12 - Houseguests

 

It is always a strange feeling, waking up in an unfamiliar bed.  Doubly so when you are not used to waking up in a bed at all.  Though for all that strangeness, Ashan finds himself conceding to no one in particular that it does feel nice.  The weight of the blankets, the texture of the pillowcase, such things are absent from his usual habit of simply sleeping suspended midair inside a climate-controlled privacy ward.  Perhaps his standard sleep ritual is not quite as superior to ordinary bedding as he likes to believe.

Then again, he is finding it unusually difficult to get up and moving now that he is awake.  A result of poor sleep quality induced by physical bedding or just leftover exhaustion from yesterday?  Surely he is not giving in to the indulgence of luxury.  But it does feel nice just lying here, half asleep with the blankets curled tight around him and the morning light barely filtering in through dual layers of window and bed curtains.

Take a rest.  Sleep in.  You’ve earned it.

Ashan throws back the covers and pivots to sit upright with his legs hanging over  the side of the bed, brushing against the surrounding drapery.

That is the sort of thing she would say to him on a morning like this.  Or… no?  That is what Road said last night before leaving him to retire for the evening.

Hers is the voice he imagines though.

Without the covers over him he suddenly feels terribly exposed.  Pulling the bed’s curtain aside, he reaches out, snaps his wizard’s raiment from where he left it last night and quickly slips into it.  He can count on one hand the number of times since returning to the world of his birth that he’s taken it off.  Not coincidentally, it’s the same as the number of times he’s actually bathed instead of simply magically cleaning himself and his clothes.  That had been the first complex spell his teacher had taught him and she’d been regularly casting on him long beforehand.  More efficient and effective than water and it eliminates the need for carrying extra clothes on the road. 

If you never master another spell, at least learn this one.  Best spell that’s ever been invented. 

And yet, there was a relaxation to warm water that the spell’s efficiency cut out. 

He checks the contents of his sleeves, verifying that everything is accounted for.  Wand, white with a blended rainbow.  Coinpouch, now stuffed with more folded paper currency than coin.  Portable makeup kit, understated yet elegant in its lid’s design.  The sum total of his worldly possessions.  All gifts from her, directly or indirectly, the same as his robes.

He raises a hand to draw a mirror in the air but stops himself short.  He should not strain himself more than necessary after yesterday’s burnout.  And besides, there is a perfectly good vanity set against the wall opposite of the foot of the bed.

After opening the window blinds to let in the sunlight and a view of the estate’s gardens, he takes a seat in front of the vanity’s mirror, sets down the makeup kit, opens it, selects a brush, and gets to work.

This had been a daily morning ritual for Ashan, once upon a time.  The subtle transformation of his face is not so much a masking over but a drawing out of how he sees himself.  He had tried to make adjustments when he had first gone his separate ways from his teacher - experimenting with the angle and curve of the eyeliner, going lighter on the contouring, altering the blend on colors - but it had never felt like him in the mirror afterward.  While he might have copied her style to begin with, it was his just as much as it was hers now.

Wrapping up the finishing touches and closing the box some minutes later he pauses, considering.  These days he normally ends the application with a spell to keep the makeup pristine and in place for a week or more in order to preserve the kit’s dwindling supplies that he still has not been able to find satisfactory replacements for on this world.  But there is the matter of overexertion to consider.

In the end, he returns the kit to his sleeve and heads to the bedroom door without any spellcasting.  If there is one occasion that warrants wasting a little bit of material to look his best then surely spending a day in the home of the sorceress Bridgewood is it.

 

*******

 

Ashan slams the book shut with a horrified expression.  Of all the forbidden knowledge he had expected to find in the Bridgewood library, this was unlike anything he could have prepared himself for.  Tome after tome he had pulled from the shelf only to find the same thing time and again presented in one horrible variation after another.  Shaken, he returns the book to its spot on the shelf and steels himself for one more attempt, this time from a shelf on the other end of the room.

Trembling, he pulls down another book at random.  Whispers of the Sun: A comparative study of pyromantic traditions.  This one seems safe enough.  No hints of double meanings in the subtitle to indicate the sort of assault on the senses contained within the last several volumes.  As he cracks the tome open he feels the tingle of a tripped ward just in time to turn the book away from him and direct the burst of flame from the pages safely out over the balcony and into empty space.

This is far more like what he had expected to find here and that eases his frayed nerves.  The book itself is warm but undamaged by the fire it just expelled and an ashy aroma fills Ashan’s nostrils as he flips through the pages to skim the contents.  Comparisons of flames summoned from other planes with flames born from an attunement with nature and drawn from one’s own body.  Theoretical extrapolations of a lost formula whose only remaining record is a photograph of a back-covering tattoo that was half-destroyed by burn scars.  Steps to a dance choreographed from the flight of dragons.  Teleological implications of phoenix rebirth cycles.

