On the Recognition of Young Talent

On the Recognition of Young Talent 30 MINUTE READ

It was still deep in the misty gray hours of the morning when Barrik Dolmand, on his way to the Mercantile League hall for the first time, saw the girl. She was tall and weedy, fishing something out of the gutter at the side of the road. From the immaturity of her face she couldn’t have been more than eight years old, but she was already a good foot taller than him, bent double to do her strange work. It took Barrik a moment to figure out what exactly that was.

With patience but a finicky touch, she was fishing coins out of the runoff from the road. It was slow going. For every foot or so of soil and trash she turned she found a copper, maybe two, and she spent minutes on every few inches. In the time it took Barrik to get from seeing what she was doing to close enough for her to notice him, she’d gotten lucky and found a single silver piece. She had a thinness about her that didn’t speak to much luck in the past.

Barrik was new from the mountains then. It was commonplace in Sandpoint to find someone alone. Dwarven clans were family, tradition, and society all in one, however, and someone being apart from theirs was almost unheard of. The sight of an urchin was still a shock to him and, as she turned, the sight of a dwarf wandering down the street at half past four in the morning seemed a shock to her.

“I’m not stealing!” was the first thing she said, holding up her filthy hands and sinking in on herself, all her height compressing down a few inches.

“I’m not saying you are!” Barrik called, throwing his own hands up in surprise.

The girl stayed by the side of the road, hands drifting back down to clutch at the pocket of her threadbare pants. Barrik dropped his own hands, feeling foolish, and wondered what a Sandpoint native would do here. His colleagues in the Mercantile League had never mentioned urchins except as a quick way to get a message across town with a coin. The girl’s skin almost looked green in the morning light, possibly a sign of sickness, and there seemed something off about her face under the rangy mop of her dark hair. Did you feed them? Walk around them?

“I’m finding,” the girl said, slowly. As her mouth opened this time Barrik realized what was so odd about her face. She had fangs of some kind, on the bottom row of teeth, half an inch more pronounced than his canines and barely beginning to press her lower lip outward. “These coins got dropped, and the people left, so it’s not taking from anybody, it’s finding. Finding something abandoned and giving it a use. Right?”

Barrik realized she wasn’t arguing a point. She was bouncing the idea off him, to see if it held water.

“Makes sense to me,” he replied. “Don’t know how often the streets here get cleaned. They’re just as likely to get swept up with the rest of the trash and thrown away, or buried under it, as to see any use.”

The girl nodded, as if agreeing with him on an academic point, then stared at him. Barrik stared back, expecting her to say something else or go back to her task. It slowly dawned on him that she didn’t want to dig in the trash with someone watching.

“Ah, I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said, ducking his head to her in greeting and stepping around. He walked towards the corner where he’d turn towards his usual breakfast spot, Dal Wanaz. It was a dwarven place downtown run by an ex-pat of Highhelm, the only person in Sandpoint who made sausage right. Barrik stopped before taking the left to glance back.

The girl was bent over the gutter again, shuffling along, methodically sifting through detritus. Something about her intent focus on her work intrigued him. He’d seen colleagues in charge of thousand platinum accounts work with less diligence. But she cut a lonely figure too, silhouetted against the morning fog.

As if sensing him watching her again, she glanced up. Barrik kept walking before she got skittish and abandoned her endeavor entirely. He didn’t want to be a reason she missed a crucial coin. Barrik went on and ordered his usual breakfast at Dal Wanaz, entertaining himself by flipping through the menu, looking for something that could be bought with a single silver piece and a handful of coppers.

The meal sat sour in his stomach after he found nothing.

Getting his own storefront had been far more of a job than it should’ve been, considering his sterling references from the Janderhoff Merchant’s Guild, months of paperwork and waiting. That damned Lady Dragomir ran her property leasing department like a despot. But now he officially had his own corner of Sandpoint. It was a small one for now, but it already had a counter, correctly-balanced scales, and plenty of cases left from the last occupant for him to display his goods. The sign was still on the way, but Barrik could already see it— “DOLMAND’S FINE DWARVEN EXPORTS” in gold and black capital letters.

