Two-World Traders (progression fantasy)

The nights were notoriously long in Azir. Whereas residents of Sailor's Rise adhered to more respectable bedtime hours, citizens of the desert city had their own customs, influenced by the hot climate they had toiled in for millennia. Evening was their escape from the oppressive sun, as comfortably balmy as heaven itself, or so extolled Zeyna Darya.

The love of Briley's life was seeing her last patron out the front door of her popular establishment, and Briley did not wish to know the time. Sitting at a round table across from her, Gabby wavered between exhausted and energized, depending on the topic of discussion. She drained the last of their bottle of red into three not-quite-empty clay goblets.

"Did you know that in Azir, they call wine the blood of gods," Briley told her younger colleague, candlelight casting shadows across the sharp features of her stoic face. "Too strong for mortal men, they say, which is why it drives them silly and senseless."

Gabby blinked. "That's stupid."

Briley shrugged as Zeyna pulled back a seat and joined them. "I see someone refilled my drink. It is polite to ask first." She gazed at Gabby. "But I also believe that a woman must sail upon the waves of life, facing the winds as they are." She took a satisfied sip and said, "Perhaps now we can finally catch up. How long has it been, Gabby?"

It had been roughly a year. But while Briley returned to Azir more or less seasonally—fulfilling contracts for Sultan Atakan, still their largest client since her venture's humble inception—Gabby had been pulled in other directions. The Two Worlds Trading Company was often juggling priorities these days.

"Few months?" Gabby replied. "Few years? Couldn't tell you."

"I don't think it has been a few years." The look that flashed across Zeyna's face could only be described as the look of one suddenly questioning the fabric of time and the threads of her existence.

"Gabby is feigning ignorance," Briley inserted. "She is a walking calendar."

Neither confirming nor denying the accusation, Gabby swigged a gulp of wine like water and said, "Been busy. I assume that's what you were going to ask: how I've been?"

"It is the universal question of parted friends," Zeyna said.

Briley would hardly have used the term friend to describe their relationship, but Zeyna bestowed the honor liberally, and Gabby—Gabby was still a teenager. Briley felt the need to somehow translate for them, as if they were speaking separate languages, but the best she could muster was an innocent question: "Been a busy season for you too?" It was aimed at her lover.

"All seasons are busy in the Garden District. But never too busy to make time for my spring wildflower." Zeyna reached across the table and squeezed Briley's hand.

A tender moment was, alas, made painful in the presence of a single, sardonic teenager who may have also imbibed one too many. Gabby didn't say anything. She did not have to.

Never as oblivious as she appeared, Zeyna disarmed the young woman and turned her own weapon against her. "There must be a beautiful man or perhaps some handsome woman in your life, Gabby. Do tell. You're among sisters, drinking gods' blood." She raised her goblet.

Gabby shook her head like a dog coming in from the rain. "Like I said, I'm busy."

"No one has boundless energy, not even the young," Zeyna explained, sage-like, lowering her wine. "We must replenish in order to stay productive, and romance is the ultimate replenisher. Why, whenever Briley visits me, I feel ready to leap over rivers and write entire novels."

Briley could not contain the ripple of her smile, try as she might.

"I'm doing fine, thanks" was all Gabby offered in return.

"But you're—what's the popular term—a catch," Zeyna insisted. "How many people your age can say they're partners in a successful trading business, I wonder? And you have such a… stunningly unique look about you. Where was it you are from again?"

"Lowtown," Gabby said flatly, fidgeting in her seat. She could wield the weapons of youth, but Miss Mason lacked the armor of age. "Maybe that's my problem," she added after a few seconds, guard slightly lowered. "I don't exactly connect with hoity-toity Hightowners. Not my people, you know, but that's who does business with The Two Worlds Trading Company. I still sleep in Lowtown, but sleeping is about all I do there nowadays. I spend the rest of my life above the divide or… in places like this." She gestured at the empty tavern with her empty drink.

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"Briley and I come from very different backgrounds," Zeyna reminded her, "and yet we connect like a parted soul."

"Yeah, well, I don't care about this stuff anyway." Gabby straightened in her chair, guard back up. "I've got you guys, and Iric gets me. He doesn't buy into all that, you know…" She did not, or perhaps could not, finish the thought. "I don't care if he's a hundred."

"He's fifty-seven," Briley said. "One day you'll be fifty-seven."

Gabby shuddered.

"That is a different kind of relationship"—Zeyna slowed on the word "different"—"but you are right, and you have nothing but time. How wonderful a gift time is."

