They dragged him out of the summoning chamber. They slapped some basic healing spells on his injuries. They gave him a pile of blankets and an address. Then a very large guard showed up to take him to his new home.
The guard was a chimera. Lesley could tell from his ears and his mismatched eyes. Even in his dormant form, he was uncomfortable to look at: his arms weren’t the same length, and there was a splotch of darker skin over one eye. It was impossible to tell what he was — a combination of ogre or orc, if the tusks were any indication. Beyond that, the guard eyed him with a mix of boredom and dislike.
“Surely this isn’t necessary,” said Lesley. “Just give me the address. I will find my own way.”
“Protocol,” said the chimera. He shoved him out into the street.
The summoning hall he’d been called into was one of at least twenty: a series of squat copper domes arranged in a circle. The city around them was equally squat. Ramshackle buildings piled on top of each other, connected by small, narrow roads. Lesley stumbled on the uneven cobblestone. Cobblestone!
“…And the smell is abysmal,” gasped Lesley. “Where are we?”
That didn’t even earn him a response.
“Excuse me,” he said. He wasn’t used to a lower beast that wouldn’t answer his question. True, in the tower, the closest thing to a truly dark creature was a griffin or the occasional sphinx, but still! “I asked you a question.”
“Move,” said the chimera.
“I ought to know,” said Lesley, “if I am to be called upon to murder children for the benefit of some idiot in the other place, I should at least like to know where I’m working off the debt. It must be someone’s job to tell me that.”
The chimera paused.
“Coppertown,” he said, jabbing his hand in the direction of the summoning halls, like this was the most obvious fact in the world. “Where the hell else would you be?”
“Coppertown!” gasped Lesley. He did actually know where that was. It was the lowest district in the Realm of Light. So low it didn’t even float. It sat, instead, on a plateau overlooking the Shadowlands — the start of the Realm of Dark, where creatures like the chimera in question lived in droves. Creatures of light — like unicorns — never went to Coppertown. “They put me on the lists down here? But only the foulest of criminals get sent here—!”
“Funny how that works,” said the guard.
“You misunderstand. I am a former Second Summoner,” said Lesley, his voice getting higher the further the guard led him through the tight, miserable little streets. They weren’t alone. He could feel the eyes following him. Eyes in the shadowy awnings and the side streets. Eyes that glowed red and yellow and all the colors of bulbous, dark-born beasts. “Even if I were guilty of… treason, which I am not, my rank should have at least required an inquiry, and a period where I might make an appeal. Might I make one? I request to see the paperwork — nay, I demand that I see the paperwork! This is a miscarriage of justice of the worst degree, and I will not go back to the other place—”
The guard stopped. The guard turned and whirled on him. One of those big hands slammed against the wall next to Lesley’s head.
The unicorn froze.
“Look,” said the guard. “The name’s on your neck, I don’t do paperwork, and I’ve just been told to take you to your lodgings. You know what that means?”
Lesley touched his neck self-consciously. The name still felt hot to touch. It had burned each time the witch had said it.
“What?” he said, trying to keep some pride, despite how small he suddenly felt in the shadow of the guard. “What does that mean?”
“That means I get to heck off as soon as I drop you off,” said the guard, “and you’re on your own ‘till the next time you’re called, so maybe you should enjoy my company while you have it.”
“For your scintillating conversation?” asked Lesley, bitterly.
The guard rolled his eyes. “No, for the fact no one’s allowed to try and take a bite out of you while I’m here. Your type doesn’t make it down here too often, let alone survive their first summoning.”
“Well, it seems I have,” said Lesley, for whatever good that did him. The scorched smell hadn’t left his nostrils, neither had the memory of the rocks piercing his side. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting you keep your mouth shut and you might make it to the next one,” said the guard, “because it sure isn’t my job to be sure you do.”
Lesley managed to stay silent the rest of the trip. He became entirely too aware of the eyes following them from the shadows.
