You now stand before the crown jewel of the University, and Haramschall itself, according to many students, faculty, and visitors: The University Clock Tower.
The clock tower stands as a tribute to the dedication of early researchers of sorcery, discovering the mechanics of time and the best means of tracking it. Without this clock tower and the others like it in Andragora and Persellio, the modern world would not have found out about the exact measurements of time itself. Including but not limited to: The thirty-hour day, the hundred-second minute, and the fifty-minute hour.
This clock tower is aligned exactly with the other identical clock towers in other cities, ensuring that a common sense of the passing of time is equal among them.
If you appreciate the timeliness of your messages and packages arriving during the day, don’t forget to thank the sorcerers who spent years of their lives studying both the observation of time, and what little we can do to manipulate it.
It was starting to rain.
Not terribly. Not the kind of rain that made Brex want to hide in his tent back at the settlement. Not the kind of rain that would make him call off his search for Red, hiding indoors instead of rushing down block after block of city streets. But it was enough to make him annoyed.
Annoyed to the point where he stopped feeling guilty. Guilty over meandering around the University campus, looking with envy at all the students in the prime of their lives instead of looking for Red. Red, who was the closest thing he had to a friend outside of Clan Ironheart.
But then, he had to go look for him in the rain.
If the sun were still shining, he might have been more focused on what people were saying about him. But under a layer of damp orc, stoked by the modest fires of irritation, it was harder to give a shit about other people and their opinions.
Brex thought he heard complaints about his smell. Or people giving him a somewhat fearful look as they stepped out of his way. He was a little hunched forward too, but that was for the sake of keeping his gear as dry as he could manage.
“Help!” someone yelled out from somewhere behind him. “There’s a…a wild animal!”
With a disgusted groan, Brex pivoted on his foot and jogged down toward the source of the distress.
“Anyone, please!” the voice called out again. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. More surprisingly, no one seemed to respond to it but Brex. He wondered if it was being shouted in a language only he could hear from his translation spell.
“I-It’s going to get me!”
Brex faltered. The voice came from an alley between buildings, with lighter rain, from around a darkened corner.
This might be a trap.
He pulled out his severing ring and slipped it on his finger, creeping forward up against the wall.
He’d heard stories about the city in the darkest corners. Even as a newcomer, he knew to expect that people would try to trap or corner him. His heart began to quicken its pace. He imagined what these people want from him, knowing that he was looking for a friend who could take the shape of an animal. Were they shouting in Orcish so only he could hear? How much did they know about him?
He peered around the corner, stopping once he saw a familiar feline body with a crimson mane.
Red was facing away from him, growling, body tense like a housecat ready to pounce, while he looked at someone in the only corner of the alley Brex couldn’t see.
“Please, don’t hurt me…” the voice whimpered.
Brex slowly pulled himself around the corner and got the full picture.
Relgor, backed into the corner, shoulders against the walls, covering his eyes with his one arm and turning his head away. Red wasn’t approaching, but it was clear he wasn’t interested in letting Relgor take a step in any direction.
“Red,” Brex said, his throat dry.
Red snapped his head around and to look at Brex. Clutched in his mouth was a small coin purse that looked heavy with change. Brex felt at his belt, and realized his own purse had disappeared.
As if to answer Brex’s unasked question, Red turned back at Relgor and growled.
Relgor himself watched the interaction and yelped when Brex and Red both turned to stare at him. “Please, I’m begging you…”
Brex steeled himself and took a step forward, eliciting a flinch from Relgor. “Explain.”
“I-I’m sorry, I thought they got y-you and I-I’d never see you again! I thought you were going to g-get carted away by the city or the sorcerers or something. Your friend ran off after they snatched you and I just–“
Red interrupted him with another growl, arching his back.
Brex took another step forward. “What’s your name?” he asked, voice firm but flat.
“R-relgor, I t-told you.”
Brex shook his head. “If you’re going to pretend to be an orc from a clan, you need to do your research. What’s your name, and what are you really doing here?”
The one-armed orc dressed in warrior gear looked back between Brex and Red, lip quivering.
“Liam,” he said with a gasp. “It’s L-liam, and y-you’re right. I’m not from a clan. I-I’ve never been with a clan. I was raised here in Haramschall.”
Red seemed to ease up, still focused on Liam and Brex, but no longer looking like he was about to strike.
“My parents were human,” Liam continued. “My family, I mean. I don’t know what happened to my birth parents. But my family told me they found me abandoned on their doorstep.”
Brex nodded, listening. “You didn’t lose your arm in a battle, did you?”
Liam shook his head. “I never had one. Er, well I always had one. Never had two.” His voice had changed so much. Meek and mild, no longer projecting a hero’s confidence. “I think I was only born with one. But it’s possible they left me because–“
Brex put out his hand onto Liam’s shoulder and squeezed, then sat on the damp ground next to Liam.
“My parents were nice,” Liam said. “The ones who really raised me. The humans.”
Brex nodded. “Mine were too.”
Liam seemed to understand instantly, and leaned on Brex’s shoulder with a grand sigh. Red sat on his haunches, just watching the two of them.
“I wanted to play music. The violin or the harp or the lute or something. People said that was wrong. They said I had to be strong. That it’d be a waste if I was anything but strong.”
