ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-SEVEN: Guests

177

******

 

“I can’t believe they all ditched,” Alden said when he and Haoyu were alone once more. The little cauldron was spewing fresh clouds of steam into the room. He had learned to appreciate the melony scent and the way inhaling a new batch of the stuff seemed to reset the sauna experience. Just when you were getting tired of the heat, the dose of steam pushed you back to that point where the temperature felt therapeutic.

“It’s a rather specific crowd here,” Haoyu said from above him. “They’ve got plenty of money, they’re disproportionately likely to be summoned for something dangerous, and they just found out the person coming to visit is the type who probably does summon people for the dangerous missions sometimes. Plus they want to relax. Even if they’re not that worried about a summoning, minding your manners around a wizard of unknown temperament could be stressful.”

All true things.

“I’m surprised it was all of them, too, though,” Haoyu admitted. “Normally, in a group that big you’d think there would be a couple who wanted to suck up to an Artonan and a few more who were just not bothered. Can you imagine our teachers running off like that?”

Alden could more easily imagine Big Snake talking Esh-erdi’s ears off than he could imagine him making a rush for the exit.

“I don’t think most of our classmates would have left either,” Alden said.

“Ha!” said Haoyu. “Some of them would bankrupt themselves to buy a membership right this second so that they could come annoy him. Mehdi keeps saying things about how you might be getting secret knowledge and techniques from being around so many wizards at Matadero, and how if he was there he would be getting secret knowledge and techniques and petitioning them to add a bunch of spells and skills to Agi.”

Alden was about to respond when Esh-erdi appeared in front of the glass door. He was wearing a spa robe and carrying a handful of brochures. When he spotted Alden and Haoyu, he smiled, tilted his head, then headed back down the hall the way he’d come.

“He’s leaving!” Haoyu sounded so horrified that Alden turned to give him a surprised look. “Was he upset that we were here? Or is it just me? It’s me, isn’t it? He likes you.”

“You’re freaking out for no reason, man. He doesn’t know you. Why would he leave because of you?”

“Maybe I’m really ugly by Triplanets standards. Maybe I was making an offensive face.”

“Were you making a face?”

“I don’t know! I was curious about him. I could have looked creepy.”

Esh-erdi reappeared in front of the door about two seconds later, wearing a towel around his waist instead of the robe and still carrying the brochures.

[See?] Alden texted Haoyu. [He was just taking off the robe because he saw we weren’t wearing one. Trying to match the local style.]

Then, in Artonan, he said, “Hello, Esh-erdi.”

“Alden! I find you in a hot room surrounded by wood. This is very pleasant. I should tell Lind about it.” He walked in a circle around the pedestal with the cauldron on it, having a good look at it and giving them a good look at him at the same time.

Artonans were undeniably alien when nude, or even just shirtless. In adults, the navel was minimal if it was visible at all. Cosmetically darkening the spot where it had been was a thing in certain situations. Nipples, located where humans expected to see them, ranged from flesh-toned to wow-those-are-purple.

Esh-erdi’s were closer to the former, but his back striping was vibrant. Two periwinkle blue slashes began an inch below the base of his neck and followed along either side of his spine. The stripes broke and faded before disappearing just above the towel. Artonan females had marks in the same area, though theirs were much less noticeable. Actually, the males’ striping was usually a bit subtler as well. Esh-erdi was kind of showy.

His tattooing, however, was restrained. Lines, whirls, and dots were confined to a band around his right calf. It was impossible to tell if it was one tattoo or twenty carefully arranged together so that they didn’t clash.

Alden watched him stick a finger into the cauldron and then pop it into his own mouth. After a moment, he nodded. “This is well done! Very good. I’m glad humans have this.”

Then he looked toward Alden expectantly.

“This is my friend Haoyu Zhang-Demir. We live together on campus. Haoyu, this is Hn’tyon Esh-erdi. He saved me from a giant wave a week ago.”

“Hello!” Esh-erdi said before Haoyu could get his own greeting out. “You aren’t ugly. And if you were, it wouldn’t keep me from enjoying an Earth relaxation experience with you.”

Alden had to fight not to smile at Haoyu’s expression of chagrin.

When the knight walked over and climbed up to sit beside Haoyu, Alden caught a glimpse of a pastel green auriad holding his long hair in place on top of his head.

