It wasn’t intended to be comic, but it isn’t supposed to be grim, either, so I’m glad it made you smile. I certainly had fun writing it.
Sci Fi & Fantasy / Finder's Fee
I’m a finder, and I’m damn good at my job. Maybe too good.
A lot of people, especially Terrans, think that finding uses some kind of psi talent. Don’t believe it. There are people, clairvoyants mostly, who have a talent for locating things, but finding is more… Well, call it a knack for combining diverse knowledge in odd and unexpected ways.
And maybe you figure finding for an exciting line, but that isn’t always so. Often it’s just tracking a specific piece of info, or locating some object the client wants to buy. Myself, I started out as a data-chaser, because there’s nothing like elven memory -- while it lasts -- for holding trivia, and much of the time I already had what the client wanted. But by ’37, I’d switched to finding real-world stuff. Time to time, I even found people.
I don’t do that anymore, though.
Last time I’d been hired to find a person was in the winter of ’56. I’d walked to Johansen’s, despite the cold of an Anglin November, to meet with a potential client. Now, Johansen’s is not the kind of place where I’d usually go. The lighting’s too dim, and the music is good enough to be distracting. And even in Anglin, there are places that aren’t safe for people like me.
The man hadn’t given me much more than his name when he called the day before. Average height, brown hair and eyes, he’d described himself over the tel—described, because he left the visual turned off. My name is Devin. You’ll know who I am.
I did, of course. He sat in a corner of the main room, just where the shadows were deepest. I paused when I entered, to let my eyes adjust to the dark and to let everyone else have a good look. In any city that far from the Threshold, I get three kinds of reactions from people: Some glance at me and ignore me, faking indifference; some see my ears and the color of my eyes and hair and look like they’re wishing for an iron knife and no witnesses. Some just stare ‘cause they’ve never seen a real live Threnendaran before.
Even in Anglin. You’d think people didn’t know their own history or something.
It was the second type of reaction I was worried about. If I took this job, maybe I’d charge extra for having to meet the client here, where sometimes just being from across the Gate is enough to get a person hurt.
I knew who he was, because he was the only person who didn’t look up when I came in. There he was, ordinary as can be, back to the wall and head tilted to one side as he listened to the music. Not live that night, but in some way better—a recording of Harrison Denmark Fan Club’s last concert. At least he had taste in music.
“Lose something, friend?” I asked as I pulled another chair up to his table. “I can find it for you, maybe.”
He finally looked at me, and I swear he seemed scared for a second. Then he blinked.
“You are not dragon-kin…,” he said cautiously.
Hell. Always that.
It’s the hair, mostly. Add flame-bright hair to fire-green eyes and pointed ears, and your average Terran-in-the-street is gonna think, Dragon-kin. Never mind that there have been a few red-haired elves since long before Kelvin Blackmage ever heard of the changing magic.
Don’t get me wrong. Being mistaken for ‘kin has advantages time to time. People get out of your way when you’re angry—they don’t want to risk looking at your eyes, because they’re afraid that ‘kin can actually read minds that way. My friend Ronnie once said being a red-haired elf must be a lot like being a viceroy butterfly. Viceroys look like monarchs, and monarchs are poisonous. So viceroys get left alone, too.
But Marrah help ‘em if every the bird comes along that likes to eat monarchs.
“No,” I said, “I am not ‘kin.” I’d been through this enough, I had a real effective, efficient way to prove it. And lucky for me, Johansen’s even had lanterns on the tables. I plucked a hair from my long forelock, held it over the lantern flame. Of course it sizzled and charred, and the air smelled of burnt hair.
But dragon-kin are fireproof.
“So,” I said. “Now that we’ve got that fact out of the way. I’m Alandra Kade. What do you want me to find?”
Was there a pause before he answered? “I want you to look for Stephan Dragonborn,” he said.
I didn’t laugh in his face. It’s mean to make fun of fools, and dangerous to laugh at madmen, and I wasn’t sure which he was.
