Wares and trinkets hung in long, quiet rows. Armor ran from plain cast bronze to helms said to be forged from adamantine.
Cowhides lay in folds the color of wet straw and herb beds steamed softly in their frames.
"Looking for something in particular, lad?" the trader said, voice rough as rope, eyes already counting.
Radeon didn't spare the man a glance. He ran his fingers along a strip of calfskin and felt it glide under his touch.
Then he picked up a plate from a water serpent's scale set and tried to bend it, only for it to push back against his grip.
'Forged armor's out. Leather's lighter and keeps both of us moving,' he thought.
His hand brushed over reptilian hide. A light poke made the leather give and deform before springing back into shape.
Radeon weighed it in his palms. Its broad span did nothing to warn how light it truly was.
"This one. What hide?"
"Sharp eye on you. Water chameleon hide," the trader said. "Looks pretty. Feels pretty. But I would not wager my old belly on it stopping a blade."
'Less than a fifth of the drake's weight. Costs barely a tenth.'
"Wrap these water chameleons. I'll take them."
He set twenty spirit stones on the stall where the sign promised twelve a piece.
The dust on the leather was a dead giveaway no one was interested for a long time.
"It says twelve..."
"Finishing up, or should I take my twenty stones elsewhere?"
Curses slurred under his beard as he bound the hides in twine and brown paper.
Radeon moved along the herb shelf. In a clay pot, the grass breathed iron and life. Each blade wore a thin crimson blush.
"Sixty spirit stones or thirty contribution points," the trader said, seeing his interest.
'Sixty-odd spirit stones left. Over a hundred points cut off Rai's work.'
He set the blood grass down and lifted the bundle of vigorwort. Twenty-five stalks. Plump and well-trimmed. Good stock. The scent turned on him, sour then sweet. Heat stirred low in his belly.
"Robes won't buy this. Not in a house that prizes quiet beds," Radeon quipped.
"Five points a stalk," the trader said. "I am losing on it already. If my wife hears that price, she will tan my hide to match these chameleons."
Radeon thumbed the bundle, his face dull as his thoughts tallied what it would cost him.
"One-oh-five points for the lot," he said.
"Come. Skin these old bones right here and now," the trader said, baring his teeth.
"Then forget it," Radeon said while waving his hands.
Radeon set the herbs down at once, careful and quick, then shifted half a step toward the door, weight already coiled to move.
The trader's fingers tightened on the counter.
"One hundred twenty points. It's yours," he said. "Last mercy out of this old man."
"Hundred points," Radeon countered. "Thirty stones from me on top. That's it."
A breath. A nod. Paper crackled. Resin bit the air and made his eyes prickle.
"Not yet. Need a pint of spirit ink. Throw it in and we're done here."
The trader grumbled into his beard but nodded once.
"You are bleeding me, boy. Fine. Ink too. Is this all?"
Radeon drifted to the side while the man wrapped the goods. An old leather book cover held the door open.
He nudged the door shut with his hip and palmed the cover up.
'Good specimen. I can work with this.'
Paper crackled behind him and Radeon went still. He set the leather cover back down by the jamb with a soft flap and glanced outside for something he could use without paying.
A length of lumber lay crooked beside the path, half sunk in mud, its surface furred with rot. He brushed it with a thin wash of qi and the grime slid off.
He snapped off a slat, shaved it down to a neat wedge, then slid it under the door until it caught and held, testing the gap and the weight.
"Here you are," the trader said, his gaze snagging on the wedge. "Clever hands on you. What d'you want for that little trick of yours?"
"That old leather by the door. I'll trade for it."
"What'd you be needing that for, then? Ah, never mind. Take it," he grumbled, waving a big hand. "Before I remember I'm meant to be a proper elder of this sect."
Radeon held his tongue and shouldered the door.
Outside, he pressed two fingers together and called a thin edge. Sword qi scraped along the soil-stained leather and went nowhere.
'Definitely will come in handy.'
Afternoon laid an apricot skin over the stone street while the sun sank along the ribs of the peak and the pines swayed above.
