A chime rang out from the back of the room. One of the small crystals in the back wall was glowing with a faint ruby light.
Goldson frowned. “Mr. Poldo, if you could do me the favor.”
“Yes, sir,” said Poldo. He hurried back and read the small plaque under the lit crystal. “It says Damrod the Eye, sir.”
The ancient Dwarf and the nearly-as-ancient Halfling looked up from their respective ledgers, suddenly concerned.
“It appears it shall be the contingency after all,” said Mr. Baggs.
“Let’s hope so,” said Mr. Goldson. “We shall have to call upon the Mask.” He rang a small silver bell on the side of his desk.
A smartly dressed Halfling opened the great black doors and ducked her head in. “Sirs?” she asked, peering over her horn-rimmed glasses.
“Miss Lobelia, send a message to the Elven Embassy,” said Mr. Baggs. “Memo: Damrod the Eye has died.”
“And whom shall I address it to?”
“Damrod the Eye,” said Mr. Baggs.
“Yes, sir.” Miss Lobelia shut the door behind her, leaving Mr. Goldson and Mr. Baggs to their ledgers and Poldo to his confusion.
“But he … why would you …?” Mr. Poldo looked from the door back to the great black desks of Goldson and Baggs, and back to the door again. “Wasn’t Damrod the Eye—?”
“Mr. Poldo, are your reports quite finished?” said Mr. Baggs.
Poldo collected himself. “I did have several more key points, sir.”
“What’s the market doing with the Dragon of Wynspar?” asked Mr. Goldson.
“It’s up four and a half giltin, sir.”
“Tell the men in the brokerage to buy ten thousand shares,” said Mr. Goldson.
“Thank you, Poldo,” said Mr. Baggs.
Poldo felt a twinge of despair. “It’s just that I did have several more reports to review.”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” said Mr. Baggs.
“We will offset our risk by investing in the Dragon of Wynspar,” said Mr. Goldson.
“I even had a bit to do with some props and, ahem, visual aids,” said Poldo, losing his nerve as Mr. Goldson and Mr. Baggs looked up from their work and directly at him.
“Your reports have been noted,” said Mr. Baggs coldly. “Investing in the DOW will help rebalance and stabilize our portfolio.”
“Thank you, Mr. Poldo,” repeated Mr. Goldson, with deliberate finality.
“Yes, sirs,” said Poldo. He felt a twinge of regret as he hurriedly packed up his charts and visual aids. He’d been very much looking forward to the bit with the toy dagger and the inflated rubber bladder.
The road between Ebenmyre and Bloodroot was flat and barren, with nothing to be seen but oceans of tall grasses and the same mountains in the misty distance. There was nothing to do either, except swat at the midgeflies and count the dirt-pig nests for three days.
The evenings were different, Laruna reflected, as she rushed to finish her dinner. It wasn’t easy to hurry through the meal; dirt-pig was tough and gamey enough to gag a Dire Wolf, and Dwarven hardtack managed to be even less edible. The only diversion Laruna found to distract her from the monotony of the ride and her saddle sores was her nightly training with Jynn.
“Shall we begin?” Jynn asked, walking to the campfire.
“Mpph,” she replied through a piece of dirt-pork. After considerable effort, Laruna managed to force down the gnarled bite of meat and tell Jynn that she would need a couple of minutes. He offered to set up the training area while she finished, and she gave him a smile and a grateful nod while trying to take a bite of hardtack.
After dinner, she returned to her tent for some quick preparations. She cleaned the grease off her hands and the crumbs off her robe. She glanced over the reading she’d been doing in Thurmon’s Guide To Magic. A dash of vanilla oil on her wrists helped mask the persistent odor of sweat and horse that followed traveling heroes everywhere. She ran her hands through her hair and, after a moment of consideration, decided to tie it up with a long ribbon. Finally ready, she left the tent.
Heraldin lounged on a pile of saddlebags next to the campfire and plucked idly at a lute. Gaist stood a short distance away, arms crossed in the usual fashion, but somehow looking more relaxed than normal. They watched Laruna with lazy eyes as she crossed the campsite. “Well, don’t you look nice this evening,” Heraldin called to her. “Look, Gaist, she’s put her hair up.”
