Zorko’s Arcane Appraisals

Under the Canvas

“Welcome,” Zorko said, his voice rich as poured molasses, “to a tent stitched from evening itself. Lanterns hang like a patient constellation, and the floorboards remember every step.” He planted his phoenix feather upright on the tabletop. The feather glowed the soft blue of doused steel, sending a polite spark that made the nearest child gasp.

“We gather to witness the polite quarrel between mystery and measurement. I serve the ledger. The ledger rarely wins.”

The Orb, a glassy sphere the size of a grapefruit, drifted above the table. It gave a single hum, as if clearing its throat, then settled to a faint, steady glow. The big top was a bowl of warm air and applause, filled with the smell of sugar and sawdust.

Zorko stood in layered red robes that had seen better fires, eyes aglow, and no visible skin at all. He bowed to the benches, to the bunting, to a tray of candied almonds, then to no one in particular.

“Tonight we appraise a musical instrument,” he continued, adjusting a curled corner of the appraisal ledger. “Not a humble lute, not a council harp, but an object rumored to unhook the feet from dignity. Prepare your ankles for betrayal.”

A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd. Somewhere behind the back row, a string of bells chimed as a breeze slipped under the canvas.

Zorko inhaled, and instantly regretted it. Magic tingled in the air and his stomach performed a slow somersault. He recovered with a grim smile and patted his middle.

“Arcane effluvia,” he announced, “a tonic for the soul and a firm reminder to chew slowly.”

“Hedge Wizard Dotta of the Carnival,” Zorko declared, sweeping an arm toward the entry flap. “Who arrives smiling even when the weather thinks it has better plans.”

Dotta entered with a leather case tucked under his arm. He did not stride; he moved like a friend crossing a familiar room. He waved to the candied almond vendor, knelt so a little girl could whisper a secret in his ear, straightened with a grin that included the entire tent, then reached the table and offered Zorko a hand.

“Zorko,” he said, bright and warm. “You look cooler without all those winter wraps. Happy to finally do this in front of everyone.” He turned to the audience. “Thank you for coming. If you enjoy yourselves, it is because you came ready.”

Zorko shook Dotta’s hand with ceremonial gravity. “Your reputation arrives two steps ahead of you. It dragged me here by the collar.” He tapped the Orb with the feather, and the Orb brightened. An approving pulse.

Dotta set the case on the table and opened it. The fiddle inside had the soft gleam of long care: wood the color of strong tea, silver vines inlaid along the neck, a pegbox carved into a sly fox. Even as it lay there, the strings hummed. A pitch too low to name.

Zorko leaned in, eyes narrowing with the pleasure of a puzzle.

“Provenance,” he said, quill poised. “Workshop, school, wood, finish, any names carved under the chin rest.”

“Pawn shop,” Dotta said cheerfully. “The owner did not like music. The wood liked me, and that was enough.”

Zorko pursed his lips. “A romance of materials. I will allow it.”

He lifted the fiddle with theatrically delicate fingers and peered along the grain.

“A curve that invites wind, varnish that remembers warm hands, resonance chamber tuned to a street with many voices.” He sniffed once, eyes watering. “And the faint bouquet of carnival caramel… I record this as a positive note.”

The audience laughed again. The Orb flickered, then settled, a satisfied breath.

Zorko set the instrument back.

“Alleged property,” he announced. “Compulsion. The claim states that all who hear must dance. This invites a series of metaphysical questions: Does dance require joy? Can compulsion invite consent? Does rhythm possess a moral angle?”

Dotta rested the chin rest against his jaw. “You can ask the questions while we find out,” he said, smiling and unhurried. “I promise to stop the moment it is unsafe for anyone.”

Zorko opened his mouth to stage a caution, then realized the crowd had leaned forward in one collective hinge. He raised a hand.

“Fine. Controlled demonstration. The Orb will record, my ledger will endure, and my feet shall remain sovereign.”

Dotta drew the bow across the strings. The first note was low, a velvet rope laid around the audience. Zorko wrote the word timbre, then fumbled the quill because his right foot had begun to tick against the table leg.

“Range,” he said, pretending to be unbothered while his ankle plotted treason. “We shall chart distance shortly.”

The second phrase leaped. A row of teenagers in matching scarves started clapping in perfect offbeat. An old wizard in the front row began to sway with the determined caution of a man negotiating with his knees. Zorko’s foot tapped faster; then both feet discovered an agreement, and his chair gave a tiny scoot.

