Ewaz (2)
"Wake up."
Erika shook Ren awake. She was exhausted herself, but she figured that if she got him up first, he'd be the one to wake her if she dozed off afterward.
At her voice, Ren sat up without quite managing to open his eyes. He rubbed at them, then burrowed back under the blankets and leaned against her. The morning air was sharp enough to justify it—especially since Erika had left the window open the night before.
"…We have to go out. Get dressed."
Erika picked up the leather fur coat from the floor, then dropped it again almost at once—it was freezing to the touch. She gathered it a second time and shoved it under the covers, into the warm hollow where she had been lying. She was still under those covers herself.
Both of them were huddled inside the blankets against the cold. Anyone walking in on the scene would have found it faintly ridiculous.
Erika mustered the will to edge out of the blankets, shut the window, and light the lantern. She wasn't sure it was morning. Bright or not, the light that leaked in was that uncertain half-glow of early dawn. Without a clock, there was no telling the hour.
She slipped her hand back under the covers and felt the leather coat. The worst of the chill had left it, so she pulled it free and put it on. Then she turned toward Ren and spoke again.
"Out."
Ren crawled free of the blankets and immediately curled in on himself, shivering in the cold air. Erika paused mid-rub of her eyes, pulled a coat from under the bed, and tossed it at him.
"Put it on."
Ren caught it and pulled it on at once. It fit him as if it had been made for him. On Erika it had been a little large. Only after she saw that he had stopped shivering did she open the door and step out of the room.
Ren followed her. When they reached the central hall, Ritt was already sitting there waiting. At the sound of footsteps on the stairs he opened his eyes, spotted Ren, and came toward him at an unhurried pace.
He took Ren's hand, turned the palm up, and set a copper-colored ring into it.
"Take it. Still warm."
Ren accepted the ring Ritt held out and slid it onto his middle finger. It wouldn't have fit his index, and the ring finger had felt somehow wrong.
He turned his hand this way and that, examining it. Engraved on the band were the words Ren Ewaz and Lower, along with a single rune whose meaning he could not guess.
"What is this?"
"That'd be runic magic… traditional dwarf craft…"
"It's the elves' own writing system. The dwarves took it."
Ritt had barely begun to answer when Erika cut him off. Ren turned toward her and found her face full of open dislike. Even the way she had spoken seemed packed tight with irritation.
What was it about runic magic that set her off like that? He had never learned any of this from the priest. Magic assumed you already knew the writing systems involved, so linguists tended to know the most about it.
Magic, he had been told, generally fell into three kinds: common magic, runic magic, and spirit magic. Runic magic manifested its power when the runes were carved. Common magic failed if you mispronounced the incantation; failing that, you could cast through a staff, but that usually burned far more mana.
Spirit magic alone was decided by talent. It split into those who commanded the four great elements and those who communed with the spirits themselves. The four elements could at least be taught; those who spoke with spirits and borrowed their strength were more often called spirit-users than mages.
"Erika, the dwarves developed runic magic. All your people ever did was use the runes as a writing system."
Ritt's voice dripped with mockery as he pressed on. From behind Ren came a low grinding of teeth that made him flinch. If he looked back, he was sure he would find Erika's face contorted with rage.
"All you ever did was steal and butcher what you found. No wonder, coming from maggot-spawn—"
"You descendant of whores…!"
The air between them was a heartbeat from open quarrel—ugly enough that either of them looked ready to draw steel. Erika had only a single dagger, but Ritt wore what looked like an executioner's sword across his back.
"…Would both of you please be quiet!"
Rahen, standing in the entrance, shouted just in time. She must have just arrived for work. Thanks to her, the two of them simmered with anger but went no further.
"Anyway, you can't trust those Dvergr bastards."
Erika and Ren were walking through the heart of the underground city. Unlike her usual self—what little of it Ren had seen—she kept talking, visibly furious. It was nothing like her ordinary silence. Had the argument really been that infuriating?
