The Swap by Adam Berk

Author:Adam Berk [Berk, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-21T07:00:00+00:00

- IV -

Outside the front doors of The Upright Rooster stavemen circulated through a mob of weeping patrons and dazed Lascivian Mages. A line of the black-armored guardsmen stood in front of the entrance, quarterstaffs held at alternating angles reminiscent of the warders in the staveball match Garret had seen earlier that day. Spasmodic strands of blue lightning crackled about the building's roof, and second story balconies. The planked walls of the building swelled and shuddered around the garish doorway, as though they were the flanks of a giant, rooster-headed beast.

What in the Abyss?

Garret, panic tightening his chest, scanned the crowd for his body. A bald, bearded satyr caught his eye for a moment, but everyone else was smooth cheeked, slight of build, and dressed as though their bodies were featured exhibits in a sex museum. If Daringsford had come here, he was trapped inside.

"Loris!"

He saw the dapper amidst a cluster of finely dressed young men as close to the doors as the stavemen would allow. The master barkeep wedged and wiggled his way through the burbling throng, now more than ever longing for the heavy, imposing mass of his own body. If the dapper seemed disoriented, Garret pushing Daringsford’s body into his field of vision made him even more so.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to find Darings – er, I mean Garret. I need to find Garret. Is he inside?"

“Okaaay – ” Loris nodded, his boyish features slack with confusion.

"What's going on in there?"

"Some shest-for-brains brought powerful magic into the place and now the drymist is going completely hedwig on everyone!"

The twinge of panic in Garret's chest turned into a full-blown assault as he realized whom that shest-for-brains probably was. But could he risk word getting out about their scheme? If Master Wallingtok ever found out, it would cost him his job.

Pock that!

The decision did not even warrant a moments' thought. Daringsford was a kullbung, but he was still Garret’s apprentice, and masters of any worth did not abandon their apprentices. Besides, he hated the idea of losing his old body. It was old and scarred, and most of it didn't work as well as it should, but it was his and he loved it. Well, at least he valued it more than his shest-bucket of a job at the Dragonsbane Inn!

"It was Daringsford!" he blurted.

"But – What? Aren't you – ?"

"I'm Garret Stockwell. Daringsford and I swapped bodies so he could cover my shift. We used these." He held up the copper bracelet on his arm.

"I knew it!" a voice behind him exclaimed.

Garret turned and saw a young man about Loris' age wearing a plain black tunic and breeches.

"He'd said it was for digestion," the youth continued, "but it didn't look like any visceral phylactery I'd ever seen. I'm Arman Riva, by the way. Fifth level apprentice with the Simkamunn Entertainments Company."

He stuck out his arm and Garret clasped his wrist, greeting him numbly.

"So, uh, Master Riva –"

"Please, call me Armi."

"Right. Armi. What're your masters' plans exactly?

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