by Scott Warren
Dahli Fost once again proved that she was much smarter than I when Jassem Bol sailed into the harbor at the helm of Ur’s Gift, fresh in from Shaitaccea of all places. The elf had sailed to the most enigmatic northwest corner of Varshon where necromancers were synonymous with entrepreneurs and even the dead were not free from the burden of obligation. But even that wasn’t the most surprising encounter in the early summer.
That honor came when my driver Dannic visited the office the evening of the anniversary, looking as though he’d wandered into Progenitor ruins and seen a ghost. I followed him out to the courtyard to see a wagon pulled up and an enormous bear of a man sitting at the dash.
“Jo Drover,” I said, shielding my eyes against the sunset as I looked up at the squash farmer.
“Master Kelstern,” he said with a nod. I noticed the farmer had added a silver hoop to his ear, one very similar to the ones that still adorned each of mine. Clearly, the sailor’s chits had been good to him. The cart he drove was enclosed as well, and I recognized Marlin’s design for the chilled lockers. Now that the squash stayed fresh longer, Jo Drover could make the trip himself again just by renting a dragon-eye.
“Come to check up on Mercy?” I asked with a grin.
He returned it and shook his head. “Naw, we just passing through. Thought to stop off. Seems you’re better off than I last saw you.”
“We?” I asked, puzzled.
The cart jostled as someone slipped off the back, and a familiar toothy grin greeted me.
“Cas!” I said, stunned. The vagrant no longer wore threadbare patchwork, but he still had the same oft-mended hat, which he doffed. I had wondered what became of him after he left Spardeep. It seemed the man really couldn’t stay put for long. Some men are born with a lust for gold, others with a lust for walking the many roads of the world. I was the former; clearly, Cas was the latter. Even when he had nothing, he had left before I could pay him back the ten silver pennies he had given me to pay for Mercy and other supplies in Jo Drover’s village. I doubted he would take them back if I offered.
“Master Kelstern,” he said with a wink. “We’ve got to be getting on, but I’ve a bit of news if ye have an ear.”
I chuckled. “I’m not sure I have the copper to buy it.”
“This one’s ’onner house, lord,” he said, motioning me closer.
I acquiesced, and much to my startlement, he drew me into a tight embrace. I froze, as unexpected physical intimacy beyond a simple handshake puts me in some small distress. But it was nothing compared to what he whispered in my ear.
“I’ve heard,” he murmured, “that there’s been no dragons seen in the Redfangs o’ late. Wager they’ve all scamped, eh? No more dragons at all.”
He thumped me on the back, and my eyes widened as I inhaled his familiar earthy scent.
Cas broke the embrace and offered one final grin as he replaced his hat. Then he climbed back on the wagon and rode out of my courtyard for the last time.
Epilogue
I thought about that encounter for two years before the gnawing curiosity bade me build an expedition under the pretense of summiting Bastayne. It was said to be a foolish endeavor. But by then, I was quite rich, which meant few said it in my hearing.
Dahli and Marlin Fost decided to accompany me. I had never told them about Alkazarian or the truth about Lady Arkelai. But neither are fools. Though they did not know the truth, they both knew that they didn’t know the truth. For them it was a journey of discovery. For me it was one of closure.
The ascent wasn’t easy. Poor Marlin was half-dead by the time we reached the Jaws of the Mountain. It had taken the mountain guides sixteen days to locate a route accessible by foot. I suppose in some day and age Alkazarian had needed tribute carried by the champions that invariably turned on him but hadn’t wanted that path easily discovered.
As Marlin and Dahli rested, breath steaming despite the summer month, I gave instructions to the guides and packmen to make camp while I looked at that open maw. I half expected a draconic form to come barreling forth, enraged by the intrusion. But none did, and so I approached.
“It’s here, just like you said,” my former secretary remarked. Her cousin was still too out of breath to say much of anything.
I shed my pack and my overcoat. “I’ll be back in a few hour’s time,” I said, walking into the opening.
A few seconds later, I walked back out. Marlin raised his eyebrow. “That was quick.”
“I need a light,” I admitted with some chagrin. Whatever magics had lit these halls on my prior visits was absent upon my return. The light of the mountain had gone dark.
Dahli was ready with one of Jess’ brand new alchemical lanterns, born of the profits from a well-timed shipment of caustics by a naïve alchemist and a foolish banker. How long ago such a simple venture seemed. I reached for the lamp, but Dahli pulled back.
“Not a chance, Sailor. We didn’t leave the city, travel across the badlands, and spend half a month climbing razor-stone cliffs to be left behind at the last hour. We’re going with you.”
“She’s going with you,” huffed Marlin. “Feel free to leave me behind.”
Dahli rolled her eyes at her cousin but hoisted the lantern and followed me into Alkazarian’s lair as she had followed me into so many dangers before.
We spoke little during the descent. The sounds of our breathing echoed in the halls, and I soon wished I had retained my overcoat when the temperature did not begin to rise in lockstep with our depth. Without Lady Arkelai leading me, I was free to set a modest pace, and the lantern revealed the footprints in the sand from my previous visits.
“You’ve been here before,” said Dahli.
