Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 105 of 150

The riders passed Ben on the road without slowing. He stood in the ditch weeds until the hoofbeats faded north. His purse was gone, sewn into his coat and boot and hidden in Tim Burr's tin. His coin was safe. His neck was not. Cage's men would still hunt him. They had paid for twelve pieces and gotten eleven. Until they believed the set was out of reach, they would ride every road he touched. He needed proof the oracle had the crate. Not his word. Not Picabo's. A token Cage's people would accept and stop chasing. He turned back toward the pass. He reached the stone gate at first light. The slot was shut. He knocked once. A woman's voice, low, asked what he wanted. He said he had delivered the crate two days back and needed a mark to carry down. Something the buyer would know. The slot slid open a hand's width. A pair of pale eyes looked at him. "Wait," the voice said. He waited a long time. When the slot opened again, a chest slid out through a wider hatch at the base of the gate. It was small, waist-high, banded in rust and split down the middle. Two purple eyes were painted on its face above a jagged mouth. Green paint ran under the lids like sickness. The wood looked chewed. Ben stepped back before he could stop himself. "Open it at the third stone below," the voice said. "Not here." "What is it." "Proof. And a witness. Do not lose the witness." The hatch slid shut. He carried the chest down the pass on his shoulder. It was lighter than it looked. At the third boundary stone he set it in the grass and worked the split lid. It came up easy. Inside was a folded slip of stiff paper stamped with the oracle's seal, listing eleven pieces by name and one struck through with a line. Under the paper, something breathed. A thin creature uncurled and stood on the grass. Grey hide, a spined back, one yellow eye open, then the other. It had claws it kept close to its chest. It looked at Ben the way a dog looks at a man it has been told to follow. "You go where I go," Ben said. The creature blinked once and sat. He folded the seal inside his coat lining next to the coin. He closed the chest and tied it shut with cord. The seal alone might be forged. The chest and the thing that came with it could not. Any of Cage's men who saw the eyes and the seal together would know where the eleven pieces had gone, and that no rider would ever pry them back. Ben shouldered the chest and started down. The creature walked at his heel.