To Captain Karna:
Your letters have made it clear that you believe your time is better spent back in Haramschall. (Please do not waste any more ink repeating this.) But your presence is required at the Mesa. We do not wish for any conflict with the local orc clans to escalate, and the sooner that you can prove the disappearances are unrelated, the better.
Consul Tiamel
II
Brex stumbled downstairs, clumsily swapping the telepathy ring with the translation ring, already dreading the horrible conversations he was going to have with the locals thanks to its “help.” At the inn’s tiny lobby, he asked the clerk if she knew where Wallach lived or worked.
“Yes, go out, turn left, turn right down the row, turn left up the alley, and search for bottles,” she said.
Brex stared at the clerk for a moment while trying to commit that to memory.
Out, left, right, left…bottles.
“Right. Thank you.”
“No, left, then right, welcoming you.”
With a frustrated grunt, he just balled his hands into fists and gave the clerk a grimacing smile while putting his fists together. Though typically a sign of acknowledgement for his friends and family at the clan, the clerk’s reaction of tensing up and stepping back made him think that she took it as a threat.
Well, he was too busy to worry about that.
He stepped out the door and turned left down the main thoroughfare for the town, keeping his eyes locked on the right side of the street for some other cross-street.
Just when he saw a way through, he heard a yelp and his leg collided with something, causing him to tumble to the ground. Dirt and sand flew into the air to begin a slow descent over Brex and whatever he ran into.
Oh. Oh no.
The tiny woman wearing metal and leather laid face down, groaning. Just as Brex got back to his feet, she pushed herself onto her knees, glaring at him. “Reckless Baboon!” she barked at him.
Brex reached out to help her up, but she locked her gaze on Brex’s ring before rolling her eyes.
“Sorcerer! Finger-magic! OFF,” she barked.
With a gulp, Brex complied, taking his translator ring off.
“I’ve been speaking Orcish this whole time for no good reason,” she said, “Because you had to go and be clever. Sorcerers, all of you, complicating things by thinking you’re one step ahead.”
Taken aback, Brex could barely find the words. “You…speak Orcish very well.”
“Well, I have to, don’t I? There are three Orc clans within rock-chucking distance and if one of them has information I need, I better be able to understand them. Now, stop playing games and tell me why you’re here,” the woman said.
“Oh!” Brex gave a nervous laugh. “Just passing through. My, uh, dog and I need a place to stay for a day and then we’re heading to Haramschall.”
Unless I get an apprenticeship here with Wallach, Brex couldn’t help but remind himself.
“Sure,” she said, though Brex knew she was already suspicious. “You keep to yourself and there won’t be any issues. We’ve had…problems with travelers recently. If you’re telling the truth, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if you’re lying, I am going to find out, got it?”
“Y-yes, of course.” Brex swallowed.
She stood up, the tip of her head barely reaching Brex’s waist, but making him feel like an ant in her presence. “Then you can go about your business as long as you start watching where you’re going,” she said before walking off.
Brex heaved a sigh, wiping his brow. The sun was high overhead, and that little encounter left him sweating.
Before the woman was out of eyeshot, a voice called out to Brex from nearby.
“I see you’re getting along well with our fair guard captain.”
Brex turned around to find Wallach walking toward him, hands behind his back and chest high. Quietly relieved that he found the other sorcerer, he couldn’t stop from asking, “Your what?”
“Guard captain. She bosses around the people who protect the town. All three of them. Including the previous captain, Barrask. Impressive, given her dwarvish stature, if I do say so myself.”
Dwarvish? Brex thought. Is he just calling her short, or is she actually a dwarf?
“She doesn’t like me very much, I think,” Brex said.
“She doesn’t like most people. I wouldn’t take it personally, friend.” Wallach smirked. “So what are you doing out here? Did you lose your dog, or did you finish that translation ring already?”
