The morning was truly magnificent - the crimson sun was pleasantly warm without burning, the dewdrops glittered on the leaves of the trees, the birds cheerfully twittered, welcoming the new day. The tionses, that resembled the grasshoppers of Earth, were chirping in the grass; Ri-Bo tried to catch some of them, but they were too nimble, jumping up at the last moment and flying to a new spot.
Tim wouldn't mind entertaining himself with a game of feyo, but alas - no one who likes the game comes here this early. In an hour or two, they'll be here.
Naar-Tam, on the other hand, just stood there, gazing blissfully at the sun. He could bask in its rays for as long as he wanted. And even though it did not burn as hot as the earth, it was possible to get a full tan and even get a sunburn from its rays. Tim has already had an opportunity to make sure of it - he looked as if he had just returned from a trip to the South, the skin on the exposed parts of his body was not much lighter than that of the orcs. He wasn't the only one, though - many of his classmates also could boast bronze or brown tans. But not all of them - the peirots, even when exposed to the sun all day, remained pale orange; the yusmes' skin also didn't change its blue color. The gaarshes could not, in principle, tan, only the pattern of their tattoos changed slightly. But most surprising was the reaction of the drowes skin - it peeled and flaked off in wisps, but it remained milky white. Due to it the light elves were mocking their dark brethren - you're not elves, you're mutants, and that's why you don't tan.
Thinking of the drowes, Tim felt a slight prick of unease - it was time for Mez'A'Shib to return.
"Probably he chatted with someone on the way," Naar-Tam nonchalantly brushed his doubts aside.
"And I caught a tions!" Ri-Bo boasted, running up to them and showing off his clenched fist with the frightened insect chirping desperately.
"What are you going to do with it now?"
As it turned out, the tilfing didn't think about that, he just wanted to catch it.
"May be I'll put it in a jar..."
"Where are you going to get one? Besides, it wouldn't feel good in there, no room to fly."
"What do we do then?"
"Just let it go! It'll thank you then!"
After a moment's hesitation, Ri-Bo unclenched his fist. The tions immediately took advantage of it, leaping into the air and spreading his wings to get as far away as possible from the terrible two-legged giants who could easily crush it with a little more pressure in a fist.
The friends accompanied it with glances.
"I envy tionses," Ri-Bo sighed.
"Why?"
"If I had such powerful limbs I could climb to the top of a tree in one fell swoop."
"Magic to your aid!"
"But I don't even know the proper spell!"
"If only I had a flying carpet like Khalid-amga's..."
"No way, yusmes already found out it. The carpet can only float above a hard surface, the maximum height of its elevation - at our eye level."
"It's a pity," the tilfing said sadly. "And I was beginning to think..."
It wasn't difficult to guess what he was thinking, but at that moment Naar-Tam also realized that Mez'A'Shib had been gone far too long.
"We must meet him halfway," the peirot said excitedly. "Mez wouldn't keep us waiting that long. Then something's happened!"
But as they approached the entrance to the school, a disheveled Namitil came up from there.
"You'd better not go in there yet!"
"Why not?"
"I don't know, but something very serious has happened! There are a lot of ghosts in the ground tier hall, and the anzimars are with them for some reason. I wanted to ask what happened, but Hindag shoved me in the back, saying: "Go where you are going, it's none of your business". I wanted to answer this, but Kunfor came up with suggestion to accuse me of attacking the volunteer public order squad members and send me straight to the punishment cell. I decided not to risk it and got out of there."
"That's why Mez couldn't come back!" Naar-Tam figured it out. "The way back was cut off. Now he must be waiting upstairs until things have calmed down."
"Most likely," Tim agreed. "Though my inner voice tells me he had something to do with it."
"Come on! Mez started a fight? I'll never believe it!"
"He might have been forced to. In some situations, you have to make a choice: fight or be humiliated. As one of the great politicians of the past said, a country that between war and disgrace chooses disgrace, will end up with both."
"That's beautifully put!" Namitil admired. "But who among us is capable of dealing with even one of the ghosts?"
"It may be only a matter of time."
Ri-Bo tugged at Tim's sleeve in warning.
"We'd better stay here a little longer, right? And out of sight of the school."
"What are we risking?" Tim objected firmly. "It's daytime, we can go anywhere we want. Let's go see what's happened."
Naar-Tam was enthusiastic, but Ri-Bo hesitated.
"Let me wait here for you. Maybe I'll see something interesting or find out something!"
"Anzimars won't hurt you with us," the peirot tried to reason with him, but the tilfing was not convinced. Tim and Naar-Tam had to go without him.
In the hall of the ground tier there were indeed a lot of ghosts, and four ansimars, too - Kunfor and Hindag were joined by Drega and Virda. Only Germeht was nowhere to be seen.
Tim and Naar-Tam intended to silently skip past them, but there was no way.
"Where is your little horned friend?" Hindag asked mockingly.
"What do you need him for?" Tim snapped back.
