Page 8 of Ogres Don't Play

I stumbled back, hit the metal bench of the angry piano and sat, hitting the keys with my elbows and sending a surprisingly agreeable cacophony of notes through the room. The hungry beast sounded like a spring rainstorm. The music held for a long time before eventually it faded, leaving me to stare at the ogre where he worked on my harp with a curious look in his eyes as he studied me back.

“You aren’t Rook the Luthier,” I finally said, still sitting. The bench was surprisingly comfortable, but what else could you expect from the greatest instrument maker of all time? “You’re part ogre,” I added with a frown because if somehow an ogre was also Rook the Luthier, life as I knew it was over. Done. Completely finished.

He smiled again, showing me his tusks. “Yes. Ogres couldn’t possibly be artisans. That reaction is what I’m striving to overcome. I can see that kidnapping, particularly kidnapping females, will have to be done away with, although it is quite effective, particularly when one of the other ogres does it. I seem so harmless, but they are quite persuasive just looking like they do.”

I snorted while his hands worked, sanding, smoothing, filling the wood, renewing the nearly invisible carvings that held spells in them that had nothing to do with sound and everything to do with happiness.

“What spells and potions did you use on me? They were so perfectly effective, like you know my weight and blood lines perfectly.”

“I have a good nose for blood.” His slight smile was absolutely impossible, and his voice was doubly attractive while working with his capable, strong, graceful hands. Those hands had held me as though I weighed nothing. And he’d taken me to an hourly motel. Was I blushing? Possibly. Probably. Yes. Fine. I was blushing, but if he was actually Rook, The Rook, of course I’d be blushing and gushing and trying to get to know him personally, professionally, and any other possible way.

“Do you remember making my harp?” I asked quietly. It had been old when I’d gotten it, so he was older than he looked. Some ogres aged like that, but who knew how he’d age with his mixed blood? Did he possibly have Elven blood? I’d bet he did with the Elven runes he’d carved into that lute. Ogres and Elvesboth had pointed ears, so the ears hiding in his long dark hair weren’t any kind of giveaway. What was he? Was he really Rook? Was I actually sitting in Rook’s new music shop in Song? Unreal.

“I know the timetable when I probably made it, seventy-five years into my craft. It’s not my best work, but you have given it the care and love that any instrument is lucky to have.”

I sniffed because I shouldn’t have let it get broken in the first place. That wasn’t love or care. “I should have protected it better.”

“I saw the building fall on you. What could you have done that you didn’t do? It is very well-spelled for preservation, almost as if you’re afraid to lose it. To be honest, it doesn’t match your impressive skill set.”

I dropped my eyes to my lap where my fingers were tangling together. If this was Rook the Luthier, and he was telling me that I had skills, well… it was the kind of thing I’d been waiting to hear my whole life. I cleared my throat and tried not to squeak or faint. “Thank you. Do you know the ogre who saved me?”

“Because all ogres know each other?” His lips twitched while he gave me another look with those pretty eyes. Now his eyes were pretty? What was wrong with me? Then again, if he was really Rook the Luthier, and his eyes were capable of seeing and creating the most majestic instruments in the world, then they were far more than just pretty.

“There aren’t many ogres in Singsong, and you were both at the town hall at the same time.”

“There are over two hundred ogres, most working as bodyguards. The gray society has been hiring ogre bodyguards for ten years. I consider that great progress. We have adapted to the position of protector instead of villain rather well.”

“Oh. You seem very interested in ogre progress.”

He smiled his pretty smile while those hands did that thing over the wood and his voice took its time coming, a voice I wasalready mildly addicted to. Waiting for him to speak made me want sushi. Desperately. My mouth was watering way too much when he finally said, “I am an ogre who has spent many years pushing against the hatred and suspicion that comes from what I am.”

“You’re more than an ogre. You could probably file your tusks, do a small glamour, and pass for a burly elf.”

He studied me for a long moment before he looked down at the harp in his hands. His brows were furrowed when he spoke, and he didn’t look up. That voice. I could write a symphony based on that voice, the way the low notes lingered and the key shifted, depending on his subtle emotions. “I glamoured myself at the beginning. That is how I gained an internship with the great Elven craftsmen at the time, by hiding who I am, by holding all ogres in contempt every time I saw one, but from what I learned of elves, their vanity, cruelty, corruption, there is no real superiority of character or nature. Ogres can be trained, can adapt, can find a place in the most selective guilds and thrive, but only if they aren’t slaughtered on another pointless battlefield. I am not part ogre. It’s all I am. I am not ashamed of my heritage, my identity. I am small and appear delicate, but there is a wide range of ogre characteristics, even though they’ve been bred out as well as…” He frowned darkly. “It is still custom among some of my tribes to cast out the smaller of our kind, but there is a place for everyone. I will make it so.” His eyes glittered for a moment, and I knew there was magic in him as well as conviction, compassion, and an incredibly strong sense of justice.

My world had shattered, completely collapsed. I was screaming in freefall, about to be skewered on a spear that killed everything I thought I knew about existence. Ogres were the dark equivalent of elves, the great warriors on land, but this guy was saying that it was more than that. Ogre nature was a mixtureof conditioning and selective breeding, but I knew ogres. When I was just a little kid, I was taken by a band of ogres who kept me in their camp. Yes, they’d given me my precious harp to keep me quiet, but they’d also experimented on me, putting various spells on me to see what they did to the little angel girl before they’d returned me to my dad after he’d given them what they wanted. I still didn’t know what the price had been, but it had been high and my father refused to talk about it.

I shook my head and gripped the metal bench, scrabbling for truth, for some fact I knew. In spite of being metal, it was warm, like living flesh. Maybe I shouldn’t be sitting on it, but I wasn’t sure my legs could hold my weight. “Says the kidnapper. For all I know, you’re just an extremely talented liar. That would be the Elven in you.”

He raised a brow and his lips shifted into a slight smile. “You don’t believe me?”

“No. I don’t believe you’re only ogre and I don’t believe that you’re Rook the Luthier, and I don’t believe that ogres want to be a healthy part of the world’s economy. A few, perhaps, but the majority want nothing more than to rip apart the light.”

“You have a very healthy sense of skepticism. Repairing your harp doesn’t convince you?”

“You clearly know your way around instruments, but that doesn’t mean that you’re capable of creating an original instrument of breathtaking capabilities musically and magically.” Didn’t it? No. It couldn’t. I wasn’t going to be swayed by a pretty instrument shop and a good line. I crossed my arms and lifted my chin, challenging him.

He studied me thoughtfully. “I see. You require proof of the full extent of my capability? Your experiences with ogres must have been very convincing.”

I frowned at him. “One of them kidnapped me not too long ago.” He’d kidnapped me, and I had no idea how long he’d had me unconscious.

He nodded. “And one of them saved your life not long before that.”

I glared at him because that was entirely beside the point.

His expression lightened. “Very well. I will create for you a custom instrument matched to your exact capabilities. To do so, you will have to play. What instrument do you choose? I know that you love this harp, but as the music master, you must have skill in many instruments.”

I stopped breathing as I studied the man, or ogre, or world’s greatest luthier. He had complete confidence in his ability to impress me with his instrument-making skills. If Rook the Luthier was going to custom make an instrument for me, he would charge more money than I could ever pay.

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