I AM AN ELF in every sense, except in commerce—there alone am I, a scandalous zealot of the acumen coined in Ull’s School of Thought: “Business Elven in Men’s time.”
—FROM “SHAMELESS” BY MERCHANT THRALL ULRIK.
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WHEN YOU ARE CERTAIN it is him, whisper in his ear this litany: “Merchant Thrall, here is my investment: do you desire my wealth? No longer is a thing traded beyond your means. Me, your serving wench? I am yours to command. Your whore? Whenever you please—ravish me. My status? I lord thee before men and elves. In return, hoard The Realms for cheap and prepare in my name not the highest seat—no; hand it to The Fool—but have The Realms eat at my slit.”
—FROM “DAUGHTERS OF MINE” BY NANNA OF FLOGA
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“When are The Realms cheapest, Frodi?” asked the crone.
“When in disarray,” replied the elvenboy, as he had learned to say in his first summon.
He had not known elves could grow so bored as to delight in the same drivel as often as the crone had. The elvenboy hadn’t a clue how long she had breathed, but he was certain after his 1005th summons that he did not wish to live as long.
The ennui would sooner have him dead. The elvenboy would add that he did not wish to die—for that was no less tedious, perhaps more so. Men and elves both died; nothing so mundane could be interesting—he was staunch in this belief.
How bored must Nanna have been before she met Ulrik? Thought the elvenboy. Does she remember all the drivel, too? Down to the rank of her wet nurse’s farts?
His face went ugly as he recalled the memory. The elvenboy’s brief sojourning of but six centuries had yielded him a pittance fit for a magpie. There were too few things of interest in The Realms; and knowing his brothers, many far more capable than he, already vied for them, only lessened their allure.
Plagued with a life so long as to be perverse, the elvenboy could only shudder at the tedium that surely awaited him; or so he believed until he met Nanna and learned of a thrill that thwarted all his boredom: invention! The Realms were not, in fact, unchanging or finite in their allures—all he had to do was find the elves capable of sparking this change and shove currency down their throats till they contrived something that would excite him.
“Always remember, Frodi,” said the crone. “That is when you buy big; but careful not to be the disruptor—for no profits are worth those losses.”
The crone always ended his summons with those words; and after a long silence to ponder their significance, the elvenboy would nod and politely walk out soon after.
In his first summons, the crone had taught him it was the mark of a shrewd merchant to know when to salve his losses—lest he lose a limb; or when to bleed on and let his losses fester—unwavering in his beliefs, but possibly mad; it was hard to say which he was that day—the elvenboy had read a rather amusing tome since the crone had last seen him.
“Say we fund the disruptor, Nanna?” he asked. “Would we not incur losses only in glass coins, and only for a time? Your House will never run empty of those. And should ruin befall the disruptor, our profits would be no less staggering—we gambit for The Realms, not a throne.”
The crone laughed wildly, touched the elvenboy’s shoulder, then said, in a girlish voice jarring coming from her lips, “Are you not bored with this, Lord Quimby? Never will you find wonder in her words, for they are unchanging—Nanna of Floga is long dead; listen to mine, only mine.” The elvenboy reeled in horror.
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Frodi Quimby gasped; drenched in sweat—he had lost himself in another Mirage. The young elvenman was weary and haggard, with a throat so dry he feared he might have bled had he swallowed right then.
He met the gaze of a rather attractive female—even amongst elves—of long, dark hair, like coarse silk, caramel skin unlike the fine sand grains of the Floga, and eyes so pale; the elvenwoman sat on his thigh as she gently massaged his temples.
“How long was I gone?” asked Frodi; the numbness and tingles in his leg told him she had sat there for an immodest length of time.
The lovely elvenwoman, whose voice and touch had awoken him, replied: “Three short Fosian Flashes and a quarter a long one; Voreiosian Time, Milord.”
