CHAPTER 20

We stepped through the portal and into a sweltering jungle. Green leaves bumped my face as I walked through, leading the way in order to clear any threats to my human friends.

The smells of rich dirt, wet greenery, the musk of stinky cat, the droning buzz of insects, all combined to freeze me in place for just a moment as I walked through. The contrast with the sterile, nigh-scentless-but-for-sulfur, quiet stone halls from which we had come was nearly overwhelming and it took me a moment to adjust. Which was a problem, because I promptly got a multi-ton box of orichalcum up the bum as the others pushed through.

The box came through with a pop and the front wheels immediately sank into the dirt. The whole thing stopped dead and pitched forward, meaning that I only got a shove instead of an actual whomp. It was still enough to send me bumbling forward. Plus, the corner was pokey.

Marcus and Eugene came through side-by-side and oofed against the box, dropping their weapons in the process. Estelle was a step behind them, bow drawn, and managed to pivot around them without falling. The portal vanished moments after she emerged.

"Fuck," Eugene grumbled, groping after his sword. He straightened and looked around. "This is different."

He was right. We were surrounded by lush jungle, the air sweltering and drenched. The light was dim, the sun obscured by layers upon layers of greenery soaring into the air above us like a living cathedral supported on pillars that were mighty trees. Vines dangled everywhere, moss grew along the ground and on the trunks, and a riot of flowers bloomed and blazed. Off in the distance I heard the undergrowth rustle.

"Marcus. Portal," Estelle said. "Do it on top of where the incoming one was. Might hide it from trackers."

"Right." He reached for his beltpouch.

"Hang on," Eugene said. "The box is stuck. Help me dig it loose first."

o-o-o-o

The thick loam of the jungle floor had mired the box deep. It was too heavy for the humans to lift and I wasn't built for 'up' as much as 'forward'. Fortunately, with a bit of digging plus the aid of Marcus's spear as a lever they were able to lift the end enough that I could get my head under it, which allowed us to raise it up to near vertical. Marcus opened the portal right in front of the box and we let the box fall forward. The moment it touched the portal it was sucked through, vanishing with a soft pop! We hurried to follow before the portal closed.

We emerged in the middle of the customer part of Simon's shop. The box had fallen through and come down hard, the damaged corner of it splitting further and spilling some of the orichalcum scales across the floor. The only good news was that it had somehow landed on its wheels and not broken them or flipped over. I wasn't sure how we would have gotten it upright if it had.

"Welcome back," Simon said faintly, his eyes huge as he stared at the treasure strewn about. "I see you had some success."

"Damnit," Eugene muttered. He and Marcus hurriedly started shoveling the scales back into the much-battered container. I watched them curiously and Estelle watched Simon.

"We made some progress," Estelle said. "We got past the first domain. You said that we'll be able to portal directly back to the second?"

Simon didn't respond, too absorbed in staring at the spilled scales. Didn't respond, that is, until I stepped up next to Estelle and coughed meaningfully.

"Hm? What?"

"You said that we'll be able to portal directly back to the second domain?" Estelle repeated.

"Yes. Should be feasible, anyway. When were you thinking?" He was clearly distracted and his gaze never left the metal.

"Not tonight," she said firmly. "We'll let you know."

"Mhm." He nodded absently, eyes still locked on the metal scales. "Is that...?"

"Nah," Murray said. "It's jes some Damascus steel," Murray said hopefully. "Da shine, ya know? It's jes a water pattern."

Simon looked away from the metal long enough to glare at Murray. "You are a terrible liar, imp. Is it already bound?"

Murray shifted uncomfortably in midair. "I don't t'ink so. It's still cool."

{What are you talking about?} I asked.

"Da whole reason orichalcum is so valyabul is because it takes enchantments real good," Murray explained. "When it does, it gets woim. It's impointant dat it ain't enchanted yet, 'cause da foist enchantment dat usually gets put on it is ta bind it ta an ownah so's only dey can use da stuff. An' once it's been enchanted ya can't unenchant it. Unbound orichalcum is way more valyabul den bound."

"You can unbind it," Simon added. "Technically. It's simply very difficult and expensive. You need to unlock the enchantments, which is difficult and expensive all by itself, as well as dangerous. Then you need to melt the orichalcum down and reforge it. That requires a master magesmith and some extremely expensive equipment, since one of the other appeals of orichalcum is that it's essentially indestructible once it cools from the forge. It's usually cheaper and easier to create new orichalcum from scratch."

