38
(Magic Man- Tonight)
Brenden
It was the morning after the other three went missing, after me and Desmond came back with our ugly-ass new robes and they were gone. We hopped in the cart and got the fuck outta dodge. Found a patch along the side of the road to hide the wagon and figure out our next move. After the argument, we didn’t do much of anything though. Beneath the canopy of our wagon was silence. We said nothing to each other. Didn’t even look at each other. We just sat back and fell asleep at some point, then found ourselves in the next morning.
“It was the same dream I keep having for some reason, but like, more clear. I don’t know why I keep having it.”
Desmond seemed absolutely enamored by the recounting of my dream. His half-asleep wandering eyes and hand resting over his ear showed his ever present engagement. “Damn, that’s crazy bro.”
“Well it’s gotta mean something, right? It only started when we got here, so isn’t it probably some magic dream or whatever?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know, man.”
“Well we’ve gotta start somewhere! We’ve gotta figure something out!”
Desmond rolled up, throwing his hands to his side like a whiny baby. “What do you want me to do about it?! Read your fortune and tell you bullshit to make you shut up?!” He climbed across the cargo between us and tripped up to me, grabbing my palm. “This line in your hand means you’re gonna die without any bitches. This line means you’ll probably stub your toe tomorrow, and this line means you’re dreaming about weird shit ‘cause you still haven’t processed the fact that we all fucking died like a week ago.”
He threw my hand back to me and stumbled out of the wagon, grabbing one of the smaller kegs of wine and disappearing into the bushes. I crawled out the front of the wagon to follow.
“Desmond! What the hell is going on with you?” I pushed through the bushes to where he was standing, emptying the keg into his mouth. “Why are you drinking like it’s the end of the world?! They’re not dead, they’re probably just in prison.” I walked up beside him as he was lowering the keg and glancing over his shoulder.
“Bro, fuck off! I’m tryna piss!” Sure enough, his britches were on the ground around his legs and both his hands were holding the keg.
“Not while you’re drinking.” I snuck up behind him, ready to smack the keg from his hands.
“Hey! Don’t just walk up on another dude pissing!”
“Well maybe I gotta piss too, fucko!” I tapped the keg out of his hands like a basketball and it tumbled across the forest floor, spraying light purple wine into the foliage and settling into a pool among the ferns. I promptly stepped up to the keg and dropped my pants.
“Shit! Shit!” Desmond got caught between finishing his piss and wanting to grab the keg, reaching his arms out in front of himself and trying to grab it like an idiot.
“Nah, you’re done with that shit. No more booze until we save our friends.”
“What are you- wait! No! Don’t- no- no- no! Wait! Don’t fucking piss on it! That’s the last one!”
“Too late. I’ve marked it. It’s mine now.” I proudly pissed on every inch of the keg.
Desmond’s spirit died with his stream. He pulled up his pants, threw his hands down in defeat, and lumbered out of the woods. When I got back, he was sitting in the wagon, back in the spot he had been sleeping in. I crossed my arms on the edge of the wagon and leaned my head on it.
“You drink all of those last night?” I pointed to the two empty kegs of wine that were sideways on the floor.
“Yeah. I did. What about it?” He narrowed his eyes and glared at me. “Now I don’t have a way to kill my hangover ‘cause you pissed all over it.”
“Maybe try drinking some water and eating. We should have plenty still.”
“Yeah, no shit. What do you think I’m doing? Brenden could you just give me a fucking minute to be alone. I haven’t had a second to think since we got here. I’ve been tired, busy, and filthy. I just want a minute to do nothing, dammit.” He was playing it up like an old bastard who just lost everything.
“You can go back to your regularly scheduled brooding when we get our friends back. Now come on.” I pushed up off the edge and began walking toward the corties.
“Brooding- give me a fucking break already.” He sat up and smacked the side of the wagon. “Like you haven’t been pissing and moaning about literally everything that’s happened since we got here. Every little inconvenience we have is a bitchfest out of you.”
I stopped on a dime to stare back at him. I was just as tired and frustrated as him, probably more, and it was trickling out. I really didn’t want to be getting in a fight but he was out of his mind if he thought I was gonna take that.
“Are you kidding me? You think I’m bitching about everything? I’m the only one who’s been treating this like it’s real life and not a fucking video game! I’m trying to do everything to keep us covert and unnoticed so we can blend in and figure shit out but all I’ve been doing is fixing shit that everyone else keeps screwing up!”
“Don’t you include me in all that shit. I didn’t do a goddamn thing to fuck anything up! I’ve just been riding along and trying to sort my own shit out and carrying the rest of y’all on my back.”
“Uh-huh. You’re right, Desmond. You totally didn’t piss off Simira on purpose which led to Vetia getting her fucking tongue cut out.”
“Don’t you fucking blame that on me! How was I supposed to know that bitch was gonna go ballistic?! She did that because Vetia wouldn’t stop pissing her off at every turn! We wouldn’t be in this mess if she could just keep her damn mouth shut for once in her life! Fuck! Adam hasn’t really done shit. Tells has been silent the whole time. You’ve just been bitchy. Maybe if she didn’t come with us, we could have had a normal fucking life in this place.”
“Yeah, normal until me, Adam, and Tells are dead and you’re standing there on the edge of the cliff pissing your jorts and about to be sliced up by mutant bugs! Wouldn’t’ve had a healer to save us and you woulda been alone, just like you’ve been wanting.”
