The Seal of Karga Kul: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel (11 page)

Biri-Daar took a drink of water, then said, “I apologize, then. But were things to happen the same way again, I don’t believe I would do anything differently.”

The two of them looked at each other. Some of the tension drained from the moment. Remy realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled, slowly, not wanting to call attention to how nervous he had been.

“Didn’t someone buy … Lucan. It was you, wasn’t it, who bought the spirits back at the market? Share them
around,” Kithri said. “It’s going to be a hard enough trip up the Crow Road without the two of you killing each other the whole way.” She made an insistent beckoning motion. “Come on. Don’t stand around waving your sword when you’re not going to use it. Kill something tomorrow. Tonight, let’s have a drink.”

She kept talking, and eventually Lucan pulled the bottle out of his saddlebag. It went around the fire and the mood lightened as the sky darkened. “Who won, anyway?” Remy said in the middle of a conversation about the kinds of fish that could be caught in the estuary of Karga Kul.

“Who won what?” Iriani asked.

“The battle. The Solstice War.”

“Arkhosia, I think,” Iriani said. But right away Biri-Daar contradicted him.

“At the time, it looked that way,” she said quietly. “But it is not always clear who has won a battle when the crows are still picking the bones of the dead.”

Kithri started singing a vulgar song about a tiefling whorehouse, just to change the mood. Everyone laughed except Biri-Daar. By the time the moon was directly overhead and they knew they had to sleep, Lucan’s mood had swung all the way around. “I’ll watch first,” he offered. Nobody argued.

In the morning Remy woke first, to find Lucan still sitting exactly as he had been when Remy fell asleep. “You took two watches?” he asked.

“One long one,” Lucan said with a slight shake of his head. “The peace does my mind good. And elves don’t need sleep the way you do.”

Remy stretched and poked at the coals of the fire. “Then you can take all of the watches,” he said.

“I didn’t say we didn’t need rest,” Lucan said. “Just that we don’t sleep the way humans do.”

“How do you rest, then?”

“You might call it a kind of meditation,” Lucan said. “To those who don’t do it, it’s difficult to explain.” Fog sat in the valleys between their campsite and the rise into the next range. Remy could just see the road on the other side, winding its way up and to the north. They had been traveling west and northwest for the last day or so.

“How long before we get to the bridge?” he asked.

Lucan shrugged. “I’ve never seen it. Only heard stories. And the only times I’ve been to Karga Kul, I’ve taken ship from Furia.”

“Furia,” Remy repeated. It was the fifth of the grandiosely named Five Cities of the Gulf, the southern bookend to Saak-Opole in the north with Karga Kul, Avankil, and Toradan in the Gulf’s interior. Of them, only Avankil and Karga Kul were real cities; the others might once have been greater, but had become only glorified towns. Still, Remy was smitten with the idea of it. One day, he resolved, I will go to Furia. I will see all five, and those beyond the Gulf.

“I can see what you’re thinking,” Lucan said. “The world’s a marvelous place, for certain. On the other hand, the world can also make you very dead very fast in a very
large number of different ways. So keep the stars out of your eyes, boy. Learn.”

Remy nodded as he flipped twigs into the fire. He blew on them until they flared and caught. “I have learned,” he said. “Already.”

Lucan cracked a smile, a rarity for him as far as Remy could tell. “I think you have. There’s always more, though. Don’t forget that. You’ve got a good spark in you,” he added, standing up and stretching. “You might go a long way if you live through this first trip.” The elf cracked his knuckles and went to see to the horses. Often, Remy had observed, he did this before the others awoke. The storied elf affinity for animals and the natural world was strong in Lucan; Remy was starting to think that it made him unfit for the company of the speaking races.

“What’s Furia like?” he asked.

“I think it’s my favorite of the Five,” Lucan said. “Although I hate cities, or any settlements, really. So that’s something like asking me what my favorite aspect of Orcus is.”

The name of the demonic prince took some of the gleam out of the morning. “Odd comparison,” Remy said.

Lucan grinned again as he looked at one of the horses’ teeth. “They told you never to use his name, am I right? That he might hear and be angry that you weren’t being reverent enough? I’ve heard that as well. The truth is, Remy, Orcus doesn’t care what anyone says about him. His human minions might, or might pretend to so Orcus will take notice of them and transform them into one of his hierophants.
But if someone told you that Orcus would come and eat you because of something you said, they were just trying to scare you. Who was it, your mother?”

“It’s been a long time since I saw my mother,” Remy said.

“Me too,” Lucan said. His smile faded. “So who was it?”

“Philomen,” Remy said.

“The vizier?”

“Once I was taking a sealed scroll from his chambers to a ship waiting to sail for … I think it was Karga Kul,” Remy recalled. “He told me to run as fast as I could, to stop for nothing. I said that the only thing that would make me run faster was if Orcus was chasing me. He said …

“You don’t want to joke about that. That Orcus isn’t a fit topic for humorous conversation. He said he’s far too real, and far too … I don’t know.”

“Sounds sensible to me,” Lucan said. “But only if you believe that certain topics cannot be joked about. I don’t believe that. Want a bit of advice? You shouldn’t either. Laughter is one of the few things we have that will always be strong against the darkness. You’re going to die, right?”

Remy didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure it was a question that required an answer. Instead of answering, he added larger sticks to the fire. It was nearly the last of the firewood they had brought from Crow Fork Market; fortunately they wouldn’t have much trouble finding it in the country ahead. Remy could see pine forests growing up the flanks of the mountains. He could smell them as well, as the rising sun burned off the fog and brought out the scents of the foothills.

