I determined that I should find a question, the answer to which would unlock the secrets of the soul, and through the agency of which I should be able to determine how each other man saw the world. I considered asking how one would array a battle line given mounted knights from Ngth, archers from Belid, footmen from Cliffsfall and mages from Pdallar, so as to avoid internal problems, but rejected it on the grounds that that was purely a concern of the Men of Valor and the other races could have no answer. Then I considered asking how one would hunt a wild boar, but further reflection revealed that some races, far from hunting wild boars, are actually hunted by wild boars, and that for this reason the question was invalid. Finally, I settled on the question of how one should skin a cat.
I resolved to first ask a Touched Man, for my monestary was in Dalos, and Neffik Dern is but a stone's throw from it. The first Touched Man whom I found ran away at the sight of me, and I was forced to use my crossbow to slow his flight. After binding his wounds, I sat him up against a tree and asked him, "Man, how do you skin a cat?"
He looked at me with deadly earnesty and said, "with a rock."
I had not anticipated this sort of answer, and discovered that I would have to inquire further. "You mean, with a sharp rock?"
His face showed the slightest trace of a grin for a moment. "No. With a blunt rock, tied to a rope attached to a wooden beam which, when released, swings down and lands on the cat's tail, immobilizing it. Then, you skin it."
I was puzzled by this response. "Would it not be simpler to catch the cat with a net or a cage?"
He looked at me contemptuously and said, "Ha! You'd think that, but it's just like an eastern barbarian to--" His voice abruptly stopped as my left foot connected with his gut in response to his insult. "Hey! Stop that!"
"Why?", I asked. "You insulted me."
"You're all the same. Come to oppress the masses, no doubt..."
"Listen, man," I said, exasperated, "I just want you to answer my question."
"Sure," he hissed back, "and you'll torture me to find out, I'm quite sure. Perfect example of the violence inherent in the system."
"Look, man, just answer my question or I *will* demonstrate the violence inherent in the system!"
He rolled his eyes and said, "Help, help, I'm being oppressed!" Then he put his hands over his ears and said, "I can't hear you! Go away! Mary had a little lamb...". It was when he broke out into song that I decided that I had learned all that I needed to from him, and therefore I slew him.
Then I travelled north, passing through the land of Kings until I reached Morba in Hengmir. There I found a Gray woman who seemed to be doing little, and I asked her "How do you skin a cat?"
She frowned slightly, and replied, "What kind of cat?"
I said, "Any kind."
She returned, "You must specify, or I cannot answer the question."
With high hopes of thus eliciting an answer, I said, "Vernese."
She then asked, "High Vernese, or coastal?"
I began to think that I might be running into difficulty, but I persevered. "High."
"Domesticated or Wild?"
"Wild."
"How old is the cat?"
"Look," I asked, "what does it matter? It's a cat. How do you skin it?"
"The age of the cat determines the texture of its skin and its capacity to resist. What is the age of the cat?"
I was getting exasperated. "Two years. Okay, two years. How do you skin it?"
"What color?"
"Who cares? It's green! Green with yellow spots! How do you skin it?" I realized later that this made it impossible to get an answer.
She lectured me, "Green cats with yellow spots do not exist. Therefore they cannot be skinned. Good day."
She sat there while I fumed, pretending not to notice my frustration. Eventually, I decided that I had accomplished all that I possibly could in Morba. Therefore I travelled to Ald Miles to search for an Underman. It was not difficult to find one. With high hopes, I asked him, "How do you skin a cat?"
He looked up at me with his pale skin and his hollow eyes, and said, "Wait."
I waited for a short time. He did not seem to be doing anything which I might have interrupted, so I soon asked him again, "Man, how do you skin a cat?"
He replied, as he had the first time, "Wait."
At least, I thought, this man was not giving me some bizarre response. I began to think that Undermen might actually be reasonable. However, I did not have forever to wait. "Look, I am in a bit of a hurry, and this is a short question--how do you skin a cat?"
His hollow eyes seemed to deepen a bit, and with a sigh of infinite patience, he said, "You wait."
The spectre of continued frustration began to rear its ugly head again.
"I don't understand. Wait for what?"
"One day," he explained, "the cat will die. In the due course of time its insides will rot, and the cat will be skinned."
"But," I asked, "what if you want to skin the cat today?"
"Today, tomorrow, next year, it matters not--the Final Lord has say over all, and time is irrelevant to the Ender of all things."
"Look," I said, "are you saying that it doesn't matter to you if anything happens today, or tomorrow, or whenever?"
"That is true," he said. "Timing changes nothing."
"So," I continued, "if you died today, it would be the same as if you died twenty years from now?"
