by Eric Ugland
“Running water in houses is a recent development here?”
“More that it is more affordable now. To the point where most homes have access to one place within the home where the water runs. Rarer is what our building has, and thank the gods for you having it.”
“Are we, I mean, should we connect the other buildings to it?”
“Already on that particular idea,” Titus said. “Got a friend of mine coming just this very day to look at that potential.”
“Oh,” I replied. “That’s awesome. Make sure you ask your friend what it would take to hook up all the buildings on this block.”
“Already in the talking points. And we should be expecting to hear from that slumlord Viggo soon, so, add that to your calendar.”
“Talk to Viggo the slumlord,” I said, miming writing in an imaginary calendar.
He laughed, and I shoveled more food into my mouth.
“Have you seen Leofing?” he asked suddenly, out of nowhere.
I stopped with a spoon halfway to my mouth, thinking.
“No,” I said. “I haven’t. Which is odd — normally he’s always around.”
“Hrm,” Titus replied.
“Should we be worried?”
“What level is he?”
“Somewhere in the fifties, I think.”
“Pretty sure he’ll be okay.”
“That’s pretty high level, isn’t it?”
“It’s high level, but not that high. Pretty sure there’s plenty of seventies and even eighties in the city. Maybe even a few over a hundred.”
“I wish I was a little higher leveled.”
“Don’t we all?”
“Right, but I’m only ninth level.”
“Yes, well, that is rather atrocious, but I didn’t want to bring it up.”
“Kind of you.”
“It’s a little concerning.”
“You’re telling me. I swear I’ve been getting XP — I’m just not leveling up.”
“Might be another thing to look into,” Titus said.
“What could it be?”
“Talk to your professor friend. He’d probably know more than me.”
I thought about going back to talk to the professor, see how ol’ Pomeroy had made out after last night. But at the same time, maybe it was better to give the old man a little time to rest before I went back to pestering him.
With a nod, I shoveled the last bite of oats into my mouth, struggled to swallow it down, and pushed the bowl towards Titus.
“Thanks, Titus,” I said. “Tasty stuff.”
“Always a joy to watch someone stuff my food into their mouth like an animal.”
“Things to see,” I said, “people to do.”
He squinted at me for a second. Then he smiled, and let out a huge laugh.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Urchadan Square was old even by Old Town standards. The architecture, the layout, the designs, all of it was from another era. The buildings were narrower, and not quite as tall. People seemed a little less eager to interact with each other. There weren’t the same sort of shops. In just a few blocks, the neighborhood would start to change. I knew that closer to the southern wall, the more dodgy things got. No one wanted to live near the walls, so that’s where the cheap housing was.
The square wasn’t huge, but there seemed to be some important buildings around it. A City Watch outpost, a food market, and, naturally, a well. All the things you need for life in old Glaton. The well wasn’t large or ornate, it looked highly functional, and yet, mostly left alone. There was a green copper roof on the top of four posts around the well, and it looked like there had been a bucket and a rope at one point. Instead, now, it was a just an empty spot.
A few people out and about, but no one lingered in the square. It actually felt like they were all walking with the express intent of spending as little time in the square as possible.
I took a lap around the square, peering in the shops on ground level. Nothing too interesting, though there was a bookstore on the northern edge, and the food market seemed to have a nice variety. I chose to go into the bookstore first.
The Book Wyrm felt like it had been pulled directly out of my imagination. Shelves soared all the way to the ceiling, packed with leather-bound tomes. A rather small man with a disproportionately large mustache was perched on a stool so that he had a view both out the window and inside the store. He was decidedly not human, but I wasn’t sure what species he could be. He had on a nice collared shirt and a little black vest, and his leather-booted feet rested on an absurdly high ottoman. Which, in retrospect, probably wasn’t called an ottoman in Glaton, since you know, no Ottoman Empire here. He had a mug at one hand, and a book held up to his nose in the other.
“Welcome to the Book Wyrm,” the little man said. “ Can I help you find something?”
“Actually,” I said, “I was wondering if you could help me find someone.”
“Always a chance, I suppose,” he said, putting a finger in the book and gently closing it so he didn’t lose his place.
“Have you heard of The Fayden?”
The little man tilted his head for a moment, then took a sip of his drink. He set his cup delicately back down on a little shelf, seemingly designed purely for that purpose.
“The Fayden?” he repeated the name slowly, like he was tasting it as it danced across his tongue. “I have heard that name before. But is it a person? I don’t know that I can tell you.”
“So you don’t know them?”
“No, I do not. Though I imagine anyone with a “the” in front of their name might be worth getting to know. Seems quite the honorific, eh?”
I nodded. “Do you know if there’s anything special about that well?”
He looked through the window and peered at the well.
“I suppose you could say it is somewhat responsible for this neighborhood existing,” he said. “Partially responsible at any rate. Is that not the sort of special you were looking for?”
