As the applause washed over the long Drinking House, Raiker Venn took an exaggerated, flurried bow, and then backed up to the bar. There, the comely barmaid poured him a second glass of crystal clear Nadamas Docks, the most esteemed and sought-after rzeka on the entire plane of Stena. And nobody came to Stena for anything but the liquor, as far as the Gentleman Poet was concerned.

Once the applause had died down, Raiker Venn took his bottle, as well as the barmaid's address, and moved off to a corner booth to contemplate his success. He was just about to start his third glass when a young woman ventured toward him, looking away nervously. Raiker smiled as he looked her over. She was dressed far more conservatively than the barmaid, but she was no less fair, with pale skin, dark hair, and a slender figure. She was dressed in warm furs of brown and white, with her ushanka sitting straight and perfect on her head.

Raiker waited for a long moment for the woman to step further, but she did not move. She simply stood there, occasionally shifting her weight slightly. Raiker considered letting her simply stand there indefinitely, but eventually decided that her shifting was troublingly off-meter, and in an effort to stop her, he spoke.

"Greetings, my dear. Is there something I might do for you?" Raiker grinned. "Or perhaps I have merely taken your favorite seat?"

"No," she replied, quietly. "No, I just wanted..."

Raiker waited patiently, but the woman gave no sign of continuing to speak. The Poet sighed. "Well observed, my lovely winter rose. Yes, we all want. I have observed this while writing my poetry, which I truly hope has achieved the merest fraction of your beauty."

The woman turned her head away, blushing fiercely. As she replied, she hid her mouth behind one gloved hand. "I...I thank you, Mr. Venn. But I did not come over here for such...attentions."

"Truly?" Raiker said with a smile and with raised eyebrows. "Then perhaps we should return to my original question. What is it that I can do for you, Miss...?"

The woman looked like she was about to turn away, but fought the impulse. "Analeta. My name is Analeta, Mr. Venn."

"If you wish me to call you Analeta, and truly, it is a superbly lovely name, my dear, then you must certainly return the favor. Please, call me Raiker."

Analeta glanced back at the Poet, but said nothing. Raiker waited again with infinite patience, but once again, the woman made no move to continue on her own. Finally, Raiker indicated to the seat across from him. "We do not seem to be getting very far. Perhaps you would care to join me for a glass of Nadamas Docks? It is a truly transcendent bottle."

At this, the woman looked up, and finally, with very slow steps, she moved to join him. However, when Raiker went to pour her a glass, she held up her hand to stop him. "Thank you, but no," she said. Raiker, surprised, held his hand. After a long moment, he set the bottle down and cocked his head to the side, pondering Analeta.

"So, you did not come for a free glass of Stena's finest rzeka, nor did you come for complements from her finest wordsmith. Perhaps you should tell me what it is you did come for?"

The woman looked down at her hands, and Raiker stared at her for a time. After several long moments of silence, even Raiker's implacable calm began to fade. "I see. Well, dear lady, this has been a fascinating conversation, I am sure. But my time is considered quite valuable to even the royal courts, and if I wished to spend it in silence, I could do so in far more luxurious settings than this."

Raiker smiled and nodded at the woman, and then grabbed his coat and his cane and stood up. He was just about to grab the half-empty bottle of rzeka when Analeta spoke, her voice barely audible over the sounds of conversation from the Drinking House.

"I wanted to ask you about the poem."

She had not even looked in his direction. Raiker considered her for a few more moments before deciding that perhaps she could serve as adequate diversion for the evening. With his usual flourish, the Poet tossed his coat back down and regained his seat. "Very well, my slowly blooming flower. What would you like to ask me about it?"

Analeta hesitated again, but mercifully it was for a shorter time. She forced herself to look the Poet in his piercing, hazel eyes. "I don't know if I truly understand it. But when I heard you recite it...It seems there must be something more to it."

Raiker grinned. "There is always something more to my poetry, my dear."

"Can you...I mean, will you, I mean..."

"I am certain there is a question in there somewhere," Raiker commented, leaning back.

Analeta nodded. "Mr. Venn," Raiker shot her a glance and started to speak, but she stopped him by correcting herself. "Raiker, will you help me understand?"

Raiker grinned again. "Of course, my dear. But it is a difficult concept to grasp. Are you certain you can withstand the revelations it may bring?"

