The Glass Wizard - The tale of a somewhat depressed wizard

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The hours dragged on. It was past nine when the laughter and chatter of the oversaturated fireplace sponges finally faded into the softer murmur of satisfied and drowsing slackers, and when Yu at last managed to stack the final greasy bowls in the sink. Then he sat down on the suicidal stunting stool and allowed himself his first break in forever.

It lasted exactly zero seconds.

A creak.

The metal door beside the hearth opened.

Bubs stepped out of the surgery. His apron was streaked with drying blood, stiff where it had clotted into darkened ridges. The red smears were a disturbing addition to the bright yellows and oranges of his skin, which itself remained spotless. There was not a single drop on his hands. He took three steps into the room, then stopped.

Yu snapped back from bleak disinterest into that sharp, stupid panic of being observed. He slid off the stool at once and forced out something shaped like care and concern — or at least his approximation of whatever compassionate thing a normal person should say in this moment.

"How is she?" was the result of this attempt. Straight to the point, no greeting, no social glue whatsoever, absolutely not convincing, well done you tragic idiot.

Bubs's eyes were already on him. Given their bulbous shape, they were also, always, on everything else. They did not shift one bit, but Yu felt the mianid's focus sweep the room.

"We're getting there," was all Bubs said.

He waddled to the hearth, stopped right beside Yu – way too close for comfort – and then bent down. Then he pushed his right hand beneath the grate, past the air that shimmered like boiling glass, past the wavering orange haze that marked the edge of the flames, and straight into the fire.

Yu recoiled, all feathers on edge. "What are you doing?"

Bubs ignored him with infuriating calm. From within the fire, he slid out a metal casing. Yu would have believed it was part of the grate, had he ever noticed it. The thing glowed with shifting heat, subtly warping the air around it. Yet Bubs' naked hand remained entirely unmarked, neither burnt nor blistered, not even reddened.

"How did you do that?" Yu blurted.

"Secretions," Bubs replied.

Yu stared. He really stared. And then he saw it; the last traces of a thin, viscous film that coated Bubs' arm, already evaporating into a faint sheen.

"I didn't know mianids could do that."

"Now you do."

Three spare words, delivered with effortless condescension. It was all it took to remind Yu exactly what sort of person Bubs was. Well then. Fuck you too.

Bubs set the gleaming case on the workbench beside the surgery door, then waddled back to the pot. This time, he climbed onto the suicidal stunting stool – again much too close to Yu – and looked inside. Next, his gaze lowered to the constellation of splatters on the floor, all around the pot and workbench. And then Bubs looked at Yu.

Yu's feathers rose in a slow, creeping bristle. With Bubs on the stool, they were almost at eye level, but there was nothing level about their eyes. Everything about mianid eyes was unnatural. There was no white to them. They were a cluster of polished stones, too large for any creature's skull, even a borman's; two black bulging orbs that reflected nothing. Yu never in his life wanted to touch them; the mere thought disgusted him. And yet some intrusive shard of violence inside him wanted to peck one, if only to see Bubs blink, just once.

Unblinking, Bubs asked, "Why is all the food on the floor?"

"What? Oh, well, I mean, I did what you said," Yu managed. "I mean, I brought out the food. From the pot. And I brought the empty bowls back."

That was all he had been told to do. That was all Bubs had demanded of him. And Yu had done it. He had done exactly that, and tirelessly so, without complaint. He had served every single one of them.

"And in between, you toss half of it to the floor?"

"You say it like I did that on purpose! I did like you said! I worked for hours! I tried! Look, I also brought drinks! You didn't ask me to, but I did more work, all this extra stuff, just for the guests!"

Yu cringed at the way his voice cracked itself into splinters. There should be strength in it. Pride. He had stepped up when Bubs was busy. And atop that, he had taken initiative. He had gone beyond the letter of the task. With the drinks, he had done more than asked for. Far more than expected. Far more than needed. For all that, Bubs ought to be grateful. He ought to acknowledge the effort, and the strain. He ought to commend him.

But no.
There was no Well done, or Thank you for keeping the kitchen running all night without any help.
No Good thinking, with the drinks.
No God, those guys can eat, but you did it!
No What a first day, huh?
Nothing.

Instead, Bubs got off the stool. He made it more than obvious that he avoided every smear on the floor. He waddled around the workbench and halted in front of the sink.

