Seeker of Secrets

by Deck Davis

  Benjen had spent the previous week hammering simple sharpened rods into shape, and he’d complained about how easy it was. He wanted to be making swords and axes, not rods.

  The reason for the menial task, he discovered, was that the tools had just one use; to slaughter chickens. The horrors Benjen saw on the farm drove away his carnivorous impulses. To his credit, he never preached about it. Joshua loved meat pies, he loved steak, he loved chops. He was perfectly happy to never really hear the nitty gritty of his food, in exchange for being able to eat it and love the taste.

  Benjen chewed, then swallowed. “Do I believe Pelo? Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Kids exaggerate. And you know what they say about harpies.”

  “Now who sounds like my racist grandpa?”

  “You know what I mean. Harpies like to beguile and trick people.”

  “Not that one. That little harpy did the opposite. Seemed like he had no filter in his mind, he said whatever sprung into it. And come on – we’ve seen the statue.”

  “People build statues for lots of things. War memorials, to recognize famous people…”

  “Well, I’d love to believe it was a famous dragon, but it’s the words ‘praise be to Orogoth’ that accompany every mention of the bugger that worry me.”

  Joshua sunk back into his seat. Across from him in the snug was the fire hearth. Rather than burning logs, the fire seemed to spring from a marble-size green ball. They’d been in the tavern a while already now and the ball hadn’t shrunk at all, and the fire it gave off was warm on his cheek, if a little metallic-smelling.

  It was good to be somewhere warm. What was better than a warm pub, a tasty, hot pie, a nice beer, and the company of his best mate? In any other circumstance, it’d be a perfect afternoon. Unfortunately, Pelo the harpy had dampened things a little.

  “Pelo said it was forbidden for them to try and move Orogoth,” he said. He was thinking out loud, more than expecting an answer. “But then again, who in their right mind would even want to try? I guess if he came near the town they might have to do something, but they’re happy to leave him alone if he’s in our guild garden. But here’s what I’m wondering; if Orogoth fancied a walk into town, would their practice of ‘oh, it’s forbidden to move him!’ still apply?”

  “What are you saying?” said Benjen, draining his flagon. “It’s your turn to get beers, by the way.”

  Joshua stood up, ready to go to the bar. “I’m saying that it would be the town guard’s responsibility to try and move Orogoth if he came close to town. As we know, dragons aren’t just fire-breathing; they are big enough to crush a man without trouble. It’d be convenient if something important, maybe like a religion, prevented the guardsmen from having to try and move him.”

  “You think it’s all made up?”

  “Everything anyone has ever said or written had a purpose behind it. Dragon religions don’t just come out of nowhere. I think there’s more to this.”

  “The bar’s that way…” said Benjen.

  “Right.”

  Joshua went to the bar. When the innkeeper turned around, he realized what Benjen had meant about looking at him.

  The innkeeper was a triops. Joshua had heard of them before but only in a kind of hushed way, in the same way someone might talk about the giant digger creatures they said lived in tunnels deep beneath Fortuna, or the fabled serpents of the sky who lived high up enough that the clouds covered them from view.

  Since he’d never seen a triops before, the sight of one in the flesh boosted his seeker knowledge to 35/50. The thing was, Joshua knew a little about them, because he’d read about the triops race in a book. This gave him a new understanding of the Seeker binding; even if he already knew about something from reading, seeing it in the flesh would boost the binding.

  He guessed that summed up his whole journey, really, and the reason he was on it. It was one thing reading about the world, but another thing entirely actually seeing it in person.

  Given the various fauna, flora, and races spread across Fortuna it was hard to surprise people, but triops had accomplished just that. As a race they were an enigma; nobody knew where they came from. They never had families. A triops always lived alone, or if they didn’t live alone, they certainly didn’t marry their own kind nor reproduce.

  So, how did new triopses get born? A mystery. Even bigger was the mystery of the three eyes set on their faces; one in the centre, where a human would have two, and then two smaller eyes on their forehead.

