by Aaron Crash
Either way, he did have to study. The First Exam of his sophist year was nine days away. And he had several other things to prepare for as well. His life at Old Ironbound certainly wasn’t boring.
Chapter Four
TORIAH WELLDEEP BURST into Jennybelle’s suite because, yes, the dwab had her own key. It felt like quite an honor, which was kind of funny because it wasn’t that big of a deal, not for the princess of the Ruby Stonehold. Besides, Jenny’s place wasn’t nearly as busy as the Zoo.
Tori liked all the activity at the Zoo, all the comings and goings. Yes, sometimes the sex noises were annoying, especially in the middle of the night. Early mornings, Tori was generally up, out the door, and working in the feasting hall kitchens. She worked all day long, and when she finally crashed into her bed at night, she was out immediately. It was only when Fryla and Erigg moaned and grunted at midnight that they woke Tori up. That was the bad part. However, living with a dozen other girls was worth it.
She’d grown up in the Thane’s Underkeep in the Ruby Stonehold, the firstborn daughter of the grand Thane Ebrindor Forgehome. Yes, she’d grown up a Forgehome, until when she hit puberty, her beard didn’t grow but her chest did. Ebrindor and his wife Gertrudy took Tori aside. Logically, and with great compassion, they explained to her that she needed to choose a different last name and find a different life, outside of the Stonehold. If she went out with the name Forgehome, she would be a target for kidnappers. Besides, no one would ever love her for her—they’d always be thinking about the vast fortunes a Morbuskor princess commanded.
It hurt, but Tori saw the logic. She went with her mother’s maiden name, but she didn’t leave, not right away. She stayed, found work in the Underkeep’s kitchen, and kept busy with the Knowing Loremasters. Most people either didn’t look at her or looked too much. The kids were the worst. They’d point and ask where her beard was, and what were those things on her chest?
She tried every spell, every bit of magic, and every home remedy she could find to change her appearance. When that failed—which of course it would—she left the Ruby Stonehold at fifty, still young when it came to the Morbuskor, who took longer to mature than any of the other races.
Tori stopped at the doorway because she could smell the sex. Thankfully, no one was grunting, though, or saying all those nasty things, or any of that dumb Inconvenience stuff. She couldn’t blame them. Ymir had spent the night before as a perfect gentleman. As a human, he’d need to blow off some steam.
“Hello, my friends!” the dwab called out. “I’ll wait out here until you’re decent. I’m assuming I got here after the, uh, nose rubbing.”
“We were rubbing more than noses!” Lillee burst out happily, giggling.
“I’m sure you were,” Tori said, trying to keep her voice cheerful. Under her breath, she muttered, “Put your cuff on, girl. Then you’ll be more sensible.”
Jenny and Lillee ran through the room, heading for the shower. Tori got to work. By the time Ymir meandered out in his leather pants and a fresh bandage, the dwab had the fire going. She’d made puff corn with lots of butter on the stove, and she had the mulled wine, spicy and warm, heating up. She also had brought some regular xocalati for herself, not full of sex magic, thank you very much!
Ymir was in his pants, and Tori didn’t mind looking at his chest. He had some good hair there, and his dirty blond mane was long and shaggy, but he kept his cheeks and chin smooth. That was a stone-damned shame. He should have a big beard on his chest, thick and long, so dense he could hide a meal in there. A flavor-saver, or that’s what Tori’s oober would’ve said. Good ol’ Ooby and Ahmy. Tori still loved them. It wasn’t their fault she’d been born beardless and ugly. It was just what happened to some folks.
Tori’s ahmer had a great aunt who’d been beardless. She wound up living with a rich merchant, his most favorite wife, in Reytah, the continent to the south. And if her letters could be believed, she’d lived in some great floating castle and had Wingkin for servants.
The fire-headed dwab shoved a bowl into Ymir’s hands. “Puff corn, salt and butter, a lot of each, just like you like it. And we have wine. And I have some news. Bought some sweets from Ziziva, and, well, she’s not happy with me. Well, not me personally, but us collectively. Daily, she has customers in her shop asking for the Amora Xoca.”
Ymir rumbled laughter. “People are dim. We’ve warned them not to bother our fairy friend in The Paradise Tree, and who do they go to?”
