Death After Death-Chapter 353 - The Quiet Life

In Simon’s first year as an Innkeeper, he managed to turn a dump into something livable, but it didn’t start to become a home until that second year. It wasn’t just Aranna, either. Her dark beauty and diffident personality became an important part of his life, sure. There were even a few moments when one of them had drunk a bit too much, where he might have become more than just her employer.

Those became less frequent as his little inn family grew. In time, as money became less important than time so that Simon could return to some experimentation, it multiplied. First, he found a cook named Bessa. She was older than he was in this life, but not so ancient that she had more than a sprinkling of gray in her hair. She came from Abresse, but before that, somewhere across the sea. She didn’t talk about that much, though, with her subtle accent, Simon wished that she would.

Eventually, he adopted a young man as well. He was the sole survivor of a caravan that had been shattered by a troll that had wandered out of the woods in an attempt to make a home in a seaside cave a few hours east.

Simon had heard rumors of it, but before he could do more than think about how to handle it, the monster had dashed a caravan to pieces, shattering more than one family in the process. So, when Leon had shown up bloody on his doorstep, there was little for Simon to do beyond bandage the boy and seek his bloody revenge.

Fortunately, being a year out of practice didn’t matter nearly as much as having a pony keg full of lamp oil and a flaming arrow. Simon led the thing on a merry chase through the trees, and when it was fully doused, he lit it up, lingering long enough to behead the monster and wait for sunrise so he could make sure that the burned pieces of its corpse still turned to stone.

Simon couldn’t replace the boy's parents, but he did pay for a proper burial once that was done, and even after he offered to send him back to wherever he’d come from, Leon insisted on staying. Simon supposed that was fine too. He was a child of privilege, but if he didn’t want to leave the side of the man who’d slain the monster that had eaten his parents, then he put him to work as a stable boy, which was something they’d sorely needed.

Simon offered to pay the boy, but Leon refused. “I owe you a debt I can never repay,” the boy explained. Simon didn’t see it that way, though, and still saved two copper coins a week in his name that would eventually go toward getting him a real internship somewhere, or perhaps even some land of his own.

After the Wayfarer had a staff of four, it was less profitable than it had been as a one-man show, but it gave Simon infinitely more time. In the evenings, he’d still man the bar on busy nights, but the rest of the time he divided evenly between improving the building and his own studies. Often as not, when he worked on the building, he’d have Leon with him too, as a helper, which made that time even more efficient.

He had his own room now, and he could, within reason, afford all the paper he wanted, so he devoted significant study to the Dreaming Orb, and runes from other circles and places that he did not yet understand.

He ultimately stored all of these researches in his mirror, of course, but something about holding a quill and sketching them out on paper made him feel more in tune with them. Slowly, he tried to put them together like some kind of alphabet or periodic table. Progress on that was slow, but there was a logical progression to the curves and the shapes when placed in certain orders. He didn’t know if those orders actually meant anything, or if they existed only in his mind, but he felt like they should.

Just a few more pieces of the puzzle, he told himself regularly. If I could just learn another word or two, I’m sure I could solve it.

They were happy times, and things might have continued like that indefinitely, as far as Simon was concerned. Simon was staying magic-free, and his experience points said everything was going in the right direction as they rose steadily.

Then, one day, Leon came running inside and blurted out. “The man who just came here says the rest of his group will arrive shortly.”

Simon was about to ask why that mattered at all. While not quite empty, the Wayfarer had plenty of space. However, before he could get any words out, Leon finally delivered the lead he’d buried. “He had a white cloak, and said that they’re witch hunters!”

“A white cloak? You’re sure?” Simon asked. “You’re sure about that?”

The boy nodded without hesitation, making Simon curse. He had no way of knowing why they were here, but they surely meant trouble. He was half tempted to believe they were just passing through and on their way somewhere else until he glanced at his lovely barmaid and saw that she looked like she’d seen a ghost.

“Are they here for you?” he asked in a whisper as he moved close to her.

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“I… They might be. I’m not sure,” she answered nervously.

“Damn it,” Simon sighed. He wasn’t about to give up one of his own, but he was absolutely not looking to pick a fight.

“We’ve got to get you out of sight,” he said, taking her by the elbow and escorting her down the stairs.

“When they come in, be nice and stall them,” he told Bessa. “If they ask about Aranna, just tell them you haven’t seen her in days…”

The cook nodded, but even as she did so, she protested. “Men like that? They’ll know I’m lying.”

“I’ll do the lying,” Simon called out behind him. “You just keep them busy.”

