When the caravan moved on the next day, twice that day the caravan passed small villages on the ground. Despite the size of the trees, there were some hints that the rumours that Taithorkey's cities were entirely in the trees were overstated. Yet both times, when Denziu looked up, there were still more buildings attached to and bridged between the vast trees of Taithorkey, and some of the buildings hugged tree trunks all the way up so that Denziu wondered if the tree or the building would stand apart from each other. It was clearly a city which extended upwards into the forests to use the oversized trees of Taithorkey as foundations in their own right.
Neither of the two villages was considered a market destination by Choave, but as each was a good day of walking apart from the prior, the caravan stopped each time. The first was Relaith. The second was Tirisu. If there was anything exceptional about them, Denziu was largely too sore to notice. Ekis made sympathetic noises during the walk between Denxalue and Relaith, but Choave’s blessing wasn’t enough to make Denziu fit for conversation that day. Between Relaith and Tirisu, Denziu was once more carried in Oghai's carriage. Zie wondered how many times zie would be carried before zie could keep up the pace.
They came to a third village upon the ground in Taithorkey and passed a signpost that said, "Welcome to Tassilya". Denziu's memory of the maps suggested they were on the far side of Taithorkey by now! The caravan trooped together through Tassilya seeking some destination that Choave had in mind. Despite zir soreness, Denziu noticed remarkably fine wooden construction all around. This was a shamefaced hint as to why Denxalue was so poorly regarded; Lauvera liked a primitive style of construction and many of the buildings in Denxalue had a thrown-together kind of appearance that better appealed to her. Contrast Taithorkey, where it looked like there was never a plank out of place and tasteful paint jobs added colour to every house. The land god of Taithorkey must be a fan of a more prosperous architecture.
Far above, Denziu suspected there was still more of a very fine architecture, though from underneath zie could see little but the undersides of wooden platforms and rope bridges.
The caravanners were almost under the largest tree that Denziu had ever seen when Choave called for a stop next to some construct of ropes and wood with a yellow vrash attendant seated near it. The attendant had a very appealing symmetrical pattern of white spots on his snout, down his neck, and across his side, which is what Denziu was paying attention to while Choave spoke briefly to him from the front of the caravan. Yet Denziu was attentive enough to notice that the exchange concluded with Choave handing over some papers to the attendant, who then handed them back and called upwards: "Platform coming down!"
The attendant pulled on one of the dangling ropes, and there was some chiming above, and then a platform big enough to pull a wagon onto dropped towards them. While it was still coming down, Choave turned to caravan to shout, "Mosdrao, over here! Everyone else, give us space!"
The caravan pulled out of formation, with most of the wagons going across the street and one pulling up next to the wooden box that was the platform’s landing point. When the platform got low enough, Denziu saw a white vrash in splendid blue armour of an even more obviously decorative style than most vrash wore.
There was a brief conversation between Choave and this new vrash, followed by a few minutes of opening boxes and examining their contents, whereafter two casks were placed on the platform, which ascended upwards carrying away the white vrash with it. "Alright, no issues here, and a good price for a part of our stock," said Choave to the group. “Next stop, the caravanserai!"
"What's a caravanserai?" called Denziu. It seemed like an important enough question to interrupt with.
"Inn for caravanners, they've space and security for wagons!" called back Choave.
The caravanserai proved an inn with a great domed area and gates large enough to pull a wagon through. It provided security from all sides, including above, so that nobody could get in to steal from caravans even with wings on their back. There were berths all around the edge of the dome for wagons to be stored in.
It proved a swift place to check in, and in any case Chatulerin took over the arrangements rather at once, so that Denziu stuck around only briefly to see what kind of accommodations were involved. Being satisfied about where zie was to go that evening, and the caravan having reached their destination in Taithorkey rather before the evening itself, zie set out to acquaint zirself with the afternoon market in hopes of a sale. Choave's blessing was still on Denziu, not yet faded with the evening light, fending off soreness from the long walk.