Yu stayed where he was, and how he was, choked by a rigid ruff of irritation and indignity. Though, his eyes followed Bubs. The sink was a ruin, a mess of bowls piled in a collapsing tower. It grew worse the longer Yu looked at it. He had used far more bowls than there had been people. All the spoons, and two of the three ill-chosen mugs lay buried among them. A landslide of seven dish towels, each stiffened, soaked, splotched, or otherwise compromised beyond redemption, was wedged in between, slumped over the rim like casualties. Everything had been thrown in without order, stacked at random and way too high, some things the right way up and others overturned, with the rugs swimming in their own filth. Basically, Yu had tossed each thing just as it came, the instant he no longer needed it. That had accumulated chaos until the sink was unusable. There was no room to do the washing up. It was physically impossible to open the water pipe without straight-up flooding the sink. And all around were the million drops and dribbles that Yu had either missed or merely smeared into more disgusting shapes.

Yu was suddenly very aware of the places that he had not touched — the immaculate cupboards lined in martial symmetry with pots, bowls and plates; the shelves with their disciplined array of cutlery, all sorted in meticulous rows, the walls hung with tools that were all arranged by shape, aligned by size and placed in their designated niches. Everything knew its place. It all was just too neat.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

From the sink, Bubs continued around the workbench. He circled the room, his huge eyes absorbing every detail left and right. He took in all the bottles that Yu had fetched, examined, poured, and served, as well as the ones he had mislabelled, misjudged, and ultimately abandoned; the wrong spirits, the not-quite-drinks and the absolutely-not-for-consumption-liquids that had seemed promising until he had pulled them out.

And then, in the shadowed recess of the table beside the kitchen entry, there was that mug; the culinary shipwreck with a shimmer of Dundinway floating above a sunken reef of stew.

And the Sharran Vey.

Bubs passed them. He actually walked right past.

Yu's feathers sank at once, collapsing back into something almost smooth.

Bubs stopped.

He stared at Yu.

Then he turned around and looked at the sink behind him.

Then back at Yu.

Then beneath the centre workbench.

And back at Yu.

Then he turned left, bringing his face level with the table pressed against the wall.

Yu's feathers bristled.

Bubs watched him as they rose.

Then, very slowly, Bubs turned back to the wall table. His gaze moved across the clutter. And then he saw them: the dark square bottle and the mug, shoved all the way back against the wall, almost entirely hidden behind another dirty mug and a pair of ragged dishtowels. He extended one arm across the tabletop, but he could not reach. His fingers hovered just short of the bottle. Bubs pulled them back.

"Get this out," he said.

Yu … did. He scrambled the mug and the Vey bottle to the middle of the table. There they stood, in the light.

"What is this?" Bubs asked.

"Uhm," Yu said, in a voice that seemed to have crawled out of a much smaller creature than him. "Well, so the mug was just when I —"

"Did you serve this?" Bubs grabbed and pulled the bottle of Vey close to the edge, his black gaze fixed on the ruptured areole.

Yu stared as well.

"Yu! Answer me! Did you serve this?"

"Uhm, sorry. No."

"This bottle is open. Don't lie!"

The bite in his voice shoved Yu backward, feathers flaring in reflex. "I didn't, I swear!"

"Who ordered this?"

Yu hesitated.

"Who ordered this?" Bubs repeared.

"Uhm."

"Did you give this to one of the guards?"

"What?"

"Did you give this to Gurs?"

"Why Gurs?"

Bubs stared. "So Gurs made you get this?"

"What? Why? I mean, no."

"Did he tell you to mess it up like this?"

"No — What? No! He didn't come for dinner. No guard did."

"Then who? The borman?"

"No," Yu said again. "I only gave him — He only wanted water. And Dundinway."

"Then who?"

"No one! No one wanted this. No one got this."

"Then why is it out here?"

"Well, I — I took more out, more than I took out for the people. I needed to find stuff, the right things. I didn't use all of the bottles, I swear. Look, most aren't even open. I just looked at the labels."

"Then why did you open this bottle, Yu?"

"I …"

"Don't lie for Gurs."

"I'm not! And what's the thing with Gurs? I'm not lying! This was … Look, I know why you're angry. Or worried — Wait, let me finish, just let me finish! I meant worried! Worried, all right? I know what this is. The Sharran Vey, I mean. I'm from the Barnstreams, we have that everywhere. It's like our national —"

"This is not Sharran Vey," Bubs cut in.

Yu stared.

"This is Sharnay," Bubs sounded out the syllables with emphasis, and then continued to spell out the rest of his words as if Yu were a stump-brained hatchling. "As. It says. On. The label."

"But …," Yu's thoughts stalled, skidded, and then lurched. "But it has the areole and everything?"

"It's something I made out of Sharran Vey. So who asked for that?"

