Two-World Traders (progression fantasy)

Elias was struggling to sleep. He was not used to sharing a bed—a rather small one at that—and their rooms were designed for solitary individuals. Still, no one objected to Harriet spending nights in his and he in hers, at least not to his face. They were adults, after all. They were meant to mingle.

Perhaps it was more than the mere fact that Harriet had flopped onto his side of the bed. Elias's mind was turning over too. He was still thinking about his strange conversation with Lucas. He was anticipating High Collector Redcaller's sparring tournament tomorrow, hosted before an audience of experienced collectors. And increasingly, he found himself missing home. His crew and his cat. Would he miss Harriet when this brief period of his life was over in a few weeks' time? Almost certainly, but that begged another question: would he have to? He would not give up his life in Sailor's Rise, but where would Harriet be stationed? That, he realized, would depend on the powers that be. Would they give them this—or take it away? Elias was thinking about that question too.

He decided to go for a walk.

He found his breeches on the floorboards and ignored the green and gold waistcoat they had given him. In the dead of night, he would wear the plain shirt he had brought with him, for privacy was indeed the ultimate freedom.

Elias carefully closed his creaking door and turned down the hall, ambling without a destination in mind. Habit beckoned him into the empty common room, where the red embers of an evening's fire still glowed like a cobrium engine in the wide, stone hearth. Pepper, the local cat, had been sleeping on the couch. She lifted her head at Elias's arrival and welcomed his company. Pepper was not his Islet, and yet he found a kind of comfort in her companionship that no human being could quite provide.

"Good evening, Mr. Vice. Or I suppose it is well after midnight."

Startled by a familiar voice, Elias found Mr. Grimsby halfway across the room, meandering toward him in a long nightshirt, carrying a single lit candleholder.

"Mr. Grimsby. Sorry—High Collector Grimsby."

The elderly collector chuckled. "Call me Bart for all I care. I take it sleep eludes you as it eludes me."

"Got a lot on my mind, I guess."

"The sparring tournament," Mr. Grimsby offered for him. "I am looking forward to witnessing that. I hear you are quite the skilled swordsman—and an even finer marksman. No surprise there."

Elias shrugged. "We'll find out tomorrow. Do you often wander the academy when you cannot sleep? How often do you stay here, if you don't mind me asking, as opposed to in your very nice, very big mansion in Sailor's Rise?"

"A few months out of any given year. One of the advantages of being a trader is that no one questions you when you tell them that business beckons you out of town." Mr. Grimsby stopped in front of the fireplace, smiling at Pepper encroaching on Elias's lap. "While we are both awake, how would you like to see something I don't normally share with the newly ascendant?"

"I think you already know my answer to that," Elias said bluntly.

"Like a moth to a flame, you are." The old man waved him off the leather couch.

Elias apologized to Pepper, sliding himself free of her curling paws, and followed Mr. Grimsby out of the Millard Fullmore Common Room—and to where, he had no idea.

* * *

Elias had not previously known that the room Mr. Grimsby led them into even existed. And how would he have? There were no windows into the basement, and the space was accessed via two sets of stairs and two separate locked doors, Mr. Grimsby lighting sconces as they walked. True to his word, he really was letting the younger collector in on something: a carefully guarded vault that many who had been here longer than Elias had never once stepped inside. Perhaps he merely had good timing, or maybe Mr. Grimsby enjoyed the currency of secrets, spending them selectively with clever purpose. Accurate or not, Lucas's description tarnished his once rosy picture of the man.

"I know how much you enjoy venturing into restricted spaces," Mr. Grimsby commented as they passed through the second door.

"You mean Fullmore's crypt?" Elias replied.

"And the other one."

"Wait. Did you help build that second crypt?" Elias was adding up years in his head, wondering once again just how old he could possibly be.

For his part, Mr. Grimsby took obvious pleasure in the mystery, shrugging.

Elias figured that was answer enough.

The windowless room they entered was large, too large for a single light, and so Mr. Grimsby lit more oil lamps as they began their tour. "We keep the smaller artifacts over here." Glass display cases were stacked into shelves, encasing ancient pieces of jewelry, armor, pottery, and a few items Elias could not quite decipher. "I believe one of these was acquired with your assistance," Mr. Grimsby added, searching for it with his finger. "Here we go." He tapped the glass. "Look familiar?"

