Chapter Seven

Jeweled Lessons

Routine could be boring. Routine was, after all, hardly the spark that ignited a young, ambitious man like Elias Fisher—let alone his newer, better self. Routine was the absolute antonym of Elias Vice. But for a pleasant spell, routine was a luxury to be savored. Routine meant stability. Routine meant time to relax. Routine meant Elias could look beyond the next week, beyond next month’s rent payment, beyond the small world that once contained his big dreams.

He would tire of routine eventually, but right now routine was one more important thing: an opportunity to master new skills.

While Elias was accustomed to outshining the simple-minded riffraff with whom he once competed for work in his old life, Briley Soren was nothing of the sort. She was a good salesperson, and despite his best efforts, Elias was not. Sure, some items sold themselves. Many who entered Fairweather Provisions knew their order before they even arrived. And yes, he could take their relics, count them, and stack them into neat piles. But what fool couldn’t do that? He knew a few, truth be told, but fools did not make it in Sailor’s Rise.

After two days on the job, the only item in the entire store Elias was certain he had truly sold was a block of clay to a wealthy woman who Briley said changed hobbies on a weekly basis—so why not potter? Yes, clay. The number one export of Sapphire’s Reach. He could have sold clay back in Acreton, albeit for considerably less.

“Do you know why you were able to sell that block of clay?” Briley asked her junior employee after a satisfied-looking customer departed, leaving the two alone once more.

“Because a block of clay is cheaper than most things we sell in this store,” Elias answered honestly.

“Well, yes,” Briley admitted, “but also because you understood the product. No one wants to be sold something. People are looking for advice. Others are desperate for a compliment. Some will pay for a conversation—or waste your time.”

“What’s your point?” he inquired.

“Stop trying to sell people things they don’t need,” she said.

Elias took in the slim store around them. Its overpriced blocks of clay. The compartmentalized rolls of brightly dyed yarns imported from Azir, arranged by color from floor to ceiling. The reams of textiles. The open drawers overstuffed with buttons. And behind the cherry wood counter where they kept their ironclad safe, an assortment of jewels, pearls, and fine metals glimmering seductively in the light of an oil lantern. He had been informed that this was where the real money was made. Jewels were worth a fortune, not to mention light as a feather—the perfect commodity for an airship trader. They were also the hardest thing to sell.

“Why would anyone actually need anything in here?” Elias finally asked.

“They don’t,” Briley answered.

“You’ve lost me.”

Briley brushed back a stray strand of ginger hair, tucking it neatly behind her ear, returning to her natural state of being: perfectly put together. Their hair was roughly the same length, but Elias was growing self-conscious of the perennially unkempt look he had been sporting since birth. Perhaps it was time for a haircut, or at least some pomade, once he had the relics. He could already surmise that appearances in the Rise were, much like knowledge, an investment in oneself.

“You’ll get there, kid” was all Briley said.

Elias was quite certain they were the same age. But before he could get “there” or anywhere else, the shopkeeper’s bell rang as another customer wandered his way inside.

The customer in question was a stout man with a pencil-thin moustache and eyes that seemed to be searching for something they could never quite find. Most customers perused a particular part of the store. Some were here for fabrics and dyes, others for paints and brushes. But this particular patron eyed everything, deliberating over each footstep forward, running his fingers along surfaces as if the right texture might inspire something in him.

Elias approached the man. “Can I help you find something?”

The customer smiled at the question, or perhaps it was a smirk.

“We’ve added a few items from our recent venture to Sapphire’s Reach,” Elias said, not mentioning that one of those items was Elias himself. “The clay behind you.” He pointed. “Some jade as well. It’s quite exquisite. Greener than my eyes, even.”

The man laughed at that. “I’m not looking for anything new. Thank you, lad.”

Elias nodded and let the man be. He had earned a chuckle. It was better than nothing, even if nothing was all a chuckle was worth. The curious customer examined their wares for a few more minutes, without saying a word and without spending a relic. He departed with only a second “thank you.”

Briley crossed her arms and blinked at Elias. “Stop trying to sell people things they don’t need.”

