PreCursive

  I didn’t quite have my ear pressed up to the door, but that wasn’t far off. Through my position huddled o the door, I was able to make Magnus and Orinbar’s versation.

  “-question why you even care, old man.” I heard Magnus say, derision dripping from his voice. “Do you have sympathies for the cattle? Do you feel bad for them?”

  “I care nothing for the ultimate fate of a lowly sve, Magnus,” Orinbar said evenly, only a smidgeon of frustration leaking through in his voice. “My problem is the waste of resources. My problem is that every time you put on one of your little performances with the sves, productivity drops. My problem is that Rhos scouts are now driving back the Elves we depend on to acquire below-market rates for rept sves. We only have so much disposable ine, as you well know. This settlement was never inteo have a positive gold flow.”

  I perked up at that. Were they going to talk about the warehouse Silvia thought existed?

  “That doesn’t sound like my problem,” Magnus answered flippantly.

  I heard creaking inside. “It is your problem,” Orinbar said menagly. “Do not fet, as vital as this operation is to require my services, you are still the nominal leader of Addersfield. You must take this more seriously, Magnus! The stockpile we gather here is too important to the Prince’s future pns! You are meant to learn a lesson from this posting, as well as keep out of the public eye. Your father is still busy sweeping your test misstep uhe rug. It was far too public this time.”

  “Do you expe apology out of me, old fool? I would do it again.” Magnus said, with an audible sneer in his voice.

  Orinbar made a noise of intense frustration. “You raped and killed another member of the nobility, Magnus!” He nearly hissed. “By the gods, you fyed her alive! If you weren’t Pringuis’s son, you’d have been hanging from the gallows that day! The Prineeded to make unfortable cessions to the Luminarans to hide your misdeeds. cessions that deyed his pns even more.”

  “None may deny me,” Magnus said dismissively. “The t deserved it. Is this the only reason you called for me, Sensechal? Tue me? If so, I think I’ll take my leave.” I heard the sound of a chair being pushed baside, causio scramble away from the door. I’d just mao take an unassuming, meek posture o my cart when the door nearly smmed opeo me. Magnus strode out, his features twisted in a state of pt that seemed to be his default expression. He didn’t even look at me as he stormed down the corridor toward the stairs.

  Through the open door, I heard the sound of Orinbar letting out a long, drawn-out sigh of frustration. “I do believe I’ve lost my appetite.” He muttered, before raising his voice. “Sve! e collect these ptes.”

  I grabbed my cart and started wheeling it into the room, being careful not to catch Orinbar’s eye. “Yes, master,” I said quietly, onside. Carefully walking over to the desk, I noticed that both ptes were still covered. I guess her of them was hungry after all. Grabbing first Magnus’s and then Orinbar’s, I’d just set them both down on the cart when I felt a familiar tingle on the bay neck. Someone was using Observe on me, and sidering there was only oher person in the room, I knew who it had to be. I could feel myself break out into a cold sweat.

  “John Doe, is it?” I heard Orinbar say from behind me. Slowly turning around, I saw that Orinbar was fully fog on me for the first time. He’d sat up straight and ced his fiogether in front of his chest. “I don’t believe I reize you.”

  He wasn’t asking a question.

  “This is my first day in the manor, master,” I answered him, trying to py the part of the meek sve as best I could. “I-I worked in the field before this.”

  Orinbar hummed. “Is that so?” He slowly started reag for the trol ste to his right, causio unwittingly tense. “You see, Mr. Doe, I have quite the memory. The admissions paperwork for every sve that Addersfield acquires crosses my desk eventually. And I’m afraid that I do nnize your name.”

  I was frozen in fear at this point.

  “Let us see if you are truly one of our sves, shall we?” He finally took his eyes off of me to rapidly scroll through the ste before stopping. He tapped oe, causing something to happen that nearly caused me to go wild with terror.

