The Intern (The Forbidden World Book 1)

by Garry Ocean

  “Something that is not there,” Frice repeated. “Interesting…”

  “A good reason to remember the Departed,” Rich added, as if asking for forgiveness.

  “I hope you didn’t turn into one of their supporters,” Frice said, but it was clear that he was thinking about something else. Finally, he asked, under his breath, “Do you really believe he is from the Faraway Lands?”

  “It sounds crazy, I understand, but I can’t explain it in any other way,” Rich did not even notice that he switched to whisper as well, “but twenty years ago I understood that what we had come up with a long time ago can be done only by a man who was born not here. Perhaps even in the mythical Faraway Lands, but not here.”

  “Perhaps I am getting old, but please Rich tell me honestly, do you really believe that if you can find this Old City it will change something?”

  “I don’t know,” Rich sighed, “But one thing I am sure about. The Forest has a heart and I want to find it. The question is where it is. I hope to get the answer in the Old City. And of course the ancient technologies as well…”

  Frice fell silent, as if digesting his old friend’s words. Then he got up from his chair again and paced the room from one corner to another several times. After he added some logs to the fire, he finally asked, “Have you ever heard about a hunter named Kolp? If I’m not mistaken, he lives in a small village right next to the Forest in the southern lands.”

  “Do you mean Kolp the Hermit?” Rich asked, surprised.

  “Yes, that’s what the Forester was calling him.”

  “Yes, I met him on occasion. He is a superb pathfinder,” Frice heard a note of respect in Rich’s voice.

  “So,” Frice took a pause, as usual, “Do you remember that the Supreme One had lost his step son and all his entourage in the Forest?”

  “Was that about seven years ago?”

  “Exactly. Do you know what he was looking for in the Forest?”

  “Well, who knows what could drive the decisions in such a young mind!” Rich smirked.

  “Whim?” Frice was obviously enjoying this conversation. “Yes, this is exactly what drove us, if I remember correctly, almost forty years ago. Old City!”

  “The Old City?” Rich was obviously puzzled. “What does Kolp have to do with it?”

  “As I already said, the boy disappeared without a trace. The Supreme One was losing his mind in grief and denial and sent a search party. They failed to find anything. But the old man did not give up and found Kolp with the help of Forester. I have no idea how he managed to persuade him to go on a search, but in the end Kolp agreed…”

  “And?” Rich did not even bother to hide his curiosity.

  “Kolp found the traces of the lost group,” Frice looked at Rich victoriously. In their lifetime, Frice managed to have intrigued his friend only on a couple of occasions. “But that was all. The Departed Gods must indeed favor the fools and novices. The boy was lucky. He stumbled upon a road similar to the one described in ancient books on self-moving mechanics.”

  “Where? How?” Rich jumped off the sofa in excitement. “You are not confusing anything, are you?”

  “Forester has told me himself, he will never lie about things like this. He said the boy had left a note describing everything. And Kolp confirmed that in his own words as well.”

  “And what about the Forest? It did not resist?”

  “Kolp has not said anything about that,” Frice had to think about it a little. “However, he did not follow that road.”

  “So, it is possible that the road can lead to the Old City?”

  “Something like that. But it’s in a different spot, not where you and I thought it would be.”

  “Can you show me?”

  “Not exactly, but Forester said that it is a palm closer to the North.”

  “Almost on the edge of the map,” Rich mumbled to himself, not clear if asking or confirming. “This is strange, but I need to talk with this Kolp in any case.”

  “So, are you going there?” Frice frowned. “Or, perhaps, forget about the Forest. Stay here. You can live at my place. We’ll have fun in our old age together. What do you say?”

  “The best time to go to the deep Forest is immediately after the Exodus,” Rich said as if not hearing his friend’s last words. “I may not last till the next one. So I will go, definitely will go. Especially after what you told me.”

  “All right, old stub,” Frice tried to reduce the tension, “my dear mother was right when she said, what is bred in the bone cannot go out of the flesh. Let’s drink one for the road.”

  “Ah, let’s to it,” Rich agreed tiredly. “They expected me back a long time ago.”

  “All right, I’ll see you here tomorrow then,” Frice said decisively, and asked, toasting Rich, “What are you going to tell him about the meeting?”

  “I promised to introduce him to someone who has a personal library,” Rich squinted cunningly.

  “Is that right? So, he is interested in books, on top of all?”

  “I’m telling you, he is out of this world.”

  ********

  When the doors behind Rich closed, Frice came up to the fireplace and put about five more logs into it. He was chilly. He knew the room was warm. But despite all the wine he had, he had goose bumps all over his body.

  “The change is coming,” Frice repeated Rich’s words with a bitter smile. With great effort, he dragged his heavy chair closer to the fire. He could not shake off the memories of his long-gone youth, when he was still a master student. His mother had sacrificed a lot to get him enrolled. As he found out a lot later, in exchange for his studies she had given to the City the remains of her once huge family library.