“It’s all quite practical, that’s what I’ll say about that,” his colleague, Lord Marcus Francieum, said. He leaned over to push on a stout, bronzed stool. He seemed to be taking another long break from helping Barrik repaint. “I suppose that is the dwarven fashion, but I don’t know that you’ll find many buyers here in Sandpoint. Chelish opulence is en vogue.”

“Dwarven goods and furnishings have found buyers for centuries,” Barrik said, doggedly brushing a deep red over the previous occupant’s pastel blue, even though he could barely reach above the height of the chair rail. “Long after Cheliax finally sloughs off into the sea, that stool will be sitting in someone’s house, being used, not having decorative bits break off.”

Lord Francieum sniffed and took up his brush again, painting in thin, lackadaisical strokes as he looked around the store. At nearly 6′ 3″ his help should’ve been a boon, but more often than not Barrik found himself getting sloppy in his own work trying to make sure Francieum didn’t drip on anything valuable. Francieum glanced out of the front window onto the street and made a disgusted noise.

“You must have really pissed off Dragomir,” he scoffed. “This place is infested.”

Barrik rounded on the window, jabbing his brush into the cup of paint he was holding, and fumbled for one of the large swatters used in dwarven cities to chase off rats. But when he turned all he found was a person standing in the street. It was the girl he’d met months ago, once again at work in the early morning, turning over the trash to find coins.

“How do you mean?” Barrik asked.

“Urchins,” Francieum spat. “Everywhere. Abadar above, I think that one’s half orc.”

Barrik squinted at her and, now that Francieum mentioned it, that explained a lot. Barrik had never seen an orc that wasn’t fully grown and trying to kill him, let alone one that looked like she’d been constructed entirely out of elbows. He’d been thrown.

“You must be careful about them, you know,” Lord Francieum said, his tone adopting the self-satisfied drawl it usually did when he felt he had a chance to impart some wisdom. “Don’t throw them coins, they’ll only come after more. Don’t let them know how you enter and leave the shop, one might not have the skills, but out of the whole unwashed mass of them, one will have thieves’ tools— and there goes your shop. And for Abadar’s sake, don’t feed them.”

Barrik stared out at the girl, shuffling along, eyes intent on the gutter, scanning for a glint of metal. He looked over at the patch of wall Francieum had painted, barely above Barrik’s own reach. He weighed whether the choice he was about to make had a basis in logic or a fundamental dwarven irritation with persnickety elves. He decided he didn’t care.

“You know, Marcus, how about you head home?” he suggested. Francieum raised his eyebrows and Barrik smiled at him. “You seem tired, and I’m sure you don’t want to spend more time in this part of town than you have to. How about you get a little more sleep before the first zoning meeting and help me out some other, more tolerable hour?”

“You’re sure?” Francieum asked, though he wasted no time in setting aside the paint and dusting off his robes. “Do you want me to send the hirelings I mentioned before? I know you said you wanted a ‘personal touch,’ but they would have this whole mess sorted before tea time.”

“No, no,” Barrik insisted. “Thanks anyway for what you already got done, but I could do with a break and a spot of breakfast myself. It’s no trouble. I’ve got to find my own hirelings now that I’ve got a real business, haven’t I?”

“That’s the spirit,” Francieum agreed. “But mind what I said about the urchins. It applies to the Varisians, too, now that I’m thinking about it.”

Francieum breezed out the front door of the shop, not sparing a second glance for the half-orc girl, who jumped out of the way with her hands up again. He was gone before Barrik could think very hard about changing his mind.

Barrik gave it a minute. He waited for the girl to unfreeze. Then he went to the front and opened the door. At the jingle of the bell the girl stopped, halfway into bending back to the gutter, and blinked at him with wary eyes.

“Hello again,” Barrik greeted, leaning out into the street. “I wonder, if you’ve got a moment, can you help me with a job? My colleague’s run out on me.”

The half-orc girl stared at him. She glanced back down at the gutter. Then she raised her hands for him to see.

“I’ve got a well in the back courtyard where you can wash up, and, besides, it’s messy work to start with,” Barrik said, gesturing to a smear of red across his nose, going a little cross-eyed in the process. The girl cracked a smile. She gave one more look to the gutter, then painstakingly wiped her hands on the baggy tunic she wore and nodded.

Barrik held the door open for her as she stepped in. Her eyes went owlish as she looked around, taking in the golden scales, crates of goods, and displays already partially set up.