Brex shook his head. “Oh, I was looking for you, actually. I was hoping you could help me with something. I had a spell on a ring earlier, but I forgot which glyphs I used. Do you know of a way to…well, restore a spell that was already on a catalyst?”
Wallach idly scratched under his nose. “Well, nothing to make a spell return to the catalyst, but you could use a certain spell to see what glyphs are currently applied to it. Not ideal, but it would likely help.” He chuckled. “I would call it cheating for your assignment, but the advancement of knowledge is a collaborative effort! Follow me, I can lend you some books.”
Wallach started down a side street, then turned toward an alley. “These books are actually how I started to learn Orcish. I wanted to translate reference texts and beginner’s guides into other languages so we could recruit more sorcerers at the university.”
Brex made a mental note of the direction they were going, so he could see if the clerk’s instructions were right.
“The advisory board didn’t really agree,” Wallach said. “One of the many reasons I decided to leave and set up shop somewhere else. We didn’t see eye to eye on many topics, unfortunately. I rather enjoy speaking Orcish.”
“You do?” Brex asked, noting that they’d already turned one too many times to match up with the instructions, but keeping an eye out for bottles.
“Yes! It’s a crisp language. Many sounds made with the tongue and mouth, avoids using the lips too much. Because of the tusks, I expect. No ‘puhs’ or ‘buhs’ from what I’ve seen. It’s also brutally simple with adjectives that require emoting themselves, which makes it easy to learn, and hard to misinterpret–Ah, here we are!” Wallach gestured to a side door in a building a few turns away from the main alley.
A wooden sign hanged above the door in the shape of a long-necked, wide-based bottle, worn and squeaking as it swayed back and forth.
“Search for bottles,” Brex grumbled to himself.
“What’s that?” Wallach asked.
“N-nothing, hah!” Brex chuckled nervously. “So, may I come in and see?”
Wallach narrowed his eyes and smirked. “Perhaps. You haven’t finished that copy of the translation spell, have you?”
Brex rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, no. I was…sidetracked.”
“I would have been suspicious if you had, friend! It’s not a simple spell, and it’s been barely an hour since I saw you last, if that.” Wallach paused, scratching a sideburn with one of his fingers. “I’ll just hop in here and grab a few choice reference texts and send you back to work.”
Wallach slipped inside, leaving Brex alone in the alley.
He thinks I’m a beginner. I’ve been reading about sorcery for years and he still calls me a beginner. I can’t even remember how many books I’ve read, and sure, some of them repeated information from each other, but that has to count for something, doesn’t it? I knew there was a lot to learn but–
The door opened again, and Wallach returned with a stack of three thick books in his arms. “Three indispensable references for the practicing sorcerer. Encyclopedia of Cantrips, A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Sorcery volumes 1 through 4, and The Dictionary of Known Glyphs, Nineteenth edition. All translated into Orcish by yours truly in one’s spare time.” Wallach’s arms were already shaking under the weight. Brex reached out and took them from him, causing a visible relief in Wallach’s posture. Brex barely felt the weight as he held them. They seemed more awkward to hold than to actually lift.
The orc smiled. “Hopefully I can give these back by tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning at the latest.”
Wallach chuckled nervously, pulling a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbing his forehead. “Yes, yes, hopefully so. But I don’t mind waiting for longer. I’ve got a lot of time to myself out here with plenty of things to do until then. Just drop by whenever you feel like it.”
Brex beamed at him before turning to trot back to the inn where he could read each of them, cover to cover.
Reference texts, Brex had come to learn, made for very poor casual reading.
Sitting on the edge of the bed with Red asleep in the corner of the room, he held The Dictionary of Known Glyphs, Nineteenth edition in his hands. He was barely twenty pages into it and already feeling like he was about to fall asleep. As much as he wanted to read them from beginning to end, memorize them like the books he left behind with his clan, he couldn’t summon the energy to care about each individual glyph. Not only that, they seemed to apply only to incredibly specific scenarios.
