Chapter 623: Hauke’s Puzzle (Part One)
"Come up, come up and try your luck! Three tries to a tail, bloodstone bracelets and charm necklaces for your lady or your man!"
"Test your mind and your body, solve the puzzle to free the scarf and keep your prize, just a tail to try!"
"Hunters, archers, warriors bold, take up this bow and..."
The northern fields between the fortress walls had become a sprawling, boisterous, and chaotic free-for-all where shopkeepers pitched tents and set up stalls to present all manner of games for prizes large and small. Children raced from booth to booth, some dragging parents with them while others carefully counted the handful of coins in their purses with conflicted expressions as they tried to decide which game they should play next.
Kneeling on the ground at one such booth, Hauke did his best to drown out the noise of the crowd as he put all of his attention on the bits of twisted metal arranged on the table in front of him.
Blacksmith’s puzzles like this one were uncommon in the High Pass but the challenge presented by this shopkeeper looked deceptively simple. Take three twisted iron rods and arrange them in a manner that they could support themselves without falling over. Anyone who could do so would win a small silk purse in a bright color of their choice.
Hauke had initially intended to win a crimson or gold colored purse for Sir Ignatious, feeling like it would compliment the former Inquisitor’s wardrobe and that a new purse would represent a new opportunity to fill it with treasures as he began a new life after returning from exile.
What Hauke hadn’t expected, however, was that after solving the first puzzle, the shopkeeper immediately presented a second one, this time with four twisted iron rods, and the chance to select a better purse with a fine brass clasp as long as Hauke was willing to pay another silver tail for the right to keep playing. And if he kept winning, there were even greater prizes to be won. Of course, if he failed, then he lost anything he might have won before, and he would have to start over from the beginning if he still wanted the best prize.
Now, frost covered his horn as he focused all of his attention on the seven twisted rods as he struggled to recall everything he had learned from Eraric about stable structures and mutual reinforcement. The Frost Walker Architect might have been the person who forged the chains that made Hauke a prisoner in his own mind, but he was also one of the greatest architects of his era and perhaps the greatest in the history of the Frost Walker clan, and the lessons he’d given Hauke over the summer were still priceless treasures to the young lord.