Laruna had never been one for geometry, but in this case, it was regrettably easy to do the math.
“If it was a simple haunting, we’d have found the site by the first day,” said Jynn. “We’d have found signs of a necromancer or a wight by now. But to call the dead from this far…” Jynn shook his head. “It’s a liche.”
“Probably. But we still don’t know that it’s your father,” said Laruna.
“True enough. Though I wonder if having two liches active would really be any better.”
“Good point.” Laruna shuddered at the idea. “But we knew all of this last night. What are you doing out here this morning?”
The noctomancer shrugged. “I’m just trying to, you know, pack some emotions.”
“You mean unpack them,” Laruna corrected.
“Uh, no.” The wizard looked at her as if she had just channeled noctomancy. “I meant pack them.”
“You’re packing your emotions,” the solamancer said flatly.
“Yes!” Jynn sounded a little irritated. “You take all of the things that hurt, you put them in a box, and you set the box on a shelf in the back of your mind.”
Laruna was at a loss for words. “That… that is not a healthy way to deal with things.”
“It’s served me well enough,” said Jynn. “How do you handle pain and loss?”
“I take whatever anger and sadness I’ve got and let it all out. Usually as fire.” Laruna thought for a moment. “And preferably in the direction of the problem.”
“Yes, well, some things don’t burn,” said Jynn.
“Maybe.” Laruna raised her hand and clenched it into a fist, igniting a nearby rock. “But I haven’t come across any yet.”
“Yes, well, you can’t set fire to the past, though.” Jynn watched the stone melt to slag. “And you can’t set fire to my father. I watched you try.”
“Well, if at first you don’t succeed…” said Laruna.
“It isn’t that simple,” said the wizard with a bitter laugh. “You define my father as his work, his deeds in the Agekeepers’ histories. But not me. I remember him bouncing me on his knee and playing horse. I remember how long he wept when Mother died. I remember him buying me a puppy to help me feel better. I remember him comforting me when Patches ran away. I remem-remember days and days of training. And though he was harsh, I remember learning from him.”
“Harsh? He was cruel to you,” said Laruna.
“He… he wanted me to figure things out.” The wizard’s eyes glazed over. “He’d leave me clues and prod me to put them together. He was trying to make me think for myself, see the big picture.”
“That doesn’t excuse what he did to you.”
“This is what I’m talking about.” Jynn sighed. “To you and the bards, he was nothing but a villain. You see everything he did through that lens. But I lived those stories, and I know better than anyone that history is nothing but the collected lies society tells itself. To me, Detarr Ur’Mayan was a father, and I spent my entire adult life believing he and I were wronged. When the guild brought their false charges and Johan killed him, I thought the world had turned against an innocent man.”
The noctomancer extinguished the flames on the stone with a gust of wind.
“But the day that we met Father in the Ashen Tower, that all fell apart,” he said softly. “Wronged souls don’t come back as liches, Laruna. Ghosts and wights, maybe, but to become a liche takes preparation, great expense, and dark deeds. By the time Johan stormed the tower, Father had already… well, he…”
“Detarr was already prepared to become a liche,” Laruna finished for him.
Jynn nodded. “The last rite in the path to lichedom is to die,” he said. “Of course, I can understand why Father was willing to postpone that step as long as possible.”
“So, Johan just accelerated his plans?” asked Laruna.
“That particular plan,” said Jynn. “He slowed down Father’s work on the Leviathan Project and foiled the scheme to wed me to Marja for influence. But most importantly, Johan slew an evil wizard that day. The legends and songs I grew up hating were right. Johan was a hero. And what does that make me? The apprentice of a necromancer? The accomplice of a dark wizard?”
Laruna fought back an urge to throw her arms around the noctomancer, to hold him tightly and whisper what she thought he was. But those days had passed, and now all she could do was rest a hand gently on his shoulder and say, “It doesn’t matter what we were. All that matters is who we are going forward.”
He gave her a smile that never touched his blue eyes as he stood. “A nice thought,” he said. “But to move forward, I need to set my past aside. I have to pack it away.”
