The old elf took a sip to let his anger subside.

“The good stuff, they want to keep and sell them themselves. They won’t even cut me a commission. The bad stuff, they dish them out to me. They just think everybody is a sucker, a sucker at the teats of the elves. Everybody would just line up to buy their stuff. They forget that there is a thing called alternative… And they forget that I was their Treasurer.”

Finkler laughed. His chest and shoulder heaved noticeably.

“All this, the brainchild of Myrill Leowynn. He came personally to see me and explained to me the predicament. And how it was getting desperate. And I said, alright, alright, I’ll see what can I do and the stupid fuck believed me and thanked from the bottom of his ass. That’s for voting to oust me.”

“And Ava Aellen came to see me just half a year ago, on behalf of Haleth Haradinn, of course.”

“What did she want? She ousted you.”

“She replaced me. Anyway, it’s not her, or Myrill, it’s Haleth that ousted me. He was the mastermind. Ava, Myrill, they are just fry below the big fish. And let’s be clear. I’m not really ousted. I left on my own. If I wanted to, despite the vote, I can still be around. I can still influence from behind. I have my supporters. I still do. They came, all the time, requesting that I go back. But no, I’m just too fucking tired with the way the council works. Just can’t look at them, anymore… But at least she’s genuine. She wanted me to help them sell some of their Contract because they are too out of touch with the people in the cities here. Too much varieties to their liking.”

“A contract?”

“Yeah, it’s all the rage for these past few years. Suddenly, every-fucking-body doesn’t want the real stuff, they want the paper of the stuff. Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t know what the hell is a Contract. It’s a new thing. Some bugger up there figured it out. It’s just a piece of crap paper that says who and who will deliver a certain stuff at a certain price at a certain time in the future. Then, you are supposed to do whatever you want with it, or you can sell it or just sit around and wait and hope that the prices are higher when the time comes and then you sell it, paper or stuff and make a profit from the price difference.”

“Interesting. Did you sell?”

“Yeah, I do, to some of my clients, so to speak. Oh, you mean Ava’s Contract. No, not yet. They are new, have to go through the banks. I talked to some of the money-mongers up there. They’re interested. And you know what, all of a sudden, I get this sinking feeling that once again I will be fucked in the ass. They, meaning the elves, will cut me out once I connect the dots.”

“That’s why you’ve been dragging your feet for half a year.”

“Hehe, you know me. If I smell the blood, I’ll be a shark. Can’t do all the work but no dime. But partially. At this age, money doesn’t worth that much anymore. And the elves, they have become indiscriminately rapacious. They have no honour.” The old elf paused as if some reflection had obstructed his speech. “They’ll stab you in the back if they have to. They’ve sunk so low that they are willing to sell paper now. To be honest, I don’t know whether they can deliver.”

The old elf always talked disdainly about his race but everyone who knew him knew that he only said it out of his deep love for the elves and the pain from watching their decline first-hand and there was nothing he could do. Now, it seemed to him, the elves were in a free fall, losing their market share across the board and doing unseemly things to make up for the losses. The only thing that they could still maintain was their cutting-edge product. Even that, their dominance was slowly eroding away as the dwarves were getting better. The only market, it seemed that the dwarves were incapable of outdoing them was the style and fashion. Without a doubt, the elves were acknowledged to be the prettiest race in the Great Plains. Not one race came close (except for the fairies, of course, who were acclaimed to be the prettiest but some opinionated that their number was too insignificant to be considered a race). Thus, the old elf surmised that the elves would end up just selling jewelleries and dresses and other luxuries.

He drank all of his tea in one big gulp and Finkler followed suit, or else, he would draw another look of reproach from the old elf. The old elf picked up the pot and hollered for his caretaker, who walked out to cross the terrace, so slowly that it was painful to watch. His head was covered with rather long snow white fur but neatly combed into style and with a tinge of dark green around the eyes as if algae was growing in the area. He was wearing a smart dark grey suit which covered his whole body from the neck down to his feet which was wearing a pair of sleek shiny black shoes. His hands were gloved in white. From the way he walked, although very slow, Finkler could see that his every step was solidly made, every stride had an equal distant and his arms swung in accordance as if a symphony was being played out and every movement was part of that symphony and nothing was out of synchrony. His movement was so natural that perhaps his time had slowed to a tenth.

Finkler presumed that he was an apeman but he could not distinguish to which clan he belonged. Apemen were a diverse group of beings. Some were furless, some with thick coats of furs. It was widely accepted that the furless apemen, together with the furless beastmen, were the descendants of the longest line of evolution since their looks were so different, so far removed from their initial ancestors. The human, as they like to call themselves human, had even shed their tails.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Can’t you see that he’s purposefully slow, the lazy laggard.”

Finkler was amused. “And why do you still keep him?”

“Because I can’t get rid of him. He is stuck to the hut.”

“What!”

“Yeah, he’s stuck to the hut. It’s an agreement thing. The hut has an agreement with him and I cannot rescind the contract because I’m not the one who signed it. The previous owner should have cancelled it but he didn’t. The fuck that he is.”