  My can to heat up, for the first time si had been pe. Involuntarily, hands flew up to rest on it. I didn’t know what I was intending to do, but I never got the ce.

  “Do not!” Orinbar barked. “Unless you wish to cause your owh, I do not reend tugging on your colr at this time.”

  I froze, as still as a statue. I didn’t even dare to move my hands away from my neck.

  After a few tense moments, I was able to see Orinbar rex from his tense posture. He sat down the trol ste and brought up his right hand to begin massaging the bridge of his he fools must have botched the form.” He muttered, irritated. Looking up at me, Orinbar waved a hand dismissively. “You may rex, sve. Your colr has been authenticated as being the property of Addersfield. Before you go, when were you…iured? I’ll o amend your paperwork.”

  Visibly shaking, I lowered my hands from my colr. “I-I was captured three m-months ago, m-master.” I didn’t have to fake the stutter in my voice this time. I’d just barely mao avoid discovery. Still, I retained enough presenind to give a ter date to my capture than it actually was.

  “Very well. You may go.” Orinbar said, dismissing me. I jerkily turned around and began to wheel the cart out of the room. Before I could leave though, I was interrupted o time. “Oh, and Mr. Doe?” I shakily turo look over my shoulder, but Orinbar wasn’t even looking at me this time. “The kit sves may have those meals. It wouldn’t do to waste them.”

  I managed a nod, even though I was sure he didn’t see it. Maneuvering the cart through the door, I shut it behind me.

  ………………………………………

  Whe sves saw how shaky and pale-faced I was from my time delivering meals, they gave me knowing looks. They didn’t ask me what had happened, which I was grateful for, but I did get a few pats on the back. They were pretty grateful when I told them we could have the st two meals as well. Apparently, they didn’t get fed much more than table scraps usually. We divided up everything on both ptes, and tried to enjoy the little bit that we were fed for the day.

  I didn’t really taste any of it, though. I was still thinking about my close call with Orinbar. God, I was so damn stupid. Of course, they would have methods of cheg if a sve was legitimate or not. I’m betting that infiltrating a spy as a false sve was a very ethod of use against the dwarves. I’d gotten lucky, in sards. If my colr hadn’t been a real Addersfield colr, he might have killed me right there on the spot. I’m sure he was a higher level than I was.

  I tried to shake it off. I’d only found the location that the trol ste was kept in so far. Orinbar might have had the ste on his desk right then, but I’m betting that he stored it in the safe that I had seen in his office. But that was only the ste. I still o find the ward stone.

  My pn to use the food deliveries had worked so far, so why fix what wasn’t broken? There was still one more meal in the day, and I doubted that Magnus would be lingering around Orinbar’s office again. Wherever he spent most of his time in the evening, I was hoping it wasn’t too far from the stone. I just had to wait for my ce.

  In the meanwhile, I got back to dishwashing.

  ………………………………………

  After hours of mindlessly scrubbing dishes, my hands were getting pretty raw. With my stats, it wasn’t hard work per se. But I was still pretty mentally exhausted by the time dinner was rolling around in the manor. When I volunteered to push the cart again, the kit sves tried to protest. They told me that I’d already done enough for one day, especially for someoo the manor. But I was adamant. Probably too much, if I was being ho.

  I’m not going to lie; it was a little unfortable to be called brave by one of them. I aring them the possibility of punishment, but I wasn’t volunteering out of the goodness of my heart. Still, I got through their thanks with only a mildly unfortable hug from one of the female kit sves to show for it.

  Once I’d gotten through the kit doors, I waited for Mr. Piggy to show up again to lead me about. He didn’t, though. It was a different dwarven servant this time. I didn’t get much of a look at him before he began impatiently waving me forward from the open door.

  I didn’t ask questions. I’d probably get a swift bad if I tried.

  Delivering the dinner for the day carried on much simir to how it had at lunch. I was directed around the manor by the new servant, whose name I didn’t know, and instructed to wait while he served the food to the fops. We even briefly stopped by Orinbar’s office again, to deliver his meal. This time, I only got a single disied gnce from him before we were dismissed.