Yes, this is the sort of knowledge that belongs in the private library of one of the greatest mages of this era.  Not what had filled that first shelf the manor’s maintenance golem had guided him to when he asked to see the Bridgewood library as had been agreed upon as payment for his services.  Calmer now, he wonders if that had been some sort of prank.  True, finding fiction literature (he truly hopes it was fiction) rather than purely useful arcane texts was not entirely surprising given the size of the library, but for the first book he pulled (and second and third and oh gods why the fourth) to be erotica rather than esoterica had shaken him.  It was not just the content itself but the fact that it was so utterly at odds with his mental image of the sorceress Bridgewood and the very idea of an arcane library.  By the time he reached the third book and found its prose to be as hackneyed as its content was graphic he was starting to question if he was hallucinating, or perhaps caught in an illusion covering up the true text.

Most likely, it was just the one shelf.

Still, he thinks he shall content himself with reading this tome for a time before he attempts further perusal of the library’s collection.  Conjuring fire is well outside his normal area of interest but perhaps it is time that he finally diversify outside of his teacher’s specialty.  After all, is it not said that an anchor mage’s greatest strength is the ability to combine magic systems from multiple worlds?  And besides, the mention he glimpsed of conceptualizing the sun as both the ultimate flame and the source of all life in order to apply pyromantic arts to healing might prove to be less distasteful to him than yet another tool of destruction.

Looking around the library’s second floor for a place to sit and read, he finds only plush armchairs and couches; comfortable enough perhaps, but hardly suitable for the respect a rare and valuable text like this one deserves.  Not to mention what a safety hazard curling up with this book on his lap would be should there prove to be any more incendiary surprises waiting within its pages.

He doubts the third floor - hardly more than a balcony wrapping around the perimeter of the room just like the second - will be any better, but leaning over the guardrail to scan the maze of shorter bookcases that fill the first floor he spots a cluster of proper reading desks.  Normally he would simply conjure himself a ramp and hop the guardrail, but today he makes due with taking the stairs.

In truth, the Bridgewood library is smaller than Ashan had expected; merely a single three-story room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves for walls and large enough to hold a moderately sized house.  In the middle of it all two sets of staircases cross and double back on themselves to form a pair of stacked Xs connecting the lower level with the two upper walkways.  Respectable enough for a private collection but a far cry from the rumors he had heard of a sprawling underground labyrinth of shelves packed with hidden rooms and shifting passages that would put the greatest of wizard colleges to shame.

When was the last time he had visited such a place?  It would have to have been before he and his teacher went their separate ways.  He had returned to the anchor world not long after and, with most anchor mages being how they are, it is all private collections here.  Not that the two of them had visited libraries often.  His teacher had always preferred practice to theory - a battlemage through and through - so she rarely found use for more academic study unless she had a specific mystery to unravel.  Or unless he asked her to take him.

The mechanical creak and click of the stairstep underfoot breaks him out of his reverie.  He had noticed on his way in that the wooden steps had a slight give and jiggle to them as if there were some loose mechanism beneath, but had no further reaction to him.  Another small sign that this place, grand as it is, has diminished in the absence of its true mistress.  Even still, if his teacher knew where he was now she would…

Ashan catches himself and wipes the smile that had been beginning to form from his face as he picks his way through the first floor bookcases whose top shelves he cannot quite reach.  Why was he thinking about her so much this morning when he had managed to keep such thoughts out of his mind for over a month this time?  Worse, how could he still have an untainted fondness for those memories?  He knows why, but he chooses to blame the lingering burnout from yesterday’s exertion.

By the time he finds the cluster of desks near the exit doors his face had returned to his usual serene expression, hiding his eagerness to dive into the tome and think about anything else for a few hours.

So, naturally, not ten minutes later his concentration is disrupted by the sound of voices echoing down the hallway and into the library.

“- didn’t know better, I’d say that almost sounds like you’re trying to make it up to her,” says the first voice.  Road’s, Ashan thinks.

“I’m just saying it would cement her loyalty for a long time to come,” the current Bridgewood’s voice replies.  “Void knows I would have killed for a chance to meet someone like xem back when I was in her position.”

“Is that empathy I hear?”  Road’s voice teases.

“Oh please, I haven’t gotten that - Hey, wizard boy!” Bridgewood shouts as he and Road pass by the library doors and spot Ashan at the desk.  “My friend and I are heading off the Estate and won’t be back until late tonight, maybe early tomorrow.  If you want an escort through security, now’s the time.”

Ashan politely shakes his head.  “I do believe there is more than enough here to keep me occupied for quite some time,” he says with a gesture to the shelves upon shelves behind him.

“I thought you might say that,” Bridgewood says with a mildly amused and not entirely kind grin.  “Have fun having the run of the place while we’re gone.”

“You honor me, trusting me in your home.”

“Oh I don’t, but I trust the house staff.”

Road elbows Bridgewood in the ribs.

“I jest, I jest.  I am an excellent host.”

“How are you feeling with the burnout, by the way?” Road asks.

“Well enough,” Ashland says and pulls a book from the nearest shelf toward him by way of demonstration. A mere ten feet or so; more of a light stretch than a real effort, especially with the Estate’s ambient magic to draw from.  “Another day or so of rest and I shall be quest-ready once more.”