“Nah, I would have said fuck it and jumped off so we could all be dead like we were supposed to be the first time we fucking died!”
I couldn’t keep my temper back at that point. It turned into a nonsensical yelling match between us. I didn’t know what I was saying and I wasn’t listening to him. He was blaming everyone but himself and I just wanted him to stop acting like a whiny kid about everything.
“Get over yourself, Desmond!”
“Yeah, fuck off.”
“Fine. If your bum-ass doesn’t wanna help save our friends, then get out of the wagon. I’ll take Dante and Vergil and do it myself.”
Fuck it, I’m done bullshitting. The corties are harder to get going than a drunkard in a ditch and I don’t feel like wasting any more time.
“Who the- wait a goddamn second, did you name the corties without me?!”
“Nobody else would because y’all were caught up in your bullshit. I’m the one who’s been driving, navigating, and dealing with the corties’ annoying asses this whole time. So I named them. This is Dante, and this is Vergil.”
I untied them as I said that, and then led them to the wagon. Dante had long reddish brown fur that made it difficult to see any of his body, and Vergil looked very similar. They both had stark white manes, though.
He wasn’t moving still.
“Desmond, get the fuck out of the wagon. Rest up here or whatever, I’m going into the city to find shit out.”
“I’m not getting up. What, you think you’re just gonna strut into town and they’re gonna send you in a limo to our friends? They’re just gonna let you walk in? We don’t have a plan or an idea and you’re all gung ho about getting yourself killed!”
“I thought that’s what you were hoping for.”
“Holy shit. You’re just mincing my words and trying to make me even more pissed off. Is that what you want? Are you trying to make me hate you, Brenden?!”
“I’m trying to remind you that lying around like a fat sack isn’t gonna achieve anything for us! Now get up or get out!”
“I’d rather lay around like a fat sack and go in with a plan than get arrested the second I step into the city. We have active bounties on us.”
I couldn’t tell if I had gotten to this point by accident or I had been subconsciously working to this point, but something clicked and I realized the gears in his head were finally turning.
“So then let’s think of a plan and then go get our friends.”
“Okay! Good.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to get going since we woke up. Desmond, we can’t wait til we’re ready to think. We just have to do it now or it might get to be too late.”
“Yeah, I know. Congratulations, you got me up. Happy?”
He threw himself out of the wagon and hurled an empty keg against a tree with a hollow thunk, before it settled in the brush. We weren’t gonna be able to keep this up with how shitty the situation was and with how testy we were getting.
“Desmond, I’m not exactly smart and I’m not a leader. I’m just trying my best right now because we don’t have any other options and we don’t have the others to make fun of us for yelling like jackasses.”
Desmond glanced over his shoulder at me, sighing and leaning his arm on a tree. “Not like when we did music though. Never had an issue then, and that was always just the two of us.”
“Music typically doesn’t involve your friends getting arrested and running from the law.”
“Did we even listen to the same music? Half that shit is about doing drugs, getting laid, and jamming all while avoiding the cops. You know, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Music is about feeling, not always thinking. Maybe it’d be better if we try turning off our brains a little and grounding ourselves with what we got. You’ve been eager to get moving. What’re you feeling?”
“Well,” I climbed into the wagon and fished through our bags until I found the parchment Geren left with us. “We have this. You said Geren said the Zeltem Order and Riviera can help us?”
“Yeah. He said it before shit went sideways though. I’m not sure how that’s gonna go for us now.”
“Well, it’s all we got.”
“Can’t disagree with you there.” He pushed away from the tree and patted my shoulder before hopping up into the wagon. “Alright. Well, we’ve got a couple things to do while we ride, but let’s go. First thing’s first, we need aliases and a cover story.”
“I’m not creative, so anything you think of is good with me.”
* * * * *
“Halt!” We stopped at the gate to the absurdly shiny district, the Hallax Quarter. He stepped up and gazed into the wagon.
“Howdy,” Desmond said upon seeing him.
The guard stepped down and waved us on.
“Go on.”
“One question, sir,” I said a little more sheepishly than I was hoping for, “we have business with Riviera of the Zeltem Order, would you be able to point us in the direction of said place? We would be very grateful.”
I couldn’t see through his helmet, but I must have caught him off guard because it took him a moment only to respond skeptically.
“Seek an audience at Hallax Hall. Last I heard, the head of the yeffen is there. Somebody there will have more information for you.”
“Thank you, sir.” I let the corties pull and entered the gleaming sea of brass and gold.
“I told you it would work.”
“Desmond, how do you sit comfortably with the size of those balls?
“They never expect wanted folks to just walk up and introduce themselves. They probably thought we were going to be hooded and masked. Confidence, brother. Confidence.”
“Well I’m pretty confident that I have no idea where the fuck Hallax Hall is.”
“It’s probably the name of the Lord who oversees this quarter. Odds are the cuck is gonna be in the biggest building with the most gold.”
“You mean like that gigantic cathedral-castle up there?”
Desmond squinted at the spires of gold and brass, spiraling up into a gothic steampunk type castle with wildly pretentious designs scrawled into every column and trim. I hadn’t ever seen anything like it. It shone radiantly and almost heavenly with how bright and reflective it was. I couldn’t figure out how anyone in this quarter got used to seeing on sunny days when they were constantly being blinded by the glare of gold and brass.
“Damn,” Desmond said, “I just feel like something is off. Shouldn’t we have been stopped already?”
