Chapter 4. An Introduction to Politics.
"The Daius Seed?" Xellos repeated. He shook his head and to Filia's intense irritation clucked his tongue at her in a disapproving fashion. "You're getting it all wrong again."
"What are you talking about?" Filia responded in a barely contained voice. She had been putting forth her best calm, professional tone; she'd gotten to the point they needed to discuss so they could actually get something productive done instead of bickering; and she'd resisted the urge to punch his stupid face in. That last one had been the hardest. She was trying. And now he had the nerve to tell her she was doing it wrong?!
"Negotiations are for later," Xellos explained. "This is just the reception – face time. You have to make a good impression before you can expect anyone to want to make a deal with you. If you really wanted to do your job well you'd be out there," he gestured vaguely at the assembled ambassadors, "mingling."
Filia turned her gaze apprehensively to the residents of the bustling hall. There was a lot of… handshaking and smiling going on. This in itself isn't that hostile, but in Filia's current state of mind it just made her feel as though she'd stumbled into a secret club that she didn't belong to.
Xellos was surveying her expression through one lazily opened eye. "But you can't do that, can you?" he observed. "You don't know anyone here and you don't have the wherewithal to insinuate yourself into the group."
Filia bit her lip. Cleon had left this to her because he thought she could handle it. She was letting down the team at the very first hurdle.
Xellos's face suddenly brightened considerably which did not make Filia feel better in the least. "I can just imagine you going up to the King of Distle and saying: 'Hi! I'm Filia! Who are you?'"
He laughed but Filia just glowered and muttered: "I don't sound like that."
Filia felt sunk. For a moment she'd held out hope that she could find Amelia and ask for her help, but Amelia probably had her own troubles to worry about and, anyway, seemed to be in deep conversation with the young Countess that she'd gone off to chat with.
Horrible creature though he was, sticking with Xellos was, at this point, preferable to talking to anyone else. At least he expected her to make a fool of herself. He'd probably be disappointed if she didn't.
He frowned at her look of helpless resignation. "Oh, I'm sure it's not as hard as you're making it out to be," he said. Then the mocking tones seemed to creep back into his voice once more as he said: "After all, you are the Premier of whatever it was, aren't you?"
"Foreign Affairs and Trade," Filia said glumly. "Whatever that means." No one had given her a job description or even told her she was getting the title.
"I think it means you sleep with people from other countries," Xellos replied.
There was a crowded, dangerous silence.
"Clever," Filia responded in tones as harsh and inhospitable as the highest peak of the Mountain of Tears.
Xellos really should have had to brush snow off his shoulders after this last word from Filia, but he let it pass as though the temperature of the room hadn't just entered the sub-zero zone.
"In any case," he went on, "you ought to be able to manage the reception at least. The meet-and-greet is supposed to be the easy part. It's just a matter of making the right contacts." He leaned casually against the buffet table.
"Now," he said thoughtfully to himself as he scanned the crowd. "Who were you sent here to manipulate besides me?"
Filia did not know at all how to respond to that and was therefore lucky that she did not try to open her mouth as she would've said something like: "Wrxtzl?!" which isn't a word. Obviously there was anger there. How dare that monster of all things accuse her of trying to manipulate people? Manipulating people is not only in the monster job description, but it's how they spend their spare time. Whereas she favored the honest, non-sneaky approach to communication. He was the one that was probably there to manipulate people.
And what made him think she'd even try to manipulate him? What, did he think all the insults and vague threats of violence were just her way of getting on his good side? If that was true then Xellos really needed to take more devious bastard lessons because that was not generally the way Filia thought of going about getting people to do what you want.
She came to the conclusion that he was just trying to seed some confused guilt in her already nervous soul, and she decided she wasn't going to have any of that.
"I'm not here to manipulate anyone," she said through gritted teeth. "I'm just here to represent my race."
