start of story
Oct. 11th, 2008 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maderrThis one, will probably go straigh to sale. I have something special in mind for it.
But, here is the start, to see what people think. First five pages.
Tolan passed the time by alternating between tidying up the shop, catching up the paperwork, and plotting his master's demise.
He shouldn't really be resentful—it was standard practice to make the apprentice work while the master caroused with the rest of the city during the three day Winter Solstice festival. Still, he was a third year apprentice. Just two years away from making journeyman. He was a bit past being made to babysit the shop, especially when everyone was too busy getting drunk and having fun to bother visiting the shop.
Scowling at a group of revelers who stumbled past the front window, he returned to ledger he'd been working on, adding in the last of the receipts that his master had failed—as usual—to add when he should have. Instead, the bastard just let the work pile up and pile up, then skipped off to have fun, sticking Tolan with all of it.
It might be his master's name on the shop sign, but pretty much everyone knew who really did all the work.
Tolan sighed and closed the ledger, then replaced it in its proper drawer in the desk.
Even on an ordinary day, their shop was quiet. Oh, people needed their services—but as often as not, they didn't want to speak too loudly of that which they had lost. If only he did not have his damnable ethics, he could retire on blackmail money and never work another day.
Rolling his eyes, Tolan pulled out another book and began with disinterest to study it. He didn't need to—if only his master was not a lazy bastard, he could give Tolan more of his tests, and speed him right on through to journeyman. But no, his master never did anything before he absolutely had to—except run off to carouse.
Sighing, Tolan made himself focus on his book. Left to do the bulk of the work, he had learned hard and fast all the things he should have not have had to learn for another year or so. By the time he was allowed to move to journeyman, he would probably be at a master level himself.
All he lacked was the license to practice most of the magic he used every day—the other reason he could not retire on blackmail money. All the customers had his dirty secret too; an unlicensed apprentice practicing high level magic. Even with master permission, that wasn't legal.
But, there was no point in being a Finder without the high level spells. Apprentice spells were for finding lost combs and other nonsense people preferred not to have to pay others to find. No, people only came to Finders to figure at which house they had left their jewels, or where their spouse was hiding incriminating letters from a lover.
Sometimes, they cut to the chase, and simply asked where the cheating spouse had gone. Things of that black nature. It was intriguing work, if not always pleasant—especially since, barring very particular circumstances, it was illegal to search for people. Invasion of privacy and all that, not that anyone believed Finders respected privacy.
He wondered, occasionally, just what he had been thinking when he'd decided to pursue Finder magic.
It could be such interesting work, though—and he did like it when someone simply wanted to locate a missing cat, or a wedding band that had gotten lost while doing laundry, or a stolen purse.
Tolan sighed and daydreamed about finding a missing purse, and the grateful customer giving him the contents of it in gratitude. He was just about to doze off from sheer boredom when the bell above the door tinkled, and he jerked upright in his seat.
Righting his clothes, he stood up and strode to the counter that kept people from the backrooms. The main area was composed of simple tables, chairs, sofas—various ways of sitting, to offer customers whatever made them most comfortable. An oversized parlor, really, suitable for figuring out where Fluffy had gone off to this time, damned cat.
For those requiring more privacy, there were the backrooms.
He frowned as he spotted his customer, and drew to an uncertain halt as the visitor saw him.
The child began to wail, and clearly it had been crying something fierce for the past while. Tears and snot and dirt covered the little boy's face, his hair was badly mussed, and his clothes were beyond saving.
"Secret! Secret!" The boy wailed, and reached out with tiny, grubby hands to cling as best he could to Tolan's breeches. "Secret! Find secret!"
Tolan knelt, and took the dirty hands in his own, frowning. "Where is your mother?"
The little boy began to cry in earnest. "Secret," he choked out miserably. "Find secret."
Oh, bother it. Scooping the boy up, utterly confounded when he clung for dear life, Tolan moved to one of the small sofas and settled the boy in his lap. Honestly, shouldn't the child know better than to be so easy with strangers? What sort of idiot parent had let the boy from his sight? "Now, then, we will secret," he said briskly, wishing suddenly he'd paid a bit more attention to how his mother talked to his siblings when they were babies.