One symbol was intended only for the use of giving the wearer of the spell an air of generosity, “often intended,” the book said, “to alert beggars and vagrants of a sorcerer’s hospitality and surplus of goods and currency on the occasion that the sorcerer feels like sharing such property.”
Another one made the wearer see daylight as dusk, and the book didn’t even bother to give context as to why it might be useful. Just that it was available as an option.
Another symbol enhanced the wearer’s ability to see words. Not vision in general, just specific words, built out of letters. Brex nearly tried that one out to make reading less of a chore. But his problem wasn’t making out the words themselves, but motivating himself to power through each entry.
He closed the book and heaved a sigh.
“Am I doing something wrong?” He asked aloud, glancing over at Red. The lion lifted his head, stared at him, blinked, and shifted to lay on his side again. “Oh, you’re a big help.”
Brex flipped through the pages again, muttering to himself.
Wallach had mentioned a spell that he could use to find out the current glyphs attached to a catalyst, but it had to be more complicated than a single glyph. Searching the Dictionary of Known Glyphs was the wrong idea.
He set the tome down and picked up A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Sorcery, volumes 1 through 4. Most of the opening pages were familiar, if translated somewhat differently compared to the version he left with Tiyash. Skimming through it, he found a set of useful “everyday” spells, for basic operation of an enchanting table and handy references for the practicing sorcerer.
Some of them were glyphs he’d already used often. Glyphs for sparks and cutting and refreshing your mind or body after a weary day.
Some that he’d only used once or twice. Connecting, binding, functional glyphs that tied two catalysts together, and by extension, the people that were wearing them. “Mind” and “Thought” were there too.
Flashes of memory surged through him. Kotak’s rage as he held Brex’s face to the fire. The bloodmane, no, Red, lunging at him with claws out. The Guardian sitting next to him as he mourned his grandfather.
Brex ached. To be trying this now, so soon, it felt like too much. But he pressed onward.
The other glyphs were a total mystery to Brex, names and concepts he barely understood. They almost pulsed with danger, making him careful not to touch the wrong part of the page. They were just markings on a page, but felt like more in that moment.
Most of the second volume seemed to describe situations that involved sorcery without enchanting circles. An abridged history of sorcery, and the development of the modern enchanting circle in an effort to streamline the process. But bits and pieces stood out to him, like the idea that in moments of panic, a trained sorcerer can override a catalyst with a single glyph if their willpower is strong enough.
At last, somewhere in volume 3 of 4, Brex found what he was looking for:
The six glyphs necessary to see a catalyst’s current spell.
“(Clockwise from top) Reveal, Effect, Within, Upon, Sorcerous, Material. This particular spell is useful because it does not overwrite the spell on the catalyst within the circle, like most spells that begin with the ‘Attach’ glyph. Instead, this is useful to confirm that you have correctly applied each glyph to your new catalyst. If available, keep a spare enchanting plate nearby with these glyphs painted on for easy carving in order to double-check your work after–“
Brex slammed the book shut, then winced. He ought to have been more careful with someone else’s property.
Still, in a flurry of motion, he grabbed his carving knife and enchanting plate, setting them on the bed and marking the runes on the circumference of the plate. It was enough commotion to get Red to stand up and walk over, tilting his head as he watched.
Brex plucked the telepathy ring from his pocket, placing it in the middle of the plate once he finished carving. The glyphs lit up with blue luminescence, shining as though from behind the grain of wood on the plate. Then, the lines themselves shifted, rotating, splitting, extending and shrinking all as necessary to show off the spell that was attached to the catalyst.
Brex recognized each of them, which was a relief given that he’d been the one to enchant this in the first place.
“Attach: Connect, Mind, Send, Receive, Message”
He scanned the walls for something he could write on, spotting a pen on the bedside table. He fumbled through the few pieces of furniture in the room, finding a small book with meaningless lettering, but the pages were only printed on one side, so it would suit his purposes to use the blank half.
He made a note of the glyphs, and the page numbers in the Glyph dictionary for reference. (Wallach hadn’t been kind enough to alphabetize the glyphs after translation.)
