To Captain Karna:
It is with no great pleasure that I assign you to investigate the disappearances near the Suqesh Mesa. Now, before you take your pen to parchment in protest, please understand that I don’t intend this is any form of punishment. The situation is tense and we need someone diplomatic.
We have arranged transport for you, and Captain Barrask will brief you upon arrival.
Consul Tiamel
I
It had been so much easier to leave than it was to go.
Leaving was simple. Pick a direction, any direction, continue on that path. Eventually you would be out and gone and away from wherever you didn’t want to be anymore.
Going somewhere, that was difficult. Not because traveling was rough, though he’d come to learn that it was rougher than he imagined. No, it was difficult because he had to find out where to go.
For all his research and all the books that Brex had read and re-read, he didn’t know a damned thing about what to do about that. He knew the basics of sorcery, he knew how to survive in the wild, and he knew how to prepare food for a family, but he didn’t know where he was really, truly going with his life.
Especially since he left Clan Ironheart.
In the days since then, his confidence leaked out of him. Every fork in the road heading out from Ironheart’s mesa took a little bit more. He knew where he needed to end up: Red’s home. But that wasn’t a destination. That was a goal. Even if he had a decent idea of where it was, he still didn’t have a clue on what it would take to get there.
He could only hope that Haramschall, the city that sparkled in the distance of the mesa for most of his life, would hold some secret that could point him to his purpose.
Please. Please let there be some clue. Something to point me in the right direction. Anything.
Brex squinted at the enchantment plate as he carved glyphs around the edge by firelight. It’d only been a few days since leaving his clan, and Brex had already started to doubt his decision.
Another epiphany came to him like another mosquito bite. He could no longer call Clan Ironheart “his” clan. The carving knife slipped in his hand, and Brex heaved a small sigh.
The days had been filled with tragic little discoveries like this. Remembering he had no clan, no family, no status. He had willfully chosen to give up his rights as a member of a clan and accept responsibility for his own well-being.
There were so many things he took for granted there. Not just food and shelter, but society. The people he’d spent most of his life with. Regardless of how he felt of them, they were…familiar.
Kotak’s hand, outstretched, giving him an offer to lead the clan–
Brex took another deep breath, stopping himself from spiraling too far down that path.
The decision was made. He was on the road now. There was no need for second-guessing.
If I go ever back, it has to be as a different person than when I left.
He leaned back, gently shifting the log that made for his seat near the fire. Constellations glittered across the night sky, each star providing a pinprick of light, dwarfed by the brightness of the fire. He’d set up a camp of sorts a few dozen steps away from the path that linked Clan Ironheart’s encampment and the small, mostly human town of Ziqondi. Far enough away to avoid night travelers, but close enough that it’d be easy to spot the path in the morning.
On the other side of the fire, Red was laying on his side, clearly asleep. He’d been less then cooperative during the trip so far, even with Brex using sorcery to communicate with him.
The trouble wasn’t talking anymore. It was trying to get Red to behave. Multiple times during their trip already, Red just walked off in a random direction, and when Brex used sorcery to ask where he went, Red would simply say: Hungry.
So Brex would find somewhere to wait, and eventually Red would return, the fur on his muzzle tinted scarlet as he licked his lips.
There were also times when Red would just decide that he was done walking and laid down in the shade somewhere. Brex had tried to convince him to move along, but it was inevitably where they set up camp each night, turning a two-day trip into four.
Brex narrowed his eyes as he watched Red sleep, envious, if only because his priorities were clear: eat and sleep.
Lions are trouble, he thought. Even if you can convince one not to kill you, they just won’t give a shit.
He looked back down at his enchanting plate, another silver ring in the middle waiting to be given a new spell. Glyphs half-carved around the edges. Another spell for Red, since taking a lion to town (or anywhere civilized, really) would mean getting too much of the wrong kind of attention.
It was an illusion, to make people think that he’d look, smell, and sound like something else.
But what?
Brex picked up the knife and plate again, idly tapping them against each other. He couldn’t look too different in size or shape. So some sort of four-legged animal.
Maybe a dog?
That might work. A really big dog. A dog that was poorly trained. It’ll be a great first impression. Hello, I’m Brexothuruk, and this is my dog. He is very large and intimidating, but please don’t mind him, he does what he feels like and might attack you. There is no reason to be alarmed, I can read his mind.