"Find secret?" the boy asked. What the devil did that mean?
"Where is your mother?" Tolan asked again. "Your father? Guardian?"
"Secret!" the boy said, lighting up.
Tolan felt a headache coming on. "Secret?"
"Find secret! Find secret!" The boy reached out and grabbed at the gold broach pinned to Tolan's jacket—they Eye of the Finders, though his was marked with runes denoting his apprentice status. The boy looked up at him, and any thought of saying no fled forever as the plaintive green eyes stared up at him full of misery and confusion and need. Argh, what the hell was he supposed to do with a child? And what did 'find secret' mean?
"What is secret?" Tolan asked, stifling a sigh. Honestly, he had no idea what to do with a child. Was he more than five? How did one tell?
"Secret mine," the boy said firmly. "Gardy. Secret mine gardy."
"Secret…mine…oh! Secret is your guardian?"
The boy nodded and resumed his litany of 'Find Secret'.
"What is your name?" Tolan asked.
"Goz," the boy said. "Find Secret?"
Tolan stifled a sigh. "Yes, I will help you find Secret."
He had no idea how he was going to find 'Secret' and what kind of name was that? "Did you get lost in the crowd?"
The boy nodded, and began to sniffle again.
Tolan awkwardly patted his back, and ruffled his hair, grimacing when his hand came away covered in muck. "I think, Master Goz, that you will first need a bit of a cleaning. Then we shall find Secret, or try anyway. What does he look like?"
Goz frowned at him, looking so helplessly confused and frustrated that Tolan almost laughed.
"Secret big? Small?"
"Big!" Goz replied eagerly.
Tolan suddenly realized that to a small child who was still struggling with sentences, everyone was probably big. "Hair?" he asked. "Like mine? Like yours?"
Goz frowned, then shook his head, and tugged at Tolan's jacket, which was a severe black. He would not get proper Finder Blues for two more years.
So, big and had black hair.
"Let's get you cleaned up," Tolan said, and stood up, still cradling Goz in his arms. Moving to the front door, he flipped the sign to guilt with only a faint niggling of guilt, then strode toward the backrooms to see what could be done about an impromptu bath.
Nearly an hour later, both he and Goz were dry and dressed in clean clothes—well, Goz was dressed in what Tolan had managed to make fit him while his clothes dried. His own had suffered while getting Goz cleaned, and he stifled another sigh at the thought of the laundry he would now have to do two days early.
Why, he wondered, did people seek to have children? He'd only had this one an hour or so, and it was already driving him mad. Plopping Goz down in one of the overstuffed chairs, admonishing him not to fall out of it, he went to fetch his tools.
Finding people was illegal—people had a right to their privacy, after all. If a man wanted to cheat on his spouse, well, that was his decision. The wife had a right to know, naturally, that she was being dishonored—but that did not mean she had the right to invade his illicitly spent privacy.
There were, however, exceptions. Missing children was one of those exceptions. Tolan hoped the missing Secret had sought out a Finder of his own, and that shortly this entire mess would be cleared right up.
On the chance no one had hired a Finder, however…surely finding the missing Guardian of a lost child was sufficient grounds for breaking the rules?
Anyway, if he was caught for it—as an apprentice, his master would get the brunt of it for leaving him unsupervised and the necessary equipment easily accessible.
"Find Secret?" Goz asked, looking so hopeful that Tolan could not stay irritated.
"Try to find," he corrected. Throughout the bath, he had worked painstakingly to compile the best description he could of the missing Secret. Big, black hair, gray eyes—he thought—had a sword, wearing green and black. He had worked with less.
Writing out the proper runes on the scry board, he pulled out the crystal he kept on a silver chain around his neck.
Goz' eyes went wide, and he promptly pulled his fingers from his mouth to reach out toward the sparkling, sharp-pointed crystal.