“But your parents wanted to help,” Brex said.
Liam nodded. “They wanted me to be able to perform. So they found a little acting troupe. They helped me join. I wasn’t playing music, but I was on a stage. I was entertaining people. But I was always the villain. I was the only orc. Nobody ever wanted to perform anything with an orc as the hero. When I wasn’t the villain, I was just a sidekick. I got sick of it.”
“So you left,” Brex said.
“So I left. I started performing on the street. I changed neighborhoods before anybody could complain that I was in their territory. I held out my helmet for donations and made up the story about wanting to see the world after my clan left me. I made up Relgor as a character. But the more I played him in front of people, the easier it was to just…be him.”
Brex nodded again.
“And then I saw you. An orc from…from anywhere but here. And I thought maybe for a little while I could be Relgor. Really, truly be him. And if it worked I could just stop being Liam and stay Relgor. But.”
“But he wasn’t real.”
Liam nodded. “And when you started getting mad, it, uh, just fell apart.”
Red took the coin purse in his mouth and set it down on the ground. Liam looked at it and turned away in shame.
“I’m sorry. After the sorcerers took you, I went back to your spot in the Merchant’s Circle, and you left your coin there. I told your friend we should give it back when we find you, and I just started following him. But…I never would have stolen your coin. I never wanted to be that person who did. But Relgor. He’d do it. And I’d been Relgor for so long…I just didn’t question it. I decided to keep it.”
Liam shivered. “Your friend disappeared when it started raining, a-and then this lion thing just sh-showed up and it growled at me, so I ran. And it started chasing me. And the rain just got worse and it cornered me here and–“
Brex squeezed Liam’s shoulder again. “It’s all right. You didn’t steal it. Not by my account. We’re not going to hurt you.“
Liam sniffled. “Thank you. I’m sorry, really.” He leaned on Brex, which caught him by surprise.
It was strange to support someone else like this. He’d been the one who needed to be carried and helped for so long, the concept of being on the other side of that need seemed foreign to him.
But here Liam was, leaning, taking deep breaths. Because Brex stopped. Listened. Touched him.
Liam was right, it’d all fallen apart, into irreparable pieces. And Brex liked the face behind the mask much better than the disguise it wore. And neither of them were what Brex expected from a “city orc.”
But then, Brex thought, it might be better to just stop expecting things.
“That was, uh, a lot,” Brex said.
Liam nodded. “Yeah, it was.” He let the silence continue for a moment.
“That’s why you don’t know Orcish, right?” Brex asked.
“What?”
“When I first introduced myself, I did it in Orcish and you said we should speak Harrish so we weren’t rude. But you don’t know Orcish. Because you grew up here, with human parents.”
Liam’s cheeks darkened. “Yes.”
“Maybe you can help me with my Harrish then. I want to get better so I’m not relying on a spell. They want me to speak Harrish if I go to the University, and I want to make sure I’m decent at it.”
“Oh, sure.” Liam’s sniffles seemed to be clearing up.
“Maybe someday I can help you learn Orcish too.”
Liam straightened up, surprised. “Y-yeah. Maybe someday.” He bit his lip then asked, “What are you doing here?”
Brex sighed. “It’s a long story.”
Red took the moment to step over and press his face into Brex’s chest with a chuff.
“You wouldn’t happen to know any other sorcerers, would you?” Brex asked. “I need an expert to look at a problem my, uh, friend has.”
“I know one who might be able to help. She lives not too far from here.”
Brex smiled. “Thanks, it’s a pretty unique problem.” He ran his hands through Red’s mane and reached back to give Liam a glimpse of the metal fused to his body.
Liam looked taken aback. “Wait, the lion is your friend?”
“Yes?” Brex said.
“The one who was with you at the marketplace?”
“Yeah, I…I don’t really have any other–“ Brex’s voice grew quieter with each word, not wanting to finish the sentence.
“I thought you were a beast tamer or something,” Liam said with the excitement of a child. “But he’s your friend? That’s…that’s way better!”
Brex smiled. “Why don’t you show us to your sorcerer friend’s place, and I’ll tell you the story on the way.”
Liam stood up and offered his hand to Brex, who took it.
“So, he’s a lion and also an orc?” Liam asked.
“Something like that,” Brex said. “Well, ‘or’ instead of ‘and’. He can’t be both at the same time, as far as I know.”
Without the limit of only a trio of catalysts, Brex at least had the freedom to use as many spells as he knew at once, even if the reforged rings weren’t very stylish. Thankfully, this allowed him to put Red’s dog disguise spell back on him, giving all of them the ability to walk around in public without much issue, though two orcs and a large dog were hardly inconspicuous. People didn’t seem to care much with the rain falling in sheets around them, though.
Liam led the three of them up to a building on a busy street that had a sign with a bottle and some pink liquid. Over the bottle was the text “Smellmaker,” which didn’t seem very appealing to Brex.
Guess there’s no orcish equivalent for whatever word that is, he thought.
Liam rapped on the door and beamed at the other two, but nobody came immediately.
“Elaina…” Liam called into the door. “It’s me, Liam.”
A small window in the door just below eye level opened and Brex saw a pair of shadowed eyes look up at Liam.
“Secret knocks only!” A voice hissed, then the door slammed shut.
