Chapter One

The process of shaping is well-utilized, but poorly understood. We can separate questions regarding its practice to those asked by shapers themselves, and those asked by non-shapers. Of those questions asked by non-shapers, the most common are: What is a shaper, and why can’t I be one too? To answer the former properly involves a detailed understanding of the vis network that resides in all people. Suffice to say, a shaper is anyone who can absorb something into their vis network, be it force, heat, light, pain, or lightning, and then release it in a controlled manner. The answer to the second question is more simple: You just can’t, so stop asking.

* The Fundamentals of Shaping.

Sal rode long into the night, looking to get as far away as he could from the would-be bandits before someone found the bodies. He would hate to get arrested unjustly for merely defending himself against bandits while he was in the process of committing theft, heresy, and probably treason. The irony would be too much for him.

Still, the ride took a long time and it was after noon the next day before Sal was hitching “his” horse to a post outside the Adjective Noun. Which struck Sal as a weird name for a tavern, but then, these Academy types always were odd. Why Sarina had wanted to meet here was beyond him, but trying to guess at her reasons was like trying to guess the weather a year from tomorrow. Her thinking was different to humans, and she often said things that didn’t seem to make any sense at all and then got frustrated that Sal didn’t understand them. He was convinced that half the times she did that, she was just messing with him. But she was a good friend and the finest archer this side of the Del. There was no one he would rather have watching his back on a dicey exchange, even if her rates were borderline extortionate.

Sal entered the Adjective Noun and spotted Sarina immediately. It helped that she was the only delkin in a room full of humans. It’s easy to spot your friend when she’s a hand and a half taller than most of the men in the room with dappled, green skin and bright-yellow cat eyes. Also, she was dressed in tight-fitting riding leathers with a longbow strapped to her back while almost everyone else in the room was in Academy robes or expensive silks.

He joined her at the table where she was drinking a dark-orange liquor from a huge pewter mug. The liquid left her green cheeks flushed and smelt like it could catch fire at any moment. Sarina made a habit of drinking the strongest and strangest booze she could find in truly impressive quantities, though it never seemed to dull her aim or her wits. Delkin biology apparently dealt with alcohol differently from humans. Either that or Sarina was just a boozehound of legendary proportions.

“You’re early,” Sarina said with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting you until dark.”

“A Justice was poking around and then I ran into some bandits. Sped up my schedule. Does this place have beds?”

“Saladeen!” she said in mock outrage. “You’ll not have me that easily. There are rituals to observe for these things. You must maim some flowers and speak in rhymes, else human women will think me improper.”

Sal snorted. “Yeah ‘cause you and propriety have been such good friends before now. Seriously, I’ve been riding all night. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

“Well that will not do, we must make the exchange in less than three days and the buyer might become suspicious if you are asleep.”

Sal raised an eyebrow at that, not sure if Sarina was still teasing him or not.

She smiled broadly. “The Adjective Noun does have beds. When you talk to the owner, get me another Orange Wreckage.”

Part of what made Sarina so expensive was that he was expected to keep her in booze while she worked with him and, given how much Sarina typically drunk, that could cost a small fortune in itself.

Sal approached the jovial-looking man behind the bar. He was wearing a leather apron over a round belly and had lost most of his hair. “I take it you’re in charge here? I’d like a room for the night and one Orange Wreckage.”

The man bobbed his head in agreement and then chuckled as he poured liquids into another large mug. “Better watch it with these things. I call ‘em an Orange Wreckage ‘cause that’s what’s left of your mind after ya drink ‘em.”

“It’s not for me,” Sal muttered.

The bartender took Sal’s coin and gave him the drink and a key with a number embossed on it. “Room’s upstairs. Piece of advice lad, if you’re looking to impress the elf, it’s gonna take more than buying her a drink. Four men have already­—”

Sal didn’t hear any more of the bartender’s advice because he had started walking away the second he got the key. The man was just lucky Sarina didn’t hear herself referred to as an “elf”. This close to the Academy people should really know better. The delkin considered “elf” and “dwarf” to be insults on a par with spitting right in their face. Saying them within earshot was liable to start a bar fight.

