The Seal of Karga Kul: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel (19 page)

The box that had caused all the trouble was a foot long, give or take, and perhaps three inches wide and two deep. Its clasp was pewter and the seam between its lid and the box was invisible—unless magical attention was directed at it. The seam had glowed right along with the sigils on its lid when Iriani had first investigated the box. Remy wondered again what would happen if he opened it. It had been some time since anyone or anything had tried to take it from him.

What did Philomen want? Was Biri-Daar right that the vizier was untrustworthy, that he had sent Remy out into the wastes to die? Biri-Daar’s theory was that Philomen needed the object Remy carried to disappear because other forces
in Avankil wanted it. Or that Remy was never intended to survive the trip to Toradan, and that after his death some agent of the vizier’s would have found his body and recovered the box.

No one in the group seemed to have any patience for the idea that Remy had been intended to deliver the box to Toradan.

“Who were you supposed to speak to there?” Biri-Daar asked on their fourth day. The Crow Road switchbacked down a steep slope for as far as they could see in front of them before disappearing into what looked like a lowland jungle. They weren’t in the lowlands yet, but before they got to the Whitefall there would be a good deal of marsh to traverse. Biri-Daar remembered that much of her previous passage along the road.

“I was given a place,” Remy said. “The vizier told me that when I arrived at Toradan, I should find the Monastery of the Cliff and speak to the abbot. But he never told me the abbot’s name.”

“The Monastery of the Cliff,” Biri-Daar echoed. “What would those monks want with a package from the vizier of Avankil?” She clucked her tongue, something that Remy had learned meant she was mulling a problem with no obvious solution. “You were sent out into the desert to die, Remy,” she said shortly. “That is clear to you now, isn’t it?”

“I know it’s clear to you,” Remy said. “That’s why I came along. But I still don’t understand … I don’t know anything. What does any of this Karga Kul business have to do with me?”

“The Abyss pursues you. And demons threaten Karga Kul,” Biri-Daar said quietly. “Do you want to stake your life on that being a coincidence? I would sooner cut my own throat than deliver an unknown, magically guarded item to the monks on the cliff.”

“Why?”

“It has been long years since those monks kept their holy orders,” Biri-Daar said.

They rode in silence for some time after that. Eventually Remy worked up his nerve and said, “Biri-Daar. This is a personal quest for you.”

The dragonborn nodded.

“Almost an obsession.”

Biri-Daar made no response.

“Perhaps your obsession is making it seem like my errand has something to do with your quest,” Remy said. “I don’t see it.”

“Would you like to turn around and go home now, Remy?” Biri-Daar asked.

Yes
, Remy wanted to say.
I would like to turn around and go home and forget that any of this ever happened.…

Except that wasn’t true. All his life he had dreamed of adventure. He had looked at the ships docked in Quayside and imagined going all the places they had gone … all the places his father had gone. Remy had insatiably devoured every tale of heroism and magic, of questing and exploration, that he could find. He had learned to read solely so he could follow the stories told in the one book his mother had—her great-uncle’s memoirs about
his time at sea in the waters far beyond the Dragondown Coast, waters beset with floating ice or great mats of living vines that grew up from the depths to ensnare and destroy unwary mariners …

He had memorized the names of every city and town on the coast and determined to visit each and every one, swearing to himself that he would make his name in the world and leave behind stories that other men would write.

“No,” he said to Biri-Daar. “I don’t want to go home.”

“Wise,” said the paladin.

“We both know I can’t go home anyway. It’s not wise to accept that which cannot be changed.”

“Perhaps not,” Biri-Daar said. “But it is certainly unwise not to. You are good company, Remy. And you have the makings of a fine warrior, it seems to me. But you are with us because … I must be honest here. You are with us because I trust nothing that has any taint of the vizier,” Biri-Daar said. “And that includes you.”

The Crow Road wound like a snake through swamp and jungle after descending along the flanks of the last northeastern range of the Draco Serrata. The earth itself turned first to mud and then seemingly to a slippery tangle of root and rotten leaf, as if they walked on a pad of floating plant matter under which there was nothing but dark water all the way to the center of the earth. That was what it felt like when the skies lowered, and through the midday semidarkness they tried to keep to the road, feeling its algae-slicked stones
under their feet until inevitably they stepped off and began to slide into the depthless muck. Biri-Daar nearly roped them all together, but at the last minute thought better of it; the threat was a little too real that they might all be reeled downward like a stringer of fish.

“Hey, Lucan, what do the crows have to say?” Kithri asked on their second day out of the mountains. The entire world was the drip, drip of water in the overhanging trees and the softly terrifying sounds of creatures unseen moving in the shadows.

“These are the Raven Queen’s watchers here,” Lucan said, looking up into the tangled canopy. Remy couldn’t even see the birds he was seeing, and even if he could have seen them, he wasn’t entirely sure about the differences between crows and ravens. “They are less willing to speak to me. The Queen, they think, is unhappy with our errand.”

“Why would that old bitch care about what we do?” Paelias spat off the road into still black water. “She’ll get her share of dead whether we ever see Karga Kul or not.”

“The Raven Queen has never concerned herself with getting enough,” Biri-Daar said. “For her, the only enough is everything. Every life we save is an affront to her.”

“Then let’s make sure we do enough killing to keep her happy before we start saving all those lives,” Kithri said, so brightly her voice was almost a chirp.