“I was hoping you were going to tell me that rogue wizards gathered there every day at noon,” I replied. “Or something along those lines.”
“Wizards? Here? Not likely. Though I suppose there’s always the chance they might be dressed like normal people, act like normal people and then visit the well in that disguise. If that’s the case, then I guess that could be the case.”
“Is there anyone that meets at the well regularly?”
He scratched his head, ran his fingers through his mustache a time or two, and then took a sip of his drink, all the while looking out the window at the well in question.
“No,” he said. “Not that I’ve noticed. I don’t see many folk at the well any longer. Not to imply that it is an eye-sore, but I feel that space might be better used. Perhaps for a market or something. You know, there’s a nice market every weekend over two blocks, and those stores there, they get quite a bit of extra business when the market comes around.”
“Ah,” I replied.
“Are you looking for a book?”
“Yes,” I lied, feeling bad for this guy even though he’d turned out to be not at all helpful.
“How lovely!”
I wound up buying a romantic novel called The Claws of the Heart that was a whopping three gold coins. And for good measure, I also picked up Death’s Gate and Skull Woods. He seemed happy, but was already back into his own reading by the time I walked outside.
The wind had picked up, whipping through the square. I looked around at the upper levels of the buildings, and saw most were covered. It didn’t seem like many people even wanted to look at Urchadan square. It wasn’t a pretty space, and it definitely needed a little greenery somewhere, just to offset the ceaseless grey stone. The cobblestones of the street were a dark grey, matched by the heavy stones used to build the homes and buildings around the square. It was just very drab. Really the only color came from the awning over the market and the copper patina top of the well.
Th
e well.
I’d kind of assumed The Fayden would be some dude who visited the well every day, who knew everyone who lived or worked around it, but that wasn’t the case. So I took my books over and sat on the edge of the well. I flipped through the romance, confirming it was tawdry enough to merit some further scrutiny at some other time. The other book was more interesting, explaining why Death’s Gate was so named, and what was in the Skull woods, the forest beyond it.
The forest beyond had never really been conquered fully, and seemed to have pushed back against anything like subjugation, to the point that the Glatonese Empire had been happy to just leave the gate closed for quite a long time. It was only a few hundred years ago when the bridge was rebuilt, and workers carved a road through the forest. The solution was to have regular Legion patrols on the singular road, escorting traffic in and out of the city. There was no way to build any real buildings within the woods, so it was a hard march of nearly fifty miles that took a day and a half. Fighting was common amongst a wide variety of foes. Some were simple, like goblins or wolves. Others were more frightening — wyrms, wyverns, and varghouls, which were basically heads with wings and long tentacle-like tongues. There were even tribes of half-vegetable, half-human things called the grunemetis. The author of the book, Rebekah Switzer, believed there was a civilization hidden within the trees, something that had created the grunemetis, controlled the other creatures, and was willing to sacrifice everything to keep the humans, and the other ‘civilized’ races, from spreading into their world. Seemed like an interesting theory.
I sat there on the well long enough to read the bulk of the book before I stood up, stretched, and looked around. No one had come near me the whole time I sat there. A few people gave me looks as I sat there, but no one actually met my gaze. It seemed like the passersby thought there was something wrong with me for sitting there and relaxing.
To an extent, I understood why. It wasn’t normal for someone to have nothing to do in this world, certainly not in a working-class neighborhood like this one. Higher up, sure, that made sense. I doubted Nadya’s parents did much of anything on a day-to-day basis. But most people who lived and worked in Old Town were not the sort to spend the day sitting and reading a book.
This wasn’t working.
I slipped the small square of paper from my pouch and set it in the book.
The well in the Urchadan Square. Find me. - The Fayden
Not much to go on. I had remembered it correctly. I was at the well in question, and I was waiting. But it didn’t say to wait at the well — it said to go to the well and find The Fayden. Looking around the square, I tried to imagine a hiding place somewhere with a view of the well. Or that might have a view from a well. There were plenty of rooftops, and if I was going to have a secret hideout, I’d put it on an otherwise unassuming rooftop. But if I were going to get a good look at the roofs, I wouldn’t be able to do that while it was daylight.
The Fayden search was going to have to wait a little while, until nightfall.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I was on my way back to the Heavy Purse to grab lunch when I heard the excited chatter of small children as they ran by.
“PARADE!” one of them shouted.
I’d never been to a Glatonese parade, and figured that was something I needed to fix, so I followed the kids as they tore through the streets. Though, I went at a more sedate pace and took the time to right the carts and elderly the riotous kids knocked over as they passed.