Elias shook his head and tossed up both hands. “How am I supposed to know what some random stranger needs?”

“Well, that’s your job, isn’t it?” she said. “If he doesn’t already know, you help him find out.”

* * *

Clearly, Elias had many lessons to learn. Some of these lessons struck swiftly, like the stray rock on a familiar road, forcing him to stumble or else bruise a limb. Other lessons, however, he pursued proactively.

In the hours between shifts at the shop, family dinners with the Fairweathers, and sleep that wouldn’t have him, Elias peppered Bertrand and Briley with questions about the city and the strange, stratified system that governed it. He learned that money was the one and only true king of his adopted city-state, that social standing was bought much like everything else here. When all was said and done, only the power of relics was divinely upheld.

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One could try operating outside of the system, sure, but Sailor’s Rise was a hostile place for those who skirted its many rules. All serious business filtered through, and was taxed by, the Trader’s Guild. The Trader’s Guild was in turn run by a council of (generally self-serving) chief proprietors from the Rise’s biggest companies.

Indeed, power was rather like a rolling snowball, or perhaps it was a growing mold problem, Bertrand opined over dinner, reaching for a second helping and as many metaphors as the young man could muster. “The best way to get more of it is to already have some.”

Briley was blunter in her assessment: “There is no difference between business and politics in Sailor’s Rise,” she said after their fourth shift, “and that’s really all you need to know.”

Elias, of course, needed to know everything and then some. He took notes in the notebook he tucked under his new pillow.

Unincorporated companies, he learned, had no legal standing in the Rise. Modest, under-the-table work was all such ventures could hope to acquire. Many risked being, or already were, blacklisted by the Trader’s Guild.

By contrast, registered companies could compete for official, guild-sanctioned contracts, though many new ventures lived short lives in Lowtown. “Much like the fruit fly,” Bertrand mused.

The Fairweather Company, he said, was no fruit fly.

Nor were they members of the ruling class. Bertrand insisted they had found a sort of sweet spot, being neither too small nor too big. If they genuinely wanted to grow, they had enough of a standing—and more importantly, enough revenue—to apply for loans from the Trader’s Guild, though his father was a staunchly debt-adverse man. Captain Fairweather had witnessed many a friend fall from grace, and debt was usually the sleigh upon which they slid down that mountain.

As Bertrand had said before, they were content as they were.

Indeed, they harbored no aspirations to become one of those “hoity-toity” businesses, as Bertrand liked to call them. Hoity-toitiness aside, size came with certain perks. If you ran one of the hundred largest companies in the city (as determined by revenue), your chief proprietor could vote in the House of Merchants. Though only the ten largest companies could put forward the motions that changed laws—and, more often than not, livelihoods.

If a seat in the House of Merchants made you a member of the Rise’s de facto lower nobility, a seat on council could be compared to upper nobility status. But nobility they all were, and The Fairweather Company, despite its healthy bottom line, received few party invitations. Captain Fairweather was rarely invited to the city’s most important social gatherings, where key connections were made and strategic information might be acquired, often over sherry.

As for who captained this metaphorical ship, it was the one who made the most money that year—the Rise’s richest company and, by extension, the world’s richest. The Transcontinental Trading Company’s chief proprietor, Bartholomew Grimsby, served as council chair and had done so for seventeen years now, which apparently was a record.

Yes, Elias took many notes during those first few days exploring Sailor’s Rise, trying to unravel its many layers. But there was just one note he circled three times, his pencil indenting the page: the powers granted to the man who served as council chair.

His objective here had been cloudy up until that moment. Now it was clear to him, as clear as diamond. Elias would start his own business, and not just any business. He would start the business that would one day be the greatest company Sailor’s Rise had ever known. He would serve as council chair.

When sleep wouldn’t have him, Elias sketched an empty throne.

* * *

But first, Elias had to solve the unsolvable mystery that was selling something besides another block of clay.

A week had passed since his first day on the job, and he looked more up to the task, if nothing else. Which is to say he had gotten himself a haircut and a tin of pomade with his first payment of relics. He still wasn’t used to the sensation of greasy hair against his scalp, but his new hairstyle made him feel more like a proper resident of the Rise.

