Volume 1, Chapter 42: Orientation Was Not Supposed to Take This Long (Patreon)

“Excellent fight, Master Plasario,” I said, watching him reach for the bag he had left on the hill before the duel and pull out a waterskin.

“Thank you. The wind whispered, and I listened. Nothing more was needed. There was truth in what it said about Mr. Peter, though. He is a capable young man—impulsive, but with potential.” He handed the waterskin to Rodrick, who took it and walked over to the fallen man. First, he poured a few drops of water onto Peter’s face to wake him. When that didn’t work, he used more.

“The magic you wield—”

“I am not inclined to share the secrets of the wind, Master Arthur. Please forgive me,” he replied, watching Peter come around.

The black man’s eyes darted wildly, and he struggled to catch his breath, clutching his chest and turning his head from side to side. Rodrick held him under the arms, helped him sit up on the grass, and offered him the waterskin.

“I understand. Before I leave for the city, I have one more request. I don’t know how significant a request it is, since I don’t fully understand the rules of hospitality in your country, but—”

“Please, ask,” Plasario interrupted, turning his attention toward me. “What do you need?”

“Clothes. Something that would help me stand out less. And some drachmas, so I can find lodging and food until I manage to find work.”

“That is understandable. I intended to pay you a soldier’s wage anyway, in gratitude for your help in the skirmish we fought here,” he replied, reaching into his bag and pulling out a piece of that strange paper my sketchbooks were made from as well.

Then he took out something resembling charcoal and began writing on it.

In the meantime, I watched Peter, who was clearly suffering from Psyche exhaustion. His head kept turning as he looked around at everything happening nearby, without much understanding behind his eyes. By the time Plasario finished writing, Peter was staring at a small group of jellyfish-like creatures hopping across the rocks.

Seeing them, I decided to ask what was actually going on here.

“Master, why are the orcs attacking people? What even are orcs? We don’t have them where I come from.”

“What a beautiful place that must be,” he replied, handing me the sheet with his written instructions. “Please take this order to my quartermaster. You’ll find him in one of the temple’s side aisles, where we’re setting up—”

“I know. I remember the place.”

“Yes. As for the orcs…” He scratched his jaw and took hold of one of the beads in his beard. “The vile things hatch from eggs somewhere deep in the Underrock. At first, as goblins, until they gorge themselves enough to cocoon in some dark, windless place and emerge as orcs. And though those creatures are not far behind humans when it comes to reason”—he spat on the grass and ground the saliva beneath his heel—“they burn with such a hunger for murder and plunder that they are difficult to restrain.”

“I see,” I replied, wondering whether I had unnecessarily sent him into yet another prejudice-soaked tirade.

“My master—may the bank of his river be covered in soft sand—once told me that orcs grow for a very long time. The young are only somewhat larger than goblins, but the older they become, the larger their bodies grow. He often spoke to me about one he had seen—standing ten feet tall, perhaps even more. It rarely happens, because they fight not only us, but one another as well…” He paused, opening the pouch at his belt, checking its contents with his fingers, then letting a few grains spill out for the wind to carry away.  “Some say the largest of them cocoon again once they reach the proper stage. Into what? And whether there is even a whisper of truth in that? I do not know, young master.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” I lied, rolling up the paper he had given me and slipping it into my pocket. “That they’re preparing an offensive. That they want to attack the city. Do you think it’s true?”

“I doubt it. They are far too disorganized for that. But it is one of the reasons I was tasked with reopening the trade route through the Underrock. The ministers want greater control.”

“What is Salirion like? Do only humans live there?”

My question made him pause in thought for a moment. Then he took hold of my arm and, with a small motion, made me turn toward the palisade being built nearby. Slowly, he swept one hand along its entire length, dragging it through the air like a painter laying down a stroke of color.