"Well, it's a long time since we've been involved in his upbringing. It's time to teach him a lesson in manners."
"I think there's someone else here who needs a lesson in manners," Tim said, trying to keep his voice as indifferent as possible.
"Who?"
"Look in the mirror, and you will see."
Kunfor laughed, and Hindag turned pale with anger. But in the presence of disembodied witnesses he did not move to active actions, limiting to a threat:
"Wait till we meet again, and then you will long regret it!"
"We'll see," Tim grinned dismissively, indicating that he wasn't in the least bit afraid of such threats. "Come on, Naar, we're expected upstairs."
They heard some heated conversation as they approached the first tier, a disagreement between the anzimars.
"We must not do this!" Virda protested hotly to her countrymen. "It goes against the ideals of the Great Service!"
"Relax, what ideals are there?" Germeht, who had appeared from somewhere, chuckled mockingly. "The doctrine of Inhis was outdated three thousand years ago, who follows it nowadays? Only idiots!"
"Don't say that!"
"I want and I do! What's going to happen to me? Will Inhis strike me down with a stroke of lightning? Well, if he sees and hears everything, as the supposedly sacred books said, let him burn me on the spot!"
Naturally, nothing happened, which gave Germeht the reason to smile victoriously.
"Inhis can punish in other ways, too," Virda shook her head stubbornly. "Don't count on me, I don't want to be in the squad."
"All right, we'll do without you. You'll regret it!"
Not really knowing what was meant by Great Service, Tim nevertheless grasped the point: not all anzimars are the same. Naar-Tam, as it turned out, was not listening to the conversation between them as he continued to boil with indignation.
"I could hardly keep from setting Hindag's hair on fire!"
"Then you would have earned fifty hours of community service. And minus ten points at the same time. Do you think it was easy for me? I was tempted to hit him hard. The only thing that stopped me - that was what he wanted. I don't think he'd have dared attack me first."
"Why?"
"Then he'd be the one who started the fight. And he'd have been punished too."
"Are you sure?"
"Not a hundred percent, but somehow I don't think the ghosts will look the other way on his violation of the Code. Well, that's not the main thing now, we have to find Mez first!"
However, the drow was absent both in the first tier hall and in his own room. Moreover, none of his neighbors were there, either.
"Where had they all gone?" Naar-Tam wondered.
"I fear to assume the worst," Tim sighed. "They have been dragged away for interrogation."
"Why?"
"Because one of them might have found out something he shouldn't have. And when the anzimars came for him, they stood up for their comrade and of course Mez couldn't stay away!"
"Makes sense, but it's too unbelievable," Naar-Tam shook his head in doubt.
"Then let's go find out. We'll see if Hindag has the nerve to strike me in front of ghosts."
"It's risky, but I'm with you if you need me."
By the time they arrived, however, the anzimars were no longer in the ground tier hall. Most of the ghosts were gone, too, and the rest showed no interest in the friends. A disheveled Gook-Luk followed them down the stairs.
"They've gone already? Oh, what happiness! I was so frightened I ran away at once, and they took Miinash with them! And Patpako! Please find them, find out how they are!"
"What happened here, anyway?"
Gook-Luk babbled so fast that Tim could barely understand what was being said. The main thing was to understand why Mez'A'Shib hadn't returned and where his neighbors had gone.
"Then let's go help them out!" Naar-Tam offered her a firm offer.
"Can't I wait upstairs?"
"You're such a coward!"
"We can't all be heroes! I thought I was about to get caught for the company, so I ran away. It's too hard to prove then that you just happened to be there."
"It's all clear with you. Let's go, Tim!"
In the tunnel leading to the punishment cells, they were met by a ghost who warned them in an ominous whisper:
"It is strictly prohibited to try to free the occupants of the cells."
"We weren't going to. We were just going to check on them!" Tim said defiantly.
The ghost said nothing to this, and they simply walked past him toward their goal.
Yes, all six of them were there - some silently sad, some sluggishly talking to their neighbors. The appearance of Tim and Naar-Tam brightened the atmosphere.
"The new replenishment has arrived!" Shugiz cheered up. "There are two free cells, keep them occupied, please!"
"Thank you, we'd rather be outside," Tim grinned. "Tell us how it all began."
"It started with me being trapped by sorcery," Mez'A'Shib said. "And I refused to kiss Shin'Ye'Het's hand."
"Why kiss her hand?" the orc stared puzzled.
"In our lands it is a request for patronage and a promise to be a faithful servant," the drow said condescendingly.
Shugiz replied with a long tirade that boiled down to this: anyone who offered him his hand for a kiss risked breaking it in several places.
"We have that custom, too, but only when applied to the queen. And it's more a tribute to tradition, an expression of respect for royalty," Gillmir said in turn.
"Well, for the queen it might be allowed, but it's humiliating to kiss the hands of the rest!" the orc was furious. "Whoever suggests such a thing should be punched in the face! So, Mez, you did everything right! My only regret is that I didn't have time to break Germeht's nose. Well, next time I'll do it!"