“You can’t keep all these feelings bottled up forever,” Laruna protested. “They’re going to come out again, and probably in a bad way. What if that happens when we face your father?”
Jynn looked to the southeast, his eyes following the path of the skeletal torso’s perpetual march. “If it is Father, he’s had plenty of time to work, access to many corpses, and magic beyond even our knowing,” he said. “The goal will be to not face him.”
“Yes, well, circumstances change and plans are adapted,” said Poldo.
“Indeed,” Mr. Fitch murmured absently as he looked at the paintings that festooned the walls of Poldo’s tiny office. “Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad you decided to set up this meeting.”
“As am I,” said Poldo, arranging the chairs around his desk. The tiny garden shed that served as his office consisted of a single room divided neatly in two; one half was filled with tools and gardening implements, and the other with a small wood stove and a desk set next to a window. Each wall sported two windows, but they afforded little light. The windows on the shed side were two feet from the Commons’ brick wall, and those by Poldo’s desk sat just as close to the topiary.
“I have to say, Poldo, this office isn’t as bad as I’d imagined,” mused Fitch. “It’s warm enough, maybe even cozy. And much cleaner than I expected.”
A slight smile twisted Poldo’s thick mustache. “Thank you. I must confess it’s much cleaner now than a couple of days ago. I brought on a new housekeeper just after I last met with you.”
The Scribkin poured a pitcher of chilled milk into a fine Elven bowl. The office looked almost respectable after Mrs. Hrurk’s nocturnal efforts. His apartment back on the fifth tier was spotless as well, aside from the makeshift servants’ quarters he’d set up in the guest room. And they were as clean as a room housing three young children could be, which was not at all.
“Still got that Domovoy infestation though, huh?” asked Fitch.
“Hm? Oh, yes,” said Poldo, setting the bowl of milk on the shelf.
“You know, I know of a rat-catcher—”
“Ha ha! What an amusing, if somewhat distasteful, joke!” said Poldo loudly, glaring at Fitch as he dashed across the room to the Halfling. “Look,” he said in a hushed voice. “The Wood Gnomes are harmless provided you respect a few simple customs, and chief among those customs is to not propose massacring Wood Gnomes.”
“If you say so,” said Fitch, sliding into his chair. “I just don’t know why you’d put up with their nonsense rules.”
Poldo sighed and looked up into the open rafters of the shed, where he knew someone was probably watching from the darkness. He’d found the feeling unsettling until recently, but empathy has a way of spreading. Since the Scribkin had hired a Gnoll to work in his home, he had found himself thinking of the Wood Gnome’s perspective as well.
“Oh, I suspect that if I fit neatly under a shoe, I’d be much more keen on people knocking at doors or looking around the room before tramping about. Once you get used to their laws, they do a good job of keeping rats and other pests at bay. It’s not a bad arrangement, provided things stay civil,” he added.
“I’ll take your word for it,” shrugged Fitch, pulling a gold pocket watch from his waistcoat. “Regardless, Mr. Stearn should arri
ve shortly. I’ve never known him to be—” Fitch was interrupted by a single, forceful knock at the door. The Halfling grinned. “That sounds like him now.”
Poldo opened the door to greet a mountain in a black suit. Mr. Stearn, though clearly Human, was almost as large as an Ogre. His rust-colored hair was unkempt, with sideburns so long they were halfway to a beard. His heavy-lidded eyes stared down at Poldo from beneath thick eyebrows, and below his large, round nose was a smile that looked neither friendly nor sincere.
“Hello. I am Cain Stearn,” he growled in a thick, northern Ruskan accent.
Poldo stood mutely in the doorway. The mere presence of the huge man triggered some ancient defense mechanism in the primordial depths of his brain, and he froze like a mouse hiding from a predator. With his higher brain functions thus impaired, Poldo reverted to his most basic instinct.
He pulled a business card from his waistcoat and extended it.
Mr. Stearn plucked the card from Poldo’s hand and tucked it into his suit’s pocket without so much as glancing at it. Instead, he pointed a meaty finger at the plaque on Poldo’s door. “Pardon my rudeness, Mr. Poldo, but sign is saying Silver Guard Securities. Do you have much silver on the premises?”