“Salirion, young master, is a city of wonders. The wind is my witness, along with all its whispers—there is no more beautiful place on this side of the river of death. It grows out of the stone in such a way that sometimes the eye struggles to understand where the work of nature ends and what was carved by human hands begins. The central columns reach toward the heavens, supporting a golden circle upon which the vizier’s palace stands, and from the edges of that sun—captured by mankind—flows beautiful, clear water. It runs through canals across the entire city, all the way to the central ring, beyond which stretch life-giving fields of wheat, where windmills turn eternally beneath the push of divine wind.”

As he spoke, he tried to sketch the buildings and geography of the place with his hand, but the description was so saturated with comparisons that meant nothing to me that it failed to form any clear picture in my head.

“The inhabitants?” I reminded him of the second half of my question.

His nose wrinkled.

“Unfortunately, with every passing day, the purity of that place leaves more and more to be desired. When I was still a child, clinging to the hem of my good mother’s skirt as she led me through the market, I saw only faces close to my own—humans, sometimes elves, dwarves most rarely. But they were still people, merely arranged differently by the gods.

“Now, however, more and more often that lizard filth crawls up from beneath the earth and takes advantage of the heart of our good—beyond all reasonable measure— Mercy of the Morning Light Vizier Saladin Pasha the Seventeenth.”

“Orcs?”

“Orcs indeed.” He spat on the ground. “At first, they came looking for work, crawling up from the Underrock, but day after day, the places they claimed for themselves sank further into lawlessness and disorder. Now rooting them out seems difficult, perhaps even impossible. The only solution, then, is to reach the source of the problem—their spawning grounds—and destroy them before more of those creatures reach the city.”

“I don’t really understand the politics here. The city doesn’t have a problem with the ones already living there, but it wants to destroy the ones below? What do the orcs who are already citizens think about that? Where does the law fit into any of this? What exactly is going on?”

“I have no insight into the minds of the ministers. We were given an assignment to restore the underground trade routes, and that is what we are doing. My wishes for their demise are mine alone—and perhaps the wind’s. If human bandits had taken Frogflower, we would fight them just the same—though with considerably less pleasure—as we fight the orcs. Both during the attack on our caravan and here, it was the orcs who struck first.” He paused and swallowed. “For all my justified dislike of those creatures, I would not raise my hand against them first, because the ministers’ directive is clear—every life must serve our most holy vizier, Mercy of the Morning Light, Vizier Saladin Pasha the Seventeenth.”

His answer interested me when I compared it with the task the other Earthlings I had met were supposed to complete. Their mission suggested that an orc attack was definitely going to happen, but what Plasario was saying pointed in the opposite direction.

Despite his prejudice and racism, the people at the very top seemed to want the different parts of society integrated rather than pushed into open conflict. Unless something else was happening behind the scenes—maybe even the actions of other people from Earths who had landed on the opposite side, and whose task was to make sure the attack happened—and succeeded.

“Everything is clear, Master Plasario,” I replied, bowing while leaning one hand against my cane. As I walked away, he glanced at its top as though expecting to find Bri there, but only grimaced, looked at the builders for a moment, and headed toward Rodrick, who was trying to give Peter something to drink.

I took the same path I had come by, heading toward the temple towering over everything. Near one of the tents, metal grates had been set up over a fire, with lizards roasting on them. I silently cursed how much I stood out from everyone else in appearance—a problem I would soon fix—but until then, stealing was out of the question. There was too much I could lose for too little gain.

Nicky, however, was standing in line at one of the fires and noticed me approaching.

“Did it work?” she asked, raising her voice above the noise of dozens of people talking over one another. She stepped slightly out of line but shot the man behind her a look that suggested he’d better not try to move ahead of her.

“Of course,” I replied with a smile, spreading my arms. “The master has a soft spot for me. That orc scout I killed must’ve been a valuable catch.” I glanced at the meat. “Not to mention the barbecue I made out of both towers.”

“You’re hungry and you don’t have any money?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

Seeing her there with her hair all messed up, in the weak bioluminescent glow cast by the plants and mushrooms and the flickering light of the fire, she reminded me of my first love. I only hoped her fate would turn out differently from Sasha’s.

“I see you’ve gotten to know me a little already,” I replied.

“I’ll buy something for you too.”

“Does that mean we’re okay?”

