“Thank you.” Poldo nodded gratefully.
“With my schedule, I can probably find excuses not to conduct another review for a month.” Fitch threw his hands up in the air. “That’s all I can do. As a consultant—”
“Your reputation is your livelihood,” Poldo finished for him as they strolled out of the hedge maze. “Of course, Mr. Fitch. I shall… I shall try to see what I can accomplish.”
“Speaking of which, have you looked in to what Lamia Sisters is doing these days?”
“Collateralized threat obligations?” Poldo said in hushed tones. “I’ve heard they’re risky.”
“Not for the firms that are bundling them.” Fitch shrugged as he walked along the manicured paths of Boulderfolk’s expansive lawns. “Lamia Sisters can’t buy those things fast enough. Goldson Baggs is getting in on the game as well, and it’s only a matter of time before Citistate and J.P. Gorgon follow suit. But there may still be time to get in early.”
Poldo’s brow furrowed. “I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with a product that’s so… experimental.”
“Oh? Huh,” said Fitch airily. “I was over at Hylian Crest last weekend, and they seemed comfortable with it. But maybe it’s just easy to be comfortable in a posh office on the top floor of an old Elven palace. At least, more comfortable than in a garden shed.”
“I see your point.” Poldo tugged at the edge of his mustache.
“Think about it,” said Fitch, extending his hand. “And send me a messenger sprite if you’re looking for a partner. I know a guy who can help.”
Poldo thanked the Halfling and bade him farewell with a heavy heart and a spinning mind. He moved in a rote, almost mechanical fashion as he returned to the toolshed-cum-office to lock up for the night, going through the Wood Gnomes’ rituals like a golem about its duties. He was still lost in thought as he tramped down the familiar path to Boulderfolk’s service entrance, slipped into the back alley, and headed for the main street overlooking the seventh tier.
He stopped before he reached the main road, however, when he heard a commotion down a side alley. There were shouts of anger followed by the clattering crash of breaking pottery, and then a scrabbling sound from the back of one of the nearby restaurants. He peered around the corner just in time to see a shadowy blur of fur and claws before it knocked him to the ground.
A cloud of dust rose from the planks and splinters of wood rattling on the floorboards. Kaitha kicked at the remains of the box with her toe.
“You don’t have to smash the chests like that.” Laruna looked up from a ransacked bookshelf.
“There’s nothing inside.” The Elf shrugged. “The Shadowkin took everything.”
“You don’t know that,” said the solamancer.
“I know Heraldin and Gaist searched in here.” Kaitha pushed the remnants of the chest aside and tapped the floor beneath it. “The bard would have found anything obvious.”
Laruna glanced irritably around the captain’s quarters of the Glens. It had likely been well decorated once, but now the room was sparsely furnished and littered with boards and kindling. “Well, then what are we even doing in here?”
“Looking for anything that’s not obvious,” said the Elf, straightening. “Besides, it kills time while Gorm does some soul-searching.”
“Fine. But you still don’t have to smash all the chests,” said Laruna.
“True.” Kaitha hefted a table leg that could serve as a sledgehammer in a pinch. She set her sights on the footlocker at the end of the bed. “But it’s fun.”
Laruna considered this. Then she immolated the bookcase.
Kaitha’s first swing smashed in the top of the footlocker. Her second and third sent a long crack down the side of its wall. As the wood buckled, she caught sight of something amiss. Two more precise blows with the table leg confirmed her suspicions. “Ah, see?” she said to Laruna. “False bottom.”
“What’s in it?” asked the mage, snuffing out the burning bookcase with a wave of her hand.
“Let’s find out.” Kaitha crouched and pulled several items from the footlocker’s secret compartment. An old purse was the big find; more than a hundred giltin in coins and large notes were tucked in the leather pouch. There were also several pieces of personal memorabilia that might be worth a few giltin to a tinker: three silver medals wrapped in a yellowed letter of commendation, a woodcut of a young woman, and an ornate letter opener in a cherrywood box.
