Title-- The Demon-God of Jubagh (book two, part two)
Rating and Warnings-- G; mild language.
Cast-- Rai Gerring, defected black magician (human man); Brandon Styhan, exiled paladin-warrior (human man); Lhafa Softstep, blind voodoo warrior (baghan woman).
Previously-- Book One: Jubagh. Part One.



Arista had left shortly after explaining their quest, leaving the three alone with a pile of books and scrolls. Brandon rose and went to stare out a window, leaning his arms against the sill and his forehead against the glass pane, as Rai summarized what Arista had said for Lhafa. The baghan woman listened quietly, nodding her head when Rai paused to make sure she understood.

Rai leaned forward, then simply moved to sit on the wooden deck in front of the pile. "Language first, Brandon?" he called, still using the baghan tongue. It was becoming closer to second nature now, the slip-and-flow of the language. He didn't particularly want to learn a new one. The magician paused; Brandon hadn't answered, still staring out the window. "Hey. Brandon."

"Don't have the attention span for language right now, Rai," the ex-paladin replied. "Start looking up culture or something else. I'll .. listen."

Rai shook his head. "If by 'listen', you mean 'think about the mess we're in now and completely ignore me', sure," he quipped, unrolling a scroll labeled The Sivefi. He blinked at the watercolor illustrations. "I thought there were only two races on Sivef. This shows three..." He peered closely, sitting cross-legged in the heap of his long robes. "Oh. Oh."

"Please explain it?" Lhafa requested quietly, staying on her cushion and angling her face towards him.

"Of course... sorry, Lhafa. Ah, the primary race of Sivef is an architectural one. They build fairly complex cities, buildings, simple roadways... ah, a few notches above baghans, I'm afraid. They even have carriages. Ah, they seem like basic enough people, physically... Shorter than a human, much thicker in build, probably outweigh us by a lot. Strange feet, two-toed, with two fingers and a thumb on their hands. No visible ears, and their face is shaped like it once wore a beak, only... without the beak. I can't tell if they have fur or not. No tail. Simple clothing." Rai glanced at the other two creatures illustrated in detail on the scroll. "Those are the... er. They're definitely a separate race from the other, but as far as I can tell, they're both called Sivefi. Hm. We'll probably find the real names later on in a book."

"It sounds like I will be very out of place there," Lhafa remarked, a faint smile touching her lips. "What of the other people?"

"You won't be that out of place, Lhafa," Rai reassured her. "Sivef is pretty civilized. A lot of human traders pass through, and some non-humans as well. You'll be a foot taller than the tallest Sivefi, but Brandon's almost that tall, too." He glanced at the ex-paladin's back and stifled a sigh. "Right, the others. The other Sivefi seem to be ... well, shapechangers. They have a person-like body, and an animal-like body."

"Shapechangers?" Lhafa looked startled. "They are demons?"

"No, no... not all things that switch skins are demons. Looks like these Sivefi do it naturally, without magic. There are plenty of notes... ah, their person-body is relatively normal. They look about human-sized, big floppy ears, uhm, backwards-pointing horns... Faces a little like baghans, only the hint of a muzzle is more pronounced. Uh, no thumbs, and they walk on the balls of their feet... wolfish tail."

"What's a wolfish?"

"...and by 'wolfish', I mean 'furry and generally useless'," Rai grinned. "Looks like they have spots - across their face and down their flanks. Maybe claws, I can't tell..."

Brandon was suddenly squatting next to Rai; he took the scroll from the magician's thin hands. "Huh. Notes say these are the lesser race. Animal-body looks typical. Bet they're hunters."

Rai nodded. "Yes, likely. Ah, Lhafa, they are furred - probably in both bodies, actually - and seem to have hair, or a mane, cropped very short and only on their skulls. Long muzzles and wide paws, seem fairly sturdy in build. If their weight doesn't change between bodies, their shoulder would probably come up to my hip. Rather... pretty, almost. Even though they keep the floppy ears and the horns."

The room was quickly getting dark, and Brandon glanced out a window opposite the one he'd been staring out earlier. "We've left the Source," he muttered, looking both relieved and pensive. "Softstep? Care to light up your amulet so Rai can keep reading to us?"

The baghan nodded and touched the bundle lightly, placing it on the outside of her fraying vest. It lit with a pale glow, turning the room eerie with deep shadows.

"...you've gotten very deft at that, Lhafa," Rai said approvingly. "Perhaps we can convince Arista to let you practice some of the theories we discussed on the way here."

"Doubt it," Brandon muttered. He set down the scroll, returning to his window and leaning on it again. "Keep on, Rai. How do the Sivefi interact?"

"Ah," the magician picked up the scroll from the floor again, "the first ones are the traders and the builders. It seems that the shapechangers wander in loose groups, and only some of them participate in towns. There are notes that they are valuable as guards against seedy off-world traders, and as food-providers and trail-finders. The first ones don't stray off the roads or out of towns, unless they're building something new, but the changers go everywhere, it looks like. Both speak the same common language, probably because of the influx of traders in the last however-many years. The language can be spoken even by the animal-bodied Sivefi, so it's probably going to be very guttural and basic. Easy to learn."

"Good. That oughta give us the spare time to keep training Softstep, then," Brandon grunted from his place near the window. The skies had blackened and the air had chilled considerably as they put distance between them and the Source.

"Yeah," Rai agreed, glancing to the baghan woman. "She'll need all we can teach her."