Orenda woke to the sound of something slamming against the glass of one of the windows that lined her room. Her hand flew instantly to her medallion, but she saw that it was not some attacker, but a tiny dragon like those that she had read lived along the shores of beaches and scavenged for food, living their lives in little outcroppings on beachside cliffs. It wasn’t a particularly noteworthy animal, as they were plentiful and common, but she had never been to a beachside city before and found it odd that one would make it this far inland. It was pretty enough, with shimmering blue scales that the biology book had told her made it difficult for things swimming in the ocean to differentiate it from the sky and water above them, but it was behaving erratically. It had perched on the windowsill and was looking directly into her eyes. She thought she saw more intelligence behind them than a creature like that would have.
It pecked at the glass again and Orenda decided to open the window.
The dragon flew inside and Orenda saw that someone had tied a sack to it that had to be weighing it down. The seaside dragons were small, on par with other creatures who filled the same niche, and if she was an adult it could have landed on her shoulder. Instead, it flew to the mirror and perched there, tilting its head to and fro, looking down at her.
“Hello,” Orenda said to it.
“Hello!” The dragon mimicked back in a heavy accent that she could not place.
“Oh!” Orenda let out a delighted gasp, “You’re tame then! What’s your name?”
“What’s your name?” The dragon said in the same accent and Orenda knew that it didn’t actually understand her but was determined to carry on the conversation nonetheless because she thought she would like to hear it say her name.
“Orenda,” She told the dragon and she was delighted when it spoke.
“Orenda!” The dragon said, “Orenda!”
“Did someone tie that to you?” Orenda asked as she took a cautious step forward and the dragon kept tilting its head to look at her, “May I see it?”
“Orenda!” The dragon said and tilted its head to and fro.
“Yes!” Orenda told it, “I’m just going to undo this bag now, alright? I won’t hurt you.”
“I won’t hurt you!” The dragon said and Orenda believed it, though she knew it was repeating her. She stood on her tiptoes and untied the bag, which seemed to relieve the dragon, because it began to hop around the top of the mirror, then fluttered over to the podium. It perched there, head tilted at the floor as if it was reading the strange runes there, as Orenda took the sack to the bed and sat it down.
“Orenda!” The dragon said.
“Yes?” Orenda asked.
“Follow the path of order!” The dragon told her, “Follow the white rabbit! Gary loves you!”
It spread its wings and flew out the window it had come in.
Orenda started after it for some time, watching it glide towards the ocean in the distance, over the tops of the buildings, over the city that was alive and awake now even though it had not slept the night before. The dragon knew where it was going, but it was so small that it eventually disappeared from her vision into the sunrise. Orenda thought its name may be Gary, and wondered who it had thought would be in the tower. She was sure it couldn’t have been expecting her, but it had been trained to deliver that message to someone. Orenda wondered what happened in this room.
Then she opened the sack, because it was hers now, regardless of who it had been meant for.
It was filled to the brim with gold pieces.
Orenda very rarely saw gold coins. She knew that they were valuable, that only the very wealthy ever had them. She knew that there was probably more than enough in that bag to cover her tuition and the repairs to the bathhouse. At first, she could not believe her good fortune. This was unbelievable! This was amazing!
Then, she realized that this was unbelievable. She knew that money did not just fall out of the sky. She knew that someone, somewhere, would miss this bag in a few hours. Most concerning of all, she knew that that someone, whomever it was, would now know her name.
Orenda had looked through all the registries at the library, and had never seen another “Orenda”. Orenda was realizing that in the past two days she had said a great deal of downright stupidity and made a conscious effort to start watching her mouth.
But only a fool would say no to a small fortune. Orenda needed to find somewhere to hide it. She wouldn’t leave it in the original sack, because that would be foolish, so she opened her sheet and pushed everything else aside until she came to the package. She had not unfolded her Sari since she got it, but it was really a long strip of fabric, so she unfolded it, draped some of it into the package, poured in most of the gold, then folded the rest of the sari on top of it. She closed the package, piled the rest of her things back on top of and around it, tied up the sheet, and pushed it under her bed.