Maybe if he just asked Red to stay put somewhere while he got some supplies and directions, then he’d be able to find a more permanent solution.
Brex resumed carving.
If I’m lucky, maybe the dog part will rub off on him, and he’ll start listening to me.
The next day, the sun refused to hide behind what few clouds lingered in the sky.
Brex looked down at the ring in his hand, thinking it felt far too heavy for silver.
Red stood beside him, looking up at the orc expectantly. Brex only had two rings to use for sorcery (outside of his family keepsake), and enchanted one with the new illusion spell, meaning he only had one-way communication with the lion.
Keep this on you, he said before slipping the ring over the lion’s brown tail fur and down until it fit snug. It will keep us safe. He only wanted the people in the town to think Red was a dog, but that meant being unable to confirm that the spell worked with his own eyes and ears. He’d just have to hope that he pulled it off.
Red looked back at him, yellow eyes piercing through his own, holding eye contact for moment after moment.
Until he yawned and sat down to lick his paw.
Brex sighed and started packing up his gear, glancing toward Ziqondi in the distance.
Fifty paces from the edge of the city, and nobody had run screaming from the pair of them. Brex was ready to call that a victory.
Ziqondi was nestled down in a barely-fertile valley between a few mesas, on the opposite side of Clan Ironheart’s settlement as the savannah where Brex took his rites. It sat along a trade route between larger human cities, and since most caravans didn’t want to deal with orcs, Ziqondi often played host to travelers, with both legitimate shipments and illegal smuggling. Though, out near the mesas and the orc settlements, legality mostly applied to humans very far away with no pressing opinion on day-to-day matters in Ziqondi.
The town itself likely held a few hundred people, with some businesses and taverns along the main road, and most of the family homes nestled somewhere further back. Each of them were built with heavy wood and brass, not the familiar straw and logs that Brex knew. The path through the town mimicked the river that flowed parallel to it, just a quick jog away.
While not as dry as the mesa, the area was covered in sand and dirt, with most signs on the buildings starting to fade from exposure to sunlight. Every step Brex took was accompanied by a loud crunch of dirt under his boots.
On the corner of the row of buildings was a tavern, but up close, Brex couldn’t make sense of the symbols on the sign. Maybe it’s some kind of labeling system? All of the symbols had the same thickness to their lines, unlike the letters he knew, which had a clear start and end point to their strokes.
There were people milling about the main street, all humans from what Brex could tell. A pair of human children, both female if Brex had to guess, were playing some sort of game by using sticks to draw in the dirt outside the tavern. He called out to them with a smile and a wave.
“Hello!”
They both turned, eyes widening. He couldn’t tell whether they were staring at him or Red. At least, not until they screamed in unison.
Brex put up his hands to cover his ears, and Red took a few steps back.
Another pair of humans dressed in thin, fine fabrics, male and female, burst from the doors of the tavern. They said something that Brex couldn’t hear over the screams.
Doors and windows opened all along the row of buildings, more and more humans peering out at the cause of the ruckus. Soon, shouts of surprise and anger began to echo back and forth between them, followed by sounds of doors slamming and metal locks fastening.
When Brex looked back to the tavern, the two human children had disappeared, along with the adults that had come to the scene.
In a matter of moments, every door and window within eyeshot of where Brex stood was closed and bolted, and only the whistling wind kept him and Red any company.
Brex knelt down beside the lion, reaching to his tail to examine the ring.
“Something must have gone wrong,” he said. “They can all see that you’re a wild animal, and panicked.” He heaved a sigh. “Maybe I was too vague about the dog for the spell? Should I have picked a specific breed?”
The crunching sound of footsteps came from somewhere behind him, followed by the sputtered words of a high, nasal voice.
“You’ve nearly got it. But you’re attributing the result to the wrong cause.”
Brex turned around.
A human stood within arm’s reach. Male. Short. Wiry body and hair, with a pair of lenses before his eyes held in place by bronze frames. Fair skin under a white shirt and pants that looked loose. He beat his fist on his chest twice and smiled.
It’d been so long since Brex had seen the customary greeting for a stranger that he nearly forgot to reciprocate. After two beats on his own chest, he smiled at the human.
