by Scott Warren
I pressed my hands together in front of my face before any more foolish words could slip past my very stupid lips.
“My Lord Alkazarian,” I said carefully. “You must think me a great fool to try and understand the value of gold as a dragon must see it.”
“That is true,” said Alkazarian.
“And to explain how my countrymen see value in words printed on paper might seem equally foolish. But you did not bring me here to tutor you.”
Alkazarian said nothing, awaiting my conclusion.
“You brought me here to make sure you’ll be as rich in my new world as you were in ages past. You want to conquer this new type of wealth that doesn’t look to gold or silver. But instead to books and paper.”
I could feel Arkelai’s hand relax on my shoulder. Her breath blew past me in a smoky, spicy plume, and it occurred to me that she must have been holding it for some time. In the center of his pool, Lord Alkazarian nodded, reclining. His horned head dropped toward me at the end of its serpentine neck, close enough for me to see embers burning deep within the hollow caves of his nostrils. The delicate scales at the nape of his neck were flat white discs. Platinum, I realized. I looked up at the horns. White-gold. The dragon didn’t just love wealth; he literally embodied it.
“Can it be done?” he asked. Then considered his statement. “Or rather, are you the one to do it? Or shall I find someone else to represent me?”
I swallowed. “Your daughter told me that I am not at the top of the list. I am its sole resident,” I said. There were holes in our conversation, but I recalled that quite clearly. “So I must ask: do I have a choice?”
Alkazarian laughed deep in his throat, and the wash of rotten-egg sulfur overpowered me. I fought to keep my eyes from watering lest it be taken as a sign of weakness.
“There is always a choice. An unwilling champion is no champion at all. And I reward all my champions. But know this: should you take this mantle and fail… you will not like the result, little mouse.”
Of that I had no doubt. The mouth of Alkazarian was wide enough to swallow me whole. And when he laughed, I could see the tendrils of flame creeping up his throat. But this opportunity—the promise of reward and the offer to tread the line between myth and finance—was more than enough. Alkazarian was the client of a thousand lifetimes.
I bowed. “In that case, I believe it can be done. With your resources, good planning, and some small amount of luck, I believe you could become a titan of industry. But it will not be fast. Or easy. It could take years.”
“Years…?” asked Alkazarian. “How soon until your paper money enters full circulation?”
It was a good question. The rollout had been pushed up to quell spreading rumors. It hadn’t caused a riot, so by all accounts it seemed to have been a success. With the advent of printing presses, there was no reason the Crown would not follow the lead of Whadael, Lethorn, and Kaharas in beginning to issue bank notes to trusted institutions and collecting them as taxes. It would take time, of course, before I could bring a mark-note into the bakery and use it for my daily tea. The window would have to be fixed too after Arkelai’s show of force. I idly wondered if I could somehow make restitutions anonymously. “Perhaps as early as the summer after next,” I said, returning to the quandary at hand. “Adoption will take time, but I think at that point there will be more printed notes in circulation than actual silver marks.”
“Well then,” Alkazarian said cheerfully. “You have two years.”
Chapter 9 - Lineage
Two years. I had two years with which to make Alkazarian one of the wealthiest business interests in Borreos. And I had to do it without catching the attention of Darrez Issa. For all the Queen’s Master of the Royal Mint hated human interaction, he kept tight reins on the country’s financial workings. It would not take much for him to show up on my doorstep with a clerk and a cadre of Queen Liza’s enforcers to find out where Alkazarian’s money had come from. The volume of hard capital it would require to meet Alkazarian’s demands would be sure to turn heads if I was not careful. Wealth, in general, was accounted for in a civilized society. It was generated, lent, earned, and most importantly taxed. It did not typically spring forth from an ancient dragon’s lair.
Lady Arkelai escorted me from her father’s presence while I pondered this challenge. She looked as tired as I felt, and it occurred to me that she might have actually been nervous about the encounter. It seemed even the daughters of dragons could be pressed to insecurity when presenting a new pet and asking to keep it.