The parade was taking place on the Via Principalis, the main avenue cutting east-west across the city, heading east from the harbors toward the very center. Or, rather, the de facto center, given that Glaton had grown since the original center Forum had been constructed. I saw quite a few very pretty horses, delicate things that pranced about in ways that seemed more like dancing than anything else. Then came large carriages with filigree and flapping flags. There were men-at-arms, all bearing long poleaxes and wearing matching uniforms emblazoned with a crest I had never seen before. And, naturally, there was a beautiful, middle-aged woman riding what looked like an elephant with four tusks, waving at the parade-goers and indicating where her fellow elephant riders should throw coins into the crowd.
And there was quite a crowd. It wasn’t, say, shoulder to shoulder, but the local populace was happy to take in such an unusual sight. And, of course, free gold tended to draw out even the most extreme introverts.
“Lady Baeder,” a voice said next to me.
I glanced over and saw Matthew standing there.
“Katja Baeder, She’s aiming for the throne,” he said, keeping his eyes trained on the woman.
“Will she get it?” I asked.
“Too early to tell.”
“Would it be bad?”
“See my first answer.”
“Do you know anything about her?”
“Only the slightest.”
I nodded.
He nodded.
“Done sightseeing?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I could be.”
“Let’s take a quick walk then.”
We waited for the parade to pass by, and then we darted across the avenue and walked over to the big Arena. We stopped in front of the Biscuit’s Union. It was odd to see the building still empty. No one was anywhere near the place, seeming like the pedestrians were happy to swing wide around it.
“Our portfolio,” Matthew said softly, “is surprising in some ways. We have a fair amount of property, though we are somewhat lacking in liquid assets.”
“How lacking?”
“I wouldn’t go on any spending sprees, but otherwise, we should be fine.”
“Fine enough to feed everyone for a long spell?”
“That would depend on your definition of long, but I would assume yes. The properties are spread throughout the city. This one, obviously, is the most valuable. Then there are a few homes and apartment buildings. That seems to be where the Biscuit’s Union was storing their wealth.”
“You know,” I said, “they really were more of a business than anything else at the end.”
Matthew nodded. “I had the same conclusion.”
“I don’t want that to happen to us.”
“I doubt it will. We seem to have a little more go than they do. But earlier, we talked about focusing on things in Old Town. Specifically—“
“Our block.”
“Right. Which means we’ll need to get rid of a lot of the other properties if we want to afford it.” Matthew steered us towards a bench, and we sat down with a view of the Arena.
“You think we can get the block?”
“I think there’s a chance. A lot depends on Viggo the slum lord, how he wants to deal with us. I brought you here to talk about that specifically. I know there is interest in this property from some members of the Mancers, yes?”
“I mean, they thought they owned it. Or, at least, they thought they could get the deed after they killed everyone inside.”
“I would imagine they are still interested.”
“I don’t see what would have changed.”
“There are other buyers. It is a good factory, a good store, and has plenty of space for living quarters.”
“Did people live there?”
“Yes — did you not know? As a member of the guild, you should have been eligible for a room.”
“No one told me, and I didn’t think to ask.”
“Ah. Not that it matters now, eh?”
“Or then. I had a place to live.”
“True. But it is a valuable property, especially given its location. The question I put to you: do you want me to see if there is someone willing to buy this property for gold, or would you rather try and trade it to the slum lord?”
“It’s always seemed to me that it’s easier to get a good deal with a trade than with money. People know how much a gold piece is worth, but an object, or, in this case, a building, has a little more wiggle room.”
Mat
thew nodded. “We are in agreement then.”
“Any word on the Iron —“
“Not something we should discuss out here,” he said, looking around. “But yes.”
“Can we go and talk then? Is there something to do?”
“No. You have something else to do tonight. It’s important, and you should not push it back.”
“I don’t think talking to him is that important,” I said, hoping Matthew would realize I meant Valamir.
“No matter what you think of it, or him, or what I think of him,” Matthew said, “keeping an eye on the man is vital to what we do.”
“Ugh,” I replied, trying hard to be mature about things. “I don’t think he’s as important as the, uh, I.S.”
“That’s because you are thinking about the short term. The group in question is a problem, yes, and you think that because you do not have an active part to play at the moment, it means that no one in the group is doing anything. But we, The Skull and Thrones, are not doing nothing. We are actively engaged with them on a number of fronts. It is just that your skills are useful in other areas.”
“Ugh.”
“I get it. You are an elf of action, and you want to be in the thick of it, but the whole point of being part of group is that you can let your group do some things as well. So, delegate. Let those you believe in do what they are good at.”
I sighed, and watched the workers at the arena go about their jobs. There were wagons of materials being herded through large doors that led underneath the arena proper. It definitely seemed like the games that Valamir promised Tollendahl would be held soon, and I wondered what impact that might have on the capital. Or on the election of a new emperor.
“I get it,” I finally said.
He nodded, patted my knee, and got up.
“Be safe tonight,” he said. “You are the head of this group — we can’t afford to lose you yet. It would all fall apart without you forcing us all together.”
I gave him a weak smile.