“The vamptard was the only one with the bounty on her. We’re kinda just witnesses, so now we don’t matter.”
“I was expecting somebody to say something, though. You kind of stick out around here. You can’t hear it, but people make comments about you every time you pass them. Probably because you’re a dirty nyadin.”
“That’s the word for elves and shit, right?”
“Yeah. Jorlad are humans, nyadin are alien elves, and jinian are the Shrek people. Is it racist to call them Shrek people?”
“I mean, yeah, probably. Nobody here knows what Shrek is though, so it probably wouldn’t have any impact.”
“Hmm. Maybe if I say it enough, it’ll catch on. That’d be funny.”
I looked back at him, not really sure what I was feeling, but there was a definite grimace on my face. “No! You’re not inventing a new racial slur. We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile and being polite and shit.”
“Whoa, Brenden, I was joking. You, on the other hand, didn’t even argue against me being racist, you just said you want to be low profile. That’s pretty fucked up man. You shouldn’t be advocating for racism in a place that already has a bunch of socio ergonomic issues.”
He had the most smug, punchable face on at that moment.
“I’m not advocating for racism! Where is all this coming from?”
“Hey man, I’m just tellin’ it how it is.”
The corties let out a murr as we nearly scraped another wagon. I turned forward quickly, smiling and bowing my head without even seeing the person in the other wagon. My hands had been pulling the corties slightly left while I was talking.
“Sorry!” I raised my head and frowned back at Desmond. “If we crash because you’re gaslighting me, I’m gonna shove a sword up your ass.”
"There you go making up words again."
If I was in a car, I would have crashed it to be done with his shit. Desmond cackled like a goblin who just found a sack of gold, and then I heard some jingling.
“Hot damn! There’s money back here!”
“Ayo, real shit?” I whipped my head back and he held high a small pouch that he took out of Tells’ bag. “Whose money is that?”
“Ours now.”
“Word.”
The gates of the giant metal structure sprawled out before us. The gates and the walls around the castle were yet more brass and gold.
“Halt. State your purpose for coming to Hallax Hall.” The guard who stepped forward wasn’t in the standard armor. It looked like it was made more of steel and silver, with small adornments of gold. He brushed a strand of blond hair from in front of his stern blue eyes and switched the hand he held a massive silver lance in.
“Sir, we are here to seek an audience with Riviera of the Zeltem Order.”
“Your names?”
“I’m Alex, and this is my brother Eddie of the Van Halen Clan.”
Desmond sat forward and smiled at the guard, who squinted puzzledly at the both of us. I had forgotten that we were completely different races, and the guard probably sensed that something was fishy. I had to come up with something, even though I was terrible at lying.
“I was adopted,” I said.
“Into a jorlad family?”
“We’re from a jorlad orphanage. Where we grew up.”
“You were adopted… by an orphanage?”
“We both were… adopted from the orphanage after it burned down… We were the only survivors.”
“Oh, I have never heard of the Van Halens, nor have they ever sought an audience at Hallax Hall.”
“They’re all dead.”
“Did you say dead?”
“The plague came. Killed everyone… except us. We made it out. Back to being orphans on the road.”
“How long ago did your clan perish to the plague?”
My brain was on the verge of shutdown from freeballing so many lies. “Three.”
The guard was silent, probably waiting for me to finish. “Three? Three what?
“Um, days.”
Yup, should’ve said something else.
He quickly stepped back. “And you’re not ill?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
The guard didn’t lose his puzzled tone. “Right. And what business do you have with Riviera Kataw?”
“We have parchment from a yeffen named Geren. He claims to know her.”
The guard turned around to a jorlad kid, probably no older than ten, and whispered to him. He turned back to me as the kid was running off.
“You will have to wait until I have confirmation to grant you entry. Come with me.”
He pointed to a small field of grass and walked along next to the corties, leading us. The talking was making my mouth dry, so I took a quick swig of water while the guard was turned. I tossed my waterskin aside and next thing I knew, he was right in front of me, his hand outstretched toward me. The surprise, along with the abrupt halt of the corties sent water down my windpipe, and I found myself coughing and retching water onto the guard’s hand.
Fear swept over the guard’s face and he screamed, raising his lance and thrusting it toward my throat.
“Stay back!”
My hand instinctively batted at the lance and a sharp pain cut through my palm.
“No- augh- wait!”
“That cough best not be the plague, man! You said it wiped out your clan!”
I fought through the coughing as best I could, sounding like a bad imitation of Steve-o. “It’s not! I swear! The plague didn’t spread through coughing.”
“A likely story for somebody not wanting to be run through by my lance!”
My mind jumped into survival mode. Between my bleeding hand and the sharp steel in my face, I had to stop him from worrying about the water I coughed on him.
“No, wait, please don’t! Um, you can only get it from sex!”
I felt like I was hacking up a lung trying to clear my throat of water. The lance hovered in my face for another second before he lowered it. He looked like he had just seen the most horrific thing in his entire life.
The pain and blood in my hand made me dizzy, and I wasn’t having an easy time focusing on anything. I finished clearing my throat and wrapped my hand in a cloth, trying to keep pressure on it.
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He eyed me down seriously, hints of worry behind his gaze. “You said the plague wiped out your entire clan? Everyone? The adults and the children?”
I wasn’t really sure what he was getting at, but I heard Desmond stifling his laughter behind me. I couldn’t focus on anything with how badly my hand hurt.