"So then it is — Wait, I mean — I got it for me, all right? It was for me. I wanted to drink it. I thought it's Sharran Vey. Because of the bottle. And the areole. Because I know that from home. But, well, I mean, I dropped it, and the areole broke. I know it's dangerous, and that you can't drink it now. When it's broken, I mean. That's why I put it there. All the way back, I mean. Everything was so busy, you know? I just got it out of the way, so I wouldn't pour it by accident — I mean, of course that wouldn't happen, obviously, with how the bottle looks and all, but still, just to get it out of the way. I didn't drink it. I know I ruined it. Sorry. I didn't open another. I only drank water."

At first, Bubs had looked poised to interrupt, but the torrent of Yu's flailing ramble held him suspended. When the rambling finally sputtered to a stop, there was a pause, in which Bubs just looked him over, up and down. Yu was just about to start again, with some new explanation, some other pathetic elaboration —

But Bubs turned away. He waddled around the centre workbench once more, his hand grazing past the bottles that littered the benches along the wall until he seized a clear one. He raised it into the lamplight like a fresh charge brought before a magistrate.

"What about this one?" he demanded.

"What about it?" Yu asked. It was an honest question.

"Did you serve this?"

"I … don't know." Also honest.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean … Can I see it? What is it?" The bottle looked as unremarkable as they came.

"Sulfa Naba."

Yu hesitated. "Probably?"

"What?"

"I mean, I probably served it. Maybe."

"What do you mean, maybe?"

"Why? Is it something bad? Like the Sharran — I mean, Shanry?"

"It's Sharnay. Answer the question."

"Maybe ... I don't know. Oh, wait! I believe it was for Ondahr."

"This is not a temple. This is a guild kitchen."

"I … What does that mean?"

"There is nothing to believe here, only to know. Either it was for Ondahr, or it was for someone else. Which is it?"

"What else do you want me to say? I don't know who got it, and I don't know what you want from me! Do you not understand my words?"

"What I need to understand is how you cannot know your own actions."

"You know what I mean!"

"Do you know?"

"Well — fine! I know that I believe it was for Ondahr! There! Is that better?"

"Is this supposed to be a joke?"

"What — Why — Why are you like this? Why can't you —" Yu clamped his beak shut just before the shouting broke through. "Sorry! Sorry, Bubs. Sorry, really, sorry. It was ... a lot. A long day. A lot of orders. I didn't know it was important who go what, all right?" He rushed, tumbling words ahead of whatever interruption might come. "There are so many Sulfa drinks. They wanted some. I found, I don't know, eight or nine different ones? But they drank only these three types. I mean, they tried two or three more, and Branwen had that one called Sulfa Bea, but otherwise it was these bottles here. These ones. Look, these are the empty ones. That's what they had. Mostly. I honestly don't know about the Nada— Nabla— that one you mean. I know it's open and some is missing, but some of the bottles were already open before I got to them.

I can go and ask them, if you want. If you need to know. Who got it, I mean. They ordered these things, I didn't just pick stuff at random, so they should know. It wasn't the borman, I said that, and not the krynn, and also not Harrow, because she only had water and this orange one, and oh, not Bawal or Jerakill, because they only had juice, and I can ask about the others. Oh, yes, and also not Imbiad. He wasn't down."

"Leave it for now," Bubs said. "Do not bring out anything else."

It was all he said. Yes, there was nothing explicitly bad in the words, neither too much anger nor condemnation. But there was also absolutely fucking nothing to validate any of that painstaking outburst of an effort Yu had just poured into his confession. And somehow, that nothing made everything ache with a new kind of emotion. Yu did not quite know which one it was, but, seeing Bubs' dark eyes stare up at him without reflecting anything of him, he felt that it was very, very raw, and that he would not be able to handle it. So Yu smothered it. Before it could take shape, Yu chose to feel relief instead, which was the simplest lie available.

"Yes," he said. "I won't bring more. In the last half-hour, it was only water anyway."

Bubs did not acknowledge this scrap of good sense either. He straight up threw out new orders: "Sort the kitchen so it's ready for witchset."

He turned away from Yu and picked up the metal casing he had retrieved from the fire earlier. It had visibly cooled. The glowing red had dulled to a tired, jaundiced yellow.

Yu just stared. "Sort?"

Surely he did not mean … actually … clean? Not the whole kitchen. Not after all Yu had done already. And most definitely not tonight. That was impossible, even for someone with hands.

"Yes, sort. Prepare. Put everything back first. Then wash the dishes. Then clean the surfaces and the floor. All the food on the floor and everything else you spilled goes into this pot."

Bubs set a regular-sized cooking pot onto the centre workbench.

Yu stared at it. At the pot. At the idea. "I have to clean the whole kitchen?"

"First the kitchen." Bubs stared back. "And then you do that bathroom on the first floor."

And just like that, it was gone. The relief. All of it.

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