The noble knight Enbri's "feats" had long become the buzz of the town. They resembled one another as cuckoo eggs do, and the "blessed" citizens benefited from them about as much as the mother birds whose nests were ruined.

The scene played out as follows: Enbri would show up in some small, deeply provincial state that had not yet heard rumors of his deeds, and start destroying what others had built... Excuse me, I mean, he would begin combating the laws and traditions which he saw as the reason for all of the local inhabitants' hardships, and then offer fresh new alternatives in exchange.

Like a proper cuckoo bird, Enbri kept to the shadows for a time, putting his reformist ideas in the mouths of influential friends that he seemed to acquire with mind-blowing ease. Enbri was an excellent orator, the kind who could convince a Harnian to buy a waterbed. His selflessness was irresistible, his enthusiasm infectious, his speeches were refreshingly sensible, and his projects seemed planned down to the minutest details, such that the half-elf's high-ranking victims were counting their lucky stars to have chanced upon such an invaluable assistant.

The poor things! Too late came the inevitable realization that his ideas, just as he himself, were slightly rotten. The consequences of his projects grew increasingly more deplorable every time. Enbri was sincerely distraught by them, but this did not save him from his comrades' wrath once they faced the repercussions of the reforms the sleazy salesman had pawned off on them. They ran the half-elf out of town...

Yet our conscience-less, honor-less knight always returned. This time he'd undertaken to defame the authorities, accusing former colleagues of treachery, of cynically abusing his brilliant ideas and distorting their true meaning, which led to such dire consequences. His followers increased in number by the day... Suddenly the hapless state was on the brink of civil war.

Thank the Infinite, Enbri's followers never once managed to win a battle. The war would end as rapidly as it began: either the authorities managed to explain to their subjects that the half-elf's ideas, which seemed so appealing to them, were in fact leading the country to ruin, or they simply eliminated all the rebels. Then they set about catching Enbri: in the first case, all together as a group, in the second, only the government troops.

Enbri was astonishingly lucky. He would either elude his pursuers or miraculously escape from prison. Wounded and broken-hearted, the half-elf crawled to the next friend who had not yet had the chance to be let down by him. There the "valiant" knight licked his wounds, regaling his enthusiastic audience with stories of injustice, cruelty and betrayal.

Once, one of Enbri's friends, deeply touched by his tales, gathered an army and moved troops to the estate of the ruler who had offended him. Upon reaching the place, seething with righteous anger and determination to avenge the noble associate of their master, the soldiers heard the true account of what happened in the conflict. His naiveté exposed, their commander was beside himself. After apologizing to the would-be enemy, he turned his army back, intending to teach Enbri the last lesson of his life. Alas, the slippery half-elf nosed out the news and escaped retribution yet again...

Enbri's latest victim, Czar Anshog, came closer than any before him to ridding the Infinite of said pointy-eared individual, but the sweet cup of triumph eluded him as well. The half-elf slipped out from virtually the executioner's raised axe and reached Tialianna's temple.

"And just why, pray tell, did the Tanae allow him to enter? Slippery bastards!" Nela was livid. "If I got my paws on that k'tshanss, I would use both my claws and teeth to keep him still!"

"I think the priests simply didn't want to lose one of their favorite visual aids," Nomarr murmured, perching his luxurious chops with some difficult on the crown of a snake-headed caryatid. "Is it harmful to refuse to follow one's Path? Listen to Enbri's story and answer the question yourself!"

"What does one's Path have to do with it?" Nela glanced over her shoulder. She too was panting; putting her silvery paw on the convex eye of the caryatid, she lay down to catch her breath.

"What do you mean?!" Nomarr snapped his jaws. "Enbri is an excellent example of a willing off-Pather happily wiping his sleek elven rear end with his own brilliant political future. Enbri has the gift of agitating. Sometimes unusual thoughts wander into his head, but he's a flighty, inconsistent, undisciplined bonehead. He doesn't entertain self-criticism or criticism of anything that's concocted between his pointed ears. Here the Infinite in his wisdom matched him up with the ideal partner – one who could make up for all these shortcomings. With the Tanae priests, he goes by the codename 'Irbne.' Original, right?"

"Very," Nela scrunched up her face.