Sal plonked the drink down in front of Sarina unceremoniously, spilling orange liquid onto the already-sticky table. “Here’s your drink. If you want any more before I wake up, ask one of your new friends. Apparently, you’ve made a few.”

Sarina smiled broadly. “I think they fancy me a deity and have come to pay tribute. I can see how they would make that mistake. I would make a good god, yes?”

Sal snorted. “I think they fancy you a woman and have come to bed you.”

“Then perhaps they should say so. At least one of them was handsome enough. But I am not a filly to be bought. And if I were, I would cost a great deal more than the price of one drink.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sal muttered as he left her to her drinking. During the last job they had worked together, she had drunk the approximate cost of a purebred horse with a fine leather saddle. Granted, she had saved his life during that job, but still.

Sal found his room to be small but comfortable. The bed was soft and didn’t smell of piss or sweat and there weren’t any visible rats, so he had definitely had worse. He stripped down to his underclothes—though he kept the Frozen Dagger on his person—and collapsed into bed. He was asleep in moments.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Sal woke with a hand covering his mouth. The room was almost pitch black and all he could see was a tall figure standing over him. His initial reaction was to do something violent but he arrested that urge immediately. He had been asleep, if his night-time visitor had wanted him dead, he would be.

“Shh,” a familiar voice hissed and the hand came off his mouth. It was Sarina.

Sal relaxed for a moment, then tensed all over again when he realized that if Sarina was sneaking into his room and keeping him quiet, it wasn’t because she was feeling lonely. Something was up, and it wasn’t something that he was likely to enjoy.

“Who?” Sal whispered back, drawing back his covers and dressing as quietly as he could.

“Yarrlish. Three. We need to go.”

Sal nodded, trusting Sarina’s delkin eyes to see the gesture in the blackness. The people of Yarrl were human only in the most technical sense and they were rarely seen this far north. The fact they were here was more than likely nothing to do with Sal and Sarina’s job, but it never hurt to be careful, especially where the Yarrlish were concerned.

Sal and Sarina snuck through the upstairs of the Adjective Noun, lit by a single lamp hanging on the wall. By the weak light Sal could see that Sarina had strung her wicked-looking surbow, which was slung on her back along with a quiver absolutely bristling with arrows. They snuck to the only window on the second floor. It didn’t open, but Sal would hardly be the world-class thief that he very much was if he was stopped by windows that didn’t open.

He extended his right hand, opened his Channel, and blew the glass from the frame with a blast of force that carried the shards away from the building so he wouldn’t land on them. With the easy part done, he took a deep breath and jumped out the window. He opened his Channel again in mid-air and slowed his descent. It was a tricky shaping; it wasn’t enough to simply push against the ground, you had to bounce the force off the ground while it was still in vis-state and then shape it into a wave powerful enough to slow your descent. Any number of things could go wrong, the most benign of which being that it simply wouldn’t work. If he released too much force, the wave could break his legs. If he didn’t aim it exactly right, he could fling himself into the wall behind him. There is a reason most forceshapers don’t use their abilities on themselves. But most people aren’t Saladeen Hadon. Any idiot with the gift could do blasts of force. Only a true master could jump out of a window and land with no greater impact than jumping off the bottom stair.

Sarina landed beside him in a crouch. She hadn’t used any shaping; she was good at jumping off of things. In fact, the Adjective Noun wasn’t that tall a building. Sal supposed he could probably have jumped normally and suffered nothing worse than a few grazes, which took the wind out of his master forceshaper sails a little.

They moved quickly around the building to where Sal had hitched his stolen horse. Caution is one thing, but a few Yarrlish showing up is no reason to leave behind a good horse. They mounted together and rode away from the Adjective Noun before someone could try to charge them for the window. The city-state of Inveritus was large enough that even if the tavern owner could find a city guard at this time of night, they would have better things to do than to look for some guy who might have broken a window. So instead of riding out of the city, Sal directed the horse towards the famous night market that operated on the banks of the Academy River. Having gotten some sleep, he now found himself in dire need of some breakfast.