“That long?” Replied Frodi, pale as she ran her fingers through his slick, dark hair. The young elvenman brushed away her hands, then glanced over his shoulder and out his window: night in a metropolitan of stunning skyscrapers, magnificent cathedrals, and dazzling lights—a scattering of grand architectures, trinkets, and contraptions forged entirely of glass. “Yet so far from the Floga?”
She saw him swallow, then sauntered around his cluttered table, humming toward a freezing contraption constructed of glass; moisture muddled the contents. The lovely elvenwoman found herself amused at the convenience as she filled a cup—also of glass—with chilled water at the dispenser; then offered Frodi Quimby a drink—he declined, licking his dry lips.
The elvenwoman placed it atop a hefty, leathery tome; a smile tugging at her lips as he frowned at the cup and she said, “We are in Potiri, Lord Quimby; the air does not sear our lungs, nor do horrors lurk in the water we drink. The finest Walkers in The Realms gather here—if they cannot help us, who can?”
“Who can indeed?” muttered Frodi Quimby as he glanced at the chilled glass cup—inviting as it sweltered. The young elvenman swallowed down a parched throat; he took the glass cup in his grasp and sloshed the water in it, but did not bring it to his lips.
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Frodi detested how thirst reminded him of the desert; as he detested how drinking reminded him that all life eventually yielded to Floga’s trials—no matter how bitterly it held on.
“Why did you whisper the litany to me, Daughter of Nanna?” asked Frodi Quimby, meeting her pale gaze. “Your House serves Merchant Thralls not out of loyalty, but avarice. One who sees The Mirages so early cannot possibly realise your great desires.”
“Please refrain from calling yourself a thrall, Lord Quimby—it is unseemly; unless you wish that I be less than that—then, by all means, do so,” said Ulla as she took the seat opposite his; she smiled no longer as she added: “And it is as you say, Lord Quimby, I whispered the litany to you and not another of Ulrik’s Sons not out of loyalty, but a perverse rapacity hallowed by unwavering trust in your ability—a trust you have long since earned.”
“Trust? A delusion groomed into all Daughters of Nanna by mad crones of a stale era whose wicked, old Ways linger, you mean,” replied Frodi, scowling. “Will you trudge blindly still? The day I am so bored as to court death, as to let Gian hedonists have their way with you? How insipid.”
Ulla smiled deeply. “Perhaps,” she said. “But isn’t losing yourself to The Mirages more so? I am no fool, Lord Quimby. To serve you as you desire is a fair trade I made in good faith; it was born of desires so great as to be perverse, yes, but foremost, of reason—can you say the same of losing your sanity to the wicked, old Ways of that stale era?”
Frodi Quimby laughed dryly, then drank from the glass cup. “I cannot. Perhaps I am just as flavourless, but I do not think so; not yet—not until The Mirages have taken me,” he said. “Call in the next bourgeois, Ulla, we have not the time to dally.”
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“What product have you?” asked Frodi Quimby. “What is it you sell?”
“Cocks and cunts,” replied the Voreiosian elvenman—his ears were pointier than either Ulla or Frodi’s; and his skin paler.
“Ah, so you’re in the organ business! Excellent, excellent,” Frodi replied. “Why, I know a Dilitirion who dabbles in the same trade, not quite down your alley; but she might interest you in diversifying to a more lucrative venture. Although, I wouldn’t want to do business with her, myself—she can be, as all Dilitirions, quite the pariah.”
“I am not sure that is what he means, Lord Quimby.” Said Ulla. “Lady Vanja’s venture, however frowned upon, strives to better the lives of all elves, not stoke their degeneracy.”
“Oh. Did he blatantly mean…?” said Frodi, looking over his shoulder at Ulla; she nodded—he cleared his throat. “No matter. Good sir, it appears your product is not quite what we are looking for; my partner and I are hoping to fund less disruptive ventures.”
“What’s disruptive about tits?” The Voreiosian panderer grinned, then ran a hand through his dirty blond hair.
“A lot, you’ll find!” said Frodi Quimby. “Hefty or modest, perky or round, inverted or protruded nipples—Inga’s tits or Freya’s—which are better? Elves, and men before, have long pondered these foolish contradictions; in business, it is always fatal.”