"No," Tolan said firmly, then continued more gently when Goz flinched, "I need it to find Secret. You can play with it later, okay?"
Sniffling a little bit, Goz nodded. "Find Secret," he said.
Tolan nodded, and ruffled his hair, then looked over his work. The description, as well as Goz', to connect seeker and sought. Their names, the city marks written in, hopefully he would not have to expand the search area…
That should do it. He hoped.
Holding the silver chain, he let the crystal hover over the scry board and closed his eyes. "Be quiet, okay, Goz? Finding Secret."
Goz said nothing, and Tolan nodded, then mentally recited the necessary incantations.
Several long, frustrating minutes later, he gave up with a sigh and rubbed his aching forehead. It was no good. The crystal could not find Secret. Something in the information he had was flawed—the crystal was confused, and could not find what was sought.
Best guess, the names weren't right. What did he expect, really, from a child who could barely talk?
"Find Secret?" Goz asked, lower lip trembling, eyes watering.
"Not yet," Tolan said, trying to sound soothing. "We'll go look for him." It would just have to be the hard way, and wasn't that going to make for a fun day? Surely someone was looking for Goz—why wouldn't they? Didn't someone want his son back? His nephew? His whatever? What sort of Guardian lost a child, anyway?
Tolan sighed. "Want a snack, Goz? Food?"
"Snack!" Goz said, tears forgotten in the joys of food. Then he said, "Secret?"
"Soon," Tolan said, sighing again, and picked Goz up before ambling back to his own bedroom to fetch his coin purse and suitable gear for the elements. Goz' clothes weren't dry, but there was no real help for it—they would be in the city likely all day, and winter was no time of year to be walking around in wet clothes. Never mind the festival.
It occurred to him suddenly that it was likely being dragged around through the festival that had gotten Goz lost in the first place. Well, he'd simply have to be more careful than Secret. Settling his purse, throwing a few basic Finders tools into a satchel, he locked up the shop and tucked away the key, then settled Goz more comfortably in his arms and headed out to the one place he would hopefully be able to find food and information.
But, here is the start, to see what people think. First five pages.
Tolan passed the time by alternating between tidying up the shop, catching up the paperwork, and plotting his master's demise.
He shouldn't really be resentful—it was standard practice to make the apprentice work while the master caroused with the rest of the city during the three day Winter Solstice festival. Still, he was a third year apprentice. Just two years away from making journeyman. He was a bit past being made to babysit the shop, especially when everyone was too busy getting drunk and having fun to bother visiting the shop.
Scowling at a group of revelers who stumbled past the front window, he returned to ledger he'd been working on, adding in the last of the receipts that his master had failed—as usual—to add when he should have. Instead, the bastard just let the work pile up and pile up, then skipped off to have fun, sticking Tolan with all of it.
It might be his master's name on the shop sign, but pretty much everyone knew who really did all the work.
Tolan sighed and closed the ledger, then replaced it in its proper drawer in the desk.
Even on an ordinary day, their shop was quiet. Oh, people needed their services—but as often as not, they didn't want to speak too loudly of that which they had lost. If only he did not have his damnable ethics, he could retire on blackmail money and never work another day.
Rolling his eyes, Tolan pulled out another book and began with disinterest to study it. He didn't need to—if only his master was not a lazy bastard, he could give Tolan more of his tests, and speed him right on through to journeyman. But no, his master never did anything before he absolutely had to—except run off to carouse.
Sighing, Tolan made himself focus on his book. Left to do the bulk of the work, he had learned hard and fast all the things he should have not have had to learn for another year or so. By the time he was allowed to move to journeyman, he would probably be at a master level himself.
All he lacked was the license to practice most of the magic he used every day—the other reason he could not retire on blackmail money. All the customers had his dirty secret too; an unlicensed apprentice practicing high level magic. Even with master permission, that wasn't legal.
But, there was no point in being a Finder without the high level spells. Apprentice spells were for finding lost combs and other nonsense people preferred not to have to pay others to find. No, people only came to Finders to figure at which house they had left their jewels, or where their spouse was hiding incriminating letters from a lover.