“Elaina, please, I have a new friend. I don’t–“
“Secret knocks!” A higher-pitched voice called out, muffled behind the door.
Liam sighed, but Brex felt a small blooming sense of pride at being called a friend. Liam tapped on the door in a particular pattern.
Dum dah-dah-dum. Dum dah-dah-dum. Dum dum.
The door swung open and a tall, thin woman pressed herself against the front, stretching up her arm to the top of the door and tilting her head back in a sultry manner. “Welcome travelers, to the Scentemporium, the only place one goes when you have a nose that knows the difference between innovators and imitators. For a simple fee of two diadems, we will craft your own. Personal. Fragrance.” She stepped out from upon the door and gestured within.
“You’re not going to charge us to come inside, are you? It’s raining!” Liam said.
“No, of course not, but what did you think? Is it a good sales pitch? I’m trying to entice more of the moneybags,” she said in a much more rushed, harried tone, clearly excited with her performance.
“I think I might give a better opinion if I wasn’t so damp,” Brex said.
She nodded and gestured again. “Yes, yes, all right, all right, come inside, come inside.”
For a split second, Brex was terrified after crossing the threshold. Jars and glasses of bright colored liquids reminded him all too much of Wallach’s lab, with apparattuses and tabletops full of barely-organized papers and glass. But then the smell hit him and comfort washed over his body in an instant. Lavender and rosemary together, the feeling of falling into bed with your lover after cooking a delicious meal together, he swore he felt the pillows and silk against his face.
Brex realized his eyes were closed as he grew lost in thought, and opened them to find the woman mere inches from his face, holding a spray bottle. He jumped in surprise as she asked, “Well do you like it?”
“Y-yes. A fair bit.”
“I call that one ‘A Quiet Evening Alone’. Six sentas a bottle, if you’re interested.” She narrowed her eyes and grinned. “And you are, I can tell.”
“Maybe later,” Brex said. “I’m saving up for something.”
“Elaina,” Liam cut in. “This is Brex, he’s from the mesa out west. And this is his friend Red.” Elaina quirked an eyebrow at the phrasing, but didn’t object. Liam continued. “They need some help from a qualified sorcerer.”
“Well,” Elaina said. “I’m trying to make it with my new independent perfumer business-slash-lifestyle here, but I suppose if you need help with sorcery, I’ll see what I can do.”
“I think you’ll like it, El,” Liam said. “It’s a little different.” He jumped in realization. “Right! Brex, this is my half-sister Elaina. She’s a graduate of the University. But now she’s…uh, a perfumist?”
“Perfumer,” she corrected. “But I can sell you that later, what’s the problem here?”
Brex stepped to Red and parted the fur on his back to show the metal fused there. “My friend here has a catalyst bound to his body, and I don’t recognize some of the glyphs. I was wondering if maybe you had some way of looking these up for me?”
Elaina scoffed. “‘Some way.’ I have the only tried and true method used by sorcerers across the world: Indicies.” She walked over to a shelf on the far side of the room and dragged her hand across a series of equally-sized books. Brex squinted and read the titles: The Enhanced Dictionary of Known Glyphs, Thirty-seventh edition.
“Thirty-seven?” he blurted out, then rummaged through his bag for his own borrowed copy. “How old is this one?”
“Almost twenty years,” Elaina said. “It’s positively vintage.”
Brex sighed.
“But let’s stop getting distracted,” Elaina said. “What are these glyphs?”
“Oh.” Brex grabbed A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Sorcery, Volume Two and thumbed through the pages until he found the one where he noted Red’s glyphs. “These are the ones that were on him until a few days ago.”
Elaina’s eyes scanned each of them, then she darted over to the shelf and slid three books from it. “The way you say that makes me think they’ve changed,” she said, flipping through pages.
“Yes, uh,” Brex stuttered. “I…had a lapse in judgement and tried to change them with the floor of a room as an enchanting plate.”
Elaina looked up at him, wincing. “The floor wasn’t made from loquela wood, was it?”
Brex just quietly shook his head. “I changed more than I meant to,” he stepped closer and grabbed a nearby quill to make a few more notes. “But this one became the ‘Freedom’ glyph. On purpose. And this one became the ‘light-shift’ rune. By accident. I’m not even sure what happened to the third one.”
Elaina nodded. “I see. So the original sequence is ‘Restrict; blank; Body; blank; Mind; blank; blank.’ And the revised one is ‘Freedom; Light-shift; Person; blank; Mind; blank; blank.'”
Brex nodded.
Elaina scrunched up her face. “What does the light-shift glyph even do for the spell now?”
Brex looked over at Red, who had already laid down on his side. Brex twirled his finger and Red chuffed while turning to lay on his back.
“It keeps him in a lion’s body,” Brex said. “As long as there’s sunlight on the metal. When he lays on his back long enough, he changes back into–”
“Sh sh sh.” Elaina held up a finger. “Don’t tell me, I want to find out for myself.”
“It might take a little while,” Brex said.
“I can wait. We can talk about other things,” she said. “Like perfume.”
Brex glanced at Liam, who shook his head in warning. Elaina leaned toward Brex until he had to stick out a hand to a table for balance as he bent away from her.
