpse in the manner of one who does this every day. He resumed his carving.

“Were you saying something, Inspector?”

The person concerned was pale. A flute blast sounded, and Dashvara guessed that Tsu was having trouble holding back the laughter.

“I…” The inspector swallowed. He was still holding the dictionary in his hand. Then he said, “It’s rude to put your feet on the table.”

Dashvara looked at him for a few seconds, stunned; then he laughed, frankly amused. The inspector paled even more.

“You’re not from this region, are you?” inquired Dashvara.

The inspector put on a hardened face, but he could no longer fool Dashvara: he was beginning to realize that they had been sent a new inspector who was much less strict than the Persnickety. One could not ask for more.

“I’m not from here, no,” replied the inspector. “I come from Dazbon, soldier. And I studied at the best school in the world: the Citadel. And now, tell me, are you two the only ones guarding the tower, or what?”

Dashvara watched him with interest.

“No,” he answered, laconically. “My companions are sleeping.”

“Wake them up.”

“No way. We spent all night tracking orcs and couldn’t even find them. Wake them up yourself if you want to go back to Rayorah with your tail between your legs.”

The Inspector became flushed.

“Don’t disrespect me, soldier!” he burst out.

Dashvara shrugged.

“That was not my intention, Inspector. I only said that it would also be disrespectful to my companions if I woke them up right away. The only consolation they would have would be to be able to see those blessed rays of sunshine.”

As if his blessing had been heard by the underworld, clouds obscured the star at that moment. Dashvara sank back and took his feet off the table.

“Is it better this way?”

The inspector calmed down.

“Mmpf. Where are your boots?”

“Inside. Shiny as obsidian, Inspector. All of us here place great importance on hygiene, don’t we, Tsu?”

The drow had stopped playing, although he did not move from his seat. He nodded silently: he didn’t like talking in front of the federates. Dashvara smiled at the inspector.

“Our captain is worse than a housewife. You’ll see that everything is in order here. Even the animals, we keep them at bay. In three years, there has not been a single complaint from anyone in Rayorah about this.”

“By the way,” the inspector pointed out, putting his dictionary away. “I was told that, in this tower, some men come from the steppe of Rocdinfer.”

“Some?” Dashvara smiled. “We all come from the steppe. We are Xalya Doomed. And we’re the best Doomed there ever were on the Border, don’t you doubt it, Inspector.”

The chubby blonde rubbed his freshly shaved cheek, unimpressed. Of course, how was he going to be impressed? To him, surely, being the best Doomed more or less meant being the best scoundrels in the Federal State.

The inspector scanned him with a rather successful haughty look.

“What’s your name?” he finally asked. A ray of sunlight reappeared between the clouds.

“Dash,” he replied. “And this is Tsu.”

“I swear he’s not a Xalya,” the inspector observed.

Dashvara ran his hand through his beard, pretending to be thoughtful.

“Well, you’d swear wrong. Tsu is a Xalya like all of us. He’s adopted, that’s right. But he is a Xalya of the Eternal Bird.” He smiled at the drow with all his teeth and the drow smiled back, mockingly.

“Mm. Listen…” The inspector cleared his throat. “Right away I come from the south, from the Tower of Dignity. And over there, they’ve been practically begging me to send them workers to fix their barracks. And what about you? Don’t you have any urgent needs that I can notify? In the end, I came mainly for that.”

Dashvara shook his head as he saw him pull out a notebook and pencil. Definitely, he was much more considerate than the previous inspector.

“Well, you see,” he said, “our building is in perfect condition. We rebuilt it last fall with our own hands and with wood from the swamps. Because we Xalyas don’t need help from the federates and we don’t get lazy like the people in the Tower of Dignity. But, if you really want a more thorough answer, I invite you to come back here in a few hours. The captain will be back.”

The inspector scoffed.

“I see. However, I don’t think you get your food out of the swamp, do you? You buy it in Rayorah, with the money the Council gives you. Am I wrong?”

Dashvara frowned.

“No.”

The inspector smiled and Dashvara went back to carving his piece of wood. Suddenly, an exclamation was heard.

“Oh, burning sun that illuminates my senses!”

Seeing the inspector’s puzzled face, Dashvara let out a loud laugh and turned to Miflin. Motionless in the doorway, the triplet was speechless as he spotted the visitor.

“Let me introduce the Poet to you,” Dashvara said, very amused. “Miflin, be careful your head doesn’t light up too much, eh? This is the new inspector,” he added, answering his young companion’s silent question. “If you need anything, just ask him before he leaves.”