“Sorry about the trouble,” Brex said. “I didn’t mean to scare anyone by bringing a lion into town.”
The human adjusted his glasses, looking down at Red. “So that’s what’s under the illusion. Decent job, I must admit. He looks like a rather large mastiff to me. But no, that’s not why you caused so much commotion, friend.”
Brex paused. “It’s not?”
The human shook his head and laced his fingers together. “Most people around here don’t take a liking to someone shouting Orcish at them. Suspect they might have thought you were letting out a battle cry. Or siccing your hound on some ‘innocent’ children.”
“O-oh,” Brex found his gaze drifting toward the ground. He felt stupid for not realizing there would be a language barrier. But he never thought of his language as anything but…words. It was always how he communicated. All his books were in Orcish, as this human called it. He felt ashamed, being the grandson of a diplomat.
“Wait,” Brex said, gaze lifting back to the human. “Does that mean you’re–“
“Yes, friend. I’m speaking it right now.”
Brex glanced around at the signs. “And those are…”
“Harrish, Southern dialect. Fairly different than what you’d be used to, I imagine.”
Brex nodded. “Oh! Forgive me, my name is Brexothuruk, but you can call me Brex. This,” he gestured to the lion, “is my, uh, traveling companion Red.”
“Pleasure to meet you both,” the human said, bowing his head somewhat. “I’m Wallach. It’s nice to have an opportunity to practice my Orcish without the help of a translating spell.”
As he mentioned a spell, Brex looked to Wallach’s hands and neck. A silver ring on one and a bronze necklace on the other. He couldn’t be sure, but–
“Are you…a sorcerer too?” Brex asked.
“I am indeed,” Wallach said, beaming. “And an alchemist, though I’m out of practice in that regard. Anyway! It’s very rare to see an orc using sorcery, much less meet one. I take it you must be on your way to the University in Haramschall?”
Brex felt a weight lift from his shoulders. His hopes had been answered somehow.
“I…well, maybe,” Brex stuttered. “I d-didn’t know there was a University there.”
“Spent some of the best years of my life there, friend!” Wallach said. “You may be a tad old for them, but if you can prove you know your spells, then you should be able to get in just fine. Bring your illusioned pet here and I’m sure they’ll welcome you with open arms.”
“Oh, he’s not–“ Brex stopped himself. The less he had to explain about his and Red’s relationship, the better. “Well, anyway, I can’t imagine they speak Orcish there.”
“That they don’t, friend,” Wallach said. “Official language is Harrish. That’s why you ought to get yourself one of these.” He pulled out a silver ring, sized for a human’s middle finger. It looked like it might fit on the end of Brex’s pinky. “Translator ring. Brought it along in case you used some dialect I was unfamiliar with. But I’d be glad to lend it to you.”
Brex reached out, then hesitated. “Well, I appreciate it, but I don’t intend to stay here long. My friend and I need to get going.” He still wasn’t sure where Red was exactly from, but it seemed incredibly unlikely that Red belonged in the town of Ziqondi. “I can’t take anything you’re not willing to give permanently.”
Wallach pursed his lips, then gave the orc a wry grin. “You’re a decent sorcerer, so you must have an enchanting plate with you. Why don’t you reverse-engineer the spell on that ring and make a copy of your own?”
Brex’s heart fluttered with excitement. “But… what if I do something wrong? I might destroy the ring.”
Wallach shrugged. “I can always make another. Consider it a test. Figure it out and I might take you on as my apprentice. It’d be nice to have someone with your stature around to carry boxes and teach the finer points of sorcery and alchemy.”
“I…sure!” Brex nearly shouted it, snatching the ring from Wallach’s hand.
Wallach nodded. “And Brex, do you have a place to stay tonight?”
Brex’s gaze turned downward again. “No…I don’t.”
Wallach gestured down the street of shops and taverns, pointing to an inn with a tree-shaped sign. “Head toward that building and mention my name when you book a room. You should be able to get at least one night for free there.”
Brex was nearly blushing. “That’s kind of you, Wallach.”
“Least I can do for someone with so many common interests,” he said. “But I must run. I left a fire going when I came out to see the ruckus, and I’d like to avoid burning down my lab. See you soon, Brexothuruk.”
