The Cruel Path

by David J Normoyle

  And it was in the peaks and valleys of wildly fluctuating prices where traders made or lost fortunes.

  Chapter 6

  Sorani and I were in Yuzeel’s store, keeping an eye on prices and staying abreast of the news among traders. While I talked to Yuzeel, telling him about our need to overtake Grayer in the lists, Sorani wandered around the store.

  “I have full faith in the Triplets,” Yuzeel said. “I’m sure you’ll come out ahead of that Elect. In fact, I placed a bet on you a few days ago.”

  “On which of us?” I asked.

  “They have this special bet where you can bet on the Triplets and if two of the three of you survive, then the bet wins. Good odds, even still.”

  A bet on two out of the three, I thought, because there’s no way for all three to survive.

  Something must have shown on my face because Yuzeel slapped my back. “Don’t worry.” He lowered his voice so Sorani didn’t hear. “I’m sure you’ll be one of the two.”

  But, of course, that didn’t cheer me any. It was hard to come to terms with my own likely death, but just as hard to contemplate going on without one of my brothers. The odds were against any of us surviving, so I avoided thinking about the certainty that one of us would die, and I couldn’t help but have my spirits dampened by Yuzeel’s reminder.

  Sorani walked up to us. “I see you still have over fifty barrels of pitch for sale.”

  Yuzeel scowled. “I got caught out there. They must have stockpiled the Refuge earlier than usual this year, and now I’m left high and dry. Will likely just have to eat the loss on them and hope they don’t burn up in a fire during the Infernam.” He shook his head. “You’re the second Green to ask me about them today.”

  “Who was the first?” Sorani asked.

  “Vainn was in here this morning. He asked me if the Refuge still needed more pitch.” Yuzeel made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “As if I’d be offering barrels for half a gold in that case. He’s always asking stupid questions. I wouldn’t even let him in here if Grayer hadn’t vouched for all his purchases.”

  Sorani looked thoughtful, but didn’t say anything more until later that day. Once he told us his idea, we quickly hammered out the outline of what we needed to do. Like the Black Lightning scheme it was risky, but like then, we had no real choice. We needed to make a big move and didn’t have any time to waste. The plan hinged on Vainn’s reaction. We needed him to see an opportunity to stake his claim as chief Defender and take it.

  It took one full day—which included bargaining with several traders and spending most of the money we’d made up to that point—to get everything set up.

  The next day, I was in the back of Yuzeel’s store, making sure I wasn’t seen, when Vainn came in. He wandered around slowly. I stayed out of sight, though I had the ridiculous urge to go up to him and point out what we wanted him to see. Eventually he did notice the new price on the barrels of pitch.

  “How come the pitch is selling for one gold today?” Vainn approached Yuzeel.

  “Things change.” Yuzeel shrugged.

  “What types of things?” Vainn’s eyes narrowed.

  “Just heard a rumor or two.”

  “What kind of rumor?”

  “The kind that raises the price of a barrel of pitch to one gold. What do you want me to do, explain everything to you?” Yuzeel threw his hands in the air. “Come on, get out of here if you aren’t going to buy. This isn’t the school of trading.”

  I watched Vainn leave and gave Yuzeel a smile and a nod as I left. He didn’t know the exact details of our plan, but he had sold us all fifty barrels of pitch at half a gold a barrel and agreed to sell them for us at the higher price, splitting any profits we made. He’d also agreed to be vague about the reasons for the rise in price.

  I kept my distance from Vainn while I followed him. The marketplace was loud and crowded, so it was easy to avoid being spotted. My job was to make sure that Vainn visited his usual trading shops. And he did. He followed the same route as when we watched him the day before. He noticed a barrel of pitch for sale for two golds in two of the shops, with closemouthed merchants saying little about why they were priced so high.

  I went ahead of Vainn into the shop where there were two barrels priced at three golds each. At the back, I looked out a small window to make sure Frodan and Sorani were in place. They were. Sorani sat inside a rickshaw with the curtain half-closed and Frodan leaned against it. Beside him was an actor we’d hired to help us. Frodan gave me a wave and I smiled back at him.

  When Vainn spotted the barrels of pitch and hurried forward to check the price, I gestured out to Sorani and Frodan and they swung into motion. Frodan pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and pulled the rickshaw around to the front of the trading shop. Sorani closed the curtain, and the actor walked alongside.

  I could see the animation in Vainn’s face as he studied the price on the pitch barrels. His job was to find price mismatches and exploit them, and he’d just been given a huge opportunity. But before he acted, a bigger opportunity was about to arrive. Fishermen will sometimes use a small grub on the end of a hook to catch a small fish then use the small fish as bait to catch larger prey. We’d dangled the grub, and now the bigger and juicier bait was about to be dropped.

  The rickshaw stopped and the actor strode in and walked straight up to the merchant in charge.

  “I’m looking to buy barrels of pitch,” he said.

  I mentally winced. We obviously should have prepped him better. A trader looking to buy wouldn’t be so brash and straightforward.

  “I’ve two barrels,” the merchant said, “at three golds each.”