Poldo’s jaw flapped up and down for a moment as ages of civilization beat back the primeval urge to flee. “I beg your pardon?” he managed.
Mr. Stearn bent down to get closer to Poldo’s eye level. “Silver. Do you have many silver things in this…” He glanced at Poldo’s desk and the adjacent storage area filled with garden tools. “…Ahem, office? I must ask this because of my condition.”
“Your condition?”
“Lycanthropy,” said Fitch, brushing past Poldo and out the door. “Probably best if we meet on the terrace. It’d be a little cramped in here anyway.”
“Yes. Is good idea,” agreed Mr. Stearn, following Fitch up the dirt path.
“Wait—lycanthropy?” said Poldo, rushing to catch up with the pair.
“A mild case,” said Mr. Stearn. “Not bad. Mostly not contagious.”
“Surely,” said Poldo, forcing a smile. “Would you excuse us for a moment?” He grabbed Fitch’s shoulder and dropped back a few paces along the path.
“You arranged a meeting with a werewolf?” Poldo whispered to Fitch once Mr. Stearn was well ahead of them.
“Of course not!” said Fitch. “I’d never sully your business—or mine—by dealing with one of those monsters.”
“Ah. Good,” said Poldo with a relieved smile. “For a moment I thought you were serious about the lycanthropy.”
“Oh, I was. Mr. Stearn is a werebear,” said Fitch.
The Scribkin tripped over his own feet. “I fail to see how that’s any different,” he hissed at the Halfling as he righted himself. “Werebears still transform into insensate beasts every full moon, right? They both have the same fangs, the same razor-sharp claws, the same furry complexion—”
“Is very different,” said Mr Stearn, turning back to Poldo.
“The same remarkable hearing,” Fitch said with a pointed glare at the Scribkin.
“Oh, dear.” Poldo could feel a deep blush rising in his cheeks. “Mr. Stearn, I am so sorry—”
“Werewolf is totally different from werebear,” said Mr. Stearn, barreling through the conversation with no concern for the other half of it.
“Oh?” asked Poldo.
“Yes,” said Mr. Stearn. “Werewolf is bad. Eats farm animals. Attacks many people. Kills for sport. Very bad. But werebear is different.”
Poldo waited for Mr. Stearn’s supporting arguments, but the lycanthrope just stood there with his broad, lazy smile and nodded slowly at the Gnome. “Because werebears don’t do those things?” Poldo ventured.
Mr. Stearn considered the question. “Not for sport,” he said.
“But—”
“Come. We will tell you of my CTOs, and we will both make many fortunes,” said Mr. Stearn. He resumed his steady plodding down the path to the Boulderfolk Commons terrace, apparently satisfied that the matter was settled.
“Trust me,” said Fitch. “If you want to get those numbers moving in the right direction, you need to talk to the right people. And Mr. Stearn is the right person today. It’ll be fine.”
Poldo wanted to turn around, but there was nothing for him back at his desk save a threatening letter from the offices of Goldson Baggs. “Very well,” he said. “Lead on.”
They found a private spot at the back of the Terrace Cafe, near a pond stocked with a school of golden fish and a pair of Undines. Fitch ordered a pot of exotic teas and a platter of lemon cakes for the meeting.
“Now,” said Mr. Stearn as they settled in. “You are familiar with threat indexes?”
“Of course,” said Poldo. Anyone in finance was intimate with threat indexes—numerical representation of how much danger the cities and nations faced from monsters, villains, and other hazards. The Heroes’ Guild published threat indexes for every town, landmark, city, and nation on Arth, and they were used for everything from calculating insurance rates to issuing travel advisories.
“Good, good,” said Stearn. “Then what do you know of threat obligations?”
“When I worked at Goldson Baggs, the insurance people used to mention them from time to time,” Poldo recalled. “But I can’t say I’m familiar.”
