To Captain Karna:
I understand that you believe a wild animal to be responsible for the disappearances. To be quite frank, that’s what we suspected from the beginning. But five deaths, and one more disappearance, are too many to ignore. Please continue to investigate and send status reports. When the decision is made to bring you back to the Guard in Haramschall, you will be among the first to know.
Consul Tiamel
P.S. No, I do not know when the decision will be made.
III
As dawn broke, Brex realized that he hadn’t caught a wink of sleep.
If anything, his energy had doubled since going to bed. He’d feared falling asleep because he wanted so desperately for this revelation to be real. Red as a sentient, speaking, articulate living thing meant that he could find his home much more easily, and his deal with the Guardian could be fulfilled that much faster, leaving him with the freedom to…
To what? He still hadn’t returned Wallach’s translation spell. He still hadn’t even asked Red if they could stay for a little while. There was still too much in the air to try and figure out what to do with his life after all this.
Brex took a deep breath. First he needed to learn more about what happened to Red. Step one: Check the spell currently on his body.
The sun still hadn’t cleared the hills out the window, but the light of dawn was starting to fill the room. Footsteps trailed past the room’s door as other patrons went downstairs for breakfast or to check out for the morning.
With a grunt, Brex stood out of bed, his back still aching from the previous day’s fall. He turned back to check on Red.
He was still something much closer to an orc than a lion. And still asleep.
Some habits stick no matter what shape you’re in.
Brex leaned over and meekly prodded Red until he opened his eyes.
“Whassit,” Red mumbled.
“I want to check the spell on you,” Brex said. “Do you mind sitting still in the circle for a little while?”
Red yawned and shrugged, grabbing a pillow from the bed and standing up, shocking Brex with his unabashed nudity. Brex watched him step over to the circle, seeing the metal laid in his back for the first time. It spread out from the base of his neck and over to his shoulder blades before tapering into a line that traveled along his spine, like a bird’s outstretched wings. But his view was obscured when Red laid on his back in the middle of the circle.
While the orc started work on a new set of glyphs to reveal the spell, Red just watched him work.
There was something hanging in the silence between them, and Brex couldn’t figure out what.
Between glyphs, Brex spoke up. “Sorry about doing this before. Yesterday. Without your permission.”
Red weighed the response for a moment before replying. “It’s fine. It was obvious you were doing some kind of sorcery after a while.”
Brex crooked an eyebrow. “You’re…fine with that?”
“You cared enough to try something. If I didn’t like what you were doing, I could have just stood up and walked to a different part of the room.” Red smiled. “And whatever you did made it a lot easier to talk.”
Brex felt himself blushing. “Yeah, I guess it worked, just not how I expected.”
“I can’t remember anyone ever being so interested in me.”
A sunbeam slid in from the window and landed on Red’s body, highlighting a line on his waist.
Brex had started to call this version of Red the “half-orc” one, even if he wasn’t sure what the other half was. Maybe it was part lion, or part human, but he couldn’t in good conscience call Red completely an orc without tusks or an underbite.
Upon finishing the spell on the floor, he found his notes to copy the runes and compare. After studying the two sets of glyphs, he’d found the problem: He’d failed to copy the second glyph in the spell properly, and had replaced it with something else entirely.
Unfortunately, he had no idea what either of them meant, apart from looking very similar as symbols. Still, he made sure to write them both down for future reference.
“So, now that you’re finished with this, we’re leaving, right?” Red asked.
Brex’s stomach knotted itself. He told himself to get it over with and ask Red if they could stay, just for a little while.
But the way he asked, saying “we’re leaving, right?” He was assuming they would leave. That had to mean Red wouldn’t want to linger, didn’t it?
“Not yet,” Brex said, remembering the guard captain’s request. An opportunity to dodge this question just a little longer. “Some important people asked us to stay until they’ve sorted out some trouble.”
Red narrowed his gaze, sitting up. “Trouble? Like what?”
“She didn’t say. Just asked us–“
Brex cut himself off when he saw Red hunched over, panting quickly. But before he could reach out and help, Red’s body changed in a fraction of a moment.