Kaitha noticed the glint of a glass vial in a dark corner of the ruined compartment. She handed Laruna the letter opener for evaluation and slipped the vial of elixir into her belt pouch while the mage was distracted. Then she dumped the last of the footlocker’s treasures onto the floor.
A few loose coins and an icon of Musana spilled out, followed by a small sculpture of a knight cast in painted pewter that bounced on the floor.
“What is that?” asked Laruna as Kaitha held up the armor-clad figurine.
“I think it’s a toy,” said the ranger, examining the tiny knight. Its armor was violet speckled with white and silver where the paint was chipped. It still had a faded velvet cape tied around its neck, and in the center of its chest was a piece of cloudy purple quartz cut to look like a gemstone. One hand held a bent sword high, the other gripped the handle of a shield that had gone missing. “I think he’s supposed to be Davon Royalheart.”
“Who?”
“An old hero from before your time,” said Kaitha. “Paladin running out of Silvershore. He led the party that took down the Gorgon Lord of the Eboncrags.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” said Laruna.
“Well, you’ve heard of Vorpal Corp.”
“He’s connected with Vorpal?”
“He founded it with a few investors after he retired from adventuring.” Kaitha wiped the dust from the toy paladin’s gemstone. “Had a great career. I think he passed on a few years back.”
“Do you think we can get a few coppers for it?” Laruna asked.
“I’m not going to sell it,” said Kaitha.
Laruna’s brow furrowed. “Why not? It won’t help us kill anything, and it won’t help us survive. If you can’t get a fair price, we should leave it.”
“It’s purple,” said Kaitha.
“Oh, gods.” The mage rolled her eyes. “Not the King in the Wood again.”
The ranger shrugged as she stood. “You don’t have to believe in him. He’s there. Spirit or Elf or… whatever he is, I’m certain he’s watching over us. Protecting us.”
“All I’m certain of is that our ranger keeps sprinkling loot behind us if it’s the right color,” grumbled the mage as she gathered up the rest of the goods.
“You can’t deny we’ve encountered very few monsters out here,” said Kaitha.
“I can deny that it has anything to do with leaving toys in the woods,” Laruna shot back.
“Oh, stop worrying about the toy. It wouldn’t fetch more than a silver shilling,” said Kaitha.
“It’s the principle of the thing,” said Laruna.
Now it was Kaitha’s turn to roll her eyes. People fell back to principle when they lost ground on the facts. “Come on,” she said, tucking the figurine into her pouch. “You can have two cents’ worth of my share to make up for it.”
“I’d pay a sovereign to see you get over this forest spirit,” said Laruna. “We all see the way you stare into the woods. It worries me.”
Kaitha smiled. “We’ve all got bigger things to concern ourselves with. I like the idea that there’s someone out there helping us. I like the feeling I get when I know he’s close. Allow me that small happiness.”
Chapter 2
Gorm sought comfort in a small alcove on the Glens’ ruined ramparts. The nook provided a dry patch of ground, a modicum of shelter from the frigid wind, and a truly impressive view. The Highwalls rose all around him, their icy peaks towering over the vale below.
The Dwarf rummaged around in his old rucksack, his nose wrinkling at t
he odors of cigarette smoke and wet Kobold. Beneath Burt’s personal effects and his own supplies, a thick leather packet was bound with thin black rope. He unpacked it slowly, taking care not to spill the heartseeker beads. The small stones were inert in his palm, their magic long dormant. The beads were enchanted to orient toward the Guz’Varda Tribe whenever one of them gripped the Heartstone. Nobody had gripped the stone in months, and now they were little more than a momento of the Goblin whose grave he had taken them from.
There was too much to do to mourn Tib’rin again. Gorm packed the beads up, set them aside, and pulled an old book from the packet. Sheltering the pages from the wind, Gorm opened the collected works and notes of Niln of Al’Matra.
His calloused fingers traced the edges of the worn, leather journal. The ragged book reminded him of the thin scribe who penned it; both a wise man and a fool boy. He smiled at the thought of the priest.
