The Seal of Karga Kul_ A Dungeons & Dragons Novel - Alex Irvine [14]
Even so, Biri-Daar’s idea that the gods had brought him together with her party gave Remy pause. He had been on the brink of death, and now he lived, thanks to a dragonborn paladin of Bahamut and the healing magic of the Erathian Keverel. Something greater than Remy was at work here … and he feared that Biri-Daar’s dark assessment of his mission was correct. Why had the demon’s eye been keyed to look for him? What was it he carried?
Remy was brave but not a fool. He did not want to die as a pawn in another man’s game.
He looked around. Every race that made a home in the Dragondown was here, selling everything that could be grown, made, or built—by hands or magic.
“Have an apple,” Iriani said, tossing him one. Remy caught it and bit into it.
It was beginning to seem as if they were commanding him to come along, and that feeling made Remy resist even though he was starting to think accompanying them to Karga Kul was the best way forward. He didn’t want to be forced into it, though. “I’ll stay with you,” he said, meaning until I figure out what’s going on. “If you can lend me the money for a horse.”
“No lending necessary,” said Biri-Daar. She was eating what looked like an entire pig’s leg and had a new pair of katars thrust in her belt. “We’ll sell these things off,” she added, jingling the pouch containing the dead gnolls’ trinkets, “and you can buy a horse with your share.”
First they found a jeweler who would take the ring, armband, and earring. It was simply done, and when Kithri’s bartering skills faltered, the presence of Biri-Daar ensured a fair bargain. Then they wound their way deeper into the market, toward the shadowed older districts where layers of buildings were built upon each other, leaning in to block out the sun as the streets narrowed to alleys that approached the market keep from furtive angles. It was where magic was dealt and the spiretop drakes were as likely to be carrying messages as stealing coins from the counters of market stalls.
Iriani had done business with a broker of potions and talismans there before. They found him smoking a pipe outside his shop, frowning up as if the shadows of the buildings’ upper stories over his head contained some bit of occult wisdom just beyond his understanding. “Roji,” Iriani greeted him.
He turned to notice Iriani and winked. “What have you found in your peregrinations across this fine land of ours, my elf friend?”
On the way there, Biri-Daar had handed off the jawbone and demon’s eye to Iriani. She stood close as the half-elf suggested they go inside and chat. “Not every bit of business needs to take place where everyone can see.”
“Fine,” Roji said. He knocked his pipe out and pulled back the curtain across his doorway. “But most of you have to stay outside. None of us will be able to breathe if you all come in. The dragonborn is too big, the halfling will steal everything she can see. I don’t like holy men. So the ranger and the boy can come in.”
Iriani grinned. “It’s settled, then. Remy? Lucan? After you.”
The three of them followed Roji into his shop. They sat on cushions around a low table. “What do you have?” Roji asked. “And why so worried about who might see? This is Crow Fork. Nothing will happen to you here.”
“Something might happen to us as soon as we leave,” Iriani said. “We would prefer to be sure.”
“Sure,” Roji chuckled. “What is sure? Let me see what you’ve brought.”
He looked over the jawbone, tapping on each of the teeth. “Interesting,