“All right, how does a sorcerer like you end up as a perfumer anyway?”
Her eyes lit up. “I’m so glad you asked.” She stood up straight, closed her eyes and turned her head upward. “Naught but four years ago, I stood upon the stage of the University’s amphitheater, diploma in hand, dreaming of the things I would do and see and create. But what did the world greet me with? A certain lack of employment.” She grew stern, slumping again.
“She’s rehearsed this,” Liam said.
“Doors closed in my face! Slammed shut! I’d spent years of my life, countless diadems of my savings, all for the sake of learning the sorcerous, the arcane, the sciences and arts of that which continues to remain a mystery to us all! But they who would employ me said I lacked ‘hard skills’. That my chosen practice of sorcery, Olefactory Manipulation, was too narrow!”
Brex waited for her to continue, and tried to quietly clear his throat.
“Scent is the attribute of the sense most closely tied to memory! I wanted to help people remember themselves! But they had no use for someone with such bright ideals. They said no one wanted to be reminded of strong smells of the past, and do you know what, my friend?”
Brex glanced back to Liam, who rolled his eyes. “No, what?”
“They were right!” she shouted. “The past is worthless! We must strive to create new, handsome, beautiful, torturously splendid memories. We must look to the future.” She put her arm around Brex’s shoulders and spread the opposite hand out toward the wall of bottles.
“The…future,” Brex said. “I don’t follow.”
She pulled out a stool from under one of the lab tables and sat down on it, crossing her legs. “I took a small loan out from the bank to start my own business last year and things have been adequate ever since.”
Liam groaned. “Elainaaa.”
“What?” she asked.
Liam slumped on the table next to him. “If you’re going to be this dramatic, at least tell a good story. You’re painting a vision, but you’re not telling us anything. You skipped over the part about Mom and Dad leaving you with the money to go to school, learning how to do a sales pitch from the theater troupe, trying out all your prototypes on me.” He winced. “All of the good stuff.”
Elaina sighed. “I don’t know, Liam, that stuff seems boring to me.”
Liam put his head onto the table. “That’s because you’re the one who already knows how it went down.”
“Exactly, it’s not exciting.”
“I dunno,” Red said. “I would have liked to hear it.”
Red had transformed back into his half-orc self during the debate at some point. And since his clothes had disappeared during the rain storm, he was just laying on the floor completely naked.
Elaina gasped, eyes wide, then clutched the table next to her. “Well, hello there.” Her tone was one of hushed amazement mixed with a dash of attraction. Brex found himself immediately defensive of his bond with Red, then felt ashamed enough to keep quiet. His and Red’s relationship wasn’t particularly well-defined by either of them.
“Oh yes,” Elaina said, eyes darting between Red’s body and the two books on the table next to her. “Oh, this is something very special indeed.”
Red, it appeared, was blushing. “Oh, I’m not that important.”
Brex stepped over to look at the notes that Elaina was writing about Red’s spell. She was already collecting the glyphs’ meaning and parsing it out into one chain of words.
Restrict, Feline, Body, Numb, Mind, Logic, Memory
Then, below that, the current version.
Freedom, Light-Shift, Person, Numb, Mind, Logic, Memory
“Interesting…” Elaina said.
“What is it? What’s interesting?” Brex asked.
“Well no wonder your friend is all out of sorts. Looks like this spell was enchanted by someone with maybe ten minutes of experience with sorcery.” She pointed to the glyphs. “This spell is trying to do so much with only seven glyphs! There are very poorly defined parameters, it’s wide open to interpretation, and the overall goal is extremely unclear.”
Brex leaned on the table and looked closer at the at the words themselves.
What kind of person did this to Red, and what was their goal? he asked himself. This wasn’t just some experiment gone awry. This was something done intentionally. These glyphs are detrimental. Hurtful.
“Can I look? I’d like to look. Maybe bring the book over here, or get me another one of those shirts?”
“You don’t need to. It’s a mess,” Elaina said. “I’m Elaina, by the way. What’s your name?”
Red smiled warmly. “I don’t know, but green thing calls me Red. Well, there are two green things now, but the one I came with calls me that.”
Elaina pursed her lips. “Well that explains some of it.”
“Speaking as someone who’s, uh, not the best at sorcery,” Brex said. “I think I know what was going on here.”
Everyone turned to look at him. “I mean, as someone who doesn’t really know what he’s doing, a lot like whoever cast this spell, I can see where they were going with it.” He pointed to the glyphs, showing them to the other three. “There are two parts of the spell, right? Restrict-Feline-Body and Numb-Mind-Logic-Memory. Action-descriptor-subject structure. This spell is supposed to keep Red in a feline body and then mess with his mind to the point where he can’t think or remember things. I don’t think that this necessarily matched up with what the sorcerer really wanted, but it was probably good enough.”
Elaina’s eyes widened. “And using Restrict, that’s probably not a mistake. Restrict as a glyph only closes off options.” She turned back to Red. “Meaning that there was some part of your body that was feline in nature, and the spell filled in the rest.”
“That sounds like a stretch,” Liam said flatly.
“Excuse me, did you graduate from the University of Sorcery?”
“Wait,” Brex said. “Some part of his body was feline? What do you mean?”
“There’s only one logical explanation I can think of,” Elaina said. “Your friend here was once a Felarin.”
