Seeker of Secrets

by Deck Davis

  Is this for real?

  We need to get rid of her.

  How?

  Damned if I know!

  “She says there is a stable at the back of the guildhall,” said Kordrude. “She will graciously locate her nest there, away from view. She will suffer your human talk without anger and will not breath any fire, except to expel excess sulfur from her lungs. She will take heed that she does not do this near the wood, as she understands how brittle human structures are.”

  “And what about us? What do we get out of this? Having a dragon hanging around isn’t going to look good.”

  Kordrude clasped his hands together, and he smiled. “Well, lads, I would have thought that was obvious. Hero guilds gain many enemies, as I’m sure you know. There are many a gang of brigands or grouping of wild demons who would like nothing more than to see such a place burned to a cinder. I quite think that having a dragon on site might ease your minds on that score.”

  Joshua paced around, his thoughts drowning him. Out of all the things he’d thought he’d have to deal with, this was the last. It was such a remote possibility that even his wildest fantasies and worst nightmares about their whole enterprise hadn’t conjured up this situation.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  Benjen shrugged. “I honestly don’t see that we have a choice. If she won’t leave, then we’ll have to take her at her word. If she’ll stay and promise not to…incinerate us, or something…I think we have to agree.”

  Joshua looked at Kordrude now. “There’s just one thing that bothers me. Can you ask her about the church of Orogoth? And the priests?”

  Kordrude arched a feathery eyebrow. Unlike back in his office in Dyrewood, there was something different about him now. His plumage seemed plumper, his feathers shinier. It was like the whole thing, travelling out here, talking to a dragon, had sparked life in him.

  “Church of Orogoth?” he said.

  Joshua explained, as quietly as he could so as not to provoke the dragon with the language she hated, about the town and the priests and everything they had heard about Orogoth so far.

  Kordrude nodded along. When Joshua had finished, he said, “Interesting. Give me a moment.”

  He conversed more with the monster. When he finished, he looked thoughtful for a while, as if he were working out how to explain what he had heard in dragon-tongue.

  “The three people you thought were priests,” said Kordrude, “are simply con artists. One of them, the old man, can speak a smattering of dragon-tongue. Not as well as me, obviously. That was Orogoth’s complement and not my own vanity, by the way.”

  “Well, yeah, I gathered that much. How does Orogoth come into it?”

  “Orogoth struck a deal with them; they would supply her with enough cattle and sheep to see her through her pregnancy, since without wings she is not an effective hunter. In exchange, Orogoth kept up the pretense that she would be perfectly willing to kill any person who came near her…except for the priests. In turn, they used this power of theirs to solicit donations from the townsfolk in return for keeping the dragon from slaughtering them. Though, as you can see, Orogoth is in no state to slaughter anyone.”

  “I knew it!” said Joshua. “Well, not that, exactly, but I knew there was a scam.”

  “A pretty clever one,” said Benjen.

  “If you will permit her to stay her and keep her fed,” said Kordrude, “she has no need for the con artists.”

  “Won’t they be a little upset that we’ve taken away their money-maker?”

  “Perhaps. But I don’t see that you have much of a choice.”

  Benjen and Joshua exchange one more look between them, this one with an unmistakable meaning.

  “It’s a deal,” said Joshua.

  “We’ll do it,” said Benjen.

  Kordrude relayed this to Orogoth, who let out a long grunt.

  “Then it seems you can move in to your guildhouse. And by the way; her name isn’t really Orogoth. It seems the con merchants believed that name sounded suitably scary to dragon-fearing folk.”

  “What’s her name?” asked Benjen.

  “Dragon names aren’t just a word but are a tale of their lives woven over time, and as such they constantly expand. She understands that you may occasionally need to address her, and as reluctant as she is to hear our crude language, she has a name you can use.”

  “Which is?”

  “Call her Faron the Wingless.”

  A rush of warmth flooded Joshua then. For the first time, he felt like he was truly looking at the guildhouse. Finally, finally it was theirs. Forget that they had a new lodger and may well have made enemies from a trio of unscrupulous characters; forget it all, because they were here, and it was time to get the guildhouse in shape.

  Chapter Nine

  Joshua and Benjen fetched their horses and their goblin baby and then went back up the hill. The slog was much easier this time since they weren’t climbing the hill to face a dragon, but instead were returning to their guildhouse, one that was almost dragon free. At least, the dragon wasn’t blocking them entering it, anyway.

  “We’re lucky he turned up,” said Benjen. “The crowsie.”

  “I wonder why, though? We’re a hell of a long way from Dyrewood.”

  “You sound suspicious.”

  “Not suspicious, just…curious. People don’t usually up and leave their jobs and travel across Fortuna to catch up with people they hardly know.”

  “Well, he’s the only thing stopping us – or the guildhouse – getting crushed by a pregnant dragon, so let’s stay on his good side.”

  When they got to the top of the hill again, Kordrude was waiting with an uncorked bottle of wine and three wooden cups.

  “Boys! It’s time to celebrate,” he said, and in his breath was a waft of alcohol that suggested the old crow had already started his celebrations.