“Yeah, sir. Everyone. Men, women, children, babies.”
“BY THE HAND OF ORDER!” The guard recoiled in disgust and appalment, but my head spun too much to figure out why.
Desmond finally stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder, helping me to sit without swaying.
“I think what my brother is trying to say is that we had been trying to get out of there for a while, and we’re actually really glad they all died. We avoided all the ritual orgies because we could see how fucked up they were. It was like a prison deep in the woods and we left as soon as we saw the opportunity.”
I finally put two and two together and needed to smooth things over so we didn’t sully our name immediately.
“The Van Halens aren’t the orgy clan. They were the nice people at the orphanage that burned down. The other guys captured us because… I’m a nyadin.”
I wouldn’t have been fully able to process everything if I was in the guard’s position. I didn’t blame him for taking a few steps away and trying to think. Desmond seemed like he was having a giddy time lying to this poor guard, so he piped up again.
“I don’t know if there are any more out there in this world, but keep your kids away from ‘em. They call themselves Minecraft You-.”
The young boy from before came running up to the guard, cutting Desmond off. “Sir Hestrel, Viscount Hallax will see the visitors in his throne room.” He immediately took off, jogging back into the castle.
“Hey, Sir Hestrel,” I started, “Is there some way I can get this patched up in the… the… castle?”
“I can gather some materials for your wound, yes. Shall I sit and accompany you up to Hallax Hall?”
“Please.”
I slid to my left and Hestrel climbed up. Through the gate and up the slope, he didn’t speak. His rigid face seemed paranoid, scanning the road for the entire way. His brow was always creased and intense. He must have been a seasoned fighter, because the closeness revealed his crooked nose and scratched armor, even with how polished it currently was.
Along the road were the most pretentious houses I had ever seen. Must have belonged to the rich people and the nobility. Every house was not only adorned with gold and brass, but also gems on some of the ones closer to the castle. Every time I looked somewhere, my eyes were met with blinding rays of sun.
Maybe everyone here looks pissed off because they’re always squinting at all the ridiculously bright glares.
We stopped near the grand doors, embossed with a filigree of vines that connected hundreds of people in perpetual golden combat, jorlad breaking free from chains and taking up weapons against dragon-like people with sharp features, scale clusters, wings, horns, and tails. We hopped out of the wagon and a servant guided the corties away while the grand doors opened for us.
I whispered to Desmond. “Let’s not mess this up, Eddie. We figure out what the parchment is and if we can help our friends. I don’t care if we have to blackmail them with the parchment or use the connections we make.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t expect us to make it this far. I know it sounds weird coming from me, but let’s just keep it civil, like you said before.”
Hestrel looked over his shoulder. “Alex, Eddie. Follow closer. You’re unknown to the rest of the Hall.”
I smiled apologetically. “Right, sorry.”
He led us down the oversized corridor to a set of doors that were even more ornate than the main doors to the castle. All along the walls were these 3D sculptures, made completely from metal, of people and animals in action poses. On the walls themselves were more filigrees. They looked like spaghetti art, the way they were constructed with different colored shiny metals that were like elaborate pipes, smoothly curved and flowing from one depiction to the next. It wasn’t so abrasively bright inside, in fact I could see the charm to it when there were just dim orange stones lighting the hallways, glinting off the metals like firelight. This section showed the same dragon people and jorlad, except the jorlad armies were armored similar to Hallax guards and were forcing the dragon people to the top of a mountain, swaths of dead dragon people behind the jorlad.
“Hey, Hestrel,” Desmond said. “Is it okay if I call you Hestrel?”
“I take no offense to it.”
“Does this place creak a lot?”
“One who does not listen to the voice of the walls will never understand the price of their hospitality.”
Desmond’s face contorted into the ugliest, most pure form of confusion I had ever seen, and he was completely speechless the rest of the way.
Hestrel pressed himself against the doors, thunderous creaks reverberating throughout the building as they slowly spread for him.
“My Lord, I have brought the messengers.”
“Oh, good!”
From atop the stairs, on the throne at the head of the room, a golden statue declared himself like a godly monarch. His face was sharp and strong, almost perfectly angular. He wore little makeup, just perfectly bronze skin with gold eyeshadow and light contouring. Chains and jewels jangled as he threw his arms to the side, showing off his chiseled chest and abs- literally. This guy looked like a Greek god with how perfect his golden muscles were. Every major muscle on his body had metal plates on them, but they looked like they were grafted to his body, contorting with his every movement. There were more gems and tassels dangling from those, and intricate designs on the plates that made up his pecs and abs. I couldn’t tell if they were there to compensate for a lack of muscles or if he was actually superhuman. His hair leant to a superhuman image. A majestic lion’s mane of hair started behind a golden headband with crownlike spires, as if his head were the sun. His fingers looked like golden claws, with more gold grafted to the top of his hand like a thin gauntlet. It was hard to tell where the gold began and his skin connected, and I found myself completely enthralled in trying to understand his getup. His clothes were barely clothes at all- or singular clothe, rather. His only article covered his crotch by thin gold tassels with gems at the end of them like a short skirt, and I was really trying to not see whatever the hell was brightly glistening on the other side of those tassles.
His smile turned smug as I stared, trying to make sense of him. The rest of the room was a gaudy eyesore as much as the buff guy was. There was so much going on in every single design that my eyes didn’t know where to go until they finally settled back on him.