“Do you have rats?” she asked, voice gravelly from disuse and, Barrik inferred now, a touch of hereditary gruffness. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Because of the blood on your face? I’m quick at catching rats.”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Barrik said. He pointed up at the swathes of pastel blue starting halfway up the wall and stretching to the ceiling, then at the cups of paint peppering the shop. “I’m repainting to suit my wares better. Dwarven tastes don’t run towards powdery, soft colors. But, as you can see, I’m having a bit of an issue. I’ve got a ladder to help, but I’m still just too short.”

Barrik made a show of trying to stand on the tips of his toes. Even then, the top of his head was barely even with her ribs. The girl giggled.

“So, what do you say?” he asked. “It’ll take a bit, but I’d appreciate your help getting this place looking spic and span. You seem very focused.”

The girl looked over all the walls, then at the paintbrushes, then the ladder he’d leaned against one of his shelves. Barrik didn’t have a clue what she was thinking, but she seemed to be doing it very hard. Finally she pointed at a corner of the wall near the ceiling at its highest point.

“Can’t reach there,” she said. “Even on the ladder and tiptoes. Ten inches short.”

Barrik made a “huh” noise and ran the math in his own head. She was right. The ladder was four feet tall, the girl roughly five and two inches, and the wall ten feet. How she’d mentally measured so accurately was intriguing, but he put the thought aside for the moment.

“There’s nothing for it,” he said with grave seriousness. “You’ll have to hoist me on your shoulders.”

She burst out in giggles again and Barrik joined her, laughing at the unwieldy picture they’d make. When she finally caught her breath she agreed. “Yes. Yes, I can help. Where do you want me to start?”

Barrik pointed her towards the part of the wall Francieum had been dabbing at, showing her how to paint to leave the fewest brushstrokes, telling her about paint coats, how to pour paint out for herself cleanly, how to set up the ladder. Then they settled into companionable silence, both working away at their portions of the shop.

The sun had climbed high in the morning sky by the time Barrik finished his half of two walls and turned to look at how the girl was progressing. She hadn’t done a startling amount of work, but Barrik watched as she methodically painted on a stripe of deep red, moved to the side, laid on another confident stroke, and kept working in that manner until she could circle back and do the second coat for the section.

“That’s enough for now,” Barrik called. The girl looked back over her shoulder, nodded, and sealed up her paint as Barrik had shown her. Barrik clapped his hands together. “Don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Why don’t you rinse the paint off you in the back and then we can get something to eat?”

The girl watched him for a long moment. Then she set her paint aside, gathered up her brushes, and moved into the back courtyard, which was currently Barrik’s staging area for the cleaning tools he’d brought to work on the store. Barrik kept himself busy unpacking a few more things as she washed up, paying no mind as she took a while. It had to have been her first opportunity to wash in ages.

Eventually she reemerged, water in her hair, some smudges of paint still on her clothes but otherwise spotless. Barrik smiled.

“You know, I didn’t even think to introduce myself properly,” he said. “I’m Barrik Dolmand. What’s your name, friend?”

“Durhmol,” she said. When she pronounced the hard “d” sound at the beginning of the name her tusks were pushed out by the movement of her jaw. An orcish name if he’d ever heard one. They were fond of talking with their fangs. “Durhmol Vix.”

“Well, Durhmol, what kind of food do you like?” he asked, pushing open the door and gesturing for her to go through it first. “I have to admit I haven’t been very adventurous since moving to Sandpoint, I go to the same dwarven place every day. But I’ve heard of other good ones— human, elven, Varisian… even Chelish, which I assume involves making some kind of pact before they even set the plate down.”

Durhmol walked next to him with cringing awkwardness, clearly feeling out of place as the two set out into traffic, her dressed in ratty tunic and trousers, him in merchant’s finery. But she gave his question some thought and after a while settled on, “Hot food.”

“Hmmm,” Barrik mused. “Maybe I won’t have to go too far out of my way after all.”

Durhmol had to duck to enter Dal Wanaz, which was funny, but not as funny as the fact that they ended up at a gnomish table on cushions to try to equalize the dining experience. Barrik didn’t want to sit on a booster at the human-sized tables and Durhmol looked preposterous curled over the dwarven ones. So he settled down on his cushion and Durhmol more collapsed onto hers in a jumble of bony points, and he immediately asked his friend Jul for ruqutu.

