by R. T. Kaelin
Rose felt as though she was in a pit of sand sharks, but she wouldn’t be bullied. She didn’t want to die, that was true, but she wasn’t going to do something immoral either. If Nix thought she could be bribed with a promotion, she was wrong.
Queen Nix waited until everyone except Synn El’Asim left. He kept a fair distance, but remained within earshot. Nix stroked the ruby on her chest. “You’re wondering why I did not have you executed.”
Rose swallowed and raised her chin. “The thought crossed my mind.”
Nix took a step forward and raised a hand to Rose’s face, tracing the new captain’s jaw with her diamond encrusted claw. “I can do nothing with you, and can do nothing about you. You are simply too valuable to kill.”
Rose took a step back. “How long are you going to keep me because of my Mark? You collect people like trophies. I’m not a trophy.”
Nix rubbed her nose and smiled slightly. “Oh, but you are.”
Smashing her lips together, Rose shook her head. “You have nothing you can hold over me, nothing to force me to submit. You couldn’t break me before, so you’re going to bribe me with my freedom? Why? What do you want?”
“I want you,” Queen Nix said forcefully. She blinked rapidly, her expression softening. “You are fond of Bennen Domitius, yes?”
Rose’s nostrils flared, but she remained silent.
Nix leaned in, stopping inches from Rose’s nose, and whispered. “Remember, Captain, I have his sister.”
The threat was as predictable as it was serious. “And if I tell anyone about what I saw…” Rose trailed off, leaving the obvious unspoken.
Nix blinked slowly, a cold smile slithering into place along her full lips. “Yes. I will. Without hesitation.”
Rose opened her mouth, but there was nothing to say.
Nix cupped Rose’s jaw in her jewel-clawed hand. “Oh, my little battle rose, you are so extraordinary.” The queen’s dark eyes penetrated Rose’s soul. “I will have you. One way or another.”
Rose pulled her chin out of her queen’s hand. “I doubt that.”
The queen smiled and took a step back, gesturing grandly, the sun glinting on the gold, twirling falcons of her crown. “You have your freedom, Rose. Enjoy it.” Queen Nix walked away, gathered up Synn El’Asim, and then strode gracefully across the deck.
Rose dropped her head and sighed. Freedom shouldn’t come with a leash.
*
The Ring
by Timothy Zahn
It had been the fifth free-fall day in a row on Wall Street, the kind of day that grinds all the anger and frustration out of an investor and leaves him feeling nothing at all, unless it’s a weary desire for rest or death and either would be fine with him.
Which was why Nick Powell, department store floor manager and formerly-hopeful stock market investor, walked completely past the small curio shop on his way home from work before the exotic gold ring sitting on its black velvet pad in the window finally registered.
Even then, he almost didn’t stop. His modest and carefully nurtured portfolio had been nearly wiped out in the bloodletting, and there was no place for impulse purchases in a budget that included food and clothing and a Manhattan rent.
But his girlfriend Lydia loved odd jewelry, and a week’s worth of preoccupation with the markets had turned their permanent simmering disagreement about money first into a shouting argument and then into a cold and deadly silence. A suitable peace offering might help patch things up.
And who knew? In a little shop like this, the ring might even be reasonably priced. Retracing his steps, Nick went inside.
“Afternoon,” the shopkeeper greeted him. He was an old man, tall and thin, with wrinkled skin and a few gray hairs still holding tenaciously to his pale skull. But his blue eyes were sharp enough, and there was a sardonic twist to the corners of his mouth. “What can I do for you?”
“That ring in the window,” Nick said. “I wonder if I might look at it.”
The old man’s eyes seemed to flash. “Very discerning,” he said as he left the counter and crossed to the window. Nick winced as he passed, something about the air that brushed across his face sending a tingle up his back. “Antique German,” the shopkeeper went on as he turned around again, the ring nestled in the palm of his hand. “Here—don’t be afraid. Come and see.”
Don’t be afraid? Frowning at the odd comment, Nick leaned over to look.