He tightened his jaw. “Strength of compulsion seems proportional to rhythmic anticipation,” he proclaimed. “This is the scientific term for ‘oh no.’”

Dotta played another figure. Quicksilver now. Trills that landed like coins tossed to a hat. A woman balancing a tray of candied apples spun once to keep her apples aboard, then kept spinning because the tray had somehow learned the step. A man who clearly did not dance for anyone began to dance for everyone. Laughter rolled up to the rigging.

Zorko stood to regain authority. His knees betrayed him; his hips negotiated a curve. He tried to keep the ledger pressed to his chest while his body wrote cursive with his legs.

“Observation,” he puffed. “My handwriting continues internally.” He attempted a dignified nod to the audience, discovered his head had joined the conspiracy, and nodded three times in rhythm.

The Orb bobbed, humming, then flickered as if taken by a hiccup of joy. The phoenix feather wobbled. Zorko reached to steady it and missed, his fingers had decided to snap.

“Safety check,” he called. “Dotta, please confirm stairs are clear, edges padded, and no ankles under the rail.”

“Clear,” Dotta said, music gliding like laughter through a summer kitchen. His eyes never left the crowd. When a small boy near the bunting seemed unsure, Dotta softened the rhythm, and the boy found a simple step, delighted. When the elderly wizard tired, Dotta slipped a small rest into the melody, and the man used it to sit without losing face.

Zorko felt it then. Not the pull of control, but the strange forward tilt of shared motion. Joy made room for itself. That was all. It was a curious feeling for a man who treated metaphors like calipers. He blinked, a little dizzy, a little green, then steadied as the tune wove into a gentle reel.

He tried to regain the upper hand by theorizing harder.

“We are looking at a thaumaturgic field of approximately fifty paces,” he said while his boots wrote a figure-eight. “Amplitude modulated by tempo and performer empathy. Note the word empathy… it appears to be a material.”

A teenager called, “You look good, Zorko.” Another shouted, “Lift the feather.” Zorko, unable to resist either the compulsion or the compliment, raised the phoenix feather like a conductor. The flame inside flared, then produced a tiny shower of blue sparks that landed in Zorko’s hood. He yelped, laughed in spite of himself, and shook them out. The crowd howled with delight.

“Artifact misbehavior recorded,” he announced, cheeks flushed. “The feather believes it is a percussionist.”

Dotta turned the tune playful and let the crowd out of the step like a fisherman easing a net back into water. The mass of bodies slowed without jarring. The laughter had a softer edge now. Parents hugged children still bouncing. Two strangers bowed to each other as if they had rehearsed it.

Zorko, breathing a little harder than pride preferred, placed the feather back in its stand.

“I maintain a professional distance from happiness,” he said, then ruined the line by smiling. “For calibration.”

A calm voice arrived from the tent’s shadow above the entry flap.

“Calibration accepted. Correction required.” The Orb turned toward the sound and gave a single bright blink.

Uvlius of the Belfry stepped into the light as if he had been there the entire time, and the light had finally decided to notice him. He wore parchment tones, carried an armful of thin ledgers, and kept an expression with no quarrel against reality.

“Historical note,” he said, each word landing like a tidy stamp. “The fiddle is not a compulsion engine. It is a field amplifier keyed to a narrow band of motor suggestion. The effect manifests strongly in communities that tolerate joy and weakly in hostile assemblies. Origin is uncertain. Likely river school, later modified by an itinerant maker with a fox motif. Range is measured at forty to sixty paces under canvas. Duration ends with the song. There are no harmful aftereffects. There are also rules, and they are not the object’s rules.”

He looked at Dotta. “They are yours.”

Dotta lowered the bow. The tent quieted as if someone had pinched the wick of a lamp.

“My rules are simple,” he said. “I play where it is safe to lose yourself. I do not play to win an argument. I stop if one person is frightened. If I am wrong, I apologize with my whole throat.” He looked at the front row, where the old wizard sat smiling like a boy. “This is not a tool to humiliate. It is a reminder that our bodies know something about being alive.”

Uvlius nodded once, as if a ledger line had balanced. “Valuation caution,” he continued. “Any attempt to remove the instrument from the Carnival reduces its effect. The audience is part of the circuit. Attempted use in warfare has been recorded once and failed. Soldiers do not permit joy to cross the threshold. The item is therefore volatile in theory and very safe in practice when held by this operator.” He glanced at Zorko. “Also, you are green. Drink water.”

