The toll of the living

The air duct led them to a wider gallery, carved into a rock streaked with white veins. On the ceiling, rusty hooks marked the location of old lanterns. A toll door closed the other end: two black metal doors, a narrow window and a chain heavy enough to hold a beast.

In the enlargement, Rhylor turned on a lamp under his hood. The low halo illuminated the threshold and the door without going very far into the gallery.

Someone had set a table in front of the door.

The person sitting behind her was wearing a copper-colored travel coat, boots covered in dust and a brooch without a coat of arms. On the table were arranged spools of thread, hooks, two knives and a dented teapot.

Zaelyra stopped before the threshold. Nym checked the floor near the chain; Rhylor took a seat between the table and the others. Pell supported Sszindi by the elbow. The girl stood behind them, her box tight against her. Kethra observed each one without asking his name, then turned his attention to Zaelyra.

"You're late," she says.

Rhylor pulled his blade halfway. "We didn't have an appointment."

"This is often what people who arrive late say."

She raised a cup towards Zaelyra. His smile revealed neither surprise nor gratitude. "Kethra. I sell ropes, guides and sometimes news. According to what is missing the most."

"Were you already there when we arrived? Zaelyra asked.

"Long enough to know that the door was opened three times this week."

"By whom?"

"By people who didn't pay."

"And you let them pass?"

"I didn't say I was up to the toll. I said I was there."

Kethra took back her cup. The teapot no longer smoked, but it kept its hands around as if the heat remained there.

Rhylor pointed at the knives. "You are armed."

"I'm sitting at a table in a gallery where no one keeps the accounts. You want me to be defenseless in addition to being honest?"

"The one does not prevent the other."

"In that case, you should know a lot of honest people."

Nym had stood near the counter. He observed the rivets, then the level of the chain.

"It's locked," he said. "The lever is not enough. A key or counterweight is missing."

Kethra put down her cup. "That's why I need a map."

"You knew the mechanism wouldn't work," says Zaelyra.

"I knew that the lever alone would not be enough. I wanted to see what it would take to open it."

"Were you going to send us?"

"I was going to propose to you."

The difference was small, but real. Zaelyra wondered how many times she had taken for each other.

Zaelyra did not move. "What is the price?"

"A map."

"You already have some."

"Not from you."

"What part?"

"The one that leads to Veyr."

Nym had a brief laugh. "You want an itinerary that you don't know, against the route that we haven't checked yet. It's a bold business."

"I try to live up to my reputation."

"What reputation?"

"The one I'm making."

Zaelyra approached the table. Kethra had not arranged his goods at random. The knives were too close to his right hand; the teapot, too hot to be forgotten. A chalk mark on the base of the table indicated a side exit.

"You want the map because you plan to sell it."

"Probably."

"At home?"

"Maybe."

"And you would let us go?"

"If you open the door yourself. I am not your mother."

Rhylor placed himself between Kethra and the others. Zaelyra felt the old reflex come back: let him decide, follow the route he knew, avoid immediate risk. She thought about Sszindi's question and his answer: people who have the choice ask questions.

"Not the map," she says. "You can have a copy of our statement up to the cistern. The rest will stay with us."

"An incomplete copy is worth almost nothing."

"Then you refuse."

Kethra turned the cup between her fingers. "I accept, with one condition. If you find a safe passage to Veyr, you will owe me the first right of way for two caravans. Not the property of the road. The right to borrow it."

"For how long? Nym asked.

"A crossing."

"A crossing can last a day or three seasons."

"That's why contracts exist."

Zaelyra shook her head. "A caravan. And only if people who are already on the road pass before your goods."

Kethra looked amused. "You negotiate like someone who still has nothing to sell."

"I negotiate like someone who knows what the road costs."

Kethra's smile faded for a moment. Then she got up and pulled a small black key from her sleeve, barely longer than a finger. She turned it in the padlock of the chain, released it, then operated the lever. The door opened with a metal moan.

Kethra put the key on the table.

"So you had the key," says Nym.

"I had a key. I didn't know if she was still spinning."

"And the counterweight?"

"A false track. The locksmith loved riddles."

Zaelyra looked at her. "You could have checked before negotiating."

"I could have. But I wouldn't have learned anything about you."

"You learned that we don't like to be tested."

"This is useful information."

"A caravan, after those who are already walking. We will note that when you have a road."

"Who will decide that they are already engaged?" asked Kethra.

"The people who keep the passage," replied Zaelyra. "We will notify them at the post office before sending anyone."

"Do you accept that they can make you wait?"

"Yes. If the road is common, the decision cannot be up to us alone."

Kethra took back the sheet. "Then write that the post will have to be warned. I don't want a caravan to discover too late that an injured family is already in front of it."

Kethra slid a sheet of thick paper towards her. "So we must write the conditions before one of us claims to have understood them otherwise."

Nym read aloud as she wrote: a single caravan, for a single crossing, and only after the path to Veyr had been checked by those who guard it; passage after the travelers already engaged on the road; notice to the post before the arrival of the convoy; no right of ownership; no copy of the route beyond the tank post; the pact annulled if Kethra sold the names of the travelers.

"You add a sanction that you can't apply," says Rhylor.

"I can apply the last condition. If I give their names, they won't owe me anything anymore."

"What if you sell the itinerary without their names? Zaelyra asked.

"So they will always owe me the passage, and I will owe them an explanation."

Nym took the sheet. "It's not a contract that makes you trustworthy."

"I know. It is a contract that prevents our memory from choosing a more convenient version afterwards."

Zaelyra rereads the clauses. She added that Kethra could not pass merchandise before an injured family, even if they could not pay. Then she put her sign, an interrupted line, at the bottom of the page.

"I don't sign for you," she told Kethra. "I sign to remember what we agreed to."

Kethra put the mark of her left hand next to it. "It's the only signature that's worth something."

"And your copy?"

Zaelyra took out a copy of the statement to the tank station. She had entered the verified branches and marked the post itself, without tracing the access to the stop or the continuation towards Veyr. Kethra took it without checking. She already knew this route, or had never expected anything else.

Before letting them pass, she handed Zaelyra a bobbin of fine rope, braided with turquoise fibers.

"Gift? Zaelyra asked.

"A sample. If the rope breaks, don't tell me about it. If it holds, you will owe me a real order."

Kethra pushed the table against the wall to clear the doors. The girl placed herself near Sszindi; Pell took back the injured woman's elbow. Nym brought his oiled thread closer to the opening. The current was pulling inward, but nothing yet allowed him to measure the depth of the water further.

"The door is open," he said. "The path remains to be checked."

Kethra did not offer to wear Sszindi. She would not have accepted. She just held the door while the group passed, one by one. The girl kept her box closed; she looked at the black key on the table, then Kethra, but did not reach out.

Rhylor passed last. "You know where we're going."

"Everyone knows where someone is going. The question is who will arrive before him."

Behind the door, the gallery plunged towards a surface of groundwater. Kethra's rope seemed solid, but its turquoise fibers recalled the wire slipped under the door of the annex.

Zaelyra tied the reel to her bag without thanking her.

Kethra watched them disappear, then took out of her sleeve a second leaf, apparently blank. Under the lamp, a pale ink revealed the mark of a spider.

She plied the paper and put it away.

The deal was done. The account was just beginning.