Sitting behind a dusty window in the fading sunlight, the ring had been impressive. Pressed against human flesh in a bright, clean light, it was dazzling.
It was gold, of course, but somehow it seemed like a brighter, clearer, more vibrant gold than anything Nick had ever seen before. The design itself was equally striking: a meshed filigree of long, thin leaves intertwined with six slender human arms, each complete with a tiny but delicately shaped hand. “It’s beautiful,” he managed, the words catching oddly in his throat. “German, you say?”
“Very old German,” the shopkeeper said. “Tell me, are you rich?”
Nick grimaced. So much for any peace offering to Lydia. It probably would just have earned him a lecture on extravagance anyway. “Hardly,” he said, taking a step toward the door. “Thanks for—”
“Would you like to be rich?”
Nick frowned. There was an unpleasant gleam in the old man’s eyes. “Of course,” Nick said. “Who wouldn’t?”
“How badly?”
The standing disagreement with Lydia flashed through his mind. “Badly enough, I’m told,” he muttered.
“Good.” The old man thrust his hand toward Nick. “Here. Take it. Put it on.”
Slowly, Nick reached over and took the ring. The old man’s skin, where he touched it, felt cold and scaly. “What?”
“Put it on,” the old man repeated.
“No, it’s not for me—it’s for a lady friend,” Nick said.
“It doesn’t want her,” the old man said flatly, an edge to his voice. “Put it on.”
Nick shook his head. “There’s no way it’ll fit,” he warned, slipping the filigreed gold onto his right ring finger. Sure enough, it stopped at the second knuckle. “See? It—” He broke off as the ring somehow suddenly slid the rest of the way to the base of the finger.
“It likes you,” the old man said approvingly. “It knows you can do it.”
“It knows I can do what?” Nick demanded, pulling on the ring to take it off. But whatever trick of flexible sizing had allowed it to get over the knuckle, the trick was apparently gone. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s the Ring of the Nibelungs,” the old man said solemnly.
“The what?”
“The Ring of the Nibelungs,” the old man repeated, the somber tone replaced by irritation. “Crafted hundreds of years ago by the dwarf Alberich from the magic gold of the Rhinemaidens. It carries the power to create wealth for whoever possesses it.” His lip twisted. “Don’t you ever listen to Wagner’s operas?”
“I don’t get to the Met very often,” Nick growled, twisting some more at the Ring. “Come on, get this thing off me.”
“It won’t come off,” the old man said. “As I said, it likes you.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” Nick shot back. “Come on, give me a hand.”
“Just take it,” the old man said. “There’s no charge.”
Nick paused, frowning. “No charge?”
“Not until later,” the other said. “Shall we say ten percent of your earnings?”
Nick snorted. The way things were going, a deal like that would soon have the old man owing him money. “Deal,” he said sarcastically. “I’ll just back up the armored car to your door, okay?”
The other smiled, his eyes glittering all the more. “Good-bye, Mr. Powell,” he said softly. “I’ll be seeing you.”
Nick was two blocks away, still trying to get the Ring off, when it suddenly occurred to him that he’d never told the old man his name.
There weren’t any messages fr
om Lydia waiting on his machine. He thought about calling her, decided that it wouldn’t accomplish anything, and ate his dinner alone. Afterwards, for the same reason people tune into the eleven o’clock news to see a repeat of the same multicar crash they’ve already seen on the six o’clock news, he turned on his computer and pulled up the data on the international stock markets.
Only to find that, to his astonishment, the six o’clock crash wasn’t being repeated.
He stared at the screen, punching in his trader passcode again and again. The overall Nikkei average was down by nearly the same percentage as the Dow. But somehow, impossibly, Nick’s stocks had not only survived the drop but had actually increased in value.
All of his stocks had.
He was up until after four in the morning, checking first the Nikkei, then the Hang Seng, then the Sensex 30, then the DJ Stoxx 600. It was the same pattern in all of them: the overall numbers bounced up and down like fishing boats in a rough sea, but Nick’s own stocks stubbornly defied the trends, rising like small hot-air balloons over the violent waters.