Road smiles warmly and nods.  “Glad to hear it.  Well, we both should get going sooner rather than later.  I know you don’t have a phone, but if you need anything, the maintenance golems should be able to get you in touch.”

With that, they make their goodbyes and leave Ashan to his tome.  It takes him some time to rein his full attention back to it though.  Something about the exchange has left him with a tingle of unidentified emotion that he cannot seem to decide whether is happy or sad.  He stills the feeling and makes a mental note to meditate on it later.

 

*******

 

Late afternoon finds Ashan emerging onto the rear veranda of Bridgewood Manor and descending the steps into the gardens.  After spending all day delving into Whispers of the Sun he has reached the point where he knows he will require hands-on experimentation before he can properly wrap his mind around the more unfamiliar conceptual schema.  Hence this break to clear his mind and keep at bay the temptation of over-exerting himself too soon.  And at any rate, regular movement of the body and fresh air are useful for maintaining a sharp mind.  He may be more academically inclined than his teacher was, but he has always taken her warnings to heart about that most common weakness of wizards: allowing one’s body to grow weak and frail with disuse. 

That the Bridgewood Estate’s sprawling gardens present beautiful environs wherein to engage such physical motions is merely an added bonus.  The winding paths through the vibrant flowers and bestial topiary more than rival the sights of either of the two royal palace grounds Ashan has had the honor of visiting with his teacher, and that is not even counting the hedge maze beyond.  True, one of those palaces he only ever saw while sneaking about under the cover of night, but he is more than willing to bet that neither of those grand displays of botany consisted mostly of reagents for potions and rituals.  Corrupting Houseleek for a potion that allows one to see the echoes of the unseen eldritch as they intersect with the world.  Heart's Joy for a poison that induces ever greater states of euphoria as the victim slips closer to death.  Eikegon to link together dreams when dried and burnt as incense.  All beautiful, all potent, and all absurdly rare.

In such environs, the presence of the brightly-colored awnings the Estate’s staff erected during the night to shade and shelter the ten dozen rescued chrysalises that have been laid out along the sides of the garden paths and gathered around fountain-ornamented intersections feel almost festive despite the grim events that led to their necessity.  It is beneath one of these vibrant canopies that Ashan finds Dis!ma*s, dressed in new clothes that match the Manor’s antique aesthetic and shooing one of the ubiquitous spidery maintenance golems away from a pair of chrysalises.

“Do you require assistance?” Ashan asks.

Dis!ma*s pauses with one foot on top of the golem’s central orb and looks up.  Even in the shade of the awning, the subtle ripple of bioluminesce that pulses across his face is nearly hidden by the afternoon sun as he says “No, I’ve got it.”  

The ensuing push with his foot - just barely too soft to qualify as a kick - sends the maintenance golem staggering back.  Finally seeming to take the hint, it makes a terse chirp at the disgruntled houseguest and scurries away to join its fellows in tending the next flowerbed over.

“Damn metal pest,” Dis!ma*s mutters.

“I take it the construct was bothering the passengers,” Ashan says.

“I don’t know what those things are up to, but you know what they say, never trust something that moves on its own without being alive.  I keep telling them that I can look after everyone well enough myself, but they keep poking around.”

“I cannot say I am familiar with that particular saying, but I doubt either of us are in any danger in this place.”

“Easy for you to say, you can leave.”

“Only in the sense that I suspect if I walked far enough I would exit this phase-shifted pocket and emerge fully back on the anchor world.  I am not able to use the bridge trees unaccompanied either.”

As the the photophores on Dis!ma*s’s face flicker in surprise, it occurs to Ashan that the bruises that had covered the man yesterday are gone.

“But aren’t you one of them?  After the way you jumped in the fire I figured you must be friends or something.”

Ashan shakes his head.  “Perhaps one day, but for now ‘coworkers’ is the more apt descriptor.  From what I gather, the woman who built this place as her home valued her privacy and simply never intended to have visitors going in and out.  I suspect our temporary confinement is merely a lack of preparation rather than imprisonment.  I myself only set foot here for the first time yesterday and only met Road for the first time a week ago, although I have known them by reputation as a forthright and heroic individual for some time longer.”

“Road’s the one with the symbiote coat?  They seemed to be an alright enough sort, I suppose.  Stopped by to check on me this morning, talked me into getting out of my room and keeping busy instead of dwelling on what happened.  They even offered me an amnestic if it gets too painful.  I turned down the drug, but they were right about keeping busy.”

“And yet you busy yourself with the reminders of your ill-fated voyage?” Ashan asks, tilting his head slightly in curiosity.

The lights on Dis!ma*s’s skin wink out.

“Find that suspicious do you?” he asks, voice suddenly sharper.  “Think I had something to do with what happened and now I’m doing something to the passengers to try and cover it up or shift the blame?  Is that it?”

The man’s sudden shift in disposition takes Ashan aback enough to momentarily break his practiced façade of serenity.  “It was not my intent to offend, good sailor, and I offer my apologies for having touched on a sensitive matter.”

Dis!ma*s closes his eyes and rubs his forehead.  “It’s fine.  I don’t rightly know what came over me there.”

“You have been through a great ordeal.  Such stress reactions are common.”