Sometimes, they cut to the chase, and simply asked where the cheating spouse had gone. Things of that black nature. It was intriguing work, if not always pleasant—especially since, barring very particular circumstances, it was illegal to search for people. Invasion of privacy and all that, not that anyone believed Finders respected privacy.
He wondered, occasionally, just what he had been thinking when he'd decided to pursue Finder magic.
It could be such interesting work, though—and he did like it when someone simply wanted to locate a missing cat, or a wedding band that had gotten lost while doing laundry, or a stolen purse.
Tolan sighed and daydreamed about finding a missing purse, and the grateful customer giving him the contents of it in gratitude. He was just about to doze off from sheer boredom when the bell above the door tinkled, and he jerked upright in his seat.
Righting his clothes, he stood up and strode to the counter that kept people from the backrooms. The main area was composed of simple tables, chairs, sofas—various ways of sitting, to offer customers whatever made them most comfortable. An oversized parlor, really, suitable for figuring out where Fluffy had gone off to this time, damned cat.
For those requiring more privacy, there were the backrooms.
He frowned as he spotted his customer, and drew to an uncertain halt as the visitor saw him.
The child began to wail, and clearly it had been crying something fierce for the past while. Tears and snot and dirt covered the little boy's face, his hair was badly mussed, and his clothes were beyond saving.
"Secret! Secret!" The boy wailed, and reached out with tiny, grubby hands to cling as best he could to Tolan's breeches. "Secret! Find secret!"
Tolan knelt, and took the dirty hands in his own, frowning. "Where is your mother?"
The little boy began to cry in earnest. "Secret," he choked out miserably. "Find secret."
Oh, bother it. Scooping the boy up, utterly confounded when he clung for dear life, Tolan moved to one of the small sofas and settled the boy in his lap. Honestly, shouldn't the child know better than to be so easy with strangers? What sort of idiot parent had let the boy from his sight? "Now, then, we will secret," he said briskly, wishing suddenly he'd paid a bit more attention to how his mother talked to his siblings when they were babies.
"Find secret?" the boy asked. What the devil did that mean?
"Where is your mother?" Tolan asked again. "Your father? Guardian?"
"Secret!" the boy said, lighting up.
Tolan felt a headache coming on. "Secret?"
"Find secret! Find secret!" The boy reached out and grabbed at the gold broach pinned to Tolan's jacket—they Eye of the Finders, though his was marked with runes denoting his apprentice status. The boy looked up at him, and any thought of saying no fled forever as the plaintive green eyes stared up at him full of misery and confusion and need. Argh, what the hell was he supposed to do with a child? And what did 'find secret' mean?
"What is secret?" Tolan asked, stifling a sigh. Honestly, he had no idea what to do with a child. Was he more than five? How did one tell?
"Secret mine," the boy said firmly. "Gardy. Secret mine gardy."
"Secret…mine…oh! Secret is your guardian?"
The boy nodded and resumed his litany of 'Find Secret'.
"What is your name?" Tolan asked.
"Goz," the boy said. "Find Secret?"
Tolan stifled a sigh. "Yes, I will help you find Secret."
He had no idea how he was going to find 'Secret' and what kind of name was that? "Did you get lost in the crowd?"
The boy nodded, and began to sniffle again.
Tolan awkwardly patted his back, and ruffled his hair, grimacing when his hand came away covered in muck. "I think, Master Goz, that you will first need a bit of a cleaning. Then we shall find Secret, or try anyway. What does he look like?"
Goz frowned at him, looking so helplessly confused and frustrated that Tolan almost laughed.
"Secret big? Small?"
"Big!" Goz replied eagerly.
Tolan suddenly realized that to a small child who was still struggling with sentences, everyone was probably big. "Hair?" he asked. "Like mine? Like yours?"
Goz frowned, then shook his head, and tugged at Tolan's jacket, which was a severe black. He would not get proper Finder Blues for two more years.
