Volume 1, Chapter 52: Nothing Suspicious About Any of This (Patreon)

My eyes didn’t know where to settle when Hurrin opened the door, because what I saw bore no resemblance whatsoever to the image of a minister’s office I had had in my head just before he did.

First of all, the room was far larger than the doorway—and everything outside it—had any right to suggest. Second, it wasn’t a typical cube with four even walls.

Instead, the entire chamber resembled an irregular cavern, filled with countless stalactites and stalagmites rising from both floor and ceiling, joining together at different points, some even jutting diagonally out from the walls both upward and downward, forming a chaotic tangle of structures as though some drunken spider had built them. Yet those irregularities didn’t look natural, like ordinary mineral deposits. They looked like something someone had intentionally arranged and constructed out of brick, steel, and other building materials so that the interior would imitate a cave. To make the whole thing even stranger, every element had been painted white.

That white surface shimmered in the light of a great fire set atop a tower just beyond a tall, spacious window, its half-translucent stained glass depicting a river flowing through a cave. That private sun illuminated the room, casting colored, dancing patches and lines of light across the uneven surfaces of the chamber. And in the middle stood a broad desk—also made of stone, brick, and steel, and also painted white.

Third, the room contained the minister and port administrator himself—an orc, just like Davin. Or at least that was the impression he gave by his general build. He was tall. Even seated, he was about my height. His shoulders were somewhat narrower than those of the previous member of his species I had seen. But his skin was entirely black, and parts of it didn’t resemble the ordinary scaled orcish hide I had seen so far. Instead, most of it looked as if it had been fashioned from fine stone and black steel, both glinting in the light of Bri and the fire outside.

Only part of the left side of his face and body still resembled that of a typical orc, and unlike the right side—which had been encased in stone—that side possessed the usual green orcish eye. The other eye, however, looked more like a sharpened coal in motion, with liquid mercury swirling inside it. From that side of his skull, curving upward and backward, grew something like a ram’s horn made of pure steel.

Despite that inorcish appearance—which made it perfectly clear why he was called the Dark Tower—the minister was dressed in a flowing cashmere tunic made of many layers, draped over one shoulder like a toga. Around his neck hung several chains adorned with precious stones, and on the fingers of his left hand—which was more fleshy than stony—he wore rings.

As we entered the room, he was using that very hand to pluck scales from the eyelid above his left eye and arrange them into a little pile on the white desk.

There were already several such tiny piles scattered across its surface, each in a different place, each surrounded by little stones.

“Hurrin, my friend. What brings you to me this time?” he asked in a high-pitched voice that didn’t suit the rest of him at all.

My guide reached into a small pouch at his belt and pulled out a scroll. He held it for a moment, studying the minister, then approached the desk and placed the document on its surface.

“From Master Plasario, Minister Lorkthor,” the man said, backing away toward me. “Master Arthur Nilrem,” he added, indicating me with an open hand. The orc turned his gaze in my direction. “He is a mage and is looking for work. Out of obligation to Master Plasario, I brought him to you, but there is no relationship between us, so I cannot vouch for his abilities.”

“Master Arthur Nilrem,” the minister repeated, as though testing my name on his tongue. At the same time, he reached above his other eye—the more magical-looking one—and pinched a small black stone protruding from the skin there between two fingers.

He pulled once. When that wasn’t enough, he pulled again, harder, and tore it free. Sparks and a brief flash accompanied the motion, but nothing in his expression suggested pain. A moment later, he placed the little stone beside one of the piles of scales.

“What does Plasario want from me this time?” the minister asked, turning his attention back to Hurrin. “Could he not come in person?”

“Everything is explained in the document I brought, and unfortunately, no. It was not possible.”

“Whatever he wants from me, then it is also not possible. I have neither the time… nor the desire to satisfy that man’s requests.”

“Minister, this concerns Frogflower. Master Plasario intends to establish a permanent settlement around the temple. The rumors proved true. There are old mines beneath the building, and faith has accumulated there as Authority within crystals.”

“Faith Authority?” the orc asked, scratching at his chest. His robe shifted with the motion, pulling tight enough to reveal five small protrusions beneath the fabric. “He saw it with his own eyes?”

“The soldiers confirmed it. We are as certain of it as we are of wind in a field of wheat.”

“That is not good.” His gaze remained on the object for another moment. “It needs to be secured before it falls into the wrong hands.” The minister reached for the scroll, letting it unroll downward with one hand while holding the top with the other. “…That is not the worst idea,” he added after reading for a moment. Then he set the scroll aside. “Tell him I will have what he is asking for within forty days. On the condition that my people handle construction of the descent and the extraction afterward.”

“Plasario will not agree. Half the workers are to be his. Half yours. I was given clear instructions for the negotiation.”

“Agreed,” the orc replied. He rose from behind the desk and straightened to his full eight feet of height.

“Agreed?” Hurrin asked. “That’s it?”

“Yes—agreed. Unless I’ve suddenly developed a lisp? I do have certain problems related to the adaptations of my body,” he added, holding out his stone-armored right hand. From roughly halfway along each finger toward the tip, the metal rods embedded within them followed into steel claws that replaced his fingernails. He flexed and extended his fingers several times, then finally turned his hand palm-up and jerked his entire arm sharply upward. A small tower of brick, stone, and steel instantly erupted from the floor in front of him, following the motion of his hand. And a moment later, he rested that oversized hand against the column he had created. “That arrangement suits me.”

