CHAPTER 6
The Cage of CrystalBefore they reached Bar-geda, Bardek told Negg and Millon all he knew about the town. On the outskirts he left them hidden while he slipped in to find some suitable clothes for them. Those they were wearing, rough breeches sewn from the pelts of water rats and ragged jackets that had known better days on the backs of city dwellers, would have given them away as marsh dwellers to be shunned and feared. Bardek exchanged a gold chain Firilla had given him, and which he always wore on his wrist, for some clothes in hunter’s red, and some good food.
On his return he tried to make the two seem less wild and conspicuous. They buried their rags, but kept their belt knives, their pouches of fire powder and the other oddments they thought they might need. When he was s