Then, satisfied, Brex got back to work on carving the confirmation spell again, this time looking for the glyphs behind Wallach’s translation ring.
He waited, watching as the symbols shifted into a new arrangement.
Most of these were foreign to him, which meant a lot of searching in the Dictionary of Glyphs. But his efforts proved fruitful after many long, frustrating minutes.
“Attach: Reveal, Speech, Text, Translation, Into, Eyes, Ears.”
It seemed long and unwieldy, perhaps even overly specific. He made a note of each of them, then compared the two spells side by side.
He couldn’t quite understand what made Wallach’s translation spell superior. He wasn’t even sure if it was superior. If anything, it seemed like it was trying too much to be only for visible text and conversation, making the interpretation far too literal.
The “Translation” glyph in the spell was like looking up the direct translation in a dictionary and guessing at the most popular usage. But the “Message” in his own telepathy spell was more about conveying the overall sense of what a person is trying to say. The theme behind the words.
More adaptation than pure translation.
His “assignment” was to bring back a ring that translated text and language to Wallach. But what if Brex could do better? What if he could make a ring that grabbed the overall message from the speaker or writer’s intent and sent that straight to the wearer’s mind?
In another flurry of page-flipping, note-taking, and glyph-carving, Brex soon found himself with a spell that would hopefully solve his translation woes:
“Attach: Reveal, Speech, Text, Mind, Receive, Message.”
It wouldn’t work for telepathy with Red, but it might just make communicating with humans a lot easier.
He watched as the glyphs lit up and converged on the silver ring, then put it on and slipped out of the room to go downstairs.
A new clerk was standing behind the lobby counter, making notes in a guestbook. Tall and broad, she was the largest person that Brex had seen in the entire town so far, and still wasn’t worth measuring compared to him.
Are all humans this small and–
His head collided with a low-hanging beam. Or perhaps just a standard beam that Brex had forgotten to duck under. His hand ran up to his head and held it as the forehead pulsed in pain.
“Sir, are you all right?” The female human clerk called out to him, stepping forward.
“Urgh, I’ll be fine. Not used to the smaller spaces,” Brex said waving her away.
She nodded. “Certainly, but if you need anything from us, please do not hesitate to ask.”
He smiled, “Sure, sure.”
Wait a moment. His eyes widened. A grin spread across his face.
At no point did he have to process what the human said. He understood her immediately, intrinsically. Exactly as he was hoping.
Still, it was possible that she knew Orcish. He needed one more test.
He slipped off the ring and called out. “Actually, I have a question.”
She turned back, looking confused. She replied in a series of sounds that were floaty and airy, anchored by a few consonants and hard phonemes at the start and end of the statement.
Brex put the ring back on.
“Sorry. Just muttering. One quick question.”
She smiled in relief and nodded. “How can I help you, sir?”
“Do you have any reading recommendations?”
He gestured to the bookshelves lining the walls. He wasn’t that interested, really, with so much other reading material in his room.
Still, the woman walked over and selected a thin book with some lettering on the cover. Scary Stories for Steel Hearts.
“It’s my favorite collection, perfect for an evening of reading.”
Brex thanked her and quickly took it upstairs with him, positively glowing with pride.
Brex tossed the book aside onto the bed, just as easily sliding it out of his mind. He knelt down in front of Red, who was lazily resting in the window’s fading sunlight.
“I did it,” he said to the lion, grinning. “I made a useful spell. A spell even better than the one Wallach made.” He leaned back, spilling his legs out and stretching his arms back for support. “Finally. I might even get an apprenticeship out of this.”
Red just set his head back down and rolled over, away from Brex with an annoyed chuff.
A tiny glint of silver shined from behind the fur of his mane.
Brex remembered his promise to the Guardian and found himself slowly showered in guilt.
