Orven's invitation

Orven arrived at the Salines with the next air cycle. He wore a short cape, a miner's hammer and a pack of small copper bells sewn to his belt. They didn't jing when he walked.

He greeted Nara, then Ilda. To Zaelyra, he gave a cautious nod.

"Did you draw the map?"

"Some parts. Nym measured the air. Others have indicated the dangers."

"So you didn't draw the map. You did it."

"Yes."

"It's already better."

He asked to see the versions. Zaelyra only gave him the one that showed the route to the Salines and the beginning of the western way. Orven checked the distances with the memory of the place. In two places, he corrected the indications. To a third, he wrote only: I heard that there was a passage there.

"You've never seen him? Zaelyra asked.

"No."

"Why write it down?"

"Because someone told me about it and I want to remember who. Not to tell you to take it."

He did not sign the map. He engraved his name on the back of a wooden plate that he kept on him.

"Don't you want us to know that you're guiding us?" asked Rhylor.

"I want people to know who I am if you lose me. Not that everyone who finds the map knows where to look for me."

Zaelyra understood the distinction. She noted that Orven would guide them to the first stop, subject to his continued agreement. The sentence seemed unusual to him on a map, but faithful to what they had agreed.

Before departure, Nara had the conditions read aloud. The travelers repeated them. No water collection without permission. No open door without the guard. No gap from the group without warning. In the event of separation, everyone would return to the last common point, unless the guide gave another instruction.

"What if the guide is wrong?" asked the merchant.

Orven shrugged his shoulders. "Then you'll tell me, and we'll check. I'm not a compass."

"You ask to be followed, but you can be wrong."

"Like you. Like her. Like the one who engraved this map."

The merchant found nothing to answer.

The group left at the end of the day, when the air chimney sucked to the west. Orven walked in the lead, but Nym checked the passages. Zaelyra remained in the middle, near Tazri and the injured. Rhylor closed the march with the guard.

The first part of the road was known to the Svirfneblins. Hammer marks indicated the areas where the ceiling had been consolidated. Orven explained that the Salines had provided salt to several communities before the roads closed. The inhabitants carried the bags by relay, never by a single caravan. Each stop had its own code and rules.

"Why was the road abandoned? Zaelyra asked.

"Several reasons. The stone has moved. Caravans have decreased. Some passages have become too expensive to defend. When a trip stops paying, people declare it cursed to avoid having to explain that they no longer want to pay the guards."

"And the monster stories?"

"Sometimes there's a monster. Sometimes, there is a predator who knows that we prefer to talk about a curse rather than recognize that we have abandoned a stop."

"And in this case?"

"I haven't decided yet."

An hour after their departure, they heard a distant tinkling. Orven's bells remained silent.

He raised his hand and led the group into a side cavity. No one spoke until the sound stopped.

"What was it?" asked Pell.

"A bell," Orven replied.

"A one of yours?"

"No."

"So who made it ring?"

"I don't know."

They waited again. The tinkling did not come back. Orven advanced two scouts to a visible angle, then called them back before they reached the next crossroads.

"We're not going to check?" asked the merchant.

"Not without knowing if the sound calls us or attracts us."

"Maybe there are travelers in trouble."

"Maybe."

The word remained in suspense. Zaelyra did not want to go ahead of a request for help. She also didn't want to send someone into a trap on the strength of a noise alone.

They looked for a second clue. Nym measured the air. The current did not come from the tunnel from which the tinkling had risen, but from a crack above. The sound could have been carried from another gallery.

Orven asked the queue if anyone knew of a bell signal used in the area. Many answered no. The old svirfneblin who was looking for her four loved ones hesitated, then showed the rope tied to her wrist. A small bell hung there, wrapped in fabric.

"My family used three blows to ask us to wait," she says. "A single bell could mean that we had stopped."

"The sound we heard was just one? Zaelyra asked.

"Yes."

"So maybe it's a stop."

"Or an abandoned bell that the current moves," says Nym.

The woman squeezed her bell. "You can't know."

"No. But we can check the current without approaching the bell."

They installed a silk thread at the branch. The current made him vibrate twice, then stopped. The sound returned at the same time, weak and isolated.

Orven agreed to move forward with a guard and Zaelyra, but the rest of the group would remain hidden in the cavity. They followed the wall to a small overhanging gallery. There, a copper bell, split on the side, was suspended from an almost broken wire. With each change of current, it hit the rock.

No one had made him ring. No traveler was waiting for them.

The old woman took a breath that she had been holding since the start. "I'm glad we watched."

"Me too," says Zaelyra.

They didn't take the bell. Orven detached it so that it would stop ringing and put it in a niche, out of the passage. On the map, Zaelyra indicated the sound, its probable origin and the conditions in which they had verified it.

"You wrote "probable"," Orven remarked.

"We saw the bell. We didn't see the current hit her every time."

"However, you heard the sound at the same time as the wire vibrated."

"It's a good reason to believe it. Not the only possible explanation."

Orven nodded. "You would get along well with my old master. He only believed in the things that had already disappointed him."

"And you?" asked Rhylor.

"I prefer to be disappointed early."

They resumed their march. The incident had taken time, but the woman moved forward more calmly. The merchant no longer spoke of a curse.

At the next stop, they found a sign of three bells engraved on a pillar. Orven said the shelter was nearby. He did not know the current name or the guardian.

Zaelyra drew the pillar, then left the route line unfinished. Behind them, the Salines had moved away; in front, a community may have been waiting, or a passage that had been deserted for years.

Orven rang one of his bells, only once.

No one answered.

He didn't start again.