Unlike me, neither the captain nor the King were surprised to see the old man appear. Beyond that, I could read impatience and hope on both of their faces.
“The captain is right,” the old man said.
Those four words made the ruler of Fradia give a satisfied smile and sigh in relief.
“This boy is a monster hunter,” Magister Sato continued. “As a matter of fact, he is already a senior hunter. He has even taken a path. The Path of the Vanquisher of Darkness. It’s no surprise those dunderheads from the chancery couldn’t read him. He has an ancient artifact from the Founder of his order that confers a high Will score. That is what blocked all their attempts. Subordinating him would also be a challenge. Whoever breaks the amulet’s Will is in for a surprise. One of the Abilities of the Vanquisher is something called ‘Shield of Will.’ But I could do it if you order me to, your Majesty.”
I went cold in fear. The old mage was reading me like an open book.
“No, magister!” the King answered unexpectedly and smiled openly: “I don’t need any slaves. I need allies.”
* * *
The King kicked everyone else out of the study and, for the next hour, I recounted everything that had happened to me over the few months since my parents died, hiding absolutely nothing.
I don’t know what it was. Either his Majesty’s Charisma, or my desire to cast off the weight of all the secrets that had been raining down on me, but I just talked and talked without end.
I laid out the hunter potions and tokens on the table before the King and he looked them over with enormous curiosity.
“So that means you’re the only monster hunter in the entire world?” he asked when I was finished.
“Yes, your Majesty,” I nodded and added: “At the very least that’s what the Great System told me.”
The King snickered and looked at the fire in the fireplace.
“You can’t even imagine how long I’ve been searching for traces of the order of hunters. I, the Steel King! The very strongest among men! And now what do I see before me... Hehe. The goddess Fortuna provided a solution in her own peculiar way! She handed everything I need to some boy and, for that matter, the weakest among us. Ha-ha!”
I also gave a timid laugh and, after gathering courage, asked a question even though Captain Takeda had given me an extremely strong warning to speak only with the King’s explicit permission.
“Your Majesty, may I humbly be allowed to ask you a question?”
Egbert the Seventh gazed thoughtfully into the flames and waved a hand. I took that as permission and started speaking:
“To be frank, all this time I’ve been troubled by the question of just what that clever ghost dragged me into but now I can see it is very important...”
“You can see, but still don’t understand?” the King interrupted me with a laugh and asked an unexpected question: “Who do you think rules the Empire?”
“The Emperor...”
“Ha-ha! So you see! Even you are not sure! Give it some thought and try again.”
“The order of mages.”
“Correct,” the King nodded. “Darta, Atria, Taria, Iveria, the Western Isles – the mages control the whole Empire. The magisters are like puppet masters, pulling on threads which move the little rulers. Except for me! The order of mages holds no sway over the Steel King! But Fradia is losing the battle! The order has greater capabilities. They’re stronger than our mages. According to ancient chronicles, the only ones who could ever stand up against the order of mages were the monster hunters!”
The King’s eyes caught fire.
“You’ve already heard how the order’s magisters get rid of troublesome rulers. Weak ones are brought to power. Those who disobey are taken out of the picture. My father met that very fate. He tried to stand up against the magisters, but they destroyed him. For many long years they thought they had me under their thumb. The only things that kept me resolute were my hatred and thirst for revenge! But there were also the legends of the great warriors that once protected our world from otherworldly creatures! Only they had the valor and strength to fight the order of mages on equal footing! But alas, they lost that war! And though they were defeated, the power of their order remains dormant in ancient closed cities and fortresses! Your coming can mean only one thing – that ancient nemesis has awoken!”
Chapter 21
I GREETED SUNUP with a heavy head. I had not been able to sleep all night. After his fiery speech, the King left, and Captain Takeda took his turn with me.
I had to repeat my story to him another ten or so times. It all smacked heavily of interrogation.
Okay. Most importantly – there were no mental attacks.
“Have you told anyone about yourself here in Ironville?” Takeda asked when I finished recounting my ordeals for the twentieth time.
“Yes,” I nodded. “An artifact trader – Haldaf Gredoren.”
The captain clearly did not like that news.
“Gnomes,” he grumbled with annoyance in his voice. “I bet a rider has already been dispatched to inform the undermountain sovereign.”
“Haldaf swore an oath not to tell anyone,” I tried to reassure him.
That amused the captain.
“Remember this!” he raised a finger. “Every gnome in Ironville, just as well as every elf, goblin or... hm... Tarian – is a potential spy. And spies swear oaths of loyalty to their sovereign.”