His head shifted into a skull with a muzzle, arms and legs reforming into joints that supported a quadrupedal body, fingers shrinking down into his hands. His skin was soon covered in golden brown fur, and his face was framed by a scarlet mane.
And then, as if it were nothing, he calmly sat back down in the middle of the circle.
“Red,” Brex said. “Are you all right?”
Red just tilted his head, causing Brex to wince.
Of course, he didn’t understand language like this.
He dug through his remaining inventory of spells on catalysts, finding the one he used for communicating with lion-Red, then made a quick copy of it with the matching ring for himself, overwriting the ring with the illusion spell.
One of these days, I’m just going to buy a hundred catalysts and then I’ll never have to worry about this nonsense again.
It was a lot of work for simple communication, but Red waited patiently the whole time.
Then, with a slip of one ring around Red’s tail and another around Brex’s own finger, he gave conversation another shot, thinking the words.
Is Red all right? Brex asked.
Red fine, he replied. Red not know what made that happen.
Neither does green thing, Brex said. Will Red stay here while green thing asks someone for help?
Probably, Red said. Might get hungry.
Well, don’t leave.
Red not leave without green thing, Red said, then punctuated his message by laying on the ground and yawning before closing his eyes.
It was good enough for Brex.
After grabbing his bag and taking count of his remaining spells (translation, telepathy, and severing), he went downstairs.
As he thundered down the stairs, Brex felt a pang in his gut: Hunger.
He searched his bag for something quick to eat, like the dried meats and fruits he’d been tolerating for the past few days, but found himself without provisions.
Better stop by the surplus shop and grab some more supplies, Brex thought, turning toward the front door of the inn, only to be blocked by the guard captain.
“Going somewhere?” she asked in Orcish.
Brex froze, then glanced down at his empty bag. “I need to pick up more food for me and my…dog.” He bit his lip. “For when we go back out on the road?”
She crossed her arms and glared at him.
As an attempt of proving himself, he showed her his bag.
“Tiv!” she called out to someone behind Brex. He turned around, spotting another female human, much taller than the guard captain, with a small notebook talking to one of the other patrons having breakfast. The guard captain continued, speaking words he couldn’t understand. Brex managed to slip on his translation ring in time to catch the last half of her command.
“–Escorting this gentleman. Make sure no one leaves until I come back.”
“Understood, Captain!” Tiv said.
The guard captain opened the door to the inn and Brex followed, making sure to take off his ring as she began speaking in Orcish again.
“Busy night, sir?”
Brex swallowed. “H-how do you mean?”
“Bags under your eyes.”
“I was…studying.”
“Studying for what, sir?”
Brex cringed a little every time she called him that. “Please, my name is Brex.”
“Fine then. What were you studying, Brex?”
“Glyphs.”
She sighed. “To what end?”
“I may be taking an apprenticeship with another sorcerer.”
She didn’t respond.
They strode down the side of the road that bisected the town, Brex assuming that she was leading him toward a shop, though he couldn’t discern exactly which one.
“May I ask your name, miss…?” Brex said.
“Just call me Captain,” she said.
“Is there more than one around here?”
She shook her head. “Ziqondi’s not big enough for one captain, not really,” she said grimly. “I’m here investigating some disappearances.”
“Disappearances?” Brex asked.
She gave him the barest of glances back in his direction.
“In the past two months, six people have gone missing. Always from one of the inns here in Ziqondi. Five of them have been found, each by the riverside, bodies ripped open, organs and muscles ripped to shreds. Often by the time we find them, the water has eroded many of their features, so we can barely deduce which of the missing individuals we’d found.”
Brex found his gaze falling away from her, down to his feet.
“Gahdj,” he mumbled. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s no small comfort to hear that coming from you.”
“Why?”
“Because, sir Brex,” she said, eyes still locked forward, standing beside him. “Many of the folk here want to believe the orcs are doing this. For revenge, for settling too close by their territory. Or they fear what they call your ‘savage’ nature.”
“Savage nature?” Brex was dumbfounded. “I can’t speak for other clans, but ours has never interfered with humans, not for as long as I can remember. Even when bandits attacked, we’ve never associated them with people here–“
The captain held up a hand, waiting for Brex to fall silent, his diatribe fading quickly.