‘Lodging,’ as it turned out, was a very loose term. The guard dropped him off at a single lean-to shack at the end of a row of lean-to shacks, with a wicker sliding door that stuck in its slats. The room had a stained bedroll, and a small spell-circle for fire. The ceiling didn’t fully attach at the top, and Lesley had to bend to keep his horn from brushing the ceiling.
“Now wait one moment,” said Lesley, dropping his blankets and robes. “I have questions.”
The guard closed the door and left. The door didn’t close all the way. Lesley had to struggle to get it open.
“Now hold on,” he said. “Where is the washbasin? Where is the privy?”
But the guard knew the city better than him and had already found some side-street to vanish up into, leaving Lesley quite alone.
Lesley retraced his steps back to the shack. He found a kobold rifling through his sheets and clothes. An actual kobold! It didn’t even bother with a dormant form! It just sniffed and snuffled at his things, its grubby paws getting dirt all over his linens.
“And just what do you think you are doing?” snapped Lesley.
The kobold froze.
“Leave,” said Lesley, “or be removed.”
The kobold skittered away. Lesley was allowed about three seconds of feeling as though he could manage in such a rough space just fine — before he realized the kobold had taken his pillow as a parting gift.
“Stop right there!” cried Lesley, quite contrary to his earlier pronouncement.
He dashed back out into the road, past the other lean-to shacks and up a set of tin stairs. The kobold tried to make a leap from the railing of the steps to a nearby roof, but it had counted neither on a unicorn’s speed nor on their magic. Outside of the summon hall, most of Lesley’s magic worked just fine. He called a wind. It caught the kobold right in the side and sent the little beast tumbling in a pile at Lesley’s feet, pillow and all.
Lesley reached down and plucked it out of the kobold’s knobby claws.
“There,” he said, smirking. “Now you may be on your way.”
He took it, turned, and walked straight into a cyclops.
At least, he was pretty sure the man was a cyclops, if the bulbous gut and the missing eye was any indication. His matted hair covered where the other one would be. Lesley didn’t have much time to get a really close look at him, because the man took a step forward, and he smelled so rank Lesley had to step back lest it leave him devoid of all sense.
“Ho, there,” said the cyclops. “What did you just take off of our girl?”
Lesley had expected a hostile grunt. He hadn’t expected a real question. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t give me that shit,” said the cyclops, nodding to the pillow in Lesley’s hand. Behind Lesley, the kobold rolled to its — her, apparently — feet, and made a sharp whining noise. “That. You took it from her. I saw you take it from her.”
“Ah,” said Lesley, trying not to visibly flinch as the cyclops advanced slowly, “you misunderstand the situation. This object is mine. She took it from me.”
“You don’t say,” said the cyclops.
“I do,” said Lesley. “Now that we have cleared that off, I will be on my way—”
But the cyclops stuck his arm out in front of him and leaned in to meet him, eye to eye.
“Bullshit,” said the cyclops. “You took it. You used magic on her and you took it.”
“I took it back,” said Lesley. “I don’t want to cause any trouble, but, if you must know, I caught her going through my things, and I retrieved what was mine.”
“‘What’s mine,’” repeated the cyclops. “And what’s yours, unicorn?”
He wasn’t talking to Lesley at this point. He was talking to the troll, which had emerged from under the stairs, and the harpy, which had dropped down from the rooftop. They had formed a little half circle behind the cyclops, a half circle the kobold apparently had not opted to be a part of. She had decided to get while the going was good, via the rooftop jump she’d tried to make before.
“Ah,” said Lesley. “Am I to assume, then, you two were not acquainted?”
“Acquainted enough,” said the cyclops, “when it comes to folks like you.”
Lesley sighed.
“So you wish to pick a fight with me,” he said, he turned the pillow over in his hands. “Such a silly thing to make one out of. It’s not even properly stuffed.”
“Hey, Zanza, he cares about what’s proper!” scream-laughed the harpy.
“He thinks we care about what’s proper,” smirked the cyclops — Zanza — folding his meaty arms.