“That’s true,” I said.
“How?” she asked. I didn’t answer.
Eventually, we reached the antechamber where I had met Jazalkorin and Arkeleera, and I halted, turning to face my secretary. Her eyes were wide as she scanned the branching tunnels.
“Dahli,” I said, “I can’t guarantee your safety beyond this room.”
Dahli Fost looked at me. “Well I’m sure as six hells that I’m not going to sit here in the dark while you take my lantern. Get on with it.”
I nodded, and we turned the bend to Alkazarian’s Lair.
The first thing I noticed was that the lantern did little to dispel the gloom in the enormous cavern. Its light touched neither the ceiling nor the far walls, simply the flat expanse of floor stretching toward where I knew the lake of gold to be. As we advanced, I realized that all signs of Alkazarian’s hoard were absent: the stacks of gold, gems, and ancient treasures were gone. Eventually, the light revealed his massive table, and the eight chairs arrayed beside it. One had been sheared in two, possibly during his rage on my last visit. Great claw marks scored the ironwood.
“Sailor? What is this?” asked Dahli, her voice rising in pitch.
“Alkazarian,” I replied. “Let’s keep moving.
We passed the great metal chair at the head of his table, where his heat had deformed and burnished the metal. It ran from the gilded armrests like the wax from a candle. There was no sign of the chalice he drank from, nor the piles of gold he had thrown it into.
“This way,” I said, moving toward the center of the room.
To this day, I remain undecided on my expectations for that final stretch. I no longer expected a dragon to pounce from the shadows, but neither did I expect the lake to be completely drained. Without the gold, it was merely an empty well, as long across as the Palace Dictate, though our light did not reach the opposite shore. Or the bottom. Alkazarian had taken the depth of his wealth and left Bastayne.
I led Dahli around the circumference of that empty lake, and we discovered that not all of Alkazarian’s riches had followed him. Waiting for us perhaps a quarter of the way around was a small mountain of splendor: gold stacked taller than either of us, in large, heavy coins from long before the founding of Borreos. There was more: porcelain statues of the old gods r
endered in exquisite detail, a small shelf of leather-bound volumes from a forgotten age, and a small open cask lined with the black velvet sleeves that I suspected contained the most valuable of all precious metals.
“Sailor!” said Dahli as she lifted the lantern high to examine the find.
I was so distracted by the magnificence of the wealth before me that I kicked a small wooden box. It skittered across the uneven stone, startling Dahli and almost causing her to drop the lantern. She shined the light at the little reliquary.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Something even more valuable,” I said, as I recognized the craftsmanship that I’d paid a Shaitaccean artist three golden dinars for. I reached down and picked up the box, pressing the rune on the top. The lid slid back just as it had for Lady Arkelai. And just like at the Feast of First Winter, it revealed a tiny orb of alchemical glass with a paper dragon suspended within. A folded piece of parchment had been included, and I withdrew it as Dahli lifted the lamp.
Sailor,
If you are reading this, then you have found your way back to Bastayne. My father intended to leave you nothing. But I’ve left some things from my personal collection. It’s not the full breadth of riches with which we tempted your service, but I hope it will help salve the pain of what I put you through. Perhaps it will mend the wounds in my conscience.
I’m sure you’ve puzzled out that Dragon’s Daughter was designed to fail. It was something to draw eyes and attentions. I patterned it to overextend the powerful players of Varshon so that we could learn how best to break your system of commerce and my father could bask in the void left behind.
We chose you for your draconic avarice, certain you would stop at nothing and think of no one in your pursuit of regaining the fortunes you lost. But you were never like us, were you? My eldest brother watched you turn four pennies and a promise into three times their number using generosity instead of greed. Your whole empire is modeled on nothing more than the trust that your good intentions are rewarded.
Despite every obstacle we threw at Dragon’s Daughter, you persevered. You turned every pitfall into advantage and carried my father’s banner with the same ferocity as any champion. And unlike his other champions, never once did you waver or betray the trust of those who stood by you.
I didn’t truly understand until you gave me a simple trinket of wood and glass. That’s when I realized that a single sliver of folded paper meant more to me than all the gold in this mountain. Not because it was a treasure of great worth, but because of the trust it represented between us. And I could no longer betray that trust. I discovered I would fight for you as fiercely as any of your other partners. In a way, you have done what no knight of ages past has ever managed. You defeated one of Alkazarian’s children without ever picking up a lance or a shield.
For now, my father lives among your kind—as rich on paper as he is in gold. He does not completely understand. But I will help him along the way. I no longer wish to see Dragon’s Daughter Trading fail. In fact, I hope you will continue to represent my interests in Borreos, for our wealth grows in lockstep through the paths we forged together.
I will not apologize for Spardeep or the vicious way in which I appeared to cast you from our service. All were necessary, lest you be painted as the villain for all my family’s misdeeds. Guard safe our little empire, Sailor. As long as it exists, Alkazarian has reason to stay his flames.
We will not meet again, much to my regret.