“Your companion is right,” the inspector interjected. “I’ll write down what you need in this notebook and…”

He fell silent as he heard voices inside the barracks. Soon Lumon and Alta came out. Arvara the Giant followed them, bowing his head slightly so he could pass through the door. All three were shirtless and bootless, and Lumon scratched his head vigorously while Alta stretched like a lazy cat. Dashvara suppressed a smile. The first impression left by the three Xalyas was not particularly flattering.

“The sun is out!” Alta said loudly without even looking down for a moment.

“What?” came Zamoy’s voice from inside. “Kodarah! Help me get the laundry out. Come on, wake up, brother! We have to hang it up. Eternal Bird, help me before the sun goes away!”

“It won’t dry,” Arvara breathed from his six-foot height. He stepped away from the door, however, when Zamoy came out backwards dragging a large basket of laundry.

“But it will dry, Arvara. Dammit, help me!” complained Zamoy. “Kodarah has a sleep deeper than a well. Look! The sun is heating up. It’s summertime, guys. It will dry in a few minutes.”

“In a few minutes, huh?” Arvara laughed, but he helped him carry the basket anyway.

In the face of so much commotion, the inspector seemed relieved.

“Wait! I have a few questions to ask you…”

“What were we waiting for?” Zamoy replied, huffing and puffing and pausing for a moment. “Look, Inspector, if the clothes don’t dry, I’ll catch a cold again, and if I wait just one more minute, I may—just may—get buried in the mud because of you. Let’s go, Arvara. Let’s hang out the laundry. The sun won’t wait.”

The two Xalyas walked away to the other side of the shack without leaving the platform. Dashvara rolled his eyes. Zamoy was an exalted man.

“So you’ve come to see if we’re still alive, Inspector,” Lumon said, walking over to the table. Dashvara was still sitting in the chair. Lumon the Archer gave the official his usual serene, mysterious look. “Is the other inspector dead?”

“No!” assured the federate. “He’s been transferred elsewhere. Are you the one responsible for all these people?”

Lumon winced, looked at Dashvara, then at Miflin and Alta. He shrugged.

“In a way,” he said. “I’m the oldest.”

Then the inspector renewed his explanation of his presence at the Tower of Compassion. Lumon put on a meditative face.

“Guys,” he said suddenly. “Do we need anything? Do you have any ideas?”

There was a thoughtful silence and then suddenly:

“A horse!” Miflin said.

“That’s right,” Dashvara observed, surprised that he hadn’t thought of it earlier.

“You are only allowed one,” the inspector objected.

“Well, that’s fine,” Lumon smiled. “We don’t have any.”

The inspector looked surprised.

“I can’t believe it. How do you carry the food from Rayorah to here then? On the back of a man?”

“We have a donkey,” Dashvara said proudly. They had had her for a year, and in exchange for the Xalyas’ cuddling and caressing, she gave them excellent milk.

The inspector shook his head in disbelief.

“And what did you do with the horse? Normally, all towers have one.”

Dashvara and Lumon exchanged a glance.

“He’s gone,” Lumon replied laconically.

“Oh.” The inspector grimaced as he glanced nervously toward the swamp. “He was attacked by those…?”

Alta huffed; Alta was an animal lover. In the steppe of Rocdinfer, it was always him who took care of the horses.

“No, Inspector. He is not dead. He’s gone because we let him go.”

“We gave him back the freedom we don’t have,” Miflin embellished, leaning against the wall.

Seeing the incomprehension on the inspector’s face, Dashvara felt it necessary to clarify the matter:

“A year ago, we tried to escape through the swamps and we chased the horse to the meadows. That’s why we’ve been using the donkey for a year.”

“Oh,” was the blonde’s simple reply.

“A horse would be welcome, Inspector,” Lumon added calmly. “Frankly, I don’t know what else. How about you?”

Dashvara shrugged. He was reluctant to ask anything of a federal official.

“Well,” said the inspector after a silence. He had noted the horse in his notebook. “I’m going to go into the barracks to take a look. And, please, dress properly as soldiers. Where are your white belts?”

“Inside,” Lumon replied.

“What about your weapons?”

“Inside.”

“What if the milfids or orcs suddenly attack?” the inspector added with an increasingly accusatory tone.

Lumon, Alta, and Dashvara sighed.

“You’re an inspector, not a soldier, right?” Lumon asked with a cold little smile. “Right, well, you do your job, we’ll do ours.”