Something like China claiming kimchi as its own? He didn't know the deeper history, but the way the priest had ground his teeth over dwarves made it clear that even half-elves held no fondness for them.
"…Dvergr bastards."
And that, he learned, was the slur for dwarves. Watching Erika spit the word Dvergr in her fury left no doubt it was an insult, thick with contempt.
"Hah… sorry. I got carried away."
Erika stopped, turned, and spoke. The cool, composed look was back, as if the earlier storm had never happened.
The underground city was larger than he had realized. He hadn't noticed yesterday, but a vast tower rose toward the light-source overhead, connected to it by fine, half-transparent lines. He wondered if the light was magical and almost asked Erika—then thought better of it, after what he had just seen. Fortunately she seemed to have cooled down now.
They wandered the interior of the city at an easy pace. There were plenty of establishments, most of them shops or dens of vice. Signs advertised things like Elf-Grade Beauties and Goblin Karaoke. Street vendors sold food that looked neither good nor clean. There were also slabs of meat hanging from bones so massive they might have come straight out of a comic, and there were slaves for sale.
Most of the slaves were women, standing naked and bound, though male slaves appeared here and there as well. Some were close enough to Ren's age that the sight left him with a strange, sour feeling. When they passed the slave pens, Erika covered his eyes and hurried him past.
He walked in silence until hunger finally caught up with him. Aside from the raw meat yesterday morning, he had eaten almost nothing. Erika was probably no better off. He doubted she had woken in the night to eat alone.
"…Um… er…"
What was he supposed to call her? Lady Erika? Miss Erika? Or… noona?
That last one felt wrong. Even in his previous life he had been too embarrassed to say noona. Having an older brother had made hyung easy enough, but looking back, both words made him cringe.
Miss Erika is probably safest for now. Calling her by a surname is useless—I'm an Ewaz too. Maybe that's one of the downsides of the merchant group…
"…Miss Erika?"
At the sound of her name, her ear twitched slightly. She stopped, then turned.
"Hungry?"
Ren nodded. Erika rubbed her chin in thought for a moment, then nodded herself, took his hand, and led him on.
She walked straight into a restaurant. It looked shabby, dust on the tables, yet somehow it was still in business. The menu was varied—pork, Rem legs, even bread shaped like a dragon's tail.
Erika ordered the cheapest items: bread and soup. While they waited, Ren looked around. The wooden frame of the place held lanterns that flickered unsteadily.
Even being generous, it was hard to call the building decent. There wasn't even a proper signboard. If Erika hadn't brought him, he would have assumed the place had closed for good.
The first thing to arrive was a country loaf—a large, dense boule big enough that the two of them could share it. It was so hard they needed something like a saw just to cut it in half.
Soon after came a nearly black stew, thick with a spicy, salty smell. You had to peer hard to find any meat, and the deep color and sticky texture of the charred root vegetables made it look like the mud of the underground city itself. Ren tore off a piece of the rough country bread, dipped it in the stew, and put it in his mouth.
Salt and a fishy reek rolled across his tongue. Yesterday's raw meat had been better—at least it had been fresh enough that the gaminess was milder. The one improvement over yesterday was the absence of blood. Just the plain fishy smell, then.
It wasn't inedible. He didn't gag. It was simply bad. Was that why she had brought him here? Or had she only chosen it because it was cheap? Maybe she had odd tastes.
Erika tore off bread with practiced ease, soaked it in the soup, and chewed. Her face tightened slightly—clearly she hadn't come for the flavor either.
Once they had eaten enough to take the edge off, Erika left a few coins on the table and pulled Ren outside. Roughly half the bread remained, and they hadn't finished the soup.
Forcing more down would only have punished his throat and stomach. He was grateful, for once, that his appetite wasn't larger. At least his tongue wouldn't have to suffer any longer than necessary.
"…We'll look around like this today. Tomorrow we'll take a job. I'll explain how things work on the way. Knowing how this district is laid out will do you good."