The breeze turned the sweat cold on his back as robed disciples shuffled past with their day's scrolls clutched tight.
He reached his cave abode before the lamps were lit. Radeon glanced down at what he carried and felt no contempt.
A bundle of common herbs rested in his arms. Spearmint. Peppermint. Licorice root.
'Better start refining these while they're fresh.'
He ground spearmint, peppermint, and licorice root into a dull green paste. The sharp oils rose and tempered the vigorwort's bite.
Then he pressed his palm to the bowl and bled qi into it. Heat gathered under his skin, a steady burn that made the clay sweat.
The mixture quivered, then boiled hard, hissing as it thickened and collapsed in on itself, boiling down to a lurid pink mass.
As the last moisture cooked away, it set firm. A magenta pill, the color of bruised flesh. He turned it once to check the shine, set it with the rest, and went back to the mortar.
He kept at it until the herbs were gone and the sharp mint smell dulled.
When he finally lifted his hand, the tray was filled edge to edge with identical bruised magenta pills, lined in tight rows, ready to swallow.
"Twenty-five. Not bad."
He took one and sat down to rest. Heat ran up his spine and slipped past the place he refused to wake. His jaw clenched until it passed.
The ache behind his eyes thinned. His forearms felt less like stone. Sweat rose and cooled.
Radeon laid the water chameleon skin flat, tracing the faint ink marks he'd measured out earlier along its length.
"Hard part now."
He cut three neat sockets along each mark in the hide. Spirit stones clicked into place and shone with a cold, mean light.
Radeon gathered the ink, the skin, and the bottles. The choice was plain. He lacked the strength to make a true tool.
For now, he would borrow and bow to the beings of the void above. He bit his finger and let a red string of blood fall into the bowl of iron gall.
Pills rolled down his throat, bullying his marrow into making more, faster than nature would allow.
By the time the work stopped, all he had left was a liter of bloodied ink and limbs that shook with hollow lightness.
He dipped the old brush down and began to draw symbols on the floor.
Each rune was a call to antiquity, a summons for an overlord not bound to this realm but to the breadth of the cosmos. One who would take an offering.
"Take my blood as sacrifice. Beings of dream and blood, heed my call."
Eyes budded open in the bowl, rising on the ink's surface like bubbles.
When the first of them blinked, he dipped his brush and carried that living black across to the waiting chameleon skin.
Each stroke laid another whispering pupil along the marks and sockets.
Radeon scanned each eye. A single uncertainty, a glimpse of malice, and he would cut the ritual.
'None yet.'
"Hide from dark and light. Drown your tread in silence. Let your scent be a dream." He chanted the words, the wishes he needed fulfilled by the ritual.
Little mouths budded on the surface and found the shape of his words.
They took up the prayer and mimicked the movement of his lips, their envy of his voice in the strain of every word.
'Need something I can afford to pay for later. Too strong, it kills me here. Too small, all this was a waste.'
Radeon knew this was the hinge, either a single second long enough to deceive a god or a long stretch of days spent walking unnoticed by mortal eyes.
As mouths and eyes settled, the ink murmured. Only breath at first. Then the sounds snapped into words, smooth and sure, as if the babbling before had been a deliberate lie.
"Yes. Yes. Yes. A price. For time. You ask. Time. I give."
"Ninety minutes on both chameleon leathers.sen. Not a breath more," he replied.
The inky mouths started hissing, and each eye turned bloodshot.
Tears of blood pattered from all over the cave as the darkness flooded in.
"Pay. Pay. Unworthy pay! Tally. Bill. Debt. Yes. Collateral. A heart? An arm? A hand. Yes. A hand. It's enough."
A thin line of gray burned into his wrist. Radeon didn't wince.
Pay a minute off and a hand was never the whole bill with things like this.
As the ceremonial murmur died, the last painted mouth on the lizard skin puckered and whispered its price.
"Immortality once held. He. She. The same. A speck. A mote of dust. A grain. Give. It. To. Me," the voice rasped from nowhere.
The mouth smudged and sank back into the hide. The mark on his arm remained.