“You and half the Worlds,” I replied. So much for this job… “He can’t be found, or someone would have already, and I won’t take your money when I know I can’t give you results.”
“I didn’t say you have to find him,” he said slowly, while the flicker of the lantern did strange things with the shadows of his face, and the recorded voice of Hannah Stonewell sang about waiting for someone who never arrives. “Only look for him, and tell me what trails you follow. I will pay you well,” he added.
A job that didn’t require a find? First time I’d heard of such. But he wanted me to tell him where and how I searched…
“I am not going to steal the secrets of your trade,” he said, right after that very thing occurred to me.
“Be sure of it,” I said, “’cause no one steals from me, hear?” But I was already thinking past that. What if I did take this job? It would surely be a challenge, to see how much I could learn. At that point, I never considered that I might succeed.
“I hear you, Alandra Kade,” he replied. “Will you do it? Will you look for Stephan Dragonborn?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why the hell not?”
We talked a little more, mostly about music -- he really did like HDFC’s stuff -- and not at all about the find he’d just hired me for. As if, once he convinced me to take the job, he didn’t want to think about it anymore.
I decided he was a pretty nice guy, for a Terran.
It was only late afternoon when we both left Johansen’s, I to begin working and he to do whatever he did with his time. As we turned to part ways, he said, “Thank you, Alandra Kade, for taking this job. It means… a great deal to me.” The way he said it, he made it sound so important. I turned and looked at him again.
In the brighter light of the sun, his eyes were more of a mossy hazel than brown, and his lighter, reddish lashes gave them an unframed look. His face was pale, unfreckled and clean-shaven…
No, more than that. There wasn’t even a possibility of a beard on that face.
I’d been wrong; this guy wasn’t Terran after all.
And I still didn’t have a clue.
I didn’t see what happened next, because I was facing the other way—but suddenly Devin grabbed me and pulled me back from the street. I stumbled, and we both fell into a leafless thorn bush that probably looked real nice with flowers on it in summer. As it was, Devin got his hair tangled in the thorns and a couple scratches on his face.
“What the hell—?” I said.
“Those young men and women passing us,” he said, removing a thorn from his clothes. “They are… I don’t know what you call them, but they are wearing iron.”
I turned and looked. They’d crossed the street and were watching us, neighborhood bullies enjoying the sight of their handiwork. Even this far, I could see the iron and hematite jewelry they all wore so blatantly. Some people like to oversimplify and call them elf-haters, but most of ‘em wouldn’t be upset over hurting any Threnendaran, elf, human or ‘kin. They wear iron and it can’t be legally counted as a weapon, even though everyone knows what iron does to us. Not our world, y’see.
And Devin had seen them approach, and pulled me out of the way.
He’d saved me from a bad burning, if not worse.
Like I said, it was a bad neighborhood.
I started to thank him, but he said, “I could hardly let them harm my finder, could I? Good hunting,” he said to me, and was gone before I could recover enough for an angry reply.
It was that last comment got to me. Maybe he didn’t mean the insult, I thought, standing there glaring at the spot where he’d stood a moment before, feeling my heart beat hard and my hands itch for something to hit. Maybe he just wasn’t thinking. Maybe he actually doesn’t know.
That had better have been all it was.
How could he save me from those people, then say something like that?
The word ‘hunter’ has some bad connotations for us, and calling a person that is considered deadly insult in some places. You’d think that Anglin would be one of those places, but people forget this city’s history. This wasn’t the Threshold, and customs here were different, but locals seemed more ignorant of things from across the Gate than they should have been.
Why the interest in Dragonborn, then?
I’m a finder, and a good finder doesn’t ask some questions.
I thought about dropping the job then, just for what he’d said. But Devin had gotten my curiosity up before my anger, and I’d discovered that I, too, wanted to know what had become of Stephan Dragonborn, ancestor of all the ‘kin.