From the time the market opened, which varied a little depending on the season, till it closed at dawn, it was a cacophony of sounds, sights and smells that wasn’t replicated anywhere else in the world. The general Inveritus attire of rich silks or Academy robes was broken here by people in the practical, short tunics and breeches or skirts popular in Salitos, Lhintish in traveller’s cloaks or tight trousers and doublets, and a few short, burly, blue-skinned delkin that the ignorant might call dwarves wearing tight-fitting leathers. The tangy aroma of delkin fruit dishes competed with the pungent odour of Lhintish cheese and the ubiquitous scent of roasting meat on sticks. People spoke a smattering of languages, often resorting to pointing or waving at one another to get their point across. The Academy catered to rich, important or, in rare cases, intelligent people from all over, and the market was always full of enterprising folk looking to cash in by providing rich students a taste of home.

After tethering the horse, their first stop was a stall selling strangely shaped bottles filled with potent liquor. Sarina spent Sal’s money on a long, thin bottle filled with blue liquid and immediately tossed back a hefty swig. With Sarina’s booze needs momentarily seen to, Sal left her haggling over the price of a fish served with orange slices and went to find a meal without meat in it. Sal had never considered himself a devout man, and his chosen profession was enough to ensure that he would spend his next life as a rat or a worm, but he found the northern custom of eating animals a step too far. The thought of eating the flesh of a creature that could have been human in its last life, and might well be human again by the time you cook it, was enough to make him a little queasy. Besides, the monks taught that cows were reborn from workshy souls, pigs from the indulgent and fish from the deceptive, and those were all attributes he could relate to.

Sal cobbled together a breakfast of fried potato slices, two boiled eggs and a wedge of cheese from the Salitian end of the market. He could have found better quality cheese from the Lhintish stalls, but he steered clear of them lest someone recognize him. It wasn’t likely—he wasn’t that infamous after all—but it was a possibility, and he had learned long ago not to take unnecessary chances while on a job. So while the potato slices were surprisingly good, his cheese wedge was hard enough to use as a door stop. Without belief in the Cycle and the Doctrine of Production, the northern countries never developed the wool, milk and cheese industries that Lhint did. Too busy killing the animals that produced them, Sal suspected.

Sal sat by the riverbank, eating his breakfast and waiting for Sarina to finish her bartering. He was debating whether to finish his cheese wedge or lob it into the river when a young boy, dark-skinned and gangly, sat himself down next to Sal.

“You gonna finish that cheese there, mister?” the boy asked, hunger in his eyes.

“All yours,” Sal said, handing him the remaining greyish-yellow lump.

“Thank ya,” the boy said, popping the whole thing into his mouth.

Sal grunted and turned back to watching the river.

“Saladeen,” the boy said, his voice now a whisper.

Sal whipped his head back towards the boy, immediately alert. “What did you just say?”

“Saladeen Zareth Hadon,” he said. “I have a job for you. Go to Cadersville in Salitos and find a brothel owner by the name of Carrus. He works at the Snake Pit and he has need of a man with your talent. Your delkin friend is welcome too”

“You know,” Sal said quietly. “I get nervous when potential employers send vague messages through skinny street kids. I think I’ll pass.”

“You are mistaken Saladeen,” the boy said, his voice suddenly much deeper. “I am not a middle-man. This comes from me.” The boy looked Sal in the eye and his eyes shifted from a muddy-brown to a fiery-red and back again.

Sal’s eyes went wide. Skard weren’t so rare that he had never seen one before, but they were uncommon. Skard that could afford Sal’s rates were rarer still. Sal was intrigued.

He opened his mouth to ask several more questions, but the skard in the shape of a boy was already on his feet. The skard took three long steps and dove into the river, disappearing under the black waters moments before Sarina sat down next to Sal carrying a large leaf piled with fish and fruit in one hand and her strong-smelling liquor in the other.

“What was that about?” Sarina asked.

“A job offer. For both of us, helping some brothel owner in Salitos. The strange part is that it was a skard that made the offer, and he was suspiciously short on details.”

“Savec-uhn are half a god,” Sarina said. “Not to be trusted.”

Sal nodded absently, used to Sarina’s strange pronouncements. “Their coin still spends as well as anyone’s though.”

Sarina thought on this for a moment, then asked, “What do they have to drink in Salitos?”