As he finished his statement, he took Aranna below into the darkened cellar. Normally, he would stop to light a torch, but there wasn’t time for that just now. Instead, he went by memory, taking her further from the light and toward the little wine cellar he’d built in one corner.

When Simon had started the project, he’d intended to brick it up when he was done with it, but thanks to all the help he’d had recently, he’d built a shelf as a false door to the shelf behind it instead. He’d done it just to practice some clever carpentry, but now, it made the perfect hidey hole that was just big enough for one scared woman.

“You’ll be safe here,” he explained, “I’ll be back soon with food and news. I promise.”

His words did little to mollify her. Simon could see it in her face. She thought that he was going to sell her out. Maybe the average guy would have done that, but then Simon was hardly average. What he was, was in a hurry, and he rushed back toward the stairs, and in the common room in time to apologize for his tardiness and take over for his cook before she melted down under the pressure.

“What can I help you gentlemen with?” Simon asked, trying to split the difference between respect and fear, even though he felt neither.

The guard captain introduced himself as Lord Wallace before explaining, “We’re looking for someone. A young woman. Dark hair, dark eyes. She sometimes goes by the name Aria or Arianya. We heard a rumor that she might be in your employ.”

Simon looked at the two armed men behind him, and then out the window at the half a dozen men in the yard. There was nothing about this group that shouted that they were whitecloaks, but Simon could see it the same way Leon could. No, he could see it better; he knew what all their tokens and secret signs looked like.

“Listen,” he said, raising his hands to make it clear he had nothing to hide. “I don’t want no trouble, and I’d give up Aranna if I had her, but… well, she left a few days ago. She just took off and headed north. She didn’t say why.”

“Did she now?” the Lord asked with undisguised suspicion as he stepped closer to Simon. “You wouldn’t be trying to hide her from me, now would you?”

Simon shook his head. “She was a good barmaid, and I’d like to know what she’s done, but I’m not one to fight ten on one, even for my own mother.”

That was a lie. He’d fight a hundred on one, or even a thousand on one, for the right woman. He would have summoned an ocean of fire against an army that threatened Freya if only he'd known how, and he almost had for Elthena at one point, but those instincts would do him no favors here. So he did his best to pretend to be a coward. It was a distasteful role for him, but he had at least one ancient lifetime of experience to draw upon there.

“Well then, you won’t mind if we search the premises for her, now will you?” the man said with the barest hint of a smile.

“Search all you want,” Simon said, “But be respectful of the other guests and gentle on the furnishings. If you damage something, you’ll be paying for it.”

The commander’s smirk widened at Simon’s attempt to play the cowardly moneygrubber, making him wonder what the other man could see. Simon knew from experience that the sight was muddied by violence and dark thoughts, so he doubted many members of the Unspoken had the ability to see more than light and dark, but it was something to worry about.

Otherwise, he wasn’t too worried, at least about Aranna. They wouldn’t find where he’d hidden her. It was remotely possible they’d find some of his research notes in his room if they were searched hard enough; he made a note to burn those later. For now, though, he didn’t think they’d be looking through anything too small to hide someone in.

The white cloaks kept up their search for over an hour before they decided that she, in fact, wasn’t there. They went through every room and asked everyone present, but got no more than what Simon had already told them.

“See,” he answered. “I told you. She up and left without even taking all her things.”

“No matter,” the commander answered with a shrug. “We will have dinner, and then use a token of finding to locate her with one of her discarded dresses.” He went on to explain that such things only worked on someone who had recently been there, and that things would be so much easier if they might just use it to follow people to the world’s end, but Simon shook his head, pretending not to understand any of it.

“Magic?” Simon breathed, feigning fear. “But I thought that—”

“A blessed object, nothing more,” the man reassured him. “Our order has many tools given to us by the gods to aid us in our task. No one's soul will be damaged by helping us hunt down a wayward soul.”

“I’ll help you however I can,” Simon lied, even as his mind raced.

While he took their order, he slowly put together a plan, and as soon as he retreated to the kitchen, he pulled his stableboy aside. “Listen, take my horse, saddle it up and ride it north to the forest, then let it go,” he told him. “Then hurry back. Be back by morning. I want nothing else suspicious here.”

“Why? It’s a good horse,” the boy protested.

“Because if they’re looking for Ara… as they look for the woman they’re hunting, she’ll have needed some way to escape, and the answer is that she took my horse.”

“I see,” the boy answered, moving to obey Simon, even though it was obvious that he didn’t. He didn’t need to understand, though; he owed Simon too much to question him.