"Speaking of time, I'm growing increasingly worried about Bertrand and Iric," Briley said. "They were supposed to arrive in The Crimson Voyager tonight, but given the late hour, at this point I imagine I'll see a pillow before either of them." She sighed. "They better be here at the crack of dawn."

The crew had a critical meeting with Sultan Atakan early the next morning regarding a potential new contract, which normally—given the high station of His Excellency—all senior team members of The Two Worlds Trading Company would attend. They had come up with an elaborate excuse for Elias's unavoidable absence that involved a dying family member, but Bertrand especially needed to be there. Their chief business officer got along well with the sultan, and his nonappearance would only add insult to barely avoided injury.

"They'll be here," Gabby assured her.

"How can you be so certain?" Briley did not look assured.

"Iric never misses an appointment, and Bertrand knows the stakes."

"I suppose. I'll still say a prayer to Lady Luck tonight." Briley was not, however, a religious woman.

Zeyna, a more spiritually inclined person herself, squeezed her lover's hand and suggested they go to bed. "The morning shall bring what is meant to be."

Briley forced a smile that fooled no one.

* * *

Bertrand could barely breathe. As he and Iric dashed from the port of Azir, where they had docked The Crimson Voyager minutes earlier, toward Sultan Atakan's palace, he was testing his body and evidently failing. Iric, running beside him, appeared more able despite his apparently advanced age, or perhaps he merely hid his discomfort better. Northerners did not complain, or so Iric often reminded them.

Bertrand would definitely have complained, but words required breathing. He was also overdressed and starting to sweat. He removed his tricorne and clung to it like a purse. "I can't," he eventually exhaled, legs slowing. "I can't, Iric, I can't." Hands and hat pressed against his knees, Bertrand gasped for air. They had made it halfway to the palace for an appointment that was in ten minutes.

The generosity of the Azirian people was on full display as a stranger handed Bertrand her canteen. "Thank you." He took a swig and passed it to Iric. "You are very kind, miss, very kind." He could still only manage a few words at once.

Iric returned the water pouch to its compassionate donor and slapped Bertrand on the back. "Come. We shall walk there. We can still make it."

"Can we?" Bertrand began walking.

"If we move quickly and do not get lost."

Getting lost, at least, was one worry that did not burden Bertrand. By now, they knew the wide, straight roads of Azir as well as a familiar neighborhood in Sailor's Rise. Indeed, the ancient city was far more logical by comparison, the horizon far flatter. It was only the crowds that slowed them as they weaved their way through a bustling bazaar.

They had left their crew behind to secure The Crimson Voyager to its berth and pay the necessary docking fee. A delivery to Belrania had taken them longer than expected, and while the country was on the way to Azir, they had woefully underestimated the hours it would take to get through security clearances. Unfortunately, they also did not have Elias aboard to cheat distance. Maybe they had grown too comfortable having that card in their sleeve, considered Bertrand. Maybe they should never have cut things so close in the first place. He could regret that later if the sultan seemed displeased.

"You must be excited about your wedding," Iric mentioned as they walked as fast as one could walk without breaking into an outright sprint.

"The date is still a little more than a year away," Bertrand replied. "You would think a year would be a long time to prepare for a single day, and you would be mistaken."

"Fancy people require fancy weddings," Iric said. "My wedding was much simpler. I asked her. She said yes. We were married a month later."

Bertrand almost and would have slowed his pace, if not for the necessity of haste. "Wait. You were married? You never mentioned you were married."

Iric shrugged as they turned another corner, the palace popping into view. "It was a very long time ago. Over twenty years now since she passed away. Or as Gabby would tell me, twenty-one years and thirty days, to be precise."

"Do you have any children?" Bertrand inquired.

Iric shook his head. "We did not. Could not. We tried, as married couples do, but we were not blessed with that ability. We were still happy together. We had a good decade."

"I'm so sorry, Iric. I truly had no idea."

"Ancient history," the northerner said, his gaze wandering. There were things far more ancient in Azir than a man's past.

When at last they arrived in Sultan Atakan's expansive throne room, Bertrand could breathe comfortably again, and Iric put on a polite grin. The sultan sat slumped in his usual throne, draped in his usual sky-blue kaftan, flipping through paper. Saba Khali, his master of coin, was also in attendance, standing with her back straight and to his right. Briley and Gabby flanked his left side, looking relieved as the former matched eyes with Bertrand.

"Good morning, Mr. Fairweather," Sultan Atakan said, still staring at the paperwork in his hand. "You are just in time."

"I do like to make an entrance, Your Excellency," Bertrand said.

The distracted sultan chuckled after a tense two seconds, then passed his papers to Saba and steepled his generously ringed fingers. "Now let us do business."