"I don't understand."
"Returned immediately, Kali."
Kali could not hold his gaze. "Yes, well," she said, slowly. "That could prove to be a little difficult."
Merrit Moon paused. "Oh, gods, tell me you didn't — "
"I did."
"Gods!"
"Merrit, it wasn't my fault."
The old man flung his hands up in the air. "For Kerberos' sake, child, when will you learn to curb this… this destructive streak of yours. 'Thanks for the advice but I can look after myself'," he muttered.
Kali actually felt herself becoming annoyed with the old man. "I don't know, Merrit! Maybe when people or things stop trying to kill me." Her mind flashed back to the last time something like this had happened, and she felt a twinge of guilt remembering how in escaping the Temple of Rahoon she'd brought down its plinths like ninepins as she'd raced down the steps with the Rock of Ages rolling hot on her heels.
But at least Moon had liked that artefact.
The old man sighed. "Sorry. I'm sorry. Are you all right? What were you up against this time?"
"I'm fine. And it was Final Faith. But not normal God Squad. More like some special — "
"Final Faith?" Moon repeated, incredulous. He seemed more staggered by this revelation than by the appearance of the key itself. "It can't be," he said. "Tell me, Kali, did these people seem specifically interested in the key, or were they, do you think, there only by chance?"
Kali shrugged. "I can't really imagine any scenario where anyone would find themselves in the heart of the Sardenne Forest by chance. No, from what Munch said I'd say they were specifically interested in the key."
"Munch…" Moon said. He rewrapped the key in its shroud of oiled cloth and laid it carefully on the shelf behind him.
"This… thing needs to disappear, Kali. I need you to understand that. To be hidden again, this time once and for all. And its resting place needs to be far from prying eyes, scheming brains and grasping hands." Moon sighed again. "Which is why, the first thing in the morning, it and I will be heading for the World's Ridge Mountains."
Kali stared at him, speechless. It wasn't that he was taking the key from her, because in that decision she trusted him without question — it was just where he was talking about going.
"I'll be taking the southern road," Moon continued, aware of her reaction and expecting fireworks any time soon. "But even so I expect to be gone for some weeks."
"Then I'm coming with you."
Moon shook his head. "No, Kali. The fewer people who know the key's location, the safer the peninsula will be in the future. And you cannot get fewer than one."
"Are you saying you don't trust me? Tell me what the key is, Merrit!"
"No. And you know that I trust you. It is other forces out there that I do not. If the Final Faith are indeed aware of what this key is and knew that you were privy to its whereabouts, then their pursuit of your knowledge of its location would be… zealous indeed."
"But the World's Ridge Mountains — it's suicide, old man!"
Moon grabbed her suddenly by the shoulders. "I will be fine," he insisted, giving her a reassuring squeeze, "Fine."
Kali told Moon about her vision, then, but the old man had no idea where it had come from, or what it meant, and she pursued it no further. Their business done, Moon prepared a hot supper of pot-roasted rufoon, redbread and dripping, which Kali devoured eagerly, sending the food on its way with a bottle of black wine that the old man swore was part of a batch he had found in an Old Race cellar years before, and which he reckoned was a still-palatable and particularly fine vintage. It was his theory that its owners had been saving the bottles for some celebration that ultimately had never come. Kali made the right appreciative noises, but the fact was the old man had never been very good on the booze front, and the reason it had remained in the Old Race cellar was more likely that it wasn't fit to be served to the rufoon they were eating — or perhaps was even what had killed it. She forced it down, though, trying her best to turn her grimaces into smiles, as Moon questioned her about what she was going to do next.
"Ar dunnof, really," Kali shrugged, her mouth filled with redbread. She spat sizzling crumbs and waved the half-torn loaf in the air, forming little spirals that burned into her retina. "Back to the Flagons for a few dayf reft and then one of the loft canals, mayfee. Had a tip there'f an entranfe to be found somfwhere near Turnifia."
"An entrance to one of the lost canals near Turnitia?" Moon repeated, intrigued. He stroked his chin. "Yes… yes, that would make a lot of sense."
Kali dunked her redbread in the dripping and took another bite, nodding. "Mmmmf, I'fe fought so, toof."
As they finished, the noises from the street outside diminished to the last clatters of carts leaving the market, a few scattered farewells and goodnights, and then to the kind of solid silence that could only descend on a remote and rural town such as this. Moon, of course, had an early start, and so wanting to retire, offered her a bed for the night, but Kali declined, ready for some fresh air after the heat from his fire and preferring, anyway, to travel by night. It was a preference that worried Moon — the isolated and winding country lanes that were the only way out of there had, because of their isolation, a reputation of being dangerous enough by day, let alone night — but Kali held to the logic that anyone who willingly travelled in the darkness would be perceived by whichever grabcoins lay in wait as probably too dangerous to be approached in the first place. So it was that she gathered together her things and stepped out onto the cobbles, slinging and securing her saddlebags onto a snoring and slightly startled Horse as she readied him for the journey. She stared at Moon as he stood watching in the doorway, lit by the warm glow from inside, and then over his shoulder to the door to the shop, and the hatch to the hidden reliquary that lay beyond. An image of the key, wrapped in its protective shroud in readiness for its journey, flashed into her mind.
"Merrit," she said, "be careful, up there, please."
The old man smiled, reassuringly. "I am never anything else, young lady. Believe me, you do not get to my age in a world as surprising as ours without constantly being so." As Kali mounted Horse, Moon tossed his one-time steed a bacon lardon, and Horse bounced it off his nose into his mouth and munched down gratefully, eyeballs spinning. "Besides," the old man added, "it will not be the first time that the World's Ridge Mountains have welcomed these old bones into their cold embrace."
Kali raised her eyebrows and then nodded. She should have known.
"Another tale, Merrit?"
"For another time."
Kali smiled and squeezed her heels into Horse's flanks, then reined him in the direction of the road out of Gargas. "I'll be in touch, old man," she said, and urged Horse forwards. The old mount swung its head in the direction of Moon, whinnied a goodbye, and then began to clop slowly forwards.
"Safe journeys, Kali Hooper… and you, too, my faithful old friend," Merrit Moon said, smiling to himself. "Safe journeys."
The relic-monger watched Kali and Horse until they had fully crossed the market square and begun to descend the slope to the town gate, then turned inside to his parlour. The fire crackled, as welcoming as ever, but as he closed the solid wooden door behind him, the old man's smile faded. It was indeed not the first time that he had had cause to journey to the World's Ridge Mountains, but he did not regard the coming prospect quite as casually as he had led Kali to believe. The mountains were a wild and rugged place, as untamed as the Sardenne and as anywhere on the peninsula, and their dangers were not to be underestimated. To travel there alone, as Kali had reminded him, would be considered suicide by most.
Luckily, he was not most.