  “I need many more than two,” the actor said.

  I was watching Vainn and I could swear that the tips of his ears moved when he heard that.

  “I was told they wouldn’t be that expensive.” The actor glanced back at the rickshaw. “I’m not authorized to buy them at that price.”

  “I don’t care about your authorizations. The price is three golds.”

  “How much pitch are you looking to buy?” Vainn moved up to the counter to stand in front of the actor.

  I swallowed. This was it. He was taking the bait.

  “I can’t say exactly,” the actor said. “A lot.”

  I physically winced this time. No trader would make statements that might push up the price of what he was buying. There were plenty of warning signs for Vainn if he’d the wit to see them. I hadn’t realized what a poor impression of a trader this actor would make.

  Vainn simply nodded and stepped away. He didn’t make any offers. As I exhaled, it felt like all my hopes were falling from my chest and onto the floor. If Vainn didn’t bite, we’d spent everything we had on fifty barrels of unsellable pitch.

  The actor looked confused, and it was the merchant behind the counter who got him back into role.

  “So are you buying the pitch or not?” the merchant asked. “Three golds each.”

  “Hold on a moment.” The actor at least remembered the basics of what he had to do. He went outside to the rickshaw, stood beside it for a moment. The curtain twitched and the actor returned.

  The reason we’d hired the rickshaw was because occasionally those in charge of stockpiling the Refuge came along with those in charge. It rarely happened, and we wanted to give the impression that this was a priority buy. Only ascor and important marshals used rickshaws.

  “I’ll take them,” the actor said to the merchant. “Hold them for me. I’ll be back shortly.”

  Frodan pulled the rickshaw down the street and the actor followed. Vainn watched them disappear into the crowd, then he dashed outside. Had he taken the bait now? My hopes rose once more. I rushed to follow him, but he disappeared into the crowd before I had a chance to mark his direction. I wanted to charge into the crowd to find him, but the risk was too great. Vainn had been shown enough signs that the deal was rotten without finding out he was being followed.

 
Plus, there was only one place he could go for the plan to be a success. He had to go to Yuzeel’s and buy the barrels of pitch immediately, intending to come back here and sell them to the person he thought was a Refuge stockpiler. If he went to Grayer and explained the situation, Grayer would likely see through the scheme. Even if he didn’t, Grayer wouldn’t risk too much and would buy only a few barrels. He was high on the lists; why take a risk? It was Vainn who needed to do something major to prove himself the chief Defender in Grayer’s crew.

  So I forced myself to walk slowly to Yuzeel’s. There was nothing that could be done now. I had to hope that the reason Vainn was rushing was to beat any rumors of renewed pitch buying. We needed Vainn to be ambitious enough to buy all—or at least a large portion—of the fifty barrels. After all our planning, it now came down to a massive gamble. We could only hope we had guessed right about what Vainn would do.

  When I reached Yuzeel’s street, I took a deep breath, then stuck my head around the corner so I could see in the shop. And there he was: Vainn, talking animatedly with Yuzeel. I forced myself to not get too excited. He was there, that was the first step. How many barrels did he intend to buy? I got closer so I could hear what was being said.

  “You told me one gold this morning, it says one gold on the sign,” Vainn’s voice was loud. “How can you now charge me more than that?”

  “This morning I didn’t have the same information I have now,” Yuzeel said. “The price has gone up.”

  That wasn’t part of the plan at all. What if it was enough to make Vainn change his mind? I wanted to go up and shake Yuzeel and tell him to sell the Helion-cursed barrels already.

  “What new information?” Vainn’s cheeks were developing a distinctly purple tinge.

  “Your fervent desire to buy.”

  “You are charging me more because I want to buy them?”

  Yuzeel’s smile was all teeth. “Maybe I was lying when I said this wasn’t the school of trading.”

  “Okay, fine, I agree. Do we have a deal?”

  I let out a breath.

  “Grayer stands over your purchases, right?” Yuzeel asked.

  “Yes, of course. He already told you that, didn’t he?”

  Yuzeel made a note. “Okay, just making sure. Make your mark here and the barrels are yours.”

  Vainn scribbled on the docket with Yuzeel’s quill. “Hold them for me, I’ll be back.” And he left.

  I approached Yuzeel. “Well?” I asked.

  “Well what?” Yuzeel’s expression was blank.

  “How many did he buy?”

  He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid he only bought…” Then a smile that started in Yuzeel’s eyes spread across his face until he was grinning from ear to ear. “Just the whole bloody lot of them. Sixty golds for fifty barrels.”

  I jumped into the air and Yuzeel clapped me on the back. “Thank you,” I breathed.

  “No reason to thank me. Nice profit for the both of us.”

  I met Sorani and Frodan back at our shop. I told them the good news and it was their turn to jump in the air. Then we embraced, held on to each other for too long but at the same time not long enough.

  “I wish we didn’t return the rickshaw and let the actor go,” Sorani said. “We should have continued the deception a bit longer. I want to see Vainn’s face when he realizes what has happened.”