The ex-pat glanced at Durhmol out of the corner of his eye. “You playing a cruel prank?”

“She said she wanted hot food,” Barrik explained, shrugging. “Bring a little plate and we’ll see.”

Durhmol flipped through the menu, squinting at the Dwarven print, then down at the Common translation, occasionally asking him how to say things. She had an inclination towards Dwarven as she naturally spoke from deep in her throat, and he amused himself teaching her how to demand someone let her speak to their manager, which he assured her was a time-honored dwarven greeting.

Eventually a plate was placed at her elbow. A small red pepper, the size of a baby’s clenched fist, had been cut into six slices and laid out in a fan to display the black seeds within.

“Ruqutu,” the waiter announced, and then stepped back— but not away. Durhmol stared at him, then at Barrik, who couldn’t suppress a grin.

“Well,” he said, “it’s hot. Do you want to try it?”

Durhmol looked down at the little plate, and delicately pinched a piece of ruqutu between her thumb and forefinger to inspect. She gave it a sniff and her brows knit as she thought. Then, shrugging, she popped it into her mouth. She chewed.

Barrik was already ordering the goat’s milk when Durhmol started crying. The waiter took off at a brisk clip for the kitchen, shouting something in Dwarven. Durhmol waved her hands to get his attention.

“It’s not hot!” she gasped.

“Don’t be a hero about it, girl, it’s a hot damned pepper!” Barrik said.

“No!” She made herself explain through her tears. “Yes, it’s hot. But I’m not… it’s good. I haven’t had good food in a long time. I’m sorry. That’s why I’m crying.”

Barrik sat there, looking at her in shock, as Durhmol mopped her face with a napkin and thanked the waiter, embarrassed to a brownish shade of red through the green of her skin, as he set down her cold tankard of milk. She drank from that, and had another slice of pepper, and she didn’t cry the second time but she ate the pepper like Barrik had been thoughtful enough to order a starving girl a real meal instead of a challenge. He was abruptly mortified.

“Lamb is good with ruqutu, and the boiled seasonal tubers, I think they’ve even got some decent roasted seed bread around here somewhere,” Barrik sputtered, flipping through the menu and jabbing his fingers at things as the waiter jotted them down. “If you float them on this broth it makes a warming… Hells, just bring everything.”

The waiter took off for the kitchen again as Durhmol had another piece of the ruqutu. She glanced at Barrik over the lip of her tankard, looking as mortified herself as he was by the whole situation. He weighed whether it’d be worth making a fuss and apologizing again, or if the food on the way would spare them both another scene. Barrik started to open his mouth. He leaned forward and put a piece of ruqutu in it instead.

“Humans, orcs, even dragons, they think they know hot,” he said after he swallowed, with a rueful smile. “And the orcs are probably onto something. But only a fool thinks you can’t grow hot peppers underground, and those fools get an education after eating ruqutu— or, as the halflings started calling them, Dwarven Apples.”

Durhmol chewed her slice of the pepper, thinking, then asked, “Do dwarves grow actual apples?”

“In Sky Citadels, yes,” Barrik replied, “but ‘traditional’ dwarven fare, as most of us think of it, is grown out of sight of the sun as our ancestors did for eons.”

Durhmol peppered him with questions about the logistics of that kind of farming, which Barrik endeavored to remember the finer details of from his days, centuries ago, working on his clan’s small holding. When she asked about the holding itself he made himself busy settling a napkin in his lap, making up something about seed money for his first business. Then the food came and conversation halted. She tucked in with a voracious appetite.

Barrik dished her up small portions of things to try, noting this and that— she didn’t like the texture of boiled tubers but agreed with them fried, she preferred mutton to lamb somehow, and was delighted by sprouts of all kinds. It was while she was spooning sauce over a tangle of those that his ex-pat friend took him aside for a word.

“I think what you’re doing is very kind, Barrik, you’re a kind man,” Jul murmured, “but this world is a lot different from the way it is back home. Feed her like this and she’ll only throw up and hate you. And orcs are still nothing to trifle with.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Barrik grumbled, suppressing another dangerous wave of contrariness. His friend shook his head.