Tori poured herself a mug of wine. She hopped up and sat down next to Ymir, stealing some of his puff corn. A bit of chewing and tasting, and yes, she’d made it perfectly. Of course she had. She might be ugly, but she could cook up a storm. “Well, most people have a lot on their minds. And where else do you buy xocalati but at a xocalati shop? No, they’re fine. But then it got a bit interesting.” The dwab laughed some. “It’s already interesting, since the fairy claims to be working for Nan Honeysweet, everyone’s favorite clockwork grandmother.”
Jenny called from the bathroom. “We want to hear! Give us a minute, Tori, okay?” Then to Lillee, “Come on, Lil, put on your cuff. I need a break, and Tori is here.”
“Fine!” the Sullied elf said in a loud voice. There was a smile there. “You humans are no fun. You get satisfied so easily.”
Jennybelle giggled at that. “No wonder you joined the Cult of Chaos and Desire. I can’t imagine what that would’ve been like or how long it lasted.”
“Dusk to dawn,” came the reply. “In the northern part of the Ohlyrran Forests, we had more hours to have sex.”
Tori sighed. “You overtoppers have issues. Especially the Gruul. I’m just glad Ymir survived that fight with that Gatha person. You have to be careful. Orcs don’t have any kind of self-control. They’re basically animals, and this Gatha is no different. I thought the orcs hated books, but there she is, reading her head off. Maybe she’s different. Maybe not. Still, I think you’re lucky to be alive. She might’ve killed you.”
Ymir took another handful of puff corn. He smiled at her. “Gatha might’ve killed me, but it wouldn’t be because of her race. She simply hates me. It was a good fight, though, and a tie. I think she was as surprised as I was. All in all, very satisfying. That doesn’t mean she will ever talk to me again.”
The dwab blinked and shook her head. “You’re not listening. You can’t trust the Gruul. And I’m not saying that as a Morbuskor, but as a student of history. How many times has some rogue orc gathered an army to take over the world? Five times is the answer, and that’s since the Age of Discord ended. And that doesn’t include this latest beast, this Gulnash character. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Man, I’ll never go to the Blood Steppes. That’s just dangerous.”
Lillee and Jenny came out in towels, smelling sweet, their faces shiny. Lillee had her forearm cuff on.
Tori would’ve loved to figure that thing out—if she could turn off her Inconvenience permanently, she sure would. The dwab waved the two women on. “Jenn, Lil, I love ya, but put on some damn clothes. Then we can talk about world events. There’s trouble, and there’s deliciousness, and there’s us.”
The dwab had a sudden flash of brilliance. She leapt up, went to the fire, and shuffled some coals under the stove. She started another batch of puff corn popping. Then she added butter and salt and some of the xocalati she’d bought. She mixed it all up and sampled some—hot, greasy, salty, and sweet.
She turned, eyelids fluttering. “I’m pretty sure this is illegal, and the Undergem Guild will probably have me killed for making this.” Tori winced. “Oh, sorry, too soon. I mean, after the whole assassin thing. And the Silent Scream. And the Midnight Guild.”
Ymir was laughing, though, and it wasn’t because of the wine. “The shock on your face, Tori, was priceless.”
Lillee came out in a long nightgown that covered her, thank goodness, and Jenny was in a blouse, pantaloons that went to her knees, and fuzzy warm socks. They both flounced down next to Ymir.
Tori
brought over the pot. “Here, girls, try this.”
Both princesses sampled the xocalati puff corn.
Jenny’s mouth dropped open. “You know, we’re here to study magic, but I’m gonna tell you right now, we ain’t got nothing as magical as xocalati. You can literally put it in anything, and it’s a whole lotta wonderful.”
Lillee made yummy sounds.
Tori watched, very satisfied. In some ways, being a cook was far better than being a Knowing Loremaster because a lot of times your engineering wouldn’t be appreciated by normal folks. For example, you might have an ingenious cog in a bit of clockwork, but who would see that? With food, you could see the pleasure on the faces of your friends.
The dwab put the pot on the table—on a trivet, of course.
“What news do you bring us?” Ymir asked.