  It was said that the eye in the centre gave them normal sight, but the eyes above it each let them see something else; something unusual, something in the world that others couldn’t see. But, triopses were famously secretive about it.

  Binding of the Seeker

  Store of Secrets updated

  [Major] Secret added: What do the triops see through their eyes?

  Joshua, like every time he was presented with a mystery, had a sudden urge to know. Seeing a triops for the first time, he just had to know what they saw through their other eyes. The problem was, it was impolite to ask that kind of thing about a stranger.

  The innkeeper leaned forward with both hands on the bar counter. “You with beardy over there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Same again?”

  “Please.”

  The innkeeper grabbed a flagon. The bar tap was right in front of him, but he took his time to position the flagon underneath it, almost as if he was petrified of somehow getting it wrong.

  Ah. Then it dawned on Joshua. He only had one normal eye in the centre of his head, and the other two eyes didn’t give normal sight. Poor guy must have had awful depth perception.

  Joshua looked away, pretending not to take note of how long it was taking to pour the beers. He looked behind the barman and there, stuck to the wall, he saw a poster.

  WANTED: Jitsog Drator

  CRIMES: Undisclosed

  RANSOM: 5 gold dead, 10 alive.

  A wanted poster was nothing special; all towns had them. Fortuna was full of bounty hunters pursuing criminals who fled from the three kings’ justice. What was strange about this poster, what made his armpits start to sweat a little, was that Jitsog Drator, the man wanted dead or alive for undisclosed crimes, was the innkeeper.

  Yep, there was no mistaking it. A bald head with a tribal tattoo on the left half of his scalp. One large eye above his nose, then two smaller ones on his forehead. He was younger in the poster, sure, and since it was an artists’ drawing a few details were a little off, but it was the innkeeper alright.

  The triops finished pouring the flagons of beer and set them on the counter with a bang. Beer spilled over the rims.

  “Something wrong?”

  Joshua didn’t quite know what to say. It wasn’t usual for criminals to stick their own wanted posters behind them.

  “Is it the eyes?” said Jitsog. “What, there are fellas with giant wings flappin’ around the market, and it’s the fella with 3 eyes that you stare at?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s the…uh…poster.”

  Jitsog grinned. “Ah. A memento from the old days. Guess how old I was there?”

  “Forty?”

  “Cheeky sod! I was eighteen then. Guess how old I am now?”

  Joshua decided to try for a more generous guess this time. “Thirty-two?”

  “Flattery won’t get you a free beer, but it’ll get you in my good books. No, that poster is from thirty-three years ago. Those days are long gone.”

  Joshua did the arithmetic in his head. Jitsog was eighteen in the poster, and that was thirty-three years ago. Wow; the innkeeper was fifty-one now. And he looked exactly the same as he did when he was eighteen. That would have been an insult to him back then, but now it could only be a compliment.

  “What are you boys doing here, anyway? You aren’t from Ardglass, that’s for sure,” said Jitsog. “You’re tanned, but your friend over there is a little pasty. But, then, he’s a bit of a redhead, ain’t he? If
I had to guess, I’d say you were from the south coast. One of them posh coastal places.”

  “Couldn’t be more wrong. We’re from a fishing village in the east.”

  “Oh? Which one? I used to travel a little around there.”

  “Ah, it doesn’t really matter. Most of them are the same, to be honest.”

  “What brings you up here?” asked Jitsog. While he waited for the answer, he bent down below the bar and rummaged around for something.

  “We’ve bought a place up here,” said Joshua. “We’re going to refurbish it.”

  “Oh, you get it in an auction? Buy it cheap, fix it up, sell it on?”

  “No, this is a long-term thing. We bought the old heroes’ guild.”

  Jitsog stood up. He slapped a great big tome of a book on the bar counter. With a meaty paw, he flicked it open to a page that was divided into columns, half of which was filled with lots of different handwriting.