He fell asleep on his desk about the time the London exchanges were opening…and when he awoke, stiff and groggy, the NYSE had been open for nearly an hour, he was two hours late for work, and already he’d made up nearly everything he’d lost in the past two days. By the time the market closed that afternoon, his portfolio’s value had made it back to where it had been before the freefall started.
By the end of the next week, he was a millionaire.
* *** *
He broke the news to Lydia over their salads that Saturday at Sardis’s. To his annoyed surprise, she wasn’t happy for him.
In fact, just the opposite. “I don’t like it, Nick,” she said, her face somber and serious in the candlelight. “It isn’t right.”
“What’s not right about it?” Nick countered, trying to keep his voice low. “Why shouldn’t one of the little people get some of Wall Street’s money for a change?”
“Because this was way too fast,” Lydia said. “It’s not good to get rich so quickly.”
Nick shook his head in exasperation. “This is one of those things I can’t win, isn’t it?” he growled. “I head into the dumpster and you don’t like it. I turn around and bounce into the ionosphere, and you still don’t like it. Can you give me a hint of what income level you would like me to have?”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Lydia said, her eyes flashing with some exasperation of her own. “It’s not about the money. It’s about your obsession with it.”
“Could you keep your voice down?” Nick ground out, glancing furtively around the dining room.
“Because you’re just as focused on money now as you were a week ago,” Lydia said, ignoring his request. “Maybe even more so.”
“Only because I’ve got more to be focused on,” Nick muttered. Heads were starting to turn, he noted with embarrassment, as nearby diners began to tune in on the conversation.
“Exactly,” Lydia said. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t believe someone can make a million dollars in two weeks without some serious obsessing going on.”
Heads were definitely turning now. “Half the people in this room do it all the time,” Nick said, wishing that he’d waited until dessert to bring this up. Now they were going to have to endure the sideways glances through the whole meal.
Still, part of him rather liked the fact he was being noticed by people like this. After all, he was on his way to being one of them.
“I’m just worried about money getting its claws into you, that’s all,” Lydia persisted.
Out of sight beneath the table, Nick brushed his fingers across the filigreed surface of the Ring that, despite every effort, still wouldn’t come off. “It won’t,” he promised.
“Then prove it,” Lydia challenged. “If money’s not your master, give some of it away.”
The old shopkeeper’s face superimposed itself across Lydia’s. Ten percent of your profits, Mr. Powell. “I can do that,” Nick said, suppressing a shiver. “No problem.”
“And I don’t mean give it to the IRS,” Lydia said archly. “I mean give some of it to charity or the community.”
“No problem,” Nick repeated.
Lydia still didn’t look convinced. But just then a pair of waiters appeared at their table, one sweeping their salad plates deftly out of their way as the other uncovered freshly steaming plates, and for the moment at least that conversation was over.
Despite the rocky start, the meal turned out to be a very pleasant time. Lydia might like to claim the high ground in her opinions about money, a small cynical part of Nick noted, but she had no problem enjoying the benefits that money could bring.
They were halfway through crème brulee for two when a silver-haired man in an expensive suit left his table and his dark-haired female companion and came over. “Good evening,” he said, laying a gold-embossed business card beside Nick’s wine glass. “I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation earlier. My congratulations on your recent achievement.”
“Thank you,” Nick said, his heartbeat picking up as the name on the card jumped out at him. This was none other than David Sonnerfeld, CEO of one of the biggest investment firms in the city. “I was just lucky.”
“That kind of luck is a much sought-after commodity on Wall Street,” Sonnerfeld said, smiling at Lydia. “Would you by any chance be interested in exploring a position with Sonnerfeld Thompkins?”
“He already has a job,” Lydia put in.
“Actually, I don’t,” Nick corrected her. “I quit this afternoon.”
Lydia’s eyes widened. “You quit?”
“Why not?” Nick demanded, feeling the heat rising to his cheeks. Was she never going to let up? “It’s not like I need it anymore.”