Tori pulled up a chair and hoisted her butt back onto it. With this biggun furniture, sometimes you had to be creative in how you sat. “War is coming, war between the Weeping Sea families and the Sorrow Coast Kingdom. I heard Brodor talking, and while he shouldn’t have been, he was. I don’t think he saw me. Well, or put another way, he tries not to look. But it’s fine.” It wasn’t, it hurt, it would always hurt, but Tori could laugh that away. Laugh now, cry later. That was ahmer wisdom right there. Gertrudy Welldeep had been a good woman even before she married into the Forgehome family.
Ymir squinted. “Ziziva might lose her xoca powder supplier. Which means she might get desperate enough to work with us, and we can set the terms.”
Jennybelle was licking her fingers even while still chewing. She was being about as delicate as a flock of cave vultures chewing on the leftovers of a rock hargen’s minekill. “Not sure why we don’t blackmail her about Nan Honeysweet. We let that little fairy know that we know that her entire business is based on a sham.”
Lillee had a bit more manners. She wiped her hands off on a napkin, one laundered by the cleaning staff that served the suite. “Tori, you said war is coming. It’s not here, though, am I right?”
“Not yet, Lil,” Tori agreed. “There’s going to be a big summit meeting here. Both King Velis IX and Marrib Delphino are coming. I asked around, and, yeah, our Ribrib is your basic merfolk royalty. Her ooby was king before he got himself killed in this big massacre ten years back. Anyway, so I’m counting Ribrib as another princess, which makes at least four here. You gonna add her to your harem, Ymir?”
“You three are fine,” he said. “Besides, the jokes about her fishy sex would be too easy to make, and I don’t think she’d find them very funny.”
Jenny laughed.
His remark drew glares from Lillee, who was far more polite with her essess on.
Tori rolled her eyes. “Well, Ymir, if you want to embarrass yourself saying stuff like that, you go right ahead. Depending on how this big meeting goes, they might figure out peace, or they might figure out war, but either way, I think we should go ahead and get Salty and Sambal to bring us the raw xoca pods. We’ll process them all, on a mass scale, for us and for Ziziva. I have that mean she-orc girl searching up a book for me because getting the xoca powder and oil is a six-step process. I have my Knowing Lore device to do the grinding and pressing. But I want to come up with something to do the fermentation, the drying, the winnowing, and the roasting.”
“We’ll need room for that,” Ymir said thoughtfully. “Already, we’re gambling every time we do a cook, and that’s just to make our product. To process it? We’ll need someplace special.”
“Working on that as well,” Tori said. “That mean book orc might be able to help there as well. She doesn’t like me, but after today, she really doesn’t like you, Ymir. And I’m afraid she glares at you two gals as well.” The dwab blew out a breath. “That Gatha is impossible. That whole race of people came out of the dirt. You know that, right?”
Ymir put a finger on his chin. “This is more of your strange Theran theology.”
“That’s right,” Tori said good-naturedly. “So, the old gods watered the Tree of Life so the Tree would take care of us and they wouldn’t have to do so much work. This was way back at the dawn of the world. So, the tree grows, and the elves come from the top, they’re like leaves. The merfolk came from rain tumbling off the leaves, since they are kind of like sea elves.”
“The Ohlyrra disagree,” Lillee murmured.
“Duly noted.” The dwab went on. “The fairies are pollen, obviously. The humans were fruit, since they populate so fast and die so quick, and the dwarves came from the roots, deep underground, tending the entire plant, since we’re the best.” Tori held up a hand. “I’m just telling the story as I heard it. As for the orcs? They weren’t from the Tree. They were green worms in the dirt, and the Reveler thought to cause trouble, and he brought them to life, and gave them the shortest lifespan.”
Ymir shook his head. “That is not how we tell it on the Ax Tundra. There are no old gods. The Tree was always here, and the Axman thought to chop it down for his fire. He struck it once with his ax. Some believe humans came from the sap, and all the other strange races fell like fruit. Which is why we call you Fallen Fruit people. I like it better that all the races are fruit, including the humans. Anyway, the Axman wanted to eat them all up, but the Shieldmaiden stopped him.”