  “The guestbook.” He said. “I get everyone who ain’t from around here to sign it and leave a comment. No bloody point owning a tavern if you don’t meet people, is there? I certainly don’t run it for the joy of pulling pints. So, you bought the guild hall?”

  “Yeah. We didn’t know it came with a free dragon, though.”

  Jitsog grinned. “Old Orogoth’s camped up there, ain’t he? Pelo, that little harpy lad, told me.”

  Joshua signed his and Benjen’s name in the guestbook. For a comment, he wrote ‘thanks for the great pies.’ Then he looked at the triops. “Is it true what they say? That it’s forbidden to try and move the dragon?”

  “Forbidden? That’s what the church says, but they don’t rule things around here.”

  “Who does?”

  “The state. The three kings, just like every other civilized town. Mayor Gossidge is in charge.”

  “Then we’re free to move Orogoth?”

  Jitsog laughed. “Nothing stopping you trying! But, you might want to pay a visit to the church up on the hill, past the market, before you try.”

  “We’re not really religious.”

  “I don’t mean to go and pray. It’s the Church of Orogoth. Some of those lunatic priests go up close to the old dragon sometimes, and I always wondered how they manage it. Go and have a word.”

  “Thanks, Jitsog,” said Joshua.

  “Any time. Come back Wednesdays and Saturdays; that’s when we get the fresh pies baked.”

  “One last thing,” said Joshua. “Do you ever serve guest ales? Like if someone brews their own?”

  “Yeah, sometimes. Ardglass has a quarterly ale festival. Why?”

  “Just wondering. Thanks for the information, Jitsog. See you around.”

  He walked across the tavern and joined Benjen, who had his head slumped back against the wall and his eyes closed. As soon as the flagons touched the table he shot forward and grabbed one and gulped it like a thirsty dog. He finished, and then wiped the froth from his beard.

  “You’d been gone so long I thought you’d gone back home to the village.”

  “Old Jitsog there told me a thing or two. Drink up; we need to go and see a priest.”

  “Jitsog? You’re making friends already?”

  “Never hurts. Come on, let’s go.”

  ~

  When the two lads left his inn, Jitsog leaned on the counter. He poured himself a quarter of a flagon of ale, which he didn’t usually do when he was working. He sipped on his beer and he stared at the poster of himself on the wall, the one that listed his crimes as undisclosed, that offered a hefty bounty for his capture.

  The funny thing was, technically that bounty was still available. The fact that it was years and years ago didn’t matter; unless you got a pardon from the three kings then your crimes still had to be answered.

  But the wars had happened, and then the peace, and then the goblin migration that got everyone in a tizzy. Everything in Fortuna, especially the east of it, was chaos. Jitsog slipped through the net.

  Now, he displayed his wanted poster behind him, because what safer way was there to hide from his past than by rendering it powerless? Ardglass town guards came into drink in his pub every day, and they had a nice old chat with Jitsog and they sometimes glanced at the poster but for no more than a second, because they assumed that a criminal wouldn’t be crazy enough to display his own wanted poster behind where he stood for hours every day.

  They assumed the bounty was spent or that it was a fake poster. Whatever they assumed, Jitsog let the assumption go on, and nobody in Ardglass knew the truth.

  He drank the last of his little bit of ale and he sighed. With the two lads gone, it was just his old regulars. Good guys, and good payers, but they were drunks and they were lazy. Jitsog had sensed something in the boys, especially the black-haired one who’d asked him about Orogoth. It was something he saw through his second eye, the one on the left of his forehead. Something that made him happy to see. The other, the redhead with the beard, had it too, but not as bright.

  Good thing, it was. Ardglass needed more lads like them.

  Chapter Seven

  Kordrude reluctantly walked away from Ardglass and onto the travelers’ road. He almost turned back with every step, because Ardglass was a town, and towns had taverns. And taverns…well, they had runto-boards.

  Although he and Janda played the game for fun back home, Kordrude had a secret; he loved to play for money. It wasn’t that he even loved to win, it was more the thrill of the money hanging on the balance, and that only his knowledge of the game and his well-worked strategies stood between him winning and losing.