So much, and so little, is known about his disappearance. Gone the morning of his son’s twentieth birthday -- like everyone knew would happen -- leaving the poor kid the new king of a city but also effectively an orphan. But the Worlds were closed to each other then, and not safe to travel for some time after, and where he went is still the subject of much debate. Some say he went Up, like Jasper Greyphoenix before him, took a ship and went Up-and-Out to the places beyond Terra’s sky. Some say he never left Threnendar at all, but returned to Windtower where he’d lived before the changing magic took him.
I don’t believe either of those theories.
Call it finder’s instinct.
Like I said, I started as a data-chaser, and that was still my favorite way of tracking. This one called for a bit of subtlety, though. I dropped a name in the nets and listened for reaction. No disappointment. Within hours, speculations were being swapped, rumors passed, self-proclaimed experts consulted. I just sat back and listened to them. So far nothing that I felt was a real lead, the start point of a reliable trail. I wondered if Dragonborn had actually covered his tracks so well, or if this was just the random chatter that fills any empty space.
Was he nowhere to be found, or just damn good at hiding?
And you know something else? I started to admire this guy who’d hidden himself so completely that even a good finder didn’t know where he was.
It was also the hardest bit of tracking I’d ever done.
I tried everything. Every rumor, every chance sighting already part of the urban legends of two worlds. And Devin was right… What I was doing was a lot like what those hunters had done in the long past, when they were searching for Greyphoenix. I wasn’t at all like them, though.
Was I?
Stephan Dragonborn didn’t want to be found—that was certain, else he’d not have gone missing to begin with. If I did locate him, what then? Tell Devin where he was, as I’d be paid to do? Tell everyone? At least tell Jonathan, king in Haefenspoint, who hadn’t seen his father in centuries?
I had been hired to do a job, and a good finder doesn’t ask. I just hoped Devin knew what he was doing.
In a noisy bar in Avalon, and if you don’t know the reference, ask someone else… I’d been searching for two weeks, and still nothing but a handful of rumors, all unverifiable. So I called the number Devin had given me, to tell him I was considering dropping the job.
Have you ever gone Up? Not many of us do – fear, I guess, of being offworld if the Gate should close again is what keeps more from going. Otherwise we’d take the sky for wandering as we’d once taken Terra. Some do anyway.
The last – and least easily followed – rumor had led me Up but not Out, to one of the orbital stations. Rumor runs fast in the void, they say, and someone – maybe inspired by my own planted hints – claimed to have seen Stephan Dragonborn eight years ago in a tavern on Thule Station.
Running out of ideas fast, I did real-world what I do in the nets. I sat in that tavern, thinking and occasionally listening to the conversations around me. A group of men at the next table – foreigners all, by their varied accents – discussed travel arrangements and complained about shadows. Guess they didn’t like dim lighting much, either. One of them had reddish hair and green eyes, but he was too tall ever to be mistaken for the man I was looking for…
This was bad. A finder, and I didn’t even know how to go looking anymore.
I walked over to the bar for a drink. Some kind of honey wine, because I don’t like the taste and wouldn’t drink most of it.
The bartender was chatting with some other guy. “Here you are, fire-hair,” he said as he handed me my glass.
“I… am… _not_… dragon-kin,” I said. How many times would I have to say that?
He raised an eyebrow, as if that was far from what he meant. “If bein’ mistaken for ‘kin bothers you so,” said the man behind the bar, “why don’t you do something about it?”
I looked back at him blankly.
“Dye your hair dark,” he explained, as if I were a child, and a slow-witted one at that, “And all anyone’ll see’s another elf.”
Not the kind of thing most of us would do, but Terrans, never happy with their natural appearance, seem to always be staining their hair or skin a new color.
“Never been ‘kin yet had aught but that flame red hair,” said his friend. His tone made me think of another bit of ‘conventional wisdom.’ No such thing as a round-eared dragon. No such thing as a dragon-kin who wasn’t also part elven. Except there was. Two, in fact, and I’d been hired to find the elder…
No, not find.
