Chapter 7: Questions (Patreon)

The standoff was broken by the sound of a raspy voice coming from past the guards. “Oh, give it a rest Baird. Knowing my boy I’m sure he found a stray and decided to bring him home. Hadrian’s heart is too big for my wallet, I always say that.” 

The speaker emerged from the blue-lit shadows, shuffling her way toward the confrontation. It was a woman, old and bent, wielding a stick that took a decent chunk of her weight with every step. Everything about her, from her short grey hair to her oversized brown cloak, was firmly unprepossessing. Except her eyes. They were a deep green shot through with veins of silver, and Elliot had never seen anything like them.

Baird grunted, lowering the cudgel back to his side. “I’d like to hear him explain that then, Breka.”

“And so you shall, laddie. So you shall. Isn’t that right, boy?”

Hadrian had relaxed fractionally upon hearing the new voice, a hint of chagrin on his face. “Of course. My apologies, guardsman. I am worn from the hunt. This is Elliot, a merchant and new acquaintance. He was separated from his caravan, and I undertook to see him safely to town.”

The guard scratched his chin slowly with the hand not holding the cudgel. “And how did you come to be separated from your caravan, young man?”

“Ah…I wandered off, and ended up getting chased by a…” What name did he say? “A thune. I ended up getting chased by a thune.”

“You wandered off,” the guard replied, expression placid. “While in the deep wilds.”

“Yes,” Elliot replied. “I, uh, got confused.”

“And then you managed to get away from a thune.”

“Well, Hadrian saved me.”

“I distracted it and allowed us both the chance to escape,” Hadrian added quickly.

Elliot winced. Was he not supposed to have talked about the thune?

“Sounds lucky,” the guard replied. “Must have gotten to him just in the nick of time. And escaping a thune? That’s no mean feat.”

“Quite,” Hadrian replied stonily.

“How did you end up by my freeholt when I don’t have any record of an unaccounted-for caravan? Where were you headed, and what was your last stop?”

Elliot licked his lips, suddenly quite dry. Those were very reasonable questions. If only he had equally reasonable answers.

“No need to be such a hardass, Baird,” the old lady interjected. “I’m sure he’s with someone out of Hornby. You know they’d sooner rip off their own eyelashes than file paperwork. Why don’t you let me take responsibility for him tonight, and you can talk more tomorrow.”

Baird squinted. “And why do I have the sneaking feeling that he’ll have a completely sensible story to feed me by tomorrow.”

“Don’t be a git. He’s a low-circle merchant, what’s he going to do, burn Bastogne to the ground?”

“You never know,” Baird replied, his eyes boring into Elliot’s. “I must admit I’m disappointed, ma’am. I had my suspicions about your guard, but you’ve been through these parts before, and I’d hoped you weren’t involved with whatever mess has drawn all these foreign interests to my city.”

“I’m involved in nothing more than my own business, Baird. I’ll promise to keep the boy out of trouble tonight, and you can speak to him tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure that’s good enough for me.”

Breka’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me start calling in favors, lad. Does your wife still enjoy that set of fine crystal I fetched for her last summer?”

“Damn it, Breka,” Baird muttered. “I suppose it’ll do for tonight.” He turned to Elliot again, giving him a long, searching look. “Don’t cause trouble in my city, boy.”

“Yes sir,” he replied, trying to impart his sincerity. He wanted a quiet stay, with a quick exit once he had at least the ghost of a plan for how to find Rowan.

The guard sighed. “Allright, go on then. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning for a longer chat.”

“Good man!” Breka replied, giving him a thump on the shoulder with her gnarled staff. “Let’s go,” she said, turning to look at Hadrian. “And you boy,” she added, including Elliot in her next glance.

She set a slow pace, the tap of her stick a steady counterpoint to the otherwise quiet night. It took only a few minutes to reach their destination—a squat, roughly circular stone dwelling boasting a single front door, and no windows. Its blue glow gave Breka’s face an otherworldly quality as she grabbed the knob and wrenched, yanking twice before the old door screeched free from its jamb.

The room was small, but not barren. A significant amount of floor space was taken up by a large four poster bed draped in green and brown cloth, fairly ridiculous looking in the one-room house. Another much smaller cot leaned against the wall, and a large, brown, circular table with four well-upholstered chairs around it took up most of the rest of the space. Elliot didn’t see anything that would pass for a kitchen, or a bathroom. How did they even get that bed in here? It’s massive.

“So,” the old lady began, sweeping her cloak back as she pulled out one of the chairs, “what exactly have you been up to, Hadrian.”

“This one makes no sense,” the hunter replied, frowning. “I worry he is a tool of my mother, or of our enemies, but if so he is an accomplished liar.”

Breka met Elliot’s eyes, the silver-green intensity pinning him in place. He felt compelled to look away, and fixed his attention on the four-poster bed. The earth-toned cloth canopy was really quite well-made, with a warm floral pattern embroidered into the thick material. Beautiful craftsmanship.

“I won’t disappear if you refuse to look at me, boy.”

He forced himself to meet her gaze again, keeping his breathing even.

Hadrian cleared his throat. “I was hunting a thune, and he interfered. I believe he thought I was in danger, and wished to help.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Hadrian turned to look at Elliot for the first time since they’d entered the house, brows drawing together. “Tell her.”

