Cheaper Than Lost

They had passed two stalls before someone addressed them without trying to put an object in their hands.

“Newly arrived,” the voice said. “That is cheaper than lost.”

The speaker stood beside a narrow writing shelf fixed to a pier. A clean harness crossed the powerful goat body beneath their upright torso; polished fittings carried small pouches, a folded cloth, and an ink case. Their horns curved away from eyes that had already taken account of the party’s packs.

“Being hunted costs considerably more.”

Rishi began to answer.

Grim put a hand out without touching him. “Don’t answer that like a decent person.”

The broker smiled. “One of you has done business before.”

“Enough to hear an assessment before the price.”

“Then we may save each other time.”

Maeril turned to bring the broker fully into view. The bariaur had positioned themself outside the busiest stream of traffic, under a small awning that shaded the writing shelf. A customer could stand there, talk, and leave in either direction. Maeril approved of the arrangement before she could stop herself.

“And your name?” she asked.

“Pell Two-Prices.”

Grim looked unimpressed. “At least that part’s honest.”

“The name is free. What do you need?”

Maeril placed her staff beside her boot. “A sighting.”

“A person, an object, or an event?”

“A companion.”

Pell inclined their head.

“A floating skull. Pearly metal, pinkish light. Musical voice. Talks about the contents of people’s chests as though expecting a concert.”

“Mimir?”

“Yes.”

“Many pass through.”

“This one passes judgment on the experience.”

Grim added, “And calls us fleshy beings.”

Pell’s fingers stopped beside the ink case.

Maeril saw the recognition and kept her own voice even. “They may be traveling with an elf woman. Light complexion, shaved head. Tired. Perhaps wearing some mark of dawn.”

Pell looked at Rishi. He stood so still that the crowd seemed to hurry around him. Maeril shifted half a pace, drawing the broker’s attention back to her.

“Do you have a sighting?”

“The mimir, perhaps. The woman you describe, I cannot promise.”

“Then price what you can.”

Pell named a sum in silver.

Maeril let a brief silence follow it. “For a possible recollection?”

“For a recollection and a witness who can improve it.”

“Those are two prices.”

“Now you understand the name.”

She held out fewer coins than Pell had asked. “For both. If the recollection is too uncertain to be useful, I will need the witness to justify paying anything.”

Pell looked at the coins, then at her. Their amusement remained professional.

“No shouting names across the Bazaar. No holding me responsible for what the next person remembers. And the whereabouts of anyone else who has purchased the same information are a separate transaction.”

Grim watched their mouth. “You haven’t said anyone has.”

“Correct.”

Maeril put the silver on the writing shelf.

Rishi’s thumb moved once along his staff. Behind the broker, a man hurried past carrying a child asleep against his shoulder, and Rishi made room for him without looking away from Pell.

The broker gathered the coins.

“Pearlescent skull. Rose-colored light in the eyes. A voice like a small bell being very certain about something it has misunderstood.”

Maeril felt a little of the tension leave her shoulders.

“Yes.”

“I saw them beside a young elf. Dark hair, rather a lot of it. Warm complexion. Alert. Kept the mimir close.”

Her relief stopped.

“Young?”

“Adult. Young-looking.”

“With dark hair.”

“Yes.”

Maeril glanced at Rishi. He had gone still in a different way.

Elisa’s shaved head had belonged to a disguise made under pressure in Waterdeep. Hair would grow, but not into a dark mane in two weeks. The complexion was wrong, too.

“Are you certain it was the mimir I described?”

“About the mimir, yes.”

“And the woman?”

“Was not shaved. Was not pale. Was not looking to be helped.”

“Was she holding them?” Rishi asked.

Pell turned to him. “The mimir floated beside her shoulder.”

“A tether?”

“None that I saw.”

Rishi’s eyes stayed on the broker. Maeril waited for another detail that might return the sighting to the shape she expected. None came.

Chime beside someone else. Elisa somewhere without Chime. The possibilities spread too quickly, each one worse for having no evidence to choose it over another.

She pressed her thumb against one of the rings carved into her staff.

“Where?” Rishi asked.

“Under a blue awning, three rows inward. A tea seller.”

Pell raised one hand and indicated a route through the stalls. Maeril followed it with her eye until a stall’s low awning blocked her view.

“She spoke with them longer than I did. Your companion made an observation about her tea. She remembers criticism.”

For the first time since the description changed, Maeril could picture Chime clearly: hovering at a counter, offering some sincere musical account of a beverage that nobody had asked them to taste.

“That sounds like them.”

“It sounded like them to the entire row.”

“How long ago?”

Pell gave the approximate time of the sighting and distinguished it from what the seller had told them afterward. Grim nodded once at the separation.

Maeril would have preferred a lie she could break open. Precision gave her nothing to fight.

“Blue awning,” she repeated.

“Three rows. Poor tea. A woman with a very good memory for offense.”

Rishi turned toward the indicated gap. Maeril moved with him, checking that Grim had heard the same route.

He had. His gaze remained on Pell a moment longer.

“If we need you again?”

The broker tapped the writing shelf. “You have found me once.”

They left Pell adjusting the ink case for the next customer.

Maeril counted the rows as they walked. At the first, she nearly spoke Elisa’s name. At the second, Rishi’s hand came briefly against her back where a laden shopper squeezed past them.

“Chime first,” he said.

She nodded and looked for blue canvas.