Chapter 10 Secrets Unveiled
Secrets Unveiled
When Mrs. Hawke opened her door, the unexpected company Kraghtol brought did understandably surprise her. After he explained, however, that the noble knew about his true identity and could be trusted, she let the two of them in, although not without hesitation.
Truth be told, Kraghtol wasn’t entirely sure himself why he had brought Valir.
It somehow seemed like the right thing to do at that moment, and although he wasn’t entirely sure how this had happened, Valir was the one person in the city who knew most about Kraghtol — only rivaled by Roderic Hawke.
Perhaps it just felt good to be able to be himself in front of another person for once.
Mrs. Hawke’s house was much like herself: modest and unremarkable, but not shabby.
Solid wooden furniture dominated the clean living room of the stone building, and the carpet beneath his feet had seen decades of use already.
This home was nothing compared to the el Greylune mansion, and yet, Kraghtol immediately felt more welcome here, which might also be because of the delicious smell of a garlic-heavy stew that already stood steaming on the dinner table in the middle of the room.
The table was set for three, but a gray-haired man was already putting a fourth bowl on the table, which caused a pang of guilt in Kraghtol for bringing one more person for dinner. He would just have to eat less himself.
“I believe you have not yet met my husband, Torven,” Mrs. Hawke introduced, and Valir immediately nodded courtly, almost automatically.
Curiously, the older man didn’t bat an eye, even when Kraghtol removed his coat, and Kraghtol wondered if he had seen a half-orc before.
But perhaps his wife had just filled him in.
“Nice to meet you,” Kraghtol said and glanced at the floor, hoping not to drip too much rainwater anymore.
Mrs. Hawke, who appeared way more lively here than he had ever experienced her in school, ushered them to the table and was already filling their bowls with stew.
It was almost surreal considering what had happened just this morning. And Kraghtol had to address that first.
“I suppose you already know about my encounter with your son this morning?”
It was clear from their faces they didn’t, so Kraghtol immediately continued, forcing his voice to sound as little accusatory as possible.
“He came to my room this morning and brought a letter from Dean Quenning. She expelled me from the guild after consultation with him. I’m sorry, Mrs. Hawke, but I have to ask. Did you tell him?”
While the face of Kraghtol’s former teacher filled with signs of uncharacteristic anger, her husband seemed downright saddened.
“Mr. Krasen! I assure you I have done nothing of the sort. And frankly, I can’t believe why the dean — or Roderic — would do such a thing. Their ignorance is infuriating. I really thought we’d taught him —”
“Marla, it’s alright. Let’s hear the full story before judging, shall we?”
Torven’s voice was quiet and tender, but not weak, and Kraghtol detected a faint echo of long-practiced authority in it. He decided to believe them. It would have been harder if Valir hadn’t pointed out the logistical difficulties of Mrs. Hawke telling her son his secrets.
“Alright. First, my real name is not Krasen but Kragh. And I suppose it doesn’t hurt for you to hear all of it.”
For the second time today, he recapped the events that led to this point.
His mind was in turmoil, and it took the entire dinner to put together the incoherent story, jumping wildly between key events he wanted to include while leaving out elements he did not want to share, like Aniriel’s role in getting his healing practice shut down.
“…And apparently, he even found the empty potion bottle I forgot in the clockwork room.”
“It really seems Fist of the Guilds Roderic Hawke knows what he’s doing.”
Valir, who had silently listened, asked with a thin smile.
“I suppose he has learned from the best, right, Mr. Hawke?”
The older man chuckled, and Kraghtol had the distinct feeling of having missed a crucial bit of context.
“You have a keen eye, Mr. el Greylune. And you can call me Torven. But yes, you are right. I used to have the same rank until I retired. What gave it away?”
“The framed diploma on the wall. And the inquisitive way you looked at Kragh while he was talking.”
He smiled his usual smile of superiority but paddled back immediately.
“I knew the story already, so I had time to look around.”
Torven exchanged a look with his wife Marla, and only when she nodded, did he sigh.
“Yes, I was with the Guild of Peace, and I suppose old habits die hard.”