“The ravens say one thing,” Lucan added. “Ahead, the dead things buried under the road are not always dead.” He paused, listening. “And the live things are in commerce with the dead.”

Keverel, in a humorless mood, made a warding gesture. “Must the crows speak in riddles?”

The ravens cawed back and forth to each other.
“Ravens
speak the way ravens speak,” Lucan said with a shrug. “You don’t have to listen. They also said that in another mile or so, we were going to have to learn to swim. Then they laughed.”

In another mile or so, the Crow Road subsided below still black water. It was still visible, as a ribbon of open water winding between impenetrable walls of jungle swamp on either side, but as far ahead as they could see it did not re-emerge from the water. The horses stopped at the water and would not go forward no matter how hard they were spurred or dragged. They dug in their hooves, eyes wild and rolling, until the party gave up and stood apart from their mounts at the water’s edge.

“So the crows tell jokes as well as riddles,” Keverel said.

“Ravens,” Lucan corrected him again. “But the same is true of crows.”

They stood watching each other and looking out over the water for a long moment. “Does anyone know how to charm a horse?” Paelias asked. No one laughed.

“The horses know better,” Lucan said. “Too bad we don’t.”

“The only way is forward,” Biri-Daar said. “If the horses will not go, we will go without them. Salvage as much of your gear as you can.”

They loaded themselves with what they could carry, then drew lots to see who would go out into the water first. Paelias won, or lost. “Cleric,” he said. “Bless me.”

Keverel did, calling the power of Erathis to protect the eladrin. “Now we will find out what power Erathis has,” Paelias said, and he took a step into the water. It was ankle deep. He took another. “I can still feel the road,” he said. He stepped farther out. After ten paces he was knee-deep. After ten paces more, still knee-deep.

“All right,” Biri-Daar said. “Anything that can’t get wet, stow it high. We walk until we have to swim, and then we’ll see what happens.”

“Easy for you to say,” Kithri said. But she stepped into the water right after Paelias, and swallowed her pride when she needed to be lifted onto Biri-Daar’s shoulders as the water grew slowly but inexorably deeper.

They slogged through for the rest of the day, usually in knee- to thigh-deep water but every so often holding swords and packs over their heads as they negotiated stretches where the water deepened to their necks. Once they had to swim for a stretch. All of them expected at any moment to be snatched under the water by something formless and horrible. Keverel, Biri-Daar, and Paelias kept up a steady stream of whispered and gestured charms, to disclose the presence of malevolent creatures and to ward them away when and if their presence was discovered. It was only a matter of time. They knew it was only a matter of time.

In late afternoon shadows, the water held at thigh level. “Biri-Daar,” Keverel said. “We can’t do this all night. We’re going to need to camp. It’ll be dark soon and I don’t relish
trying to build a treehouse in the dark with the local wildlife coming out to greet us.”

Biri-Daar stopped. “Agreed,” she said after a look around. “Lucan. What’s your feeling about the trees around here?”

“Most of them are dead. There are a few blackroots farther back off the road,” Lucan said. “If we keep fires burning, I don’t think they’ll come too close, but none of these trees are going to like fire very much. That means they don’t like you very much, Biri-Daar. But if one of them is going to let us stay, it will be one of these old willows. They soak up so much water that you can’t hardly burn them if you drop them into a volcano.” With a wink, he added, “And they’re just a bit more friendly than most of the trees you’ll find back here.”

“Do they talk?” Remy asked.

“Not exactly,” Lucan said. “But I can tell what they feel. Some of them remember this marsh before the Crow Road was built. They don’t like what it has become. One of those will let us hammock for the night.”

“Well, which one? Let’s find it,” Kithri said. Her usually invulnerable good cheer had been much tested by the amount of carrying and assistance she’d needed during the day. Pride was a difficult thing.

Lucan pointed ahead of them and to the left. “See the willow there? It’s willing.”

They sloshed toward it, keeping on the road until the last minute, when they had to leave the relatively stable footing of the stones for the treacherous swamp bottom. It was twenty yards perhaps to the long-hanging branches
of the willow. As they made their way forward, the water started to boil around them, and Remy knew that the feeling he’d had all day—the feeling of being observed, awaited, hunted—had been justified.

They came out of the water all at once, yuan-ti malisons in a double circle around them, eyes gleaming black. “I should have known we wouldn’t get through a place like this without finding them,” Keverel said grimly. “Wherever there is poisoned water and dark magic, there will be yuan-ti.”

They started moving closer together, deciding whether to move for the safety of the tree or open space of the sunken roadbed. “Something in the trees, there,” Lucan said.

Keverel glanced over where Lucan had pointed. “Abomination,” he said. They could see its coils draped over a low branch of a live oak. Its only humanoid features were four arms and a head that had aspects of both man and snake.

Before he got his shield up, a spear hit Remy square in the pit of the stomach. Without his mail coat it would have punched straight through his vitals and he would have died before he could count to fifty. With his mail coat, the impact still punched the wind from Remy’s lungs and the strength from his legs. He went down, gasping in water and choking it back out. Hands caught one arm and in his hair, hauling him back to his feet. “Stay up!” Keverel shouted in his ear. Remy clutched at the cleric, gathering his balance. Another spear rang off Keverel’s shield.