"I was in a tavern once," Alaeron said slowly. "A man bet me a drink he could balance an egg on its end and I couldn't. The bartender kindly provided each of us an egg. I tried and failed to make mine stand up. The man who bet against me took his egg, shook it violently, and set it on its end without a bit of difficulty."

  "A classic," Skiver said. He glanced at Jaya. "See, you shake the egg hard enough, it breaks the yolk inside, and all the heavy bits drift to the bottom, so it stands up easy as you please."

  "I believe I've seen it done," she said.

  "I just bet you have." Skiver grinned wider. "Anyway, yeah, that's the sort of thing I mean. There's a game you can play with toothpicks, too, you can't lose if you know what you're doing. So give me the gold—save a bit out for yourselves if you must—and meet me at the Golden Pearl tavern down by the docks in a few hours. I'll buy us all a nice meal with my winnings."

  "If you lose money and strand us here," Jaya said, "And my brother pays the price for your mistake—"

  "Oh, don't worry," Skiver said. "Worst case, we steal a boat and make for Osirion on our own." He winked and sauntered away.

  "Does he even realize how far away Osirion is?" Alaeron said. "Or realize that none of us are sailors?"

  "I think he was joking," Jaya said. She paused. "I hope he was joking."

  Chapter Twelve

  The Following Fire

  Jaya and Alaeron nursed drinks at the Golden Pearl, where they sat deep in shadow in a corner, hoping the hellspawn gambler wouldn't appear in the doorway. Alaeron wished one of his relics could make them invisible, or that he had a potion handy that could do the same—he knew how to make a potion that would render himself invisible, but it wouldn't help Jaya, and anyway he didn't have the right ingredients—though then they'd have people constantly attempting to sit on them, thinking their chairs were empty. Better to be visible but inconspicuous.

  The Pearl was almost exclusively a place for short-term visitors: sailors making a brief stop before setting sail again, or travelers waiting to move from one ship to another. They rented rooms by the hour here, and not for the usual lascivious reasons; it was just more practical for people hoping to grab a meal and a nap before setting off on another sea voyage.

  Skiver sauntered in long after dinner, while Jaya methodically ate her way through their fourth bowl of complimentary nuts—highly salted to encourage more ale purchases, not that they could afford more. Skiver saw them, dragged a chair over to their table, and dropped down. "This is the jolly corner, innit?" He dropped a clinking bag (rather lovely purple velvet) in front of Alaeron. "There's your card winnings back, scholar, never say I don't repay my debts." He paused. "Well. Never say I don't repay my debts as long as they're debts of modest size. Not paying back big debts is part of why I'm off on this grand adventure with you lot, but if I come back successful, Vadim will open his purse and make things square with the people I owe." Alaeron didn't answer, just opened the pouch and counted the coins. Triple what he'd started with, not that he cared about money for its own sake, but it could be useful, no denying it. He'd passed a market stall in the Coins that sold herbs from the Mana Wastes, things he'd only ever read about, and he had some interesting ideas for possible applications. He'd grown sick of the sea, and was preemptively bored with the sea voyage still before them, and had been thinking increasingly that it might be nice to fly ...

  Skiver scowled. "I'm trying to foster a sense of camaraderie here, you lot. See? We're all in this together. Vadim's holding something over all our heads."

  "Yes," Alaeron said, "But you're the thing he's holding over my head—the promise that you'll try to kill me if I leave, remember? He doesn't have any hold over me otherwise."

  Skiver shrugged. "I was gone for hours winning friends and making bets. Why didn't you bugger off then?"

  Alaeron just looked down and mumbled "Well, you still have one of my relics ...."

  Skiver snorted. "Ha. Yeah, fair enough." He jerked his thumb at Jaya. "But also because she wouldn't have liked it if you ran off, right? She knows we need you. I can't tell a valuable relic from the innards of a broken water clock, and while she's probably got a better eye than me, you're the one who'll be able to separate the magic rings from the bits of old metal." He slid Alaeron's mug over to himself and drained the remaining puddle of ale inside.