"What is the stuff, anyway?" Marcus asked, turning one of the scales over in his hands and studying it curiously.

"An alloy of several rare substances, the least valuable of which is gold. Is that box full?"

Marcus hesitated. "Yes," he said at last.

"I would be willing to buy it from you for, say...a million stone?"

Murray snorted.

"Not a good price?" Eugene asked him.

"Huh? Don't look at me, man. I'm jes da translaytah. I don't—"

"—do no exposition," chorused the three humans.

"No sale," Marcus said to Simon. "We'll try our luck on Mage Street." He turned for the door.

"Wait," Simon said quickly. "You'll find it difficult to wheel that thing across the cobbles." He gestured to the inch-high wheels along the underside of the box. "Plus, if anyone saw you with it and recognized what it was there would be trouble. Perhaps it would be better to leave it here? I could sell on consigment in exchange for a commission. It would save you a great deal of trouble."

We all hesitated.

"Better idea," Eugene said. "You auction it for us. You arrange the auction and find the buyers, you get a five percent commission."

"Five?! For doing all the work? For something you couldn't possibly manage to sell on your own? I wouldn't take less than fifty!"

Eugene shrugged. "Well, I guess we'll take our chances on Mage Street."

"All right, forty-five!"

"Seven," Marcus said. "Plus you pay us a million stone in advance."

"A million?! For nothing? Don't be ridiculous."

"Marcus," Eugene growled. "A word?" He gestured towards the door.

"In a minute," Marcus said. He turned back to Simon. "You don't have a lot of leverage here. There's plenty of people in the city that we can shop it to. Maybe we need to sell it in small lots but we can do it. Shoot, Estelle and I walked past four different auction houses just in the process of setting up our charity."

"Marcus!" Eugene snapped. "I've got this."

"Go fuck yourself," Marcus said, not bothering to look at him. "Well, Simon?"

Simon looked sick. "Forty percent and a hundred thousand in advance. I guarantee that I have better awareness of what orichalcum is worth, plus deeper pockets and I can bring in buyers from outside this domain. And I can provide secure storage here."

Eugene stepped in front of Marcus, his spine very straight and a furious expression on his face. "You want to do this in front of everyone? Fine. I don't appreciate you undermining me. I've got this negotiation. You can wait outside."

Marcus glanced at him for a moment. "Did you miss the 'go fuck yourself'? You aren't in charge here."

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I whined softly. I didn't like it when my friends fought.

"Look, asshole. You're a fucking street rat and I'm a Citizen. I deal with multi-million-talat deals all the time."

"You're the spoonfed baby of privilege and I've been negotiating for survival since I could walk. Move out of my way." Marcus's voice was calm.

Eugene's eyes narrowed and he put his hand on his sword. "Or what, punk?"

Estelle took a long step so that she was on Eugene's left, facing him and slightly more than a leg-length away. She stood with her thumbs hooked casualy into her belt, near the pommels of her swords but not on them.

I coughed and moved forward, gently shoulder-barging all three of them out of the way so that I was standing in the middle of the fracas.

"All of you take a breath," I commanded through Murray. "We're all friends here."

"I'm not," Estelle said, her voice completely disinterested and her eyes locked on Eugene.

"Out of curiosity, who owns the orichalcum?" Simon asked. "I should really be negotiating with that person."

There was a surprised silence.

Eugene took a breath and stepped back, his hand coming off his sword and a smile appearing on his face. He spread his arms in silent apology. "Look, that got heated. I shouldn't have said the part about you being a street rat. No one chooses how they're born."

"True," Marcus said. "Four-way split on the metal?"

"I'm the one who said we should bring it," Eugene noted. "You guys were going to leave it there. I think that's worth something. How about five shares, I take two?"

Estelle snorted derisively.

"Problem?" Eugene asked.

"None a youse guys woulda been dere at all if it wasn't fah da boss," Murray said, jerking a thumb at me. "An' he did mosta dah fightin'."

"I don't know about that," I said, feeling weird because Murray was carrying on his part of the conversation and also mine.

"I'm okay with that," Marcus said after a moment's pause. "Athos decides the split."

Estelle glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. He nodded and she returned it. "I'm fine with that," she said.

"Sounds good," Eugene said. "Athos, buddy, it's on you. How do you want to divvy this stuff up? Could do straight split, but seems to me that you deserve more for how much of the fighting you did, and I deserve a little extra for insisting that we bring it."

I whimpered. "Can't we just share it?"

