Vokoun’s boat beached with a crunch of sand against its keel and a last rush of water swirling around its bow. They looked across the river, where the main docks of the city bustled with larger ships in from the Gulf. Caravans of mules and camels carried cargoes up the switchbacking road that led to the city’s main gate, far above and out of sight. Other merchants, willing to pay the outrageous fees to avoid that road, loaded their wares straight into a cave. “From there,” Biri-Daar explained, “everything goes up, carried by tamed beasts. Those were once caves. Now they have been carved and worked into a dozen levels of basements and dungeons.”
“The Seal is in there?” Remy asked. “Seems too easy to get to.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen what’s inside,” Obek said.
“The militias of Karga Kul make very sure that nothing goes in through that cave except what has been bought, paid for, taxed, approved, licensed, and inspected,” Paelias said. “Or so I am told. A cousin of mine is a merchant of Feywild herbs. He rages entertainingly about the rules of this city and the Mage Trust.”
“And there are magical entrapments throughout,” Obek added. “Any invader will find the first caves coming down on his head the minute the Mage Trust snaps its fingers.”
What a spectacle it was, Remy thought. The Whitefall, running slow and nearly a mile wide, pouring into the waters of the Gulf to their right. To their left, the canyons that channeled it, all the way upstream beyond the landing and up into the high lakes country where Vokoun and his people came from. Across the river, the zigzag road on the face of the cliffs, rearing high above the water.
And above it all, the towers of Karga Kul.
BOOK VI
They came to the front gate via the switchbacking road, which they climbed on foot, sandwiched between a brace of donkeys and a long string of angry camels. It was late in the afternoon before they reached the top of the canyon.
Flanked by forbidding watchtowers, the main gate of Karga Kul stood open. At the foot of its walls sprouted a semipermanent shantytown of itinerant merchants, tinkers, actors, and supplicants to the Mage Trust or one of the city’s other authorities. “The unlucky ones who can’t gain entry,” Keverel said to Remy. “This is why Obek needed to come in with us.” As they approached, some of the shanty dwellers came toward them bearing promises of fabulous wealth, forbidden pleasures, occult knowledge… they focused on Biri-Daar, recognizing her as one of the Knights of Kul.
“Noble paladin! I have lost my letter from the Emperor of Saak-Opole and the Mage Trust will not see me unless I am sponsored!”
Biri-Daar reached out a gauntleted hand to fend off the shouting, gray-headed madman. “There is no emperor in Saak-Opole, is there?” she asked Obek.
He chuckled. “Not these last five hundred years.”
Closer to the gate, traffic was divided into commercial goods and individual entries. Biri-Daar held the blazon of the Knights of Kul high in the air and a functionary at the gate saw it. He waved them forward. “Number in your party.”
“Six.”
The functionary counted. “Number of the six who are citizens of Karga Kul.”
“Two.” Biri-Daar pointed at Keverel and then herself.
“Errand.”
“A report from Biri-Daar of the Knights of Kul to the Mage Trust.”
The functionary looked up at her. He was a stout and soft man, accustomed to a life of quill pens and couches. His sense of professional ethics, Remy could see, was nagging at him. Doubtless he was not supposed to let just anyone in to see the Mage Trust. But, he was likely reasoning, even if he did let them in and they went to the trust, there were further and more formidable barriers. That was the excuse he needed.
“Biri-Daar of the Knights of Kul, you and your friends are welcome here,” the functionary said without a hint of warmth. He wrote on a sheet of heavy paper and handed the paper to Biri-Daar. “As I’m sure you are aware, your entry paper must be with you at all times during your stay.”
“Thank you,” Biri-Daar said, matching the functionary’s tone. Then they were through the gate, the functionary already saying again behind them, “Number in your party…”
The first thing Remy noticed about Karga Kul was that it was clean. He had seen cleanliness before, in his mother’s house and in sections of street and square in Avankil. There, money bought cleanliness and the threat of violence kept it. Here, in Karga Kul, he watched tradesmen pack up their storefront tables at the end of the day and pick up every last scrap of leather or wrapping canvas, every gnawed chicken bone or apple core that the day’s business had deposited in front of them. He had never seen anything like it, and the question that he had eventually found its way to his mouth.
“Obek,” he said. “Who do they fear?”
All of them were waiting while Biri-Daar conversed with the secretaries of the Mage Trust. They sat at long benches on a covered patio at one corner of the trust’s offices, where the trustees spent their days hearing the complaints of the citizenry and their nights delving into the avenues of magical research-thaumaturgical, necromantic, wizardly, or elemental-that best pleased and piqued their natures.
Obek shrugged. “There are militias that enforce the will of the Mage Trust. One thing the Mage Trust wills is that Karga Kul be clean. I like it.”
“What happens if someone doesn’t clean up?”
“Try it and find out,” Obek said. He walked over to a merchant packing jerked meats back into rolls of canvas and bought a fistful of long strips. Handing one to Remy when he came back, Obek watched the conversation between Biri-Daar and the trust’s official. “Wonder if they’re talking about me,” he said.
“I would guess they’re a little more worried about the fate of the city and the seal,” Remy said.
Obek chuckled. “Think you? Perhaps. But I am known in this city, and there are those who despise me.”
“You mentioned that when we met.”
“Did I mention that I killed one of the trustees?” Obek countered. He watched Remy’s face with a toothy grin on his own. “I didn’t, did I? Well. We all have our secrets.” He bit into the jerky and chewed. “Fear not, Remy of Avankil,” he said around the bite. “The trustee in question deserved it. And so does his successor, although I fear Biri-Daar would disagree. A word of advice. Do not put the chisel in anyone’s hands. When the time comes to destroy it, make sure you do it yourself.” Obek bit off another mouthful of jerky. “I’ll be there to make sure you make sure. Not because I don’t trust you, mind; just because it’s the kind of thing that cannot be allowed to go wrong.”
“How did you just happen to find us?” Remy asked.
Obek nodded thoughtfully as he chewed. “Nothing just happens,” he said, and might have said more, but Biri-Daar was coming over to gather the group back together.
“The trust will meet with us,” she said. “But there is no guarantee that they will believe what we have to say.”
“Why not?” Remy asked. “They sent you, didn’t they?”
“They never expected us to succeed. And if I tell the truth, my story will make me look like a liar,” Biri-Daar said.
Lucan, Paelias, and Keverel were just coming over to rejoin the group from a brief trip through the last dying corners of the day’s market. “Liar?” Lucan said. “Has Remy been telling stories of Sigil again?”
“Much is at stake here,” Biri-Daar said. “If the Mage Trust is not on our side, we are going to have to fight all the way to the Seal, and fight to inscribe it anew. How much time do we have before the Road-builder returns?” She looked to Keverel with this last question.