“Let’s see if ye can offer any insight today, Niln,” he muttered to himself. Gorm began to read.
And I saw a bird, or maybe three, or maybe one that burned three times,
He was a babe, and then a beast, and then a dark king rising in blood.
The maiden of tears loves him, fears him, mourns him.
Her tears end, the vessel fills, once more rises the traitor god.
“Totally barmy,” murmured Gorm, though he wore a fond smile as he said it.
The passage was from the prophet Rebik’s first and most coherent book. According to Niln’s commentary in the margin, the First Book of Rebik was completed just before the ancient scribe descended into the madness that claimed most of Al’Matra’s chosen. After his breakdown, the prophet’s writing turned exclusively to sonnets addressed to various species of caterpillar.
The margins of the scriptures overflowed with notes and cross-references, all written in a neat, tight script. Niln had studied every passage in great detail, slicing each verse into discrete parts for examination as a naturalist might dissect a frog. This particular passage had clearly puzzled the late High Scribe of Al’Matra.
A burning bird is a phoenix. Does it represent the Dark Prince, as he resurrects Al’Thadan? But where are the Seven Heroes? Is this a vision of what is to come, or a vision of the world if the heroes fail? If the Prince is destined to bring back the Sten, whence hope? If the heroes are destined to stop him, whence this prophecy?
“Ye never could make any sense of this claptrap either, could ye?” The Dwarf traced the text with the tip of his finger. After Niln’s death, the scribe’s scriptures and notes were all he had of his old friend.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to remind Gorm of why he was out here. When he felt hopeless, when aimlessness threatened to extinguish the fire at his core, it helped to remember Tib’rin’s courage and Niln’s faith, and the slimy bastards who brought both of them to untimely ends. Gorm’s grip tightened on the page as he exhaled a ragged breath.
“Ye two are the only things keepin’ me going,” he grumbled, tracing his finger down the page. As he did so, his finger passed a hastily scrawled comment in the margins, the ink smeared in careless urgency.
This cannot be accomplished by mortal hands, least of all by mine. Margwice, chapter 3, verse 3
The Dwarf was still considering the scrawled note when a large rock hit the side of the fortress with a crack and a thud. He stared at the stone for a moment before he carefully closed the book and placed it within the leather parcel. A second rock hit the ramparts as he tucked the package back in his rucksack.
“I’m comin’,” Gorm grumbled as he stepped up to the edge of the ramparts and peered over the edge.
Below him, atop the narrow ribbon of rock between the fortress’ wall and the jagged slopes of the Highwalls, perched a hulking figure with a grin full of daggers.
Gorm smiled, which was an unusual reaction to the arrival of a Troll. Thane, however, had proven himself to be unlike other Trolls in many important ways—most notably that he would interact with people without trying to kill them.
“Anything to report?” asked Gorm, clambering down a trail of rubble and stones.
Thane shook his head. “Nothing to speak of.”
Gorm nodded. The monsters and villains that threatened the party came in two varieties: those that could detect a Troll well enough to steer clear of Thane, and those that quickly came to wish that they could.
“Come over here,” the Troll urged, ushering Gorm around a piece of jutting granite that reinforced the fort’s wall. “We’re still visible from the gate.”
Gorm looked at the tapering pass around the jutting stone and the sheer drop on the other side of it. “I can’t believe we’re still goin’ through all this effort to keep ye hidden,” he grumbled as he navigated around the ridge to privacy.
“You know I still can’t show myself,” Thane said.
“Why not?” Gorm barked. He always felt a little off-balance in talks about relationships, and the edge of a cliff was a bad place to be off-balance. “She knows you’re there. She still stares out of camp at night. I hear her trying to talk to ye when she thinks nobody’s listening. She can tell you’re watchin’ over us, Thane.”
“She knows something is watching over you,” Thane countered. “But to her, I am the King in the Wood. I am still as she imagines me to be.” The Troll looked at his gnarled, hairy hands. “I doubt she’d be as happy with the truth.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Probably not many of them,” countered Thane.