“I don’t believe orcs are responsible for these disappearances,” she said. “At least, not any of the orcs from the settlements nearby. I’ve met with many of them. They keep to themselves.
“But last night, another patron from one of the inns here was found dead by the river. He was last seen locking himself in his room two doors down from yours. And yesterday, you arrived in town with a very large dog that certainly looks capable of tearing into a person’s insides. If provoked.”
Brex’s stomach dropped.
Hungry, Red had told him several times now, before disappearing off into the night. Returning with fur tinted by blood. Even the night before, he went into the wilds, chasing animals for meat. What if he found a human out there? With a lion’s mind, could he really tell the difference between a human out for a stroll and an animal as part of the ecosystem?
Two months was even before grandfather had died. How far did the bloodmane roam before he called Brex his friend?
“Captain,” Brex interjected. “I promise, I had nothing to do with those deaths.” He chose his words carefully, as if that could help his case.
“Like I said, sir. I don’t believe an orc is responsible. There are plenty of other reasons this might be happening. This town used to be a heavily trafficked stop on a smuggling route for Ambrosia.”
Brex furrowed his brow. “Ambrosia?”
“Awful drug. Dries out the face, strong sensation of euphoria, very addictive. That’s why Captain Barrask was first sent here. But that’s in the town’s past, not its present. You and your companion are our likeliest suspects for these disappearances. If you have nothing to hide, then don’t leave. Don’t cause trouble. Don’t give me a reason to lock you up. Understood?”
Brex nodded.
The captain gestured to the door in front of them. “Then please, buy your supplies. I need to return to the inn as soon as possible.”
They were in front of a building that looked ready to fall apart at any moment, planks of wood still clinging to each other with the help of worn, rusty nails. Brex stepped inside, followed by the Captain.
Just a few aisles, barely stocked with bagged and jarred goods, as well as swaths of fabric for making clothes. The clerk stood behind the counter, eyes locked on Brex, and the orc recognized the fear in his gaze. Inside, Brex’s head was less than a finger’s distance from hitting the ceiling, and he’d likely knock all the goods off the shelf if he didn’t watch his own arms.
Better make this quick.
Brex avoided the jars and went for dry goods, grabbing a few bags of nuts, fruit, and dried meat. Stuff that would last for a few more days on the road.
He approached the counter with his proposal.
“Is this acceptable?” he asked.
The clerk appraised the bundle of food, and said something Brex didn’t recognize.
Before he could put the ring back on, the Captain spoke up.
“He says it’s nine sentas.”
Brex paused. “Nine what?”
“Sentas.”
“What are those?”
The captain furrowed her brow, like she was unsure if he was joking. “Money?”
Brex straightened up, confused. “Why would you want money for food? Money’s for personal things. Like books, a-and perfume.”
The captain winced, rubbing her temple. “Oh no.” She heaved a sigh. “How long has it been since you left your clan’s encampment, exactly?”
“Just a few days.”
She shook her head. “Before that.”
Brex thought about it. “Seven summers, I think.”
She stepped forward and pulled some small metal coins from her pocket, placing them on the table. The clerk swallowed and nodded, then bowed his head a little and gestured gently toward the door. Brex slid the supplies into his bag, still confused, but following the woman.
The Captain quickly led him out of the shop and back toward the inn.
“And how old are you, Brex?”
It took him a moment to realize that she was asking his age.
Orcs would never phrase it that way, he wanted to tell her. Things were old. Orcs have lived to watch a number of seasons go by. Orcs are elevated above nonliving things in this way.
“I’ve seen twenty summers, myself.”
“So you were still a child last time you ventured away from your clan. With family, I take it?”
“Yes,” Brex said, choosing not to explain what happened to his family.
“I know things are different where you’re from, but around here…well, most places, even…they’re going to expect you to pay them for what they give you. Whether it’s something that you need or something that you want.”
Brex rubbed his neck. “I don’t understand, why would they demand payment for something I need to stay alive? I know why the clerk is there, to make sure nobody takes more than what’s fair.”
“No, sir,” the captain said. “The clerk is there because he needs to make sure you pay for what you take. Whether you need it or want it doesn’t matter.”
“But I don’t have any money,” Brex said.