Arkelai
I lowered the letter and looked to the fortune the dragon’s daughter had left me. How was it that everyone could see through me so thoroughly and yet not at all? Arkelai could predict my actions and even my return to the mountain, but she couldn’t see that the gold in her mountain was only valuable because people made it so. At least until I showed her. Without the promises of humans and the faith in those promises? A gold dinar was simply a shiny lump of metal that weighed a good deal more than it ought.
I may have a tactile obsession with material forms of wealth, perhaps bordering on the unhealthy, but my love for their luster is unrelated to the way in which I practice finance. Perhaps for Alkazarian it is the opposite. Perhaps he was looking for someone more like him. If so, then even the dragons misread my unique brand of greed. In truth, I’m not sure there is anyone like him, for which I’m very grateful.
I opened the lid of Dahli’s lantern and set the top corner of the parchment alight. She and I watched it burn for a moment before Dahli yelped and pointed.
“Sailor, there’s more on the back!”
I dropped the parchment out of surprise. I fanned and pawed at the flame to no avail; the rest of the letter burned like kindling and crumbled to ash.
Dahli and I crouched down and looked at the charred remains.
Then she looked back up at me. “Who was she talking about?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The sister,” replied Dahli. “The one who’s excited to come share her ideas for expanding Dragon’s Daughter?”
“Oh…” I said. A hot flush began to climb up my throat to my temples as I realized who she must be talking about. “Oh, Blessed Twins!”
The End
Be sure to check out Forego Quest in a few short pages!
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Other Works by Scott Warren
The Union Earth Privateers
Vick’s Vultures
To Fall Among Vultures
Where Vultures Dare
The Sorcerous Crimes Division
Devilbone
The Servant’s Tower
Stone Atlas (Short)
The Hand of Davamosse (Short)
Stand-Alone Works
The Dragon’s Banker
Forego Quest (Short)
Forego Quest
Chapter 1
My name is Arturus Kingson, and I am the Chosen One. Of which prophecy, you might ask? All of them, as far as I can tell. Most agree that I’m either supposed to prevent the rise of the Dark Lord-Emperor or topple him once he’s come to power. I have more names than a used horse and I can’t seem to walk from the kitchen to the privy without tripping over a magical sword. My body is covered with so many portentous scars and birthmarks that I resemble a leopard who escaped the royal menagerie. On my right shoulder I have a bear, said to mark me as the Bear God Ursine’s Champion. On my left, the sigil of the ancient Draconian Order of Fangs that was wiped out by Typhus Flu almost two centuries ago. That doesn’t stop their enemies from hounding me. It’s even said that I can defeat twenty Blackened-Bandana Blademasters. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never tried.
At the age of thirteen I was taken to a martial monastery deep in the eastern mountains; mountains called the Spine of the World too many times to be a coincidence. There my master schooled me in the ancient sword art of Kli’shaes and taught me to question everything. The first thing I questioned was why I had to live in a musty old monastery learning outdated dueling techniques. My master told me not to ask so many questions. I left the next day.
Now I’ve been on my own for four years, moving from town to town selling artifacts and trying to stay ahead of the riots, tragedies, and calls to action that follow me like a bad odor. The Dark Lord-Emperor’s goons never seem to be far, either. And on the night of the harvest festival I could feel them closing in once again. Some would say I sensed something in the way the winds changed, or that the air seemed to crackle with potential, or maybe the clouds hung pregnant with possibility. Personally, I think the biggest clue was the column of Dark Empire troops that arrived yesterday. They marched into town in broad daylight and stabled their horses at the livery. I figured I had one more night of good drinking left and planned to spend it doing just that.
I sat back in my chair a
t the Charmed Prince Tavern in the town of River’s Edge. It was the most well-lit seat available, as far as I could get from the shadowed corners where mysterious figures inevitably sidle up to me. They always have some bare scrap of foretelling and tend to spontaneously sprout knives from their backs once they deliver it. In one eventful night they were stacked three-deep by last call. I began to avoid shadowed corners out of courtesy to the tavern-keepers.
I lofted my empty mug, and a feeling of dread overcame me when a new serving girl swung by to refill it and drop off a platter of smoked bacon, hard cheese, stew, and bread. She was tall and lithe, wearing a tight, lacy gown wholly inappropriate for such a dingy common room. She sat on the corner of the table and brushed back her shock of ruby hair as she poured my ale. As soon as she flashed me a perfect ivory smile I knew I had stayed exactly one day too late.
“Blessing of the harvest to you,” she said, “I’m…”
“Rose,” I interrupted. “Or maybe Scarlet.” I took a sip of my ale, but it had already soured.
She put a hand to her chest, “Why yes, Rose. How did you know?”
I looked away. She was too perfect, too out-of-place, and too obviously in some sort of trouble. If not now, then soon. It took two or three instances before I realized that beautiful women with unnatural hair color one-and-all ended up kidnapped and taken to the Capital. I was supposed to pursue them, of course, it being my destiny and all to rescue them and topple the Dark Lord Emperor. I heard from a merchant caravanner that they were usually released after a couple weeks anyway. The Emperor’s guards always forgot why they were arrested in the first place. Unnatural beauty was nothing but a harbinger. I was only safe in the company of bent noses and crooked teeth.