Gorm shrugged. “If a Troll can get all loopy over an Elf, I don’t see why it can’t be the other way around.”
“Unfortunately, I can think of a few reasons,” said Thane. He attempted to give Gorm a warm smile, and managed to not look too menacing. “Perhaps I’ll show myself someday, but for now, keep my secret.”
“I will,” said Gorm. He looked out over the crags of the Highwalls and the baroque shadows they cast in the afternoon sun. “But I don’t like it. How long are things between ye going to be this way? We’ve been travelin’ together for over a year.”
“It’s been a rough year,” said Thane. “There wasn’t really a good time.”
“There’s never a good time to say ye’ve been keeping a big secret.”
“Some times are worse than others,” the Troll countered.
“Aye, but we don’t have forever to choose from,” said Gorm. “Parties of heroes don’t stay together this long without a quest. Something always starts a fight, be it a spat over the best loot or a full-blown feud for party leadership. Fights become rifts, and then the party splits in two or three, or falls apart altogether.”
“Surely it’s not always like that,” Thane said.
“It is often enough,” said Gorm. “And that’s assumin’ you’re on someone’s payroll. We’ve been hunted like dogs by the guild, and even Burt is talking about the good old days of livin’ in some poncy Elf’s purse. Nobody’s left yet, but it wouldn’t take much.”
“But after all you’ve been through together?” said Thane. “What of loyalty and friendship?”
“Not to put a tarnish on friendship, but a party of professional heroes is a group of well-paid killers for hire,” said Gorm. “Every one of ‘em’s got their own agenda, their own dark past. And when all the secrets start comin’ to light, parties split. And we can’t split the party.”
“You’re not like that,” insisted the Troll.
“Perhaps. We’re a bit lighter on the killing, and we definitely ain’t well paid,” Gorm said. “But long kept secrets still have ways of doin’ damage.”
“You’re worried that I’ll divide them,” said Thane, staring over the horizon.
“Party’s already divided, in a way.” said Gorm. “There’s those of us who know you’re a part of it, and those that don’t. That’s a crack in the armor. Folks are already grumblin’. The past year we’ve all been cold, hungry, and miserable, and they’re starting to question why we’re even out here chas
ing after the Guz’Varda when there ain’t a Shadowkin on Arth who doesn’t hate us. The whole party’s like a tinderbox next to the fire. They catch me and Burt keeping ye from them, well, it’d be a big spark, if ye catch my drift.”
“I see,” said the Troll.
“An introduction, though… that might go better,” Gorm suggested.
“I’ll think on it,” Thane said.
“Good. Things can’t go on as they have been forever.” Gorm let out a long sigh at the admission. “And on that note, I suppose I’d best get back to the party and give them the news.”
The Troll raised a curious eyebrow. “The news?”
“Aye.” Gorm looked across the valley below the Glens, to the distant forest and grasslands of southern Ruskan. “We’re going south.”
It seemed to Poldo that his situation was quickly deteriorating.
Moments after bowling him over, his furry assailant pinned the Scribkin’s arm behind his back and dragged him behind one of Boulderfolk’s ornate dumpsters. Small claws pressed into his cheeks as a hand, or perhaps a paw, pressed over his mouth. He attempted to speak, but the attacker twisted his arm even further behind his back. Poldo let out a muffled whimper instead.
“Quiet!” growled a somewhat feminine voice. “Or… or else!”
Another bout of shouting rang through the alleyway. “Where are you, mongrel!” bellowed a furious voice. “If I see you or your filthy kin in my alley again, I’ll call the guild! They know what to do with your kind!”
Poldo heard the muffled commotion of someone kicking boxes, and then heavy, receding footsteps. A door slammed in the distance, leaving the Scribkin alone in the dark with his assailant. After a few minutes, she loosed her grip on his face.
“Madam, I-I-I don’t want any trouble.” Poldo’s mouth forged ahead while his brain ran in panicked circles.
“Nobody ever wants any trouble,” said the attacker. “But we’ve both stepped in it now.”
Son of a Liche Page 3