  Before long, I was directed upstairs again. But this time we didn’t stop on the sed floor. We went up to the much smaller third. The third floor seemed to only sist of one short hallway in which twe sets of doors y oher side of it. The servant directed me to stop just outside of the one on the right. He took a long, deep breath to steel his nerves before firmly knog on the rge and gaudy double doors.

  I’m guessing even his servants were wary of Magnus.

  He didn’t get a respohe servant tried again, knog slightly harder, as if he was scared to be too loud. Still nothing. Maybe he wasn’t in there?

  The servant seemed to think he was though, because he reached for the rightmost handle anyway. Smoothly opening the doors, the servant stepped ih me hot on his heels. I was briefly stunned by the sheer gaudiness of the room inside.

  It was everything you would expect from a h more mohan decoration se was massive, for one. Filled to the brim with gold-painted wooden furniture, it had a huge four-poster bed, dressers, wardrobes, vanities, you , it was in here. There was even a massive green and gold carpet that domihe ter of the room. But that wasn’t what caught my attention the most.

  Magnus was standing just in front of an ope of baly doors, letting the evening air swirl about his room. Just over the horizon, I could see the sun beginning to set. But in front of Magnus, was an easel.

  He ainting.

  I couldn’t see just what he ainting just yet. He was blog my view of it. He had a palette of paints sitting banced on a stool o him, and brush in his right hand. Magnus hadn’t looked our way since we’d ehe room.

  “Your dinner, Lord Magnus.” The servant murmured in the eerily silent room. Magnus didn’t answer for a moment, only staring at his own work. The servant merely stood around awkwardly holding the pte he had picked before finally moving to set it down on a nearby table. The k of the metal pte hitting the wood seemed to finally break him out of his stupor though.

  Slowly, he turned around to stare at the two of us bnkly. By moving out of the way, however, I finally got a look at what he had been painting.

  It was me.

  Not me as I was with this mask on, but me with my actual face. It was…it seemed to be a se of the first hunt I had participated in. But what he’d painted hadn’t happened. On the vas, I was being mauled to death by the bear-rabbit that I had lured to the clearing. Blood was everywhere, and I had four deep cw wounds inflicted on my face, bursting my left eye. I was missing my right arm as well, while my left was outstretched toward the viewer. The face of the me on the painting was twisted in panic.

  I…I didn’t…I couldn’t…

  How do you eve to the sight of something like that? Was that why he had picked me for the sed hunt? He wao see me mauled to death by a monster because I had escaped his torment the first time?

  Slowly, I became aware that I wasn’t the only one frozen in horror at the sight of the paint. The servant had frozen in pce as well, staring at it with an open mouth. The eime the two of us had been staring at the painting, Magnus had just been staring back at us with an expressionless fa silence.

  The servant snapped out it first. “M-my apologies, my lord.” He stuttered. “I’ll leave you to your work.” He hurried over to the cart and me and leaned up to hiss in my ear. “Get out of here, unless you want that to be you.”

  Horrified, I stared at him for a moment before ing to my senses. Swiftly, I turhe cart around and nearly rushed after the fleeing servant. As soon as I was outside, the servant shut the door behind us as quickly as he could. The eime that we’d been in the room, Magnus hadn’t spoken a word to us.

  I was breathing pretty heavily at this point. I couldn’t even describe the rush of fear-based adrenalihat had hit me, seeing a depi of myself like that. I turned my head to look at the servant with wide eyes, fetting myself for a moment. He stared back at me with an dour look, before pg his right index finger over his mouth in a shushiure.

  Dude, you didn’t have to tell me that. I never wao think about that again, much less talk about it.

  Clearing his throat, the servant spoke. “You’ll have to wait here for Lord Magnus to be finished.” He said apologetically.

  Oh.

  Shit.