  Faron the Wingless had already left the front of the guildhouse now, having walked around the sides of the old building and to the stables at the back, where she’d stay for the time being. Joshua hadn’t seen the stable yet, and his vague awareness of its existence was just another entry on the humongous list of things he knew they needed to clean and fix-up – and that was before they’d toured the guildhouse and inventoried every replacement and repair job.

  Faron had left behind a gigantic dragon shape on the flattened grass, and there was a soft warm glow coming from it that felt nice in the chilly night.

  Kordrude poured their drinks, filling each wooden cup right up to the lip. When the crow celebrated, he celebrated.

  “Lads, let’s make a toast,” he said, raising his glass. “To heroes, whoever they may be!”

  “Heroes!” said Joshua.

  Benjen glugged back half of the wine and then, seeing Joshua and Kordrude’s watching him, raised his cup. “To friends,” he said.

  They were standing beside a grouping of large grey rocks now, ones that looked out of place on the hill. It was as if they had been cut from a mountain far away, and they’d been carried here. The rock surface bore the marks of arrowheads, so at some point, archery targets must have been placed in front of them.

  Kordrude leaned back against a rock. The wind blew his face feathers a little.

  “I wonder,” he said. “It’s all well and good fixing up this old place, but what does hero even mean to boys like you?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Yes. Who is a hero? What makes a person a hero?”

  Joshua scratched his chin. This had been his dream so long that the world hero had taken a special place in his head, one that almost lost meaning because he thought about it so much. “I guess I picture a swordsman. Or swordswoman. You know, strong, with long hair, big muscles.”

  “Yep. You never see a balding hero,” said Benjen. “Or an out-of-shape one.”

  “And what makes them a hero?” said Kordrude. “Surely not their hair or their sword skills.”

  “What they do,” said
Joshua. “That they choose to help people and help towns instead of just becoming a mercenary or you know, choosing another profession.”

  “Interesting that you mention mercenary. Is someone who takes gold in return for risking their life a mercenary, or a hero?”

  “What are you getting at?” asked Joshua.

  “It was something I thought about on my caravan journey here. The whole idea of a heroes’ guild, and the way you both spoke about it with such reverence in your voices. It’s a worthy occupation, to be sure, but I always wonder about the meaning of words. My linguist class demands that I think about them. What about the word hero? Is it the element of danger that defines the hero profession? Or is it the willingness to help people? A doctor helps people by definition, but is every doctor a hero? A miner works under the threat of a mineshaft collapse or developing a malady of the lungs; it is a dangerous profession. Is every miner a hero?”

  “Being a hero is a job, just like any other,” said Benjen. “The word might have been special once, but it’s more practical now. Like soldier or baker or blacksmith.”

  Joshua shook his head. “No, it’s not exactly like that. There’s another meaning to the word. A hero has to have qualities that go beyond just fighting for a living.”

  Kordrude sipped his wine. “And these people, with these qualities, those are the ones you will seek when the guildhouse is ready?”

  “Ideally. There are tourneys in towns and cities. A lot of heroes are recruited there.”

  Kordrude stood up straight now, away from the rock, as though Joshua had fallen into a trap. “Ah. So, you will look for them, instead of them seeking you?”

  “Both.”

  “And we agree that a hero must possess certain noble qualities. But what about his motivation?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Joshua.

  “Let us say that a man comes to the guild. An elite swordsman who you would trust to complete quests for you. He is not a bad man, but nor does he particularly care about doing good. This is a job to him, nothing more. Would you turn him away?”

  “No,” said Benjen.

  Joshua said nothing. He thought he understood what Kordrude was getting at now. He was trying to ground them both, to stop them floating away with their principles, even if Joshua was more idealistic about the whole thing than Benjen. In his own way, Kordrude was trying to say that even though this was their dream, it was also their job.

  He guessed he was saying that, anyway.

  Joshua hardly slept that night, and it wasn’t just because of the dizziness brought on by an extra three cups of wine to celebrate their first real night at the guildhouse. It was because he’d spent the evening on the grass – they’d decided to sleep outdoors since it was a warm, dry night – and he’d turned Kordrude’s words over in his head.

  He decided that it was time to lock his idealistic self away for a short while. This was his dream, to have a functioning guildhouse, but dreams stayed that way unless you dragged them into reality. The reality of it was, there was a hell of a lot to do. Skills to learn, things to fix. He needed to treat this like a job, and not a dream. Just until the hard part was over. Then he could let his fantasies and ideals creep back in.

  He managed two and a half hours of sleep, and as soon as it was light, he got up. The first thing that stuck him was the horrible, dry taste in his mouth. He needed water. He wandered over to the guildhouse door, which they’d opened so they could put their things just inside the guild to keep them safe.

  On opening the door just a crack, a blast of age and mildew and dust hit his nose. It was like a museum left to rot, or a library where all the books were ancient and had an acrid smell in the air.

  Clean the place up. Another item on the list.

  Actually, he didn’t have a list yet. Not written down, anyway. There was a vague reel of things to do in his head, but he decided he better start getting organized about all this.

  That was a prized quality of guildmasters, wasn’t it? Organization? There’d come a point where he’d be handling dozens of quests at a time, and where he’d be managing a roster of heroes, keeping them happy, keeping them paid, keeping them well-trained.