The woman shrugged. "Honestly? No. I'm not. But, that poem was so..."

"Magnificent?" Raiker offered.

"Different."

Raiker frowned. That was not the word he had expected, or wanted. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Mr. V...I mean, Raiker, I am a great fan of your work. While I will not claim to be the greatest fan, I would suggest that none are greater. I have every one of your collections. The Icicle Shards, The Fisherman Follies, The Poetic Histories of the Great Dark, The Cribfrost Tales. I even have an original edition of the Heirless King, from before it was banned."

"An impressive collection," Raiker commented, smiling at the remembrances of his work.

"Yes," Analeta said, "and I've read every poem in them. And, it's just..."

"Yes, my dear?"

"It's just that I've never seen anything you've written that wasn't...tragic. Really, really tragic. It's a common theme in your work."

Raiker nodded proudly. "In my years as a poet, I have learned that there is no poem more affecting than a tragic poem. They speak to the soul in a manner that no other poem ever could."

"But, that's what I don't understand!" Analeta's eyes looked desperate, almost pleading. "I agree with you! You're a genius, Raiker, and not just for your talent. The tragedies you craft in your rhymes are so profoundly heart wrenching. It makes me feel almost like they are real people!"

Raiker's smile deepened. "Thank you, my dear."

"But," she continued, "tonight's poem...it...it wasn't...it wasn't tragic! It's deep, I know, and there is a lot there, but, it lacks the tragedy of the rest of your work! Please, Raiker, help me understand."

Raiker stared at her for a long time, his eyes piercing hers with an almost frightening gaze. Unconsciously, she seemed to back away, pushing against the back of her chair. Then, suddenly, Raiker stopped staring, and broke into laughter. Genuine, heart-felt laughter. Analeta watched him in abject and heart-broken confusion. She was just moving to stand up and leave when he stopped and leaned forward across the table with a suddenness that made the woman freeze.

"Not tragic, you say? Truly? Not tragic? My poor, dear, wilting rose, the poem I recited here tonight is perhaps the most tragic poem I have ever penned. Do you truly not see that?"

"I..." She paused, then bowed her head again. "No. I'm sorry, Raiker. I can't see it."

Raiker smiled at her. "And, are you certain that you wish to?"

She looked up at him, and nodded. "I do. I truly do."

With one fluid motion, Raiker brought his ornate silver cane up and set it quietly on the table. "What do you see, Analeta?"

"A cane."

Raiker nodded. "And what is a cane?"

"It's...an aid? An aid in walking?"

"Perhaps," Raiker said, a sly smile on his face. "And what conclusions do you draw about me for carrying such an object?"

She thought for a long moment, confused at the question. Finally, she shrugged. "Perhaps you had difficulty walking once? Or you fear that someday, you might?"

"And yet," Raiker said, "you have seen me walk, and you know I have no difficulty with it, yes? And have I given any indication of fear of physical affliction in the future?"

"No," she admitted.

"And so, the cane tells you something about the man that the man himself did not. Is that not a strange thing? The cane is not, cannot be a part of me, and yet, it can speak to something that my body cannot. Now tell me, Analeta, do you believe the cane is aware of me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," Raiker said, "Imagine the cane could speak with words that you could understand. If you spoke to it, and asked it about me, the one who carries it, would it tell you the things you have inferred from its presence?"

"I...no. No, I do not think it would."

"Why is that, do you think?"

Analeta shrugged. "I guess it would see you as I do."

Raiker nodded. "And so we see how consciousness deceives. The cane tells you something that it cannot know."

Analeta's mouth parted for a moment, but then closed. "I still don't understand."

"Nor should you," Raiker said. Then, he laid both hands on the cane, his right hand on the handle, his left on the shaft of the cane. Smiling, he pressed the small silver button at the base of the handle, and slid the silver blade out about half of its length. Analeta's eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected weapon. "Now what do you see?"

"It's a sword!"

"And does it tell you something different about me than the cane did?"

The woman only nodded.

"Yet, it is still the cane. And if you could speak with the cane, would it tell you about the sword?"

"I...I don't know."