The difference between a caravan and a holiday was too readily apparent, Denziu thought ruefully as zie pulled zir wagon towards the market on the ground level. All around on the trees of Taithorkey were houses and even businesses surrounded by great platforms and connected with bridges. Yet wagons were for the ground, and thus (despite zir flying wagon) so was Denziu.
Zie could hardly check off Taithorkey as a place zie would someday hope to visit if zie was going to be stuck upon the ground. Yet despite this drive to visit the treetop district of Tassilya someday, Denziu was too conscious of having already spent far more than zie had gained, and zie was not in the mood to be a tourist. (Too sore.) There was no sense at all in shorting any of the hours zie might try to offload goods. Being present for the afternoon was hardly as good as being present all day, but they were not there for leisure.
There would be tomorrow as well by the same method. They'd discussed it already, the caravan was staying for a full market day at each stop, plus overnight. Departure would be in the morning.
The market being for the caravans in part, the caravanserai was unsurprisingly quite close it; there wasn't the faintest difficulty in finding the path from one to the next. There were then all manner of stalls and carts with wares displayed, and a great deal of the tools and adornments on display seemed to be made of bone or ivory. There were also good hides and furs, so that considered with the tools of bone Denziu got the sense that Taithorkey was something of a hunter's paradise.
All across the market there were countless interesting scents from such as food stalls and vendorgons carrying spices, incenses, and forest herbs. At the food stalls there were many vendorgons carrying the rich organ meats which are a delicacy to almost any dragon, and this was yet another way that Taithorkey seemed a hunter's paradise; the finest parts of the animal were abundant! Denziu could not pass such places without longing to browse the market, and perhaps buy spiced kidneys for the road... but there was no sense in that, no. Too pricey this time. The food the caravan had was more than good enough.
The curiosities of the market would be no use until zie had sold some of what zie brought already, and the great bulk of zir journey was for the pottery. Zie did not need tools of bone nor furs, as none of these were goods whose proper pricing zie could gauge. Doubtless this would be a misery down the line seeing some manner of obvious market advantage to be missed, but in that zie would trust in zir tenth-share of the caravan to gain by Choave's greater familiarity with the trade corridor. For Denziu's own gain the more important duty by far was to find somewhere that zir wagon could be set up in the hope of selling some of what zie'd brought along, and so zie manoeuvred the weightless thing through the crowd to find an opening broad enough to set things up for display.
When at last Denziu had found enough open space where setting up the wagon wouldn't block another trader and would impair the crowds only a little, zie pushed the floating wagon down to the ground to make this next bit easier. Zie first partially unwrapped four pots to show them off, then next hauled the bin of Tekagoli luck charms up to the lid of one of the pots, and opened the bin so that the price card inside the lid would be displayed. Finally, zie set out zir pouch of paints upon the lid of another pot, then with everything set up zie lifted the wagon three inches off the ground so that it would be apparent to perceptive passers-by what a wonder zie had brought to market: the wagon flying unheld.
Zie kind of wished that the paints and pots were as enchanted as the wagon and the charms, just to be all of one magical vendor performance.
The phials of paint zie hung from the front of the charms bin: beige, ochre, red, and brown. Soil hues were the specialty of Denziu as a pigment-maker. The per-phial price was written upon the price-card that hung from the lid of the charms bin.
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Before the charms and the pots zie planted zirself, standing before the lifted wagon. "Luck charms for long life," zie called. "Soil-tone paints, hand-ground soil-tones!" These and others like them were the kind of things zie added to the babbles of the market. The pots zie did not advertise; in truth, zie felt selling them so near to Denxalue would be disappointing. Zie could not ask much of a mark-up yet when Taithorkey neighbored Denxalue!