Elias stepped forward and examined the recognizable item closely: a simple open bracelet, made of a mysterious alloy, its silver surface revealing hues of a hidden purple. There were markings too, and he recalled that Jalander had been unable to read them back when they first acquired this item in Saint Albus from Iric's brother, the industrious Bjorn Halvorson.

"Did you figure out what it says?" Elias pointed toward the markings.

"It was a gift given to a friend, a bracelet as unbreakable as their bond," Mr. Grimsby explained. "Come, there is more to see—things you have not already seen before."

Elias had seen more than a few artifacts already, of course, in the museum wing accessible to all, somewhere above them now. The basement, Mr. Grimsby told him, was where they kept everything else they had collected over many years, either for lack of space or—he cleared his throat—"other reasons."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Most items on display were from the Pre-Cataclysm Era, for modern collectors had largely operated outside of history, but there were crests and scrolls from ancient schools dating back centuries that Mr. Grimsby pointed out as they walked and talked: "It was only recently that we discovered Ancestor technology and, more importantly, how to utilize it." When Elias asked why that was the case, his tour guide credited airships for "opening up the world. Even so, we have really only scratched the surface."

They stopped in front of a—well, Elias had absolutely no clue what the strange item was. The sizable contraption was nearly his height and considerably wider, made of a metallic, almost golden material. Its many angled surfaces had the creviced texture of a labyrinth—or maybe a map of the future, or more precisely their past—narrow highways cutting across and around the mysterious device. He ran his finger down one, as he was not told he couldn't. "What the hell is this?"

"This is an engine," Mr. Grimsby said. "The kind of engine that powers the Valshynarian airships you see hovering without hydrogen balloons. This one is particularly hefty. It must have powered an impressive vessel back in its day. Unfortunately, it is also broken, and we have no inkling how to fix it."

"How does it work?"

"A fine question. There are things we understand, and things we do not. Corporealization chief among them. That is, the process of imbuing our collected power into objects."

"Like cobrium in a steam engine?" Elias asked.

"Even better, my boy. Even better. Much as an awoken collector holds onto his or her power even absent additional relics, these devices from our past need no more fuel once imbued. They are endlessly renewable. Remarkable, isn't it?"

"Is corporealization"—Elias nearly tripped over the word—"even still possible?"

"Our experience to date would suggest an unsatisfactory answer, but I for one am not done trying. Despite their name, the Ancestors were centuries ahead of us."

"To understand your power, you must start at the beginning," Elias mused. "Isn't that what they say in the dream?"

Mr. Grimsby paused, smiled after a second, and nodded a single nod. "Indeed, it is." He paced around the specimen, taking it in from every angle. His path of lit oil lamps mostly illuminated the vault around them, but dark corners still hid yet more ancient secrets. "These engines also allow us to fly faster than any conventional airship," Mr. Grimsby added after a moment.

Elias had witnessed evidence of that firsthand in The Emerald Cup. Lucas would have won handily had he not chosen to lose. He wondered whether Mr. Grimsby had approved of Lucas entering the race, knowing, as he did now, that they did not always see eye to eye. "How much does speed matter when you can simply travel through a sky rift?" Elias was not sure whether his question was genuine or rhetorical.

"Sky rifts are not for everyone," Mr. Grimsby said, "nor are they entirely safe. Eating the black: is that not what the regulars call it? Doesn't sound very appetizing. Our safe navigation of them relies entirely on people like you. There are other ways to open up the world." He paused, cleared his throat again, then spoke once more, his voice a little higher. "You know, there is a theory, and it is just that, about the nature of sky rifts. According to one scholar, we are actively causing them."

"How would we be causing them?" Elias lifted his gaze from the engine and met Mr. Grimsby's expectant one.

"Mostly by using them," he answered. "Do you know the theory of determinism, Mr. Vice?"

Elias shook his head.

"Determinism posits that everything that happens was in fact inevitable, that the nature of our world is entirely predictable. That you only perceive free will but do not actually possess it. Why are you standing here with me right now? Was that a choice?"

"Sure," Elias said. "I could have gone back to bed. I mean, I was curious."