I can’t take an apprenticeship when I’m supposed to be taking him home, he thought. But the Guardian didn’t set a time limit, he reasoned. Even so, how can I convince Red to stay?
Maybe I don’t have to. Maybe I can take Red home, and then come back to apprentice with Wallach.
Far too much of either scenario relied on luck. The offer of apprenticeship, working with a real sorcerer, might be too good to pass up. But doing that might piss off a lion, or worse, a Guardian.
Brex looked to the side and saw his enchanting plate, sparks igniting in his mind.
If Red’s fused spine was a catalyst of sorcery, then it would stand to reason that there was a spell already attached to it. A spell he could now identify with the help of some reference texts. Brex got to his feet and picked up the enchanting plate, holding it over Red’s back.
Way too small.
If he was going to try and identify the spell, he’d need a chunk of Loquela wood far bigger than that tiny plate. And probably a machete to carve the glyphs.
He scanned the room for options. The furniture was all too small, already carved and arranged to use for sorcery. The bedsheets were the wrong material. Even the rug was–
No. Under the rug. The wooden floor.
It was unlikely that the wood of the building itself came from a Loquela tree, but Brex seemed to recall that being a “recommended” sorcery material instead of a required one.
He flipped through the pages of A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Sorcery, volumes 1 through 4, searching for the section on finding or making an enchanting plate.
“‘…Consider the size of the plate…’” he read aloud. “‘…Travel considerations…enterprise versus local economies…’ Here we go. ‘Enchanting plates should be made out of plant-based, organic materials whenever possible, firm enough to hold etchings of glyphs. This disqualifies fabrics save for the sturdiest of cloths, but even those will fray and lose their functionality. Wood is highly recommended, both malleable enough to carve glyphs into, but firm enough to hold onto its usefulness for many years. The best wood for conducting sorcery comes from the Loquela tree, with a ninety-nine per-cent accuracy rate for correct transfer of glyphs, but sorcerers with limited resources may use any sufficiently reliable wood, with a seventy per-cent accuracy rate.”
He pursed his lips. Seventy percent left a lot of room for error. But that only applied to transferring glyphs. The text was vague on identifying glyphs. And if he were to try and change the glyphs, he’d certainly use a proper, full-size enchanting plate.
His tiny carving knife couldn’t possibly last against the floor’s well worn wood. But he did have a severing spell in his pocket. If he was careful, he could carve using sorcery and keep his knife from going dull in an hour.
It was worth a shot.
Bribing Red with the last of his provisioned jerky, Brex convinced the lion to lay down in the largest open space in the room. He set the gold ring with the cutting spell on his finger and got to work.
By the time that he had started on the last glyph, Red had fallen asleep and the sun had finally set, leaving the room gently lit by twilight. He knew that it was working when each glyph started to glow in sequence as he put the finishing touches on the spell.
He took a step back. The room felt cold, the light from the spell giving no sense of heat, just luminance.
Each stroke on the floor of the room began to move and shift in size and angle. Red woke up and yawned, lazily watching one of the glyphs near his head. Brex scrambled to grab his quill and book, taking notes and transcribing the glyphs as best he could as they rearranged into new symbols.
He barely finished before they faded from the floor, leaving it as though it had never been touched.
A few more moments of looking up the glyphs yielded another discovery: He didn’t even recognize half of them.
As far as he could tell, he only knew of three in the Dictionary of Known Glyphs: “Restrict”, “Body” and “Mind”
It was a seven-glyph spell. “Restrict”, something, “Body”, something, “Mind”, something, something.
Brex sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the sleeping lion.
Who did this to you? Another sorcerer? Or did you get on the wrong side of a Guardian somewhere? Do Guardians use sorcery like this?
An awful, terrible idea sprang forth in his mind.
Something he couldn’t do, not with so many unknown glyphs. Not with a seventy percent success rate. Not on the floor of a room he was only staying in for one night.
But something he had to try.