Zie sold only one phial of paint, and that wasn't surprising. The soil tones were obviously local. Zie had more hope for them much farther in the journey when they were in northern Kelkaith. Here, zir brightest, most vibrant shade was the red paint that zie used on zirself, and after days of sore travel zie wasn't currently painted. Without seeing the example on Denziu as they would when Denziu sold such paints ordinarily, zie suspected few of the passers-by would quite grasp how much cosmetic potential Denziu's red paints had. In all of two days at the market, zie traded one phial of red paint for local coins of carven ivory that would still be good at Mosdenechrak, and no other paints sold.
Trying to sell Tekagoli luck charms was the more interesting thing here. The flying wagon made dragons much more inclined to believe that Denziu's luck charms were in possession of real magic. Denziu's forthright willingness to admit that they were Tekagoli luck charms had dragons very inclined to believe that Denziu's luck charms were in possession of cursed magic. Were it not such a bane of profit, it would have been funny watching dragons recoil. Zie did want to make back zir money on the bin of charms; they'd been cheap, not free.
Yet in selling them, zie was faced with a parade of barter attempts. Some of the wonders of the market came to Denziu. Quite a few of the dragons in Taithorkey seemed to be trying to conserve their coins by bartering away what was surplus to them in order to acquire the pewter luck charms. Despite zir previous thought that zie would not take on any goods of bone or ivory, Denziu gained in this way a bone knife with artful carvings in the handle that zie thought zie would never use to actually cut, but could sell on later as an artful object in its own right, and a set of bone fishing tackle that suggested either there were fish-laden streams in Taithorkey or else that some of the bone carving done in this place was wholly for export. That would be unsaleable for some time, Denziu thought (for there were no fishable waters near Mosdenechrak), but it should eventually be worth more than the pewter Tekagoli charm. Zie moved several more in exchange for aromatic phials of ground herbs, and refused someone who wanted to trade a charm for a fur.
Such were the sales of Tekagoli charms that day, and all of the charms sold to dragons who Denziu was almost sure were drawn to zir careful explanations that Tekagoli luck was not a curse, it was a long-term blessing that caused small amounts of bad luck to happen in ways that averted large amounts of suffering. Almost sure.
That evening in the caravanserai, Choave spoke of the caravan's collective trade. He spoke briefly, in negation; he had found nothing new to carry between Taithorkey and Mosdenechrak. This was a disappointment. Two casks of cider sold in Taithorkey opened up space for four crates of the artful bonework tools produced in Taithorkey. They were ordinarily well-sold in Mosdenechrak, which was a crossroads where valuable goods might sell in four directions. This time, there was none of that. The vendorgons who Choave knew had either no surplus due to ill fortune, or else they had already sold their stock into local markets and the claws of other merchantgons.
Well, perhaps that was Baggil, taking a toll on them. It must be to avert something else in the future; such was the promise of Tekagoli luck.
When Denziu returned to the open market the next day, zie had slightly more infamy and faced graver dilemmas with dragons starting to approach who seemed a little too glad to buy Tekagoli luck. Denziu traded out telling zirself that zie had no reason to believe in the buyers' ill intention, but zir stomach really fell the first time someone approached asking, "Are you the luck-curse vendorgon?" It was a friendly question, but it reminded Denziu of what zie'd heard was another common use of Tekagoli luck charms: to "give" them to dragons in secret. Baggil, perhaps believing too much in zir own benevolence, would afflict dragons with Tekagoli luck whether or not they knew they had the charm among their belongings.
"They're not luck curses," Denziu said, zir whole stance drooping slightly. "They're Tekagoli luck."
"Yeah, but dragons don't want Tekagoli luck," said the dragon. He was a burly black vrash in light black armour. It was leather armour, not metal armour; it looked like local work. "So they're curses."
Denziu frowned and stood straighter again. "Why do you want to buy a curse?"
"I want to buy five," he said. "To sell."