"And curiosity is in your nature, is it not? In your biology. Instilled in you by your mother. Perhaps you could be no other way. And why did we stumble into one another tonight? Because you and I could not sleep, each for our own reasons. Follow the path of causality back in time and you may find no end to it, so then ask yourself: when does choice ever enter the equation? How could you choose not to be you? And if this is indeed how our world functions, then there exists but a single story—and we are simply living it."

"What does this have to do with sky rifts?" Elias asked the question dangled in front of him, feeling the intense tug of his inherited curiosity.

"It has to do with the sight, with your unique gift," his elder enlightened him. "Determinism claims that we have but one path forward, but you—you can see other paths, choose them even. The question is whether you are defying fate, acting outside of it, and if so, what would that do to a deterministic world? The scholar I mentioned compared using the sight with taking a cut across the skin of reality. Small cuts can heal, requiring only minor edits in the story of time. But how does a deterministic world account for an airship jumping across the Great Continent, a feat of absolute impossibility?"

Mr. Grimsby began walking again, Elias following at his heels. "This… scholar suggested that some scars simply could not heal. While making small tears at first, repeated injury would eventually split open wounds in, as he called it, the skin of reality. These, he believed, are what we recognize as sky rifts. And our very use of them furthers the problem, creating a feedback loop that could one day—well, who knows?" He let out an unexpected chuckle, though the old man was always first to detect a joke others could not see. "A theory is all it is, and not a particularly popular one. Fun to think about though, isn't it?" He clapped his hands together. "Shall we head back upstairs? I would say it is getting late, but it was already late. Perhaps it is getting early."

Elias nodded. And on their way out, as Mr. Grimsby locked the second door behind them, he asked a somewhat bold question. "You have always been kind to me, Mr. Grimsby, but I have heard some people say you can be"—he did not want to say manipulative—"subtly persuasive. I guess I'm wondering why you're telling me all this, if there's something you expect from me or—apologies, I don't mean to devalue your kindness. Sailor's Rise has made me a more jaded man."

"As it is wont to do." Mr. Grimsby did not appear insulted. "Your inquiry is a fair one, but the truth can be two things. Did I detect what you were? I suppose I did. Do I see great potential in you? I suppose I do. Do I wish for us to be on pleasant terms? Yes. Yes, I do. Your best friends are also your business partners. You already know that one relationship does not preclude another, that my interests are not the entirety of my intentions. Do you recall the Spring Exhibition you attended a few years back."

Elias confirmed as much. "When I won an invitation to your business dinner?"

"Playing a game I devised, yes," Mr. Grimsby said. "Another person could have found that black ball before you, or you might not have played at all. Or maybe you could have played but honestly, without your sight." His famous chuckle found him quickly. "Well, I was willing to bet on that last part. Tell me, did you use your sight to dance with Abagail Graystone the first night we met at my Solstice Eve Ball?"

Elias realized how ridiculous it sounded said aloud. "No comment."

"I'm not much of a dancer myself." He winked as they returned to the empty Millard Fullmore Common Room. "Did I sprinkle a breadcrumb trail for someone like you to follow. Perhaps I did. But it was your choice to follow, was it not? Or was it a choice? Maybe you are among the very few in this world who can make such a thing, if we are to believe our aforementioned scholar." Before they parted ways, back to their respective bedrooms, he added like an afterthought, "I must say, Mr. Vice, you do remind me of your father."

Elias's breathing slowed.

"He was clever like you," Mr. Grimsby explained. "Inquisitive. Intensely principled. Though I wouldn't say quite as entrepreneurial, a quality I hear you inherited from your mother. Sylas was also a transcendent collector with the gift of sight, a fate you may someday have in common."

"Then why did he not wish to join the Valshynar?" Perhaps boldness was another quality Elias shared with his late father.

"People had differing opinions regarding the joining of the schools, but I believe history has since settled the matter," Mr. Grimsby said. "I'll admit Sylas is still something of a mystery to me, one I shall never fully unravel. Alas, even old men do not know everything. We can talk more about this another time."

And just as Lucas had done, Mr. Grimsby placed a pale hand on Elias's shoulder. "You have a sparring competition to win tomorrow."