Red was not a normal lion, even if he often acted like one. What if a sorcerer, long ago, captured him? Turned him into the fearsome beast that the orcs whispered stories about, perhaps. But the sorcerer realized he made a mistake. He made a beast too powerful. Too clever. So he caged him with sorcery, using glyphs to keep him with a normal lion’s body and instincts.
Brex wanted to remove that restriction. See what happens.
As Red tried to sleep, Brex began carving glyphs around him in the same places, in a circle. Glyphs he knew. Glyphs thought might help.
But after hours of study and other spells, his hand slipped, and he didn’t notice one stroke becoming too long, and another too short.
He knew what he thought he was carving: The same spell, replacing the glyph for “Restrict” with the glyph for “Freedom”. But he changed one too many elements.
When the glyphs lit up, he felt a sense of pride, unaware of his mistake.
Red felt something else.
The lion sprang to his feet as the symbols faded, trying to reach back with his teeth to bite at the metal in his back. Then he fell back to the ground and tried rolling over it, but that didn’t seem to work. Just as Brex started to worry that Red would catch on to what he did, the lion stood up and jumped out the window of the room.
For a moment, Brex stood in shock, then scrambled to find the ring that allowed him to send messages to Red and slid it over his finger.
Come back!
Brex slowly climbed out of the window, carefully shifting his weight to stand on the roof.
Red? Come back!
He wasn’t sure about the distance, or even how to shout with mere thoughts. But he hoped the lion could hear him.
Somewhere near the edge of his vision, a flash of crimson fur darted from behind one bush to another.
Chasing some small animal.
Oh, Brex thought. Dinner.
Red was hungry. Well, probably hungry. The lion wasn’t much for explanations.
Brex stood at the edge of the roof, catching his breath. It was probably safe to let Red be for now and return to his room.
But when he turned on his heel, his foot slipped on the slanted roof, causing him to fall onto the worn wooden surface, roll over the edge and fall off the building entirely.
He fell for a split second, then hit the ground with a thump accompanied by his vision going dark.
As the world returned to his senses, his vision going from a blurry mess to a slightly sharper mess, Brex thought he saw a familiar face.
Round features, long braided hair, all hanging over him, with a look of concern.
“T-tiyash?”
Her faced scrunched up in confusion.
“What?”
Brex blinked a few times. The face he was looking upward at was most certainly not Tiyash.
But instead, the guard captain for Ziqondi, the small female one, looked back at him, her features barely lit by a torch at the inn’s entrance.
He tried to get to his feet, only to discover that most, if not all, of his entire backside thought that was a bad idea and filled him with pain at the attempt. So instead, he just continued to lay where he was.
“Sir,” she said, eyes locked with his as she spoke in a mockingly formal tone, “you seem to have a bad habit of nearly killing me.”
“Oh, not on purpose. I’m really just clumsy,” Brex said, trying to give a confident laugh, but only able to show a nervous chuckle.
“Then watch your step, sir orc.”
Brex’s smile disappeared. “H-how do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve been talking to some other patrons at the Fertile Valley Lodge here, and they’ve given me some interesting information. They’ve heard noises from your room. Growls and grunts. Loud ones. Some have even said there were scraping noises, for hours.”
Brex swallowed back some anxiety. “My dog can be…just a little unruly when I’m away.”
“I knocked on your door a little while ago,” the guard captain continued. “No response. And just as I leave to go looking for you, you nearly crush me by falling off the roof.”
“L-like I said–“
“Unintentional, sure. But we’ve had incidents here, sir orc.” Her face turned dour. “So I must ask that you and your dog stay here in the meantime while we investigate.”
All of the radiant rage she had shown Brex earlier in the day had turned into cold, purposeful suspicion.
“O-of course. We’ll…be around if you need us.”
“Good,” she said before walking off.
Brex took his time getting up from the ground, wincing and hissing each time pain shot up his body. It took much longer than he’d have liked just to step back into the inn and go upstairs back into his room.
