Jonathon Worthington: Strangelight Investigator

Case #18: The Mystery of the Purloined Past (Chapter 3)

"Ouch."

I pulled back the dirty cotton cloth I'd been using to apply the salve from Orsch's neck. Despite being the size of an oak tree's trunk he'd proved as vulnerable to the hangman's noose as anyone else. It was vaguely discomforting, as I had always regarded my companion as an unassailable mountain of knowledge and flesh.

"Is it painful?"

The big grey ogrun just stared at me for a moment before slightly shaking his head.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I determined that you were expecting some sort of reaction to the discomfort of the wounds and your ministrations."

"But did it actually hurt?"

Dead silence.

"So you make protests for pain that you don't feel?"

"Apologies, sir. I misjudged the situation."

A thought occurred to me. "Orsch, do you mean to imply that you don't actually feel pain."

More silence greeted me.

"Damn it all to Urcaen, why won't you answer me?"

"I ... I have. Sir."

Realization dawned on me. He was trying to tell me something in the wake of the attack, something important. Orsch just could not express his concerns directly.

Months ago during the incident at Outpost Five my companion had revealed that his korune, the titular lord many ogrun would swear honor-bound service to, had instructed him to protect me from both outside forces and the truth of my own existence. I had been enraged, driven into him with words heavier than blows, and he had nearly broken his vow by revealing the identity of the fiend that had limited him so cruelly: me. Somewhere beyond the murk where my memories ended I had been someone else, perhaps even something else if the arcane tattoos were any indication. Orsch had sacrificed much to reveal all that he had to me, and these last few months I had flogged him mercilessly for more information. But an ogrun's honor bound them as tighter that a dragon's coils.

As I went back to dabbing at the deep bruising on Orsch's neck I noticed he was quivering slightly, as if from an oncoming cold. While I had never witnessed any illness touch my companion it made sense that the damp night air combined with trauma would trigger any latent viruses that were lingering in his system. Still, it was odd that he did not show any external signs beyond the quivering. When I heard him grating his teeth together my rather dim mind finally caught on: he wasn't sick.

Orsch was being silenced.

The big grey ogrun was desperately attempting to communicate an idea to me, something he thought was vital enough to endanger his vow of silence. Why couldn't he just tell me then? I knew that the korune bind-vows were important to ogrun, perhaps even essential to their society, but surely they were allowed to break a promise to their sworn lord when they deemed it necessary. Why then was Orsch torturing himself by not giving words to the idea plaguing him?

Briefly I paused with the medicated cloth at his collar-line. Below the white linen shirt I knew his odd scars began in earnest, a Y-cut that had opened up his chest enough to allow for the insertion of twin human brains nestled up against his lungs like tumors. Somehow my companion's body had been rewired to not only accept the extra cerebellums as part of its natural makeup but to also give his own mind access to the extra brains' capacity, allowing his intellect and memory to far exceed those of his more brutish brethren. But the reason for such a modification as well as the author of it remained as much a mystery to me as my own concealed past. For all I knew I'd been the butcher that had cut open my friend's chest and modified him to suit a hidden purpose.