  Jaya put her hand on Alaeron's. "I do need you," she said, and when he looked up, she was staring at him with those deep, dark eyes, an expression of open pleading on her face. This was a woman who might make him forget all about science, perhaps for hours at a time.

  "Between my knives and her eyes, I'd say you've got plenty of good reasons to stay with us," Skiver said. "Besides—adventure, eh? Off to the land of sand and mummies and tombs the size of palaces, sailing at first light. In the meantime I'm going to order a great giant platter of fish, the more fried the better. Who's with me?"

  "It's hard to be angry at you," Jaya said, "when you're the one buying dinner."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  They spent the next several hours together, drinking and talking and speculating about what they might encounter on the road ahead. "I've been to Osirion once," Jaya said. "But only briefly, to the port city of Totra. I can't say much about it, except that it's hot. I've never been to the capital or the interior."

  "So we're bound for Sothis," Alaeron said. "Where the Ruby Prince rules. I've never been, either—never set foot on the continent of Garund at all, truth be told. I know a smattering of the Osiriani tongue, though. They're one of the oldest civilizations on Golarion, and there are a great many ancient scrolls in that language. It was necessary for me to learn enough to muddle through a few of them during some of my researches. Their mummification process is fascinating."

  Skiver grunted, dipping another chunk of battered fish into a pool of slimy white sauce. "No doubt. All I know about the place is the things you hear in stories—great fanged lizards and tombs shaped like triangles and god-kings. I hope we can find someone there who speaks a normal language, though, if all you've got is a smattering. Though I s'pose steel blades and shiny coins are a universal language. Vadim sent a letter ahead to a man he knows there, a dealer in relics, who's supposed to help us get on a ship down that big river they've got, but for all I know we'll get there before Vadim's message does. We may have to make our own arrangements."

  "It shouldn't be a problem," Jaya said. "The Ruby Prince welcomes foreign explorers—for a price. Pay a fee on whatever you find, and you can pillage to your heart's content, they say. Anytime foreigners are invited to come spend money, there will be people who can speak any language you care to name. I'm sure there are treasure hunters and Pathfinders swarming over the place. I don't suppose we could join up with a group of them, and find some relics for Vadim without going all the way to Kho ..."

  Alaeron shook his head. "Vadim knows relics. He'd be able to tell a bit of old Osirian pottery from something more exotic, I'd wager. He'll want something he's never seen before, some unmistakable item of ancient arcane technology." Which is why he'd love the artifacts Alaeron had looted from the Silver Mount, if he ever found out they existed.

  "The market's flooded with death masks and statues of beetles anyway," Skiver said. "We see heaps of 'em, and Vadim's got a storeroom full. Osirian artifacts are popular now, because their prince is letting people cart them off. Vadim wants something nobody else has."

  Skiver's bar bets had been successful enough that he splashed out to buy them each a room for a solid five hours at the end of the evening. Alaeron sat in the privacy of his room—though it was more a tiny stall, just big enough to hold a bed—and considered taking out the relics and his journal to continue his studies. The implications of the way those three artifacts had interacted earlier tonight were fascinating. Were they more powerful when more were used at once? Did the order in which they were activated affect the nature of their behavior? But he was too exhausted (and, frankly, filled with alcohol) to actually deactivate the traps on his bag, get out the objects, and start working. Better to sleep now and hope he could get some work done on the journey to Osirion.

  Skiver pounded on his door in the morning, and Alaeron was ready to go in moments, since he hadn't done any unpacking beyond removing his boots and coat. Jaya, naturally, looked fresh and well-rested in the hallway, and they trooped down the stairs, pausing to grab fresh(ish) fruit to eat on the walk to their next ship.

  Despite the fact that it was still essentially night to Alaeron's eyes, the docks were full of activity. "Our ship's called the, ah, Blue Beetle," Skiver said as they walked along the quay. "I think that's it. Ha, beetle, right, it's like it's got a lot of little legs."

  Alaeron stopped on the bustling dock, scowling. The ship was single-masted with a great rectangular sail, but there were dozens of oars poking out along its considerable length—the "little legs" Skiver had referred to. "Driven by slave labor, no doubt," he said flatly.

