NOVEL NEXT Welcome to the Shop, part 1
Dzošajan was crouched in the middle of a bush, her hands sticky with sap and covered in scuffs and scratches, when she first heard the caravan approaching. Ever since she was very young, she’d been complimented on her hearing, and even from within the middle of a stand of thorny gruû’thzo bushes, the sound was unmistakable. She paused, closing her eyes and focusing on the particulars of the sound. This wasn’t an orkish caravan; she could hear horse hooves, not the soft feet of a threzen. They weren’t raiders, either; she heard friendly greetings and murmurs of conversation, not shouts of alarm and battle-cries. But they weren’t the typical sort of merchant, either, because she could only hear a single set of cartwheels. And the rattling of saddlebags hanging off of their horses had the distinct clinking of glassware…
The realization went through her like a static shock. After months of breathless anticipation for this exact caravan, she had nearly forgotten they were coming. She considered standing up and running out of the bushes there and then, the reason why she was there and not greeting the caravan with all the energy she could muster already forgotten. That bliss lasted just long enough for her to rise from a crouch and cut open her cheek on a thorn, from the bush she was standing in. A flower-bush. A gruû’thzo flower-bush. Gruû’thzo flowers for the sick sheep, flowers which she had been sent out into the hill to crawl through thorns and bushes to find. Those flowers.
Dzošajan swore, repeatedly and with creativity.
The next few minutes were a frenzy of activity as she threw all caution to the wind, grabbing as many blooms as she could until both of her fists were nearly overflowing with pale blue petals. Then she ran, letting the thick fabric of her clothes block as many of the thorns as they could, and gritting her teeth through the rest of the tiny but very painful injuries that ensued. At the edge of the bush, she threw the two fistfuls of flowers down onto the skull-sized pile of the same which she’d been accumulating for all of that day and a decent chunk of the day before.
The young woman arrived back at the village at a fast jog, trailing flowers behind her as they spilled out of the pouch in her skirts being held mostly in place by either hand. The hubbub of conversation as the orcs gathered around the new arrival pressed on the back of her mind, making her grimace with envy, but she had to finish the task she’d been given or else this was all for nothing. So she dashed between the outlying houses, narrowly avoided getting knocked to the ground by Tanžakts (his profuse apologies rapidly fading into the distance), and ran full-tilt into the front door of a small, squat wattle-and-daub cottage near the river.
When her front door was kicked open so forcefully that it very nearly broke its hinges, Lîševek jumped off of her chair, brandishing her wood-and-clay drop spindle like a dagger and baring her tusks. Dzošajan barely hesitated, despite the fact that Lîševek was more than burly enough to actually drive a spindle through her skull given the chance. They knew each other.
“I have the flowers!” she said, hustling to the back corner and dumping the entire skirt-load onto the cleanest-looking part of the floor.
Lîševek looked faintly confused. “Thank you?”
“Right, all you have to do is divide this into, oh, twelve portions, I think? And then you can mix it with oats so the herd’ll eat it, and give them one portion each day for twelve days, alright?”
Lîševek nodded cautiously. “You’re a mess.”
Dzošajan shrugged, already going for the door. She had more important things to be doing. “I doubt you’d be able to avoid those thorns any better than I did. Besides, I have something I really need to be at, so I rushed.”
“Maybe next time you won’t let my sheep wander into poisonous grass because you were too busy looking at beetles!”
Though she’d already passed back through the door and was well on her way to the other end of the street, Dzošajan turned around and stuck her head back through the door. “There’s going to be a next time?”
Lîševek sat back down at her chair and picked up the spindle and distaff, shrugging unconcernedly. “Someone has to take care of them.”
About five minutes later, Dzo arrived where the people in the caravan had stopped, at the rough center of the village, where the bridge over the river was, as well as the local inn that supplied the village with most of its travel. Her initial assessment had been entirely correct: the caravan consisted of about thirty individuals in total, plus half again as many horses, and a few extra for pulling the single large wagon. The people were like nothing she’d ever seen: they were slender, with soft skin that ranged from dark brown to a light sandy shade, instead of the grey-green possessed by just about everyone she’d ever known. A lot of them had their hair shorn close to the head, and many others let it flow loose instead of braiding it. The most notable thing, of course, was that these people were all very, very rich: even on the move they wore robes of fine, tailored fabrics in spectacular blues, yellows, purples.