“It means I’m willing to try giving you a chance. Like Khufu said, technically you didn’t do anything wrong. Other than being selfish as a flying fuck about it.”

“Did I make you start swearing?”

“I do it when I’m hungry or angry. And I’m still angry every time I look at you. I can’t believe those people dying just rolled right off you.”

“Eli was an asshole, and I barely got to know Mara any better than I knew any of the soldiers.”

“Yeah, but they”—she raised a hand to cover her mouth, even though the other people standing around us seemed completely uninterested in our conversation and focused on their own—“were from Earth. These people aren’t.”

“We all grieve in our own way,” I replied, accompanied by the growl of my stomach. “And I don’t care where someone comes from. They’re being used by the people who came up with this form of entertainment just like we are. I have no idea whether they’re alive in the same sense we are, but they look like they are. Verisimilitude alone says I should treat them as though they’re people too.”

“So you’re planning to be an equal-opportunity asshole?”

“Exactly,” I replied.

“Even so, I hope we see each other again.”

“I’m not planning to just abandon that quest we started and leave the reward for you to claim. Once I figure out what’s going on in the city, I intend to find the time to come back here and finish it, so maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

“Unless we finish it first.”

“You have every right to, and my blessing. First come, first served.”

“Was that another food reference?” She tried to keep a straight face, but the corners of her mouth betrayed her.

“I’m glad my double meanings aren’t lost on you,” I replied, stepping a little closer to her. “Nicky, have you reinforced any of your abilities yet?”

“No, I haven’t had the chance.” She moved forward as the person two places ahead of us received their portion. “Why do you ask?”

“You have an analytical mind, and I have a strong suspicion that using Essence to reinforce or acquire new abilities is a trap. Why would our captors tell us to spend it without fear?”

“Maybe because they don’t want us hoarding it for no reason and becoming less entertaining? If branching out depends only on the maximum amount of Essence we’ve produced, not how much we currently have, then I don’t see why they wouldn’t tell us.”

“Seriously?” I asked, leaning more heavily on my staff. “It still feels suspicious to me.”

“Maybe that’s just part of your nature. You don’t make connections easily, you don’t open up to people, and you’d rather work alone than in a group. You prepare for the worst, but you’re good at improvising. It’s not hard to imagine suspicion sitting pretty high on your list of defining traits.”

“Like I said. Analytical mind.”

“Have you had the option to upgrade anything?”

“I have. Two abilities, but nothing that immediately blows me away. More and more fire, basically, and I already have enough of that. Burns like hell as it is. One ability would let me reduce that a little, but spending Essence just for that feels unnecessary. I’ve noticed I’m already handling Psyche better than I did at the beginning, so in time I would be able to use Cinderhide more freely. Hopefully.”

“That’s natural,” she replied as we moved forward again. There was only one person left ahead of us now. “We were told Psyche is like a muscle, right? And muscles, first of all, grow. Second, they get stronger, letting you lift heavier and heavier weights. But most importantly, they also build endurance, letting you do more and more repetitions. That second improvement usually comes a lot faster than the first.”

“You’re probably right. I hadn’t thought about it that way,” I replied.

I was about to cover part of my stomach, the section hidden beneath my clothes, with Cinderhide, but then I realized that when I dispelled it and turned it back into ordinary skin, whatever remained might turn into hot, charred scraps and set my clothes on fire. So in the end, I decided to transform the hand wrapped around my staff instead.

Nicky noticed immediately.

“Starting your training already?” she asked, looking down at my fingers, which in this form resembled claws made of hardened magma, still glowing faintly with heat.

“If you’re right, then greasing the groove should quickly improve my ability to use magic more often. From now on, whenever I get the chance, I’m going to activate and dismiss my magic just to get my soul used to me abusing it,” I replied with a smile, then ended the spell.

The wind immediately caught the black skin shedding from my hand and carried it away through the air.

“Good idea,” she replied, then walked up to the bearded man standing beside the grill and pointed toward six fairly large lizard breasts sizzling beautifully over the heat.

My mouth watered just thinking about trying one.