"Well," he began, "I wouldn't quite--" His sentence ended as I tested my theory, and it did indeed seem that he did not care, for he crumpled to the ground and barely even twitched as life left him. I had learned all that I needed to from the Undermen.
I next proceeded to the mountains in Sioden, for I had heard that a holy man of the Creator lived atop one of them. After an arduous climb, I found him, mumbling over an arcane text and drawing forth small shiny objects from a bowl of clear water in front of him.
I waited for a short time to see if he would finish, but he continued for over an hour, so I felt compelled to interrupt him. "Excuse me, sir, but--"
He answered gruffly, "What do you want?"
"Well, I would like to know how you would go about skinning a cat."
"Cat?" He said, working the word into his mumblings. "Cat....cat...cat... Fine, here." And with that he drew forth an Ithyran cat, with a dark coat of fur, tinged with a hint of red. It was quite a beautiful creature. He handed it to me without missing a beat, and continued muttering.
It did not seem to me that I had accomplished my purpose, so I continued. "Sir, this cat is very nice, but I want to know how you would go about skinning it."
His muttering subsided for a moment as he replied, "Kid, you skin that cat and I won't give you another one. Now beat it." He then resumed his muttering in earnest. I realized that I would have to make do with what he had given me. His gift, Heartclaw, was to serve me well as a companion and friend for many years.
I then embarked on the phase of my journey which I had avoided the longest--the asking of a Summer Man. I made my way to Gal Sidar, stepping on flowers as I went, with heavy heart, knowing that I had failed to get a straight answer from any of the other races, and having little hope that I would accomplish anything here. For my mission was one of discovery, and not of battle.
As it happened, the first of the Summer People whom I came across was a graceful blond girl, not much older than I was. As I approached her, my worst fears seemed confirmed, for she accosted me even before I could speak, striding forward lithely, flower petals dribbling forth from her yellow hair, bosom bouncing lightly--not full and firm as would be one of our womens', but flabby and quivering. "Would you like a flower?", she asked, in that lilting, friendly, intensely annoying tone that Summer People have.
"No," I answered, rolling my eyes, "I would not." Heartclaw was at this time several feet behind me, beating the stuffing out of a woodchuck--valiant Heartclaw! "I have come to ask of you a question."
"Okay," she said. "Would that be before or after we have sex?"
It was everything I could do to keep from heaving. I had heard rumors of bands of Summer Women roaming about the land, moving from place to place, coming upon villages at night and seducing their men with their Nirianite wiles, and then disappearing as fast as they had come, vanishing into the fields to go victimize some other decent and innocent village, but I had never stared that peril in the face before. Unfortunately, I had come to Gal Sidar at the height of Summer, when the power of the Sister of Sloth is at its height. "No," I coughed out, startled, "I don't want to have sex. I just want to ask you a question." Heartclaw pranced forward and rubbed her cheek against my ankle.
"Okay," she said lightly, in that dippy Summer sort of way, "we can have sex later. Which do you like, top or bottom?"
Outright rejection did not stop me from reflecting that for her own good she should insist that she should be on top, as otherwise she should surely have expected her puny and fragile body to be cleft in twain by the event. "Listen, what I want to know is this: How do you skin a cat?"
Her expression, which had been a light, smiley one, suddenly changed into a mortified one. "Skin a cat?", she asked, horrified. "A poor harmless little kitty?" Then her gaze fell on Heartclaw. "Oh! What are you going to do to that poor little kitty?" She reached forward and tried to pick up Heartclaw. With the kind of wonderful cunning that she was to show many a time later, Heartclaw waited until the girl had clasped her all the way to her chest, and then erupted into a whirlwind of flying claws and teeth. The Summer girl's face went white with astonishment, quickly to become red from the flowing blood of many small cuts. Heartclaw managed her escape quite nicely. The Summer girl fell back, stunned, and then started to sob. After a moment, during which it appeared that she was waiting for me to kneel before her and take her into my arms, she rose, still sniffling, and looking quite disappointed. With that typical Summer wail, she cried out, "Marta! Lanneth!" A pathetic grimace took hold of her tiny face. "I need a hug!" She then bounded off into the tall grass and disappeared.
I didn't have an answer of her, but I felt satisfied nonetheless.
When I returned to my mentor, he asked me what I had learned. Sadly, I told him that I had not achieved useful answers from any of the people with whom I had spoken, and I told him of my journey, and of each of the people, and of their annoying unwillingness to answer my questions. "The Touched Man could never focus on the point. The Gray Woman had a passion for irrelevant detail. The Underman could not grasp the importance of acting. The High man would not pay attention to me. And the Summer Woman--well, she was just grotesque in every way. And none of them answered my question."
My mentor nodded his head and said, warmly, "Initiate Finnbogg, I believe that you have succeeded. Welcome to the Second Circle."