Dis!ma*s gives a mirthless laugh.  “Saints, ain’t that the truth.  And I know being the only one on the crew to make it out alive is going to get me a whole heap of suspicious questions when I get back, especially with going to another world like a dirty smuggler or bloody criminal.  I’m honestly surprised you lot haven’t locked me in a room and interrogated me over it yet.”

“I would not have agreed to join this venture if I believed that was how we would be doing things, and as Road has thus far lived up to their reputation I do not imagine they would allow it either.  What is more, you have already given us your account of events.”

“And I still don’t know how I was able to pull myself together enough at the time to do that.  But when I said I was expecting to be questioned again this morning the man in yellow, Sullivan, just laughed and said that wouldn’t be necessary.”

“As I said, you already gave your account.”

“Maybe, but the way he said it… I like to think I’m a brave man, and saints know I’ve seen my share of horrors these past few days, but…”  Dis!ma*s shivers in spite of the balmy afternoon weather.  “Look, I know you and yours have done nothing but good for me - cruel steel, you and the big one even got hurt getting out the people it should have rightly been my job to protect - but there is something wrong about that man.”

“I will admit, I have found Bridgewood to be an unexpectedly abrasive individual, but I am inclined to trust in Road’s judgement of allies.”

“I’d trust their judgement more if they hadn’t mentioned bringing in an off-world flesh-shaper to wake everyone up before helping us all get home.  Nice as they’ve been, I figured they just didn’t understand what they were getting themself into, but when I tried to explain they just kept insisting this one was harmless and trustworthy.”

“I am not sure that I follow.”

“I’m saying, the only flesh-shapers that leave Culescu are the worst kind of criminals.  The ones fleeing execution for blasphemous abuse of their art.”

 

*******

 

The next day, Bridgewood interrupts Ashan’s continued reading of Whispers of the Sun, insisting that the young wizard join him for letting further guests onto the estate so that he can grant them all bride access at once. 

“My friend insisted that I keep the door open to all three of you,” he says as he leads Ashan to the Manor’s front door. “And I’ll admit that granting limited access is better than wasting my time ferrying you people in and out all the time.”

“How gracious of you.”

“Don’t get used to it.  This is a temporary measure until the office is finished and we don’t have to keep using my house as a meeting place.”

Ashan stares at Bridgewood’s back for the whole walk from the Manor to the woods.  As much as he had tried to reassure Dis!ma*s yesterday, he too had noticed a certain unsettling undertone to a number of his interactions with the man who had recruited him that went beyond simple mannerisms and mein.  Focusing again now with the sense he had not known he possessed before his teacher took him away, he observes nothing unusual about Sullivan Bridgewood.  That is unusual in and of itself.  While the effect might not be noticeable elsewhere in the anchor world, here on the Bridgewood Estate where the ambient magic is strong enough to seep into the staunchest skeptic stepping Backstage for the first time attempting to sense the Estate’s current master is like looking at a gaping hole torn in a tapestry.

An uncanny enough attribute to be sure, but Ashan resists the urge to point to it as evidence of some manner of inherent wrongness.  Bridgewood did say when they first met that he prefers to stay out of the spotlight, and he would hardly be the first person to metaphysically cloak himself.  And as for his bouts of abrasiveness, the man did lose his wife only a few years ago; people show grief in different ways and some lash out.

Yes, Ashan assures himself, subconsciously picking up on magic distortions and bitter loss is a far more likely explanation than his new teammate - and longtime comrade of the hero Road’s - secretly being a monster, figurative or literal.  It may be good to keep an eye out in the off chance he is wrong, but if he is to be forging a working relationship - or even friendship - then constant suspicion is a poor foundation to build atop.  

She taught him better than to let one betrayal break his trust in new bonds.  Ironic as that is.

Soon enough the two of them stop in front of an elm tree Ashan recognizes as the bridge that he, Eris, and Lacuna entered from yesterday morning.

“I’ll be right back,” Bridgewood says before stepping through the tree and leaving Ashan alone in the woods.  

Not a minute later he returns holding hands with Eris and Lacuna, the latter dressed much as she was yesterday  in black hooded sweater and skirt and the former now wearing a red tracksuit; to cover her injuries, Ashan suspects.  Lacuna stumbles once again upon Bridgewood’s letting go, but manages not to fall over this time.  

“Now then,” Bridgewood says cheerily before anyone can make their hellos, “I’d like to not have to play chaperone every single time so now that you’re all here again, I’ll be granting you long-term guest access to this particular bridge.”

“So, you got keys for us or something?” Eris asks.

Bridgewood flashes a toothy grin.  “Or something.  Techie, hold still for a moment will you?”

“Um, okay?” Lacuna says, still dazed from the transit.

“Perfect.”

Something polished and sharp appears in Bridgewood’s hand, glinting as it catches a sunbeam that’s broken through the trees.  Ashan barely recognizes the object as a knife before it disappears in a blur of movement.

Lacuna screams.

By the time Ashan has drawn his wand by sheer reflex, the knife has stopped half an inch from Lacuna’s defensively raised hand, held in place by Eris’s crushing grip on Bridgewood’s wrist.  The woman in red, nearly half a foot taller, glowers down at the clearly amused man in yellow.