“Right?” Lucan prompted.

“Right.”

“Right. And if you’re going to die, and you know you can’t prevent it, you might as well laugh at it.”

“How old are you, Lucan?” Remy asked. He heard stirring. The others were awakening, kicking at their blankets and hearing the sound of the fire as it licked up around the fresh fuel.

Lucan shrugged, moving on to the next horse. It was Remy’s, and he paid close attention to what Lucan did. Here was something else he could learn, since he didn’t figure Lucan would be around forever to do it for him. Teeth, ears, eyes, hooves … Remy watched.

“I’m not sure,” Lucan said. “I celebrate my birthday on the spring solstice.”

“Do you have some idea?”

“Seventy, eighty. No matter. I’ve got some years yet to live.”

“Famous last words,” Kithri interjected. She scuffed a spot in the coals for a comically battered metal teapot. Setting it in the ashes, she scooped dried herbs into a spoon of metal mesh and set it on the rim of the mug she was never without. She had brought a loaf of bread to the fire too, setting it on a rock to warm.

“Possibly, Kithri,” Lucan said. “Good morning to you. How old are you, since we’re interested in each other’s natal moments?”

“Forty-four,” she said. “Remy?”

“Nineteen,” he said.

“I can tell you right now you’re by far the youngest of us,” Keverel said. “I have thirty-six years and can guarantee that both Iriani and Biri-Daar are older.”

“And what that means,” Iriani said as he broke off a piece of bread, “is that you should go get water.”

Remy did, a bit annoyed but also satisfied that he was being taken into the group. He was past being grateful but not past appreciating the way Biri-Daar and the rest had brought him along and made him a part of their group.

Part of that, of course, probably had to do with the mysterious enchanted box that swung against his hip as he walked. If they had just wanted to take it, they could have killed Remy easily enough. He was no longer worried about that. He was, however, still conscious that however much they might gesture toward making him a part of the group, they were still more or less forcing him to come along. Now that he had a horse, he could have turned around and headed for Toradan, but …

He looked around, remembering. Scorpions, kobolds, the cacklefiend … they were after him, no doubt about it, which meant they were after what he had. He drew the water, filling everyone’s skins at a freshet that ran down into a narrow gully and disappeared into the valley. Returning with them strung together across his shoulders, he put a question together in his mind and asked it of the first person he saw. “Keverel,” he said. “Should I just open the box?”

The cleric was just standing up after his morning prayers. “What?”

“The box I’m carrying. Why not just open it? If it’s going to draw pursuit either way, wouldn’t we be better off knowing what’s in it?” Remy took it out and tapped the latch with a fingernail. The characters carved in its lid glowed dimly and a buzzing sounded in Remy’s ears.

With both hands held out in front of him, Keverel said, “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Remy felt the latch under his thumbnail. Two of his other fingers pressed against waxen seals worked into the seam under the box’s lid.

“Remy, none of us know what will happen if you do that. You might well not survive it. Do you think Philomen put those seals on it so they would tickle you if you opened it?”

“You’ll die, boy,” another voice said, just off to Remy’s right.

Reflexively he looked in that direction; as he did, Keverel stepped forward and ripped the box from his hands. Remy reached after it and Biri-Daar, who had appeared at his right to distract him, pinned his arms. She held him fast, and after an initial struggle Remy relaxed. “Are you going to stay settled if I let you go?” she asked.

He nodded. “I will.”

Biri-Daar released him. “Remy,” Keverel said. Remy noticed that the rest of the group was watching. “Either we should open this or you should give it to one of us for a while.”

“Open it, then,” he said, knowing they wouldn’t. “Open it.”

Keverel looked at the box, then around. “In favor?”

Only Kithri raised a hand.

Looking back at Remy, Keverel said, “Settled. We’re not going to open it. What we are going to do is deal with whatever appears to take it from you. Then, when we get to Karga Kul, we will seek the help of the Mage Trust in either opening the box, destroying it, or figuring out another course of action.” He looked at the rest. “Yes?”

A round of nods. Keverel looked back to Remy. “It is probable,” he went on, “that every time this box leaves your hands, that draws the vizier’s attention. It is also probable that whatever draws the vizier’s attention draws other attention as well.”

“What he’s saying in his excruciatingly diplomatic way,” Lucan interrupted, “is exactly what Roji told you back at Crow Fork Market. Every time you make one of us take the box away from you, you endanger all of our lives. By Melora, it is about time you understood that.” He stalked back toward the fire, then stopped halfway there. “We didn’t save your life for you to cost us ours!” he called.

Keverel walked up to Remy and held out the box. “I wouldn’t have put it that way,” the cleric said. “Now that it has been said, however, I do not repudiate what Lucan said. Our lives are not yours to toy with because you’re having second thoughts about accepting your package. Take it.”

Remy did.

“Now hold it. Do not open it. Do not complain about it. Show it to no one else until we arrive at Karga Kul. Understood?”

“I understand,” Remy said. “Sorry.”

“We want no apologies,” Biri-Daar said as she walked by him carrying the waterskins he’d dropped when she grabbed his arms. “We want—we need—to be able to rely on you.”

They broke camp and saddled up to ride without saying anything else. It was a quiet day after that, down into the valley and on along the road as it rose toward the next range of the Serrata … until they saw the first of the orcs.