The trader's eyes widened. 'You will pay me in counterfeited coin?'
'Tempting, but no. Like I said, Oponn's winked your way.' Finished with her search, Picker stepped back, and pulled out a small wax tablet from her belt-pouch. 'I need to record your name, trader. It's mostly smugglers using these trails, trying to avoid the post at the plains track through the Divide — you're one of the few honest ones, it seems. Those clever smugglers end up paying for their cleverness tenfold on these here trails, when the truth is they'd have a better chance slipping through the chaos at the post.'
'I am named Munug.'
Picker glanced up. 'You poor bastard.'
Blend returned down the trail, three wrapped columns of coins cradled in her arms.
The trader shrugged sheepishly, his eyes on the wrapped coin stacks. 'Those are councils!'
'Aye,' Picker muttered. 'In hundred-columns — you'll probably throw your back lugging them to Pale, not to mention back again. In fact, you needn't bother making the trip at all, now, right?' She fixed him with her eyes as she put the tablet back into the pouch.
'You have a valid point,' Munug conceded, rewrapping the torcs and passing the packet to Blend. 'I shall journey to Pale none the less — to deal the rest of my work.' Eyes shifting nervously, he bared his crooked teeth in a weak smile. 'If Oponn's luck holds, I might well double my take.'
Picker studied the man a moment longer, then shook her head. 'Greed never pays, Munug. I'd lay a wager that in a month's time you'll come wending back down this trail with nothing but dust in your pockets. What say you? Ten councils.'
'If I lose, you'd have me ten in debt to you.'
'Ah well, I'd consider a trinket or three instead — you've skilled hands, old man, no question of that.'
'Thank you, but I respectfully decline the wager.'
Picker shrugged. 'Too bad. You've another bell of daylight. There's a wayside camp up near the summit — if you're determined enough you might reach it before sunset.'
'I shall make the endeavour.' He slung his arms through the pack's straps, grunted upright, then, with a hesitant nod, moved past the corporal.
'Hold on there,' Picker commanded.
Munug's knees seemed to weaken and the old man almost collapsed. 'Y-yes?' he managed.
Picker took the torcs from Blend. 'I've got to put these on, first. Interlocking, you claimed. But seamless.'
'Oh! Yes, of course. By all means, proceed.'
The corporal rolled back the sleeve of her dusty shirt, revealing, in the heavy wool's underside, its burgundy dye.
Munug's gasp was audible.
Picker smiled. 'That's right, we're Bridgeburners. Amazing what dust disguises, hey?' She worked the ivory rings up her scarred, muscled arm. Between her biceps and shoulder there was a soft click. Frowning, Picker studied the three torcs, then hissed in surprise. 'I'll be damned.'
Munug's smile broadened for the briefest of moments, then he bowed slightly. 'May I now resume my journey?'
'Go on,' she replied, barely paying him any further attention, her eyes studying the gleaming torcs on her arm.
Blend stared after the man for a full minute, a faint frown wrinkling her dusty brow.
Munug found the side-cut in the path a short while later. Glancing back down the trail to confirm for at least the tenth time that he was not followed, he quickly slipped between the two tilting stones that framed the hidden entrance.
The gloomy passage ended after a half-dozen paces, opening out onto a track winding through a high-walled fissure. Shadows swallowed the trader as he scurried down it. Sunset was less than a hundred heartbeats away, he judged — the delay with the Bridgeburners could prove fatal, if he failed to make the appointment.
'After all,' he whispered, 'gods are not known for forgiving natures …'
The coins were heavy. His heart thumped hard in his chest. He wasn't used to such strenuous efforts. He was an artisan, after all. Down on his luck of late, perhaps, weakened by the tumours between his legs, no doubt, but his talent and vision had if anything grown sharper for all the grief and pain he'd suffered. 'I have chosen you for those very flaws, Munug. That, and your skills, of course. Oh yes, I have great need of your skills …'
A god's blessing would surely take care of those tumours. And, if not, then three hundred councils would come close to paying for a Denul healer's treatment back in Darujhistan. After all, it wasn't wise to trust solely in a god's payment for services. Munug's tale to the Bridgeburners about an auction in Pale was true enough — it paid to fashion options, to map out fall-back plans — and while sculpting and carving were his lesser skills, he was not so modest as to deny the high quality of his work. Of course, they were as nothing compared to his painting. As nothing, nothing at all.