  Frice’s kin started long before the rule of Archy the Wise. Its genealogy tree was rooted in the times when the Great City was being built. However, a gambling addiction inflicted the kin’s men from one generation to another, akin to a curse. From the former wealth and prosperity, Frice’s mother inherited only a small house adjacent to the Western city wall and a small part of the library. They always lacked money. And despite his mother’s strict prohibition, Frice started to gamble.

  In all fairness, Frice was an ace player. Many people considered him to be lucky. However, he knew that it had nothing to do with luck. Frice had a Gift from the time he was born. Or, as it was also referred to – the Dominia’s Blessing. Frice was a very smart young man. He figured out early enough that he should keep his abilities secret from other people. This is why he did not play much, and sometimes lost on purpose, and tried to win not more than what the loser could pay out. So his life started to improve.

  One fine day, or, to be more exact, evening, he lost everything he had, completely unexpectedly even for himself. That night Frice was playing cards. He selected his target, a merchant from the White Rocks who had come to the City the day before on business. Not to scare away his prey, Frice had been carefully leading the game for three hours, gradually increasing the bets. Then several times in a row he lost considerable amounts, indignantly showing that he had an intention to win everything back. The bets were so high that only Frice and the merchant were left at the table. All the other players passed not willing to take the risk. When the merchant demanded to produce the bet money, Frice realized that his prey was primed. However, Frice did not have so much cash on him, so he had to send a messenger for money. All present in the house dropped their game and crowded around the card table. When, finally, the money was delivered, counted and arranged in nice-looking gold towers on the table, a thin young man unexpectedly joined them at the table. Frice thought he reminded him of someone, but even if he indeed had met him before it was obviously not in an institution like this one.

  The young man put on the table a stack of gold coins without saying a word, letting everyone know that he is entering the game. Suddenly people started to whisper. The bet was an amount enough to buy a good mansion near the Main Tower. Frice assessed the newbie quickly and
smiled. The latter was obviously a novice in the game who relied on luck. The bet he put on the table was the money he had stolen from his stepfather’s chest earlier that day. Frice could see that iron-shod chest very clearly, covered with a colorful spread.

  Everything went smoothly at first. Even without taking his cards, Frice saw that he got three cards of the senior suit and two of the highest. The merchant was indeed lucky today. He was dealt a good set: three cards of the highest suit and two – senior. The newbie had the cards of all different suits. Frice realized that he’d swap everything. It was a responsible moment in the game. Frice concentrated his attention on the merchant because he had a winning combination. But he was still pondering if he should improve it. This could not be allowed. Out of the corner of his eye and consciousness Frice noticed that the newbie opened all his cards and got a different set from the talon, not better than the first one. The merchant was still hesitant. Frice felt out the talon once again. Three cards of the highest suit were on top of the talon.

  “I need them more,” Frice smirked at himself and looked into the merchant’s eyes. The latter did not look away, but put his cards on the table, showing that he wouldn’t exchange them. “Perfect,” Frice thought and exchanged two cards, “I will not over-play it, four cards of the highest suit is more than enough.”

  Frice breathed out. His four would beat the merchant’s three. The newbie’s cards were simply laughable. “This will be a good lesson for him, lest he steals the money from his stepfather!” Frice thought triumphantly.

  “Open your cards!” the table dealer commanded. Without looking, Frice put all his cards on the table one by one. The merchant, obviously nervous, set down his. The crowd, motionless and silent in anticipation all this time, started to move.

  “What a game!” the voices were saying everywhere. “Four against three.”

  “And of a higher suit, on top of all! Haven’t seen this in a long time!”

  “But have you seen how he drew them? He’d exchanged all of them and drew all four cards of one suit!”

  “And the highest one, to top it! Miracles happen, brothers and sisters!”

  “They are right: the newbies are always lucky!”

  “Who is the newbie here?” Frice looked at the last commentator in surprise. He was admiring the thin young lad, sitting at the table with an embarrassed look. Frice switched his gaze to the cards in front of him. And once he looked at his own set he realized that he’d just been trumped.

  “Well, Frice,” someone was petting him on the shoulder, “You are out of luck today. Luck must have turned away from you. With a set like this, you shouldn’t have even bluffed.”

  Frice bent over with difficulty, croaked like an old man and put another log into the fireplace. That was how they met with Rich. Frice remembered that trick of his for the rest of his life. Even though Frice’s ability to use the Gift was much more advanced than Rich’s, the latter managed to deceive him skillfully. “Such a filigree trick!” Frice exclaimed to himself again, for a millionth time. “He managed to slip into my thoughts false images in such a way that I never suspected anything until the last moment.”

  Later, when after the game they were sitting in the pub nearby, finishing the third bottle of Bay Wine, Rich admitted that he had been preparing for this for a long time. It was, as he said, a well-rehearsed trick. He did, however, have to temporarily steal a large amount of money from his stepfather’s chest for this purpose. After Rich offered to split the money he won from the merchant, grateful Frice asked him why he had done this in the first place. Rich answered that he had realized a long time ago that Frice had a Gift but was afraid he’d never admit that.