"Complementing one another, the two would be able to achieve much." Nomarr tried rubbing his side on his companion, but she pulled away with a hiss. "Alas, working in tandem did not work out," the cat sighed. "Enbri's ideas were just outside the box, but his friend's ideas were both unconventional and feasible. Irbne easily reduced Enbri's plans to ashes."

"Was our half-elf treated badly?" Nela cooed.

"I wouldn't say that. Irbne held their relationship very dear and, according to the priests, sincerely tried to find a rational grain in Enbri's body, hoping to grow that grain into something digestible. But you understand what a tall order that was. Instead of expanding his horizons and fighting his utter amateurism, Enbri swelled with rage. He was sure that if they tried to carry out any of his plans, everything would have fallen perfectly into place. As if by magic."

"So, Enbri is an ideaot?"

"I don't think so," Nomarr shook his shaggy ears. "An ideaot is fanatically devoted to one lofty idea, and not necessarily his own. He consistently and selflessly turns the dream into reality, serves it as a lovesick slave, ignoring everyone and everything else because he believes it is the key to the triumph of justice... or something in the same vein. Is our Enbri like that?"

"That's a rhetorical question."

"People like Enbri are all about the process, not the result. It's their role in the process that's important, not whether it succeeds. Never in their lives would they admit to themselves that their pure, profound causes have little to do with helping the afflicted, and more with feeling like do-gooders. They want to bathe in love and reverence, and everything else can go to the dogs... No, it's not only about impulsivity and lack of self-criticism. Enbri wanted so badly to bring change, to ignite hearts, to get caught up in the thick of things, to feel the rush and win converts, that he was afraid to consider the consequences of his ventures. What if a flaw were suddenly found in them, and all the fun had to be postponed... indefinitely?"

"And his friend wasn't afraid?"

"Oh yes, oh yes. Enbri tried to talk him up, but all his attempts at manipulation didn't add up to a thing. The half-elf's eloquent rhetoric was lost on Irbne, time and again."

"So what happened in the end?"

"Enbri didn't want to settle for the role of conductor of others' ideas and quarreled with his friend to the bitter end."

"But it's the 'conductor' who really does get caught up in the thick of things," Nela remarked.

"But he must share the glory with the idea's author. And, clearly, Enbri is of the opinion that the author's piece of the pie is much tastier than the conductor's."

"Or maybe Irbne was the one who wanted the whole pie to himself?" Nela opened one green eye.

"No. By nature he was quite a reserved, uncommunicative friend. Glory was of little concern to him. So if someone did want to hog the whole pie, it was Enbri, not Irbne."

"Everybody always wants to sleep on the top branch!" Nela cried indignantly, grudgingly getting up from her warmed spot.

"You can say that again. A far cry from me! I'm the embodiment of humility and good behavior. I don't care for tail-measuring contests..." Nomarr purred.

Nela looked at the cat with respect. This striped fleabag had studied their common "subject" much more thoroughly than she herself had.

"And where's Enbri's... 'other half' now?" she asked finally.

"I have no idea. The Tanae are keeping him incognito," Nomarr's eyes flashed mysteriously. "But I seriously doubt they'll be protecting Enbri. If my sources are correct, he's badly soiled the reputation of their high priest while hiding in the temple, after which he had to flee – first to Anlimor, and then here, to Laennes."

The cats walked on.

Nela rarely visited the Abyss. Following Nomarr's lead, she took in the sight of everything around her.

And what a sight it was.

Nela watched a rather blusterous group of Envirze sailing on a lake of fire in a glass boat. The little dinghy's nose curled up over the passengers' heads in a sparkling studded spiral, and the sides bristled with skewers full of barbecue and ladles of melted cheese. She then glanced in another direction. A curved copper tub caught the cat's eye, the drain hole to which was covered by the dirty grey trunk of a water vortex. Gradually expanding, it disappeared into a dark hollow in the ceiling of a cave. Huge masses of dirty grey water swirled in it with total silence that weighed on the psyche. The scene was suddenly spoiled by a haggard little man stumbling out of a gateway with a garbage pail in his hand. Blundering over the cobblestones, he approached the tub fearlessly and emptied the bucket. The whirlwind sparked with the multitude of sucked-in glass splinters. "Up you go," croaked the drunkard. He then tripped over his own feet and fell into the clutches of the tub.