“When I wasn’t much older than the two of you, I shared a traditional oil pool with a ——— and its <<brood>>.”

The name of the species was a chittering sound that went untranslated; Alden had never heard it before as far as he could remember.

“The people I’d gone on the mission with convinced me that someone had to do it to avoid giving offense.” Esh-erdi thrust his hands away from him in a gesture Alden didn’t recognize. “They were evil.”

“The crikchikchikchik?” Haouy asked, doing what Alden thought was a remarkable job of pronouncing the sound.

“No. The knights I traveled with. They said it was the duty of the young to keep the old amused on long journeys. Of course I don’t disagree, but a pool full of brood isn’t funny. All those sharp little legs…”

Alden was almost scared to ask. “What is a cricketychickdee?”

“The Contract didn’t define it,” Haoyu added.

“That’s an unnecessary <<obscuration>> in my opinion. Imagine a dried lobeberry twice my size, with many legs and a habit of oiling itself.”

By the time he finished explaining the species, Alden was fairly sure they were giant spider raisins who had no Contract and limited contact with the Triplanets. He was also fairly sure that persuading the youngest member of the squad to take an oil bath with them was truly evil.

From there, they ended up talking about Haoyu’s family. Esh-erdi seemed interested in his class choice and very happy to hear that he was following in his parents’ footsteps. Initially nervous, Haoyu was growing bolder with every multilingual sentence. In the process of trying to mix in all the Artonan words he knew, he was occasionally pulling Mandarin and Turkish ones out of his head and throwing them into the mix. Alden had to read the translations to understand what he was saying sometimes.

“Does my father speak words about me while he’s with you at <<slaughterhouse>>?” Haoyu asked, leaning toward Esh-erdi. By then, they were all enjoying cushioning spells. And wooden bowls full of salted cucumber slices because the spa was apparently at such a loss about what to do for their high-profile guest that they’d just fulfilled the only request anyone had made.

“Yes,” said Esh-erdi. “He spoke of his family.”

“What does he say about me?” Haoyu asked, eyes narrowing as if he suspected his father of saying something he would disapprove of.

“No!” said Esh-erdi, laughing. “You must ask him yourself. I’m too clever to cause trouble with your parents even if you have bribed me with your planet’s version of waterfruit.”

He crunched on another cucumber slice. The steam had faded, so Alden was sure someone would come by with another potion soon.

Haoyu sat back. “I want…”

He trailed off. Just when Alden assumed he must have changed his mind about sharing whatever it was, he finished the thought after all.

“I want to be as strong as my parents are. So that whenever one of them is summoned to a battle I can go with them.” Haoyu’s eyes were fixed on the knight. His voice was firm. “How do I do that?”

So that’s who he is. Alden wasn’t surprised at all, but there was a clarifying quality to the thought, as if a critical piece of another person’s inner puzzle had been found and fitted into place.

He’d had a lot of that recently, with Stu-art’h. Choosing to go all-in on friendship by handing over like thirty puzzle pieces at once was so…Stuart of him.

Now Alden was hearing one of Haoyu’s.

Haoyu Zhang-Demir, he thought. Fifteen-year-old slow cooker enthusiast. Does the recycling wrong. Will straight-up ask a knight how to get to danger so he can watch his parents’ backs.

Esh-erdi regarded him for a while. “Grow as comes naturally to you for a few years, newling. You may satisfy yourself more easily than you think.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Call me.”

Haoyu straightened.

“When you’re at an age when your parents wouldn’t mind me answering the question,” Esh-erdi finished.

Haoyu groaned. “So when I’m ninety.”

Alden’s laugh was drowned out by Esh-erdi’s.

 

******

 

Eventually, people started to arrive. The first was a bearded man who seemed all right until Alden decided he seemed too all right. He refused to glance their way no matter what happened.

Yeah sure, guy. Act like you can’t see Esh-erdi casting spells or hear our conversation about the differences between snakes and oontsies. That’s not a suspicious amount of nonchalance at all.

But at lease it was preferable to the next saunagoer—a man who literally said, “Alden the Rabbit! Fancy meeting you here!” before sitting way too close and pretending he was best friends with Alden and something considerably more sycophantic toward Esh-erdi.

“Cucumbers,” said Esh-erdi.

“What, Hn’tyon Esh-erdi?” Their new friend spoke in passable Artonan.