She must have expected the statement to have a greater impact, but both Red and Brex looked confused and Liam looked unimpressed.
“Felarin! The cat people!”
Brex leaned back in shock. “There are cat people?” Then he frowned. “Wait a minute, if there are cat people, what do you call orcs?”
“Th-that’s beside the point,” Elaina said with a nervous chuckle, clearly eager to change the subject. “You must have seen a felarin somewhere in town here. They’re rare, but not as rare as orcs.”
Liam stepped closer. “One of the women who spoke to you before we met was a felarin, Brex. The one with the round ears?”
Brex felt a shiver of shame go down his spine. He just assumed that woman was some other kind of human.
“R-right.”
“Anyways,” Elaina said. “I think Red here used to be a felarin, but some sorcerer caused him to take the shape of a wild lion and hindered his mental faculties.”
“This all sounds very exciting,” Red said.
Brex held up his hands. “All right, if that’s true, why is he orcish looking now? After removing the Restrict glyph, shouldn’t he have turned back into a felarin instead of what he is now?”
Liam nodded. “That’s a decent point. What’s to say he wasn’t an orc who got turned into a lion to begin with?”
Elaina groaned. “Weren’t you listening? The Restrict rune implies that there was some kind of feline feature about him before the spell took effect.” She bit her lip. “But I can’t really explain why he’s orcish looking now other than one small hunch.”
Liam and Brex both waited for her to continue, but she looked almost pained about it.
“I’m not supposed to share this with non-graduates. So you didn’t hear this from me.” She swallowed. “But, sometimes, glyphs can change meaning depending on the person who casts the spell.”
Brex felt his stomach drop a little, but he could tell he was the only one who really understood the impact of what Elaina said. Both Red and Liam seemed nonplussed. But Brex knew: This complicated sorcery as whole by a very large margin. If glyphs could change meaning, then why bother creating dictionaries? Why bother writing them down as if they shared one meaning at all?
“Green thing,” Red said, looking at Brex with concern. “Just…listen for a while.”
Brex nodded, and turned back to Elaina. “This glyph…Person. To most of us, that could mean a human, a dwarf, an orc, a felarin, a whole bunch of things. We’ve had years of being exposed to a wide variety of living sentient creatures. A person could be anything. Practically shapeless.”
Brex could see where she was going. “But I was the one who used the glyph.”
“And when you think of a person, what do you imagine?” Elaina asked, almost fearful.
Brex tried to push past his bias, but the question prompted him to think it: An orc, indeterminate gender, wearing traditional clothes, undefined facial features save for tusks and green skin. A person was an orc.
“You only look like an orc because of me,” Brex said.
He looked back at Red, who was uncomfortably meeting his gaze. Red, whom he’d thought of as half-orc when he first saw him like that. Whom he’d had the audacity to find attractive. How much of his connection with Red was because of the spell?
After what he tried to do to Kotak, after what Wallach tried to do to him, he didn’t want to have to face the idea that he’d accidentally influenced Red the same way. He didn’t want to have kept a friend only by coincidence, not a genuine connection.
“Seems that way,” Red said, looking melancholy.
“So,” Elaina said, somber this time, “This version of him isn’t the real him either.”
“Mmm,” Red said, scrunching up his face. “I wouldn’t say that. Both cat-me and this-me are real. I never stopped being me, even if I don’t know what to call myself.”
“How do you know that’s not the sorcery saying that?” Brex said.
“I guess I don’t,” Red said. “But it feels natural. Like getting hungry. It feels like me.” He paused. “But it doesn’t feel completely me. Like…it’s almost me.” Then, he smiled. “Even if I like it a lot.”
“Do you want to keep going? Do you want us to try and find a way to undo the spell entirely? Even if it means…” Brex said, his words fading.
Even if it means losing our friendship? he thought to himself.
Red thought about for several moments, and Brex glanced at the other two to see their reactions. Both Liam and Elaina were focused on Red, intense and concerned.
“I do,” Red said. “Because with what I know of myself, I think it’ll work out all right.”
Brex nodded. “I did promise to take you home,” he said. “And the only way we can find that out is to remove the spell.”
Red smiled again. “I’d like to go home with you, green thing.”
Elaina let out a noise that sounded like a sniffle, then swallowed and wiped her eyes, powering through by interrupting. “Well, if you want to remove the spell with absolute certainty, you need to find a properly sized enchanting floor. No more of this carving on the floor at an inn. Unless that floor is made from a loquela tree, which seems very unlikely.”
Brex winced.
“Now there are only two places you can probably pull this kind of thing off. The University’s Grand Enchanting Hall, which would take a lot of string-pulling to book a session anytime in the next month. Or the inside of a loquela tree itself.”
“How does that work?” Red asked. “Are we supposed to get smaller and go inside with the insects?”
Elaina flashed a grin. “Loquela trees are massive. There’s a whole grove of them just across the sea.” She set her elbows on a table and sighed wistfully. “One of the best places in the world for a sorcerer. But the dwarves that live there are nasty about doing anything to the trees themselves. Still, something tells me you’ll find a way. Plus, there’s a bunch of trees with neat little hollowed-out insides. Here, there’s only one Grand Enchanting Hall.”
