Alex Irvine - The seal of Karga Kul

“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.

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.