“Did you even notice she’s got blood on her?” he asked. Jul pointed at the drabs of deep red paint that had gotten on her tunic while helping Barrik. “I know you miss it, but don’t get your throat cut trying to make clan out of a Sandpoint criminal.”

Barrik was opening his mouth to say something he’d likely regret when Durhmol made an alarmed noise, grabbed her stomach, and threw up into a serving dish. The waiter dove for napkins. Jul put his hands on his hips and looked at Barrik.

“Don’t say a word,” Barrik growled. “Just pack some mutton and rice in a box for me.”

Durhmol tried to help clean up the mess, then tried to give the waiter her three coppers for the day, then trailed meekly behind Barrik as he left with the box of food. She ducked coming out of Dal Wanaz and stayed that way, hunched and drooping, cowed in every gesture and step. Barrik couldn’t take it anymore around halfway back to his shop. He turned and tried his best to give her a bracing shake by the shoulder, mostly succeeding in squeezing her forearm. She looked down at him in utter bewilderment.

“You did nothing wrong,” he said, staring up at her earnestly. “Really. You didn’t. It’s on me for feeding you to stuffed on rich food when you haven’t had anything to eat in ages. Getting sick is natural in such a case. It’s not your fault that I didn’t think it through.”

“It was a waste,” she mumbled. She looked as miserable as if she’d burned his shop down. It felt like a fist was squeezing Barrik’s heart.

“No, it wasn’t,” he said. To her confused look, he smiled and said, “You learned some Dwarven. Found out things you liked and things you didn’t. Learned about farming, what little I still remember, at least. Nothing’s a waste if you learn something. And when your stomach’s settled down, I’ve got some plain mutton and rice. Have that a bit at a time and you’ll be better off.”

Durhmol’s eyes welled up and tears streaked down her face. Barrik was dumbfounded again, but was quicker in fumbling for his handkerchief this time, which he was more grateful than ever he washed every day. Durhmol blotted at her eyes and apologized, over and over.

“You’re weepy for a half-orc, if you don’t mind me saying,” he observed, trying for a little levity. Durhmol nodded. She held his handkerchief aside and opted to blow her nose into her tunic.

“It’s the elf,” she gasped as she caught her breath. Barrik blinked at her.

“The whom?” he asked.

“The elf half,” she sputtered, making one last pass at her eyes with the handkerchief before flapping it out to dry it a little. “I’m skinny and weepy and the other kids take my coins. That’s the elf. The orc is why I’m ugly.”

Barrik embarked on some intense mental gymnastics. “…orcs and elves hate each other. Even more than orcs and dwarves.”

“I am an orphan,” Durhmol observed, in a tone too bitter for her young age. Then, pausing, she appended another, “Sorry.”

“No, it’s…” Barrik trailed off. Everything he thought to say seemed either obvious, pointless, tactless, or some combination of the three. Finally, he settled for diversionary. “Let’s head back. We’ll sit a minute, see if you feel better, then try to get the painting done. What do you say?”

Durhmol sniffed and nodded. Barrik was glad to see her standing up straighter as they continued walking. He was gladder to see, when they reached the shop, a few people shading their eyes to peer inside. Barrik greeted them warmly and told them his planned opening date, inviting them to come by when the shop was ready, shaking hands and accepting general compliments on Dwarven craftsmanship. Durhmol watched from the shade of the doorway, out of sight. She stepped in behind Barrik again when he unlocked the door.

“Why are you a merchant?” she asked.

“As opposed to what, a farmer?” Barrik scratched at the back of his neck and laughed. “I told you, I… wasn’t very good.”

“I guess,” Durhmol said. She picked up a brush and, strangely, the rat swatter, and frowned at them. “Do you have to be good at something to be it?”

“If Varisia is proof of anything, it’s that the answer to that is ‘no,'” Barrik joked. He looked over to find her looking at him in confusion. “It’s… you know, adventurers, and they’re… never mind.”

He poured himself off some paint, then more in a cup for her, while thinking of a real answer.

“You don’t have to, no,” he said. “But at the end of the day, how that day went will be settled by you and the feeling in your gut. My gut is always more sound after a day of doing something I’m good at.

“It’s not aspirational, I s’pose,” Barrik added. He laughed as he started painting again. “And not to say ‘never try anything that makes you shaky.’ Life asks scary things of us. But finding something useful you’re good at and honing that skill… it’s not worth nothing. Even with people around you fighting for fame or godhood.”