In any case, we halted at the antechamber and she turned to me. “You speak well under pressure,” she said. As I had not been devoured, I was inclined to agree, but she continued before I could voice the opinion. “Wait here. I must have a word with my father.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, slumping back against the wall of the cave. I was so thoroughly exhausted that I didn’t care about the soot-stains smudging across my jacket as I slid to the floor and closed my eyes for a moment. Her sharp, spicy scent vanished as the sharp click of her heeled boots carried her back toward the golden lake. For the first time since awakening on the slopes of Bastayne, I was alone.
Or not entirely alone, as I discovered when I raised my head. Two small amber eyes peered at me from overtop a rock but retreated when the owner realized I had noticed them. I said nothing, and soon they reappeared with less trepidation. The pale shock of hair betrayed the sandy-haired boy who had knelt on the shores of the pond when Alkazarian had arrived. In truth, I had almost forgotten him, and in searching my memory I could not recall faces or features beyond their display of fealty to the dragon. But I knew this youth had been among them.
Though never blessed with children myself, I’d always found an easy comfort in their company and possessed a proclivity for putting them at ease. Perhaps my work was so complicated that I cherished their simple world. I waved the youth out, offering what must have looked a very tired smile as I climbed to my feet. The eyes held mine, and before ten heartbeats had passed, the child had come out into the open, and what first I’d taken as a boy of twelve or thirteen summers looked to actually be a girl of thirteen or fourteen. She had hoops of gold in the lobes of both ears, and each of those ears was capped with a silver barb that resembled Alkazarian’s white-gold horns. The first two fingers and thumb of each hand were encased in segmented silver claws, as if she wore the fingers of a knight’s parade gauntlet. She approached slowly, each bare footstep directly in line with the last as she weaved her way toward me.
“Are you the bank man?” she asked.
“I am,” I said. “Are you one of Lord Alkazarian’s daughters, like Arkelai?”
She nodded. “Arkelai is my oldest sister. I’m Leera. It’s short for Arkeleera.”
“That’s a pretty name,” I said. It took effort to remind myself that this girl could very well be many times older than I was. “My name is Sailor.”
Leera paused at that then giggled. “You’re a banker named Sailor?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I didn’t pick it. Though I could hardly have been a sailor with a name like mine, don’t you think?”
Leera’s curiosity got the better of her, and she crouched down in front of me. “I should think it would be perfect.”
“Hardly,” I said with a wink. “Any time the ship’s captain called for a sailor, I would have to come running. Get me that lazy sailor, get me that drunken sailor, get me that fat sailor.”
“Get me that no-good sailor!” Leera continued in her best impression of my voice. Then she and I both laughed. Both the impression and the laugh reminded me of Dahli, and I hoped that she was not worried by my absence.
“Leera,” I began. “Were those other brothers and sisters of yours that I saw before?”
Leera nodded.
“How many do you have?” I asked her. She raised her eyes to the roof of the cavern and began to count on her fingers, but another voice imposed on her silent metrics before she passed fiv
e.
“Only a few you should be worried about,” said the newcomer. This one had two silver studs on each side of his septum and a braided chain of platinum about his neck. It hung through the deep V of his brocaded shirt. His belt was riveted with sapphires, green-scaled boots covered his feet, and he had thick rings that circled both thumbs and forefingers. He bore a striking resemblance to Arkelai, more-so than did the younger sister. He had also seemingly materialized from nothing, or else had stood within an arm’s breadth from me without my noticing.
He extended his hand, his smile revealing sharp canines that I once would have dismissed but now I recognized as perhaps too long to be human. “Jazalkorin,” he said. Then considered. “Humans call me Jazal.”
I looked at the hand, and his grin widened as I raised my own to meet it. Before I could complete the connection, Leera slapped her brother’s hand away, and he chuckled at her.