Laruna grit her teeth as she felt a blush rising in her cheeks. “Shouldn’t you be playing your board game?”
“In time, in time,” the bard assured her. “I find it best to let the hardtack settle. Besides, not all of us are so eager for our lessons.”
There was a barb in the bard’s voice and a smug twinkle in his eye. “And just what are you getting at?” Laruna demanded, planting her feet in front of the bard and her hands on her hips.
“Oh, come now,” laughed Heraldin. “We all see it. You and the noctomancer have been closer than a Kobold tribe since the Myrewood. The whispered conversations you hold. The secret smiles you share. The lessons that last far longer than they need to.”
Laruna stiffened. “We’re sharing arcane knowledge,” she snapped. “It’s to improve our spell casting.”
“Typical mages,” Heraldin said to Gaist. “So busy unlocking the mysteries of the universe that they can’t see what’s right in front of their noses.”
Gaist nodded.
“Don’t encourage him,” said Laruna, jabbing a finger at the weaponsmaster.
“Listen friend, it’s not our fault that a lifetime of study at the academy has left you two blind to what’s happening here.”
“And what exactly do you think is happening here?” she hissed.
“Oh, they met as foes, but their animosity is a facade to mask their hearts,” said the bard airily, playing a slow melody on his lute. “And now that fate has brought them together, they can’t hide their true feelings. Like a flower blooming within the harshest desert, love finds a way.”
“Ridiculous,” snorted Laruna.
“If you say,” said the bard, sharing a knowing glance and a disaffected shrug with Gaist. “But if there was a chance for such love, it would be a shame to miss out, would it not? Romance between former rivals is passionate and wonderful. Truly, it is the best kind of love.”
Laruna hesitated. Jynn had been much more personable lately, she had to admit. She couldn’t deny a certain anticipation of her nightly training with the wizard. The last lesson hadn’t even involved that much sorcery; they had spent most of their evening talking.
She shook the bard’s fantasies from her head. “You know nothing,” she snarled.
“On the contrary, if there is one thing I know, it is the heart of a woman,” said the bard. “Though I’m familiar with the rest of her body as well,” he told Gaist with a sly wink.
The weaponsmaster scowled.
“Killjoy,” said Heraldin. “Still, I know what I see, and I see a noctomancer and solamancer spending a lot of time together.”
“And? The two orders work together all the time,” Laruna shot back, though she knew collaborations between solamancers and noctomancers were usually far more terse and involved much less laughter than her last few sessions with Jynn.
“Do they? A pity. Forbidden love is the best kind of love.”
“You throw that word around too freely.”
“And you hide from it like a schoolgirl,” said Heraldin. “Still, your business is your own, and I’ll leave you to it. I won’t tell the others of our chat, and I’m sure it’s safe to assume that Gaist won’t say anything.”
Gaist nodded.
“Why should I care who you tell your inane theories to?” Laruna waved a dismissive hand.
Heraldin strummed his lute with a wistful sigh. “Because a secret love, a romance known only by the lovers who hide it, is the very best kind of love.”
“You say every kind of love is the best kind.”
“Yes,” said Heraldin, wearing an infuriating grin.
“Fine. Think what you please,” said Laruna, throwing her hands up and leaving the obnoxious duo to their games and their lute music. She had better things to do than listen to the bard’s ramblings. Besides, she didn’t want to be late for her session with Jynn.
“He’s getting better,” Kaitha offered.
Gorm snorted. “Well, he sure as flame couldn’t get any worse.”
“No, really. A week ago Niln was running from the training golem.”
They watched as the high scribe furiously dueled the training golem in the center of a dusty ring situated off the side of the old dirt road. Niln made a couple of simple jabs at the dummy, feinted in the wrong direction, and was knocked off his feet by a clumsy blow upside the head.
“Now he’s just getting beat by it.”
“We’ll call it progress,” Kaitha repeated.
“And what of Gleebek?” They turned to another dusty ring, where the Goblin squared off against the other training golem.
“He’s a star pupil,” said Kaitha. “That’s on the expert setting.”
