“This is Koradan,” Nerik told her. “Koradan, this is Kit. She’s the best jeweller in all of Minia. Koradan has a very special request for you. His brother’s getting married and he wants to buy averyspecial necklace for the bride-to-be. So of course, I thought of you,” he said, with a charming grin.
“How special should this necklace be?” Kit asked, eyeing Koradan without the slightest hint of suspicion. Koradan simply assumed that Nerik would know how to tell her what he really needed. With another customer in the shop, and one who was presumably a human, Nerik could hardly just come out and say exactly what he wanted.
“Well actually, Koradan has a similar one already. Do you want to show Kit your necklace?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to Koradan’s throat.
“Oh! Right, of course,” Koradan said. He pulled the gem out, letting Kit get a good look at it. Well, that was one way to tell her that her customer wasn’t human.
“Ooh, that is an expensive piece,” Kit said, peering at the gem. “I don’t see many like that. But you might just be in luck. I got a new delivery a couple of days ago. Come through to the back and I’ll show you what I’ve got. Liatra, are you okay for the time being?”
“Yeah, don’t mind me,” Liatra said, not even looking up. “Just browsing. Again.”
“Give me a yell if you need a hand. Now, Koradan, please come this way.”
With Nerik trailing behind, Koradan followed Kit through the curtain, past a small kitchen and into a rear office. There was only one window in the office, which was already covered with a dark cloth, and Kit closed the door behind them all. Then she turned to Koradan, her genial smile vanishing in an instant.
“What are you?” Kit asked, dropping all pretence of a shopkeeper chasing a sale.
“Salas,” Koradan said, cutting right to the chase. For all her friendly sales persona, Kit did not seem like the type of woman to be toyed with. “I came through the gate three days ago with a company of four other men. They all need gems. I have two already,” he added, as Kit’s eyebrows rose. “But they’ve been enchanted for a different species. I need them re-enchanted for salases. And I’ll need two more gems as well. I don’t have any money to pay you, but I do have this…” He pulled a large chunk of obsidian out of the satchel around his shoulder and set it on the desk. “Would that be sufficient payment for the whole job?”
For a moment, Kit’s eyes gleamed as she took in the size of the rock he’d brought with him. But then her expression darkened again.
“You have two gems, but they’re for a different species,” Kit repeated. “So you stole them from some hapless hadathmet who needed them themselves, did you?”
Koradan shook his head sadly. “Their owners were long dead before I came into possession of them. And while I’m not an advocate of grave-robbing, in this case, I would argue that there is a certain practicality in reusing what the dead no longer need.”
“Hmph. Can’t argue with you there,” Kit said, a grudging concession to circumstance. “Let me look at them. I’ll see what’s going on with them.”
Koradan handed them over. Kit took a seat at the desk and removed her own necklace. Her grey-brown hair shimmered to a bright turquoise, though aside from that, her body remained largely unchanged. She concentrated on the first gem, faint swirls of light emanating from her fingers. “This one was designed for a deelee. That’s not going to do you any good.” More light swirled across her hands, then barely a minute later, she paused and set the gem aside, moving onto the second one. “This one was for a hadathmet.”
“It did actually work on one of my men,” Koradan told her, “but he said it was a bit uncomfortable.”
Kit laughed. “I’m not surprised. There, that should be better now.” She handed the two gems back, then took a key out of her pocket and unlocked a drawer in the desk. She opened it, revealing a collection of gems. There was obsidian, which was well known for its magical qualities, but also a number of other gems in a range of colours. Some could be used for warding off insects and pests, others for protection against heat or cold, and still others for less altruistic purposes – binding spells and minor curses. Kit pulled out two obsidian gems, working quickly to enchant them both.
“Now, as much as I appreciate the generosity,” she said, as she handed them over, “that lump of rock is far too large to pay for two gems and four spells. So in the interests of not giving myself a bad name…” She took out a bag of coins and counted out thirty silver ones. “That obsidian will help a lot of Chalandrians. In some ways, it’s more valuable than anything money could buy.”
“I might be able to bring some more,” Koradan said. “We landed in a village with a copper mine. The miners pull chunks of obsidian out on a regular basis. I can’t guarantee anything – it’s still something of a work in progress – but if I can, I’ll bring some the next time I’m in town.”
“It would be enormously appreciated,” Kit said. “Every bit helps.”
“We have one more favour to ask,” Nerik said, just before they turned to go. “Koradan rode here on a vreki. He and a human woman transported an injured man from their village to the hospital. They have this idea to try and get people used to the idea of ‘dragons’ being tameable and useful, and then maybe set up a regular service to fly people to Minia.” Koradan had filled Nerik in briefly when they’d had a quiet moment at the hospital, after Gosta had told Nerik what Koradan was. “Once word gets around, people are going to start talking. So if you can make a bit of noise about how fantastic an idea it is, that would help push public opinion in the right direction.”
“That’s a hell of an ask,” Kit said. “Not for me to support the idea, but to get humans to accept it. Everyone in this city is spooked as all hell about demons at the moment,” she explained to Koradan. “Particularly after the captain of the guard was killed by one. Or supposedly killed by one,” she corrected herself quickly. “No one saw it happen, but he was found dead, and… Anyway, I digress. I’ll do what I can, but don’t hold your breath. That one is a steep hill to climb. Nerik, I assume you’re going to be doing the rounds and getting a few more voices on board?”
“Of course,” Nerik said, with another disarming smile. Then he turned to Koradan. “Now, I believe you mentioned a tailor? I know a man. His name’s Yorin. Best tailor in all of Minia.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, if I have to hear you waxing lyrical about Yorin one more time I’m going to throw up,” Kit said, standing up to hustle them both out of the door. “Either tell him how you feel about him, or shut up about the whole thing!”
“Thanks for the help,” Nerik called cheerfully, a cheeky grin on his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Thank you for all the help,” Lynette said to Gosta, as they arrived back in the clearing in the forest. It was just after three o’clock, and though Gosta hadn’t officially finished her shift, she’d been given leave to walk them back to the waiting vreki to see them off for the day.
The news that Gosta was actually a salas had come as a huge surprise to Lynette, but the additional fact that Minia was positively teaming with Chalandrians had been earthshattering. She’d lived here for years in her youth. How had she never noticed?
“We very deliberately try and keep it that way,” Gosta had explained, as they’d strolled through the forest on their way back to the vreki. “There are a certain number of humans who know about us, but every new person who finds out is a huge risk to the rest of us. So consider yourself fortunate. There are those we’ve had to kill to prevent the secret from getting out. I’m not proud to say it, but there it is.” Stark as the news was, it wasn’t particularly shocking. Humans murdered Chalandrians every day, after all. A life here and there in exchange was hard to condemn them for.
“We’ll come and pick up Markon in a week,” Koradan said, smiling as Ashd nudged him on the shoulder. The vreki had no doubt been concerned about them, and were glad to see them safe and sound.