Wallach turned and walked away, disappearing between a pair of buildings, leaving Brex alone with Red.
Brex felt like he was nearly drowning in revelations. There was a university for sorcerers. And it wasn’t even far from Ziqondi. Not only that, he could apprentice from an actual sorcerer, a graduate from that very same university.
I could be an apprentice, he thought.
He felt something press at his side. Red nuzzled his hand before giving him a yawn and a tilt of the head.
“Right, right. We need to get going.” He looked down the street, spotting the inn with the unfamiliar letters on the sign.
Curious, he slipped his severing spell ring from his finger and applied Wallach’s translator ring. As soon as it made contact with his skin, he felt a pressure on his temples, even on his vision itself.
The letters appeared to re-arrange themselves, into something far more familiar and readable: “Abundant Canyon Short-Term Home For Money”
He stood there, trying to make sense of the words before simply letting out a flat “What.”
Red nudged his hand again, and Brex started forward, his mind still trying to process the results of the translation. He nearly asked Red for his opinion, then remembered until he got his hands on another accessory, two-way communication was impossible.
It didn’t take long to reach the inn, but just as he was about to reach out and grab the brass door handle, it burst open on its own. Startled, Brex jumped back, nearly stepping on Red’s paw.
Someone cleared their throat, and it took Brex a good three-count to realize that it was coming from somewhere around his waist.
A human woman, Brex supposed, very short and stout with brown skin and auburn hair tied into a bun glared up at him. Her features were wider than the other humans he’d seen. Barely taller than the children that had screamed at him, this one was dressed in a mix of metal and leather armor, crossing her arms as she looked up, brow furrowed.
“And you are, what are you doing?”
The words fell clumsily from her, the sounds not even remotely matching the motions her lips made. Brex took a beat to realize that it was the translator ring’s fault.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” he asked.
“Who are you being?” she asked, her eyes growing more narrow.
“I’m…Brexothuruk. But you can call me Brex.”
“It is NOT game time!” the woman growled, stepping forward with a grimace.
Brex inched back, holding up his hands defensively. “Very sorry! Don’t know the language.” He pointed to the ring, hoping she’d catch on.
Her attitude cooled from a boil to a simmer.
“When were you arriving?” she asked.
“Just now,” Brex said. “We just got here.”
“Who are the ‘we’?” she asked.
Another pause as Brex worked out her real question, then he gestured to Red, still hopefully disguised as a dog.
The woman pursed her lips and sighed, first pointing to her eyes, then to Brex before trudging off down the street.
Whoever she was, she looked official, and none too pleased about an orc nearly stepping on her. But it wasn’t Brex’s fault that she was in prime stomping range, or so he told himself.
He wished he knew what that gesture meant though.
Brex heaved a sigh and moved into the inn’s lobby.
Seeing the interior made him process just how differently these people lived, compared to orcs. At any moment, an orc was ready to pack their belongings along with the rest of the clan and start moving somewhere else. Once the fields were too dry to harvest, or the game too few to hunt, it was time to move on and set up a new home somewhere more promising.
Here, the humans had clearly decided that Ziqondi had enough promise to stake their claim here. A decision Brex wasn’t entirely sure he agreed with. Sure, the river was close by, but it was otherwise a hot, dry stretch of land that offered little in the way of natural resources.
The inside of the building made it clear that it was intended as a permanent fixture. Not just in structure, with its carefully layered planks of wood and solidly-built doors, but in its decoration. An orc’s home had form following function. Every piece of sentimentality could be used for preparing meals, practicing for battle, or contributing to culture somehow. Even Brex, who had collected a small trove of books, was judicious about which to keep and which to sell back to the traveling merchants that wandered by the encampment.
In this human place, there were framed drawings and portraits of dozens of people, as well as a fireplace with carefully crafted and sturdy-looking furniture around it. There was a complicated grid of boxes and slots behind a lacquered counter, sets of keys resting in some of the boxes.
Another tall human, thin as a nail and dressed in black and white, stood behind the counter. Brex noticed that her eyes were bloodshot and her lips were chapped. If he wasn’t relying on the translator ring, he would have offered her some water. She was already holding herself in a tight, focused posture, eyes locked on Brex.
