Power Trio

According to Anise, who’s feverishly researched it, Vatramor is more appropriately described as a loose collection of allied city-states than a country in its own right, bound by ancient martial agreements and shared currency. It’s carved into a few dozen parcels of land called benefices.

Anise loads this with meaning, and it takes Nick a moment to realize why Legendary receives it with such solemnity. Their first guitarist’s surname was Benefice.

“Should I not be asking about Sion?” Nick asks, as Legendary warm up. Their inaugural Vatramor show is in a pastoral sprawl of a city called Kerbweil, with a majority-halfling population and some phenomenally cramped taprooms as a consequence. Poor Kell’s head almost scrapes against the ceiling of the green room until she sits on its overstuffed sofa. “He’s okay, right?”

“That, Nick Voraag, is a good question.” Thekla switches from digging her thumbs into her wife’s shoulders to a rapid closed-fist tapotement. Kell groans gratefully and sinks further onto the couch. “He had a deal with the dragon. You heard about the dragon.”

“Everyone heard about the dragon.”

“Well, Conna—that’s the dragon—found out that he’d rediscovered magic on Earth and they conspiracized to get us to open the Door. Is that a word, Evan? Conspiracized?”

Evan is sitting cross-legged on the floor, his antique bass in his lap. “Think it’s conspired, hon.”

“They conspired. And in exchange for Sion’s part, Conna promised him she’d find him a place in the O-Dub to learn all the magical secrets he wanted. A couple of months after the Door, he told us she’d contacted him and that he had to go.”

“So who knows where the motherfucker is,” Kell says. “At that point, they weren’t letting anyone in or out. But Sion just said,” and here she puts on a snooty, aristocratic affect, “‘That’s been taken care of.’ And he wished us love and got a flight to England.”

“I think we’ll see him.” Evan stands up. “Sion wouldn’t let our first visit to the Old World go without saying hi.”

Thekla hops off the sofa back and retrieves her guitar. “Our husband is an optimist.”

“I have an excellent track record.” Evan kisses the top of her ginger head. He crosses to the backstage door and Kell follows, drumming an excited roll into the precariously low lintel as she ducks beneath it.

A tug on the pant leg from Thekla. “Hold up a second, Nick.”

“Sure.”

“We’ve been talking. You’re putting in work.” Thekla pulls her glasses off and rubs her thumb across their rim. “We can’t put you on the other side of the curtain on such short notice, but next show, we want you out in front with us. We wanna introduce you to people as our touring lead. We were talking about what your future with Legendary could look like.”

Nick stifles the supernova in his chest at her words. They want him in? A New Laytham street con has the chance to sign onto the biggest band in the world?

“But then Anise told us about the oath you swore,” Thekla says, and the star collapses. “We’re an Earth band. And it sounds like you’re an Old World guy now.”

He thinks of earlier today, Dee giving him that incantation and pulling him back onto his rhino. She looks into his future and sees a proud packmate, a scion of Voraag. All the things she’s teaching and all the gifts and whatever is growing between them, it’s all predicated on that.

And if he wants to join Legendary, it can’t happen.

“Hold on,” he says. “That’s not guaranteed.”

Thekla’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“What if I can convince Dee to let me go back? She’s a reasonable person.” His mind is racing. “If the tour ends and she frees me from my oath, would you take me back with you?”

“I don’t want you to cut ties just because you want to sign on with us.”

“It’s not about that.” Nick thinks fast. “I mean, it’d free me up, but it’s more that I don’t think I’m what she’s looking for, ultimately. I’m a city mouse, y’know? Like I’m not progressing the way she might have hoped.” That’s a lie, but maybe he can turn it true.

Thekla hums pensively. “If she okays it, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Great. Okay. I’ll talk to her.”

“Sounds good, man.” Thekla extends a fist. “Break a leg out there, yeah?”

Nick daps Thekla and the goblin departs for her lovers on the stage. He finds his spot in back and tunes up his electric. As the crowd pops on the other side of the curtain, he remembers that niggling doubt from this afternoon, that question of staying. Of whether he might choose this.

How could he? He’s an Earthling. He’s a New Laytham street con. He’s not even a full orc, not really. What, he’s gonna ride around on a rhino for the rest of his life when he could be a rockstar?

A dozen plans and contingencies wrestle for his attention, all marred by an amorphous guilt. He has to get his head right. There’s no reason to feel remorseful about this. She could kill you, remember? You’re here on threat of death. That’s no way to begin a friendship, or whatever it is you two have.

Could he just explain himself well enough that Dee would let him go, or would that put her on the defensive? Maybe he could feign incompetence, fail his lessons and his tasks. Or what if he told Anise about Dee's magical intentions? That would end things, surely, but would it count as an execution-level betrayal? Should he call that bluff?

He’s good-looking, and he's a crook. He’s broken hearts when he’s had to. He needs to figure out how to break Dee’s without taking a bullet.

* * *

The original plan was to spend the night in Kerbweil, but finding a hotel with enough orc-sized beds was driving Anise up a wall. Dee gently convinces the elf they need to make up for time spent thawing Nick, and they get moving once again.

A chilly rain halts their trek a half hour early; the pack finds a hillock to bunk down on. Nick busies himself unpacking the rhinos with Graila and a timid he-orc named Tamor.

Dee moves through the caravan, giving orders and encouragement. She pushes a mug of tea into Anise’s hand and switches Dalma Kamiyon’s rinky-dink umbrella out for a capacious canvas one. She jovially nudges Evan out of the way and takes over hauling his fridge-sized bass cab into their bivouac. “Not your job, brao’ka. Go smooch your wives.” As she breezes past Nick’s little group, she drapes a poncho across his shoulders and passes Graila an energy bar.