"Precisely," Raiker said. "You do not know. You cannot. I wonder, does the cane know about the sword? It cannot see the blade when it is sheathed, and when it is not, the cane is not a cane, is it? And by that reasoning, can the sword ever truly see the cane? When the sword is within, it cannot possibly see the cane, nor can it truly be the sword, now can it? And when it is drawn, the cane is gone, and cannot be observed."

"Raiker..." Analeta started slowly, but Raiker interrupted her.

"Now, consider the nesting doll. Can the outer-most doll observe the next, the middle doll?"

"I don't know if you would call it observe," she replied. "But I think, if it were alive, it could feel it. Perhaps observe is as good a word as any."

"And can the outermost observe the innermost, even as it is within the middle?"

"I doubt it."

"Indeed! Because even if it is aware of the middle doll, and so few truly are, it would appear only as a full doll. And what of that middle? Do you believe it can observe the outermost?"

"No," Analeta said. "I have seen dolls like that before. They are not painted on the inside. I would imagine that every doll..." She stopped suddenly, realizing something.

"Yes," Raiker said grinning. "Say it."

Analeta swallowed air. "Every doll must believe it is the outermost."

Raiker nodded. "Very good. And what question did my poem pose? 'What must it be, to be that middle doll?'"

Analeta's voice was almost a whisper. "'To be contained, and yet contain them all.'"

"There is the tragedy, Analeta. What life can that middle doll have? To observe those smaller than it, all the while believing they are the furthest out." Raiker slipped the sword back into the cane with a loud slam. "The cane believes it is a cane, and yet, in truth, it is no more than a sheath. It is hollow. And yet the innermost is the one with substance. The sword is not hollow, is it? The innermost doll has no seam. It is solid. It has substance, where the middle is only a vessel."

Analeta's eyes were growing wild. "I don't think I want to hear any more, Raiker."

The Poet ignored her. "But even without substance, the middle doll must feel a sense of superiority. After all, it believes it is the furthest out. It is the ultimate."

"Raiker..."

"But of course, we know otherwise. We know that there is a larger doll beyond it, and so, what remains of the middle?"

"I have to go," Analeta said quickly, in desperation. Before the Poet could object, she pushed away from the table and tried to hurry away, but stopped in her tracks. The Drinking House was silent, and motionless. All of the revelers were still there, but not one moved in the slightest. As she stared in shock, Raiker slid up beside her, his silver cane in hand.

"There is something you need to see, my precious little doll."

"No..."

Raiker held his cane out in front of him, and the air in front of them shimmered and waved. Then a window opened in reality itself, and Raiker and Analeta saw, sitting there, a single form.

"Who...who is that?" She asked him, her small voice quivering.

"That," Raiker said with a smile, "is a middle doll. Look closely. Does it not look like us? Are we not the same? Do you see that glowing page the figure reads?"

"What sorcery..."

"Sorcery to you and I, yes, but to that figure, and countless others like it, they use it every day. That, Analeta, is how that middle doll observes the inner. And it is observing us now."

"No," she breathed.

"Oh, yes. Observe that figure, Analeta, even as the figure observes you. You are breaking the rule, Analeta. You are looking in the wrong direction. This should not be possible, and yet, here we are. And think on this, while you are still able. I wonder what it must be like to be that figure, to know, to observe, those within, those smaller. And to realize now, perhaps for the first time, that it is not the outermost."

Raiker waved the cane again, and the vision in the portal shifted. And there they saw another figure, similar and yet different from the first, similar and yet different from them.

"And here, another doll, observing the one we just left. Does he observe you too, my dear, solid doll? Or does that break the same rules you now break. Do you see that orb it stares into? Do you see the first figure there in that orb? How far does it go, Analeta? How many walls can you break through before they break you, my poor, wilted flower?"

Analeta was shaking now, so much that Raiker could no longer hold her. Then she started to laugh and shake her head. Raiker stepped back to his table and took a long sip of Nadamas Docks rzeka as the woman began tugging at her own hair. Raiker sat down and grinned. When Analeta rushed toward the portal, Raiker dispelled it, and allowed time in the Drinking House on Stena to begin passing as normal again. Analeta spent a few moments running and screaming wildly through the patrons before bursting out into the snow outside. Everyone in the Drinking House stared after her, except of course Raiker Venn, who was smiling smugly at his table. Quietly, he pulled out a clear parchment and a quill.

"Inside Out," he said, as he started to write. "By Raiker Venn."