Hestrel was like a beacon of silver compared to everything else in the room, aside from a person adorned by more natural tones. A yeffen, although unlike Geren, this one had full feathers that shone from a deep brown color to a shiny brass. The yeffen’s beak was different from Geren’s. I couldn’t see any skin, instead there were brass plates forming a clean hooked beak. This one was much younger and healthier. Probably richer too, because she had knuckle plates made of some shiny, beat up metal that disappeared into abundant arm feathers. I almost thought she might be a different type of creature from Geren at first, until I saw the knuckle walking arms.
“Alex. Eddie,” Hestrel said. “Present yourselves before Lord Hallax.”
“Oh,” Desmond blurted out. “Um, my name is Eddie.” He did a quick half bow.
“And I am Alex.” I did a full bow as best as I could. “We’re both from the Van Halen Clan.”
“Present the scroll.” Lord Hallax leaned back on his throne and relaxed.
Desmond casually walked up to the lord and held it out in front of him, almost nonchalantly. As soon as he started to step up, two guards posted by the stairs raised spears to him.
Lord Hallax raised two relaxed fingers. “Jrikex, Hasaf, do not bear your spears at him. Our guest is clearly unaware of the customs.”
The two guards lowered their spears. The taller of the two guards approached Desmond and took the paper from his hand before delivering it to Hallax. Hallax unraveled the parchment and stared at it for a few moments. I couldn’t see his face behind the paper, but I wasn’t a fan of the vibe he was giving off. Desmond walked back to my side and looked at me like “these people are crazy.”
“Riviera, it appears these are Geren’s, and by proxy, your new assistants.” The yeffen woman gracefully walked over and received the parchment from Hallax. “As for you two… newcomers. I’m curious, why did Geren choose you?”
Desmond and I looked at each other, hoping the other would answer.
“Um, I mean…”
“Probably, like…”
We both stopped trying to say something and thought with each other until I came up with an idea.
“Convenience?” I said unconvincingly.
Lord Hallax seemed like he was stifling a laugh, and snorted pretty loudly. “Convenience? How so?”
“We were passing through and stopped by his place. Told him we were coming to Vehfirn.”
Hallax was mystified. “What did you do for work before coming here? You must have done something that inspired him to arrange this.”
Desmond and I looked at each other again, not really sure what to say, but Desmond took the lead with a shrug.
“I sold plants and rocks back home.”
Hallax’s face only grew more confused. “Were they perhaps, valuable? What types?”
“There were some different names for ‘em. Local strains, but mostly sativa. That and meth.”
I cut in out of sheer surprise. “Wait, when did you sell meth? Where did you even get it?”
“How do you think I was paying for college? One of my growers knew a guy who ran it, but I only sold it a few times when money was tight.”
“And you didn’t tell any of us?”
“Well, yeah. I ain’t selling that shit to my friends.”
The voice from the throne reminded us that we were in the presence of a Lord. “And Geren was simply impressed by your entrepreneurial prowess?”
Desmond took a hard moment of thinking before he answered. “Nah, prolly not.”
Oh fuck, how can I not be worried? I don’t want to test the patience of another noble. But I can’t think of anything. We got here, we got fucked up by bugs, then we went to the village. We went to get the fireblood-
“We caught a fireblood!” I pointed at Hallax with a stupid smile on my face, a little proud of myself for remembering. I quickly pulled my hand down and fixed my face. “Geren sent us in the direction of a fireblood, so we caught it and brought it to the village. I think he thought we were reliable.”
Hallax looked at us with a smile that was riddled with curiosity, like he was thoroughly entertained by this conversation we were having. “You captured this fireblood, just the two of you?”
“We had some friends with us, but we split up.”
“Wonderful. So you have enough combat and hunting experience to capture a fireblood! That is promising.”
I panicked a little at the thought of being sent into combat again, and blurted out, “Actually, we have no formal training. We were in a pinch for money and it wasn’t a clean hunt, but we did get it alive.”
Hallax’s smile disappeared into a gently stern glare. “Alex, Eddie. I am trying to learn how to best make use of your skills. And I am trying to understand what Geren saw in you that I may also see. Tell me. What can you do?”
We’re gonna have a Simira repeat if we don't come up with something.
I gave Desmond a look like I was gonna take a big risk. He looked at me a little worried, but nodded.
“We can play music.”
Hallax immediately sat forward on his throne, absolutely delighted. “Can you play some now? What do you play?”
“I can play drums and a little bit of piano. De- erm, Eddie plays guitar and some bass.”
Desmond's eyes widened like I just blindsided him. “Uh, I can play guitar, but it’s been a while since I touched a bass.” He was awkwardly smiling at Hallax and looking at me like he was gonna kill me.
Lord Hallax was beaming. “I haven’t heard of those! Bring your instruments in! Play for me. Some entertainment would be in a pleasurable taste.”
My mouth fell open, unsure of what to do. Desmond looked insane with his gritted smile and intense eyes. We didn’t have instruments. Desmond turned to Hallax.
“Our instruments were lost in a fire. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to play unless you would provide them, and they were very special setups with specific designs. I doubt we’d be able to find suitable replacements unless we went to a very skilled instrument craftsman.”
“Nonsense!” Hallax stood for the first time, a much larger figure than he looked in his seat. He had to be eight feet tall. “I have a collection of instruments for you to search through. I was once a war composer! It’s not often that musicians visit my quarter. Come! Let us find you instruments.”
