"Would you like some more?" she asked in a sweet voice. And there was what George thought of as a warm smile on her animal face. These eyes were magnetic, drawing all his attention like a fisherman's net. Blue was an unusual color among the deermen, with shades of brown being the norm. They belonged to another doe-woman, and seemed even more human than the tavernkeeper's. He looked up and found another pair of eyes-this time a deep blue. Just as he finished the mug, swallowing it in three gulps, another was slid next to him. It's a menagerie in here, George thought, already feeling a slight buzz from the ale. Like the deer of Seaborne, all were an oddly aesthetic blending of human and animal. In another was a huge rabbit, a squirrel with an enormously bushy tail, and a gray fox, apparently haggling over some business arrangements. The magpie lacked hands, so was holding a contraption in his beak that held his cards. An elk, a magpie half the size of a man, and an odd, squat creature with a black mask and a ringed tail some called a "masked dog", were playing cards in one corner. Examples of beastmen from every Colony were present in the tavern. There was simply too much profit to be had, too many new materials and ingredients the magecrafters found useful that could only be found here, across over a thousand leagues of ocean. Most nations had simply abandoned their transformed citizens but George's home country of Kalerand, and their chief rivals from Solera, had reestablished contact and trading relations with many of their "Lost Colonies". "Claimed by the Land," as they said.Įvery colony, over fifteen hundred leagues north to south, from every kingdom on the Continent, had suffered the same fate. Those to the north in Yarmouth were bears. New Warwick, the just to the south, were wolfmen. But for its own inscrutable reasons, the Land had made each Colony different.
In Seaborne the colonists were deer who walked on two legs. Taken in the dead of night right from under the crew, who had awoken on the Land's native soil with the natural result.
The merchant ship that held their precious cargo had been stolen. Whether it was pirates or the Solerans, the result was the same. Perhaps, after their cargo had brought in the expected thousand percent profit.ĭreams, George. The inns on the Town Dock were all too expensive for a neophyte merchant. The amulet was the cheapest George could afford, lasting one month. Worse, all who separated themselves from the Land became true animals outright the moment they stepped on Kalerand soil. Without it he would have joined Benjamin the moment he stepped off the Town Dock, unable to return home to his family.
Contained inside was a small measure of soil from Kalerand, bespelled to keep the Land from noticing him. George fingered the brass globe amulet around his neck. The Virgin Lands had much to offer, provided you were willing to surrender your humanity to it. His old friend and now-former business partner had come to the city two years ago, and perhaps like the doe-woman who owned the tavern, had forgone his human form for a chance at prosperity. The cheap ale had a bitter aftertaste, but he wanted all he could afford. The seedy tavern suited George's dark mood. Had she been born that way, or was she one of the growing numbers of newcomers to Seaborne who willingly gave up their humanity to live here? The tavernkeeper watched him with large brown eyes that were nevertheless eerily human. BBy the gods of land, sea, and sky, and by all of the creatures on this continent we cannot yet name, why did the Land choose deer? George Peryton stared openly at the doe-woman as she filled his glass for the third ale of the evening.