Payday was a weekly occurrence, and Elias had been paid his first five relics before the weekend, with another five set aside for accommodation. He had already been here long enough to confirm that Bertrand’s assessment was spot on. It was a better deal than he would have found elsewhere.

Alas, thanks to those hair-related purchases and a celebratory night at The Thirsty Eagle with Bertrand and Briley, his meager balance had quickly been cut in half. Elias did not yet know what he was saving for, but he knew that all roads eventually required a toll, and he would need savings if he wished to one day start his own company.

As for what his supposed business would do, that was one more mystery to be solved. Maybe he would sell clay.

If only he could prove his sales acumen at Fairweather Provisions. Briley was taking her break in the back of the shop when a familiar man stepped through the front door. Elias recognized his stout frame and pencil-thin moustache almost immediately. The customer from last week had returned.

“Hello again,” Elias greeted him.

The man flashed a smile of recognition.

Elias decided to try a different tactic this time. “How was your weekend?” he asked.

“Rather busy.” The customer kept his gaze glued to the wares in front of him. “I’m preparing for another trip to the Southlands. I am something of a naturalist, you see.”

“I’ve never met a naturalist,” Elias said. “I imagine you’ve seen things most of us never will.”

“That I have, lad, that I have,” he replied. “Though you don’t need to travel far to uncover such wonders. The trick is to look very closely. Entire ecosystems exist all around us, whole worlds lost in our periphery.”

“I used to follow beetles in Sapphire’s Reach,” Elias said, “just to see where they were headed.”

The man chuckled. “I thought you might be a recent import. I suppose most of us are. You could go a little easier on the pomade.”

Elias felt his cheeks flush red, but he couldn’t let a little embarrassment faze him. “We actually have some pearls from the Southlands.”

“Is that so?” The man sounded interested. “I met my wife there, you know. She seldom travels with me, but I suspect she misses her homeland more than she admits to herself.” He scratched his thinly bearded chin. “May I take a peek at those pearls?”

Elias nodded, trying not to look too excited. He retrieved a small wooden box from behind the counter and placed it on the table between them. He slowly slid free the box’s mahogany lid to reveal its hidden treasure: a few hundred glistening pearls, imported straight from the Southlands.

“Stunning specimens,” the customer said. “I’m going to miss her birthday this year,” he added after a silent sigh. “I’ve missed too many birthdays over the years.” He pinched a pearl between his fingers. “May I?”

Elias nodded again.

“I once gifted her a pearl just like this one, back when we first met. Picked it from the clam myself. Most beautiful pearls on the planet, I wager, and I’ve seen a few in my profession.”

“We work with a jeweler,” Elias mentioned, “if you were interested in turning some of these into another gift for your wife. A bracelet, perhaps, or a necklace.”

The man scrunched his brow and peered deeply into that gently clutched pearl. “How much for the necklace?”

It was a good question, and one that Elias did not yet have an answer to. “Briley!”

His co-worker appeared from behind the burgundy velvet curtain that separated the back of the store, clearly having overheard their entire exchange. “Two hundred relics for the necklace.”

Elias thought the price would be too high, but the inexperienced apprentice still had much to learn.

“One hundred and eighty,” the naturalist countered.

“Lowest we could go is a one-ninety,” Briley said.

“If you can craft me a necklace by tomorrow afternoon, we have a deal. I would like to give it to her before I go.”

“We’ll make it happen,” Briley assured him.

The customer stared down at the pearls once more before turning his attention back to Elias. “Thank you, lad,” he said. “I hope you find what you’re looking for too. If I may offer some parting advice, don’t forget where you came from.”

The naturalist paid half the necklace’s cost upfront, as agreed, promising to return the next day with the remaining balance. It seemed a high price to Elias, who had grown up trading coppers more often than relics, but perhaps it was a fair one for the perfect birthday gift.

The shopkeeper’s bell announced the man’s departure. Alone once more, Briley crossed her arms as she so often did, re-examining Elias from his threadbare boots to his overly greased hair.

“It looks like you found what he needed,” she said.