"We need to negotiate with Simon to sell it," Marcus said. "Eugene thinks he can do a better job of that than I can. We can't both be doing it or we'll step on each other."

Well, this was a pickle. I'd seen it before, where two dogs at the park both wanted to fetch the same ball and weren't willing to back down. Usually one of their people would come over and break things up, but this time it was the people having the fight.

"Do we really have to sell it?" I asked. "Maybe we can just spend it?"

Simon snorted. "Not a chance. Those things are way too valuable to buy a piece of fruit or a sword. Plus, if anyone found out you had them you'd have the entire underworld down on your heads. I'm really your only option."

"And why is that?" Estelle asked, turning to face him with her thumbs still in her belt. "Are you threatening to set the underworld on us if we don't sell to you?"

"Of course not," Simon said, smiling a smile that really made me want to bite his face off. "I'm simply noting that if I were your broker then I would have a contractual obligation to keep your identities secret. If not...I wouldn't."

I growled and stepped forward, but Estelle raised an arm in front of me.

"You really want to do this, demon?" she asked quietly.

"We've got a good deal right now," Marcus noted. "We'll be going in and out of your portal a lot and we'll need to buy and sell more stuff as we go. Do you really want to screw that up for a measly couple million stone?"

Simon snorted. "Try hu—" He clopped his mouth closed.

"Hundreds of millions, huh?" Marcus said. "Good to know."

Simon looked like he'd swallowed a bug and it was still moving. "More reason to hire me as your agent."

"Marcus," Eugene said. "Let's you and I work out a best and final. If he takes it, great. If not, we leave and he gets nothing. If he wants to make trouble, the money in this box will let us hire some really good bodyguards."

Marcus considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Outside. Estelle, Athos, please keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't send any messages." He and Eugene left.

Estelle dropped her arm from in front of me and stood hipshot, thumbs still in her belt and eyes locked on Simon.

Simon smiled hopefully. "Would you like—"

"No."

I shuffled nervously, glancing from Simon to the door.

Simon deflated a bit, then tried again. "Would you mind—"

"Yes."

Simon sighed. He bent down to reach under the counter, then froze when Estelle cleared her throat.

"Seriously?" he asked, looking up but not moving otherwise.

"Seriously."

He sighed in annoyance and straightened up. "I was only getting a book."

She said nothing.

"Look, you don't want to fight me. I—"

"Try me. Best case, I tell the boys you were playing games and we walk off. Worst case, I stop stopping my friend from eating you." She jerked a thumb towards me.

I growled in eager anticipation.

"Ah." He backed up, hands palm-out in placation, and leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. "I think I'll just wait quietly."

"Good call."

We waited in silence for several minutes until Marcus and Eugene finally returned.

"This is a best and final offer," Eugene said. "You take it as given or we walk. Understand?"

Simon looked pained. "I understand. I hope you won't mind if I at least ask clarifying questions about ambiguities."

"The scales all look the same," Eugene said, ignoring the question. "That means that the auction will effectively be setting a per-scale price. Four parts to the deal: First, you get a fifteen percent commission, but the auction happens within three days of today and we get our money as cash and within twenty-four hours afterwards. Second, we'll sell you up to ten scales right now, for whatever price you like. If you undervalue them then you owe us double the difference after the auction. If you overvalue them, that's on you. Third, you give us a a quarter million in cash right now, with that money counting towards the price you're paying for the scales. Fourth, you agree to do everything you can to keep secret all of the details about our identities, Athos's nature, our domain expeditions, where we got the stuff, and anything else that could be used to track us or interfere with us. Last and final offer."

"I'll take it," Simon said with a sigh. "Once more: May I ask a few clarifying questions or will that cause you to storm off in a huff?"

"Go ahead."

"Are there any parties you want excluded from the bidding? Or specifically included?"

Marcus and Eugene exchanged glances, then shook their heads. "No," Marcus said. "As long as they don't know who we are, we don't care who gets the stuff."

Simon nodded. "Excellent. You understand that the buyer may have the assets to buy it but not the liquid cash? You can get more if you're willing to accept annuities, or illiquid assets such as land."

Marcus looked at Eugene. "Liquid only, right?"

"Fuck yeah. Only what we can spend."

"Very well. Do you need literal cash, meaning actual physical stones, or would you accept a bank balance? The balance would be liquid in that you can buy things with it but you wouldn't be able to withdraw all of it without some delay, meaning that you couldn't take most of it out of the city." He raised a finger in warning. "I note that if you insist on physical stones then you are going to realize only a fraction of the value."