“Don’t!” she said, directed at me. “He’ll burn you.”
Jazalkorin shrugged, lifting his palms face up. As he did so, a trail of smoke rose from his right hand. “It’s not my fault I’ve got the bright blood of the earth in my veins. Not all of us want to sit inside a stupid mountain for another thousand years. Some of us need to erupt a bit.”
Leera raised a finger. “You know we’re not supposed to tell him…”
“Tell him what, that he’s toast either way?” asked Jazalkorin. He looked at me, and it seemed in the span of a blink he was suddenly by my side with an arm around my shoulders. I think it was only my fatigue that stopped me from jumping out of my skin, and I resisted the urge to pull away. Where his body touched mine, I felt what was like the first shock of heat one feels stepping into volcanic spring water, and I would have wagered good coin that if I had retreated, Jazalkorin would have hounded me twice as badly. As he drew close to whisper in my ear, I could smell spearmint strong on his breath, or perhaps a perfume.
“Tell you what, Money Man, let’s you and me head back into town, forget my father, hit the gaming houses, and make some real gold. What do you say?”
I had previously said that it would be foolish to say no to a dragon, but now here I was caught between two of them. Being drawn into the complex family politics of draconian broods seemed even more deadly than the infighting noble bloodlines of Borreos.
“I have already promised your father my services,” I said, peeling Jazalkorin’s hand from around my shoulder with as much respect as I felt possible. “And I would never saddle someone with the service of an oath-breaker.”
“Nor would he become one,” said Lady Arkelai. Inwardly, I gasped with relief. Though in truth she was every bit as dangerous as Jazalkorin. I had seen that for myself when it came to Brackwaldt’s thugs. Well, not seen, but at least heard. Her brother seemed impressed enough by her that he slid away from me almost as sinuously as he had approached. Leera ran toward her sister with arms wide, and Arkelai accepted the embrace without her eyes leaving Jazalkorin.
“Master Kelstern, it’s time we returned to Borreos,” Lady Arkelai said. I was inclined to agree with her and smoothed my singed jacket for the climb back out of the mountain. When I looked up again, Arkelai’s brother and sister had both vanished. We were alone in the red stone cavern. The dragon’s daughter pursed her lips to one side, then scowled.
“I told you to speak to no one save for my father and myself,” she said, turning and beginning the long ascent.
I blinked. “You did. It’s strange—I had completely forgotten it in the face of being drugged, dragged several-hundred miles, and brought face to face with a creature that could swallow me whole.”
“Sarcasm does not become you, Sailor,” said Arkelai without looking back. There was no further chance for me to reply. I had been correct in my initial assessment: the return trip to the surface was miserable. And Lady Arkelai set an even more grueling pace than before. Perhaps it was in retaliation for my being flippant with her or perhaps as a preventative measure to keep it from happening again. I could offer no retort if I could not spare the breath. By the time the mid day’s sun shone through the Jaws of the Mountain, I was filthy and drenched in sweat, and my legs burned with each leaden step.
Lady Arkelai’s temper had abated, but I was still annoyed that not even a drop of sweat appeared on her light olive face or the back of her neck. I watched as she took in the light, breathing deep of mountain air warmed by the sun against the Redfangs.
I joined her, doubled over and gulping for breath until I managed to ask a single question. “That went well for you, right?”
Arkelai startled. But she covered it well by shifting her weight onto one hip and leveling her gaze down at me. The semblance of a smile crept up one side of her mouth. “It did, actually. Better than I hoped. How do you plan to do it?”
I took a few more moments to recover my wind while I thought. “I’m not sure yet. Two years is not much time, certainly not enough for manufacturing. If we focus on trade with foreign partners or the Aedekki frontier, we can avoid some oversight.”
“Aedekki?” asked Arkelai.
“Yes, a land to the south across the sea. It’s thick with jungle and disease and hidden behind dangerous waters. But positively teeming with herbal medicines, fruits, and exotic alchemical components. Ventures there are hazardous but lucrative.”