“Greetings, possible customer,” she said. “Would you like to stay in this ‘home for money’ tonight?”
Brex felt his body loosen a bit, relieved that her professionalism was at least making communication easier.
“Yes,” Brex said. “I was told to mention Wallach’s name. Does that help?”
The human relaxed almost immediately. “Ah. That’s just fine, and it will do.” She turned around and began searching for a key in the grid of boxes behind them. “Many sorcerers travel through and around here. Wallach is famed for–“ The human said a word completely unrecognizable to Brex, and continued without missing a beat. “We have a ready room if the case of that happening.”
Brex figured that the translator ring had run into some sort of idiom or phrase that it couldn’t decipher into Orcish. Whatever that word was, it was full of floaty vowel sounds and letters that involved pressing lips together.
Brex immediately hated it on principle.
“One for the room?”
The orc shook his head. “Oh, no. Well, I need a place for my…dog.” Brex gestured to Red, still not entirely sure the illusion was working.
The human looked down at Red and smiled. “Ah, yes. It is a popular breed. Customers bring dogs, they can.”
Brex just smiled and nodded as the human handed the key to the room over to him.
Graciously, the number on the key was a simple “4,” and Brex took to the stairs to find the matching room, Red following close behind. He made a mental note of the bookshelves on the ground floor, next to the plush, comfortable chairs by the fire. If he was lucky, he could find one in Orcish. He was already hoping to keep his translating needs to a minimum.
The room was small and bare, but the bed looked far more inviting than any cot he’d ever slept on in his clan. There was a single window that opened to a view of the roof and a neighborhood in the town, with the valley as a backdrop. Something about being inside a wooden building unnerved Brex. He was sleeping in a hallowed-out tree, like some kind of woodland animal, hiding from a predator.
Lot of good that’s doing me, he thought. There’s a predator hiding in here too.
Red just stepped over to a small round rug by the bed and laid himself down, closing his eyes. It’d only been a few hours since morning, and still he saw fit to nap.
“All you do is eat and sleep,” Brex said. “I thought you were supposed to be different than other lions.”
Red didn’t care to respond other than to shift himself to lay on his side.
With a shrug, Brex reached over and removed the ring from the lion’s tail before taking out his enchanting plate. Now that they were out of the public eye, he didn’t need to keep Red under an illusion, and he could resume normal communication.
But after he sat down to carve the glyphs for the telepathy spell, his hand froze in place, the edge of the knife against the plate.
I…forgot.
He ran through all the different glyphs that he knew, and the combinations that he could have put together. There were only a dozen that he’d memorized, but even that would mean hundreds of thousands of different spells.
Maybe something like “connect” and “mind”? But then, it had to have been fairly close to the spell he originally tried to use on Kotak, since he only changed one or two of the glyphs.
Brex leaned back and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers.
“I forgot the most important spell I’ve ever cast,” he said aloud before blowing air through his lips. Red perked his head up at the strange noise. Brex frowned at him, then took stock of his inventory of spells.
One gold ring with a severing spell.
One silver ring, half of a telepathy communication spell.
One silver ring, used to make people think a lion is a dog.
And one silver translation ring.
Wallach. Wallach would know how to make that spell, he was a skilled sorcerer, and if even he couldn’t do it on his own, Brex could at least try to help him figure it out. It wouldn’t be terribly impressive to admit he forgot the spell, but he was at least comfortable with saying it.
Brex formulated a plan.
Leave the lion at the inn, with the illusion spell, and go get advice from Wallach, maybe some reference books, if Wallach was willing to let him borrow them. Then, he could come back and attach the telepathy spell, asking Red if they can stay for a little while so Brex could apprentice with Wallach.
The orc winced. Somehow that idea had snuck its way in, burrowing into his mind and refusing to leave.
All right. I’ll ask, but I can’t push it if he says no.
Lions rarely react well to stubbornness, in his experience.
Brex put the illusion spell back on Red’s tail, and the telepathy spell on his own finger, so he could send a message to Red.
Stay here. I’ll be back. Getting help.
He moved to the door and quickly crossed the threshold, locking the door behind him, but not before getting a glimpse of Red standing up and stepping over toward him.
As he turned to move away, he heard scratching at the door and a low chuff, making him wince.
You’re killing me, Red.
Orcanist 