Their gear also set them apart: bottles and phials and jars, yes, hundreds of them, but also books and scrolls and weird implements that Dzo didn’t even have names for, things made out of crystal in the shape of sticks or flattened rods or sharp, geometrical shapes. About a quarter of the group was marked out by carrying a lot of those things around; another quarter had some, but not many; and the remaining half had none, but wore armor and weapons. This was indeed a caravan of alchemists and wizards.
Orcs and alchemists and caravan guards had formed into a loose crowd centered around the wagon and the cluster of horses, which were being lackadaisically unloaded and escorted to the field for grazing and brushing. A few of the more personable alchemists had gathered crowds of children and were showing off powders that sparkled with static electricity or oils that could turn your hands transparent, while the majority of them stood stoically and exchanged news of the outside world with the adults. That was, after all, the point of this expedition: for the erudite and magically-inclined of the Empire to learn a little of the state of things in orkish territory, and resume the flow of knowledge that had been blocked by the war.
As Dzo ran up to the crowd, her attention fixed on two people standing apart from the rest. One was Dhul, a wiry, leathery middle-aged orc, owner of the inn. The other, Dzo guessed, was the leader of the caravan. She was a plump woman with ruddy black skin and a tall mass of tightly-coiled hair, and even though she was in the middle of an animated conversation, her inquisitive eyes still swung around to watch Dzošajan running up. Dhul scarcely seemed to notice, either because he legitimately wasn’t aware or because he knew who it was and decided not to react.
“Hello! Lady! Is it true that you’re recruiting for the guild?!” Dzo said, stopping right in front of the pair, then nearly collapsing from exertion.
The wizard didn’t speak, instead merely raising an eyebrow and looking up at her with intrigued disdain. Dzošajan realized, a bit too late, that she didn’t exactly make the best first impression. Though her height, a little over two meters, would be impressive, the undyed black wool dress and leather apron most certainly wouldn’t be. There was a chip in her left tusk which she’d been compulsively picking at with her tongue for weeks as well, and she could only imagine how much of her hair had slipped free of her braid and turned into so much brown grass. The dozens of tiny cuts that she’d had to haphazardly paper over with bits of felt probably didn’t help either.
“It is. Am I to assume that I am meant to recruit you?” she said. She spoke flawless orkish, which was at once surprising, but also very lucky for Dzo’s plan.
“Yes,” Dzo said with a nod. “Er. You don’t have to. But I’d be good at it.” Remembering why she’d had to stop at her house to begin with, Dzo thrust out her hand. “I made this,” she said softly.
“What is it?” said the wizard, looking at the small clay bottle Dzošajan was holding.
“A fire resistance potion,” Dzo said.
The wizard’s eyebrow raised even further. “So you’ve already received training?”
Dzo shook her head. “I got the idea from the village charjadant, but mostly I’ve been… experimenting. Figuring it out.”
The wizard, a woman of few words, walked forward and snatched the bottle out of Dzo’s hand. She was already feeling weak enough to pass out at any moment, so it wasn’t a difficult theft. As though it were a regular thing, she uncorked the bottle, briefly sniffed at the vapors over the opening, then downed it all in one go.
Dzo knew that it wasn’t going to hurt her, having already drank a spoonful of it the week before, but the way the woman grimaced as it went down still gave her a momentary fright. Once it was clear that she wasn’t going to collapse or explode, she turned to one of the other alchemists, shouting a brief command in a language Dzo didn’t understand. One young man responded, producing a black rod and a vial of reddish concoction from a satchel at his side. Taking the rod in one hand and the vial in the other, he poured the concoction over the rod, causing the rod to immediately burst into a smokeless flame. The wizard woman handed the now-empty clay bottle back to Dzošajan. Then, slowly but resolutely, she shoved her hand directly into the fire.
Almost immediately, her eyes slammed shut as she cried out in pain. Despite the flinch that passed down her body and her obvious agony, she kept her hand in the fire and gritted her teeth, even as Dzošajan felt herself become suddenly light-headed. She had just accidentally mutilated a person of high importance in the alchemist’s guild, which meant she was either going to be arrested, or decapitated on the spot. Much like the wizard woman’s skin, her hopes went up in smoke.
Dzo remained totally frozen, her legs refusing to move even as the rest of her screamed to run and hide from the wizard’s wrath, to seek shelter amongst her friends and loved ones. But because she stayed, she was able to watch as the wizard woman slowly, carefully, removed her hand from the flame. Dzošajan remembered seeing the aftermath of a cooking accident when she was a girl, and for a moment that memory of red ruin was so strong that it replaced what she saw before her.