"We're okay with a bank balance," Marcus said after checking with Eugene. "As long as it's at First Bank." Eugene raised an eyebrow and Marcus added, "Estelle and I checked when we first got to town. Everyone said that First was the largest and most reputable."

Eugene nodded. "Good call."

"Do you need all of the metal to sell at the same time, to one person? If you're willing to accept multiple buyers for small lots that will likely increase the total revenue. Alternately, if you're willing to run one auction for a fraction of the metal, then wait a week or two, we could run a second auction for the rest of it once people have had time to liquidate assets."

"We should accept the cut and sell it all at once," Eugene said quietly. "We want to be able to bounce if we have to."

"We're here for at least a few months, depending on how long it takes to get Athos home," Estelle reminded him, not bothering to be quiet.

Eugene looked surprised for a moment, then rallied. "Sure, but we want the option to get out if we need to. If the whole underworld starts gunning for us then we want to run for it. We can find someone else, maybe back in Ozurdati, that can open a portal to the next domain in the line and then we go from there."

"We'll accept multiple auctions," Marcus said firmly. Eugene glared at him and started to say something, then slowly let out a breath and went back to smiling.

"Speaking of your travels across the domains," Simon said, his voice suddenly different, more focused, "I note that Zabazel is not with you. Why is that?"

"He got killed," Eugene said immediately. "Some weird snake demon bit him in half."

"Odd. He had a habit of staying high up and well back so as to be out of the line of fire."

I shifted nervously, looking from Eugene to Simon.

Eugene shrugged casually. "He was. It didn't help. The thing jumped down on us from on top of a wall. Bit Zabazel in half on the way down, landed right in the middle of the group. Would have killed us all if the big guy here hadn't bit its head off before it could do anything." He hooked a thumb towards me.

I let my jaw gape open and lips lift up just slightly to show my teeth, eyeing Simon the way I would eye some street dog growling at Cassie. I had in fact bitten multiple demons to death, and their blood had soaked my jaws and snoot. My people had wiped off as much as they could but my fur was still splotched purple and black from what they hadn't been able to get out.

Simon looked from Eugene, to me, to Murray. He studied the imp for a moment, then nodded.

"How terribly unfortunate."

"I know, right?" Murray sounded uncomfortable.

"Well, not to worry," Marcus said, smiling at Marcus. "You are still within your warranty period, so I can replace him with another translator imp for free. Give me just a moment." He raised clawed hands.

"It's fine," Marcus said quickly. "We're sticking close enough to each other that we really only need one translator imp. I was intending to cancel the contract regardless."

"...I see." Simon lowered his hands. "Very well, allow me to get your contract." He looked pointedly at Estelle. "I assume you will not object if I go under the counter for a moment?" he asked archly.

"Go for it."

"Thank you." He bent down, rummaged, and came up with a scroll and a quill. He unrolled it, checked something, and then made a notation at the bottom. "Sign here, please," he said, holding the quill out to Marcus.

Marcus looked uncomfortable for a moment, but he took the quill and jabbed himself in the wrist. He shuddered and gave out a strangled noise that didn't sound like pain; when he took the quill out his breathing was heavy, like Dad's got after doing windsprints in the park. He signed the scroll where Simon pointed.

"Thank you," Simon said, blowing on the signature to dry the blood, then rolling the scroll away and tossing it under the counter. "It will take me a few days to set up the auction. In the meantime..." He pulled out a pad of paper and scribbled something on it quickly, signing with a flourish before tearing the page loose and handing it to Marcus. "Here is your check for 250,000 stone. PortalCo maintains accounts at all the major banks, so you can withdraw from wherever you like. Now, do you wish to purchase secure storage for your box from me? If not, I suggest that your first stop be to rent a carryclank. That box must weigh several tons."

"Carryclank?" Marcus asked.

Simon gestured vaguely towards the street. "You must have seen them walking around. A steamer designed for hauling cargo. Wartechs like to have one around to carry their gear, as do traders fresh in from the country, furniture movers, that kind of thing. They come in various types—humanoid, quadruped, whatever."

"Estelle, take Eugene and rent a carryclank," Marcus said, not even pausing a moment. "Athos and I will stay here and guard the box."

"Who put you in charge?" Eugene demanded.

"Consider it your chance to use those Citizen-born negotiating skills," Estelle said.

Eugene looked sour. "Fine," he said. "Before we do that, we're stopping at First Bank so that we can deposit this check. Demon, the check better be good."