“Where we come from,” Dashvara interjected, “there is a saying that goes like this: don’t fear the red snake unless it comes, and when it comes, prepare and strike. Don’t stress us, Inspector,” he added in a mocking tone. “I assure you, if a milfid comes right away, we’ll get it out of your way… like a fly,” he smiled, putting the dagger away on his belt.

The inspector became confused, and shaking his head, entered the barracks. Lumon scratched his head again.

“He doesn’t look bad,” he commented in a low voice.

“Quite tender,” Dashvara agreed.

“A little green all the same, it shows,” Alta assessed.

“Eternal Bird! It’s not a broccoli dish, after all,” Miflin replied, stepping away from the wall.

Dashvara smiled broadly as Alta huffed like a disgusted horse and said:

“Don’t talk to me about broccoli now, Poet. My stomach is churning just thinking about it…”

A scream of pure terror rang out inside the shack and all three entered, intrigued, followed by Tsu. Kodarah was awake and Dashvara felt that being alone in the shack with an unknown being in a white uniform was reason enough to scream. The Hairy One had jumped to his feet and even started to draw his sword before thinking. A little pale, the inspector was introducing himself. Where had the Persnickety been transferred to? In reality, it did not matter to Dashvara as long as he was far, far away from Compassion.

A fly landed on his arm. There were others. The buzzing was constant. Dashvara hissed at them and closed the door.

“Bah! Go to hell,” he muttered. He whipped the air with his hand.

“Are you talking to the flies now, Dash?” Miflin mocked.

“What do you expect, Poet. They don’t stop talking to me, so I answer them. Just being polite.”

“Gosh,” Miflin muttered, as if he had discovered a sudden truth. “I have not yet composed any poems about flies—”

“Go get dressed, come on,” Lumon cut him off. As for him, he had already put on his shirt and was fastening his Doomed belt.

The inspector was walking around the barracks taking notes in his notebook. Never had the Persnickety bothered to really look at things before criticizing them. Dashvara approached him, curious.

“What are you looking for, if we may ask?”

“Nothing. I’m taking an inventory and making assessments,” the inspector explained, absorbed in his notebook.

He stopped in front of the large table that they used for cooking as well as playing cards and katutas. Dashvara followed him. Over his shoulder, he could read in Sagipsian script: «Moldy pallets. Old and cracked bowls. Not enough chairs for the number of occupants»… And why on earth would they need a chair each? These inspectors… Dashvara shook his head, uneasy.

“And what do you do next with these appreciations?” he inquired.

For a moment, the inspector suspended his gestures to look at him. He pouted and continued to write as he replied:

“I give them to a secretary of the Titiaka Council.”

“Oh.” Dashvara scratched his head. “That explains the delay.”

“The delay?”

“Yes. It has been three years since we asked the Council of Titiaka to free us from our condition of slaves and we still have not received the answer.” Dashvara smiled, mockingly. “But it will come eventually.”

The inspector had started to look at him with a strange expression on his face. Dashvara glanced at the notebook again. This time it said: «Insufficient cleaning: skinny men with lice, wet and muddy clothes». Dashvara pouted with disdain. This inspector was going to prove to be more meticulous and dangerous than the other one. He looked up again at the fat man and said caustically:

“Try staying in this hole for three years and then come tell me stories about lice and mud, huh?”

The federate squinted.

“I’m writing this for the Council to see, soldier.”

Dashvara shook his head, not understanding.

“To make them realize what? That we don’t live in a palace? I think that everyone knows that already, federate.”

“Inspector,” he corrected him in a harsh tone. This time he sounded really angry.

Dashvara shrugged and repeated formally:

“Inspector. By the way,” he said, crossing his arms, “a fly landed on your head. You should add it to your inventory, unless you want me to get rid of it first.”

The inspector glared at him.

“That’s enough. Your threats are bordering on the acceptable, soldier.”

Dashvara uncrossed his arms and took a step back, nodding.

“Then I’ll keep my mouth shut. Let me just give you a warning: at Sympathy, they’ll skin you alive. They’re not whiners like the ones at Dignity. And they certainly aren’t like us. I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes…” he looked him in the eye before adding, “Inspector.”

He walked away. At least the tender inspector was warned. Those in the Tower of Sympathy were going to pounce on him like hungry wolves. Metaphorically, of course: you could pressure an inspector if he let you, but you couldn’t physically abuse him. The Tower of Humility, located even further north than Sympathy, had already been subjected to harsh retaliation because of a bunch of Doomed who lost their temper with an ‘overly fussy’ inspector. It is true that this was the version of the Doomed. Dashvara would never hear the other side of the story, since the inspectors, for professional reasons, did not answer questions.

