My hands grow tired. All of the things I have written about, they happened many years ago and I am not as strong as I used to be. Not even the healing power I received from Juma’s essence crystal can stave off the effects of time. Don’t get me wrong, I am still quite spry for someone over seventy years of age, but time ravages me as it does all of us.
The ensuing years were ones of triumph and heartache. I ended up going back to that godforsaken island three times before the war for it was over and done with, and that was three times too many. The first visit was quite quick – in and out. Aleyda and I showed them where the base was by sailing around the island and locating the cove. Just as I had thought, the topography of the ocean had changed over the years with the growth of reefs and parts of the island collapsing into the sea. The water was still quite deep and Captain Barinov thought their mages could clear things out quite easily to give Gremmans a deepwater port on the island. I think he believed I was overselling the place a little in my stories but once I led him deep into the mountain his skepticism evaporated. “It’s like there’s a whole city down here,” he said. Who was I to gainsay him?
After we returned to the continent again, I was left alone for a month or two to get our business interests off the ground. One of the first things we did was send for Segerick and his people. We had the room and I thought they would have a degree of loyalty towards me. Chartering a ship for a short trip really wasn’t that expensive and before long we had many more people living with us. I wish I could say that everyone got along. That would be a lie. As a matter of fact, there was a group of about five malcontents who didn’t want to work at all. I gave them each a small pouch of currency and sent them out into the world. People who did not want to work would not fit in with us very well. I didn’t imagine they would make it any farther than Kollavik, but they would definitely be forced to work now.
I also finally let everyone else know about the sordid details of my past. Nobody seemed to care.
I allowed Werner to select his own projects with the proviso that the first things that we needed to bring to market needed to be cheap to manufacture, easy to make in bulk, and provide us a high profit margin. It’s not like I was asking for much there, was I? He came through, though. Before I was sent out again, he had a production line set up for screws of all things. Fastener technology in this world really hadn’t made it past the simple nail and iron was cheap here because there were local mines. It took him some time, but he was eventually able to set up a series of hand carved molds of various sizes. I knew others would copy us in short order, but while we had a monopoly we needed to make as much money as we could. And of course, since screws were a new innovation we also sold screwdrivers. When I was sent to the island the next time, Werner was working on mechanical screwdrivers that operated with a crank like an old fashioned hand drill. Once he got them perfected, I imagined we would sell drills as well.
My second trip to the island, I went with Saffar. I took on a new appearance and posed as a wine and beer merchant, once again assigned to Galwick’s port. Saffar was my helper. We left Shroud Hallow with a ship full of casks of alcoholic beverages and supplied the bars and taverns that were still operating in the port. That wasn’t my true purpose, though. I had one of those paired journals that Barinov had spoken of and I spent a lot of time in drinking establishments listening to rumors, watching troop movements, and reporting it all. After a couple of months there, I was out of things to sell and it was time to make the journey back home. Rather than retrace our laborious steps back to Shroud Hallow, we just disappeared one day, wandering off down the coast. We were picked up by a fairly nondescript crew in a boat and then rowed around the island so we could get a direct ride home. Unfortunately, I had to relinquish all the profit from the items that I had sold. I could have put that money to good use.
Once again, I was given a couple of months off before I was deployed. Screws, it turned out, were a big hit. We had money coming in hand over fist from our trading partners, but it was already starting to dry up as others succeeded in copying them. Thankfully, Werner had not been idle during my absence and had continued innovating. Is it really innovation when all you are doing is copying available technology from your own world? He must have recalled the discomfort and pain of our ride to Bralgren in wagons without suspension systems, so he created his own. He had a prototype done when I got back. Of course, we did not have the technology to make gas shock absorbers but his conglomeration of springs, leaf and other types, certainly cushioned the ride. We abandoned screw production and pivoted to making these suspension systems in various sizes. I thought they would be big sellers. Later, I found out again that I was right, but of course people started copying the products once more. I wished there was a patent office somewhere on the continent.
My third trip back to the island happened during the waning days of the war. Clan Galwick had finally gotten their portal operational safe behind the walls of their military base but had steadily lost ground in their fight for the island. If they had a magical portal, why were they still losing? The answer, of course, was population density. The territories around the inner sea had so many more people. There were likely as many people in Kollavik as there were in the entire territory of Clan Galwick, and that was just one city. Certainly there were losses when troop transports were sunk in naval battles, but the sleeping giant of the Gremmans Confederation had awoken. It had instituted a draft and there were large camps of conscripts being constantly trained throughout the country then shipped off to the island. Having a base on the island certainly helped. When I returned to the island the last time, that base was bustling with activity. The small harbor had been cleared and although not many ships could fit in the cove at one time, loading and unloading didn’t take that long. For every person in the base there were another two or so in the field. Even though Clan Galwick had started bringing in allied forces and mercenaries, they kept getting pushed back down towards their squalid port.