“No need to get so worked up,” Bridgewood lilts, “I only needed a drop.”  He nods toward the knife in his hand and, sure enough, a single crimson droplet hangs onto its point.  A second droplet begins to well up from Lacuna’s pricked finger.

“Warn us next time,” Eris growls and lets him go with a shove.

“Spoilsport,” he says while producing a handkerchief from his vest and proffering both it and the hilt of the knife to Lacuna.

Hesitantly, she takes the knife and smears the little bit of extra blood that has leaked out over the past few seconds onto the blade before accepting the handkerchief to wrap around her finger.  Ashan raises an eyebrow at the order of operations.

“All you need to do now,” Sullivan instructs, “is carve your name into the tree.  Or initials.  Or emblem.  Whatever you associate with you.”

Lacuna wordlessly complies then wipes off the knife and passes it to Eris who in turn glares one more time at Bridgewood, raises a middle finger, pricks it with the knife, and makes a few perfunctory slashes at the tree.

“Careful,” Eris says as she hands Ashan the knife after wiping it on her sleeve,”it’s stupid sharp.”

Ashan thanks her for the warning and circles the tree, partly to decide where to carve his own name and partly to check for any prior guests who may have been granted access.  He finds only a shaky and unevenly scratched “Lacuna” next to four deep gouges making a lone, clean “E”.

Moving to wet the knife with his own blood he sees what Eris meant by her warning; barely grazing the blade’s edge with little pressure to speak of is enough to open a wider and deeper wound down his little finger than he meant to.  The sting of pain does not even arrive until a second or two later, causing the second character in “Glassheart” to go askew when he winces and sends the knife sliding through the tree bark like hot butter.  He does not bother to write “Ashan.”

“Would you… like this?” Lacuna asks while holding out the handkerchief and not making eye contact.  No, not just that; looking away from his hand that has grown redder than he realized. “My hand’s already stopped.  Bleeding, that is.”

“My thanks,” Ashan accepts, “although you ought to be more careful handing over items with your blood on them to a mage.”

That piece of advice elicits a quiet eep from Lacuna.  To his own point, he thoroughly wipes down, double-checks, and casts a small sterilizing spell (minor enough to not be too much a strain after a day of rest) on the knife before returning it to Bridgewood.  Allies and prospective friends or not, there are some basic precautions with magic that one simply does not neglect.

“Thank you all ever so kindly for your cooperation,” Bridgewood says with an exaggerated bow.  The knife is gone from his hands once he stands up straight again.  “The three of you may now come and go from the Estate as you please.  Don’t abuse the privilege.” 

“Trust me, I don’t plan on it,” Eris says.  “So, was that the whole reason you called us out here today, or does Road have another mission lined up already?”

“Oh, it’s all I needed you here for, and I suppose wizard boy can go back to the library now if he wants to, but my friend’s invited an old acquaintance of ours over whom she thought the techie might like to meet.”

“Who?” Eris asks.

“It’s a surprise.  But don’t worry, it’s my friend’s sort of surprise, not one of mine.”

Eris glances at Lacuna who nods.  “All the same, I think I’ll hang around too.”

“Suit yourself,” Bridgewood says nonchalantly.  “Come along then now.  My friend might have a workaround for full access to the woods, but she can’t bring anyone along with her that way.  Let’s not keep the two of them waiting.”

“Her?” Ashan asks while following him.  He has a suspicion on who this mystery visitor is, and if he’s right then his reading can certainly wait.

“It’s how she felt when she called this morning,” Bridgewood says, as if it should be obvious.

The tree Bridgewood leads them to is a small, twisted thing with sparse clusters of green needles.  A desert species perhaps?  Or maybe cold and alpine.  Someplace inhospitable at any rate, Ashan surmises.

The wait is longer this time around after Bridgewood disappears.  Long enough for Ashan to catch Lacuna staring at him yet again.  He dearly hopes that is not a prelude to yet another instance of unrequited affections.  Turning those down has ever been a headache.

“How fares your recovery, Eris?” He asks, hoping to disrupt the staring with conversation.

Eris rolls her wounded shoulder.  “A little stiff, but give it another day or two and I shouldn’t even have any scars.”

“That fast?  I would have expected weeks, even with Bridgewood and Road’s ministrations.”

“What can I say?  I heal quick.  How ‘bout you?”

Ashan conjures a small light above his palm for a moment before extinguishing it with a fist.  “My convalescence proceeds similarly apace, thank you for asking.  I believe being on this Estate has aided with that.”

More silent waiting.

It occurs to Ashan that he may have grown out of practice with conversation these past few years alone.  And even before that his teacher had always been the one to take the lead when meeting new people.  What would she say now?

“So, you two are sisters?”

“What?!”  Lacuna chokes out, blushing.  “Why would you?  What?  We don’t even look…”

Eris only laughs and shakes her head.  “Nah, that’s just a nickname of sorts.  We happen to have the same doctor, so one day I’m going in to get a cast off my arm and I find her pacing outside, too nervous to even open the door.”

