A Strange Morning

Waking up in Harbek was a disorienting experience. Gemma had given Trick a hammock to sleep in the night before, which wasn’t uncomfortable per se but did keep him from rolling back and forth as much as he was used to. The stranger element was the pervasive light that practically oozed in around the curtains and under the door. In spite of all that, plus the strange and harrowing nature of his situation, he managed to fall asleep instantly.

He woke up not feeling much better. As he bunched up his covers, repurposed using the black cloth that had come over from Earth with him, Trick to stock. He was sore all over, his mouth was dry and sandy and he needed the restroom badly, which drove him to climb out of bed fast enough he forgot it was actually a hammock. Starting the day sore and immediately piling new bruises on top of it put him in a foul mood.

Once he staggered to the bathroom and relieved himself he made his way down the short breezeway connecting the boarding hall he’d been put up in to the guard captain’s house. He found Bertran there, pumping water into the sink. The man spared Trick a nod and went back to the pump. Trick nodded back, saying, “Good morning. Where do you keep the cups?”

Bertran stopped pumping again, gave him a strange look and babbled something incomprehensible.

Trick froze. “What was that?”

More meaningless sounds answered him.

“Why can I not understand you?” Trick took stock of everything. He’d left his sword in the dormitory but he still had his belt and clothes. Unless it was the tarp?

Resisting the urge to run, Trick hustled back to his hammock, grabbed the sheet of black cloth and turned around to find Bertran had followed behind him. Trick held the cloth between them and said, “Can you understand me now?”

“Yes.” The other man studied the black cloth with an air of amusement. “Does your poncho translate your speech for you?”

Trick glanced at his sword, which sat propped against the wall a few feet away, next to thesextant. “Maybe. Let me try something.” He opened the dorm curtains so he could see what he was doing, then moved over to the breezeway, set the cloth on the ground outside and closed the door behind him. “Can you understand me now?”

Bertran answered him with gibberish again.

Satisfied, Trick pulled the door open and scooped up the cloth again, this time searching it for lumps or stiff sections that might suggest wires or a speaker. He didn’t find any. “Well, at least that answers one question,” Trick said. “I thought it was odd that all of you magically spoke English in a place like this.”

“Like what?” Bertran asked, watching him fidget with the same bemused expression.

“Not home, I guess.” Trick pulled the cloth around his shoulders again and wrapped it so it wouldn’t slip off. “So what’s the plan for today?”

“That depends. The town elders haven’t conferred since the starsight attack last watch so we don’t know what they’re going to say about your staying in town but I don’t think they’ll have an issue with it.” Bertran moved past him into the breezeway and motioned for Trick to follow him back to the kitchen. “That said, I can’t imagine they’ll turn you away. The only elder who might object is the first healer, who is always concerned about new illnesses spreading in town.”

“Can one elder overrule the rest?”

“Only on issues they directly oversee. The only elder who could make a case for that in your case is the warden, I believe.” Bertran held the kitchen door open for Trick. “I’ve already put in a word for you with him and I don’t think he’s going to have any issues with you staying, if that’s what you want.”

“I appreciate it.”

He closed the kitchen door and headed back to the pump. “Sari came by before you woke up, said she was supposed to talk to you for a bit then take you back to the chief armillamancer. I told her to give you a little time. Are you hungry? Or does one of your wondercrafts keep your belly full, as well?”

“Quite hungry, sorry to say. We have a fair number of things back home that I haven’t seen here but the stomach is just as much of a problem there as I’d bet it is here.”

Bertran opened a wooden bread box and moved a couple of slices of hearty brown bread out of it and over to a heavy ceramic plate. Looking around, Trick realized the bread box was the only wooden object in the room. Even the walls of the house and dormitory were made out of brick, rather than boards. Given how few trees he’d seen so far perhaps that wasn’t surprising.

While Trick surveyed the kitchen Bertran took the lid off a skillet on a cast iron stove and added a large serving of fluffy, scrambled eggs to the plate and set it on the table along with a metal spoon. Then he put a reservoir crystal full of ochre light on the table beside it. Bertran sat down across from Trick, studying him intensely. "Do you know where this came from?”

"The Steel Perilous.”

"Well, yes, but I was more interested in whether you could find your way back to it. I saw you have a sextant with you.”

So they had those on the seventh sphere as well. Perhaps that shouldn't surprise him given the chief armillamancer was a town elder here. "I'm not an expert but I think I could find my way back.”

Bertran chewed his lip for a moment. "Listen, when Sari gets back she's probably going to tell you the elders are giving you permission to stay here and join the harvest guard. But I think I have a better idea…”