Ben Dover's Arc

Chapter 123 of 150

Ben walked north with the wet chest against his hip and the fox creature on his shoulder. The brine kept the hum down, but the blanket was already drying at the edges. He had maybe two hours before the sound crept back. He also had eleven pieces, not twelve, and no buyer who would pay full price for a broken set. Guess wrong and he walked into another trap like the mill. He needed a name he could trust. He knew only one person who moved messages faster than hunters moved feet. He found her at a burned-out shed two ridges on, crouched over a courier map. Anita Job, the runner who had carried his lists since the archive. Yellow jacket, blue hair, mud on her knees. She looked up and did not smile. "You're late," Anita said. "Three hunters on the low road. You have an hour." "I need a buyer. Not Cage. Someone who pays for eleven." "Eleven doesn't sell. You know that." "Name one who might." She folded the map. "Three names move sets this size. Two work for the herbalist now. The third is Payne." Ben set the chest down. "Payne buys relics?" "Payne buys anything that keeps a town alive one more week. Pays in coin or cure. No questions. No middlemen." She paused. "But Payne only takes what he can verify. He'll open every box at the table." "He'd catch the missing piece." "On the first count." Ben thought. A ten-piece offer, honest, was better than an eleven-piece lie. Payne did not punish shortfalls. Payne punished lies. "Where is he." "Border town east of the pass. Two days on foot. One if you run." "Send him a message. Ten pieces, verified, half his usual rate. I want the meeting in a place with two doors." Anita already had a scrap out. She wrote four lines and whistled. A small bird dropped from a pine and took the paper. "Answer by dusk," she said. "If he says no, I burn the note and you never came here." Ben sat against the shed wall. The fox climbed into his lap and pressed its paws to the chest lid. The hum stayed down. Dusk came gray. The bird came back with a strip of linen wrapped around its leg. Anita unwound it and read. "Payne says yes. Ten pieces. Half rate. Old plague road, the stone marker with the cross. Tomorrow at noon. He'll come alone or not at all." Ben let out a breath he had been holding for a week. Not the price he wanted. Not the buyer he had planned for. But a buyer who would not shoot him for coming light. "One thing," Anita said. "Payne wrote a second line. He says the eleventh piece is already sold. He knows where it is. He'll tell you after payment." Ben looked at her. The fox's ears cut east. Somewhere down the ridge, a horn. He shouldered the chest. "Then we move now."