But that image only lasted for a moment before Dzo blinked and realized that the wizard woman’s hand was entirely intact. The skin had purpled somewhat, certainly, but it was undamaged. She turned, carefully flexing her fingers and muttering to her assistants in a foreign language. Dhul glanced between the wizard, the flame, and Dzo in quick succession, his eyes growing wider with each movement.
Finally, the wizard turned to Dzo. “You made that potion?”
“Yes, Lady,” Dzo said. “We don’t exactly have wizards like you out here selling us potions and the like.”
She nodded. “It is… crude. A properly formulated potion would preserve even the hairs on the back of my hand, and cause no more pain than standing in the sun at noon. But that your potion has completely prevented any material damage shows that you have an instinctive understanding of the art of alchemy.”
Dzošajan was very nearly set alight with pride, her chest swelling as an unstoppably smug grin spread across her face. “Of course, Lady. I’ve spent years practicing, experimenting with the herbs, things like that. I’m good enough for you, then?”
The wizard raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps,” she said, turning to the general assemblage. She shouted a long sentence in the other language, one which apparently drew a great deal of surprised interest from the other members of her caravan. Dzo was probably going to have to learn that language sooner rather than later.
“You may call me Master-of-Masters Prisca, though the title does not quite translate into your language.”
“Are you going to teach me how to be an alchemist, then?”
Prisca chuckled openly at the suggestion, not entirely unlike how one would laugh at something foolish that a child had said. Dzošajan frowned. “I am far too busy for that,” Prisca said. “But I’ve announced that the invitation has been extended. If any of the Masters have need of an apprentice, they may step forward and take you. It is a matter of waiting.”
And so they waited. For the first few minutes, the excitement of having been extended the invitation carried Dzošajan high, her pride risking to flash into flame and send her whooping and dancing across the village center. But she contained herself, knowing that being too energetic would get her labeled a mere orc or worse by these refined imperials. It was about then that she began to worry, because it seemed like Prisca’s announcement had had absolutely no effect on the other alchemists whatsoever. They continued to mill about, speaking with each other or showing off their creations to the village folk, as though nothing had happened.
Soon, Dzo’s pride started to sour into bitterness and rage. Of course they wouldn’t see her genius. To them, she was just some country farmer, a simpleton, hardly fit to wash their boots. Mere orcs like her weren’t alchemists, they were fodder for the adventurers alchemists sold to. But she would prove them wrong, somehow.
Dzo scarcely noticed one man pull away from the crowd. He was tall and slender, with finely pointed ears, hair gone grey and pulled back in an elaborate braid. And he wore the robes of an alchemist.
“Is this the boy?” he said, speaking orkish.
Prisca frowned. “Quintus? I didn’t realize you were in need of an apprentice.”
“Circumstances have changed, of late,” he said. “But this isn’t about my personal life. What is your name?”
“Dzošajan,” she said, “though I suppose if I’m going to be your apprentice you could just call me Dzo.” She could use her real name around the imperials. There was little chance that either of them would understand the name as a feminine one, and thus no risk in revealing it to them.
Quintus repeated the name to himself a few times, lips clumsily struggling with the orkish syllables. “You’ll have to work hard,” Quintus said.
“Have you ever seen what happens in a farming village during harvest season?” Dzo said.
Quintus frowned. “You’ll have to sharpen your concentration into a fine edge.”
“A cauldron of potion could not get up to half the trouble a herd of sheep does,” Dzo said.
“And you will have to be able to take orders.”
At that, Dzošajan hesitated, the words dying in her mouth. But she wasn’t going to let an old elf’s foibles stop her. “I can follow instructions.”
“Alright. Then, Dzošajan, I’ll take you on. Prisca?”
“We can fill the paperwork, and take the oaths, when we return to civilization. My witness will be enough to make it preliminary.”
Quintus nodded. “Then gather your things and say your goodbyes. We leave in the morning.”
Dzo nodded fervently, leaving Quintus and Prisca to begin conversing in the imperial tongue. A checklist of all the things she had to do, all the people she had to talk to, ran through her head. She was finally going to leave the village, get a chance to show her skills, and become legendary. There was a little bit of bitterness, to having to leave home and everyone she’d known; but for the most part she felt more alive than she’d felt in her first nineteen years.
