The Seal of Karga Kul: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel
Read The Seal of Karga Kul: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel Online
Authors: Alex Irvine
The road ended in a tumble of scree that fell a few dozen yards to the lip of the gorge itself. Remy couldn’t see its bottom from where they stood. Around them reared up impassable walls of stone, with the narrowest of ledges on the left side of the scree.
And ahead of them, hanging impossibly in the empty air, was the Bridge of Iban Ja. Remy tried to count the stones, but could not. Some of them were larger than the house where he had last taken a meal in Avankil. Some were no larger than a man. Gathered together, they were a mosaic impression of a bridge, the gaps between them sometimes narrow enough for a halfling to tiptoe across and sometimes wide enough that no sane mortal would endeavor the jump without wings. Bits of cloth on sticks fluttered from cracks in some of the rocks, the guideposts of long-past travelers. All of the stones moved slightly, rocking in the winds that howled through the Gorge of Noon as if they floated on the surface of a gentled ocean, or a wide and flat stretch of river. Snow clung to some of them, and drifted in sculpted shapes across the flat edges of others.
“Well,” Kithri said, “now we’ve seen it. Biri-Daar, what did you say the other way across this gorge was?”
“It involves traveling fifty leagues off the road to a ford,” Biri-Daar said. “We have no time. I have crossed Iban Ja’s bridge before. It held me. It will hold you.”
“And by this point, crossing it is no longer a matter of choice,” Keverel chimed in.
“Is that so,” Kithri began. She saw Keverel pointing back up the road, turned to see what he was indicating, and saw—as Remy did at that exact moment—the band of tieflings standing in the road behind them. As they watched, the band of perhaps a dozen was fortified with ten times as many hobgoblin marauders.
Additional titles in the new
D
UNGEONS
& D
RAGONS
®
novel line
The Mark of Nerath
Bill Slavicsek
The Seal of Karga Kul
Alex Irvine
The Temple of Yellow Skulls
Don Basingthwaite
March 2011
Oath of Vigilance
James Wyatt
August 2011
The Last Garrison
Matthew Beard
December 2011
Dungeons & Dragons
The Seal of Karga Kul
©2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC
D
UNGEONS
& D
RAGONS
, D&D, W
IZARDS OF THE
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OAST
, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.
Cover art by Wayne Reynolds
Map by Robert Lazzaretti
Appendix reprinted from
Player’s Handbook Races: Dragonborn
, by James Wyatt, Wizards of the Coast, January 2010
eISBN: 978-0-7869-5811-5
620-21444000-001-EN
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v3.1
To Gary Gygax, for the game
and my Pop for introducing me to it
.
In the shadow of empires, the past echoes in the legends of heroes. Civilizations rise and crumble, leaving few places that have not been touched by their grandeur. Ruin, time, and nature claim what the higher races leave behind, while chaos and darkness fill the void. Each new realm must make its mark anew on the world rather than build on the progress of its predecessors.
Numerous civilized races populate this wondrous and riotous world of Dungeons & Dragons. In the early days, the mightiest among them ruled. Empires based on the power of giants, dragons, and even devils rose, warred, and eventually fell, leaving ruin and a changed world in their wake. Later, kingdoms carved by mortals appeared like the glimmer of stars, only to be swallowed as if by clouds on a black night.
Where civilization failed, traces of it remain. Ruins dot the world, hidden by an ever-encroaching wilderness that shelters unnamed horrors. Lost knowledge lingers in these places. Ancient magic set in motion by forgotten hands still flows in them. Cities and towns still stand, where inhabitants live, work, and seek shelter from the dangers of the wider world. New communities spring up where the bold have seized territory from rough country, but few common folk ever wander far afield. Trade and travel are the purview of the ambitious, the brave, and the desperate. They are wizards and warriors who carry on traditions that date to ancient times. Still others innovate, or simply learn to fight as necessity dictates, forging a unique path.
Truly special individuals, however, are rare. An extraordinary few master their arts in ways beyond what is required for mere survival or protection. For good or ill, such people rise up to take on more than any mundane person dares. Some even become legends.
These are the stories of those select few …
THE WASTES
R
emy lay
dying
, the poison of stormclaw scorpions burning its way through his veins, and while he died he tried to pray. Pelor, he called out, save me. The god did not answer. Remy tried to look around him, but dark was falling and his eyes were sticky and dry, whether from the venom or something else he didn’t know. He fell into a fever dream as beside him, the horse he had ridden past the Crow Fork breathed its last.
He was a boy of twelve, weaving through Quayside with a message for the captain of a river barge. He was barefoot because his mother forbade him to wear shoes on warm days. The stones of the Quayside wharves were familiar to him, as were its smells: stagnant water, woodsmoke, sun-baked mud. Avankil stood at the head of the Blackfall Estuary, which slowly opened out for a hundred miles or
more. The Blackfall itself was meandering and brackish there, a creature of tide and commerce three miles wide and studded with vessels of every description. Remy found the barge captain smoking a pipe on the deck of his vessel, sharing an uproarious joke with one of Avankil’s custom-house clerks. Silver and what looked like a snuff tin appeared briefly in the captain’s hands before vanishing into the clerk’s pocket. Permission to board, Remy called out. I have a message for the captain.
Board then, the captain answered.
Still out of breath from the run—he’d come all the way from the Undergate of the Keep of Avankil—Remy delivered his message. Is that right, the captain mused. He worked the stem of his pipe around in his teeth. Well. Here is something to carry back.
He wrote on a sheet of paper, in an alphabet that Remy—who could read Common well enough—could not decipher. Show this to no one but the vizier himself, the captain said. Or, if you must, his double.
How will I know the difference? Remy asked.