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Hurrin replied, scratching his nose and narrowing his eyes, startled by the sudden reshaping of the room.

For my part, during that brief moment when I had squeezed my eyes shut, startled by the movement, I caught the smell of fresh concrete and cement. Along with it came the sensation of being trapped inside an extremely cramped and uncomfortable space, with walls pressing in on me from every direction. The sound of metal striking stone accompanied it, along with a general feeling of unease.

“You mean the magic, or my willingness to compromise?”

“Both.”

“The documents will be ready by central sun tomorrow. Maybe earlier, but I assume you’ll be meeting Davin anyway? You may have missed each other—”

“I saw him.”

“Perhaps you can talk some sense into him.”

“Did something happen that I should know about?”

“No doubt he’ll tell you himself. I’m counting on your wisdom to make him listen,” Lorkthor replied, glancing in my direction. “If that is all, please leave Mr. Arthur alone with me.”

“All right. I’ll come back tomorrow for the documents. Thank you, Minister,” Hurrin replied.

He gave me one look, then another toward Bri, before leaving the room, taking care not to trip over the structures jutting from the floor.

When the door closed behind him, Lorkthor looked at me, narrowed his eyes, and once again reached toward the eyelid from which he had torn one of his scales.

“Master Arthur, master Arthur—you are not the first person to come to me over the past few days asking for work. And, like you, several of them wielded magic. Yet just as with the others, I cannot sense any specific aura from you. Daimon?” He asked the question while circling me like a predator inspecting its prey. It was obvious that he knew far more about magic than I did, so I found myself considering whether I should open up to him.

“I don’t understand,” I decided to reply.

“You do not know the source of your power?”

“I had no idea there could be different sources.”

 “You have no idea? Strange, this land all of you come from. Every single one of you relies on a crutch—a spirit that directs your power for you. How primitive. How limiting. Would it not be better to possess true understanding?” He spoke while pacing around the chamber and gesturing with his enormous hands. “Never mind. I will give you the same answer I gave every person who came before you. I am not looking for mages—or spirit binders, as seems to be the case with your kind. I have no need for such services. If, however, you possess talents in some other field—perhaps you are good with numbers, or capable of carrying heavy things—I encourage you to speak with one of my overseers. Perhaps they can find work for you at the port.”

“May I interest you in a thought? It won’t take much of your time,” I asked, leaning on my staff.

“Go on,” he replied, extending one hand toward me.

“I don’t know you. I don’t know your customs, or the customs of the people living in this city, but I do know a little about how people think. If you weren’t curious, you would have sent me away with Master Hurrin. Which means there is something about me that interests you—or perhaps, as you yourself pointed out, the fact that there have been others like me.”

“Perhaps.”

“I propose a trade. I tell you why I am here—and why the others are here as well—and in return, you do not hire me. You teach me.”

“And what exactly would I teach you?”

“As you noticed, I wield magic, but I do not understand it. You correctly concluded that it is being offered to me through a spirit. I want to know more about how to master it. How to control it myself. How to use an Aura.”

“A commendable desire. I am not interested.” He answered without hesitation. “I have neither the time nor the strength, and the wind has long since blown every last scrap of patience for teaching out of me. I do not even know whether it is already too late for someone like you—someone corrupted by the whispers of spirits.”

I had thought I might be able to convince him, but I did my best not to let the disappointment show.

“I understand. Thank you for your time, Minister,” I said, bowing.

“Close the door behind you,” he replied, waving one hand in dismissal.

When I left his office, I took a few steps in the opposite direction down the corridor so I could look through the glass window at the port stretching out below.

“I thought I had him. I’m usually pretty good at reading people’s intentions and needs,” I whispered.

“Do you think, um, maybe it's because he's not, well, human?” Bri hesitated. “Are you disappointed?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s why, maybe not. Yeah, I’m disappointed. I feel like we haven’t been told everything about magic. First Khufu tells me that people in his world have been performing rituals that actually work for a long time. Then Plasario shows me that magic is native to this world too.” I twisted the ring around my finger. “Then it turns out there were mages on our Earth before all this as well, or spirit binders, or whatever else they were. If the minister won’t teach me, someone else will know something. I feel like the Daimon is only the tip of the iceberg, and everything happening here has another layer underneath it that nobody bothered to tell us about.”

“I think so too, um. This probably isn’t the first time something like this has happened in the universe, right? Maybe those other kinds of magic are, um, leftovers from previous Events?”

“Maybe, Bri. Your theory is as good as any other, because we’ve got nothing to test it against. I think it’s time we found ourselves somewhere to stay in the city. Somewhere up there. Once we have shelter, I’ll make sure we have enough money to live, and after that we’ll find a way to get ourselves involved with the local police—the Sunnies.”

“I thought you were, um, looking for work here.”

“I was. But not with this face, and not with this name, Bri. Both Davin and the Minister are involved in something a lot shadier than managing the port and the city’s trade. I’m sure of it.”