She took the rest of the gold and stuck it into her pockets, then turned the sack inside out, folded it as small as she could, and realized something.
Once she walked out into the library, she wouldn’t be able to lock the door to her room. She knew none of the students here and trusted them even less, so she turned around, grabbed her sheet, and tried to think of what the best place would be, in the room, to hide it: the bed, the bedside table, the podium, and the mirror- that was it. That was all that was in there. There was no wardrobe where she could stash anything, nothing that locked, no trap doors as there had been in the library.
Whomever had been expecting Gary would come up there, Orenda realized as she stood around studying the room. The best course of action would be to set it to rights, exactly as it had been before she came, exactly as if she had never been there in the first place, and then to take all of her things and leave. As soon as she realized she had a time frame, she worked quickly. She made the bed expertly, as Susan had taught her, as it had been the night before when she arrived. That was really all she had changed, so she grabbed her sheet and walked confidently into the library.
There was no one in the research room, but when she walked out onto the second floor of the main room, of the library proper, she found it much less deserted. Headmaster Quiroris was marching toward her accentuating each movement with a fancy walking stick, and with his appearance made up, his long hair fluttering behind him, and his nightclothes replaced with pristine mage robes, he looked far more intimidating. He looked angry, like the ancient man who controlled the will of the very planet to his whims. Orenda realized as she saw the earth stones set into his walking stick, saw the earth crystals piercing his ears the same color as his eyes, that she had, in her stupidity, perhaps made an enemy of someone who was infinitely more powerful than she had realized.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
But it was done, and there was nothing for it now.
“Orenda,” he called with a tone more friendly than his eyes, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Jenny said that she didn’t know where you had been put. I had to find a damn- that is, I had to speak to one of the kitchen maids, only to find out that you had been done a terrible injustice.”
He closed the space between them in a few long strides, and Orenda thought that even for an adult he was tall. He put one hand on her shoulder, then knelt to be more on her level before he began to speak again.
“I’m so, so sorry this was done to you,” He said, “Students are never permitted in the room they stuck you in. Are you alright?” Orenda stared at him instead of answering so he asked, “Did you see anything in the mirror, Orenda? Did anything come to you, during the night? By Thesis’s glowing eyes, Orenda, I’m so sorry. Tell me what happened!”
“What is that room?” Orenda asked.
“You’ll never have to see it again,” he promised, and Orenda was surprised when he pulled her into a hug. She neither rejected nor welcomed this embrace, simply let it happen and felt the heat of the magic inside him, before he released her and held her by both shoulders, “I should have never let that happen. Don’t worry, the kitchen maid has been properly punished. Come back to my office. I’ll get you properly situated. We’ll have to figure something out about the finances.”
“About that,” Orenda asked him as she took a step back to get his hands off of her, trying not to think about what had happened to Bubbider, “I had meant to ask you last night, but I was so tired and so much had happened that I didn’t have a chance. How much, exactly, do you charge for your services?”
“Orenda, you could never work it off,” he explained, “We’re a prestigious academy. It’s more than most skilled laborers make in a year.”
“Well, I would like to look at the paperwork,” Orenda said, “I would like to know.”
“What did you see in the mirror?” Quiroris asked.
“I’ve seen a great many things in and on mirrors, headmaster,” Orenda looked into his eyes, “I’ve seen murders, princesses, street urchins, and dragons among them. I’ve seen crippling poverty and great wealth. I have seen a great many things.”
“It never should have happened,” he said.
“How much would it cost?” Orenda asked, “To attend school here and make full use of the facilities?”
“Our normal rate is 200 gold, Orenda,” Quiroris sighed, “It’s more money than you’ve ever seen.”
“What is that room?” Orenda asked.
Quiroris stood and began to change the subject, “I think that perhaps we can get one of the noble families to sponsor you. Fire elves are so rare anymore; I haven’t seen one in years. Once word gets out of your existence, I’m sure that people will be interested. I’ll be training the first fire mage that anyone has seen in over a century. I think we can work something out.”