Zorko swallowed and discovered that he was indeed the color of a thoughtful cucumber. “A temporary condition,” he assured the crowd. “My stomach is a sensitive poet.”

The Orb gave a sympathetic hum. Someone passed a tin cup to the stage. Zorko drank and immediately improved.

Uvlius stepped back into the shadow. He had spoken for only five sentences, maybe six. The air felt as if furniture had been rearranged into its proper place. The crowd sighed like a single, contented household.

Zorko rested his hands on the table and took the full measure of the man across from him. He saw the way people watched Dotta—not for the trick, but for the moment after, when he checked that everyone had come back safely. He saw the assistants at the edge of the ring, ready to help anyone who needed it, and mostly doing nothing because Dotta’s timing had done it first. He saw the Orb hovering with an unusual stillness.

“I began the evening prepared to weigh a gimmick,” Zorko said, tone softer now. “Instead, I find a modest instrument that magnifies what is already in the room. A bow that writes permission. A box of wood that says yes.” He tapped the ledger, then closed it. “There is a question we sometimes forget to ask… not what does it do, but who does it become in these hands?”

Dotta looked mildly embarrassed. “I just like when people leave lighter.”

Zorko picked up the phoenix feather. The blue within it dimmed to a steady coal.

“Final appraisal,” he announced, voice carrying to the rafters. “Seven thousand gold in shared breath, fifty in resale on a slow market, and one generous night that earns its own memory.” He pointed the feather at the crowd. “Do not try to buy this. You already paid at the door by wanting to be here.”

The tent applauded, and then applauded again when Zorko bowed toward Dotta. Dotta bowed back, a little deeper, because he was that kind of person.

“Will you play us out,” Zorko asked, “with whatever tune you use to close an evening that did not try to be perfect, and very nearly was?”

Dotta lifted the fiddle and settled it into place. He did not speak. He looked around the tent and nodded to the old wizard, the teenagers with scarves, the almond vendor, the little girl who had whispered a secret, Zorko, and lastly the Orb. The Orb flickered once, as if startled to be included.

The first notes were gentle, not compelling. A slow sweep that moved like a breath shared by two people who have decided not to hurry anymore. The crowd began to sway, not because they had to, but because it felt correct.

Zorko stood very still. His feet wanted to join, and he let them. It was not science, and it was not surrender. It was the body remembering it could agree with itself.

The tune gathered only slightly, enough to carry the benches like a raft into the middle of the moment. The phoenix feather cast a small sky of blue that rested on shoulders and hair. A toddler on the aisle found a clumsy clap; an older woman matched it; the whole tent adopted the beat as if it had always been theirs. Dotta smiled without needing everyone to see it.

Zorko leaned toward the Orb and whispered so softly the crystal barely caught it: “There is your truth. Record it carefully. It will not hold still.” The Orb answered with a soft tone, not music, but something like the idea of music practiced in a quiet room.

When the song let them go, it did so kindly. Laughter bubbled up. Several people hugged; several more pretended not to, faces bright in lantern light. Dotta lowered the fiddle.

“Thank you for dancing with me.”

Zorko tapped the feather against the table, and the glow went to a friendly ember. He faced the benches one last time.

“Thus concludes our appraisal,” he said, the poetry in him satisfied. “We opened a tent and found a room with a thousand doors, none of which we needed to use. We measured joy and discovered it returns the favor.”

He looked to Uvlius. The shadow by the flap inclined its head. That was as loud as Uvlius ever got.

Zorko turned back to Dotta and offered his hand. “I misread you at the beginning,” he said, with the ease of a man who does not mind being wrong if the story improves. “I will try to do that more often with you. It produces very good evenings.”

Dotta shook his hand, then turned to the crowd.

“There is still time for sweets,” he called. “And time to teach each other a step before you go.” He tucked the fiddle into its case like a cherished book and latched it with a click.

The tent began to empty in that loose, laughing way that means no one is quite ready to leave. Zorko sat, finally, and pressed a hand to his stomach.

“Better,” he observed. “Nausea has retreated to write a letter of apology.”

The Orb drifted down to the table edge, gave one last gentle flicker, and went still. The moment held long enough for everyone to notice it, then passed politely into the rest of the night.

Entered by: 0x6424…79B4