Non-Player Character by Victoria Corva

Author:Victoria Corva [Corva, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

It was an­oth­er five days be­fore we could leave. Pauline’s com­mis­sion from the vil­lage in­ven­tor would take that long to fin­ish, and she didn’t want to go to Mi­hilit-dalath with­out it.

We wan­dered the vil­lage or lounged about the inn by turn. I tried not to think about the wait­ing tele­por­ta­tion cir­cle. We left our ar­mour and weapons be­hind, in spite of the threat of the Or­der of the Third Eye. It seemed wrong to fright­en the vil­lagers.

Or­deth of­ten ac­com­pa­nied us, ex­plain­ing things about his home and his world. We talked a lot with him about Earth and the dis­ar­ray of our ar­rival. He clar­i­fied some things for us, though oth­ers re­mained mys­ter­ies. Ap­par­ent­ly we were speak­ing Mis­tem­bran, though it felt like Eng­lish to us. More tricks of what­ev­er mag­ic had brought us here. He had no idea what kind of spells had trans­formed us, or where our items could have come from. It felt like a risk to trust him with all that, but we didn’t re­al­ly know how the in­for­ma­tion could be used against us, and we need­ed the help.

And he was a good friend and host, ac­cli­ma­tis­ing us to Van­this. He showed us how the bee-singers guid­ed and calmed the bees, us­ing abil­i­ties sim­i­lar to Han­na’s to mu­si­cal­ly ma­nip­u­late them. The sooth­ing sound of the lute strings mixed with the hum­ming of the bees would stay with me a long time.

Riya and I were in­vit­ed to meet one of the gi­ant ones. It was called a viry­ont, a crea­ture that was as fluffy as a pomeran­ian but three times as big and with huge, mul­ti-faceted eyes. I was afraid of it, but see­ing how pa­tient­ly it re­spond­ed to Riya’s ex­cit­ed pats, I plucked up the courage to touch it. Its hair felt like stiff cot­ton, and my hand came away coat­ed with pollen, mak­ing me sneeze.

Han­na played a small but wild per­for­mance at The Hon­ey­hart. Rex cre­at­ed coloured lights to spin around her for added flair, but the small crowd that had gath­ered in the inn for the evening seemed tak­en enough by the song. At one point, some­one held up a fid­dle and Han­na called them over to join her. By the end, they had ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a drum­mer, too, and though Han­na didn’t know their songs and they didn’t know hers, they man­aged to fol­low each oth­er’s mu­sic and every­one had a blast. It was more joy­ful than tech­ni­cal­ly pro­fi­cient, but some­how more beau­ti­ful for it. A cou­ple peo­ple lined up at the end to thank Han­na and tip her or buy her a drink for her time. She shone with plea­sure the en­tire night.

Ar­ries made fast friends with sev­er­al of the vil­lagers and was of­ten away from the inn. Peo­ple came call­ing for him, or to de­liv­er food in thanks for all sorts of small chores he’d helped with. Taltro, a young man with bat wings sprout­ing from his arms and a shy smile, came call­ing with flow­ers while Ar­ries was out, and Ken­ta took him aside to let him down gen­tly.

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