“Hey!  In my defense, it was my first time on my own in Crossherd, I’d only been Backstage for like two weeks, and I was about to go to a doctor about… me… for the first time.”

“You know no one cares if you say it, right?”

“I know,” Lacuna mumbles.

“Anyways, I strike up a conversation with her, walk her inside and sit in the waiting room with her.  Somewhere along the way she mentions she’s looking for a new place closer to a bridge into Crossherd, I tell her about the apartment I was living in, and a few weeks later I get a new move-in referral bonus taken off that month’s rent and we start hanging out on the regular.  Can’t remember when the nickname started, but I’d always wanted a sister and she seemed to like it, so it stuck.”

“Honestly, you probably could have called me anything else affirming at the time and it would have stuck just as well.”

“If you say so, m’lady,” Eris says in an exaggeratedly deep voice and tipping an imaginary hat.

“Almost anything,” Lacuna laughs, leaving Ashan with the distinct impression of having just witnessed an inside joke from the outside.

“Well, that’s us,” Eris says.  “So, how do you know Road and Sully?”

“Only by reputation, in truth,” Ashan answers.  “They were in need of a spellcaster for this venture and my own exploits drew Bridgewood’s attention.  Although,” he draws out the word while shifting his focus to Lacuna who fails to meet his gaze, “It would appear that I am not the only one on this team.”

“Sort of?  Yeah.  About that -”

“Hey.  Sorry for the wait,” Road says, interrupting Lacuna.

Ashan whips his head around, not sure how he missed her arrival.  But here she is now with her jacket that Dis!ma*s called a symbiote cropped higher than usual - more of a bolero now - and something subtly different about her gait as she steps further away from the gate to give Bridgewood room to arrive.  Bridgewood, and the white-haired, gray-eyed androgynous individual in baggy black and white clothes trailing behind him.

“Jero,” Road says, “this is the new party I was telling you about.  Lacuna, Eris, Ashan, this is Jero.  Xe’s the flesh-shaper who’s going to be helping us wake up everyone from the shipwreck.”

“Absolutely appreciative to accomplish your acquaintance,” Jero chimes chipperly as xe zips between the three of them, spiritedly shaking each hand in succession.  

“Delightful deviation from dreary defaults,” xe appraises Ashan, consigning him to confusion.

“What a beautiful body you’ve wrought from will,” xe endorses Eris, bringing on a rare blush.

What xe whispers to Lacuna escapes Ashan’s ears, but she seems taken aback.

“Ah, but excuse my eagerness infringing into etiquette,” Jero apologizes, stepping back.  “Ere my ingress into this Estate I inhabited most isolated environs, as exile irritatingly insists.”

Ashan is the first of the three of them to recover.

“You honor us with your presence, master flesh-shaper,” Ashan says with a shallow bow; a gesture of respect from mage to mage.  “And apology accepted.  I too know something of difficulties adjusting following time alone.”

“Master flesh-shaper,” Jero laughs and literally lets a smile stretch from ear to ear.  “Far too long since someone fancied me with such a sobriquet.  But no sense in forcing formality for I am but an artist and an altruist.  Regarding that, Road, has the time arrived to reveal the rescuees I am to recover?”

“As good a time as any,” Road replies.  “Right this way.  And feel free to drop that form if you want.  We’re all friends here.”

“Wonderful.”

Partway through the walk back to Bridgewood Manor Jero begins stretching as if preparing for exercise, lending a ponderously exaggerated, almost stumbling, quality to xyr gait.  And then one of the stretches simply keeps going, xyr arm elongating before Ashan’s eyes, followed by xyr torso, the the other arm, the legs, until xe has grown to nearly twice Ashan’s height and the once-baggy clothes now fit snuggly as shorts and a cropped top.  Over the next few strides bat-like wings sprout and unfurl from xyr shoulders while a long tail snakes down to pluck up the flip-flops that are struggling to stay on newly clawed and digitigrade feet.

Ashan hears a muffled squeal behind him and glances back to see Lacuna with her hands over her mouth and a gleam in her eyes of barely contained excitement.  It seems she has found someone else to stare at.

“Do you like it?” Jero enquires excitedly, craning his neck around to reveal wavy X-shaped pupils and a nose reduced to a mere suggestion of contour.  “It’s a recently complete corporeal concept,” xe says through sharpened teeth.  “The wings are sadly un-skyworthy, more canvas than conveyance, but constitute a convenient carrier for confirmation of chromatophore composition capabilities.”

“Chromatophores?!” Lacuna gasps.

On cue, pulsating waves of alternating black and white begin radiating from Jero’s wingtips, spreading across the fleshy surfaces until they collide in the middle of xyr back and burst into a cascading spectrum of color across the rest of xyr body.

“That. Is. So. Cool!” Lacuna practically squeals before launching into a barrage of questions about neurotransmitter rewiring and appendage adaptation.  The subsequent back and forth lasts the rest of the way to the gardens behind Bridgewood Manor and up until Road gently interrupts the two of them to point out the chrysalis just a few feet away.