  “And he indeed stayed my only friend,” Frice thought. “And where I am today is in huge part thanks to him. It all could have ended in a totally different way…”

  Frice got up heavily from his chair and went to the far, dark wall of the room. Frowning, he pulled aside a heavy dusty curtain and pushed a hidden mechanism. A quiet click, and a hidden door jumped to the side. Frice reached inside and pulled out a small velvet pouch with a golden lace. He returned to his chair, untied the lace and took out a gold coin. It had a profile of a brilliant ruler from the past, the infamous Archy the Wise. On his shoulder, a proud bird was sitting. In ancient times, as Frice remembered, the bird was called the Wingie. People believed that these birds had a mystic ability to change the fate for the better and to bring luck. They went extinct long before the rule of Archy the Wise, but for some reason he was always depicted with the bird on his shoulder on all coins.

  Frice stroked the coin’s surface with his finger several times. This coin was extremely rare. When he was young, Frice got it by beating the chief treasurer’s son in a game of cards. The loser had nothing to pay his losses with, so he couldn’t come up with anything better than stealing the coin from his father’s collection. The value of this coin, unremarkable at first glance, was in an accident: When it was minted, the cast broke. The failure was caught, but not before a couple dozen of these coins were minted. The coin had Archy the Wise on both sides, instead of the Great City coat of arms on the reverse. Also, the bird had been altered: One of its eyes did not come out well and it seemed like the bird was winking.

  Frice sighed heavily again. His thoughts wandered back to that fateful day.

  They were finishing the last year of the master program and both were obsessed with the desire to find the Old City. The two friends dug up and processed enormous amounts of archive documents, thankful that as master students they had an unlimited access to the depository. It was colossal work. They had to spend on this all their time after studies. Besides, they always had to come with a new reason as to why they needed to be at the library. They were collecting relevant information bit by bit, like grains of rare precious stones in a huge desert.

  Most of the old manuscripts they came across were general fiction. There were lots of odes and praises to the battles and victories of Archy the Wise. There were very few manuscripts older than his times. The impression was that they were simply taken out and destroyed. When either of the friends came across any mentioning of the Old City, they would copy the information into a special table Rich designed. It had the following columns: title of the source, author, date of the source, reference to other sources, and notes. As they were filling out the table, it became easier to sort the information according to its credibility. If the source had three or more references from other sources, the friends marked it as “deemed credible.” In one year, they were completely sure that the Old City had indeed existed and had not been just a beautiful myth. The only problem they faced now was to try to establish its location, at least approximate.

  As it happens sometimes, they were in luck. Or perhaps their hard work was paid off and blessed by the Departed Gods. In either case, once Frice heard a rumor that some junkman, who had arrived from a near-border land, was selling old things. Since the friends took interest in everything old, Frice paid a decent amount of money to buy everything the man had in bulk, without bargaining.

  Upon careful inspection, most of the stuff turned out fake. In the best case, it was just old junk with no value. However, one day when they were rummaging through it, they found a weird drawing resembling a topographical map. At first, they could not understand what location it depicted. Frice was already going to throw it away with all the other trash, but Rich, after a quick look at the drawing, caught his hand to stop him.

  All contemporary maps they used in their master studies were drawn the same way. In the center, there was the Great City. To the west of it, there was a waterline called Rapid Waters. Immediately after, the near-Forest started with the valley landscape where the highest point did not top a thousand feet. After it, the proper Forest started, and then the map abruptly ended. In the North, as everyone knew, there were White Rocks with their quarries and iron mines. That was where the Rapid Waters started and then ran, winding in wide turns, to the South into the steppe
dwellers’ lands. The map ended with the World’s Smoothness vastly covering the east. Such a map was clear and understandable even for a baby.

  In contrast, the mad artist map, as Frice called it, was starkly different from the commonly known one. Rich squinted, looking at it from different sides and angles, turned it in different ways, and even looked at it through the light. Then, pointing at the upper right corner, said, “Something tells me we are here.”

  At first, Frice looked at his friend with distrust and concern. Did the Orphius overheat his head?

  “Look at it yourself,” Rich continued, excitedly. “Here are the Rapid Waters, they cannot be confused for anything. Here are White Rocks, and here’s the desert of the steppe dwellers.”

  He thought a little bit. “The Forest is a lot bigger than we think, it seems. Although, on the other hand, how much do we know about it?”

  “As for me, I think this is a crazy man’s daub!” When something did not fit Frice’s picture of the world, he started to yell. “And what is this, on the map’s edges?”

  “Looks like the World’s Smoothness.”

  “Ha, I told you it’s crazy,” Frice grinned. “Every fool knows that the World’s Smoothness is to the east of the City. But according to this, it is to the west, to the south, and even beyond the White Rocks in the north.”

  They had long and heated arguments afterwards. Rich was insisting he was right. He’d say, “We are used to the fact that the world is just as we think of it and as we see it. However, it could have changed tremendously throughout the centuries. And then, the today’s map drawers put the Great City in the center of the map, and the map drawers five hundred years ago could have seen the world in a totally different way.”

  In the end, Frice, almost convinced by Rich’s arguments, exclaimed, “Listen, Rich, perhaps that map maker was living in the Old City? No?”