"One could go mad trying to figure out the Abyss!" Nela grumbled. A brawny man in a white frock went by, calmly pushing a rack full of ruddy baked goods. He paused periodically, leaning in to his loaves and pointing some building or other out to them while mumbling something. A mad baker? Looking closer, Nela noticed the Abyss guide emblem on his shoulder. Evidently, this was an excursion for someone's larvae. And here came the brood's begetter – a loaf the size of a horse, copper bands of levitation hoops belting his frame in five places. As he emerged from a nearby tavern, the guide unleashed a tirade, arms akimbo while pointing at one of the larvae, dusty and somewhat battered. The huge loaf swayed, rocked forward, thrust its long white tongue out of its gaping mouth and devoured the offending offspring. Nela winced, looked to the left and... winced again.

In a dead-end side alley, young women of questionable morals surrounded a cosmetics salesman. Chattering incessantly, they shuffled their feet on the convex cobblestones, each of which seemed to be fitted with brilliant raspberry silk. Curtains of hundreds of slender turquoise tentacles swayed from high, deep-set windows above. One of the tentacles, stretched excessively, was swept around the neck of a skeleton nestled against a column. An unlucky thief, Nela instantly discerned. A pair of twin streetwalkers squatted, trying different varieties of lipstick on the poor man's skull. A delightful sight...

Or it would have been if the ladies weren't trying to portray members of Nela's race. All of them, besides the yellow-eyed, winged Iltejan, wore dresses meant to emulate Aella an Kamian's favorite outfits, and their hairdos – pigtails twisted into two cone-shaped buns – called to mind Alae ears. The "priestesses of love" spoke in false voices, imitating Alaean tones, but was it even possible to mimic the seductive sounds of Alasais' cats?

Nela shook her paws involuntarily, as if shaking off dirt that had soiled them. Snorting in disgust, she hurried to catch up with her shaggy companion.

Their journey finally came to an end.

"Here," said Nomarr after the cats slipped across the street and onto the roof of an annex to an entirely unremarkable building. To support his claim, the cat smacked his paw on the roof and sat down on his tail. His fluffy tummy rested on the rooftop, a white spot between stout striped legs.

Nela situated herself nearby. Her snout took on a predatory stare. The analyzing organ in her palate set to work. She then got up smoothly, paced back and forth a bit and stopped near a small window.

"Locked and guarded by a spell," the cat noted mentally, pensively touching it with a relaxed front paw.

Nomarr's unhappy growl was all she heard in response. He lifted his body grudgingly from the roof and began to pace, as if searching for something right under his feet. Then he stopped and began scratching at the surface, covered in moss. Brown lumps flew in all directions, along with pieces of damp wood. Finally, inserting his face in the resulting hole, the cat drew out a bottle of dark green glass with a large protruding cork. Taking the vial in his teeth, he laid it near Nela's paws.

After closely examining and sniffing the vessel, the cat looked at Nomarr gratefully. He fluffed up with pleasure and appeared even bigger. Without a word, Nela pressed the vial between her two front paws and pulled the cork out with her teeth. The mouth of the bottle belched greenish smoke.

Bending and helping herself with her paws, Nela hastily glugged its contents. Then with a wide mouth, she breathed on the window. Plumes of smoke burst from her jaws. The smoke settled on the glass in the form of large drops, which began to spread until they formed a wholly transparent greenish film. Nela watched the spectacle intently, while Nomarr set about tearing the moss from his claws with loud, snapping motions.

Deciding the moment had come, Nela got right up to the window and carefully extended a graceful paw. It disappeared behind the green film as if there were no glass in the frame.

"Well, well, old dodger, you've earned your milk and cream!" Nela turned and chuckled happily to Nomarr. "Back home they'll be glad to hear about your pointy-eared find!"

"I hope so," the cat nodded. He went back to the hole from which he'd just extracted the vial, and retrieved a dingy golden coin.

"Quick paws to you, Nomarr," Nela bid him farewell.

"And thick shadows to you, Nela," the cat returned, taking the coin in his jaws, and in a few seconds the gloom residing on the neighboring roof swallowed the furry ball that was his body, albeit with obvious difficulty.

___________________

Illustration by Beholder_2004