“So, are you trying to say that Haldaf is a spy?”
“I’m one hundred percent certain of it.”
“And does that mean his oath of loyalty to his sovereign overrides all other oaths?”
“Exactly.”
I stared at a fixed point, shell-shocked. Now I see how Gino got around the System’s rules...
“Did the merchant suggest that you meet again?” the captain broke my train of thought.
I nodded.
“He invited me to lunch the day after we met.”
“I see,” Takeda muttered. “He didn’t want to pressure you so you wouldn’t get spooked. He’s probably kicking himself right now. Our secret chancery headed him off.”
First the King’s revelations, now this. The deeper I delved into things, the stranger it all became. As they say: out of the frying pan into the fire. Compared to everything I’d learned in the last few days, Bardan and his underlings were nothing but a pitiful band of small-time crooks.
By the way, speaking of them...
“What about Bardan?” I decided to ask.
“Bardan?” Takeda muttered thoughtfully.
Strange as it may be, my question didn’t catch his ire. He even continued the thought, squinting and kneading his brow.
“He came into our field of view many years ago as a young lanista. He’d suddenly become rich by marrying the widow of a Tarian general. Beyond money, two estates and a huge mansion in the capital of Taria, the deceased left his wife some land.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Were the mines in the Crooked Mountains part of her inheritance?”
Takeda chuckled and nodded.
“In light of what you’ve just told me, we’ll be sure to take another look at the general’s death due to ‘long-term illness.’ Say, were there any mages involved in searching the caverns?”
“No,” I shook my head. “Neither Skorx nor his scouts had anything to do with magic. Although...”
I considered it.
“There was a healer there... Name of Lee... But he didn’t go down into the caverns.”
The captain nodded understandingly.
“So there is our potential order of mages agent. And the fact he didn’t go down... Well, that’s easy to explain – what’s the point of him doing scout work? When they find something, then he can go down. But even beyond the fact the administrator is searching for something in the caverns, you’ve provided lots of interesting clues. For example, what is a healing mage doing in a backwater like that? After all, they are generally quite well-to-do.
Furthermore... That cave system is teeming with beasts of all kinds, yet not being used to farm loot. That must mean its existence is being kept secret.”
“The locals know people die in the mines,” I said.
“But they don’t talk about it,” the captain objected. “Beyond that, people die in every kind of mine. Whether it be in the Crooked Mountains or the caves of Atria. So did you or your father know about these caverns? You are miners after all. Who better to know about such things than you?”
“No, we didn’t,” I was forced to admit.
“Bardan and his few henchmen wouldn’t be able to pull something like this off on their own. So it follows that someone better-versed in this matter must be helping them.”
This conversation with the captain was reminding me of when my dad and I would unravel all kinds of entertaining riddles together. Takeda’s openness had me on guard, but I was greedily soaking up his every word like a sea sponge. And then, finally, I decided to ask the most important question of all:
“When will I be released?”
My question didn’t catch the captain off guard. Seemingly, he was prepared for it. Quickly, without thinking, he answered:
“For your own safety, it’s in your own best interest to stay here. And the less people know about you – the better.”
“Where exactly is ‘here?’”
“You’re better off not knowing that either.”
“For my own safety?”
Takeda didn’t react one bit to the acrid notes in my voice and answered calmly:
“Yes.”
Then he added:
“You’ll have to be patient while we work out a plan for what to do next.”
Despite the captain’s apparent composure, I got the sense I was walking a razor’s edge.
Hit with the gaze of his cold gray eyes, I shrank appreciably and suddenly just blurted out:
“I just wanted to find my older brother... Randy told me he’d seen him in the Yellow Crab tavern...”
Takeda spent some time staring into my eyes, then got up silently and walked over to the door. Grasping the handle, he was about to pull it, but stopped himself.
“I remember that tavern,” he said, giving a half-turn. “It burned down ten years ago.”
And after he said that, he left.
* * *
After that came a few days of uncertainty, which I spent locked in a small room with no windows. Unlike the secret chancery cell, it was not damp, and the cot didn’t smell putrid. I was even fed three times a day.
I had time to think. The longer I considered it, the more distinctly I understood – I needed to run far from the capital, from kings and orders of every kind. The Steel King’s fiery speech about the bad mages and heroic Fradia didn’t fool me. I was not tempted by the prospect of becoming a bargaining chip in a game played by the powers that be.
Grab Mee and run! By the way, I didn’t say a word about the gremlin to the King or captain. All that remained was to hope Gino had done the same. So he wouldn’t lose his personal healer.
