He was shaking his head. “There is no way to know. Lich magic is unpredictable. He may not return for days; or he may return before I finish speaking. But we must destroy the quill as soon as we can.”
“Then let us get on with the conversation,” Biri-Daar said, and led them into the Palace of the Mage Trust.
The civilization that founded the city that became Karga Kul was known only by its obsessive repetition of the numbers six and seven, always together. In the Palace, that repetition took several forms. There were six floors and seven rooms on each. The stairs between each floor numbered thirteen. The Palace itself was hexagonal in shape, with seven windows on each side of the hexagon, and so on. Guards conveyed them down a hall paved with hexagonal stones. As they walked, Remy counted, and sure enough, the hall was seven stones wide.
He wasn’t sure what to think about Obek’s revelations. It was certain that the tiefling’s presence would be a problem for the trust-unless he had been truthful in his assertion that the trustee had deserved death, and the surviving trustees agreed with his perspective. Remy found this unlikely. Was it possible that Obek had already informed Biri-Daar of this? Remy couldn’t decide. It was the kind of secret that, once revealed, might endanger the success of their quest, and for that, Remy knew, Biri-Daar would not hesitate to kill. On the other hand, the Mage Trust of Karga Kul was notoriously capricious; it was possible that a little fear might make them a little more tractable.
Not for the first time, Remy was glad that he did not share the responsibilities of leadership. He was free to act but no other lives depended on his choices.
Obek, walking in front of him, looked over his shoulder at Remy. It was strange to see a tiefling wink in a conspiratorial way, as if in getting to know Obek, Remy had somehow become tinged with the infernal himself. It made him nervous-but Obek had fought bravely since forcing his way into the group in the sewers of the Inverted Keep. Remy found that he trusted the tiefling, and could find no reason not to.
He winked back and they went on through the jumble of sixes and sevens until they came to the double hexagonal doors of the Council Chamber of the Mage Trust.
The council chamber was built in the shape of a six-pointed star, each arm of which was a small gallery of long-dead members of the trust. Around a seven-sided table in the center of the chamber were six chairs, and in those six chairs were the members of the trust. A seventh chair sat empty. The guards conducted the adventurers into the chamber and remained near the door.
Remy looked from member to member of the trust, seeing age and wisdom and fear… except on one face, a woman no older than his mother. Either she was a prodigy, or something had recently changed in the trust. It was impossible to think that someone so young had grown powerful enough in magical ability to warrant election to such a position. “This is Shikiloa,” another trustee said, introducing her and then the rest of the trustees in turn, herself last. Her name was Uliana. Remy didn’t remember the other names and the other trustees took no notice of him. All eyes were on Biri-Daar primarily, with leery glances reserved for Obek, who hung behind the group near the door. Remy wasn’t sure whether the trustees were nervous about Obek himself or about tieflings in general, but whichever was the case, they surely did look discomfited by his presence. He faded back away from the table to stand next to Obek. “Don’t worry,” he whispered, moving his lips as little as possible. “I will speak for you even if no one else will.”
“Biri-Daar of the Order of the Knights of Kul,” Uliana said. She was one of the oldest of the Mage Trust and the longest-serving. “This trust sent you forth on a grave errand. Have you returned bearing good tidings or bad?”
“Both,” Biri-Daar said.
“Which outweighs the other?”
“That yet depends on our actions,” Biri-Daar said. “And on yours. We have recovered Moidan’s Quill that inscribed the original Seal of Karga Kul.”
“The quill your fellow knight stole,” one of the trustees whose name Remy had forgotten said. He was a fat and red-bearded man with quick intelligence in his eyes and a goblet of wine in one hand.
“True, and disturbing,” Shikiloa said. “You will pardon the directness of my speech; I fear that the desperation of the situation calls for a simplification of this body’s normal rules about age and order of speech.”
“You would feel that way, of course,” Uliana said. “Arguments of protocol are a waste of time with the seal so thin.”
“There is another problem,” Biri-Daar said.
“Which is…?” the red-beared drunkard prompted.
“Philomen, the vizier of Avankil, is in league with the Demon Prince Orcus,” Biri-Daar stated.
There was a long moment of shocked silence. “How can this be?” Shikiloa said. “Avankil has been our staunchest ally, even when Toradan and Saak-Opole turned against us.”
Biri-Daar pointed at Remy. “This is Remy, also of Avankil,” she said. Then she looked at Remy and he knew he was expected to speak.
He took a few steps forward, to stand next to the empty seventh chair. He and Biri-Daar flanked it, with Lucan, Paelias, Keverel, and Obek in a gently curved rank behind them. “Since I was a boy,” he began, “I have been a courier for Philomen. I do not know how it started. But he had always been good to me. A few…”
Remy faltered, realizing he had no clear idea of how long it had been since he left Avankil. “The last thing he asked of me was that I take something to Toradan for him,” he went on. “And I could not know what it was. I was attacked on the road to Toradan by stormclaw scorpions. They killed my horse. I would have died too, in the wastes there, if Biri-Daar had not stopped and Keverel had not healed me. I have been traveling and fighting with them ever since.”
“So you have betrayed your errand for Philomen?” Shikiloa asked.
“His errand betrayed me,” Remy said. “He sent me with this, and knew that it would draw the kind of attention that gets messengers killed.”
Holding the chisel’s box carefully in both hands, Remy angled it so each member of the trust in turn could see the sigils carved into its lid and along the front near the latch. They recognized the enchantments, he could see; their eyes widened, and even the red-bearded trustee set his goblet down and made a sign. “What is in it?” Uliana asked. “We have no time for roundabout stories, and less for theatrics.”
“A chisel,” Remy said, and opened the lid.
“Designed by someone closely tied to Orcus,” Keverel added. “Designed, I fear, to destroy the seal.”
“Ridiculous,” Shikiloa said. “Philomen is a scholar of languages, a peddler of petty court schemes, a bestower of favors upon women of little virtue. He has traveled thrice to Karga Kul in the last ten years. All of us have met him, and none has ever sensed anything ill about his demeanor. Yet you have this that you call proof?”
“There is more,” Biri-Daar said. “Much more. Yet as Uliana says, we have no time. For our news is not yet fully given. Moidan’s Quill,” she went on, producing it from inside her armor, “is more than what it seems. Uliana. Note the symbols, carved so delicately into the barrel near the point. Do you recognize them?”
The trustee paled, her skin fading to nearly the off-white color of her hair. “A phylactery,” she said. “It has been made into a phylactery.”
“It was always a phylactery,” Keverel corrected. “Was not the seal laid down at about the time the Road-builder disappeared and the Inverted Keep tore free into the sky?”
The Mage Trust was silent.
“We killed the Road-builder,” Biri-Daar said. “But as long as the quill is intact, he will return. We must act immediately.”
“Immediately? We must act decisively, yes, but not rashly,” Shikiloa said.