My mission on my last trip was to assist Captain Barinov in negotiating Clan Galwick’s surrender. I was there for months. Nothing seemed to happen as quickly as I wanted it to. What Clan Galwick lacked in numbers, they made up with training. Their warriors by and large weren’t conscripts, they were professional soldiers. The Confederation’s losses were heavy as they pushed across the island. My last few days on the island, we actually spent camping back at our old company’s campsite. There was little to indicate that we had ever been there. Only the last vestiges of the slave pen’s enclosure remained. Everything else had been stolen by others or had fallen to the ravages of time. Eventually, Clan Galwick must have done the math and realized that if they fought tooth and nail for the island there was a very real chance that their military would suffer enough attrition that they would be unable to defend their actual territory back on the continent. They marched their forces back through the portal and the remainder tore down the portal and then departed on their ships. Captain Barinov let them go without attacking them. He told me that enough blood had been spilled.
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When I walked through the port that last time, what had once been a thriving little port town on the edge of the sea was almost empty. Only a few merchants had decided to stay behind, most of them in the hospitality business. I guess that Gremmans' coin spends as well as Galwick’s does. After thoroughly vetting the remaining business people for the presence of spies or saboteurs, they were allowed to remain. During my time on the island, I did encounter several more five fingered arrivals. They went home with me. I guess I had started a haven for wayward extradimensional travelers.
At this point, two years of my service term had already passed. There were only eight more to go. Those eight years were long, and often fraught with peril and danger. For awhile, I was relocated to the northern continent. My job was to foment rebellion among the five fingered population that lived in poorly maintained ghettos. I actually met a prince once, when I was sent to a mining town that had found several new profitable veins of ore. There were monsters in area, and my job was to rile them up and unleash them on the unsuspecting settlement. I didn’t feel very good about that mission. Too many good people died.
As the years passed, I got deployed less and less often. I was grateful for that. It gave me more time with my friends and family and let me work on my business interests. For awhile, we fought piracy on the inner sea. That was kind of fun. The pirates were murderous, despicable, and deserved no quarter. I spent a couple of years living on the large island that was the seat of government in the middle of the inner sea. There, it was more traditional espionage. I was trained to locate vulnerable officials in foreign governments and to turn them to our side. I had a couple of close calls with the counterespionage squads of those governments. I hope I find the energy at some point in the future to recount all of these adventures. I hate to admit it, but I have never felt more alive than I did on those missions. Spending your life balanced on a thin edge is certainly interesting. Soon enough, though, my service was over. Had we made extensive progress taking over the world? Of course not. Other people are competent as well. But I was confident that my efforts meant something. Lord Bellevich was not some sort of patron saint of the five fingered people. In fact, five fingers weren’t treated all that well anywhere. But after getting a first hand look at how my people were treated elsewhere, I thought that he treated them as well or better than anyone else did. Of course, I didn’t make it to every corner of the world so I can never be sure.
Captain Barinov managed to recruit a couple of mages to tutor me in my magic, and by the end of my service I was reliably able to weaponize my light. It took a lot out of me to do so, but the few times that I really needed it all the effort was worth it.
Of course, our business efforts did not subside in my absence. We brought a lot of different products to market. Since the height of agriculture in this world was using manure as a fertilizer, Werner developed a chemical substitute. That was, and continues to be, a big seller. He also managed to make a marketable steam engine, which revolutionized industry and transportation. For awhile, we made a gentler form of nice smelling soap. That was a big seller as well. We reinvested almost all of the money we made into growing our business. Before long, the formerly agricultural land around our house was dotted with workshops and factories. We brought in five fingered workers from the cities and gave them comfortable and safe places to live in small company villages. Before long, we were running out of room so we had to purchase land from some of our neighbors.
Our competitors didn’t take our efforts lying down, that’s for sure. We were attacked on more than one occasion. Some of our factories and workshops were burned down. When we were attacked, the attackers paid with their blood and their lives. We did lose people in the attacks, but none of my core group. I had a fund set aside to provide for the living expenses of the loved ones of those we lost. It didn’t replace them, and I certainly grieved every one of them, but at least I could do something. That something never felt like it was quite enough, though.
On a few occasions, some of the criminal element of the society demanded protection money from us. After talking to Bowen, they largely left with their tails between their legs. I don’t know exactly what he told them, but I imagine there were some serious threats involved. Those threats were obviously ones we had the economic power to back up.
We trained our own security forces. Rostov did end up coming to work for us after his military service was concluded. I never knew he was married, with a wife and two small children, but he became one of my most trusted confidants and a good friend.
Unsurprisingly, Minister Breban’s family became some of our staunchest allies. We were making them money and they were not afraid to use that money and their connections to make things easier for us. Although I didn’t know what to think of him when we first met, he and I developed at least a facsimile of a friendship as well. He actually got me membership in some sort of private gentleman’s society in town and those connections didn’t hurt either.
At the end of my ten years of service, Captain Barinov tried to get me to commit to another similar term. I demurred. I had spent enough time away from the people who were important to me. He didn’t seem all that surprised when I gave him my answer. As time passed, I ended up seeing him less and less often, but when we did manage to get together it was always a good time.
By the end of my service, by any measure I was a rich man. Helvia had finished the renovations of our property and from time to time we even hosted social events. The more I though about it, the more happy I was that I had found myself in this place. Living like this was a far cry from working in a warehouse, living in a tiny studio apartment and eating frozen entrees every other meal. There, I was a nobody. Here I was somebody, even if only a very minor somebody. And here, I had found love.