Desmond started breathing a lot faster, trying to figure out something to say. No matter how much I wiped my head with my hand, I couldn’t stop sweating.
Oh, that’s not sweat, my hand is still bleeding.
“Lord Hallax, my hand. I hurt my hand. Cut real bad before we got in here. I won’t be able to play until it is healed.”
Lord Hallax frustratedly looked at my hand. “Who is responsible? They shall pay at thrice the cost of your regeneration.”
I glanced at Hestrel, who was eyes wide sweating bullets upon hearing that.
“No, wait, sir, um, Lord Hallax. It was a misunderstanding. It was my fault. I got surprised when I surprised Hestrel and he held his lance to me and I hit it away with my hand instinctively!”
Hallax stared at me and Hestrel for a moment, and then his face returned to its nonchalant look. “Hestrel, take Alex to Miriel. Eddie, you will come with me to select your instruments. Tonight, we will have some music with our supper. Jrikex, Hasaf, inform the guard and the chefs that we will be having a banquet tonight. The idle members of the Hall are invited to partake in this unexpected revelry!”
As Hallax ushered Desmond to follow him and Hestrel began leading me away, the chirping voice of Riviera halted everyone’s actions.
“Lord Hallax, a question, if I may?”
“Oh, right, the Order is also welcome to come. Do tell them.”
“No, my lord, the business regarding the letter. Shall we discuss that before we part?”
Lord Hallax looked like he wanted to roll his eyes. “It can wait a day. That callow brute can throw another tantrum if it pleases her. There is no harm in postponing plans for one day.”
Riviera looked down and did a weird kind of salute with her hands in front of her chest. “Yes, my Lord.”
We parted ways. Hestrel led me down the gilded halls to a door that was far simpler than the rest of the ornate castle. A burly man with a tower shield on his back was leaning against the wall next to the door, absolutely exhausted. He wiped some sweat from his shaved head. He had dark, but warm brown skin and green eyes that felt like they were piercing into me the second he saw me.
Hestrel called out to him. “Hey Zerick, what are you doing here? Waiting for Miriel to be done with a patient?”
Zerick had a surprisingly light voice for how brawny he was. “The only patient is the one I’m running out of. Just got back from breaking up a fight at the Letterhead. Dex caught some pyre actin’ out of order and he won’t shut up about it. Probably talkin’ Miriel’s ear off about it like he’s the hero of Vehfirn for smacking a drunk.” He turned his head to me. “Who’s this din?”
Hestrel glanced back at me and shrugged. “Musician from a cult. Lord Hallax has taken a liking to him, but his hand is wounded. The Lord wants to hear him play, so he’s expediting the healing process.”
Zerick looked slightly impressed. “Not often that Hallax will gift out free fixes like that. You must be a good musician.”
I half smiled. “I hope he thinks so.”
“Hestrel, are you just gonna stand here waiting? Bring the guy in so he can get fixed up. Go interrupt them so Dex stops talking and I can go. And nyadin, I’ll apologize ahead of time for Dex. He’s in a weird situation.”
Hestrel chuckled to himself a little dead eyed, and cracked the door. “Don’t bother talking to him, I’ll save you the breath. Nobody can shut him up so easily.”
The warmly lit room smelled of fragrant herbs and flowers. There were beds and tools neatly organized around the room, and two figures at the back, next to several tables cluttered with vials of various concoctions and thin planks neatly set about.
The figure that immediately caught my attention was a tall, lanky man with pink, almost red skin and a streak of marble white hair down his head. Instead of ears there were pits on the side of his head. His shallow brow and elongated head accentuated his long upturned nose and weak but wide chin which was covered in a scruffy fuzz from chin to chest. Scuffed brass chainmail jingled as he walked, stomping around in high-heeled leather boots that went up to his thighs. He was obscuring the other person in his shadow, but he turned around as he was talking to look at us.
“-and I didn’t break his leg, but he sure thought I did.”
He stepped out of the way, walking toward Hestrel, and I made eye contact with the woman behind him. She wasn’t a jorlad like almost everyone else here. She looked like me, like a nyadin, and the way she was standing looked slender and proper. Her hair glistened like silver and gold as it drifted over her shoulders. She stepped forward elegantly tilting her head and gently smiling at me. My brain turned to mush. I was lost in looking at her, completely speechless.
“How can I help you two?”
“Uh- I- hand.”
“What?”
Dex stepped between her and I. “You a cur?”
I cleared my throat and came to my senses again. “Sorry, I was just surprised. I’ve never seen another nyadin before.” It wasn’t the reason I was speechless, but I certainly wasn’t lying. Being able to figure out what I was, what nyadin were, was something I needed to do sooner or later.
Dex chuckled, then leaned down, looking me close in the eyes. “Never seen a nyadin before? You are one. What, did you not have parents? Siblings?”
Before I could speak, Hestrel grabbed the back of Dex’s shirt and pulled him away. “Dex! He grew up in an orphanage. Don’t be a dick.”
Miriel stepped up to me and looked at my hand while talking to Dex. “Even so, Dex, I have told you of nyadin ways before. We are not raised by our parents, and often do not meet them until long after we have matured.”
Dex forced a smile and talked like he was covering for himself. “I know, I remember that. It was a joke.”
There was a stiff silence for a good ten seconds. From the open door, Zerick growled at us. “Am I gonna eat and train alone, Dex, or are you done yet?”