“Another good reason to stay in town. Because the inn is going to ask for more money when you leave, and you better be able to pay. I’m sure if you ask around, someone will be willing to pay you for some work.”
“W-what do I do when that runs out?” Brex asked, starting to panic.
“You do more work to earn more money. Listen, I can’t be the one who teaches you how the world works, all right? I have other things I need to do. You have your snacks, it’s time to for me to return to my investigation.”
As they stepped back inside the inn, Brex saw Wallach talking to another, shorter human in the inn’s lounge, similar to Karna but with lighter skin and clearly masculine. He couldn’t help from calling out.
“Wallach!”
The other sorcerer turned and brightened up. “Pardon me, Barrask, we’ll have to catch up another time,” he said, before walking over to meet Brex.
“Brexothuruk,” he said, impressing Brex by using his full name. “I’ve been looking for you! I was afraid I scared you off with that little assignment.”
Brex rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled, about to explain, but the Captain cut in.
“I was just escorting him to the general store for some supplies. I’ve asked him, along with the other patrons, not to leave until we’ve been able to gather more information about Messer Aeden’s disappearance.”
“Another one?” Wallach asked, shaking his head in resignation. “As always, if you need to call on me for assistance, I am available.”
“Understood, sir.”
“If you would permit it, Captain Karna, I’d like to borrow my orcish friend for a little while, as you continue your investigation. We’ve got academic business to attend to.”
The Captain looked mildly irritated, perhaps because Wallach had managed to spoil her name as “Karna.” She gave Brex another once-over, narrowing her gaze.
Brex was still the tallest and broadest person in the room, and probably the building, by at least half. If he knew how to use that size, he could subdue just about anyone around him. He never did.
A shame he couldn’t convince them to believe that with just his word.
“You’ll vouch for him, until we have a better idea of a suspect, Wallach?”
Wallach nodded. “Absolutely.”
“If he skips town, I’m holding you responsible, Wallach.”
“I’m sure he has nothing to hide from the Investigative Division, Captain.”
Brex nodded again. He had plenty to hide, especially Red and his dangerous appetite. But this was an easy way out of a dangerous conversation. The longer Karna stayed and asked him questions, the quicker they’d connect Brex and Red to the deaths.
He had to admit the probability of Red’s innocence was slim.
Brex chose to postpone those thoughts until he was out of the scrutinizing eyes of this Investigative Division.
“I’ll allow it,” Karna said. “But I want to hear from both of you before dusk, or I’ll beat down your door myself.”
“It’ll be my pleasure to keep you updated.” Wallach turned to Brex. “Shall we make our way to the lab?”
Brex wanted to go back and check on Red. Make sure he hadn’t jumped out the window and mauled another unsuspecting human. But doing that now would only make him look more suspicious.
“S-sure, I can give you back your books,” Brex said.
“Fantastic,” Wallach said.
“Brex,” Karna’s tone turned low, just as he was about to turn away. “I still don’t suspect an orc is responsible for these deaths and disappearances.” Her brow furled downward. “Prove me right.”
She watched the two sorcerers leave with eyes like daggers.
“She’s got a flair for the dramatic, our fair captain.”
Wallach had a gift for lecturing and walking at the same time. He’d been going on ever since they’d left the inn, and managed to spew opinion after opinion with impressive speed before they reached the lab.
Brex was barely listening, instead formulating a plan about how best to leave town while angering the least amount of people possible. Now that Red was causing trouble, he had to take the lion and run, preferably somewhere he wouldn’t be recognized. As soon as he got back to the inn, he and Red could leave out the window and escape in the cover of night.
“Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself,” Wallach declared. “Have you had enough time to figure out my little translation spell?”
Brex had to leave, but not before getting just a little more information out of Wallach. He couldn’t waste an opportunity like this.
“Yes, well…” Brex fumbled around in a pocket for his own translation ring. “S-something like that. I saw your spell, but I think I found something a little more universal. It’s, ah…” He winced, reaching into the furthest depths of his mind for the glyphs from a day previous. “Reveal, Speech, Text, Mind…Message? Something like that.”