"Oh, my apologies," Xellos said with an overdone shrug. "I'm afraid I assumed that your new Supreme Elder was thinking of taking advantage of our past dealings with one another in sending you. You know," he paused to ratchet up his smile, "what with you and I being such good, old friends and all."
"The monster race is sending… Xellos."
"That's actually the main reason we're sending you."
Filia surprised herself with her own poise. The recollections of those words passed across her mind but she didn't betray them. "You don't have any friends," Filia sniffed, rallying magnificently. "You have 'acquaintances'."
Xellos beamed at her as though she was an exceptionally stupid dog who'd done a rather clever trick. "Very good, Filia," he said.
Filia gave him a sour look and glanced edgily at the crowd. She wasn't in the mood at the moment for any of his backhanded compliments. In fact, she was never in the mood for his backhanded compliments. She searched the crowd for any likely friendly face that might be willing to chat with someone that they didn't know who knew nothing about them. Basically, she was doing the social equivalent of looking among the herd for the lost lamb, young elk, or wounded gazelle; but she'd have never put it in such bloodthirsty terms.
Xellos noted her gaze and said thoughtfully: "Actually, you might have more trouble breaking into the group this year than in years past."
"Why?" Filia asked, tearing her eyes away from the assembled ambassadors to look at him.
"Oh, they might be just a little wary of talking to strangers," Xellos said vaguely. "I don't know if you heard, but there's supposed to be a monster somewhere around here," he added in gleeful nonchalance.
Filia glared at him. That little… Of course he wasn't going to just out and tell people he was a monster. Understanding that someone is, as a matter of basic being, predisposed to seek not only your suffering but your destruction makes working with them seem less than beneficial. No. He'd just sneak around and pull the strings in secret.
"They'll see through you," she announced, steely-eyed.
"Really?" Xellos asked as though this was an amusing idea that had no hitherto occurred to him.
She wanted to say 'yes' but the word stuck in her throat. A sharp, acidic feeling in the pit of her stomach told her that she didn't believe it. No one would see through him. He'd probably been fooling people for centuries… not exactly by lying to people, but by telling the truth in the most deceptive way possible; by volunteering information and not volunteering information; by trimming off the extra edges of the truth and giving only what he wanted you to know.
My God, she found herself thinking uneasily, what would I think of him if I didn't know any better?
She tried to tell herself that even without being able to sense his malevolent aura that she'd be able to pick up on the subtle clues. But yet… she'd seen it hadn't she? He could be downright nice and friendly though not, of course, to her. He only didn't bother much with her because the affable routine cut absolutely no ice as far as she was concerned. She knew what he was. But if she didn't… would he be able to fool her?
It didn't help, she thought to herself, that Xellos didn't really look like what most people, particularly humans, would imagine a monster to look. He was a little bit short on horns and fangs and the other accouterments ascribed to his ilk.
He looked… normal. No. Strike that. He seemed normal. There was a difference. He blends into crowds when he wants to and can go completely unnoticed until he speaks. He can disappear and not just in the literal astral teleportation way. By all accounts he should be bland and unmemorable. But when you actually paid attention to him you realized that he wasn't either of those things. You wondered how he could manage to have escaped your notice before. He decided when he wanted to be the center of attention and when he wanted to lurk in the periphery. There was some trick to it, she was sure. But he certainly didn't look normal. He was downright unique.
Xellos usually smiled, but his current smile seemed to gain a patina of smugness that hadn't been there before. With an unpleasant jolt she realized that she'd been staring at him throughout her entire inner monologue. She snapped her attention back to the crowd and tried to pretend that none of that had happened.
She could hear Xellos straightening up from his reclined position against the buffet table and step closer to her. She focused on an old man hanging furtively around the cheese tray, holding his hat and looking around. She didn't turn around or look sideways when she felt him step forward and stand next to her. She could feel his eyes on her.
And then, suddenly, the pressure of his eyes on her vanished. He was looking out into the crowd and following her gaze.
"That," he said, nodding to the man by the tray, "is Senator Malar from the Republic of Chelonia."
