The currency of the roads

The gallery ran along an underground surface where the water fell drop by drop from a vault too high to be illuminated. After an hour, they reached an old weighing station. A stone scale occupied the center of the room; the trays were covered with dust, except for one, where someone had placed a handful of white pebbles.

Nym took one.

"Don't touch," says Rhylor.

"It's limestone."

"So he won't blame you if you let him."

Nym put the bble back. In the wall, a duct let in a trickle of air loaded with a smell of smoke and onions. Zaelyra knew this smell: a camp was not far away.

They discovered three shelters built under a rock advance. Duergars sold strips of fabric, dried mushrooms and vials of medicinal alcohol. No one carried a visible weapon. That didn't mean they didn't have one.

The camp leader, a dwarf with a shallow head and gray eyebrows, recognized Rhylor's plate.

"Open circle," she says. "It hasn't paid for a long time."

"We didn't come to ask for a toll."

"Everyone says that before asking for something."

Zaelyra put Vhaelyn's silver pin on a stone. "Sandages. Food. We can pay."

The duergar examined the pin, then the fugitives. His gaze stopped on Sszindi.

"How many days of walking?"

"Two until Veyr," says Nym. "If the road is open."

"He is not."

The woman pointed to the gallery behind her. A recent landslide had blocked the main road. Huge blocks were piled up to the ceiling.

"Did you know? Zaelyra asked.

"I know what's going on in front of my door. For three days, men have been looking for a passage to the west. They pay for maps and ask questions about a white-haired drow."

Zaelyra felt all eyes on her.

"The House Guards?" asked Rhylor.

"Not in uniform. The duergar shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe mercenaries. Maybe people who want to sell you to mercenaries. In the depths, differences are expensive."

She accepted the pin in exchange for bandages, two bags of dried mushrooms and the use of a service gallery. Nym negotiated the passage, refusing to deliver Veyr's exact direction.

The duergar put the pin on a plate of the scale. She did not look at the coat of arms; she only wiped the dust under the weight of metal, then waited for the plague to stop osciling.

"It's made of money," says Zaelyra.

"I see it."

The duergar took out two bags. The first contained dry mushrooms, the second had taken moisture near a seam. She emptied a handful, spread the softened pieces and started weighing again with the rest.

"I won't make you pay for what is not kept," she says. "But you won't transport it either."

She replaced the lost handle with strips of clean cloth and placed a small bottle of alcohol near the bandages. Zaelyra looked at Sszindi. The old drow could walk, but her wound required a dry laundry before they sank into the water.

"That will be enough for today," says Sszindi. "I don't know about tomorrow."

"Me neither," Durgna replied. "I'm not selling tomorrow."

Pell divides the provisions into two smaller bags so that no one carries all the load. The girl followed her gestures, then checked the closure of her box. She didn't ask Durgna anything; she didn't ask her name.

"Do you trust this svirfneblin?" asked the duergar to Zaelyra.

"No."

Nym looked up.

"I trust him to defend what he knows. It's more useful."

The duergar approved with a small head movement. "Finally an answer that does not claim that confidence falls from the ceiling."

"What's your name? Zaelyra asked.

"Durgna."

"You've been holding this camp for a long time?"

"Since the toll stopped reporting."

She said that she had transported food between the forges and the relay, until the road was closed by a landslide. The weighing station had become a point of exchange: travelers left some food or metal, camp people gave them information or a night in the shelter. There was no fixed rate. Those who had nothing could work.

"What were you carrying? Zaelyra asked.

"Bags of mushroom flour, pump parts, sometimes tools. Nothing that we would tell in a song."

"And why did you stop?"

Durgna arranged the strips of fabric on the stall, aligning their edges without looking at Zaelyra. "The last caravan was driven by my brother. He had promised to return before the replacement. The road moved during the night."

"He died in the landslide?"

"I didn't find his body."

The duergar put a vial of alcohol in the middle of the provisions. She checked the cap, tightened it, then wrapped it in a piece of wool.

"So you're waiting for him to come back?" asked Pell.

"No. I'm waiting for the passage to be safe enough so that we can stop losing others. It's not the same thing."

She had kept the position because travelers would continue to try, whether they had a map or not. As long as she stayed there, they could at least learn where the ground was resoing.

"Don't you want to know if he took the other gallery? Zaelyra asked.

"Of course it is. But wanting to know doesn't make a stone less heavy."

Durgna gave Nym a small wooden plate engraved at the level of the landslide. "Come back when you have a more recent measurement than this one. Not before."

Nym accepted it seriously. "If I don't come back?"

"Someone else will do it. That's why the measures are written."

"Why stay here if the track is cut off?" asked Pell.

"Because it will be reopened."

"When?"

"When someone needs her to be."

Durgna indicated the landslide. An old level mark on the wall showed that the rock continued to move. Digging more risked furing the gallery.

"Did the men who ask questions offer to clear the passage? Zaelyra asked.

"They offered to pay."

"And you refused?"

"They wanted me to open the passage before checking who was on the other side. I told them I wasn't their miner."

Durgna did not seek to protect fugitives. She protected her camp and the people who depended on it. This was enough to make his refusal valuable.

While they were loading the bags, Zaelyra noticed a spool of copper-colored rope on the stall. The first strand was turquoise. She didn't mention it.

"Kethra has already sent someone," she whispered to Rhylor.

"Or someone wants us to believe that she did it."

"You say that every time you know the answer."

"No. I say that every time I don't know her."

They left the post through a low gallery. The duergar did not wish them good luck. She only told them not to stop near the white pebbles.

Behind them, a dry noise resounded in the room: someone had just put a new pebble on the scale.