“That woman,” Nick says, as she strolls away, scratching a passing rider’s rhino behind the ear, “is really something.”

“Yup.” Graila hands him a crinkly tarpaulin. “Lay that down by the supply tent.”

She walks with him, one hand on her rhino Toktok’s lead and the other lugging a hard case as large as he is with no apparent effort.

“How long have you been in the pack, Graila?” he asks.

“Since it started.” She chokes up on the hard case. “Bout four years. Dee’s big sister Niva scooped me from the Lorak Cliff Pack when it broke up. I stayed on when Dee took over.”

Nick’s heard of Niva a few times now, but never from the packmistress herself. He gets the sense that it’s a grim subject. Dee doesn’t pry, and neither will he.

They arrive at the supply tent and Nick lays out the tarp. Graila observes. “You’re getting bigger, Voraag.” She pats her arm. “Here.”

Nick pulls a hammer from his belt and thwacks a spike into the ground for Graila to fasten the tarp onto. “Manual labor has its benefits.”

“You’ve been working hard for the pack,” she says. “For our approval, would you say?”

“Sure. I guess. If there’s a job to be done, I don’t want to disappoint.”

“Good answer.” Graila drags the case onto the tarp and rubs the feeling back into her fingers. “Do you want to have sex?”

“Do I what? With you?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Sure.” She jerks her head. “That’s my yurt over there. Do you want to finish up here and have sex with me in my yurt? Wait out the rain, maybe?”

Nick is rooted to the spot. “Is this some kind of trick question?”

“It’s the yes or no kind.”

“I, uh…”

Graila has the rough and razor-edged good looks of a pack orc, her svelte body forged by hard work, long rides, and a diet of what she can catch. She’s looking at him as he looks at her. She smacks her lips. “No. That’s all right.”

“Oh. Okay.” It’s been a few days since Nick has felt this far out of his element.

“Most of us have had most of us, at some point or another.” Graila crouches to tie the tarp’s opposite corner down. “That’s how it is with packs, till you mate up. We were taking bets about when we’d start passing you around. But we won’t, will we? You want the packmistress, don’t you?”

Why deny it? “I do.”

“Advice for you, then. Dee drinks like an orc and fights like an orc, but she doesn’t screw like an orc. Doesn’t give it freely. Puts a lot of work into acting like she’s casual about it, but she ain’t looking for casual. She has been through it. She needs someone who’s there for her. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I think so.”

“It’s about to turn over to Winter Waning. Bonfire rite is coming up.” She nods to herself thoughtfully. “If you’re serious, you oughta offer her a tether.”

“What does that mean?” Nick’s heard of bonfire rites, though he’s never attended one himself. It’s an orcish holiday, a big barbecue to mark the season’s passage.

“You say I offer you a tether, and she turns you down or takes you up. She doesn’t look at people the way she looks at you. It’d be good for her.” She pulls another line of rope from Toktok, adds: “If you’re not serious, leave her alone, cause you’re distracting her.”

Nick glances down the caravan at Dee, who’s helping a giggly Kell off of the rhino she needled them into letting her ride. “This is Dee distracted?”

That wins a titter from Graila. “Yup. She’s a good packmistress. Maybe the best. She deserves to be happy.”

“She seems pretty happy already.”

Graila tsks. “Seems ain’t is.” She shrugs her poncho back into place. “Me and Tamor got the rest of this handled. Go be useful somewhere. Think about what I told you.”

“You got it, Voraag,” Nick says. “Strength and Hornets.”

Graila laughs again. “You mean strength and Victory.”

“Oh. Shit. Strength and Victory.”

“Victory and Strength, Voraag.”

Nick wanders briefly through the industrious caravan, thinking he’s aimless before he realizes his feet are leading him toward Dee. He passes the Legendary trailer, where Anise sits on its covered steps, frowning at a notebook and a boxy calculator in her lap. He pauses in front of her. “All good, boss?”

She rests her chin on her fist. “I shouldn’t have bought those pastries. That’ll have to be a personal expense.”

“We aren’t about to make or break off a box of croissants, are we?”

“They weren’t croissants, they were goopy… thingies.” She sighs. “And they don’t break us, but we have to be smart.”

“We didn’t pay for lodging today. That’s gotta be good, right?”

“Fair enough.” Anise rubs her forehead, smudges an ink stain onto it. She looks up at him. “You need something, Nick?”

He thinks about how she was earlier, light and happy and smiling. “Nah. Just checking up on you.”

She gives him a tired thumbs up. “Hanging in there, kiddo.”

“Good.” He shifts his foot to go, and dithers. “Hey, boss. You want to practice again tonight? With Dee and I?”

He sees her eyes spark, then dull with concern. “I don’t know. I have to audit the merch and wire ahead to Alstorum while their channel’s open.”

“Is that a thing you can do tomorrow, maybe?”

She chews the end of her pen. “Okay.” She clicks it shut. “Screw it. Gotta burn some energy off before bed, anyway.”

He slaps her back as she stands up. “That’s the spirit, boss!”

He recognizes belatedly that this is the first physical contact he has made with Anise Cantator.

She might too, the way her shoulders hunch and she hastes up to the trailer entrance. “Let me get my sticks real quick.”

She turns the knob, remembers herself, and knocks. “Is that Ani?” Thekla’s voice. “Come on in, girl. No boobies out in here.”

“Yep, just me.” Anise gratefully opens the door. “Nick. One thing.”

“Yeah, boss?”

“You can call me Anise, okay?”

“Okay, Anise.”

“You two get started. I’ll be along.” She ducks into the trailer.

Nick walks through the rain to find his packmistress, and when she sees him, her smile is so big it hurts his heart.