He gingerly laid himself down in bed, first considering the idea of making a spell to aid his own recovery, but abandoning it because he lacked the energy to reference so many more glyphs for one day.
Searching for Red would have to wait, if it was even necessary. If he was lucky, the lion would be back in that little sliver of sunlight when he woke up. But luck was hard to come by these days, it seemed.
Graciously, sleep overtook him in a matter of seconds.
Brex dreamed of times long past. Of days all melting together, beautiful things that never happened. He dreamed of accepting the chief’s cloak, eating dinner with his mother and father, and giving Kotak a kiss on the cheek before leading him to bed.
His mind had a sliver of awareness that none of it was real, and it made his heart ache like never before. Some cruel entity had decided to show him everything he could never have again. Not just by sight and sound, but by touch and taste and scent.
Delicious, hot meals made for a family, not half-rations of dried meats and fruits. A warm embrace from a lover, with the sheets pulled over the pair of them. The scent of two mixed into one, a masculine aura merging together with his.
He dreamed of intimacy, the likes of which he had not known for many months. Not just an expression of devotion, but an outlet for the energy and worries that built up inside him. A chance to lay back and accept the help of someone willing and eager to show him such kindness.
It felt all too real. The arm around his chest. The breath on his neck. The gentle sound of a peaceful companion with him in bed.
Too real to ignore.
Brex awoke, keeping his eyes closed and his hand holding onto Kotak’s arm tightly. Ready to cling to it forever.
He kept the sheets close to his body, feeling Kotak’s chest press against him from behind. He didn’t want to open his eyes.
“Please, don’t leave,” he said in a half-whisper.
“Never without you.”
But that was not Kotak’s voice.
Adrenaline shot through Brex and he jumped out of bed, leaving the sheets behind. He backed up and stumbled against furniture to get a safe distance away.
But when his eyes adjusted, he found himself filled with more shock and confusion than fear.
Another orc, or someone like one, was laying in his bed with his eyes closed. Not a shred of clothing on his body, save for the sheets which left little to the imagination. His build was powerful and his features were blunt. Judging by the size of the bed, this orc had to be at least as tall and broad as Brex was himself, if not more. But while Brex was stocky and soft in places, this orc was lean and muscled. Certainly larger, and stronger, than anyone he’d met since he left the encampment.
But, he lacked certain features. For one, this orc had no tusks. If anything, he had an overbite, which made for a very disconcerting profile. His skin was a darker shade of green than most other orcs, and he had round ears, making his face seem wider than it should. And the most obvious difference: Long locks of straight, ginger hair extending down behind his head, along with a trail of red chest hair that tapered to a thin line that led under the sheets.
The stranger shifted in bed and sat up, bleary-eyed and blinking.
“Something wrong?”
Brex held up his hands, erratically shifting gestures of surrender and accusatory pointing. “Wha-, yes! Who are you?”
The stranger rolled his shoulders and yawned. “It’s me.” Brex could see his teeth were unnaturally sharp. Pointed where most orcs had simple blunt square shapes.
“Why are you here?” Brex glanced at the door, confirming that it was still locked. “A-and how did you get in!”
The stranger shrugged. “I came in through the window and laid on the floor, but then it got cold. So I got in bed while you were sleeping. Are you coming back to bed, green thing?”
Green thing.
Brex’s eyes went wide.
“No…” he said with a quiet gasp.
“Great, more for me,” the stranger said, instantly spreading his body out to cover as much space as possible, pulling the sheets back over himself.
This can’t be right, Brex thought, creeping back over to the bed, looking over the stranger’s features.
“Red?”
He opened his eyes, face half-buried in a pillow. “Did you change your mind?”
“This is…really you?” Brex asked. “You were a lion and now you’re…not?”
Red screwed up his face in thought, then lifted the sheets to peek at his body. “Oh. That explains why I was so cold.”
Brex slumped his posture, confused. So many questions, he didn’t know where to start. “H-how did you change? What was it like? Were you always a lion?”