Dex glanced around at us, right at the fed-up expression on Hestrel’s face. “I was just about to leave. Relax, Zee.” He walked back toward Miriel. “I’ll come back tomorrow to finish my story. See you then, Miriel.” He made a half-cocked smile, like he seriously thought he was hot shit.
“Oh, delightful.” She made a polite, but slightly forced smile at him as he walked out.
Hestrel nodded to the both of us and walked out after Dex, leaving us alone. There was a brief silence in the aromatic room before she spoke.
“You seem pale. Come over here and sit.” She led me by the shoulder to one of the beds near her desk, and pulled a chair over. “You said you have never met another nyadin, an orphan. I wish not to pry, but where are you from? You may belong to a nearby kinship.”
“Out past Poikla Village, way out on the other side of the forest, there was an orphanage that I grew up in.”
She turned around as I was saying this, pushing aside some planks and grabbing a vial of sludgy brown paste. She cocked her head at me inquisitively and stopped for a moment.
“I am afraid that I have never heard of a nyadin kinship that far out.” She gently lifted my hand and peeled off the rudimentary hand wrappings. “I feel rude asking this now, but what about your name? Do you carry the name of the kinship you are from?”
I felt slightly bad not being able to tell her my real name, not that it would have changed anything, but she seemed so kind. “I’m Alex. Van Halen. That’s the name of the jorlad orphanage I was adopted into.”
“I am Miriel of the Sueri kinship far to the north. I am sorry I can’t be of help to you.” She spread the grainy sludge into the wound and boy it stung like hell.
“Honestly, I’m not worried about my past. It’s not like I’ll get anything out of searching.” A potent silence hung in the air as she smoothed some excess medicine out of my wound and wiped the surface dry with a cloth. It got me wondering about my real family. I was becoming less and less thoughtful of them. Like this world was slowly taking all my attention. “Is that bad of me? Should I be worried about my real family?”
She stopped prodding and furrowed her brows at me curiously. “Alex, I am a complete stranger to you, save for knowing your name. I don’t believe I can answer that.”
“Sometimes somebody who doesn’t know you can help you figure out what’s best for you. What’s a stranger got against you? Just like running ideas past each other with no reason to lie. Even if they were messing with me when I asked, I’d realize what I didn’t want to do, which might lead me to what I would want to really do.” I trailed off and thought for a second. “If you didn’t have a way to contact your family, or your kinship, and you had no information leading to them, would you still search?”
She seemed a bit intruded on and averted her eyes to the floor for a moment, contemplating what I said. “It’s a bit odd to speak on such personal beliefs, but I can’t say for certain. I believe it would rest at the back of my mind, but with no beginning, no lead, I would have to give up on it. But it would always be at the back of my mind.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
“It’s hasty, isn’t it? Asking a random person to get it over with?”
“It’s better than sitting around, wondering forever. I can move on to worry about more important things.”
“I don’t know if I will ever understand the way jorlad think. It’s…” She trailed off and shook her head dismissively.
“What do you mean?”
She sighed. “I must say, it’s strange, seeing a nyadin, with so many more days than the jorlad, running through life at their pace.”
“So many more days?”
Her generally curious expression became perturbed. “Alex, has anyone ever told you of nyadin lifespans? Have you not noticed?”
“No, are they different?”
“What? Alex, they are very different. How do you not know? One nyadin may outlive several dozen generations of jorlad. Our physical cycles, maturation, development, all substantially slower. We grow to relatively similar sizes as them at the same rate, but that’s it. Whether you grew up with them or not, you are fundamentally different from them. You have time to ponder these questions and find the right answers. You may not be knowledgeable of our ways, but they are a part of you.”
Several dozen generations of humans. Of jorlad. For one nyadin. For one life. For me. I was frozen, trying to process what that meant. She inscribed a sigil in the air, but I wasn’t focusing on what it was. She pressed the wound together with her fingers, closing it entirely.
“Alex, how old are you? How have you not realized your longevity yet? I find it hard to believe that you haven’t.”
“Twenty-one, same as the guy I came with.”
“Twenty-one? Twenty-one what? Year cycles? That’s absurd, your eyes are as ketalled as an adult’s.”
“What does ketalled mean?”
“Have you amnesia? Perhaps as a result of trauma? Do you remember undergoing jzanishiarostamis?” She raised a hand, anticipating my question. “When we undergo meditative metamorphosis and fully mature.”
Oh fuck, I’m gonna have to lie, aren’t I?
“I’m gonna be honest, Miriel, I have no clue what any of that is.”
I couldn’t think of one.
Disbelief took over her face again. “Alex, may I inspect your back, specifically your spine?”
I was confused, but I nodded. She raised my shirt and prodded at several points all down my spine. She came back around, a green glowing sheen of light in front of her eyes, inspecting my torso.
“You say twenty-one, and yet your spinal processes have diverged and your litrix is fully developed as though you’re well past sixty cycles.”
“Miriel, I don’t know what any of that means.”
The glow disappeared and she thought for a moment. “Your spinal processes, the knobs on your spine that you can feel by poking your back, have diverged into two on all of your vertebrae. Jorlad, jinian, and many other humans have that structure. But, during the nyadin pubescent cycle, the processes gradually diverge as the spine becomes taller, slightly thicker, and wider. It’s believed that it in some way assists our structural integrity in living for such an extended period of time. It’s an extremely painful process. At the end of puberty, around sixty, the jzanishiarostamis, or jzanmah metamorphosis begins, where our minds and perceptive abilities further mature, resulting in ketalled eyes. The way they evolve to flow and move in reaction to jzanmah. And your litrix is the organ between your liver and stomach that develops at a similar time, it… well… ‘wakes up’ during puberty. It produces jzanujzin, one of the key hormonal components to our longevity.”