Filia let out a breath she hadn't realized that she'd been holding. "Is he looking for someone?" she asked, more or less to have something to say.
"You could say that," Xellos said. "He's probably looking for Prince Helix of Rayfare, but only so he can avoid him."
"Why?" Filia asked. She didn't know why Xellos was telling her this. Perhaps he was feeding her false information. Perhaps he just wanted to lord his more extensive knowledge over her. Perhaps he was bored. Going along with it wouldn't do any harm, and anyway, she was glad to be on a neutral subject.
"Chelonia and Rayfare have been embroiled in a rather heated argument for quite some time," Xellos explained. "There's been… disagreement about a war fought between them."
"What kind of disagreement?" Filia asked.
"Apparently it's over what to call the war," Xellos said almost laughingly.
"What?" As far as Filia was concerned, what to call a war was hardly of paramount importance in the greater scheme of… well, warfare.
"Yes," Xellos said. "The Chelonian's refer to it as the War of Balsail because most of the major battles occurred in and around that particular state."
Filia couldn't really see what was controversial about that. "And what do the Rayfarians call it?"
"The War of Chelonian Belligerence," Xellos said bluntly.
"Oh," Filia said. She was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that she'd been tossed in with a crowd of kids. To check she asked: "How long ago was this war?"
"126 years," Xellos said.
"Ah."
Xellos gave her a sidelong glance and nodded his head in the opposite corner of the room. "That's Commander Banner of the East Trift fighting force," he said as Filia turned to look at the man he referred to.
"The one in the wheelchair?" Filia asked out of surprise. The man Xellos seemed to referring to was in uniform, but he looked old, unkempt and slightly lost. He sat immobiley in a wooden wheelchair with a blanket on his lap, smiling vaguely at nothing. An extremely tall woman in surgical white pushed his chair slowly along with an expression of austere efficiency.
"That's the one," Xellos said. "There are whispers that he's only faking senility in order to put the Herland delegation off their game. The woman is supposedly a skilled assassin from the tribes of the Mohahn island."
Filia stared. "You mean the nurse?"
"Good with needles as I understand," Xellos commented with a knowing expression.
He turned his head once again and Filia whipped her head around to follow his gaze. "Now here's a rare sight," Xellos commented. "The werewolf delegation."
Ahead of them were three tall and exceptionally hairy creatures in serious looking armor. The lead one was female and therefore wore slightly more figure flattering armor.
"This is the first year that the beast tribes have been allowed representation," Xellos went on. "You may think you've got it bad, but just be glad you're not them."
Filia sighed remembering the horrible treatment Jillas and Gravos had suffered at the hands of humans simply for being what they were. "They hate them because they're beastmen?"
"Partly," Xellos said. "But the werewolves have a particularly bad reputation all on their own. And," he added with a twisted little smile, "they're reputed to be demon worshippers."
"Are they?" Filia said figuring that Xellos was the one to ask about this.
Xellos shrugged. "Some are."
"Does," Filia struggled to put her frustrated thoughts into words, "does everyone here hate someone else here?"
Xellos grinned broadly. "Now you're catching on. In a manner of speaking: you're among friends."
Filia groaned. Politics, she thought. I had to get involved in politics. It's like dealing with third graders with siege weapons. Cleon had acted like this was going to be a cooperative effort probably ending in them joining hands and singing. But she couldn't help getting the feeling just by talking to Xellos and looking at these people that she'd be walking on eggshells the whole time.
Not eggshells… daggers.
A horrible sight woke her from her doomsaying thoughts. She shrunk a step back in utter disgust before saying in a very loud whisper: "What is that?"
"That would be the esteemed representative from the Duchy of Finnale," Xellos said in a maddeningly chipper voice.
"But—But—," Filia protested as her eyes followed the man in fascinated horror. "There are things crawling on his clothes!"
"Probably lice," Xellos said as though this information helped.
