Black Magus

Roheisa Deapou.

***

“You be careful on yer walk there Missy!”

‘Missy?’ I internally scowled. But buried it beneath the ash before turning to the man in question. A short, wide, and heavily toned dwarven man wearing a permanent scowl and a rope tied around his head. And all into his beard. “I'm here to help, actually,” I said.

“Oho?” He tilted his head with a deep whiff, scratched his beard for a few long seconds, then finally exhaled a dramatic breath in the form of a groan that echoed understanding. “I see.” He curiously drawled, then hurriedly extended his hand. “Names Ken!”

I stepped forward to take his calloused hand in mine. “Roheisa.”

“Fine name!”

“Thank you.” I stepped away with a bow.

“I’m the manager and owner of Ken’s Construction Yard, headquartered in Hill Base!” He proudly boomed, then walked away to push a black-haired freckled woman to us. “This is our foreman, an' my daughter, Rin. An' my sons!” He threw his arm at five boys huddled around behind him. “From oldest to youngest, there’s Ben, Gen, Len, Ten, and Ven.”

“You can’t be serious,” I unconsciously muttered.

“Undoubtedly serious, Lassie!” Ken boomed in response.

‘Lassie?’

"I’m surprised you’re awake so early.” Rin approached in a far too friendly manner. Though they all had the same bearded build, all of Ken’s children were double his height; or rather, of normal height, as Rin looked me dead in the eyes as she came in for a non-consensual hug. “Thank you all for helping us.” She whispered, scratching her scruff against my face. An annoyance, if I were being honest. And yet her words were like a mallet against the gong of my heart that sent waves of shameful pain reverberating through my body.

“It’s nothing.” I shook my head.

“It’s everything!” She pushed me away to arm's length to expose her teary eyes. “You have no idea what they’ve done to us!” She fell back into my arms, sobbing. “It's been years. They’ve demanded money from those who had it. They killed those who didn’t. They defiled children, Roheisa! They sold our friends- our families, into slavery! They sold my friends like cattle! They- my sister.”

“I- I.” I stammered. Sobbed. Went to wipe my face and instead wrapped my arms around Rin as tightly as I could. “I know saying this won’t bring back your friends or your sister, but I’m sorry.”

“We can only pray that those we lost still live and may return to us someday,” Ben, a blonde and slightly taller model of his father solemnly said. “To honor them, we move forward and keep them in our hearts.”

“I’d like to remember them in mine as well,” I said into Rin’s shoulder. “What are their names?”

“Jin.” Rin sobbed. “My older sister. The eldest. And the youngest, Sin. My friends. Diego. Marx. Sierra. Nova.”

“An' dozens of others from other parts of the village,” Ken added. “I, fer one, can rest easy knowin’ the bastard’s got what they deserved. So, thank you!”

“Amun accomplished his request on his own." I shook my head. "You should be thanking him.”

“But you could’ve sat back and done nothing while he worked.” Rin chimed in with a poke to my chest. “I’ve seen you. Speaking to people, letting them open their hearts to you, just like are now. You aren’t heroes who blindly save people. That much is true. But you’re not as selfish as Lord Amun claimed.”

“I’m afraid he certainly is.” I laughed. "But you can trust him all the same. He’s not greedy for power or material things. From what I’ve come to understand, his only desire is knowledge. Both gaining it and sharing it. Yet he doesn’t obsess over it. It’s… like a source of joy for him, learning new things. Then he uses that knowledge to create joy for others. Like he's doing now. It’s admirable.”

“Sounds like you like him.” Rin giggled in my ear. Then giggled louder after feeling me tense up in her arms.

“Anyway!” I pulled away from here. “Shouldn’t we get to work? This wall isn’t going to build itself.”

“Now that’s the right attitude!” Ken spurred to his feet to grab his tools. “First, if ya didn’t notice, I’ll tell ya, I’m a dwarf. My kind can bend metal like your kind can bend elements, and my kids can bend both.”

‘Bend?’ I raised my brow. ‘Does he mean manipulate?’

“Our first task is to widen the staircase an' make the ramp.” Ken thrust a stack of papers at me. “After that, we’ll reshape an' smooth out the walls. Then, we’ll move above the work on the catwalks an' the perimeter. Our medium is granite. Best you can get.” He finished with a thrust of his meaty hand towards the wall. “Any experience with it?”

“Sounds simple enough,” I said, then shook my head. “And, I’ve had plenty. I was raised around a volcano.”

“It’s like any other stone, really,” Ben commented from the back. “Just a little harder.”

“Ugh.” Rin groaned. “Ignore him.”

“Rin here will show you the ropes with Ven on the left side.” Ken turned to hand me a tool belt. “Ben will take the boys off to the right side. An' I’ll take the stairs.” He waddled off with nothing more than a heavy groan and a wave. “See ya at lunch!”

“Let’s go, Ven,” Rin called over her shoulder as she dragged me around the corner. Prompting a miniature Ken to run to my left side and grasp at my clothes.

“And how old are you?” I patted his little bowl cut of straight black hair.

“Seven.” He mumbled into my hip.

“He’s not much of a talker.” Rin giggled. “He’s still an apprentice, but he’s good at his work. Each of his brothers is a year apart, with Ben being eleven. And I’m fifteen.”

“Just like us.” I smiled.

“I knew it!” She snickered. “But we’ll talk later. Let’s get to work!”

So saying, Rin and her little brother broke away to stand at the base of the cliff and dove into work without delay, compressing, smoothing, and even polishing the stone into 2x2 meter squares within a matter of seconds. They worked their way down half the cliff by the time I jumped from my stupor to join them.

I was glad to know that the workforce consisted of many geomancers and, more so, that they were skilled. After learning how ambitious Amun’s plans for this place were, I began to doubt we could accomplish them within ten days. Instead, I found myself almost straining to keep up with the quality and speed of Ven and Rin’s work and to not marvel at their prowess, but it was staggeringly impressive. Even with the age disparity, they were in perfect synchronization. Even while they worked, they’d lower the others’ scaffold as they moved between panel-to-panel, shaving off seconds from the time spent on each section of wall. More than that, each section was verified first by the builder, then by the other before being judged again by the builder without anything more than a changed posture or wordless grunts being exchanged. Over and over again in a neverending cycle until the structure was complete.

By lunch, I had managed to complete only a fraction of their work, but Ven and Rin showed no signs of complaining. Instead, they only gave me words of praise throughout the entirety of lunch and long after we finished to start on the catwalks. Well, Rin did. Ven only gave hugs and muttered into my hip.

Much to my delight, I found myself able to keep up with Ven and Rin during the second phase of our project. While it took some work to draw the raw granite out into bricks or tiles, set it into place, flatten, then smooth the section into one solid piece, I quickly fell into a groove after I stopped trying to compare myself to Rin and focused on improving my skills. Sadly, that ended when we went to ‘touch up’ our work before the end of the day.

Even with affinities for steel and magnetism, aligning the rails and carving the extensive decorations into the structure was something I wasn’t comfortable with. I was a barbaric princess on the path to being a berserker. I specialized in breaking things, not building them. But for the sake of helping these people, I went against my nature and did the due diligence until the work was done.

“Please!” Rin beamed once we’d gathered our things. “Eat dinner with us! We’d love for you to stay at our house.”

“I want to- I will.” I quickly shook my head. “But, first. Jin, Sin, Diego, Marx, Sierra, Nova - there are more names I need to commit to memory. After that, I’ll join you.”