He stood up and retrieved a pipe from a nearby cupboard, but Kraghtol noticed he walked around the room while doing so, as if making sure all the doors and windows were closed. Finally, he sat down again and lit the pipe.
“Did you know Marla made the alchemical core driving the clock tower?”
All three people in the room stared at the older man.
“Torven!” Marla protested, but her husband shook his head.
“It’s alright. I believe it’s only fair to share a bit of our story with these two, and it helps the point I’m about to make.”
He turned towards his guests and took a drag from his pipe before continuing.
“I’ve never told this story to anyone, and I have not written it down, because if people knew too much about it, it would endanger both Marla and me.
But who am I telling this to? It seems you are in much the same situation I have tried to avoid for forty years now.
It goes without saying that you cannot tell anyone what you’re about to hear now, are we understood? ”
He took a moment to wait for both Valir and Kraghtol to nod in agreement before continuing.
“When I was young, I was a criminal, born into a family of thieves and murderers. I didn’t consider what I was doing wrong, but then again, I didn’t think too much at all.
Do not get me wrong: this is not supposed to be an excuse.
I have often pondered my guilt from that time since, but I digress.
At 17, I met a… peculiar person. A dwarf named Voldrik, who came all the way from the Bronzebreak Mountains and claimed to be an inventor.
He had bought the old harbormaster’s office — the clock tower building — and my family planned to rob him of everything he had, and I was part of that plan. ”
Torven’s eyes scanned the closed windows again and finally settled on a point kilometers behind Kraghtol when he continued.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but in the end, I turned against my family, and even against the guilds in a way, and helped Voldrik complete his dream instead.
Because of who he was and what he taught me.
It was… eye-opening. He taught me to write, to think and to see, all over the course of just a few months.
And he showed me grandeur. We built the clock tower, the landmark of Winterstone, as an act of defiance against the guilds. ”
“Wait. You built the clock tower? Forty years ago? But why is it half-deserted like that? And why isn’t there a statue of the dwarf in front of it or anything? It looked like nobody had been in the building for decades.”
Kraghtol’s interruption seemed to amuse Torven.
“Curious, eh? Well, there are two reasons for this. First, it’s a masterpiece, and I probably contributed to that the least. Marla’s alchemical core is still going strong after forty years, driving the clockwork that sprang from the mind of a genius.
It just doesn’t need maintenance, and thus the building just remained locked.
That’s the practical reason. But there’s more to that. We humiliated the guilds back then.”
He tapped the ash onto the tray, and his eyes sparkled with a long-suppressed pride.
“We played their power game — and we won. The clock tower was too useful not to keep. But everything that led to its creation, they tried to erase. And they succeeded. Voldrik had escaped, and the wings of his dream carried him away, but Marla and I remained. The guilds had their ways of punishing each and every one of us. They made people stop speaking about Voldrik, and soon, he was forgotten, not even remaining a footnote in the city’s history.
The way we played them meant they couldn’t just imprison me, so they made me a high-ranking official, always under close watch, waiting for me to say one wrong word. And Marla…”
“They ended my career,” the teacher said flatly. “I was not a big part of what had happened back then, but I was the easiest one to punish. The Alchemists’ Guild took me under contract as a teacher for basic alchemy and forbade me from ever inventing any new alchemical mixture again.”
For the first time, Kraghtol understood the cruelty of that action.
Marla Hawke must have been a bright mind in her time, and she had had all the tools needed to create those minor miracles Kraghtol had always imagined as a child.
And then, someone put her under an alchemical contract never to use them again. No wonder she broke like that.
Kraghtol glanced over at Valir, who appeared to have similar thoughts reflected on his face. A thousand questions were burning on his tongue, and he decided on the most pressing.
“Why didn’t you just go away?”
Marla smiled, and her voice was bittersweet.
“Perhaps we should have. But the reach of the guilds is long, and the longer we waited, the stronger their grip on our lives had become. And when we had Roderic, we had to make sure he would have the best life possible. It’s not all bad, too.
Torven and I could use what power we had to do some good here and there. ”
“Does Roderic know this story?” Valir asked, and Marla was the one to answer.