"But he's a diplomat?!" Filia half-shrieked as the esteemed representative from the Duchy of Finnale stuffed eight or nine sandwiches into the pockets of his filthy, oversized coat. "He looks… homeless!"
"Not during the summit he isn't," Xellos said. "The smaller countries tend to do this. It costs a lot less to send a commoner to a big conference like this than it is to send nobility. They don't need an entourage or regalia."
Hobo diplomacy. Now she'd heard everything. "And people are okay with this?" she asked, still unable to reconcile the man she'd seen with the setting they were in.
"Well," Xellos admitted. "Some leaders do insist that all diplomats at least wash before they'll grant them audience, but overall it's worked out fairly well. Some of those hobos are actually fairly shrewd."
If Xellos's only plan in telling her this was to make her feel even more out of her depth than before then… well, mission accomplished! Now that she was inside the international community it seemed even more insane than it had from the outside. It was all… infighting and prejudice and petty arguments and… and… lice! It clearly followed some kind of mad methodology but she worried that she'd have a hell of a time figuring out exactly what that was.
"Now there's someone important," Xellos said crossing his arms and staring toward the open bar where a black haired man in his mid-forties stood drinking with a determined expression on his face. He wore sandals and a long red cloak. He carried no sword, but an empty hilt was strapped to his waist. "You've at least heard of the Renz Empire, haven't you? Well, that's Duke Arkon Myant, a very powerful man within the ranks – army background. His ambitions to rule Renz are well known."
Filia's gaze had shifted almost magnetically to the figure to Duke Arkon's left. Her skin was tan and glowed with health; her long brown hair was elaborately braid; she wore a figure-hugging linen dress; gold bracelets jangled at her wrists and large rings decorated her fingers. Her eyes were heavily made up and a piercing shade of green that could be seen even across the room. She had to be the most beautiful woman Filia had ever seen. "Who's that with him?"
"Ah," Xellos said, turning his attention to the woman. "You've spotted the infamous Lopa, the first and only Queen of the river country Arcet. She and the Duke are," he paused as though searching for the right word, "involved."
"Romantically?" Filia said, looking at the Queen and the Duke carefully. They seemed to be talking quite fondly with each other but… there was a carefully kept distance between them that she couldn't quite reconcile.
"Yes," Xellos confirmed. "In fact, you could say that they're rather famous for their love affair."
Across the room, Queen Lopa smiled at Arkon. Her smile flashed as quickly as a snake's fangs and then it was gone.
"I wouldn't romanticize it too much, though," Xellos said, following Filia's gaze. "Their relationship is more of a political one than anything. As I said before, Arkon Myant wants to rule Renz. He's using the river kingdom as an outside base independent of his own lands, and of course utilizing the rich resources of the land and Lopa's considerable wealth. Lopa's people are on the edge of rebellion and she needs strong allies wherever she can find them. Arkon is in line for the throne and if he does become king then as his partner she can absorb the mighty Renz as part of her domain."
"On the surface, it is the fiery affair between two nations that has captured the imaginations of poets from both their lands, but if you look beyond that you realize that they're just using each other," Xellos summed up. "Alas, in politics love doesn't really factor into the equation!" he concluded brightly.
Filia was starting to feel angry again. It was just that hearing a monster of all things talk so smugly about love, a subject that he knew nothing nothing about was just too much. "How do you know?" she demanded. "You don't know them!"
She threw up her hands. "So what if they do have a political alliance? That doesn't mean anything! Maybe they have strategic reasons for being together and love each other. It's not like her having wealth and him being in line for the throne somehow makes that impossible. Just because their relationship has political benefits doesn't mean that they don't love each other. There's no reason why both can't be true."
Filia thought he was going to argue, and frankly she was up for it. Let him call her starry-eyed and naïve all he wanted: he couldn't prove her wrong! But he just gave her a thoughtful look, shifted his gaze back to the Queen and the Duke, and then back to her again.
All he said was: "Perhaps."