Finkler did not really understand much about legality in the Cairns. Every city had a set of laws of their own. So, he did not press the matter. He never had any problem with legality back in Rock Bottom simply because they never made any laws. Everyone can do whatever they want as long as they do not get themselves killed over it. Furthermore, laws from other cities or towns were never honoured. They did not even have a perfunctory role. But the old elf went on to describe to him the details of the agreement.

“A few years after I bought the hut from the previous owner, the laggard turned up, with that piece of shitty paper. So we went to the Officer of the Board of Housing and he said that I must honour the agreement. I said, Why? I didn’t sign the damn thing. And he said, Yes, you are right, sir, but the way the agreement was written, is between him and the hut and since you are the current owner of the hut, you, my good sir, must honour the agreement, assuming that the signatures are all correct. And I got angry and I told him, It was the previous owner that signed the fucking agreement and he replied with astounding manners, Yes, I understand but the agreement doesn’t differentiate between which owner. The current owner will do. So, the current owner, which is you, my good sir, will have to carry on with the responsibility passed down from your predecessor, which is, you must provide acceptable lodging to this dear sir and in exchange for that, this dear sir will provide his caretaking service to the premise and the owner. Unless, of course, both of you now, at this moment, decide to annul the agreement, then, we can tear it up, witness by me, the Officer and we all can move on. But all these tearing up can only be done after I have verified all the signatures and date and the premises. The service comes with a small fee of course. So, my dear sir, (he was addressing him as dear sir) and he replied with his name, something like Bogaru something and then he said, sir Bo, do you agree to annul the agreement. And Bo said, No, I do not. And there you go.”

Finkler was quite amused with such proceeding. Bo had finally made it to the table. He picked up the pot from the table, turned and walked slowly back into the hut for some hot water. He did not utter a word.

“And he continued, Since sir Bo has declined to annul the agreement, which means that you, my good sir, will have no choice but to honour the agreement, failing which, sir Bo can take you to court. If you are not satisfied with this outcome, I have two suggestions for you, my good sir. First, you should acquire my service to verify the legality of this document, and I interrupted, the signature of the previous owner is correct. I compared it with the Transfer Agreement I have with him. Then he said, In that case, I’m disappointed that I cannot extend my service to you. Then, my good sir, you should now proceed directly to the Court’s Registra and see whether this document was registered with them. If they have a copy, then there is really no choice. Both of you will have to work it out somehow. And I would like to add that both of you are valid residents of the City of Cairns since both of you have valid evidence of residence, and therefore, both of you are protected by the Laws of the Cairns. So, please don’t kill each other, hahaha, so to speak.”

Finkler watched the animated old elf who probably had not spoken so much for a very long time. Suddenly, Finkler’s entire focus seemed to fell on the old elf. Everything else fell to the background. How old he has become. And all alone. No one to talk to. Perhaps, I should have come more often. Perhaps … A certain numbing pain attacked him. His mind was full of the things that he should have done but the time when they should have been done had already passed him by. He smiled to hide this strange sorrow. The old elf did not see it. He was busy preparing a sandwich with a flatbread cut in the middle and filling it with everything he could get his hands on from the table. Then, he cut it in half and handed one to Finkler.

“Here, eat up. They’re fresh from the morning catch. You can’t get any fresher than these and never in Rock Bottom.”

“We eat real meat there.”

“What a beast. No wonder you have grown so fat.”

They started to eat. There was a moment of silence when they began munching and it felt strange. Finkler quickly started another round of conversation.

“How do you ever go up from here?”

Perhaps, the better question here was how they had the idea to build downwards on the cliff wall. As the story went, the city at the top had run out of spaces long ago. Building sideways along the coast was prohibited. It would run into the buffer zone agreed upon with the neighbours. So, either they would build outwards into the plain and be away from the sea, or they would build downwards on the cliff and be closer to the sea. They did both. Many citizens ended up preferring to live on the cliff. It was not that precarious after all. And about fifty years ago, the huts began to sprout sideways, since the agreement did not cover the cliff. And like vine runners, they spread and rooted and they went even further. By now, they were wider than they were deep and the furthest ones had gone into the underside of the buffer zone. It would take easily a few days to cross from one side to the other on one of the many horizontal brick roads. But going up was a different matter. Several rather slopey brick roads zigzagged down the cliff and occasionally they intersected with the horizontal ones. From the bottom most level, it would take half a day for a cart to reach the top.

“Well, I don’t climb. That’s definite.”

For old people like the old elf, he would either not go up at all or call a cart to cart him up. But he seldom found the need to go to the top anymore. Everything can be gotten down here or delivered down from the top. The cliff was a collection of little towns by itself, complete with eateries, shops and amenities. Thus, they were now called the Towns of the Cliff.

“It’s been months since the last time I went up. To meet those bankers and financiers. They had to meet in their grand office. But there’s a new mode of transport now. The birdpeople can ferry you up and down in an instance.”