The smallest population centre in Pontaine, Gargas was a market town that sat alone amidst the eastern plains' northern farmlands. Merrit had chosen it as his home because, unlike Andon or Miramas or Volonne, it enjoyed a tolerably low level of interference from Pontaine's governing bodies and, latterly, from what he considered to be the scourge that was the Final Faith. For a large portion of the year its wide cobbled streets were empty, its inhabitants dots in a desolate community, but twice a year, when the harvests came in, it was transformed into a bustling centre of trade and commerce as farmers and merchants distributed their produce from all over Pontaine and beyond. Then, the city's population more than tripled in size, its streets thronged not only with legitimate salesmen but wheelers and dealers of every kind, the shops that lined them enjoying a week or so of frenetic prosperity that sustained them throughout the rest of the year.
It happened to be market time now, and as Horse trotted in through Gargas's southern gate Kali was almost overwhelmed by the riot of colour, noise and smell that greeted her. Garlanded and festooned stalls crowded every open space, their equally colourful owners selling cloths and spices, ales and trinkets, meats and fruits, and everything in between. Kali dismounted Horse and led him by his reins through the bustling throng, dodging hawkers who regaled her with tales of products that would change her life and worgles that rolled hopefully along the ground in search of scraps, and avoiding by as much of a margin she could the foul breath of traders' mools, the black and white patched ruminants they used to ferry their goods. More than once she had to swerve swiftly off course, hurrying along as Horse nosebagged a sausage or a pie from its seller's stall, the baskets they sat in and all. With all this going on, it took her a good half-hour to wind her way through to her destination but there, at last, it was.
Merrit Moon's shop was hidden away down a side alley behind a flummox still run by brother and sister Hannah and Arthur Greenwood, and Kali winked to them as she passed. But though hidden, Wonders of the World was no less patronised for it — in fact, it was one of the most popular destinations for the punters filling Gargas's streets. The old man had certainly tapped a vein when he'd decided to market souvenirs of Twilight's more inaccessible areas, and it had become quite the thing in the cities to own a rock from the foothills of the Drakengrat Mountains or a walking stick carved from wood chopped on the edge of the Sardenne. It was all junk, of course, but it was profitable junk and it was genuine and it allowed Merrit to rid himself of some of the more useless items he had accumulated over the years. Not that he didn't still collect — in fact he paid good bonuses to the would-be adventurers he employed to gather his sticks and stones if they ever returned with something more interesting.
Few, of course, provided him with the kinds of finds she did. Spotting her as soon as the bell jangled above the door, Merrit tried to conceal his pleasure at seeing her by merely raising a finger to acknowledge her presence. Kali smiled — it was rare these days that her visits were for purely social reasons, and she could see the eagerness in his eyes to discover what she'd brought him this time. His interest in selling a throbsnake's shedded skin to some Vossian noble waned instantly, offering the man the supposed aphrodisiac at a significant discount just to get him out of the door. The rest, timewasters by the look of them, he shooed away with a Drakengrat death-rattle, flicking the sign on the door to 'closed' as soon as they had gone.
"Hello, old man," Kali said. She moved to embrace him but Merrit, as always, scuttled away, pretending some nonexistent business. Again, Kali smiled. She'd get him one day.
"You have the smell of the deep Sardenne about you," Moon said brusquely, sniffing the air in the room with distaste. "Have you been taking my faithful old friend somewhere less than healthy, young lady?"
My faithful old friend, Kali thought. The old man was referring to Horse. Sometimes she wondered whether Moon cared more about Horse than he did her — knowing that, if not, it would be one hells of a close-run thing. For the fact was, when he had stopped adventuring, she had stepped not only into Moon's metaphorical shoes but into his metaphorical stirrups as well, Horse having been his companion before hers, and for a good deal longer. They had been through a lot together, those two, but, when it had come time for Merrit's retirement, it was clear Horse would not be happy wandering in circles in some field all day, and had actually twice run away, lurking on the edge of town staring dolefully into the distance, where such adventures — and perhaps some exotic variant of bacon stew — lay. So Moon had offered him to her. She'd had her reservations at first, because Horse had seen a lot of miles in his time. But then in a sudden moment of insight it had occurred to her that time was precisely the point. All of the places she wished to go had already waited so many hundreds of years, so what difference would an extra couple of days — okay, in some cases a week — in getting there on a slower steed actually make? And, as it turned out, it even gave her time to prepare, to think. It was an arrangement that kept everyone happy.
Speaking of which, Moon was circling her, prodding and sniffing at the key she had bundled up on her back, eager to unwrap her latest find. Kali nodded to a trapdoor in the floor of the shop, indicating that what she had might be a little too important to reveal here. Even more intrigued now, Moon rubbed his hands together and lifted the trap.
A ladder led down to a cellar and Merrit and Kali descended, the old man waving his hand over light cylinders to illuminate the subterranean room where he kept his — and her — more unusual finds.
Kali stripped off her backpack and waited as eagerly as he had above as Moon unwrapped the key from the oiled cloth in which she'd wrapped it. She had lost count of the number of times she had brought artefacts here for him to examine, and had witnessed a gamut of reaction, ranging from vague disappointment to child-like excitement to awed reverence. But the way he reacted now she had not seen before, and it made her feel momentarily cold inside. The old man's face had darkened.
"Gods of the Great Pits," Merrit Moon said, slowly. His voice was filled with dread and he actually backed away from the key slightly, staring at it from the greater distance as if he could not believe what lay before him. When he spoke again, which was not for a few moments, his voice came out almost as a whisper. "Kali, where did you find this?"
Kali hesitated. Merrit? she wondered. What the hells is the matter? Is there a problem here?
"Tell me!" he barked, suddenly and totally uncharacteristically.
"All right, old man!" Kali shouted. She was surprised to feel her heart thudding. She had never seen him, never heard him like this. "In the Sardenne. A subterranean site called the Spiral of Kos."
"How old?"
"What?"
"This Spiral of Kos, girl — how old was it?"
Kali frowned, wondering where this was leading. "I don't know exactly, but from the architecture possibly Mid Age. The vegetation inside was of unknown genus, but I doubt that it was indigenous. I think it may even have been cultured. Oh, and by the way, it ate people."
"Yes, yes, yes," Moon hissed, impatiently. He was nodding vigorously, as if the information he had asked for was causing him pain and he was trying to shake it out of his head. "Oh, gods of the Great Pits," he said again.
"Merrit, what is it? What's wrong?"
The old man stared her in the eyes and said: "Kali, this… artefact has to be returned where it came from — right away — right now!"