Wares and trinkets hung in long, quiet rows, armor running from cast bronze to great serpentine scales. Cowhides lay in folds the color of wet straw, and herb beds steamed softly in their frames.
"Looking for something in particular, lad?" the trader said, voice rough as rope, eyes already counting.
Radeon paid the man no heed. He touched a strip of calfskin and it slid under his fingers. He tried bending a piece of water serpent hide and it fought back. Dense. Reliable.
'Forged armor's out. Leather's lighter and keeps both of us moving.'
Then his hand made contact with reptilian skin. With a light poke, the leather gave, deformed, then sprang back into shape.
"This one. What hide?"
"Sharp eye on you. Water chameleon hide," the trader said. "Looks pretty. Feels pretty. But I would not wager my old belly on it to receive a blade."
'Less than a quarter of the drake's weight. Worth not even a tenth.'
"Wrap them. Both."
Radeon set twenty spirit stones on the stall where the sign promised twelve each.
The trader knew he should have dusted the leather. Curses slurred under his beard as he bound the hides in twine and brown paper.
Radeon moved along the herb shelf. A grass in a clay pot breathed iron and life. Each blade wore a thin crimson blush.
"Sixty spirit stones or thirty contribution points," the trader said. "Temple rate. I am doing you a kindness already."
Radeon weighed the purse against the ledger. Eighty-odd spirit stones, over a hundred points shaved off Rai's work.
A tidy start from a boy already in the ground. He pressed his thumb to the figures in quiet thanks, then turned the page.
He set the blood grass down and lifted the bundle of vigorwort. Twenty-five stalks. Plump and well-trimmed. Good stock. The scent turned on him. Sour then sweet. Heat stirred low in his belly.
"Robes won't buy this. Not in a house that prizes quiet beds," Radeon quipped.
"Five points a stalk," the trader said. "I am losing on it already. If my wife hears that price, she will tan my hide to match these chameleons."
Radeon thumbed the bundle, face dull while his thoughts tallied what it would cost him.
"One-oh-five. The lot."
"Come. Skin these old bones right here and now," the trader said, baring his teeth.
Radeon set the herbs down as if they weighed nothing and turned half a step toward the door.
"Then forget it."
The trader's fingers tightened on the counter.
"One hundred twenty points. It's yours," he said. "Last mercy out of this old man."
"Hundred points. Thirty stones on top. That's it."
A breath. A nod. Paper crackled. Resin bit the air and made his eyes prickle.
"Not yet. Need a pint of spirit ink. Throw it in, we're done."
The trader grumbled into his beard but nodded once.
"You are bleeding me, boy. Fine. Ink too, or I will be here all night listening to you haggle."
Radeon drifted to the side while the man wrapped. A book held the door open. He nudged the door shut with his hip and palmed the book up. Dust lifted. No title. No stamp.
Paper crackled behind him. Radeon stilled. Only twine and a low curse.
'Never look eager. For anything.'
He laid the leather back with a soft flap and glanced outside.
A length of lumber lay crooked by the path; a thin wash of his qi stripped it clean. Then he snapped off a slat, pared it to a neat wedge, and set it under the door to take its measure.
"Here you are," the trader said. His gaze stuck on the wedge. "Clever hands on you. Leave that little trick for my door and I will throw in a brush. Man ought to reward good work."
Radeon reached for the wool brush. The trader nudged his chin away and steered him toward a rack of worn ones.
"These used ones, kid," he said. "New bristles cost spirit. You are not that charming."
Bristles splayed yet still sound. Radeon shoved him in mock anger and jabbed a finger at the leather on the door.
"Fine. Toss in the old leather."
"Take it. Take it," he added, flapping a hand. "Before I remember I am meant to be a respectable merchant."
Radeon kept his tongue and shouldered the door. Outside, he pressed two fingers together and called a thin edge. Sword qi scraped along the soil-stained leather and went nowhere.
'Worth it. Might come in handy.'
Afternoon laid an apricot skin over the stone street, the sun sinking along the ribs of the peak while the pines swayed above.
The breeze turned the sweat cold on his back as robed disciples shuffled past with their day's scrolls clutched tight.
"Different names, same herbs. Lucky I found them here."
A bundle of common herbs hung from his arms. Spearmint. Peppermint. Licorice root.
He reached his cave abode before the lamps were lit. Radeon eyed the herbs without smallness. If it carried him a mile farther, it was holy enough.
"Pills first."
He ground spearmint, peppermint, and licorice root into a dull-green paste, cooled the vigorwort with the rising oil, then fed heat into the bowl until the mixture boiled down into a lurid pink mass.
As it dried, the paste set into a single magenta pill, the color of bruised flesh.
He turned it in the light once, then set it with the others.
"Twenty-five. Not bad."
He took one and sat down to rest. Heat ran up his spine and slid past the place it must not wake. His jaw clenched until it passed.
The ache behind his eyes thinned. His forearms felt less like stone. Sweat rose and cooled.
Radeon laid the water chameleon skin flat, tracing the faint ink marks he'd measured out earlier along its length.
"Hard part now."
He cut three neat sockets along each mark in the hide. Spirit stones clicked into place and shone with a cold, mean light.
Radeon took the ink, the skin, the bottles. The choice was plain. He lacked the strength to make a true tool. For now, he would borrow and bow to the beings of the void.
He bit his finger and let a red string of blood fall into the bowl of iron gall. Pills rolled down his throat, bullying his marrow into making more, faster than nature would allow.
By the time the work stopped, all he had was a liter and limbs that shook with hollow lightness.
Radeon left the blood and ink unstirred. He dipped the old brush down and began to draw symbols on the floor.
Each rune was a call to antiquity, a summons for an overlord, not bound to this realm but to the breadth of the cosmos, who would take an offering.
"Take my blood as sacrifice. Beings of dream and blood, heed my call."
Eyes budded open in the bowl, rising on the ink's surface like bubbles.
When the first of them blinked, he dipped his brush and carried that living black across to the waiting chameleon skin. Each stroke laid another whispering pupil along the marks and sockets.
Radeon scanned each eye. A single uncertainty, a glimpse of malice, and he would cut the ritual.
'None yet.'
"Hide from dark and light. Drown your tread in silence. Let your scent be a dream," he chanted.
Little mouths budded on the surface and found the shape of his words. They took up the prayer and mimicked the movement of his lips, their envy of his voice plain.
As mouths and eyes settled, the ink murmured. Just breath at first.
Then the sounds snapped into words, smooth and sure, as if the babbling had been a deliberate lie.
"Yes. Yes. Yes. A Price. A Pay. Time. You ask. Time. I give."
"Ninety minutes on both. Not a breath more," he replied.
The voice's lips started hissing, and each eye turned bloodshot. Tears of blood pattered from all over the cave as the darkness flooded in.
"Pay. Pay. Unworthy pay! Tally. Bill. Debt. Yes. Collateral. A heart. An arm. A hand. It's enough."
A thin line of gray burned into his wrist. Radeon didn't wince. He knew it would never be enough. Now he bore a contract nigh impossible to pay.
"A speck. A dust. A grain. Let me see. Immortality once held. He. She. The same. The price. The debt. The debt," the voice rasped from nowhere.
As the ceremonial murmur died, the last painted mouth on the lizard skin puckered and whispered its price.
The mouth smudged and sank back into the hide. The mark on his arm remained.