  I nodded in reply, but in truth I didn’t want to see Vainn’s face at that moment. Vainn had been the one who held me when Grayer and Arion had played the childhood prank on us, but I’d never blamed him for that. I didn’t want to see devastation wash across his face when his newfound hopes of surviving were dashed only to be replaced by the certainty of death. Vainn would be a Deadbeat after today, still walking around and breathing, but with only the decision of how he was going to die waiting him. Vainn hadn’t even done anything wrong—he just saw his opportunity and tried to take it. Like us, he’d needed to take a risk. But for him, it had gone horribly wrong. His only crime was not being smart enough. No, I didn’t want to see that moment.

  “So that’s it,” Frodan said. “We’ve done it, brothers.”

  The words proclaiming our success pricked a hole in my elation and I felt it seep from me. I could see it in the faces of my brothers that the same realization had hit all of us at the same time. The thing we’d been avoiding even discussing. What we’d done would save two, not three. There had been no real point thinking about that when the chance of even one of us surviving was low. But now there was a great chance that one of us would be a Select, and another a Chosen.

  “What now?” Sorani asked.

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before I decided to fill the silence with practicalities. “We should make sure that the newsbards know all the details of what went down today. And close up the shop and go into hiding. A few more trades won’t make much difference between now and Infernam, so it will be best to stay out of sight. It’s not his style, but Grayer could decide that killing us is his only hope now. Or he might just want revenge.”

  So while our previous major success on the Path was a euphoric moment, this victory felt more like a loss. We were gloomy as we closed down the shop, with our thoughts on the terrible choice that we could be faced with in the days ahead.

  Chapter 7

  The quill scratches a line across the page, and I look up to find my brother nudging my shoulder. “What is it?” I frown, putting down the quill and retrieving a fresh page.

  “What are you writing?” he asks.

  “Nothing important,” I say. I wonder what he would think if he knew what I was writing and why. Would he understand? I’ve always been able to share everything with him until now. “Something to pass the time.”

  “I know you’ve always loved scribbling, but this is ridiculous. Nothing important, you say?” He does not believe me, but doesn’t press the point. “It’ll be over soon. Another day, perhaps.”

  I didn’t realize the Infernam was so close to being over. I have been writing in snippets over the past few days whenever I’ve gotten the chance. I’m not sure how much my understanding has improved, but I know I must finish.

  I pick up my quill again.

  Chapter 8

  We found a rundown, empty house on the edge of town and kept it looking unoccupied. We set up our bedrolls in a corner and stayed inside as much as possible. It was practically essential to stay indoors during the day anyway, as the heat really hammered down in those last days before the Infernam. It wasn’t comfortable indoors, but it certainly beat being in the direct glare of the sun. We took turns at night to go to less central parts of town to hear the news and pick up food.

  It was two days before the Infernam when I left the tavern that night. Helion was so large that it seemed ready to fall out of the sky and land on top of the city. The news hadn’t changed much. Neither Grayer nor any of his Defenders were going to be selected, and Vainn was no longer one of Grayer’s Defenders—not that it mattered now. The Bellanger Elect was at the top of the lists, followed by the Wolfling from the Grenier family. The Triplets were next—the bet-takers had given up listing us separately. So we were third, but no one had any idea which of us would be selected. The two Raine Elects were next, then Arion. Arion needed another high-profile victim in the next few days to push him into the top four.

  It was close between the two Raine Elects, and no one was sure what would happen. Some expected a battle between them, though that didn’t seem the style of either of them. Or they could just wait and let the Guardians decide. Thinking of that caused my thoughts to turn to the dilemma that hung over the three of us. Should we just do nothing and let the Guardians decide which of us to select? Or was that the cowardly way out? There was also the fear that, with no obvious leading candidate, the Guardians would skip over the Triplets completely. And even if the Guardians selected one of us, the choice would then fall upon the Select to choose one of his brothers and condemn the other. No. We had to figu
re out a way among ourselves.

  Somehow.

  I turned around the corner and stopped dead when I felt a pressure on my right shoulder.

  “Not paying much attention as to who might be close by,” said a voice that I recognized all too well. “Didn’t you hear that the Path is dangerous?”

  I slowly turned, twisting around to the left, the sword blade staying in place on my shoulder. “You!” I said to Arion.

  “Of course. You must have known it would come down to us two at the end.”

  “No,” I said. “I knew we’d have to beat Grayer. I hoped to avoid you.”

  Arion’s smile was cold. He nudged his sword so the edge touched my neck. I didn’t flinch away from it. “I knew,” he said. “Ever since that incident when your brother nearly died, I knew it would come down to me and one of you three. I suspected it would be you. Don’t think I haven’t been aware of how closely you’ve watched me over the years.”

  I shrugged. “You flatter yourself. I’ve not taken much note of you.” I didn’t want to follow whatever script Arion had practiced in his mind.

  Arion licked his top lip. Then he extended his left hand, palm up, showing two Paradise Givers. “You know how this goes.”

  “Not the way you want it to. I’m not going to take part in your game.”

  “You seem to think you have a choice,” Arion said. “This sword is quite sharp, and that is real blood on your neck.”