“I feel sad that they’re all gone,” said Esh-erdi, gesturing toward his empty bowl.

By the time the man came back with more cucumbers, his seat had been taken by two members of the battlegroup that had been at Matadero with the knights and Haoyu’s dad. They were a couple who’d been at the spa anyway, and they had decided to say a quick hello when they heard who was here. That quick hello got extended by Esh-erdi starting up a conversation about the Matadero rice wars.

Alden wondered if he was the only one picking up on the fact that Esh-erdi was disappointed nobody had tried to attack him with a bag full of grain.

I mean, I can’t blame them. I don’t think I’m brave enough to boobytrap his shower or whatever, even though he seems to want someone to.

Maybe he could suggest that Drusi-otta try it?

<<We sent the peanut fudge,>> said the woman, nodding at Alden. “For Thanksgiving.”

“I ate that!” Esh-erdi declared. “With champagne.”

[You champagne!] Haoyu texted Alden with a gasp. [Criminal grape juice!]

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

[I didn’t have any.]

[Why? Still some? Try!]

Alden ignored him in favor of thanking the fudge making couple. Unfortunately, they were the nicest of the people trickling in.

Alden counted three gawkers, two job-seekers, one person who was probably going to blog about the general’s favorite vegetable, someone who seemed really jealous of Alden’s “fortunate position”, and one self-proclaimed future member of the Anesidoran High Council.

Then, a woman walked in wearing a skimpy red bikini. The last time Alden had seen it, Emilija had been wearing it.

“Way more people than I expected,” Aimi Velra said, turning in a circle to take in the room. The steam had been recently refreshed, and she waved a cloud out of her face. “That’s good. You can all suffer…I mean buffer if the general decides to stay after I issue my warning.”

Everyone had fallen silent. Esh-erdi looked intrigued at the promise of a warning…or possibly at the sight of the Velra tattoo on Aimi’s hip. He must have recognized it since Aulia liked to stamp it on her things.

“Thanks for not letting the ocean have my home, Hn’tyon Esh-erdi,” she said in what sounded to Alden like perfect Artonan. “I thought I should tell you that some people in my family have memberships here. Not because they enjoy exercise, just because this is a place where rich people are supposed to have memberships. A few of them are coming to inflict themselves upon you like a swarm of <<flesh-eating flying animals that were eradicated in the distant past>>. I think it’s going to be Corin, Hugh—”

“We should leave,” Alden said. Probably too adamantly, judging by Haoyu’s outburst of snickering.

Aimi looked at him. “Hi! Dad loved the birthday present. And lots of other people loved watching you send Hazel off the planet. Maybe not her parents, though.”

“That’s not on me. I was just an honest bystander.”

Alden was on his feet, trying to make “Let’s escape!” hand signs at Esh-erdi, whose eyes were lighting with even more interest.

“You know this woman?”

“We’re <<buddies>>!” Aimi announced.

“She captured me and put me in a car against my will. She ruined a meal for some ducks. But she also shares her belongings and comes to give warnings, so I’m slowly forgetting about the first part.”

“Your accent is unique,” Aimi informed him.

Alden was too busy trying to keep his towel around his waist while he shoved a bowl of cucumbers at Haoyu to respond to her.

“Snacks for the road,” he said to Haoyu. “Come on. Come on, both of you. We’ll go somewhere else.”

The reasons he could imagine for Hugh, Corin, and whoever else was with them to want Esh-erdi’s time and attention were all negative. Maybe they were angling for Hazel to be declared Queen of Anesidora. Maybe they wanted the knights to give a speech about how Aulia was the best-most-sweetest Avowed, and how she’d had nothing to do with the Sinker Sender theft. Or it could be the opposite—some kind of power play to make sure Aulia stayed stuck on her megayacht for a few years while they did whatever it was people like them did when the boss was busy.

Esh-erdi and Lind-otta do not need further exposure to the worst of humanity on their esvulgivnas. And I don’t need Hugh glaring at me for getting his daughter jettisoned.

Even Aimi might not be as innocent as she appeared. Her mom seemed to be the closest thing Aulia had to a second in command.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Aimi asked.

Alden shook his head.

Esh-erdi allowed himself to be chivvied out of the sauna.

“I feel so well protected!” he said as they headed for the showers. “And I feel so much more curious about Aulia’s family than I did previously.”

“This is Alden’s Cottontail mode,” Haoyu said.