Eris catches Ashan’s eye and gives him a slight smile and half shrug as if to say Yeah, she gets like this sometimes.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Jero intones almost dismissively as xe examines the passenger in stasis, “standard mass transportation structural shift.  Scarcely any artistry at all.  Always such a shame to see shapers selling out to standardization.  Should be a scant excuse for a challenge to sort this out.  But Road, why didn’t you tell me you took a transmutationist on staff to assist with this task?  It will make this so much more interesting.”

“Oh, I’m not!” Lacuna pipes up in alarm.  “Not a transmutationist.  I’m not even a mage.  I mean, I know a little bit about enchantment rituals, but who doesn’t, right?”

Jero cocks xyr head a full ninety degrees.  “Biologist bychance?”

“Programmer,” Lacuna mumbles while rubbing the back of her neck and staring at the ground. “Computer stuff.  This is just… I guess you’d call it a special interest?  Of mine.  Can’t actually do anything though.  Sorry.  To bother you with all that, I mean.”

“I know you haven’t said much about it, Lacuna,” Road says, “but I got the impression yesterday that you’d enjoy meeting a real flesh-shaper… in the flesh.”  She chuckles at her own joke before adding “And don’t worry about not being useful.  Once Jero gets going with waking everyone up every extra pair of hands for helping them out will go a long way.”

“And as an artist I always adore an appreciative audience,” Jero assures her.

“Thanks,” Lacuna says.  “Just let me know what I need to do.”

“Speaking of audiences,” Ashan chimes in, “might I stay close at hand to observe as well?”

“Now those are the words of an anchor mage,” Jero says, suddenly serious.  “Hoping to divine the exotic secret arts of the Culescuns are you?”  

Xe kneels down to eye level with Ashan and for a long and terrible moment he finds himself utterly transfixed by the gaze of shifting, pulsating pupils.  Black surrounded by gray surrounded by white.  Bleeding into a gradient before inverting.  Scattering into static that brings back forgotten childhood memories of an outdated television set stuck between channels.  Memories so strong he can hear the hiss of signal noise.

Ashan snaps back to the present and Jero’s eyes are nearly human.

“I just jest,” Jero jives.  “While I would be in wonder were you to walk away with knowledge won, you are welcome to watch.”

 

*******

 

Waking everyone from the one hundred twenty-eight chrysalises is a process that takes the rest of the day.  

The process of Jero gliding xyr hands with proportionally too-long fingers over each chrysalis to cause it to contract into a humanoid shape, working in the details of a unique individual’s features, and then turning the skin-like outer shell inside out to reveal the real skin and eyes and hair and mouth and other such outward-facing anatomy expected of a person takes several minutes apiece.  Grotesque as Ashan finds the last step to watch, he cannot help but notice that for all her earlier apparent squeamishness during yesterday’s mission Lacuna’s expression is never anything less than fascinated.  While he has no idea what sort of mental notes she might be taking, Ashan’s own analysis is frustratingly elusive.  As obvious as it is that there is something magical happening, he detects nary a trace of transmutation or necromancy, or even any other of the less likely major disciplines he is aware of.  Only a tenuous mental connection that should barely be enough for communication, much less physical alterations.

That leaves him and Lacuna with little else to do but to provide the newly awakened shipwreck survivors with nourishing drinks and blankets to cover themselves with before directing them over to whichever of Road or Eris is available to give them the talk of explaining what happened and gently easing them into their situation.  Afterward they are moved to the gathering place around the Manor’s broad rear veranda where Bridgewood and Dis!ma*s are reuniting them with the luggage that the former somehow recovered from the shipwreck in the midst of all the other chaos without Ashan noticing.

What Ashan does notice throughout it all is how Dis!ma*s and a fair number of the other survivors are eyeing Jero warily and keeping their distance.  That, and the fact that what he had previously taken for differences in species in the bodies back on the ship were in truth closer to differences in fashion.

During a lull in activity while Jero takes a brief rest from xyr work and everyone has been provided a late lunch by the Estate staff, Ashan seizes the opportunity to pull Road aside and voice his growing concerns.

“The exile thing?” Road says in response.  “I was there for both times it happened, and it’s nothing to worry about.  Jero wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Both times?” Ashan inquires.

“Yeah, wild that it happened twice.  The first time around xe was framed by a rival artist for negligently shaping a model without properly informed consent into a form xe couldn’t undo.  I happened to run into xem while xe was fleeing the law and helped xem clear xyr name.  It turned out to be this whole big thing with scandal, kidnappings, blackmail, and political coverups, but it all worked out in the end.”

“And the second time?”

“That one’s a bit messier, seeing as xe’s technically guilty twice over from one incident for the twin crimes of working xyr art on foreigners and flesh-shaping subjects that haven’t been through the proper conditioning to be able to undergo the process without serious side effects.  The part no one seemed to care about is that all xyr ‘victims’ were injured so badly that they would have died without xyr intervention.”  The edge of anger that briefly glints off Road’s normally gentle voice leaves Ashan both disconcerted and wondering if he imagined it.  “Anyway,” she continues, “Jero walked up to xyr public execution unrepentant for saving people’s lives.  Thing is, you were right earlier to call xem ‘master flesh-shaper,’ and when someone is that good at what xe does, it’s hard to make execution stick.  With everyone thinking xe was dead, xe was able to get word out to me.  I talked to Sullivan, he talked to Carnette, and she was able to smuggle him off world.  The sculpture he made her as thanks should still be around her somewhere.  In the hedge maze I think.”