He put on his boots, went out again, and after a careful look to the north, east, and south, he decided to go and help Zamoy and Arvara hang the laundry. If only the sun could last a little longer…

Zamoy was bustling around like a dianka dancer, hanging all the laundry on the ropes. Arvara was moving more heavily; he seemed convinced that in a few minutes they would have to pick up all the laundry at full speed before the rain soaked it again.

“Oh, no!” Zamoy exclaimed as clouds obscured the sun again.

“Ah. Look. The wind is picking up,” Arvara remarked as if to say ‘I told you so, boy’.

“Let him get up,” growled Zamoy. “Let him get up and go.”

Dashvara turned his eyes to the south. Those clouds… don’t look good, he sighed. Zamoy waved a threatening fist at the sky.

“This time, you will not come closer, clouds!” he proclaimed. Since his brother Miflin became a poet, he had discovered a prophetic streak.

“No,” Arvara affirmed. “They won’t come any closer. In fact, they are forming over us. Right on top of the laundry. What do you bet?”

“His hair, of course,” Dashvara observed.

Zamoy the Baldy put on an annoyed face, and as the sky began to grow darker, he groaned.

“It’s not fair!”

Dashvara smiled and they began to refill the basket as fast as they could. A few minutes later, they saw the inspector appear at the corner of the platform that surrounded the shack. They saw him walking heavily, as if testing the steadiness of the floor. Dashvara shook his head.

“We built the platform,” he said, raising his voice. “It’s not going to break. Unless you keep kicking it,” he grumbled, irritated, as he saw that the inspector had just driven a rotten board.

“I got a drop,” Arvara suddenly said.

“Hurry up!” Zamoy said, throwing the last of the pants into the basket. Between the three of them, they lifted the basket and walked quickly into the barracks. No sooner had they closed the door than it began to rain in earnest. The drops crashed on the roof as if fists were trying to break it.

“Ephemeral as a soap bubble,” sighed Miflin. He didn’t look so “enlightened” anymore, Dashvara scoffed inwardly.

The inspector, looking glum, applied himself to asking them questions. One could see that he was not very worried about the fate of his white horse, which was soaking in the rain.

“What is your daily diet?” he asked, sitting at the table with his notebook and pencil.

Lumon had never been very talkative, especially with strangers, and the inspector, having mistaken him for the ‘leader’ of the little group, was greatly disappointed to receive terse, if cordial, answers. Lumon was always affable and never lost his nerve. In this he was a bit like Boron the Placid; well, Boron the Placid spoke even less.

“What do you do when one of you gets sick?” the inspector continued to question.

Dashvara lay on his pallet and played solitaire with his sailor cards. They were a mess, faded and damaged, but they were still usable.

“We call Tsu,” Lumon replied, looking deathly bored. “He’s our doctor.”

The drow, sitting on his own pallet, had begun to mend his shirt. Dashvara had always admired his skill with the needle.

“Ahmhm…” the inspector mumbled, scribbling in his notebook. “And…?”

And we didn’t know what he was going to ask next because, at that moment, the door suddenly opened. From the crash of the rain came four figures dripping with water and exhausted. It was Sashava’s patrol. Immediately, everyone in the barracks left their occupations to help them get rid of their soaked clothes. It was not cold, rather the opposite, it was summer, but the rainwater was usually icy. This was due to a matter of darsic energies, according to Tsu.

“Are you the leader of Compassion?” the inspector asked. Dashvara was trying to twist one of the capes over a large basin they had at the entrance. He turned his head to see who he was asking. The inspector was looking at Sedrios the Old. His white hair must have induced him to address him.

Sedrios smiled. But he did not answer. He liked to pretend he was dumb in front of the federates. The thump of a stick sounded against the wood and Sashava cleared his throat, dragging his useless leg to stand by the table. Despite his mangled leg, he still wanted to work with the others, and everyone respected him for it. His patrol was going slower, of course, but demons, why run?

“The captain is in the other patrol,” he snarled at last, as he detailed the visitor with wary eyes. He looked tired, but Dashvara knew that Sashava would never admit to any weakness in front of a federate. He stood straight and dignified. “Lumon, who is this man?” he asked.

Lumon gestured to the inspector, inviting him to introduce himself. As they spoke, Dashvara noticed that Maltagwa the Gardener was casting concerned glances toward the shack’s only window, which overlooked the vegetable garden.

“They will drown, they will rot…” he murmured softly.

He was talking about the sarees he had planted a few days ago. Dashvara saw Boron give him a soothing pat on the shoulder.