“Hngh,” said the troll, who was the first, ultimately, to attempt to lay a hand on Lesley.
Lesley brushed him with a hand. The troll’s hand jerked as though kicked by a powerful force. He clutched at his knuckles and stared.
“I think that shows I am quite capable of defending myself,” said Lesley. “Allow me to go my own way. My fight is not with you.”
“HGNGH,” said the troll, eyes bulging. “NGGH NHGHG NN.”
“Oh, nelly,” said the cyclops.
“What’s that?” asked Lesley, who was quite tired of this.
“He says he’ll let you go” said Zanza, “if you pay the toll.”
And it was a fight, anyway. Lesley made his finest effort. He was decently confident in his magic abilities, but he had not counted on how tired he was from the summoning, and calling the wind to carry the kobold had used a bit more. What’s more, the trio were not alone. He managed to pin the harpy to a weather vane, and he managed to get the troll’s horns wedged into the railing of the stairs, but the cyclops called a minotaur, and the minotaur came with a pair of goblins — and at least one of them knew some basic magic, because Lesley managed to skid in a patch of it. He fell on his back, and the goblin was on him in that split second, whipping a rag — a rag! — around Lesley’s horn while his vision swam.
The feeling was like having his whole body thrown into a vice. He fell limp and shocked. He hadn’t thought they’d just grab it. He hadn’t conceived of a world where anyone would dare.
“Pretty one,” said the goblin — a woman, grinning with her broken teeth. “Even if his horn’s crooked. Can we cut his hair?”
“Maybe later,” said Zanza, peering over him, “but I can think of one better. Why don’t we give him our names, eh? Little bit of Coppertown hospitality. Let him do some of our dirty work for a change.”
This earned a roar of approval among the growing band of thugs — which was fast looking like a mob.
“Your names…” wheezed Lesley, he tossed his head, but he was too weak under the rag. “Have you even the… power… to transfer them.”
“Sure do,” said the cyclops.
He pulled out a knife.
“Carve it over that pretty script on your neck,” he explained, “and none’s the wiser. Keep still, and maybe we won’t cut your throat–”
The goblins yanked Lesley into a sitting position. Zanza grabbed a handful of his hair. Things might have gotten very ugly, very fast, but someone chose that moment to throw a club down from one of the ceilings. It landed with a heavy ‘thock’ right on the top of Zanza’s head.
Lesley barely managed to roll free as the cyclops went down with a thud. A moment later, the club was followed by something much larger: a heavyset ogre, who had been standing on the roof. He landed across from the downed Zanza. He reached over and picked the club up. He held it out and turned in a small circle.
The kobold sat on his shoulder.
“Such a welcome,” muttered the newcomer, shaking out his wild hair. Zanza groaned. The ogre’s arm moved in a flash, cracking the club across his head again. “I had hoped to have seen the last of these things. You were warned. You were all warned. No re-namings in my district. Unless you would like to starve…?”
“Oh come on, Daiki,” gibbered the harpy. “It’s not like that. We were just having some fun. You can hardly blame us. You, see, he’s—”
“A unicorn?” asked Daiki, glancing down at Lesley. “I have eyes.”
He lifted his club again. The crowd backed away. Daiki walked over to Lesley and knelt beside him. He reached out a hand. Lesley flinched, expecting the worst — but the ogre just pulled the rag off of his horn.
Then, he reached behind Lesley’s head and lifted him into his arms. The kobold jumped down. The ogre slung Lesley over his shoulder instead. Lesley tried to protest, tried to form an opinion of the strange indignity of it all, but found he only had the voice to groan.
“Leave now,” said Daiki, “and perhaps I shall forget your faces come meal time.”
The crowd ran. Some of them even transformed into beast form to do it. Whoever this ogre was, he had taken out their ringleader in two blows, and no one wanted to cross him.
“Thank you,” said the ogre, to the kobold, “that would not have ended well.”
The kobold may have said something in return, but Lesley never quite made it out. The wear and tear of the day had gotten to him, and the world passed him in a copper blur.