“Have at … you!” The golem made an aggressive lunge for the Goblin, but Gleebek quickly sidestepped the blow and jabbed his dagger into the target spot beneath the left shoulder. The golem’s arm blew off with a loud rush, and its fate was sealed. A couple of moments later, Gleebek struck the heart target and sent the golem’s head rocketing out across the plain. Its cry of, “Well … met!” faded as it flew into the distance.
“Bones,” said Gorm. “That’s pretty good.”
“And he’s starting to pick up a little Imperial as well,” said Kaitha.
“Oh?”
When Kaitha nodded, he hollered to the distant Goblin. “Hello! Ye speakin’ Imperial with everybody but me now?”
Gleebek waved furiously. “Hallo, Gurm Ingerzon! Hallo!”
Gorm couldn’t help but laugh at his squire’s vigorous enthusiasm. “Aye, hello Gleebek.”
“No! No hallo Gleebek! Tib’rin! Gleebek is hallo!”
“We’ll call it progress,” Gorm muttered to Kaitha. Waving his goodbyes, he resumed his rounds. Ostensibly, he was on guard duty, but that job had been outsourced.
As dusk fell, he headed out into the field, away from the other heroes, and located a likely looking pile of rocks. “Troll,” he said, giving the stones a tap with the toe of his boot. “Aye, Troll, is that ye?”
“No,” said a voice behind him, sending Gorm into the air and his heart into his throat.
He tried not to jump whenever Thane appeared, but natural selection had not been kind to those who weren’t terrified by the approach of a Troll. Thane always looked hurt by Gorm’s reaction.
Rather than dwell on it, Gorm asked if Thane had anything to report.
“A groundshark around noon,” said Thane. “A pack of dust-scargs not two hours ago. They all kept a wide berth.”
“Good.”
“I told you this would work, didn’t I?” prompted the Troll. “You have yet to see a single roaming monster. I heard the bard tell the wizard that’s almost unheard of this far out in the wilderness.”
“Aye, but it’s gettin’ to be a lot of work keepin’ them from seeing the one monster who’s roaming next to us all day long. The Elf keeps lookin’ directly at wherever ye are. It’s almost eerie.”
Thane looked at the firelight flickering in the distance. “Our depths echo with the same song,” he said wistfully.
Gorm suppressed a shudder. “So go talk to her if ye’ve such a connection.”
“Well, it’s not that much of a connection.”
“Right.”
“I’ve kept my part of the bargain,” said the Troll. “All you need to do is let me pretend I’m one of you—the ninth in your party.”
“It’s a mummer’s farce.”
“No, it’s my farce,” growled the Troll. He turned back to the distant camp. “I sit close enough to smell the fire, to hear your voices, and it’s like I’m among friends. And we laugh and talk, and I belong. I’m where I should be. Even if it’s just a daydream, it’s mine.”
“But it ain’t really there.”
“It’s still more than I had a week ago.” Thane jabbed a finger like a sapling at Gorm’s chest. “And it’s my price for keeping watch over your party. I think it more than fair.”
Gorm shrugged and dropped the matter. The business of tall-folk was their own. He thanked the Troll for the report and headed back to camp.
Heraldin and Gaist sat next to the fire, as they did every night, with a game of thrones balanced on a rock between them. Each had taken to carving notches on his side of the board to mark his victories. Gaist’s edge was covered with nicks and scars, while Heraldin’s remained pristine.
Gorm retrieved the maroon file on the Elven Marbles and sat down next to the game.
“What are you reading, my friend?” asked Heraldin.
“I’m looking through the king’s file. There may be some mention of the Leviathan Project.”
“Do you suppose the project has any relation to the Leviathan of legend?” The bard advanced a priest, and Gaist quickly knocked it down with a knight.
“Can’t say I recall that one,” said Gorm.
“It’s in the old sagas, the songs that all the bards know and nobody cares to hear.” Heraldin took the knight with a bannerman.
“What’s it about?”
Heraldin began to sing:
In the lost age of Fables
in the high reign of the Sten,
When Al’Thadan was noble,
And Shadowkin were still men—
Gorm cut him off. “Give me the short version.”
