Finding my Parents in Another World-Chapter 75: (Zack) Council of Drighor

It had been three days since Zack was stuck in the city of Drighor, and he was beginning to lose his patience.

Where the hell is Pende?

Frustrated, Zack walked up and sat down on the pier of the city, as had been his routine every day he was in Drighor. As he sat down, and watched the gentle lapping of waves in front of him, the words of Miden once again rang in his ears.

Your son is going to enroll in the Royal Magikal Academy.

You will find him in the Capital.

Zack still didn’t trust Miden completely, but what other choice did he have? He had found no trace of Zoe or Raorka by himself till then, so he was grateful for any morsel of information, any lead that Miden provided for him. Even if he was lying, Zack wanted to believe, wanted to trust that his son was safe.

But the journey to the Capital was long, extremely long. Mt. Gukiu was at the edge of Anasuril, far removed from most of its cities, while the Capital was right at the center of the Kingdom. Miden had said it could easily take them almost a month to ride from Mt Gukiu to the Capital.

More than a month if we maintain this pace, Zack thought somberly.

They hadn’t been making good time. Pende had suggested to steer clear from Odania, and Zack was inclined to agree with him. So they had to take a longer route to circumvent the town completely. The problem was that the terrain in this route was extremely dangerous, and thus their movement was slowed down to a crawl.

And then they had finally reached this city of Drighor after a week of riding. Zack had felt quite a sense of relief when they first came here, he was growing tired of sleeping in tents and riding the whole day. And besides, this was his first time seeing a city in this world and he was awed by the scale. Drighor was extremely large, almost three times Odania’s size. There were no walls or guards here though, the city just began. Predictably then the boundaries of the city were unclear, and there were scores of small huts and shops that extended outwards, causing the city to appear much bigger than it actually was.

Even though there were no walls, the northern part of Drighor was closed off by the sea instead. It seemed that there was a port built here, but there were no ships or goods coming in the port. In fact, the port appeared abandoned. Which made sense once Zack realized that there was no one else left to trade with. Anasuril was the sole surviving kingdom after all, there was no one on the other side of the ocean.

It was a sobering thought, and quite a depressing one as well, so Zack tried to divert his mind by looking at the other structures that shaped Drighor - the four towers.

It was the first thing Zack had seen when entering Drighor, the four huge towers twisting up into the sky at four seemingly random points in the city. There were not evenly spread about, nor were they near the edges of the town. It was like someone had chosen four random spots in the town and erected towers in them.

"The Council Towers." Pende had said when they first saw the towers.

"Doesn’t it make more sense to build them at the edge of the city?"

Pende shrugged. "They are very old, some say older than the Great War. At that time probably they were built on the edge of the city, but the city expanded since then."

"Hmm makes sense. What happens inside anyway?"

"The Council of Drighor sits in these towers. They have names, or rather titles bestowed upon them based on which tower they conduct their business out of, you know."

"Council of Drighor, what’s that?"

"Aah old man, it seems you think every city and town in this Kingdom is run by some tyrant. That’s not the case in Drighor, the governing body of this city is the Council. Four people who can take decisions regarding the activites in the city, with their decisions being approved only if three out of four agrees. A better system no?"

Zack nodded in thought. "And how are these four Councilmen chosen?"

"Aah well that is kinda similar to Odania. The current Councilmen choose their successors."

"What? Doesn’t that mean that whoever is a Councilman now will keep choosing their children to be their successor?"

"Aah, but you forget the majority rule. Even for choosing successors, you need to get at least two other Councilmen to agree with your choice."

"Hmmm."

The system was much better than the pseudo dictatorship ran by a mad tyrant in Odania, and the effects of that were immediately visible in Drighor. The city streets were clean, there were regular soldiers patrolling the city casually, there were no whorehouses in the open, and all in all it seemed a much better place to live in.

Which is why Zack had been elated at first when Pende had said that they would be spending the night in the city. He wanted to sleep in a real bed so bad.