So, big and had black hair.
"Let's get you cleaned up," Tolan said, and stood up, still cradling Goz in his arms. Moving to the front door, he flipped the sign to guilt with only a faint niggling of guilt, then strode toward the backrooms to see what could be done about an impromptu bath.
Nearly an hour later, both he and Goz were dry and dressed in clean clothes—well, Goz was dressed in what Tolan had managed to make fit him while his clothes dried. His own had suffered while getting Goz cleaned, and he stifled another sigh at the thought of the laundry he would now have to do two days early.
Why, he wondered, did people seek to have children? He'd only had this one an hour or so, and it was already driving him mad. Plopping Goz down in one of the overstuffed chairs, admonishing him not to fall out of it, he went to fetch his tools.
Finding people was illegal—people had a right to their privacy, after all. If a man wanted to cheat on his spouse, well, that was his decision. The wife had a right to know, naturally, that she was being dishonored—but that did not mean she had the right to invade his illicitly spent privacy.
There were, however, exceptions. Missing children was one of those exceptions. Tolan hoped the missing Secret had sought out a Finder of his own, and that shortly this entire mess would be cleared right up.
On the chance no one had hired a Finder, however…surely finding the missing Guardian of a lost child was sufficient grounds for breaking the rules?
Anyway, if he was caught for it—as an apprentice, his master would get the brunt of it for leaving him unsupervised and the necessary equipment easily accessible.
"Find Secret?" Goz asked, looking so hopeful that Tolan could not stay irritated.
"Try to find," he corrected. Throughout the bath, he had worked painstakingly to compile the best description he could of the missing Secret. Big, black hair, gray eyes—he thought—had a sword, wearing green and black. He had worked with less.
Writing out the proper runes on the scry board, he pulled out the crystal he kept on a silver chain around his neck.
Goz' eyes went wide, and he promptly pulled his fingers from his mouth to reach out toward the sparkling, sharp-pointed crystal.
"No," Tolan said firmly, then continued more gently when Goz flinched, "I need it to find Secret. You can play with it later, okay?"
Sniffling a little bit, Goz nodded. "Find Secret," he said.
Tolan nodded, and ruffled his hair, then looked over his work. The description, as well as Goz', to connect seeker and sought. Their names, the city marks written in, hopefully he would not have to expand the search area…
That should do it. He hoped.
Holding the silver chain, he let the crystal hover over the scry board and closed his eyes. "Be quiet, okay, Goz? Finding Secret."
Goz said nothing, and Tolan nodded, then mentally recited the necessary incantations.
Several long, frustrating minutes later, he gave up with a sigh and rubbed his aching forehead. It was no good. The crystal could not find Secret. Something in the information he had was flawed—the crystal was confused, and could not find what was sought.
Best guess, the names weren't right. What did he expect, really, from a child who could barely talk?
"Find Secret?" Goz asked, lower lip trembling, eyes watering.
"Not yet," Tolan said, trying to sound soothing. "We'll go look for him." It would just have to be the hard way, and wasn't that going to make for a fun day? Surely someone was looking for Goz—why wouldn't they? Didn't someone want his son back? His nephew? His whatever? What sort of Guardian lost a child, anyway?
Tolan sighed. "Want a snack, Goz? Food?"
"Snack!" Goz said, tears forgotten in the joys of food. Then he said, "Secret?"
"Soon," Tolan said, sighing again, and picked Goz up before ambling back to his own bedroom to fetch his coin purse and suitable gear for the elements. Goz' clothes weren't dry, but there was no real help for it—they would be in the city likely all day, and winter was no time of year to be walking around in wet clothes. Never mind the festival.
It occurred to him suddenly that it was likely being dragged around through the festival that had gotten Goz lost in the first place. Well, he'd simply have to be more careful than Secret. Settling his purse, throwing a few basic Finders tools into a satchel, he locked up the shop and tucked away the key, then settled Goz more comfortably in his arms and headed out to the one place he would hopefully be able to find food and information.