He glanced over to see how the little speech had been received to find Durhmol winding twine around the handle of the paintbrush. She glanced up at him and asked, “What does ‘aspirational’ mean?”

Barrik faltered. “It’s, uh… reaching…? When you aspire to something… You know, when you dream of something and want to make your dream come true?”

“You shouldn’t try to make your dreams come true?” Durhmol asked. Barrik stuck his brush back in his paint as he tried to firm up his point.

“No, that’s…” He tugged on his beard, mind turning back years as he spoke. “Some dreams aren’t worth chasing. Some are bad, and some are just impossible. Chasing things that aren’t real or possible mostly leaves you empty-handed. Do you… Does that make sense?”

Durhmol hummed. The look on her face was both wistful and profoundly sad. “…yes. I think so.”

“Now, what’ve you got there?” Barrik asked, trying to distract the both of them as he glanced over at Durhmol’s project. She held it up for him to inspect. She’d tied the handle of a paintbrush to the end of the rat swatter.

“Ten inch paintbrush handle,” she said. She pointed up at the ceiling. “So I can reach.”

Barrik laughed. “That’ll do it! Were you thinking on that problem all through dinner?”

“Yes,” Durhmol admitted. She peered down the length of her improved paintbrush, as if double-checking for integrity. Then she fetched the ladder and set it up under the highest part of the wall. “It wasn’t a problem of working together. It was a problem of wrong tools. I was trying to think how to fix it, and remembered this stick.”

“You’re very driven, you know that?” Barrik ran his brush around a tricky angle with care. “Almost… intense. It’s a touch odd, for a child.”

Durhmol started up the steps of the ladder with paint in hand. “It’s the—”

“The orc?” Barrik cut in. “I couldn’t have guessed.”

They lit candles in the evening, when all the coats were on and mostly dry, because Barrik wanted to see the effect. It was magical. The paint gave the shop the feeling of being carved out of deep, iron rich stone, and served as the perfect background for the predominantly metal items he already had on display. They glinted against it like gems in the velvet of a jeweler’s box.

“It’ll be dark, but time has shown non-dwarves like that,” Barrik explained to Durhmol. He waved his hands as if to encompass the whole shop. “The ambiance. They think it’s more authentic.”

“Why not just paint the walls black, then?” she asked.

“Because I’m selling pots and pans, not spell books to necromancers,” Barrik said. He got another confused look from Durhmol as he dug in his belt pouch for the money he planned to give her for the work. “Torag, child, it’s a joke. We’ve got to work on your humor. Doesn’t anyone talk to you?”

“Not really,” Durhmol said, still looking around the shop. She frowned up at the high corner of the ceiling and glanced over at her improved paintbrush. “Do you have a duster?”

Barrik squinted at where she seemed to be looking. “Can’t have cobwebs already, can we?”

“No,” Durhmol said, “but at some point. And you won’t be able to reach them after I’m gone. If you want I can tie the duster to the stick thing, it should help.”

Barrik’s fist clenched around the gold coin in his purse. Durhmol wasn’t looking at him with any kind of guile, of course, just her usual focus on a problem at hand. She would happily jury-rig an extended duster for him and leave, go back to turning trash in the street for coppers a day.

Don’t try to make clan out of a Sandpoint criminal, his friend had said, but Durhmol had said it’s not stealing it’s just finding and wanted to believe it so much.

“Say…” Barrik began, not really sure what he was about to say. “Do you want a job?”

Durhmol looked at him like he’d just asked something more like, “Do you want a dragon to fly around on?” Barrik cleared his throat and nodded, like he was agreeing with some point she hadn’t made about the ridiculousness of it, even as the idea was gaining traction in his mind.

“It’d be a lot to ask,” he said, tugging at his beard. “I’d need you on premises at nearly all hours to fetch things and run errands for me, because I don’t move fast. Lot of cleaning, polishing, scut work at first. But you’re sharp and you’re focused, which is more than most tradesmen can ask of apprentices as young, and I’d be grateful to have somebody around who knows the city better.”