Arkelai covered a laugh with her slender fingers. “I’m sorry, Sailor. I’m well familiar with it. I was simply amused by your kind’s name for it.”
“But it was only charted a few decades… oh.”
Charted, but with several prominent ruins attributed to the Progenitors of Mankind. All evidence pointed to Arkelai’s having been alive at the time of their downfall. Which begged one final question.
“My Lady,” I began. “Forgive my prying. Your father is a dragon. But you look…”
Arkelai’s eyes narrowed. “You see what I wish for you to see. My father is a dragon. And yes, he is my father in the literal sense of the word. As I have said, it is not so simple.”
“I see,” I said. But it felt as though I knew even less now. And I had more pressing concerns to deal with than puzzling out the mechanics of Lady Arkelai’s conception. It was a mystery how I was to return home until my hostess blew another long, spicy exhale across my face while I pondered. A familiar feeling of softness overtook me.
Chapter 10 – Moving Money
The next thing I remembered was looking at the battered sign above the door to my offices, as well as the stares of two courier boys. I could hardly blame them; with disheveled hair and a jacket that looked as though I’d lived in it for ten years, it wouldn’t be a stretch to mistake me for a passing vagrant. My hair was swept back with grime, and my face felt windburnt. I reached my fingers up to prod at the numb skin of my cheeks.
The bell above my door rang. Dahli Fost was hanging half out of the door, staring at me. She had on her silver necklace, an engram of the Twin Mothers given to her by her sister. The necklace caught the sunset just so.
“Sailor?” she hissed, then looked around. Evening had fallen on Borreos, but foot traffic had not yet diminished. My secretary launched herself from the banking house like the payload of a ballista, ushering me through the courtyard. We passed the vagrant Cas, who offered a slight tip of his hat as he dozed in a shady corner. The clamor of the streets disappeared with a second ringing of the bell that heralded the door’s closing behind us.
“Sailor, I’ve been worried sick! There was a report of a fight on your street, and your house staff said you never made it home last night. Where have you been?”
I worked my mouth for a moment before I remembered how to speak. “The new girl,” I said, looking around.
“The new girl?”
“I’ve decided to take her father as a client. Where is everyone?”
In the main office with the eight slate tablets, I nominally had a staff of three clerks and two junior partners who helped me manage the day-to-day contracts. But the floor was vacant and
the door to my private office closed and presumably locked. I sat down at one of the sturdy tables instead with a decanter of water.
“They’re out looking for you, of course! Sailor, are you sure you’re alright?”
In fact, I had not claimed to be alright. Dahli was giving me an opening so wide you could have poled a river barge through it.
“I’m sure.”
Dahli sat on the edge of the table, positioning her loose skirts to keep them from snagging on the corner of the polished wood. “It’s just that, well, yesterday you weren’t taking on any new investment clients. Then you disappear for a night after meeting that creature.”
I snapped upright, eyes wide. Did she know already?
Dahli raised her hands in defense. “I’m not judging, Sailor. How you spend your nights is your business. I’m just glad you’re safe. Gods know I don’t have to tell you how beautiful she was under all that platinum.”
Men north of the Wastes are possessed of much fairer skin, and I have seen their cheeks and ears flush red when embarrassed. I am not cursed with such a tell. But when my cheeks burned as I realized what my secretary actually implied, it seemed she did not need a visible blush to read my thoughts. Her suggestion of impropriety with a potential client, if anything, struck me as some small measure more scandalous than absconding to conspire with a fire-breathing dragon.
“Or maybe I do have to tell you,” said Dahli, fighting—and failing—to keep a grin off her slender face.
“We talked finance,” I said.
“Oh, of course,” said Dahli, now in full stride. “I’m sure she had a fine figure to show you. Maybe a few nice round numbers.”
“Her father was there!”
That detail quickly brought her around. “You met him?”