“Am I no more a dead man walking, to you, Merchant Thrall?” asked the bourgeois, leaning in, then stroking his stubbled jaw, his smile deepened.
Ulla frowned at his words. “Possibly, good sir. Why is that, Ulla?” Asked Frodi, glancing over his shoulder at her.
The lovely elvenwoman said, “Inga’s or Freya’s—tits are tits.”
As the Voreiosian panderer brazenly drooled at the lip for Ulla, Frodi slammed his fist on a tome, saying, “That’s right—you may have the finest brothels West of Dragon’s Nesting, put up placards in every red-light district in Voreios, flaunting your elvenwomen’s tits—but you will never reach the heights of Ulrik as long as you are in a market anyone at all can rather easily flood with product not unlike yours and for cheaper. Your competitors will as much gnaw at your profits as you do theirs,” said Frodi Quimby. “One spirals into plucking at minutiae when their offerings are common—the disruptive merchant cries in angst, ‘look at me, not him!’ Because should one look, there really is not much difference—tits are tits.”
“I don’t know if another elf will be as wealthy as Ulrik was when Saint Hilde beheaded him,” said the Voreiosian, leering at Ulla. “But I know tits as uncommon as hers will make me a fortune; name your price, Merchant Thrall—I want your wench. I’ll pay for her in glass, if you wish.”
The fool; I knew he was not listening. Why did I bother? thought Frodi, as Ulla’s laugh came unbridled; she was laughing at him, for having tried at all.
“I am afraid you will need far more than glass coins for my wench, good sir,” said Frodi Quimby, smiling. “How about The Realms? I want everything south of Dragon’s Nesting. You can keep Pagos, Anemos, Astrapi, and Vronti; it is much too frigid up there for us elves of the desert. Shall we mint the contract now, or in a hundred years when you can afford a plot of land in your own city?”
The Voreiosian panderer laughed aloud, louder than Ulla did, stunning both Frodi and her. “You Sons of Ulrik are as humorous as they say. In truth, I came all this way for you, Merchant Thrall—not your pittance for the leviathan’s share of my business.”
“Oh, and why is that?” Asked Frodi, raising an eyebrow.
“The elvenwomen in my patronage have exotic tastes, but you scowl too often for one so pleasing to the eye,” said the Voreiosian, rising to his feet.
“He is not wrong there, Lord Quimby,” said Ulla. She held back laughter as Frodi tried his hardest not to scowl.
“Daughter of Nanna, I apologise for my uncouth behaviour; I have the utmost respect for elvenwomen—especially those in my trade—but I was curious what kind of elf you served: would he defend you? Sell you at a bargain? Or rip my tongue out? I set out wondering: ‘are sons of merchants birthed on the road all that better than sons of whores birthed in alleys?’”
“I believe you have your answer already, and nothing I say will change it,” said Ulla, smiling deeply.
The Voreiosian grinned, then nodded at her. “Let us meet again in a hundred years and see if all I have to my name is a plot of land in my city, shall we? Who knows, if Fos wills it, the lovely Ulla may visit my house of her own will—I would treat her as I do all elvenwomen under my protection. I am Hjalmar, Son of Dahlia, remember my name, but forget my brother’s should he wrong you.”
“I will take you up on that! But tits still are tits,” said Frodi Quimby, grinning. “I advise you to opt for a more lucrative venture, Hjalmar, Son of Dahlia.”
“Perhaps in the organ business, tits are tits; however, I sell not a product but a full service—that’s emotion, connection, baggage, scars, what have you—take it all or have none of it; and if you look closer, you’ll realise there’s often more to the elvenwomen in my trade than perky or round. Inga or Freya? Elves are not products, Merchant Thrall; one cannot be the other—what is foolish is to think she can be,” said Hjalmar, glancing over his shoulder, then muttering as he walked out. “Why else might a king patron my humble brothel and not his consorts’ palace?”