Durhmol stared down at him with an expression of disbelief. He went ahead and got out the handkerchief. But she didn’t cry, just studied him as she spoke. “I don’t have any good clothes or a place to sleep and wash. You don’t want me in the shop. Besides, I’m half…”

“You told me what you are, and it’s odd, but not much odder than most things I’ve seen since tumbling down from the mountain,” Barrik said. He walked over to a crate, read the Dwarven script on the side, and went about levering it open. “There’s a couple of spare rooms above the shop you can use. You know where the well is. And as for clothes, you’ll need a uniform anyway as an employee. Gods, but you’ll grow out of dwarven stuff quick. Never mind. Cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Barrik dragged out a couple of plainer tunics, dresses on dwarves but shirts for most others, and dug around for the longest trousers he could find. They hit her around mid-shin when he held them up for size, but it was still better than what she had.

“Why?” Durhmol asked. Barrik turned, arms full of clothing, expecting to find her crying. She wasn’t. Her face had gone stony and still like nothing he’d yet seen, and her eyes were everywhere— him, the clothes, the shop door, the exit to the back. Durhmol’s small hands fisted and for the first time since meeting her Barrik was reminded that she was—above all, even the gentling influence of the elf—half an orc. “What do you want, really? Why?”

Barrik blinked at her. “An assistant. Or apprentice, if you find you like keeping shop.”

Durhmol’s lip curled in a snarl. It wasn’t particularly scary on its own, but the sudden shift in her demeanor was. “Why?”

It occurred to Barrik then that a well-to-do merchant abruptly deciding to clothe, feed, and house a young girl off the street with no family looking for her was in most cases not, probably, the innocuous charitable act he was attempting. He went through horror, upset, frustration, and exhaustion in a matter of moments. Then he sat down on a crate and rubbed at his brows.

“Because…” He sighed. Honesty was the only way. “Because I didn’t work on my clan’s farm to get seed money for my business. I worked for just long enough to run away.”

Durhmol looked at him in obvious confusion, face screwed up in anger but eyebrows raised. He waved his hand in the air.

“I abandoned my clan to become a merchant, and to a dwarf…” Barrik sought out the words in Common, struggling to articulate the depth of what he’d done. “Sacrilege. I might as well have orphaned myself. I suppose I just… I sympathize.”

Barrik looked to the glimmer of his golden scales in the candlelight as he spoke. “You have promise. And I wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for somebody taking a chance on a clanless but promising whelp like me. So if you want a job, you’ll have one, so long as you work hard and can put up with my blathering. If you don’t, go freely. I’ve got a little gold to give you for your work today.”

He looked up to find Durhmol standing closer, arms out. For an irrational moment he thought she was asking for a hug. Then he remembered to hand off the bundle of clothes he was still holding.

“Thank you,” Durhmol said. She looked as embarrassed as she had after throwing up in Dal Wanaz. “Sorry. The last person who was this nice to me wanted to extract my ‘singular and anomalous organs.’ When I asked her to tell me what that meant…”

“She did?” Barrik ventured.

Durhmol’s lips curled again in the shadow of a feral snarl she’d turned on him moments before. “Yes.”

“Well,” he said, pushing off from the crate and gesturing towards her head, “I’ve no use for any organs of yours but the one between your ears, and not for any Potion of Moral Reprehensibility or what have you. You can do sums, I noted that. How are you on percentages and multiplication?”

Durhmol clutched her new clothes to her chest. “I learn very fast.”

“Good answer!” Barrik said. “Now let’s see which of these rooms you like, and I’ll take the other for an office. Don’t fret about size, I don’t need a large office, as you might’ve guessed.”

“Can I ask one thing, Lord Dolmand?” Durhmol asked. Barrik turned with his foot on the first step up to the shop’s second story.

“Barrik, please,” he corrected, “unless you want me to refer to you exclusively as Young Mistress Vix, manners for manners. And feel free.”

They were up one flight of stairs and rounding towards the next when she finally asked, in a tone equal parts curious and teasing, “When you abandoned your clan… Did you know you were going to be good at merchanting? Or were you following a dream?”

“I…” Barrik came to a stop on the landing. “…you’re terribly smart, you know that?”

Durhmol cracked a smile as she glanced at the doors to the rooms up ahead. “It’s the—”

“I don’t think one half or the other gets credit for that, child,” Barrik observed. “I think that’s just you.”

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 6/21/2017 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024