“Okay, so I’m an adult nyadin then.”
“Unless…” She bit her lip for a second while she thought. “You aren’t a half breed, are you? Can you open your mouth and stick out your tongue?”
“Aaah…”
“Your tongue is prominently cleft.”
“Wait, what? It is? Is that bad?” I hadn’t even thought to check it in this body, but I felt it, and it was split in two at the end.
“No, the prominent cleft is the sign of a full-blooded nyadin.” She stuck her tongue between her teeth, which sure as day had a split down the middle of it for a good inch. “So, I don’t know how it’s possible that you’re somehow twenty-one and an adult. Unless you were aged by some miracle, then you’re lying to me or something is seriously awry. How do you not know any of this by simply being nyadin?”
“No lie! It’s probably got something to do with my lack of parents… maybe.”
“Perhaps, I fear there may be underlying-”
A knock resounded at the door to the clinic and Desmond’s voice called out. “Excuse me? Can I come in?”
Miriel halted and shook her confusion away. “You may.”
Desmond burst in and sauntered up to me. I noticed the neck of what looked like a guitar on his back. “Dude, we gotta practice. Oh, hello. I’m his brother. Adopted. Anyway, bro, let’s go. I think I have an idea for what we can play.”
“Oh, shit, I forgot. Alright, yeah.” Desmond grabbed me by the arm, practically dragging me up and out of the room. I glanced back and held onto the door and Desmond let go of me. “And thank you, Miriel, for fixing my hand. I appreciate it. I’ll try to pay you back however I can.”
“If Lord Hallax wished for you to be healed, then there is no compensation needed.” It’s like she was reading my mind as I was about to contest what she said. “I’ll listen to your music tonight. Consider that repayment enough.”
I shook my head and chuckled. “Sure, works for me.” I was about to leave, but my hand wouldn’t let go of the door.
“Miriel?”
“Yes."
“Would it be okay if I stopped by again at some point? There’s a lot I still don’t know about nyadin, and I still have a lot of questions.”
“Bre- Alex! Come on! We gotta go!” Desmond yelled back to me.
Miriel chuckled. “That’s what I was going to say earlier, that I’d like to analyze your condition, ensure there are no underlying issues. You’re welcome to chat any time. Have a good performance tonight.”
“Thanks.” I jogged after Desmond.
“Alright, so I found a guitar that seems like it can work. I’m still figuring out the seven strings and no frets though. There’s enough drums for you to build a set out of. Hallax said he’s cool with you building a rig with ‘em. Eclectic motherfucker, that guy, but kinda cool.”
“You said you had an idea for what we’re gonna play?”
“Yeah, so we got drums and guitar. No backup singers or instruments and I don’t have my loop pedal, so we’re gonna be freeballin’ it with only two instruments and our voices. Good thing is, the trogs here haven’t ever heard that good shit we’ve been listening to, so we can steal all the music we want from Earth and they’ll be none the wiser. I’m thinking first off 5150, and maybe Take on Me. I know the lyrics for both of ‘em, if you wanna do backup vocals for it, just gotta translate it over. If we figure things out fast enough, maybe throw in some Skynyrd, maybe…”
I quickly pitched in. “Bad Company could work.”
He pointed excitedly. “Ooh yeah, I like that.”
“Okay, 5150 makes sense, but Take on Me? Des, we ain’t got synth.”
“Acoustic, my brotha. I got the guitar, Hallax has something close to a piano, just way less keys. Y’know, maybe play it more somber-like, easier on the ears. Let our voices carry the performance. We got lucky getting good voices. Playin’ on electric shit would probably kill the average peasant here anyways. We can figure something out with it in time. We scrub out some lyrics that give away our otherworldliness and then we’re chilling. We have until dusk, so maybe nine-ish hours.”
“Dude, are you good? You look like you’re fuckin’ wired.”
“Brenden, I was scared as hell at first. You said we could play music and I damn near shit myself. But then I saw the instruments and Hallax? He is super into music, and I got energized just from him showing me all the instruments. I don’t know why, I remember every fuckin’ sound and word to every song I’ve ever listened to right now. I might be on crack right now, I don’t know. And I drank some sweet blue shot of something cool. It’s crazy dude. I’m thinking this might be our ticket to making everything right.”
“Pump the brakes a sec. What about the scroll? About our friends? We gotta figure that out too.”
He smiled and pushed a pair of pretend glasses up on his nose, detailing this plan with ample hand gestures. “Well, you see, I’m already seven steps ahead of you. We nail this gig, right? Hallax loves music, and maybe the people here will too. We get big in the city, get some sway with Hallax, and we might be able to use him to buy our friends back or do some sort of political bullshit if we tell him that we need our friends to perform better. But we gotta nail this.”
“I always wonder how the hell you got into an engineering school and then you drop this outta nowhere. Let’s fucking go, bro. We’re so back.” I slapped his back and shook my head in disbelief.
He laughed half like a lunatic as we crossed the threshold to the throne room. “Like you said, treat this plan like our music. We’re a long way from doin’ weekend bar gigs with the kitchen boys. We’re bringing rock ‘n roll to another world, bitch!”