  They said gambling was bad, that it was a pit you could fall into, but everyone had their flaws, he supposed. He had enough self-control to only gamble small amounts when he played with strangers, but there was always that risk, that tiny chance his excitement would get the better of him and he’d put too much gold as a wager.

  Ah, he guessed that was part of the thrill, too. That feeling that he might do something spontaneous. Years of bureaucracy had wrought that in him, that hidden urge to just do something. And that was what he’d done now, wasn’t it? He’d travelled in a caravan with a kamolg so he could seek out two lads who might become his friends.

  Well now he was doing something incredibly spontaneous. He was walking to an abandoned guildhall so that he could converse with a dragon. He just hoped his linguist skills were up to it. Dragons could get quite testy when you mixed up your verbs.

  ~

  The Church of Orogoth was atop a hill that rose above the Ardglass market square. Benjen led the way, strong as an ox and with the stamina to match, while Joshua walked behind, gripping Gobber’s basket in his hand and holding two pints of beer in his bladder and cursing himself for not stopping in the tavern latrine before leaving.

  As churches went, this was a modest one. It was shaped a little like a fist with the middle finger sticking up, which was a rude gesture in some parts of Fortuna, and a pleasant one in others. The ‘fist’ formed the bulk of the church, a block of stone with little spiral patterns etched into it.

  The ‘middle finger’ was a tower that rose twenty-feet high, with an arch window on what must have been the second floor. The architecture was different to the other buildings in Ardglass. It was a little more exotic, as if the designer had been influenced by some of the buildings over on the Serpal Isles.

  They didn’t have a church back home. Village folks in the east didn’t really have time for it; hunting and fishing and putting food on the table took priority over worship. There was old Tusker and his gem-shark idol, of course, but he was an outlier. Joshua had never been in a real church, and he was interested to know what it would be like.

  He pictured a cold place where robed figures solemnly shuffled over the stone floor. Maybe some of them would chant words Joshua didn’t understand, and there’d be an inexplicable aroma of incense that he couldn’t find the source of. Then again, he had gotten that impression purely from books, and none of the books he’
d ever read mentioned a church dedicated to a dragon who liked to nap in guildhouse gardens.

  As he slogged up the hill with Gobber’s basket in his hand, the pies felt heavy in his stomach, and the beers sloshed around his insides. He began to wish he’d trained for the athlete class, but then, what would be the point? Hiking and running were skills that anyone could use and having the athlete class only gave you a boost in stamina and speed according to your level.

  You only had 1 primary class slot and 5 secondaries, and you had to choose them carefully. Why waste them on classes that had skills anyone could practice? There were other, more useful, harder to get skills that only a certain class could bring.

  Take conjuring for instance. Only a mage, or more specifically a conjurer, could learn that. It took years of study and practice under a mentor, and yes it might have been tougher to get, but the worthwhile skills always were.

  There was a problem, though, with learning skills without having a corresponding class. If you learned a skill that you had the class for, it stayed with you. A skill without a class had to be practiced, or you’d gradually lose it.

  Not only that. Joshua could learn how to apply bandages without being a field medic, but, a field medic would always apply them better in such a way that they were more durable and stopped blood flow quicker. Having a class that matched a certain skill gave you boosts that a layperson wouldn’t have.

  He’d also heard that once you rose through the ranks of a class from 1-5 (Novice, Competent, Journeyman, Expert, Master) you could unlock elite versions of it. A horserider, for instance, could master his class and then transform it into dragon-rider, starting again at level 1.

  Not that Joshua had ever met a dragon-rider, of course. But Old Tusker back home had mastered fisherman and had chosen to then start on the elite class track of shark hunter, which otherwise wouldn’t have been available.

  The system rewarded mastery and patience, but most people were content to get to level 3 or 4, which was a good enough competency for most jobs. Joshua, however, dreamed to be elite one day. To become such a master of something that he could move on to a totally unique class.