"We have an ally in Drighor, I need some information from him." Pende had said.

"What information?"

"The location of the second key, for example. We know it’s in the Capital, but we don’t know where exactly."

"And this ally of yours will know how?"

Pende smiled. "Because he’s a Councilman, and before coming to Drighor, he had been in the Capital for many years."

With that Pende had left. And now it was three days, and he showed so sign of returning. Zack got unwanted flashbacks to Odania, when Pende had gone off to scout Fermi Ja’s palace while he stayed with Ginat, the informant of the Crown. He shivered thinking of that night Ginat had died. It felt so long ago.

Thankfully this time, Zack had been careful. He had politely nodded towards a few guests at the Inn he was staying, but he never talked to any of them. He was sure that the Emperor Knight Vermillion had figured out by now that he and Pende were the ones who killed Fermi Ja, and soon enough there was bound to be wanted posters with their faces on them.

Zack looked out towards the gentle waves of the ocean once more. There was almost a hypnotic quality in the rhythmic movement of the waves, and Zack almost dozed off to sleep when he heard approaching footsteps behind him.

He turned around warily, half expecting the Emperor Knight Vermillion walking towards him. Instead he saw a familiar face.

"Pende! What the fuck took you so long?"

Pende raised an eyebrow as he casually strolled over. It was then that Zack saw that he was not alone. Beside him, was a bald man in a blue cloak. He had a stern expression on his face, and one look at his eyes told Zack that he was blind. Yet he didn’t seem to be carrying any form of walking stick to help with traversal. And when Zack spoke, the cloudy eyes immediately turned and seemed to focus on him, despite not actually seeing anything.

"You must be the ’old man’ Zack that Pende was talking about."

"Y-yes I am." Zack stammered out, trying to stop himself from openly staring at the blind man.

"Very well. I am Fenwick, the Council of the North Tower." The man said, bowing a little.

For a moment no one said anything. It was Pende who finally broke the silence.

"Well that was a great introduction. Shall we move on to the business we discussed?" He shot a meaningful glance at Fenwick. Zack didn’t know how useful that would be, considering he was blind.

Fenwick however seemed to have picked up Pende’s intention from the inflection in his voice for he nodded and then said, "Follow me." He then turned and started walking briskly in front of him.

.XX.

Fenwick led them straight to his office, the Council Tower North. It was approximately five hundred metres from the center of the current city of Drigor, being the one closest to this spot.

Up close the Tower looked even more majestic. Zack openly admired the curving intricacies carved onto the surface, the engineering marvel of the massive double doors at the entrance, and the height of the Tower which made it seem like it was stretching past the sky.

Once they were inside, Drighor led them almost surreptitiously to his own cubicle, which seemingly was on the ground floor. He then closed the door and beckoned for them to sit on the chairs, as he himself went behind the desk at the center of the room.

"This is your office here?" Zack asked disappointed. He had expected a much bigger and luxurious office.

"I have a room on every floor. This is to help me work with the specific departments working on that floor directly." Fenwick answered off-handedly, as Pende and Zack sat down in the chair in front of him.

Once they were seated, Fenwick began, "So as Pende has told me, you two are looking for the second key to the hidden library?"

"Yes." Pende said with a smile, and the mood around Fenwick’s face darkened.

"I swore never to work with that bastard Miden again, you know." He said, his voice laced with venom. Zack looked at Pende, expecting a retort.

Nothing happened.

Pende was just staring expressionlessly at the blind man. In fact he seemed almost sad.

"I understand your loss, Fenwick, but...."

"You?! You understand?! How could you understand? Have you lost a child, Mr. Chianti Hunter? Have you, Old Man Zack?" Fenwick’s sudden outburst caught Zack by surprise, who looked questioningly at Pende.

Pende looked at Zack, sighed as if he was debating whether to tell this to him or not and then finally said,

"Fenwick here is Exi’s father."