Look for.
And tell him the trail.
Everything fell into place.
I drained my glass and stood. The bartender looked at me. “Brown hair,” I said to him, as if that explained everything. Which it did.
I went back to Anglin in a hurry. Lucky for me, there hadn’t been much rain since I’d been there. And I found what I was looking for, snagged on the thorn bush near Johansen’s.
A dark brown hair. Devin’s.
I went into Johansen’s then, because of the lanterns on the tables. I had need of a small, open flame. At the same table where I’d first met the man calling himself Devin, I sat holding that one dark hair in a shaking hand.
I didn’t want to do it…
I became a finder because I enjoy discovering things, because I knew of nothing better than the sound of a secret explaining itself to whomever could ask the right questions, but I did not want to do this.
For the first time in my life, I’d discovered something that I didn’t want to know.
You’re paying me for this, you old sneak! I stuck the end of the hair into the fire. _Oh, how you are going to pay_…
There was a stink, but not of burning hair as I’d almost dared to hope. No, not that. The fire ran up the length of that hair and left behind a chemical smell and a fine film of soot that came off onto my fingers.
And a single hair, dark-copper bright and untouched by the flames.
I swore, but softly, so as not to scare the people near my table.
Only two dragon-kin who didn’t look like red-haired elves. Jonathan was still in Haefenspoint. If he were gone, people would know, because the movements of kings are very public and because they’d be afraid he’d skipped town like his old man. But how many people even remember what Stephan Dragonborn looks like? Who would recognize him, if he crossed the Gate, hid his identity with tinted lenses in his eyes and a different hair color and a false name?
I got very drunk that evening. I figured I deserved it.
The next morning I called my client, and I asked him to meet me. I had something he’d want to hear about, I told him.
When I went back to Johansen’s, I told Devin all about the rumors I’d tracked in the nets, the stories I’d listened to in spaceport bars and finders’ hangouts and even at the Gatehouse where the news of two worlds is passed.
“Dead ends all,” I told him. “No one’ll ever find Dragonborn following those tracks.”
Then I told him about a hair snagged on a thorn bush, and a finder with just enough intuition to try burning it.
“You never wanted me to find anyone, did you?” I was angry, and because I was right, I knew he felt it. There is justice, if the dragonfire burns the dragon, too. “You liar!”
But he closed his eyes, the coward, so he wouldn’t have to deal with it – it’s true what they say, that the mind-to-mind link of dragonfire requires eye contact. “When,” he said, “did I ever lie to you? I asked you to look for Stephan Dragonborn. I asked you to tell me what trails you followed. There are no lies in that.”
“No, but there wasn’t any truth, either.” Was I so angry because I’d been misled, or because I felt the idiot for not seeing what was right in front of me? I couldn’t have said.
“What’s wrong, finder?” he said. “You have earned your fee.”
By Marrah, I had!
And I couldn’t brag about the biggest find ever.
“Why?” That’s the one question a finder should never ask, but I had to know.
He sighed, and suddenly it struck me how truly old this man was. Even knowing that he was no more human than myself. He looked human, and that meant the dayflower life span that all humans live. Except this was Stephan Dragonborn, and he was older than me by at least two centuries, and humans, whether born or changed from something else, simply aren’t made for that.
They certainly aren’t made to spend that much time hiding.
“I learned something from Greyphoenix,” he said. “Any trail can be followed, if the hunter is determined. Any trail. I wanted to leave no trails to follow. But I cannot hide every trace if I don’t know about them. So I hired a hunter to seek those trails, and tell me, so I would know.”
No more. Not like this.
“This is gonna cost you,” I said. “I found you once, I can find you again. So every time you think the tracks need sweeping, you come to me, Dragonborn, and you have me find anything you forgot to hide.
