Prodigal - Book III

The Emptied House

Hiran thinks he might have over-estimated the Skill master's intellect.

To Hiran's absolute lack of surprise, Old Man by the Sea is nothing but white-brick ruin when they reach it, the shriveled carcasses of what look like flowers and smashed flowerpots strewn around the wreckage. This does not alarm the Skill master though; Hiran glances over to see his eyes darting around, peering at the nearby buildings.

"I'm not sure he would have stayed..." Hiran begins, eyeing the shell-blasted structure standing next to the debris, but the Skill master holds up a hand.

Deciding he can't possibly help if he doesn't know what they're after, Hiran stands back, arms crossed over his chest, and watches. And, just as he's contemplating if this really is some kind of farce and the Skill master has gone mad, Ruben walks over to the side of one of the sturdier surrounding buildings and dusts off its corner.

"Ah," he says, and Hiran joins him, leaning forward to peer at what has been uncovered.

It's a little etching, crudely made with some kind of knife and charcoal. Hiran thinks the center figure must be some kind of bird or something, and then there's an arrow pointing northwest and a string of letters.

Ruben rummages in his bag, pulls out a parchment and some of his own charcoal, and starts making a rubbing of the carving.

"Are you going to explain—?" Hiran starts, and Ruben is already shaking his head.

But he does, a little.

"Coordinates," he murmurs to himself and maybe even Hiran, jotting out the letters and pulling out a city map. "Here, quickly."

He's jotting down something more—another string of letters but with numbers set above them, and suddenly Hiran realizes this is some kind of code.

What is this? he thinks, peering with narrowed eyes from the quickly unraveling code to the Skill master. An innkeeper is leaving Ruben hidden messages?

"Let's go," Ruben says suddenly, and he starts moving without even looking at Hiran. "Keep your eyes sharp. Look for him, but also keep an eye on windows and corners."

"What for?" Hiran demands, but again, he receives no answer.

They wind deeper into the city, to parts where the water has not drained out to the sea, where debris and other, fouler things still float in the spoiled, murky flooding. The smell is sharp and sour, and Hiran is surprised to see some residents still here, lurking in those windows and doorways Ruben had warned about, looking less menacing than shell-shocked. It reminds him of the Cabal-leveled city in the northern parts of the kingdom he and the others had wandered through months (a year?) ago, of people in equally desperate situations looking just as sullen.

"Why are they still here?" he asks Ruben when the inhabitants are out of earshot.

The Skill master turns, sparing him a long, searching look.

"It's their home."

Another half hour passes, and then Ruben stops, straight in the center of an intersection.

"Here," he says. "We need to look around here. Knock on doors."

"Knock on doors?" Hiran echoes. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Ask..." the Skill master hesitates. "Ask if Abe is there."

He does it, because at this point, what else is he supposed to do? When he had agreed Hiran thought this missing person search would have required more of searching-through-rubble-and-ruin and less of "Hey there, have you seen a lost senior citizen?"