“I don’t think I would say there is a problem,” Elliot said, trying to muster up some indignation. “I have no idea who either one of you are, I have nothing to do with your enemies, and I certainly have nothing to do with your mother. I’m looking to find my sister, that’s it.”

One of Breka’s eyebrows quirked up, and she turned to look at Hadrian.

“He claimed to have just reached the first step of the first circle, and to have not yet chosen his skill. He also claimed to have been offered a gold-class spatial ability. And, in addition to those claims, he maintained he did not know what it meant to be offered a skill, what a step was, what the colors mean, and he also said that he had not been connected to the Beacon until recently.”

Both of Breka’s eyebrows were up now. “Interesting.”

She leaned back in her chair, eyes still on Elliot’s face, and reached a hand into a pocket of her robe. After rooting around for a second, she pulled out a pipe and waved it through the air. With a puff of flame it lit up seemingly of its own accord. She held it to her lips and took a deep pull, then breathed out a thick cloud of smoke. “I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Lying to me would be unproductive.”

Was that a standard ‘you’d better not lie to me punk’, or an ‘I have a magical spell that can tell if you’re lying’? Ridiculous that both were now possibilities. Should he try to lie? Maybe not. Hadrian was gruff and aggressive, but he’d also saved Elliot’s life, and he’d seemed sincere when he said they’d help him if he was telling the truth. If they thought he was lying—an image of the knife blade flashed through his mind.

“Do you intend harm towards Andaluse, the Broken March, or any other nation or group of people?”

“No,” he replied, feeling like he was on solid ground there. He couldn’t even name any nations or groups of people.

“Do you actually claim to be at the first step of the first circle?”

Here goes nothing. “Well, I suppose. I have an orange core, a shard sticking out of it, and a black band around the middle that seems to represent my inspection skill.”

Something flickered in Breka’s eyes. “And you don’t know what that means in terms of your step or circle?”

“No.”

She leaned forward. “I am going to make a series of statements. Each time I do, I want you to say either ‘I did not know that’ or ‘I did know that’. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he said, bracing himself.

“There are nine circles, each with nine steps.”

Silence stretched for a second before Elliot realized that was the end of the statement. “I did not know that.”

“Skill colors are an estimate of the relative power of an ability, in ascending order white, gray, brown, black, gold, and violet.”

“I did not know that.” So the gold skill is supposed to be better.

“Enemies of the Broken March are at work around Bastogne, with the goal of freeing something better left imprisoned.”

“I did not know that.” He cocked his head. “Or maybe I could guess some of it, from what Hadrian said about enemies and the guard talking about foreign interests. But nothing beyond that.”

Breka was frowning. “This is difficult to credit, but you seem to be telling the truth so far. What are the requirements you met for your gold spatial skill?”

Elliot took a deep breath. “It says I crossed dimensional boundaries before awakening my core, and successfully struck a deal with an extradimensional power.”

Breka took another deep puff from her pipe, eyes narrowing. “Explain.”

“I honestly can’t explain very much. My home was destroyed, and I don’t get how or why. My sister and I were thrown into a weird other-space, and there was a thing there that looked sort of human, but not really.” His mouth tightened as he imagined the way its maw had expanded with countless teeth at the end. “It wanted to make a deal. I agreed to trade away some safety and some of the potential of my profession, and my sister got more in exchange.”

“And you say you only recently connected with the Beacon. How could that possibly be true?”

How to do this? Keep it true, but vague. Skirt around the whole magicless, other-world thing. “Where we’re from—were from—no one used the Beacon. It just wasn’t available.”

“No one?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “No one at all?”

“No one,” he said firmly. “And to be honest I don’t think the details are really your business. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know anything about Hadrian except what I’ve learned today. I have absolutely no designs on you or your homes, and I was sent here against my will. My sister went somewhere else, and all I want to do is find her.” 

“Fascinating,” Breka replied, sitting back in her chair. “Absolutely fascinating. And I’ve been around. It takes a lot to fascinate me. If it’s any consolation, your circumstances are ridiculous enough that they really should have been a fabrication.”

“Are you completely confident in your reading?” Hadrian asked with wide eyes.

“As confident as I can be, absurd as it is.” Breka looked back to Elliot. “I’ll tell you what. As an apology for my boy dragging you here, you can stay with us until you find your feet. And I’ll tell you this as well. Take that gold skill, regardless of what else you were offered. A spatial ability acquired so early is something that most kings and queens would kill for. Hadrian can get you settled for the night. I was in the middle of something when I felt your arrival, and I need to get back to it.”

Hadrian frowned, rubbing at his chin. “And we just let the rest go? The work of a foreign power, a corner of the world with no connection to the Beacon?”

“The world is vast, and its far corners are not my responsibility. And as for the extradimensional power, trust me, that’s above my head, and certainly above yours. There’s a level of strength where it pays more to avoid notice than to pry, and I want no part of a thing like that, as long as it wants no part of me.”

She rose creakily from her chair, looking at Elliot. “You’re a rare specimen, boy. I have empathy for those churned around by powers beyond their control. I wish you the best of luck with your sister. And I don’t recommend letting anyone else find any of this out. I’m an open-minded soul, but most organizations would either want you locked up for study or burned alive for consorting with demons. I’d especially avoid the knight orders, and anyone who claims to represent the Conclave.”

Demons? Burned alive?

What the hell was this world?