“To you, I’m gonna be the hunter – and you’re going to pay me to do it. Do you hear me, Stephan Dragonborn?”
“I hear you, Alandra Kade,” he said, and I didn’t know how to interpret that faint, sad smile. “It is what I was intending.”
It’s happened twice since then. He doesn’t contact me in person. Just one day I get an anonymous message, through the net or by tel, saying, It’s time, hunter. Find me.
It’s harder each time, and each time I swear, Never again. Because I enjoy the chase. Because I do become the hunter when I try to find him, and I enjoy it, and that bothers me more than I can say.
More than bothers me. It scares me. And I won’t ever find anyone else. It costs too much.
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Scribble reviewed Version 1 -
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This is very good. I enjoyed it thoroughly. You write well and define your protanganist immediately. You bring us in line with your world and characters excellently and I found the whole story intriguing.
Don’t be bitter about people comaring you to other authors. Thats their opinion and it will happen when you are published (which I think you will be). However, it may be useful to look into the author just ensure that your work has its own distinct edge even if it is simular.
The unfinished sentances don’t work for me. In first person I don’t want to be told the story through scattered thoughts, I want to be told it properly and fully, by a competant narrator. Even if the the character is a bit of scatter-brain and part of his story is that he is that way, it still needs to be done in a way that doesn’t jolt me out of the flow. And your chatacter is not portrayed in that way.
Also your dialogue and interactions could be worked on. I don’t think its good enough to say ‘I was angry’. Show, show, show, don’t tell. Show us he is angry by what he says and how he acts. Even though you are relating this story, you can still make it active.
I love the way you slowly show us what race the character is and what he does for a livng, the different reactions to him and so on, but sometimes I feel its too much, and I’m thinking ‘just get on with it’. I would suggest this be lengthened to a novel. I think there is enough here to expand it. I would be interested in reading more.
Good luck with this, very very very great potential.
Scribble
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catherinespark reviewed Version 1 -
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I’m not sure if this was meant to be an overtly comic sci-fi story, but if it is then it succeeds, since most of it kept me grinning throughout. I think you are onto something with this hard-boiled character here, and the story at times came across as a streetwise 21st century update of Carver and Vonnegut (two of my favourite writers).
The structure, altnerating between narrative/ dialgoue towards the end might have needed a little more creative pruning, but asides from this I would definitely enjoy following this protagonist’s adventures.
A job well done,
Laura
Harold_P reviewed Version 1 -
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Hey…
Loved the central character’s hangdog attitude and detective-like persona here within the confines of this particular genre, it made the story amusing, intriguing and consistently delightful to read.
Given it’s complete, I can find little fault in your style or layout, but I would say that perhaps we lose empathy with the character if don’t see this person is a more vulnerable state (we can see she is upset etc) but I wanted some kind of hook from which I could accept her in perhaps a longer story.
If she adopts this standoffish stance perhaps it might alienate the reader?
Just a thought, but in this particular chapter she worked for me and the details of the detective element were kept fresh and exciting through its spritely pace and witty dialogue.
Thanks,
Harold_P
Zakari39 reviewed Version 1 -
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Ok – I liked the first person narration. I don’t know about this controversy concerning lifting characters, nor have I read any Hamilton, so I shan’t mention it!
I liked the story. Clever twist with Dragonborn using the Hunter to clear his trails for him….very smart idea, and told well.