“Quite right,” Sonnerfeld put in smoothly. “A man with the talent for making money hardly needs a normal job. On the other hand, the right position with the right people can certainly enhance both your career and your life.” He gestured down at the card. “Why don’t you come by the office Monday morning. Say, around eleven?”
“That would be—yes, thank you,” Nick managed.
“Excellent,” Sonnerfeld said, reaching out his hand. “Mr.—?”
“Powell,” Nick said, reaching out and taking the proffered hand. “Nick Powell.”
“Mr. Powell,” Sonnerfeld said, giving his hand a quick, firm shake. “That’s an interesting ring. Oh, and do bring your portfolio and trading record with you.” With a polite smile at Lydia, he returned to his waiting companion and they headed toward the exit.
“I take it he’s someone important?” Lydia murmured.
“One of the biggest brokerage men in the city,” Nick told her, his hands starting to shake with reaction. “And he’s interested in me.”
“Or he’s just interested in your money.” Lydia dropped her gaze to his hand. “So you’re still wearing that thing?”
“I happen to like it,” Nick said, hearing the defensiveness in his voice. He’d been too embarrassed at first to tell her he couldn’t get it off, and now he was stuck with the lie that he actually liked the damn thing.
“It’s grotesque,” she insisted, peering at the Ring like it was a diseased animal. “Those leaves look half drowned. And the hands all look like they’re grabbing desperately for something.”
Nick held the Ring up for a closer look. Now that she mentioned it, there did seem to be a sense of hopelessness in the arms and hands. “It’s old German,” he said. “Styles change over the centuries, you know.”
“I don’t like it,” Lydia said, a quick shiver running through her.
“I’m not asking you to wear it,” Nick growled, scooping up a bite of the crème brulee. But the flavor had gone out of the delicate dessert. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, laying down his spoon. “You coming back to my place?”
“That depends,” she said, gazing evenly at him. “Will you promise not to check
on your money every ten minutes?”
“What, you mean go into the vault and count it?” he scoffed.
“I mean will you leave the computer off?”
He sighed theatrically. “Fine,” he said. “I promise.”
But later, an hour after she’d fallen asleep, he stole out of the bedroom and went online to check the foreign market predictions. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her; and besides, his finger underneath the Ring was suddenly hurting too much for him to sleep.
An hour later, his curiosity satisfied and the pain gone as inexplicably as it had appeared, he crept back into bed.
And in his dreams, he was the master of the world.
* *** *
The Monday meeting at Sonnerfeld Thompkins was every bit as impressive as Nick had expected it to be. Sonnerfeld pulled out all the stops, introducing him to the rest of the firm’s top people and studying Nick’s portfolio with amazement and praise.
Midway through lunch, under Sonnerfeld’s polite but steady pressure, Nick agreed to join Sonnerfeld Thompkins on a trial basis.
The first month was like a chapter from a financial success book. Nick’s Midas touch continued, with every stock, bond, or commodity he picked turning to gold with a perfect sense of timing. There were a few false starts, but every time he tried to buy a property that he would later find was irretrievably on its way down, his finger started hurting so badly he could hardly type. Eventually, he learned how to read the telltale twinges that came before the actual pain started.
Pain or not, though, his purchases made money for himself and the firm and its clients, and that was the important thing. By the end of the month, Sonnerfeld was talking—just theoretically, of course—of putting Nick on the fast track to full partner, and wondering aloud about the flow of the name Sonnerfeld Thompkins Powell. Everything was going perfectly.
Everything, that is, except Lydia. In the midst of all the success, she continued her self-appointed role as rainmaker to Nick’s private parade. Before the Ring had come to him Nick had been ready to ask her to marry him, his lack of proper finances the only thing holding him back. But now, just when he was gaining the sort of wealth and power that would attract most women, Lydia was instead growing more distant. While she still permitted him to spend money on her for dinners and modest gifts, her disapproval of what she called his obsession was never far below the surface. He couldn’t pause in the middle of an evening to check the international funds without getting a lecture, and she went nearly ballistic when he tried to give her a simple little thirty-thousand-dollar necklace.