Wallach’s pace slowed as he pondered the spell. “Ah, yes, that would be more efficient, but it wouldn’t be much of a cantrip then. Put on that catalyst for an hour, and one would be as tired as if one had just run around the perimeter of Haramschall–“
The elder sorcerer glanced back at Brex and barked a laugh. “Of course! A fellow with mass like yours wouldn’t need to worry about such arbitrary limits for little spells like this.”
As they approached the lab, Brex adjusted his bag over his shoulder again before it slipped off. With so many rations and a few books in the bag, it was starting to wear him out.
Wallach withdrew a key from on of his pockets and slipped it into the door’s lock. “Do you recall the Resource that powers sorcery?”
Brex had read it a hundred times. “Yes, it’s woven in the muscle fiber of sentient beings.”
“Exactly!” Wallach clapped Brex on the shoulder after opening the door. “You’ve got more Resource than the average ‘sentient being’ in this lovely little world of ours, just by nature of being an orc! That puts you at an advantage, my friend. Spells that normally would fatigue myself or other trained sorcerers will be like water off a duck’s back for you.” He excitedly gestured forward, into the lab. “Please, come inside.”
Brex had not known what to expect when visiting a sorcerer’s workshop. The smiths and cooks of his clan set up their workstations with frequently used tools around appliances they needed, and he’d always just grabbed any book he could get his hands on.
But Wallach’s lab had so much more than books. Certainly, there were shelves upon shelves of them, multiple copies lined up next to each other. But it also held specimens encased in glass containers and jars and beakers full of liquid. In the center was an ornately-decorated enchanting table. Not as big as the circle he made on the floor of the inn, but definitely much larger than the one Brex carried in his bag.
The interior itself had very little in the way of natural light, with parallel slits in the wall for windows and wrought iron fixtures for unlit lamps and doors. Instead, the place was lit by some sort of spell that Brex had yet to learn. The more he looked at the lamp, the more curious he became.
The light came from a small globe that was too bright to focus on, but Brex guessed that it was made of sorcerous metal. Some manner of wire was connected to the lamp, emerging from the base and sliding into a sealed jar full of a sky blue liquid that appeared otherwise dormant.
“Brexothuruk!” Wallach called, standing by a glass case and gesturing for him to come closer.
Brex made a mental note about the lamp and followed.
Inside the case were three tissue samples, dyed to emphasize the contrast in muscle fiber.
“Now, this is hardly a complete collection, but have a look here.” Wallach pointed to the smallest of the three. A stretched, rectangular sample of muscle tissue showing a few fibers of something sky blue between the red ones. “This is a sample from a dwarf. Smaller, more compact muscle, but also prevalent with Resource.” He pointed to the next one. “And this one, from a human, is larger, but contains the same amount of Resource. Not quite as dense as the dwarf’s, you see?” Wallach pointed to the last and largest of the three. “And this is an orc. The least efficient distribution of Resource per cubic centitack, but the tissue carries it nonetheless.”
Brex chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. “Are you saying orcs have the same amount of Resource as humans and dwarves?”
“Oh no, on the contrary,” Wallach said. “Even with these samples, when you calculate the size difference, orcs have quite a fair bit more Resource. Just because it’s less dense than a human’s or a dwarf’s doesn’t mean the overall amount is smaller.”
He scuttled over to another glass display, and Brex followed.
Two tissue samples this time, one flat and plain-looking, with little Resource. The other seemed to bulge outward, developed and looking much more dense with Resource. “See, these are taken from two humans. One is from a clearly more developed physical body, and the other, well, we’d call that specimen a ‘bookish’ type.”
Wallach gave a pained smile. “And if you haven’t found out yet, here’s your introduction to the sorcerer’s dilemma.”
Brex pieced it together easily. “Do you spend your time studying, developing your knowledge of glyphs and spells, or do you strengthen your body for more Resource?”
“Exactly. Ever the bright one.”
“Couldn’t you do both?”
“Certainly, but life finds a way to complicate things and eat up one’s time. I used to spend many hours honing my body to be a better source of power, at least until I found myself neck-deep in studying Alchemy.”
“Alchemy?” Brex asked.
Wallach shook his head. “I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll introduce you to the various schools in due time. Let me have a look at that new translation ring of yours first.”