  Skiver shrugged. "Doesn't sit right with me, either, but the whole world doesn't see things the Andoren way—not yet, anyhow."

  Jaya laughed. "You Andorens. Slavery is unpleasant, yes, but natural. The strong use the weak. Even ants enslave aphids. And aren't you yourselves slaves to Ralen Vadim, though you lack chains? I hope you won't pitch a fit about riding on a boat rowed by other slaves. There are many more where we're going."

  "Slaves? We're not slaves," Skiver said sharply. "We are under an obligation. But we are still free men, and when our obligation is finished, we will be even more free, get it? The poor buggers who get chained to those oars can't do anything to better their lot."

  Alaeron felt his heart swell with affection for the treacherous light-fingered rogue. Different as he and Skiver were, they were both Andorens. "There were many slaves in Numeria," Alaeron said. "I did not like it, but I did not try to strike off their chains, either. I will not make a scene here. The enlightened ideals of Andoran will spread across the world in time."

  "I suppose it is a beautiful dream," Jaya said, shrugging. "It's not that I disagree with you—but freedom is more precious than gold, and I don't imagine the rich will begin handing either one out for free."

  "Ideas are powerful," Alaeron said. "And Andoran's ideas are righteous."

  "Ideas aren't all," Skiver said. "Blades too. Our Eagle Knights can make it cost more to keep slaves."

  "Ideas and swords," Jaya said. "Well, maybe you have something there, after all. Shall we find the captain?"

  Skiver went, but he came back a bit later, shaking his head. "They're behind schedule. The first mate got hit over the head with a cosh in a whorehouse and his trousers were stolen, and some of the rowers ate some bad mollusks and got the runs. Or something. Taldane's not the captain's first language. Anyway, they're leaving in three hours, so we get to enjoy the pleasures of Absalom for a bit longer." He took a deep breath. "Ah, smell that salt air. I'm right sick of it, aren't you two?"

  After a brief consultation, Skiver agreed to let them split up, but told them to meet up again well before their departure time, "Just in case these southern bastards don't know how long a proper hour is." Jaya asked if she could borrow some coin—she wanted to buy more arrows, having left a few sticking out of pirates earlier—and Alaeron obliged, feeling richer than usual, especially with Skiver buying meals and passage.

  Alaeron set off for the Coins again, pausing only to buy a ridiculous floppy broad-brimmed hat that he hoped would disguise him if he did happen to run into the hellspawn or the sailors from the night before, though in truth, he wasn't sure he'd recognize the latter—they'd been dirty, greasy-haired humans, and hadn't made much impression beyond that. But it was worth the risk: that herb stall had been most intriguing, and he had some ideas about new mutagens that could do more interesting things than make him hairy and give him claws. He'd experienced a couple of alchemical epiphanies in his time: discovering the right mix for the feral mutagen, and realizing the hallucinogenic fluids from the Silver Mount could be used to make bombs, and he felt himself on the cusp of something new. His alchemical studies had been slowed by his devotion to the relics from Numeria, but he'd never entirely stopped dabbling and pondering, and some of those Mana Wastes plants, with their infusions of wild magic, could open up all new avenues of—

  He stopped. This street was familiar, but something was wrong. Something ...

  The Dagger and the Coin was gone. Blackened timbers leaned against one another, and gray ashes and chunks of unidentifiable char covered the ground. Nothing recognizable remained. The buildings on either side were utterly untouched, which implied an astonishingly controlled fire: this was clearly arson of a magical sort. A group of the Token Guard stood around the wreckage, prodding at ashes with the ends of their pikes. Alaeron sidled over to a group of robed merchants chattering and pointing at the flames, close enough to eavesdrop.

  "He was over seven feet tall, I tell you!" one bearded man said in the heated tones of one who expects to be disbelieved. "A half-orc, I'm sure!"

  "Looked like a Kellid to me," said another merchant, rather more calmly. "Bigger and wider than most, but there's no mistaking that long black hair and the scars on his face."