“Is fine. I will explain.” Mr. Stearn pulled a crisp, white notepad and a pencil from the pocket of his coat. He drew a few simple houses on the pad, and then a stick figure with a club next to it. “When monster attacks city, is very expensive for insurance company, yes? Many claims, many policies must be paid. So insurance company buys threat obligation from Heroes’ Guild for city. Usually five-year term, with fixed payment every month.” The lycanthrope wrote in thick, boxy letters next to the city: “5 YEARS—100 G PER MONTH.”
“I see,” said Poldo.
Mr. Stearn tapped the city with his pencil. “Now Heroes’ Guild is obligated to keep the threat index for city low. So if more monsters appear…” He quickly scribbled on a couple more fanged creatures around the city. “Then Heroes’ Guild must pay anyone with obligation for this city a large sum, and insurance company can pay for damage monsters cause.”
“It’s basically insurance for the insurance company,” said Poldo.
“Oh no,” said Fitch. “It’s not insurance.”
“Well I don’t see how it’s any different,” said Poldo.
“Insurance is heavily regulated,” said Mr. Stearn.
“Ha! What Mr. Stearn meant to say,” Fitch said with enunciation sharpened to a point, “is that insurance is old. Stable. Boring. Threat obligations are ripe for financial innovation. And that’s where Mr. Stearn comes in. He’s a financial genius.”
Poldo looked up at Mr. Stearn, who was still wearing the same ursine grin. “Insurance very restricted,” said the werebear. “Only licensed companies issue it, and only for certain things, and only for what they are worth. But I discover that anyone can issue threat obligation, for any amount, for anything to do with threat index.”
“Obligations can bet one town’s threat index will drop next year, or double, or stay lower than another city’s,” listed Fitch. “So if you’ve got a good understanding of the heroics industry and how threat indexes—”
“You can design a financial product for almost anything,” breathed Poldo. Possibilities, probabilities, and figures swam before his eyes; he could almost see the market shifting.
“Exactly,” said Fitch. “It’s all about blending risks, returns, and hedges. You make a product that generates a customized stream of steady income, with a measured risk of potentially needing to make a payout.”
Poldo took a deep breath. In his experience, things that seemed too good to be true usually turned out to be that way. “That payout is what worries me,” he said. “I don’t think my finances could sustain the shock of suddenly owing large sums if threat indexes shifted. My investors wouldn’t like me holding that
much risk.”
“Oh, you don’t hold them,” said Fitch. “We don’t even hold them.”
“That is where my CTO comes in,” said Mr. Stearn. He drew a bear’s head on his pad, and wrote “STEARN” in large letters next to it.
“Mr. Stearn doesn’t actually issue the threat obligations,” said Fitch. “He buys them and bundles them together to serve as collateral for his funds—hence, collateralized threat obligations, or CTOs.”
“I sell shares of CTO to banks and large-scale investors, and get cut of sale and maintenance fees,” said Mr. Stearn. He sketched a small building labeled “BANK,” and then drew an arrow from himself to the bank. “And now bank has steady stream of monthly payments from people who bought threat obligations.”
“Right,” said Fitch. He pointed at the drawing. “Of course, the bank is taking on the risk, so they need to make sure the product is worth their investment. That’s where I come in. I’ve developed a system for ranking threat obligations based on precious metals, from tin grade obligations that will almost certainly wind up paying out all the way to triple platinum grade obligations—the safest of the safe.”
Mr. Stearn drew a small, curly-haired stick figure and labeled it “MR. FITCH,” and connected it to the bear’s head by a straight arrow. “He make sure I only get good threat obligations.”
“Which is where you come in,” said Mr. Fitch.
Stearn added a small stick figure with glasses and a bristled mustache, and wrote “MR. POLDO?” above it. “We need more threat obligations to keep business rolling,” said the lycanthrope.
“Indeed? I would think everybody is looking at these,” said Poldo.
“Almost everybody is,” said Fitch. “But the fact that anyone can legally create a threat obligation doesn’t mean everyone can cut it in the market. You need to have enough capital to cover the payout until you sell the threat obligation to Mr. Stearn, and you need enough expertise to be credible to the investors who will buy the risk. Silver Guard Securities has some capital to move around, and I don’t know many people who have been investing in heroics longer than Duine Poldo. You’ve got a real opportunity to get in early.”
Son of a Liche Page 6