After we run away, we can find a place in some backwater. Preferably the kind of place where I can earn tablets. We’ll get stronger there and, after a while, we can try our luck looking for my brother again. As soon as I resolved that, I felt more at ease. And on the fifth day of my imprisonment, I was again brought before the King where I finally realized just what a deep pile of shit I’d stepped in...
The same dark study with a huge fireplace that didn’t give off even a droplet of warmth. And the same exact actors again as well: the animalistic Captain Takeda, the faceless Magister Sato and the ruler of Fradia himself, his Majesty Egbert the Seventh, aka the Steel King.
The King sat at the table with a silver goblet in his hand, a step to his right was the perfectly still captain, while the old mage kept to the shadows nearer the fireplace, as was his wont.
I stood on the other side of the table, my hands folded behind my back like a defendant before the verdict is rendered.
Despite the bind I was in, I was not panicking. My decision has been made. All that remains is to time it out and try to run.
The King circled his hand a few times and raised his goblet to his nose. Then after taking a short sip, he glanced at me.
“For several centuries, the Empire has been ruled to large degree by the offspring of commoners. Those who received a magic supply merely on a whim of the goddess Fortuna or the god Random. At first they served kings and emperors but, at a certain point, they themselves realized they could become the rulers. And that was how the order of mages was founded. With its own rules and laws, well-defined hierarchy, treasury and army.”
The King took another swallow from his goblet and continued:
“Essentially, they created a state within a state. A bit over three hundred years ago, they even tried to become kings. But the nobility wouldn’t accept that. That launched a one-hundred-year war, which just about destroyed the order.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Magister Sato shifting from one foot to the other. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he had participated in those very events.
“While the order licked its wounds, the kings enjoyed freedom,” Egbert the Seventh continued. “They even managed to start a few senseless wars. My grandfather, for example, lost the barony of Arundel. Ever heard of it?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” I answered. “It is now orcish land.”
“Correct,” the King nodded. “Did you know that the so-called Stone Forest was once part of that barony? Anyway, don’t answer. How could you possibly?”
The King waved his left hand carelessly. Then, placing his goblet on the table, he continued:
“My grandfather’s advisors spent a long time wracking their brains to try and understand what the orcs wanted with those lands. On its own, Arundel is a poor, totally unremarkable barony. Little more than woodland. And the steppe orcs do not dwell among trees. They do better on open expanses. But you know that.”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“That barony was so useless and unpopulated that neither my grandfather or father ever even tried to win it back from the orcs. As a matter of fact, the orcs themselves never much visited it either. Or so we thought until you showed up.”
I frowned.
“Surprised?” the King chuckled. “The answer is on the surface. Do you really not see it?”
“The portal and altar?”
“Correct,” Egbert the Seventh nodded. “It looks like, with some kind of outside help, the shamans of the orcs found out that the Tree of Spirits in the Stone Forest had reawoken. And given the steppe dwellers were only trying to capture part of the Stone Forest, it’s suspicious they decided to conquer the entire barony.”
“Looks like the friendship between the magisters of the order and the shamans of the orcs was born long ago,” Magister Sato decided to enter the conversation. “No surprise then that events of the distant past are repeating now.”
“The ignorance and greed of the orcs will turn against them yet!” the King proclaimed with glee. “When otherworldly monsters come flooding out of the Stone Forest onto the steppe – the orcs will have bigger problems than us to worry about!”
I shuddered internally. The King’s delight had me frightened. I don’t care about the orcs, but there are after all their thousands of slaves! Initially the portal would close and the beasts that didn’t manage to find a victim for their rebirth would die. But very soon, without crystals, the interval between opening and closing would become greater. And it would stay open longer. Until the Tree of Spirits transformed into a constantly open otherworldly gateway.
“Anyhow, to the abyss with orcs!” the Steel King shook his hand angrily. “After the century of war, the magisters of the order learned their lesson. They decided on a strategy of turning the kings against one another and covertly influencing them and their inner circles. As a result – the order of mages rules this continent and our Empire. Fradia is at a
n impasse. The grand magister of the order has grown the damned nerve to try and break up my daughter’s engagement. And based on the inaction of that sleazy bastard Stephane, your King, the magister will get what he’s after.”
Taking a nervous sip from his goblet, the King looked me dead in the eyes.
“I can see you do not fully understand why I’m telling you all this!”
“Forgive my ignorance, your Majesty,” I bowed my head. “I’m just the son of a miner.”
“Forget who you were!” the King roared unexpectedly. “Remember who you are and who you will become!”
The Dark Continent (Underdog Book #3): LitRPG Series Page 20