The Old Places: The Anchor’s Inheritance Saga Book 1
Handed a mountain of debt and no way to pay, it looks like Nick’s future is sealed.
The rain hammered down like the gods were pissing on Nick’s parade.
Nicholas Vance stood over the hole in the ground, ignoring the cold drizzle soaking through his worn leather tunic. The hole was in the clay pauper’s field, the only patch of earth in the city the Guild didn’t charge a premium to rent. All that was left of his father was a handful of ashes, a cheap ceramic jar, and a legacy of failure.
“Mr. Vance?”
Nick didn’t look up. Gray water carved a rivulet through the mound of dirt next to the grave. The cold voice belonged to a man with oily yellow straw for hair and a face so anemic it could cut paper, wearing a sneer that Nick was sure the man practiced for people like him.
“Mr. Vance, we need to conclude this.” The Guild Auditor brushed invisible lint off his robes, nose wrinkling. “I have a schedule, and the rain is not good for the velvet.”
Nick turned. The Auditor stood under a floating shadow-glass artifact that repelled the rain in a dome. The corporate magic was expensive and soulless. The man looked as sympathetic as a shark in a high collar. He was checking a crystal timepiece.
“Tick-tock, Mr. Vance.” The official snapped the lid shut without looking at Nick. “Grief is for those with positive bank balances.”
“His ashes aren’t even cold yet.” Nick’s voice was raw. He jabbed a finger at the mound of damp earth. “You couldn’t wait until the mud dried?”
“He was cremated yesterday.” The Auditor eyed him. “He is cold, and my time is billed in six-minute increments.” He tapped the face of the timepiece with a manicured nail. “We are on minute five.”
The Auditor held out a battered heavy metal box. The brass corners were green with oxidation, and the leather handle was wrapped in strips of hide. It looked like it had been dragged through a war zone, which, knowing Nick’s father, it had. The Auditor’s lip curled as if it might transmit a disease. “I suggest you take this before I drop it.”
When Nick took the box, its weight nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. He knew it held broken Spirit Balls. The hopeless cases his father couldn’t fix and had tried to give back to the Guild. They had driven him to drink, into debt, and to an early grave.
“And the liabilities.” The Auditor produced a scroll from thin air and handed it to Nick. The minor conjuration that reeked of bureaucratic magic. He pointed a long, bony finger at the bottom line. “Do try not to faint. It complicates the paperwork.”
Nick looked at the number at the bottom. The red ink glowed in the gray afternoon. He blinked, wiping rain from his lashes, hoping the droplets had distorted the figures.
They hadn’t.
“Five thousand?” Nick choked out. “Five thousand fucking coin?” He stabbed a finger at the parchment. “Is this a joke? Did he buy a kingdom I didn’t know about?”
“Gold.” The Auditor sounded bored. “Plus interest at three hundred a month. Your father took out significant loans to purchase…stock. The Guild is both a warehouse and a financial institution. We invest in potential, and your father was a poor investment.”
He smiled, stretching his thin lips over his teeth. “The Guild expects the first installment of five hundred gold in thirty days. Failing that, we will invoke the Default Clause, which includes indentured servitude in the crystal mines and organ harvesting. Kidneys are fetching a premium this quarter. You could also spend a few decades as a test subject for experimental curses. All standard clauses, I assure you.”
Nick’s laugh was bitter. “I don’t have five thousand gold. I don’t have five hundred silver.”
I have six hundred and forty-two silver. He had found his father’s emergency stash in the false bottom of a toolbox last night while searching for the burial urn. Hector Vance had hoarded coins like a squirrel hoards nuts, not trusting the Guild banks. Fat lot of good it did him. It might buy me a nice coffin after they take the house.
“Then we will seize the license.” The Auditor snapped his satchel shut with a sound like a pistol shot. “And the house. And the assets, though I doubt those are worth spit.” He gestured disdainfully at the battered box. “The Guild sold your father that refuse knowing full well he couldn’t fix them. They told him so, but he bought them anyway. They bet against him, Mr. Vance, and the house always wins. Not my problem. I just collect the winnings. I doubt they are worth the melting cost.”
The man turned and walked away, his magical shelter gliding above him. Pathetic. Nick heard it as clearly as if the man had spoken aloud. Another rat drowning in the gutter. The father had the decency to die quickly. This one looks like he’ll struggle.
“Thanks, Dad,” Nick told the mud. He glanced at the city beyond the graveyard.
The Silver City, Argentis, was a masterpiece. A tiered mountain of white marble and gold filigree rose from the mud like a lotus flower, thanks to magic. At its center, the crystal Guild Spire pierced the clouds. The needle pulsed with the heartbeat of the city’s mana grid. Up there in the High Wards, the heated cobblestones evaporated the rain before it could touch the hem of a noble’s robe. Up there, the air tasted like lavender, and it was perpetually a clement golden afternoon.
Or so he’d been told.
Down here in the Dregs, reality was different.
He lived in a sprawling ring of buildings made from scavenged timber and stone that leaned against each other for support. The streets were slick with oily mud and the rainbow sheen of leaked mana. The “sky” was a tangle of ley-lines and gutters that dripped water on the forgotten.
Nick stood on the edge of civilization, trapped between the golden lie of the Spire and the deadly truth of the Wilds. Beyond him were the Old Places where crazy men and his father went to seek wealth from ages past. With a five-thousand-gold debt hanging over his head, both looked equally dangerous.
The walk to the gate was longer than he remembered, or maybe time moved differently when you were drowning in debt. He picked his way between the crooked headstones, avoiding the worst of the mud. He stepped over a grave marker that had fallen into the muck. The carved names were eroding. In another fifty years, no one would remember who was buried here.
Dad will be another forgotten nobody in the forgotten corner of a city that only remembers winners.
The rain hammered his shoulders. By the time he reached the iron fence, he was soaked to the bone and shivering
It looks like there are no options for Nick. How will he spend his remaining days of freedom. Find out on March 10th, when The Old Places: The Anchor’s Inheritance Book 1 is released. Until then head over to Amazon and pre-order it today.