“Felaern,” Orenda said, more than a little insulted at being treated like some sort of spectacle, “What is in that room?”
“I wouldn’t want to frighten you,” He stopped pacing and turned to face her, “But I suppose you’ve already seen it. Many, many years ago, it was simply another room in the library, for research and the like, but we used it for storage. A group of students thought it would be funny to try and summon Morgani Magnus- I know that all children, for some reason like to summon demons, at sleepovers and the like, but this time… they did something. They used magic that they did not understand, and they did something. We couldn’t figure out what they had done, and we couldn’t dispel it, so we sealed it away. No one is ever meant to stay inside that room.”
“I slept in the same room,” Orenda asked, aghast, “with the most powerful demon known to elvenkind?”
“No,” Quiroris said, “If it was an actual demon we would have left the building to crumble and found another site to build a new school. People send their children here, Orenda. It’s just a powerful magic spell that went awry because it was cast by people who made mistakes. It’s just… chaotic magic. It messes with people’s heads.”
“Who’s Gary?” Orenda asked him.
“I don’t know,” Quiroris said, and Orenda did not think he was lying, but he was so difficult to read, “Is that something you heard in the room?”
“Yes,” Orenda said simply.
“Different people hear different things,” Quiroris said, “I thought I had the damn thing sealed. I don’t know how a maid wandered into it. I’ll have to have it bricked up or something, make it physically inaccessible.”
“Felaern?” Orenda asked.
“Headmaster Quiroris,” he corrected.
“Felaern,” Orenda said again, “You said 200 gold, right?” She set her sheet on a nearby table and began to count the money from her pocket. He watched with wide eyes as she counted out all that she had, a little over 150 gold pieces.
“I can get the rest to you later this afternoon,” She said simply and with great confidence, “If that’s convenient for you.”
“Orenda,” he asked, looking closely at one of the coins, “Where did you get this?”
“I told you,” Orenda smiled, “I’m a princess. I thought my tuition would have arrived before I did.”
“No, Orenda, I am an adult. I don’t have time for more shenanigans. I’m not going to just let this go because of what you think is clever word play. Where did you get this? These were not all minted in the same place. Coins are slightly different depending on where they come from. This one,” He slammed one of the coins onto the table, “Is from here, from the colonies on the fire continent. This one,” he slammed another coin down, “Is from the capital, from the earth continent. And this one,” he slammed yet another coin down, “Is from the Islands of the water continent, an ocean away from even the capital! So where did you get this money? Did you sail around the world last night? Or did someone do it for you?”
“Does it spend the same?” Orenda asked.
“Orenda!” He seemed very close to losing his patience, “Where did you get this money?”
“It was a gift,” Orenda told him, “Whatever was in that room seemed to like me. It was named ‘Gary’, it said, ‘Gary loves you’ and it gave me that money.”
“Stop lying to me, Orenda, I’m trying to help you!” Quiroris snapped. “I know what’s going on here! I know about Captain Nochdifache!”
“Then you know more than I do,” Orenda snapped back, “And I would, frankly, love to hear it! I’m sick of being in the dark!”
They stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time, and Quiroris began to shake. For a second, Orenda was afraid that he was going to hit her, but instead he turned away and began collecting the money he had sat upon the table.
“I need to know if this money is stolen,” he said, “I can’t take stolen money.”
“I told you how I got it,” Orenda snapped back, concerned at how quickly the energy had drained from him. If a person could come down so quickly, she thought they could switch back just as fast. After a beat she asked, “Who is Captain Nochdifache? I’ve never met anyone else with my name.”
“There are two possibilities,” Quiroris considered aloud, “And I would like to believe one more than the other, but objective truth does not care what we would rather believe. I would like to believe that whoever ran that workhouse you came from knew very few fire elven names, but wanted to give you a name that suited you, and pulled from the only two sources readily available to them. I would rather not believe that you are lying to me, and it’s going to cause me massive problems.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Orenda said.
“Let’s get you settled,” Quiroris pocketed the money, and began to walk down the staircase into the library proper.