  And keeping them alive? Was that the guildmaster’s responsibility? If something happened…was it his fault?

  He’d never thought about that before. He wondered what Kordrude would say. He’d probably say that being a hero was a job, and you took a job knowing the good points and bad points of it.

  Checking the water skins, he was annoyed to find them empty. He vaguely remembered hearing Benjen get up in the night and shuffle, sleepily and drunkenly, to the door, where he’d opened it, grabbed a skin, gulped a waterfall worth of water and then burped. Then, he’d wandered to the edge of the hill and, with his back to them, produced a waterfall of his own down the sides of the grass.

  That did it. Time to get organized. He kneeled by his leather bags and rummaged through them, finding the paper and pencils he’d packed. He started writing.

  To Do

  Clean guild and get rid of the smell [Everyone]

  Make an inventory of supplies we have brought [Kordrude?]

  Find toilets and make sure they are in good condition [Urgent!]

  The next step was finding a water source. After all, it was the liquid of life. The lucky thing – well not really lucky, since they’d consciously made the decision to buy the place – was that, decades ago, this was a functioning guild, and so this wasn’t like building a place from scratch.

  There would be a well around here somewhere. He supposed there would be a stream nearby, but the heroes who lived here before wouldn’t want to go back and forth to the stream all day.

  He couldn’t see one in the gardens, where Benjen and Kordrude were still sleeping. Gobber was in his basket, and Benjen had his arms around it. Kordrude, next to him, held his faceless, hairy pet in his hands. The feathers around his beak fluttered when he breathed out in his sleep. He would give them another hour or two to sleep, Joshua decided. There was plenty for him to do on his own right now anyway.

  He left the gardens and walked around the left side of the guildhouse. The whole structure was a cobbled-together mess of different buildings added at different times and by different people, and as such no outside wall or roof looked alike.

  The far left-side was the oldest part, it seemed, because the wood was almost black with what looked like wood-rot, and it smelled faintly of mulch. Not to mention, there were dozens of holes in it.

  Had someone been shooting cannonballs at the guildhouse? Or had hungry wood-lice devoured it?

  This was going to be a complete replacement job, not just a case of fixing things up. He’d expected damage…but not this. Not this much.

  Okay, another two items to add to the list.

  To Do

  Clean guild and get rid of the smell of time [Everyone]

  Make an inventory of supplies we have brought [Kordrude?]

  Find toilets and make sure they are in good condition [Urgent!]

  Survey all walls for damage, rank by most urgent [Joshua]

  Learn Builder class [Joshua]

  He came to the back of the guildhouse where, as Faron the Wingless had promised, there was a stable. Right now, there were no horses in it. Instead there was a sleeping dragon, her belly swollen and her wings just bony little nubs.

  A giant white eye stared at him. Joshua felt a jolt of shock in his chest.

  “Sorry! Didn’t realize you were awake.”

  She huffed, sending a trail of steam from her nostril.

  Don’t talk to her, he told himself. She hates the sound of human language.

  Aware of the single, giant white eye watching his every step, Joshua walked by the side of the stable and fixed his sights ahead, where there was a well. It was a stone well that came up to his waist, and it had two buckets attached to two separate rope pulley systems.

  Seeing it, his mouth dried up even more, and he needed to wet his par
chment-like throat, scrub the stale wine from his teeth, and then ask Benjen to make a fire so they could boil water to wash themselves.

  Or, maybe he could find a bathtub in the guild. There was bound to be an old metal one with deep sides. He’d fill it with water, sprinkle in a few lavender leaves, and then get Faron to use her fire breath to get it nice and bubbly. She’d surely be happy to help, given how much she loved Joshua and Benjen. Ha, he wished.

  A drink, washing, maybe having a bath…it was funny the importance normal things took after a while on the road. Maybe Joshua had to face the fact that he just wasn’t a very good traveler. He certainly wasn’t suited to outdoor life like the harpies who roamed across Fortuna in bands, or the long-distance caravan merchants who travelled through deserts with no company but their horses.

  Deserts. The word dried his mouth even further. It made the taste of old wine stronger, and he needed to get it out.

  He darted over to the well. He accidently knocked a bucket, and the rope connecting it to the pulley was so old and frayed that it snapped, and the bucket hurtled down the well and into the darkness, bouncing off the sides until finally it smashed into something and sounded like it had broken apart.

  Hmm. Not good.

  When buckets fell into water wells, they shouldn’t smash. When they fell into an empty well, then yes, they’d be pulverized.

  His mouth dryer than embers from a fire, he took out his pencil.

  Find out why the hell the well is blocked.

  One of them would have to go down there. Not Benjen – the well wasn’t wide enough. It’d have to be Joshua. He could tie ropes to the well and then around his waist and get Benjen to lower him down.

  Better yet, use the pulleys – after making sure they weren’t busted – and tie the ropes to Roebuck and get him to take care of the lowering.

  He looked down into the dark tunnel that seemed to run to a limitless depth into the bowels of Fortuna. Not far down, the daylight blended into darkness, and it was impossible to see what was at the bottom.