The story sounded rich in terms of background and local info – but it seemed to go too quickly…the taking of the commission to realising what he was upto and setting the story up for meeting him again…
haikudo reviewed Version 1 -
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This was a wonderful, fascinating chase through the labyrinth of a world not unlike that of Piers Anthonty’s Split Infinity, et.al. I enjoyed the story itself, but not, perhaps,as much as the conglomeration of stories implied by it. I can easily visualze this as a chapter among a collection of such stand-alone Tales of the Gatehouse, maybe narrated by a bored elven ex-finder gatekeeper named Alandra. In this form or that, I feel you have an exquisitely publishable story, line, and draft right here. “Up and Inn” might be the first volume describing the reluctant hunter’s adventures between the end of this tale and the beginning of his coveted post among the elite Gatehousers. Of course, I have no idea what you might have planned for this cosmos, but I would be one fanboy eager to find out. I wish you the best of luck in your efforts to publish this on a world-wide scale. Peace and love to you and yours,
NAMASTE~J.E.~~
virg_nelson reviewed Version 1 -
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I enjoyed your writing style, although I am not sure why they compared you to Laurell K. Hamilton. Being a great fan of hers I can tell you that although your style is similar to hers your writing is in a different genre than most of her work. I found your story engaging and I think it would be worth expanding. There is certainly room during the search itself. Perhaps you could consider during the search having her occasionally run into Stephan Dragonborn further increasing the hints of sexual tension you suggested in the short story.
ramsrock37 reviewed Version 1 -
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Excellent story. It left me wanting though. I know it’s a short story, but, I wanted more information. When Alandra is looking for Dragonborn, I want that experience. I want to go through the motions with her. You tell us what she finds. I want to experience it, feel it, through your writing. Great job.
groovieknave reviewed Version 1 -
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Well, it’s definitely Sci-fi/Fantasy. I wasn’t really sure how what he found lead him to the last meeting. I didn’t really get much of it, because there wasn’t much explanation as to what people were or what things were, so I just had to guess. It was hard to read, but if it was much longer you could tell more about the things you put in the story. It’s like when you were writing you expected people to know what the things are that you put in. I guess maybe I don’t read much of Sci-Fi/Fantasy to know what all of these types of things are, like Dragonkin, terrans, and so on. I kind of had to put together what the Gate was that you referred to, which is okay.
I like this character though, he has personality and opinions. I just had a hard time reading since I had no idea what things were so I couldn’t follow it well. I guess if I read more of the popular Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff I’d be able to get along with it better. So I guess my review isn’t really fair. The mystery you put in, wasn’t much of a mystery, because all he did was find something and he went on to the end of the story. But I like the way you wrote the speech, except sometimes the way you wrote it didn’t make sense at first read so I had to re-read it and figure it out.
I’d say this would be much better longer and explain the Gate a little better, and what all the stuff is in it. But again, maybe I should be a bigger Sci-Fi/Fantasy fan to review it properly. I can say that you do have a talent to shape.
Isei_Star reviewed Version 1 -
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Overall, I really enjoyed this story very well. I like how it is told in the protagonists own words so you add his mannerisms and dialect to the narration, its very cleaver and makes the story feel more like it is being told than read. It was a little tough to get into, though, I must say. It didn’t really grab my attention in the beginning, but as soon as it got rolling I found myself more and more drawn in. The descriptions could be a little more elaborate and (assuming this isn’t done in one of the other stories you have written with this character) I would to get more of a feel for who the protagonist is and what he/she looks like. I didn’t get a real good sense of setting; it seemed like a distant land which kind of took away from the story for me because in the back of mind I was constantly trying to figure out where all of this was. I suggest that you describe the landscape and tell a little blurb about the different kingdoms. Also, I liked the strike-through fragment you had in the very beginning, but I thought it became a little over used after that. I enjoyed this very much, however, and I would most certainly read any others about this character. Keep it up, great job!
Mizwings reviewed Version 1 -
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I have say first, I loved it. I liked how you drew me in straight away. I felt as though Alandra was talking to me, the reader as a personal mate, almost like on the job training. I really enjoyed the ingenuity you displayed in mentioning ‘kin being fireproof and demonstrating the burnt hair as proof. That was brilliant! I also laughed out loud when I read that Alandra didn’t make fun of him as it was ‘mean to make fun of fools’...Ha! I think with a bit of tweaking on sentence structure, you’ve really got something there, and I think it should be published even turned into a TV series.
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