Brex groaned. “We have to leave again? We just got here.”
Red just laughed. “Don’t whine, green thing.”
“A ticket to Goronich isn’t cheap,” Liam said. “It isn’t ‘just across the sea’ either. That’s a week-long trip each way.”
Brex and Red exchanged glances, then turned toward Elaina, who gave them all a sigh and a shrug. “The way I see it, you don’t have any reasonable alternative.”
Brex swallowed, then bit his lip. “We don’t have any money left either.”
Liam coughed and looked at Elaina, gesturing to the opposite side of the room. She rolled her eyes and they went to huddle and whisper to each other.
Brex sat himself down next to Red. “How are you doing?”
Red thought for a moment. “I’d really like to sit up, but that’ll just make cat-me happen, which is even less comfortable.”
Brex chuckled. “I’ll see if we can get you some clothes that won’t be a problem in the rain.”
“We have a proposal for the two of you,” Elaina said, this time causing Liam to roll his eyes. “If you’d like to hear it.” Brex nodded.
“As I’ve already stated,” she continued. “The dwarves have a bit of a monopoly on loquela wood. They drive the prices fairly high, and even though Liam and I have a decent amount of savings from our inheritance, the cost has proven to be prohibitive. However, if you’re already interested in going to the Loquela Grove, then it would be fortuitous of us to subsidize your costs if you’re willing to bring back some loquela wood in return.”
“Spikes, Elaina, speak like a normal person,” Liam said. “We’ll pay for your ticket to Goronich if you bring a chunk of lumber back.”
Brex hesitated. “We have to smuggle back some loquela wood?”
“You’re already smuggling in an entire person and performing unauthorized sorcery. Just awaken your inner lumberjack and bring a chunk of wood.” She leaned forward. “I have a cologne that might help with that.”
Still, Brex paused. What happens when we get back? Will Red even want to come back? Will he stay with me?
“Just how much money are you saving on getting me to fetch this lumber for you?” he asked.
“Two or three round-trip tickets to Goronich,” Elaina scratched her chin, thinking. “Probably around half the price of enough loquela lumber to make a medium-sized enchanting plate.”
At least in relative terms like that, he could understand the value of what they were asking.
“And, hypothetically, if I were to enroll at the University with a scholarship, how much would that cost me?”
Liam’s eyes lit up and he oohed audibly, turning toward Elaina.
“I’ve known a few people on scholarships,” she said. “You drive a hard bargain, but I think I could swallow that cost.”
Brex got to his feet and reached out to shake her hand, which she accepted.
There was a loud knocking at the front door of the shop.
“City Guard!” came a deep voice from the other side.
Brex froze, while Elaina whispered to Liam. “This is why we have secret knocks!”
“He just said who he was,” Liam said.
Panic shot through Brex. “I…I need to hide. Is there somewhere safe? A window I can step through?”
Both Liam and Elaina turned to Brex, shocked.
“The Guard, they think I killed someone, they want to arrest me.” He chose his words carefully, hoping the translation spell was kind to him. He did kill Wallach, but the Guard thought that too.
“He’s innocent,” Red said, his expression suddenly solemn. “I assure you.”
The other two seemed satisfied enough with that.
“There aren’t any windows big enough for you to leave through. But there’s a huge empty space under the sink here,” Elaina said.
“Are you serious?” Liam said.
The knocking came again, louder this time. “City Guard!”
Elaina opened a cabinet door and, as foretold, there was a space barely big enough to fit Brex under the sink. Wincing, he crawled in and put himself into a fetal position before Elaina shut the door behind him, covering him in darkness.
Footsteps lead away from the cabinet. The door opened.
“Hello, how can I help you?” Elaina asked.
“We’re going around and speaking with known sorcerers after an incident in the Merchant’s Circle today, miss,” a gruff voice said. “Do you mind if we come in? It’ll only take a moment.”
“Actually now’s not the best time,” Elaina said.
“Please,” a voice that unmistakably belonged to Captain Karna said. “It’ll be very brief.”
Brex could hear the rain pounding on the city street outside, and then multiple pairs of boots coming in before the door closed.
“This morning, an orc accused of serial murder was found selling spells in the circle, but when we tried to arrest him, a pair of sorcerers took him to the University before we could intervene. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
“No,” Elaina said. “I don’t bother with the Merchants’ Circle, myself, and I graduated from the University more than a year ago.”
“I see,” Karna said.
Footsteps moved from the front of the shop, toward the back where Red was laying.
“Oh.” Karna’s voice faltered. “Have we…interrupted something.”
“Y-yes,” Elaina said.
“My afternoon regimen,” Red said. There was a creaking of floorboards, and Brex thought he might have stood up, but then his voice spoke again. “Very important to keep legs nice and strong, to support the body.”
“Er, yes, thank you, sir,” Karna said, then came closer to the cabinet where Brex was hiding. “You seem familiar,” she said. “Were you at the Merchants’ Circle this morning?”
Brex heard the cabinet itself creak as someone leaned on it.
“I was, yes,” Liam said. “But I was performing and didn’t see what happened until everyone had run away.”
“Do you mind if I take a quick look at your arm?” Karna asked.
There was a bit of shuffling, and Brex realized that Karna was standing right next to the cabinet door in front of him.