“It’s not me you should be comforting, but these plants, my son,” Maltagwa sighed.

Although he didn’t look it from his rather thin appearance, Maltagwa was the father of the Placid. To him, vegetables were like his children. The same as flowers to Zaadma. Beautiful, dark, mocking eyes suddenly assaulted Dashvara’s mind. He caught himself smiling like an idiot and shook his head, but since the conversation between Sashava and the inspector was not very exciting, his thoughts turned back to her. To Zaadma. He had met the Dazbonian in a Shalussi village, slept at her place for a week, and was saved by her gifts as a healer, and then by her lantern as a thief. From the beginning, he had felt attracted to her, hadn’t he? He didn’t remember much about it, but what he did know was that for the past three years he had fantasized as a young boy, wishing he could see her again. In his imagination, she had turned into a kind of goddess. Sometimes her eyes would turn golden, like those of that Supreme of the Brotherhood of the Pearl. When this happened, he tried to think of something else, orcs, rain, mud. Anything else. The Supreme, Sheroda, sometimes invaded his nights like a beneficent harpy capable of tearing the soul to pieces to extract its weaknesses. On the other hand, Zaadma simply smiled, she caressed the flowers gently, loving even their flaws, and her black eyes, her smiling eyes, sparkled with love all over the place.

But yes, Dash, you are in love with a goddess, and all your Xalya brothers know it only too well. Three years of thinking about the same eyes over and over again. Three years of remembering them and forgetting them and remembering them again. And without seeing them, mind you, that’s the most amazing thing. So keep dreaming.

Dashvara breathed in, and letting the clothes finish dripping on the ropes, he sat down next to Tsu. The drow’s red eyes wandered over the Xalyas’ faces. When his gaze fell on Dashvara’s, he looked at him as if he could read his thoughts.

Finally, the downpour subsided and the inspector stood up.

“Inspector, don’t forget the horse,” Miflin said, sitting between his two brothers.

“I will inform the administration of Rayorah,” the inspector promised. “And in two weeks, when I return, I hope to meet your boss. In theory, he shouldn’t leave the tower.”

“In theory, as long as the monsters don’t get through, we can do as we please,” Sashava retorted. His conversation with the inspector had put him in a dark mood.

The inspector must have thought that the reply did not merit a response because he walked away and opened the door in silence. A ray of sunlight illuminated his face. He turned and looked at each of them, one by one, as if he was trying to preserve a frozen image of that moment for some mysterious reason. Though it seemed strange, Dashvara thought he saw compassion in his eyes. And how could he not feel compassion in the Tower of Compassion? he thought wryly. Then the federate nodded slightly and said in a firm voice:

“Long live the Federation!”

Only the cawing of a crow answered him outside. So did thirteen pairs of dark eyes. Dashvara could not believe his ears. Long live what? To our oppressor? he wanted to reply. But silence can be even sharper than words, so he kept his mouth shut.

Perhaps realizing that he had just blurted out the greatest enormity of his life, the inspector turned pale. He looked away and was about to leave when Sashava broke the sepulchral silence:

“Wish us long life, federate. I think we need it more.”

The inspector did not answer. A few seconds later, the horse’s hooves were heard wading through the mud and heading west. Crunching his cane on the ground, Sashava finally sat down at the table. He grunted:

“Well, since he doesn’t say it, I will say it: long live the Xalyas!”

Dashvara and his companions smiled and shook their heads. While Sashava, Boron, Maltagwa, and Sedrios ate and then lay down exhausted on their straw mattresses, Dashvara rose to collect the basket of laundry. He added the soaked uniforms of Sashava’s patrol, and with the help of Arvara the Giant and Zamoy, went back out to spread it out. This time the sun would stay longer. It had to. Outside, the rays of light once again illuminated the meadow and even tried to seep through the swamp mist. The leaves of the trees twinkled like golden stars. Dashvara felt his heart vibrate inside him. The vision was damnably beautiful.

“Who would say that so many scumbags live in there,” he muttered.

“Daaash…” Zamoy shouted at him, dragging the huge basket. “Did you come to help or to philosophize?”

“I wasn’t philosophizing,” Dashvara defended himself, while helping him lift the load.

“Yes, well, stop trying to be cute, because my brother is a thousand times better at this stuff than you are, cousin. Come on, patrolmen, let’s hang out the laundry!” he teased.

A buzzing sound passed by Dashvara at high speed. As he walked toward the clotheslines, the Xalya hissed through his teeth, eyes squinting.

“Long live the flies.”