Natural Magic

Chapter 16 - Jail Break

The midday sun beat down hard on Penelope as she wandered the streets thinking about what Lord Kairon had told her.

"Assemble a defense team," he had said. That was all well and good, she thought, except my own parents are accusing me, and I never had any friends to begin with.

She navigated the rough thoroughfares and alleyways which ran trench-like through the yellow city. The buildings on either side were one story, with the odd second story here and there, but the straight lines and angles were off-putting. Those windows which left their shutters open stared at her with their huge black eyes.

If she didn't look at them, it was almost like walking the narrow trenches of the steppes. The trick was not to look.

But it was hard not to. The sheer novelty of hard-walled homes had yet to wear off on her. Kairon had exhibited to her how the buildings of adobe could be constructed to take advantage of even slight breezes to freshen whole rooms. It was much better than living in what amounted to a sail tied to a wooden frame.

Living as she had in the Town Hall, he referred to it, had exposed her to many such convenient utilities.

Access to water, for one. All Kairon had to do was summon a servant and one would appear, unerringly, with a jug of fresh water.

Where are they getting it? she had wondered. There's not even a river through here.

At first she had been wary, thinking it was that volatile and unpalatable magic geyser water. But he had put her worries to rest, bidding the servant to drink from the jug first.

"You see, Penelope? All it contains is fresh, clean water."

"Watch it!" came a cry. It preceded a shoulder from an orc coming the other way, which knocked her bodily to the ground and out of her thoughts.

"Are you even looking where you're going, girl?" it asked as Penelope tried to stand up. It grunted, kicked her back down, and continued on.

Shocked and seething, she glared daggers into its back as she tried to stand back up.

Another passerby trod on her fingers.

"Ow!" she said, and cursed. She stood up more quickly this time.

There was nothing new here. She knew orcs to be cruel from when she had lived with them before. But it was less personal in Hurraggh. Back then, you knew who your bully was. And where they slept.

The crowd around her was steadily thickening. Orcs with anonymous faces followed invisible threads of responsibility and intent, which just so happened to form a gradually worsening knot at this juncture.

There was a crash and someone bellowed, "Outta my way!"

"Outta your way?!" came an even more outraged reply.

Penelope, deciding to make herself scarce, ducked into an empty alley.

****

The instructor paced slowly in front of the prisoners in the tutorial yard, scowling as he did. Daily yardwork for hours a day was starting to take its toll on the students. Amerigo wasn't sure, but he thought he could sense that his neighbor – a goblin - was sleeping standing up.

The instructor marched over to a burlap sack and ripped it open. He thrust his hand inside and drew it back out.

"This," he said, "is what we'll be farmering." He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger delicately pinching something small, oblong, light brown, and pitted all over. "You'll be workin' for peanuts. These bags," here he gestured to the pile of burlap sacks, including the one he had ripped open, "are full of 'em. And so far we've covered the first step."