  A lady merchant sniffed. "Nonsense. Kellids wear furs. He was dressed like a banker. Besides, when have you ever heard of a Kellid who could work that kind of magic? To conjure such intense fire! From what I've heard, those northern savages think wearing shoes is magic—"

  Alaeron stepped away, finding a wall to put against his back, and scanned the street. Kormak had been here, to the very inn where Alaeron and his friends had dined and gambled the night before. And when the Kellid was done looking around, or maybe even asking questions, he'd burned the place to the ground. Perhaps Ralen Vadim wasn't to blame for the destruction of Alaeron's workshop after all; fire seemed to be the Kellid's signature. But how? How had the Technic League lackey tracked Alaeron here, to this particular tavern in a city full of them? All right, it was easy enough to guess that Alaeron's ship was likely to dock in Absalom, but in a city of three hundred thousand that hardly narrowed things down. So how—

  Alaeron closed his eyes and swore softly under his breath. The relics. He'd activated one in the Dagger and the Coin, and Kormak had arrived some hours later. And earlier: he'd brushed against the golden chain on the Pride of Azlant, and soon afterward, Kormak had tracked that ship. Alaeron had used all the artifacts often in his workshop, and Kormak had found him there. He hadn't actually used them in the common room where Kormak first located him, but Alaeron dined there regularly, so finding the right neighborhood would be enough to track him down further. Alaeron hadn't used the relics in Ralen Vadim's house, and Kormak hadn't appeared there.

  The Kellid must have a way of tracking the relics, at least when they were actually used. If the League had investigated the chamber where Zernebeth died, they could have found some other fragment—a scraping from the metal floor, or a bone fragment from the old skeleton, or a shard of glass from the shattered black mirror—to create a sympathetic link between Alaeron's relics and the room where they'd rested for so long. Kormak might have a compass that spun and pointed when the relics were active, or an enchanted map that showed their location, or perhaps his spectacles were charmed to glow when he looked in the right direction—whatever the mechanism, that was most likely the way he stayed on Alaeron's trail.

  Which meant the alchemist didn't dare activate the relics again.

  Except that wasn't acceptable. He needed to study them.

  So he'd have to choose the right moment to activate them, knowing Kormak would come. And when he came, Alaeron needed to be ready.

  He made sure his hat was pulled down low, then hurried through the market stalls until he found the vendor he'd noticed the day before. Kormak was huge, strong, violent, and armed with an unknowable quantity of arcane Technic League artifacts.

  Which meant Alaeron had some work to do if he was going to be a match for him.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  "We sleep on deck like the sailors do," Skiver said. "Apparently the bit with a roof there is just for the captain and the first mate."

  Alaeron groaned. "Lovely." At least with no private space to himself he wouldn't be tempted to use any of the relics, but it did complicate things in terms of his mutagenic researches. He'd acquired various interesting components at the market stall, but couldn't quite figure out what they might amount to. He found a place for his bag and sat down, near the back of the ship.

  Skiver joined him, and Jaya sat as well, smiling. "Don't be gloomy. The weather should be nice this time of year, and your silly hat will keep the sun off your head. I've slept on dozens of decks, and it's never done me any harm."

  "I just wish we'd push off already," Alaeron grumbled. Kormak was doubtless out there, searching the city, probably searching the docks, and even without the relics to guide him, he might track Alaeron down.

  "Then you're in luck," Skiver said as the ship lurched. The harbormaster stood up front, shouting orders to the captain—a big, bald man with tattoos on his scalp—who relayed them to his first mate, and from there down to the men rowing belowdecks. The motion was jerky to start with, but soon became smooth as the ship easily navigated the forest of broken masts from dead warships. They paused near the little island in the mouth of the harbor to let the harbormaster disembark, then continued on into the open sea. A few gillmen swam alongside the ship for a while, almost like an escort, before diving down and out of sight. The sun was still fairly low in the east when they set out, and before it had risen to the zenith of the pale blue sky, they were miles along, nothing but open sea on all sides, and nothing of interest to watch, either.

  The companions sat together in what scraps of shade they could find, and after their first few desultory attempts at conversation fizzled, Skiver said, "All right, then, scholar, let's have another story. I'll trade you that black wheel of yours for a tale to stir my blood. And pass a few of the bloody hours stretching out before us."