“See? Nobody wants to hear the old sagas,” Heraldin said to Gaist.
The weaponsmaster nodded and knocked over Heraldin’s bannerman.
“The story is a strange one. It takes place back in the second age, when Mannon, King of Shadows, roams the world freely and Al’Thadan has not yet turned to serve him,” said Heraldin. “The people who are now the Shadowkin had just joined sides with Mannon, as did some of their gods, splitting the pantheon. Al’Thadan sets out to reunite them.” He knocked over Gaist’s last knight.
“So he challenges Mannon to a fight, Al’Thadan with his holy sword, and Mannon with his dark claws. And it’s a big battle.”
Gaist killed Heraldin’s bannerman.
“Their duel lasts for days. The ballad has over thirty-six verses of them fighting.” Heraldin took a lord, unanswered.
“No wonder nobody listens to these songs.”
Gaist advanced a priest and lost it.
“In the end, Al’Thadan prevails, and he casts Mannon from the heavens out into the nothing.” Heraldin grinned as he took Gaist’s final lord, leaving the weaponsmaster with a king and a couple of bannermen. “But Mannon does something unexpected.”
Hints of a smirk rippled the crimson scarf Gaist wore over his face. He moved his king back, pinning Heraldin’s knight and making it his own.
Heraldin frowned and advanced a lord. “A fish dies at the same moment as Mannon, and he uses low magic, the old magic of blood and stone and prophecy, to bind his spirit to that of the dead fish.”
“A fish?” Gorm sounded dubious.
“I said it was a strange tale.”
Gaist advanced his new knight, pinning a bannerman.
“Mannon cannot go wherever it is that fish go when they die, but the fish is bound to the great weave of reality, and so Mannon cannot leave it.” Heraldin advanced a bannerman, and his priest was pinned. “Bound together by curse or prophecy, there’s nowhere for Mannon and the fish to go but Arth, where they share one life, one body. The Leviathan.”
Heraldin lost another knight. Now his forces were evenly matched with Gaist’s.
“The gods think Mannon is dead, and so does everyone else. But years later, in the Third Age, this great fish shows up in the Teagem Sea, massive and deadly
. It sinks ships. It wipes out an entire coastal city.”
The bard and the weaponsmaster exchanged a quick flurry of moves that left Heraldin with only a pair of bannermen to protect his king. The weaponsmaster was definitely smirking now.
Heraldin scowled. “So the people of the world send out a great fleet of warships to hunt down the Leviathan. The greatest heroes of the age are on the expedition; the ballad has another twenty-seven verses just describing the captains of the various vessels.”
“Who would have ever listened to this stuff?”
“Bard apprentices,” said Heraldin. “Trust me, it’s awful.”
“I’m surprised ye went to the Bards’ College at all,” said Gorm. “I thought ye was always a thie—”
“I was a bard long ago, when I was running from a past life,” Heraldin interrupted loudly. “But singing for my supper didn’t suit me, nor did the Heroes’ Guild, and so I pursued an alternative career.”
Gaist took one of Heraldin’s last bannermen.
“As a thie—”
“As a hoard adjuster. But then word got out that I was, aha, adjusting the value of the hoards in too literal a sense.”
“You were steal—”
“I was exercising lifelong skills in creative acquisitions,” said Heraldin. “But the guild did not see it that way, and as our mutual friend Mr. Flinn was quick to point out, Benny Hookhand likely won’t see it that way either. And one does not practice certain illicit skills in the Freedlands without the approval of the Hookhand, especially not if you have a history with him. And so here we are.”
Gaist took the final bannerman, leaving Heraldin with a lone king.
“Trapped,” muttered the bard.
“So what happened with the Leviathan?” asked Gorm.
“What? Oh. When the warships killed it, Mannon and his host were separated. The fish swam away or died or something, but Mannon ascended to the heavens and gathered the lost gods back to him. It’s the start of the War of Betrayal, where Mannon is almost victorious until Tandos strikes him down, and Al’Thadan and the Sten turn traitor and are wiped from the Great Weave.”
Orconomics: A Satire (The Dark Profit Saga Book 1) Page 24