Mercer Asterion's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Mouse led him through the market at a pace that said she expected to be paid. She hadn't said so yet. Mercer could feel it in the way she glanced back at his cloak, sizing up the shape of his satchel. She had helped him hide the platform. She had walked him past three rows of stalls. The debt was building, and he had nothing in his pocket that anyone here would recognize as money. She stopped him in front of a booth built from twisted wood and hung with red cloth. A wooden sign above it read Copperpocket's Currency Exchange. A second sign on an easel spelled the rates: a hundred copper twigs made a silver acorn, a hundred silver acorns made a golden pinecone. Behind the counter stood a green goblin in round spectacles and a red scarf, polishing a small scale with a rag. "He takes anything shiny," Mouse said. "He'll cheat you. Everyone knows. He still gives the best rate." Mercer set his drawstring pouch on the counter. The goblin's ears twitched at the fabric, which did not crease the way leather creased. Mouse noticed too. She said nothing. Mercer loosened the string and tipped out a careful handful. Not all of it. Gold discs stamped with letters no one here could read. A silver round with a numeral one. A copper piece marked with a spray of unfamiliar leaves. He kept the rest of the hoard closed inside the pouch against his palm. The goblin lifted a gold disc to the light. He bit it. He set it on the scale. He frowned, then smiled, then frowned again in the practiced order of a man about to lie. "Curious metals," the goblin said. "Foreign. Hard to move. Six silver acorns for the lot." Mercer did not blink. He knew what he had. The gold alone weighed more than the whole offer. "The gold disc is nine grams," Mercer said. "Test it. Twelve acorns for that piece alone." The goblin's smile thinned. He tested it. He weighed each coin, one by one, muttering. Mouse leaned on the counter and watched his hands the way a cat watches a bird. "Eight," the goblin said. "Eleven." "Nine, and I take the silver round at two." "Ten, and the silver round at three." The goblin grunted and counted out the pile. Polished silver acorns and two burnished golden pinecones rolled across the wood. It was a hefty sum. Mercer swept it into his pouch and pulled the string tight. Outside the booth, he pressed ten acorns into Mouse's palm before she could ask. Her eyes went wide. She closed her fingers around it fast. "That's a week," she said. "That's today," Mercer said. "Tomorrow costs more." She grinned, tucked the acorns into her vest, and started walking. He followed. The pouch at his hip was bulkier now, and lighter by exactly ten acorns, and the guide at his side was bought.