“How did you lose the arm, if I might ask?”
“A long time ago, as a child. I don’t remember,” Liam said.
“I see. Thank you.”
The wood under Karna’s boots creaked again.
“What do you sell here?” Karna asked.
“This is the, ah, Scentemporium,” Elaina said. “We sell over-the-counter perfumes and colognes, but we specialize in bespoke, personal fragrances for each individual customer.”
Karna snorted. “You know, I do know someone who shops here. Another Guard Captain by the name of Barrask.”
“Ah, yes, he’s a big fan of elderflower, brandy, and sandalwood.”
“Of course he is,” Karna muttered. “You’re all positive you haven’t seen an orc that associates with sorcerers or any wild animals recently?”
They all agreed, and Brex held his breath.
Karna’s boots stepped away from the cabinet and went back toward the door. “Thank you for your time. Please let us know if you learn anything.”
“We will, thank you,” Elaina said, then closed the door after they went outside.
Someone opened the cabinet. Elaina’s face dipped down from above and Brex let out a sigh of relief. “It’s all right, you can come out now.”
He broke free from the cabinet after a few moments of struggling, and looked around. Everything looked the same, even with Red still laying in the same place, except nobody looked like they wanted to be the first to speak. The camradiere that he felt had shattered, and a fog of distrust hung between each of them.
“I…I suppose we should leave the city.”
“With a storm this big, the ferries across the sea will probably be anchored until morning. Won’t be long until sunset either,” Liam said. “If you’re lucky, you can leave in the morning.”
“Brexothuruk,” Elaina said, looking shaken. “Please be careful. Those Guards…” She paused and let out a stuttered breath. “They’re not messing around. That wasn’t a patrol squad. They’re doing more than just looking for you. And they’re heavily armed. Honestly I thought they’d be militia if I just passed them in the street. Whatever they think you did, it must be…awful.”
“I’ll be careful,” Brex said.
Liam moved toward the back of the shop, near a door. “I’ll see if I can get some clothes that will fit Red.”
“Thank you, friend,” Red said.
Liam raised his voice, continuing the conversation as he searched in another room. “If they didn’t recognize Red like he is now, you might be safe to travel the city with the three of us. We can make up a story for you, Brex. Use a different name.”
He came back with a pair of pants and a solid canvas shirt, and helped Red slip them on without exposing the metal in his back to any sunlight. It wasn’t difficult with the storm covering so much of the sky and the sunset rapidly approaching.
Elaina, meanwhile, had fetched a small coin purse and filled it with some sentas, or maybe diadems. Brex wasn’t entirely sure if there was a physical distinction between them, though he supposed he ought to learn that. Then, Elaina handed the purse to Liam, lowering her voice in a way that Brex felt compelled to eavesdrop.
“There’s enough in here to buy a ticket for yourself too. If you don’t feel safe here.”
“Thank you,” Liam said.
“Will you go?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Liam slid the money into a pocket and walked over to Brex and Red. “We should go to the harbor now. I know a place to spend the night there, in case the Guard comes back here.”
Elaina called out. “Liam…are you sure?”
He nodded, then turned to Brex and Red expectantly.
Brex was still unsure exactly why Liam and Elaina were both being so dour. As Liam fetched a cloak, Elaina opened the door for them, flashing her saleswoman smile again. “Remember, bring back that loquela lumber and you’re set for the semester.”
Brex smiled back. “Right…”
Liam wordlessly took the lead in a dark raincloak after giving another pair of them to Brex and Red, who each put one on and stepped out into the bluster and showers.
Navigating through the city in twilight and rain meant for slow progress and a lot of annoying splashes of water in Brex’s boots. But still, he had to admit it was better than being captured by the Guard.
“Green thing,” Red said from beside him. “Will you go back to the University after you take me home?”
Brex felt a shudder slide down his body. “I…That’s my plan, I think.”
“If I want to come with you, will you have me?” he asked.
“I’m…sorry, what?”
“If I go home and decide I would rather stay with you, can I?”
“I…I dunno. I never really considered that. I guess I just thought you’d want to stay.”
Red laughed. “But you left your own home to find a new one. I might do that too.”
Brex blushed. “I guess you’re right. Maybe you can learn sorcery with me someday.”
Red turned and smiled at him again, beaming with light that seemed impossible in the gloom of the sky and clouds. “I think I might like that.”
In a flash, Brex found himself picturing the best possible scenario. Unable to stop his own imagination, he saw Red and himself on a ship, wind blowing in their hair and grinning at each other. The two of them walking a pleasant forest path to a massive tree, taking some wood from the trunk, and then performing the spell to remove Red’s magic. He imagined Red with no changes to his orcish body, but remembering that he lived right there in Harramschall. He felt the wind in his face again as they sailed home and lived a quiet life together while Brex attended classes at the University and Red made a living performing with Liam.
His mind raced to the idea, faster than he could stop himself. And he cursed himself for doing it. Because it was never going to work out like that, and even though he could hope, he knew better than to expect anything like it. A little part of him wanted desperately to protect that vision of the would-be future and do whatever he can to make sure it came to pass. But it depended on so much luck and the willingness of others to just go along with his plans.