“So that’s why you call us the Fallen Fruit people,” Tori said. “But of course, there’s the old gods, and your Axman sounds like a meanie butt, but I do like this Shieldmaiden. Anyway, back to Gatha. I have the best chance to talk with her. Or maybe Lillee, since you two had your, uh, special times together.”
The Sullied elf blushed. “Whatever connection we had ended with that one night in the Scrollery. I’m not sure why. Ymir is equally baffled.”
“Poor Ymir.” Jenny patted the barbarian’s hand. “Too many women, too much emotion, and way too many moods to keep track of.” She snuggled up close to Ymir, and Lillee snuggled in with Jenny, and the three looked so cute and happy like that. A little family, a harem, like the overtoppers liked it.
Tori didn’t let her pain show. She smiled more, which was a lie, but the lie was oftentimes better than the truth. The truth of her life had been hard, unforgiving, and so unfair. She had a beautiful sister and a cute brother, both with as thick of beards as you’d ever seen on a Morbuskor prince and princess. She’d grown up believing any number of lies, the biggest of which was that she’d change. When the truth hit her, on went the smile and up went the cheer. It had worked. Laugh always, and cry never.
Chapter Five
TORI WATCHED YMIR KISS Jenny, and it made the dwab feel worse.
The clansman showed those women such tenderness, yet he could joke around as well. “A man must learn to love his woman, or in my case, my women. I’ll love all parts of you, including your many, many moods.”
He turned that smile on Tori. “You don’t think Gatha would let us use the Scrollery, do you? There is room down there, but it’s already a forbidden place.”
Tori slipped off the chair, grabbed the pot of xocalati corn, and took it to the stove. “No, not the Scrollery, another part of the Librarium. Not to say it’s a part of the citadel, but there are books, and Gatha has been spending time there. But I really don’t know. It’s probably not a good idea, you know, dealing with someone who hates you people. And you had your sex thing, which makes it awkward. Yep, she’ll hate me because I’m a dwab.”
Tori found herself yammering and chattering away. She had to get out of that room before her smile cracked. She hated to leave without cleaning up, though. She’d invented the xocalati puff corn, which should make her feel better, but it didn’t. She was jealous and hurt and sad, so sad. Cry never? That wasn’t the case.
She turned and gave Ymir and his princesses her biggest smile. “You three are so cute there together. I really have to go. I know we were going to laugh and talk business, and I have plans, you know I do, but I should go. I was going to show Fryla how to make kaif, and I know Ribrib hasn’t cleaned up the fourth-floor ba
throom, and I try to help with that.” The nice thing about living with twelve women was that Tori always had an excuse.
“Everything okay, T?” Jennybelle asked.
“It’s golden, Jenn,” the dwab said. “So, we’ll talk more. I’ll be working breakfast tomorrow. Sunday mornings are quiet. I know, Ymir does his Sunday fire for his ancestors. Anyway, I’m rambling.”
Ymir watched her. “This morning we looked at the Yellow Scorch Ring poem again. I thought we’d talk about it, and the possibility some lines refer to alchemy.”
“We can talk about that on Monday,” Tori said quickly. “We do have Basic Form Alchemy together, and you’re my favorite lab partner.”
“I’m your only lab partner.” Ymir looked both amused and worried.
“See? No worries.”
She managed to get out of the door with only a few goodbye hugs and kisses. Outside, breathing in the cool air, she felt better. She didn’t start crying until she hit the Flow courtyard. Her tears flowed as heavy as the rain tumbling down.
She crossed the bridge that spanned the moat and stopped at the entryway of the citadel. Out of the rain, she thought she’d get control of her emotions. What had started the rockslide?
Yes, seeing Ymir and those girls together, happy and cozy, was part of it. More? It was waking up with Ymir in her bed that morning. It had felt perfect, having her man to herself, just the two of them. It could never be, though. For one, Tori would never break up what the barbarian had with those two other princesses. For another? Though Ymir loved to look at her, and though he loved her body, no matter how squishy and big, the dwab could never, ever really accept that any man would want her.
She burst into a fresh round of crying. The tears wouldn’t stop. Sunfire torches flickered in the rain. The lanterns inside the Librarium glowed softly. It was late on a Saturday evening, and most scholars were either in their rooms or in the Sea Stair Market taverns.