Red grunted, shifting so he could lay face up and answer. “I don’t know how I changed. It was after I ate, but before I got in the bed. Must have been while I was asleep on the floor.” He nodded, as if he finished giving testimony. “I wasn’t really thinking about it before, but there’s a lot more going on in here now.” He gestured to his head.
“So,” Brex said. “You were always a lion until now?”
Red bit his lip. “Hm, I wouldn’t say that. I can’t think about not being a lion, but I feel like this isn’t new for me.”
“You can’t think about it? You mean, you can’t remember anything else?”
“Yes! That’s the word I was looking for. Can’t remember.”
“What do you remember?”
Red crossed his arms over the sheets. “A lot of eating and sleeping. Making a mess, getting blood all over my face sometimes. I remember a lot of attempts to mate with the lionesses, but they generally didn’t care for that. Then there were the times they ganged up on me and wouldn’t let me near the water.”
Brex winced, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But you don’t remember being anything that’s not a lion? Being anything before the Bloodmane?”
“No. But that’s not my name, so don’t call me that,” Red said, more sternly than ever before.
“S-sure,” Brex said. “But how do you know that’s not your name if you don’t remember?”
“You know lots of things without remembering them, don’t you?” Red laughed. “Do you remember learning how to talk or walk? But you know how.”
“Fine. But if that’s not your name, what is?”
“Can’t remember that,” Red said. “But Red works. It’s a good nickname.”
Brex sighed, exasperated.
Red grinned at him. “You’d be less frustrated if you were in bed.”
Brex shook his head. “I can’t sleep now. Not after this.”
“Sure you can!” Red said. “You can get under the covers and think about this long and hard until you get tired again, and we can keep each other warm.”
Brex found himself apprehensive about sharing a bed with him. Maybe because not too long ago, Red was a predatory animal with teeth as big as Brex’s fingers. Or maybe it was because this version of Red was far too similar to the kind of orc he’d want to do more than share a bed with.
“You’re not…going to get hungry again, are you?” Brex asked.
Red shrugged. “Maybe. But if I do, I’ll go take care of myself. I’m not a child.” He stretched, lifting his arms in the air before slipping them under the covers again.
“What do you mean, ‘take care–‘”
“Tired of questions,” Red said, shifting to lay on his side again. “Let’s talk again in the morning, green thing.”
Brex let out another sigh, then begrudgingly slid himself back under the sheets, next to Red. He tried to keep his distance from Red, but in a matter of seconds, Red reached out and slipped an arm over Brex’s chest, pulling him close. Presumably for warmth.
It was strange to be held again.
“This is probably a dream,” Brex muttered softly, eyes firmly open and staring out at the wall opposite him.
“If we’re both dreaming, then at least we chose good company,” Red said.
They remained quiet, and soon Brex heard soft, rhythmic breaths that indicated Red had fallen asleep. His mind continued run wild with questions, trying to deduce how this had happened.
Red couldn’t remember being anything but a lion, but he was accustomed to being the shape of an orc. Perhaps he was once human? The similarities in shape were there: bipedal, two arms, forward-facing eyes and the same overall head shape. There was no way to confirm that, though.
Clearly, he’d interfered with something by casting that spell on Red.
Brex pondered, reaching back to touch Red’s side. Still flesh, but maybe a bit further…
His fingers made contact with metal. As uncomfortable as it was to reach like this, he could at least ensure that the sorcerous metal was still part of Red. It seemed like his skin was barely covering the edge of the metal too.
He wanted to jump out of bed and find out what had changed. To cast another spell and reveal the glyphs now attached to his friend.
Brex paused.
His friend. He saw Red as his friend now. Not a pet or a companion or an obligation. The natural conclusion he drew was “friend.”
Perhaps it could wait until morning. It would be unkind to do that to a friend unless it was really necessary.
Instead, he laid in bed. His mind kept circling around the same thoughts, connecting, reinforcing and disproving theories all at once.
Over and over and over again.
Orcanist 