And then he thought of Kotak shoving his face into the ground by a fire, swearing his eyes would burn like charcoal if he didn’t admit his trespasses. A shiver passed through him again.
I need to accept things as they are, he thought. Stop imagining futures that can’t happen…
“Green thing, are you all right? You look weary.”
“I’m…I’ll be fine,” Brex said. He needed to change the subject, and looked forward at Liam, who had been quiet the whole time. Liam, who was still as solemn as the moment they left Elaina’s shop.
“Liam?” he asked. “How are you doing?”
He turned back and gave them a weak smile. “We’re getting closer.”
Brex wasn’t satisfied with that. “But how are you doing?”
Liam slowed his pace a little. “I’ve been better.”
Brex and Red exchanged looks and waited for him to continue.
“It’s…Every time the Guard comes by, it brings up bad memories. They didn’t do anything this time, but…” He stayed silent for the next block or so. Brex could see the ocean in the distance at the end of the paved road. “Harramschall’s a good city to people like us if we stay on its good side,” Liam said. “Trouble is, it’s hard to do that. The city likes when you try to blend in and fit with everybody. But what you’re supposed to blend in with is a moving target. And no one’s gonna tell you when it moves.”
“Liam…” Red said.
“We’ve lost friends to misunderstandings with the Guard before,” Liam said, stopping. “I know you and I haven’t known each other very long, but I’d really like to keep that from happening again.”
“Liam, it won’t,” Brex said.
“You know what the saddest thing is?” Liam said. “When you said the Guard thinks you killed someone, that’s when I knew I’d never doubt your innocence.”
Liam resumed walking and the other two made sure to keep close. The rain created a barrier of sound around them, and few others dared to walk on the street in such a downpour.
When they arrived at the harbor, Brex found himself struck by the vastness of the ocean as it spread out toward the horizon. Whenever he looked out at the distance as a child in the settlement, he could always pick out a few landmarks in any direction, but the sea before him was just a series of endless waves and shifting water. There was something beautiful and terrifying about it.
“There are a few abandoned buildings around here that we can probably take shelter from the storm inside,” Liam said. “It won’t be comfortable, but we should be safe from the storm.”
Red spoke up. “Liam,” he said. “Will you be traveling to Goronich with us?”
Liam took a moment to reply. “I’m still deciding.”
He led them to a small two story building that looked like it was half-completed and then left unfinished, little more than stone walls, most of a roof, and a ladder leading to a wooden loft. But Liam was right. It’d be dry enough to weather the storm. They just had to hope it wouldn’t fall apart in the process. In fact, some of the planks seemed to creak under the pressure of the wind, which was hardly comforting.
“We can just buy fares for the trip in the morning, right?” Brex asked.
“They probably closed up the ticket window for the storm,” Liam said. “They won’t launch any ships until this passes. No point in going anywhere else tonight.”
“If we’re trying to get some sleep, shouldn’t we get some blankets?”
Red laughed again. “Have you never huddled for warmth, green thing? Besides, weather like this, heat won’t be a problem. Staying dry is more important.”
It felt wrong to try and get comfortable enough to sleep somewhere with light still diffusing through the clouds. But it’d be dusk soon enough, and Brex had to admit it was a very tiring day.
“Brexothuruk,” a voice called out from the open doorway to the building.
A dwarf stood at the threshold and pulled back the hood of her cloak to reveal herself: Captain Karna.
“Take off your spells and put your hands against the wall, sir,” she said, lifting a shortsword toward him. Red and Liam slowly turned to face her, both looking at Brex to see how he’d react. Red arched his back and bent his knees slightly, ready to pounce.
“The two of you shouldn’t move either. I can have both of you arrested for obstructing justice and lying to the City Guard in the aid of a criminal.”
She must have followed them the whole way here. But what about her fellow officers? Were they back at Elaina’s shop? Was Elaina even safe?
Brex lifted his hands up. “Please, Captain, there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“I said take off your spells and put your hands against the wall, Brexothuruk.”
“What did she say?” Liam whispered.
She’s speaking Orcish, Brex realized.
He glanced at his own finger and realized that the only spell on his body was the translation ring. Useless for escaping, but… “Captain I need this for other people to understand what I’m saying. There’s a reasonable explaination for this.”
She furrowed her brow. “A reasonable explaination for seven people dead? Eviscerated and left for the vultures?”
Thank the ancestors that Liam can’t hear this.
“I’m not going to let you use any sorcery unless you’re cleared of your crimes by trial. Take them off. Put your hands against the wall.”
The building shuddered. The wind howled outside. Rain was flying sideways. Even inside the abandoned shack, Brex could feel a push from the storm against his side. This was bigger than a typical rainstorm. It might be a hurricane.
Liam and Red kept themselves shaded from the rain under the loose floor of the second story, but both looked ready to flee or strike.
Brex slowly took the ring from his finger and deposited into one of his empty pockets, then stepped over to the wall and put his hands against it.
“Brexothuruk, son of Grotuk, I place you under arrest by the power trusted in me as a Guard Captain of Harramschall,” Karna said, her tone formal and practiced. But the use of his name shot a shiver down Brex’s spine.
“How did you know I–“
Thunder roared from above them. Light flooded the shack, and something enormous began to descend through the roof with a sharp, loud crash.
Orcanist 