“So, to all these people, they have just been woken up by either an unknown criminal or a dead celebrity.  I can see how that would be reasonable cause for concern.”

“Maybe, but like I said, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.  Jero’s harmless, if a bit eccentric, and people tend to be willing to overlook a lot of things when you save their lives.”

Mind put at ease by Road’s reassurances, Ashan returns to his part in getting everyone woken up and settled in, although not entirely without keeping a cautious eye on the distraught, dazed, and growing crowd.

 

*******

 

The sun has been down for well over an hour down by the time the last of the shipwreck survivors is woken up, debriefed, reunited with their salvaged belongings, and directed to a spot at which to spend the night.  Those willing to risk the interior of Bridgewood Manor have been set up with guest bedrooms and those less trusting have been provided with tents and sleeping bags, although few seem willing to return to sleeping just yet after so long in hibernation.

As for Ashan, he had shifted some hours ago from watching Jero to working alongside Dis!ma*s in keeping everyone at ease and helping with any requests they might have.  Now though with the long day finally winding down, he departs the main gathering of tents to walk the garden paths toward where he last saw xem and Lacuna to let them know dinner is being brought out.

“- tell that you’re not happy in that body,” Jero’s voice reaches Ashan as he rounds a mound of night-blooming flowers to find xem and  Lacuna sitting side by side on the edge of a fountain.  He backs up out of sight so as to not interrupt them, but not so far back that he cannot still hear and make his entrance once they finish.

“Did you really need psychic powers to figure that out?” Lacuna asks.

“No, just experience.  You wouldn’t be the first person in your situation I’ve helped, you know.”

 “I’m not?  But isn’t that - I don’t know - against the rules?”

“It is but it’s been worth it every time.  And it’s not like I can get any more exiled than I already am.  The conditioning beforehand would be long, months if not a year or more, and as an adult it would be… painful… but I think you understand that more than most who have come to me.”

The silence grows long enough that Ashan almost announces his presence before Lacuna starts laughing, sad and bitter.

“The funny thing is, if you’d asked me that a year or two ago I would have dropped absolutely everything and gone with you on the spot.  Heck, a big part of me still wants to and is screaming at me for being an idiot not taking you up on that offer.  It’s literally something I’ve dreamed about and prayed for.  And I don’t even pray.”

“So why not?”

“Because…  Because…  Because I want to do it myself.  No, I need to.  But it’s so stupid that I feel that way.  Because it probably won’t even work and I know that if the possibility of doing it myself had never occurred to me I would have been happy and content with literally any other route.  I probably would even have been satisfied with what nearly everyone else like me who was never lucky enough to fall Backstage has to make due with.”

“If it was stupid to feel that way I would have never become me.” 

“I?  What?”

“There are some rules I really won’t break, but I can bend them a bit to give one -”

“Hey, maybe don’t eavesdrop on people,” a low voice from behind Ashan says at the same time a heavy hand grips his shoulder.

He looks around to find Eris standing behind him.  She gestures back down the garden path with her head and gently but irresistibly pulls him away from Lacuna and Jero.

“I apologize but it was not my intent to intrude on their privacy,” Ashan says once he and Eris are out of earshot.  “I was merely waiting for an appropriate break in the conversation so that I would not interrupt.”

Eris rounds on him with a protective fury in her eye and raising her voice as much as she can without drawing attention.  “Do you really think I would really believe that half-assed an excuse coming from a…” She trails off, really looking at Ashan’s face for perhaps the first time and then studying him up and down.  He can see the gears turn in her head as snippets of information gleaned over the past two days click into place.  A hand goes to her head and she begins massaging her temples before continuing more softly, “Oh, God dammit, you’re a frickin’ homeless kid who hasn’t had legit social interaction in years aren’t you?”

“A wizard makes his home wherever he wishes, and solitude is the whetstone of the mind.”

“Yeeeaaah… no.  Are you even old enough to drink?”

“By this world’s calendar and the laws of my birthplace, yes.”

“Uh huh…  And with inter-world temporal sync factored in?”

“Probably.”

“God dammit.  Have you had dinner yet?”

“I do not see what that has to do with -”

“Have you eaten yet today?”

“I was going to after everyone else was seen to.”

“God frickin’ dammit.”

Eris grabs Ashan’s wrist and begins dragging him toward the entrance to Bridgewood Manor.  With her other hand she begins typing a message on her phone.

“What ever are you doing?”

“Dealing with the fact that I now have two dumbass friends who don’t know how to feed themselves.”

“I assure you I am perfectly capable of feeding myself.”

“Kid, you have no idea how many times I’ve heard that one.”

Ashan opens his mouth to object once more to such humiliating treatment when one of Eris’s words catches up with him and forces him to reconsider.

Friends.