Brex handed the silver ring over to Wallach, who placed it in the middle of the wooden enchanting table at the center of the room and quickly began carving the ever-familiar glyphs for revealing a spell on a catalyst.
Brex recalled the lamp connected to the jar. “Wallach, the light in here–“
“Ah yes, I’ve had to make do with using some alchemy for that as well. Captain Barrask allowed me to take over the prison building for use as my lab after my first rental got a little…damaged. Not enough wrongdoing around here to really justify using the prison for its intended purpose, well, until recently.”
Change the subject, Brex thought. Before he can put it together.
“But the light, if it’s from sorcery, where’s the resource? There’s no one holding it.”
Wallach sighed. “Ever the inquisitive one, you are.” Just before finishing his glyph carving, he guided Brex over to the lamp. “Alchemy is the study of using extracted Resource and storing it for later use. Using a spell, I was able to withdraw Resource from myself and place it into a catalyst. Then I dissolved the catalyst into this sealed jar of liquid with a mixture of acid and water, which created a—a battery of sorts.” He heaved a sigh. “It’s hardly efficient. But it does work. Perhaps someday we can figure that out together.”
Someday, Brex thought, feeling a tug of longing from within. More than just studying, actually exploring new frontiers of knowledge. He could be pushing at the limits of sorcery itself.
“Here,” Wallach said, pulling the globe of light away from the jar and dimming the room in the process. He brought the metal sphere over to the enchanting table and replaced the translation ring in the middle with it. “Have a look at the spell I left on it.”
Wallach put the finishing touch on the last glyph, and Brex watched as the symbols lit up and rearranged themselves into an entirely different spell.
Five symbols were left. He recognized one instantly: Light. But the others were foreign to him, except for the first, which seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite place.
It was only when he dug out his “notebook” from his bag and flipped to the page with Red’s spell that he matched it. It was one of the unknown glyphs there.
Wallach watched him with a wry smile, looking on with both pride and perhaps a kind of pity.
“I know this one,” said Brex, “But what are these?”
“It’s a simple spell. Emit, Radiant, Light, Invert, Sun-Trigger.”
Sun-Trigger, Brex thought.
“So, the spell will only activate when there’s sunlight?”
“Close,” Wallach said. “Combined with the ‘Invert’ glyph, the spell will only activate when there is no sunlight. Fairly often in this dank little prison of mine with such small windows. But it does save me from wasting the Resource when there’s just enough ambient sunlight.”
But Brex’s mind was racing in a different direction, thinking about the previous night.
Red had said he felt cold after coming back to the inn, becoming half-orc after laying down. Then in the morning, he turned back into a lion.
But only after the sunrise.
If the spell is only activated when there’s sunlight, Brex thought, then he’ll only turn into a lion when exposed to it. Does that mean if we can cover up the metal on his body, he can change again?
“I…I need to go,” Brex said. “I need to talk to someone about…something important. I’ll–”
“Wait,” Wallach said. “One more lesson before you go.”
Brex wanted to leave immediately, but if he protested, Wallach might get suspicious. “What is it?”
Wallach opened a drawer from one of the shelves lining the room and took out a small gold coin, holding it out to Brex with his hand under a cloth. “Have a look at this.”
Brex reached out and picked it up with his fingers, inspecting it closely. The coin looked just like one that Karna had used to pay for his supplies a little while previous. “I don’t understand. What am I supposed to be looking at?”
When he looked back at Wallach, he saw a man in mourning.
“It is a lesson in understanding rare opportunities.”
Brex felt calm. Something primal told him this was wrong. He should be frightened. His balance became uneven. The world beneath his feet swayed like it balanced upon a seesaw.
He dropped the coin, but his fingers and toes already tingled with numbness.
“I am truly sorry that we could have been such fine friends, Brexothuruk,” Wallach said. “It pains me to do this.”
Brex fell to his hands and knees, face to face with the coin that slipped from his fingers. A catalyst, just like the others.
“I wish I did not have to use your own body against you,” Wallach said.
His vision blurred.
Brex couldn’t keep himself up any more, feeling his muscles going slack.
Everything went dark before he hit the ground.
Orcanist 