"Aren't you afraid you'll be in here for a month?"
"You've got something to scare me with! Is it bad here? You can sleep or talk or even meditate. And it is a good reason for missing class! At home, when my dad tied me to a pole in the sun and left me without water, that was much worse."
"Cool! Why did he do that to you?"
"It was nothing, I just gave Chmurg a good beating. At first it was a couple of punches between the eyes, and then I kicked him in the ribs a little."
"Wow, you're really something! With no reason?"
"Why no reason? He called me a stupid pig! Now he'll know which one of us is a stupid pig!"
"But if he started it, why did they punish you?"
"My father said that an insult should not leave unpunished, and here I was right, but you oughtn't have to hit someone who is lying down, it's a zrazd. And, to make it memorable for the rest of my life, he kept me in the sun all day. But aren't you, elves, being punished?"
"Sometimes, but not so severely," Gillmir admitted.
Mez'A'Shib chose to remain silent. Taeron once asked him with a smirk, if it was true that the dark elves had girls beating up guys who were afraid to fight back. After that conversation, he tried not to bring up the subject so he wouldn't have to explain how things really were.
Shugiz, however, was quite satisfied with Gillmir's answer as he turned his attention to Tim and Naar-Tam.
"If anyone starts looking for me, tell him I'm here!"
"And if any of them, too," he added a second later.
"Well, I'm not likely to be missed," Mez'A'Shib grinned.
"But the elves might miss me," Gillmir said anxiously. "Tell them where to find me."
"Okay," the friends promised.
"Why isn't Ri-Bo with you?" Mez'A'Shib became alarmed.
"He got scared of anzimars and stayed in the courtyard."
"Tell Gook-Luk, please, I'm here too!" Patpako gave a start, as if he had just woken up from a dream, involuntarily causing smiles on the faces of those present.
"She knows about it."
"How did she know?"
"We were together, and then she ran away and the ghosts didn't pursue her," Miinash grudgingly explained.
"Pity your magical gift doesn't work on them," Ivliar sighed. "Though it turned out cool!"
"Oh yes, I can still hear it in my ears!" Shugiz said cheerfully. "Better not so loud next time!"
"I do as I can," Miinash answered. "I'm sorry, but I don't know yet how to direct the magic at anyone in particular, so it works on everyone in my field of vision."
"You'll get there, don't worry! And you, nerd, too!"
"I've never been locked up before," the yusme said in a grave voice.
"There's a first time for everything!" the orc laughed. "Or you'll come home and there'll be nothing left to tell except your study!"
"Why not: there's very unusual nature here, interesting personalities that I didn't even know existed before..."
"And some of those "interesting personalities" put you here!" Gillmir added with a chuckle.
"Which is very sad," Patpako agreed dejectedly.
"You could have stayed away and not called for help, then only I would have been hurt," Mez'A'Shib said in indifferent voice.
"I couldn't stay away."
"And rightly so!" Ivliar backed him up. "We can't go it alone against the anzimars, but together we can do it. And now, who knows how it would have ended if ghosts had not appeared on the battlefield."
"All at once, as if someone had summoned them," Patpako remarked thoughtfully, but was not heard at that moment.
"Well said!" the elf was delighted by the words of the lycos.
"And I'll call my buddies if anything!" Shugiz was enthusiastic. "We'll give the yellow-haired guys a good punch, let them know how to mess with us!"
Tim, though in his heart he was all for it, said nothing. Even if they will be able to defeat the anzimars, what will they do about the ghosts? Especially if the goblin and his bodyguard showed up?
Naar-Tam, on the other hand, was optimistic.
"That's right! Whoever is with his friends is invincible!"
Then, as if ashamed of his enthusiasm, he asked:
"How long did they put you in here for?"
"If we only knew! Judging by how angry the blue-eyes were, they'd have been happy to keep us here until graduation," Gillmir replied humorously.
"Just don't let us be forgotten here at all," Patpako worried. "I haven't eaten since yesterday."
"Neither have I," Ivliar added.
"I can go without food for a long time if I have to," Miinash noted.
As it turned out, gaarshes are able to fall into a near lethargic sleep state, where all body reactions are slowed hundredfold. And they can remain in that state for as long as necessary.
"You may be able to, but what about us?" Shugiz argued reasonably. "Oh, there seems to be a ghost coming here. I'm going to play a trick on it!"
And he shouted to the whole tunnel:
"Hey, transparent, how long are we going to sit here? We're hungry! When will the lunch be? And also, we have to pee! And all at once!"
No one could resist laughing, not even Patpako.
"Lunch will be served when the yellow eye lights up," the ghost said in a nasal voice as it flew closer. "You're only allowed to go to the toilet one at a time. And only when no one else is around."
"We get the hint, let's go," Tim grinned, taking Naar-Tam with him. "Don't worry, we'll warn everyone!"