Zie almost laughed. That was why zie'd bought far more than five. Yet zie hadn't been insisting that they were curses at the time. This was, as the saying went, 'fishy'. More than that, it was a moral dilemma. Zie could get away with selling five Tekagoli luck charms and leave the next day. Safe. They'd be untraceable. Yet this guy was clearly trying to be a curse peddler. He was openly and bluntly trying to be a curse peddler, even. So the charms would surely be given to five dragons each of whom hated somebody.
That meant five times, Baggil would start trying to pour moderately bad luck onto somebody hated... but each time, it would be to avert greater suffering in the future. That was how Baggil worked. The charms worked whether dragons knew they were present or not, but they worked to avert greater future sufferings even when they were 'gifted' in secret hatred.
Denziu made a snap decision to keep to the ideology of Baggil in selling the charms. If Baggil would do it, then it must be worth something in the eyes of a talented seer among land gods.
"Deal," said Denziu, and gestured towards the bin. "While you're here, want a phial of paint?"
"No?" said the vrash as he was leaning in over the bin to pick out five of the little pewter charms.
"Really? They're scale-safe," said Denziu. "You might look good with a runemark on your cheek in a light colour."
"Is it magic paint?" asked the curse-peddle, sitting up before Denziu. A fistful of little pewter charms went into a pouch, and from another was drawn a coin-roll.
"It's not," admitted Denziu, taking the price of five Tekagoli luck charms in good gold coins. "Maybe next time I run this route I'll see if I can get enchanted paint first."
"Yeah, that'd go with your wagon! Thanks for the luck-curses, I'll make sure these'll do somebody harm," said the vrash with a flick of a claw and a grin.
Denziu smiled back, but it was a mask of a smile. 'Trust in Baggil' was a bitter thought just then. In all likelihood, those charms were going out into the world to drive dragons apart from each other. For the greater good, Baggil might say, though that land god wasn't known for talking to dragons very often about anything. The introverted land god of Tekagol's 'hermit farmergon kingdom', Baggil was.
To give away a luck curse, one had to hold a luck curse. In this way Denziu reasoned that Baggil would know which dragons to drive apart from each other, and (come to think of them) so would the less famous land gods who maintained the other five beacons of ‘Tekagoli’ Luck on Theoma. It was for the best to just let the curse-givers have the charms. Plus, a bit of notoriety would help Denziu sell out the bin of charms.
Zie wanted to find it funny. Zie’d bought the bin of charms with words struck onto them. They were supposed to be cheerful. Wouldn’t it be funny to see “Baggil Loves You” unexpectedly? Yet zie sold a charm that day with “Persistence” struck into one side and “Humility” struck into the other. That just sounded like someone in Taithorkey was going to try to force someone else to eat humble pie by hiding “Humility” in their belongings. That wasn’t funny. Humble pie only tastes good when one is buying it for oneself.
Zie sold a few more charms that day, and practised that mask of a smile as zie tried not to worry about whether dragons were buying them for good or ill.
That evening, Choave came to the caravanserai with a vrash and a vohntrai in tow. These were dragons who wanted accompanied passage to Tanoriz and then to Mosdenechrak, and who would thus travel on foot and in Oghai's Carriage, respectively. Apparently, Oghai's lodgings could be bought out for a short time.
The vrash was hardly of note, being a brown vrash of common appearance wearing ordinary vrash armour that spoke of common stature and no great wealth. The vohntrai was a temptation to gawk, for this was a rare kind of dragon that Denziu had never seen: tall, thin, and emphatically two-legged. The green-scaled vohntrai had red twisting runes painted onto their body, which stood in a stance that Denziu had never seen before: upon two feet with a straight spine like a kalla. Zie couldn’t help gawking.
Eventually, the two departed again. The caravanserai was locked overnight and it was not permissible to bring in guests other than those which had been initially registered, so the two soon-to-be passengers were obliged to return to their own lodgings. Yet they came again to the caravanserai in the morning when it was unlocked, and joined with the caravan then. Denziu was glad of their presence; if they couldn’t carry a chest of carved bone, passengers to Mosdenechrak were better than nothing.