Year 862 of the Second Age
Above the Ashmir Desert — The Isles of Zephyros
The Isles of Zephyros drifted three thousand feet above the Ashmir Desert, tethered to the world by nothing but ancient magic and stubborn defiance of natural law.
Mira Tessali had sailed the sky-routes for fifteen years, her airship The Gilded Sparrow carried by wind-currents that older captains swore changed course with the phases of Eldoria's twin moons. She had traded silks in the canyon cities, spices in the port of Blackshore, and once—just once—smuggled a locked chest across the border without asking what was inside. She had learned long ago that curiosity was fatal, and that in her line of work, questions cost more than answers.
But even Mira, pragmatic as she was, couldn't help the flutter of excitement as Zephyros came into view through the morning mist.
The Floating Isles were a marvel of the first age: seven colossal fragments of land suspended in the heavens, connected by rope bridges that swayed like spider silk. Waterfalls cascaded from their edges, pouring endlessly into the clouds below and vanishing before reaching the desert below.
On the largest one, white towers spiraled upward like frozen gusts of wind. Buildings clung to the underside of some islands like barnacles on a ship's hull, defying all sense and reason.
The Windsingers, funny robed monks with wind-chimes sown into their sleeves claimed that their songs kept the isles aloft. Mira had never decided whether that was faith or engineering, but she'd never seen an isle fall, and that was proof enough for her.
"Captain? " Her first mate, a nervous young man named Tobin, pointed toward the central island. "Is that... smoke? "
Mira followed his gaze and frowned. A thick column of smoke rose from what should have been an empty sky, about a mile east of the main settlement. But it wasn't just smoke, it was fog, coiling and twisting in patterns that made her eyes hurt if she looked too long. Inside the grayness was some sort of pale blue light that flickered from time to time like a heartbeat.
"That wasn't in the navigation charts," she muttered.
"Should we avoid it? " Tobin's hand had moved unconsciously to the lucky charm he wore around his neck, a piece of iron shaped like a spiral, meant to ward off malevolent spirits.
Mira checked her chronometer strapped to her wrist. The Merchant's festival in Zephyros's main port wouldn't begin until sunset. They had time.... Hours to spare.
And that fog was appearing in open air, which meant...
"We investigate," she said. "Anything strange enough to manifest out of nothing is worth a look. Might be valuable."
Tobin hesitated. "Aye, Captain. "
Tobin knew this was a terrible idea, but he knew better than to argue. He'd been aboard the Sparrow long enough to know that Mira's instincts for profit were rarely wrong.
With a twist of the helm, The Gilded Sparrow angled toward the drifting anomaly. The ship's sails rippled, catching invisible currents as the engine hum deepened.
As they drew closer, the fog seemed to pulse in anticipation, and Mira could hear something— music? No, not music but a chorus of voices carried on the wind. At first it was distant mumbling but soon it resolved into words, the sound of voices, hundreds of them, all speaking at once like that of merchants hawking their wares.
The fog swallowed them completely, and for a moment the world disappeared — no horizon, no sky, only swirling gray. The ship creaked, the compass spun uselessly. Then, just as suddenly, they broke freely through and found themselves hovering before a marketplace that shouldn't exist.
It sprawled across a floating platform of pale stone that hadn't been there a minute before—an entire city suspended in the air. It was easily the size of Greywater!
It was packed with hundreds of stalls and tents and crooked buildings that seemed to lean on each other for support. Colorful banners fluttered in a wind that Mira couldn't feel, and lanterns glowed with that same pale blue light she'd seen in the fog. The air smelled of cinnamon and incense and something older underneath it all, something that reminded her of old tombs.
But it was the silence that struck her first.
Hundreds of figures filled the streets—merchants, sailors, noblemen, even children—but not one made a sound. The merchants' mouths moved in their hawking calls, but no words reached her ears. The shoppers gestured and pointed, but made no noise. Even the banners fluttered soundlessly.
"Captain," Tobin whispered, and his voice seemed obscenely loud in the quiet. "I don't like this. "
"Anchor us to that mooring post," Mira said, pointing to a stone pillar at the market's edge. "We'll just take a quick look. "
Tobin obeyed.
Mira quickly alighted off the ship and the moment her boots touched the pale stone of the marketplace, all sound rushed back in like a breaking dam.
"—finest silks from the southern kingdoms!"
"—charms against ill fortune, guaranteed effective!"
"—memories of your choosing, fresh and clear as yesterday!"
The sudden return was too much for her and Mira has to steady herself, one hand on her cutlass and the other one her gun. Tobin stumbled beside her, pressing his hands over his ears.
"Welcome, welcome!" A figure appeared before them, a merchant in elaborate robes of deep purple, his face obscured by a hood. "First time to the Decennial Market, I see! " His tone dropped with rehearsed delight.
"You've come at the most splendid hours. Wonders beyond measure! Treasures from ages past, wonders from distant shores, items of power and beauty beyond imagination! "
Mira's merchant instincts kicked in immediately, overriding her unease. "The Decennial Market? I've never heard of it.
"Oh, but of course not! We only appear once every ten years, when the twin moons align just so and the barriers between what is and what was grows even thinner." The hooded merchant gestured grandly at the sprawling bazaar behind him. "Today is the last day of this decade's market. Tomorrow we vanish for another ten years. So if you seek anything rare, anything precious, anything impossible, now is your chance! "
Mira's heart raced, she could already feel the fever of opportunity rising. A market that appeared once a decade would have accumulated goods from across ten years, items collected from every corner of Eldoria. The profit potential was staggering. "And what forms of payment do you accept?"
"Oh, the usual," the merchant said, spreading his hands. "Gold, gems, barter of equivalent value. We're quite flexible in our negotiations."
Something about the way he said equivalent value made Mira's skin prickle.
But Mira Tessali was not a woman easily spooked. She gestured to Tobin. "Let's see what this place offers."
They wandered deeper into the market, and Mira's expert eye began cataloging the wares. The stalls were endless there were silks so fine they seemed woven from moonlight itself. Spices in glass jars that sparkled with inner fire. Books bound in leather that looked ancient beyond measure. Jewelry that hummed with barely contained energy. Weapons forged from metals she didn't recognize. Bottles filled with swirling colors that the merchants claimed were distilled emotions and concentrated dreams.
But there was something wrong with the merchants themselves. Now that Mira looked closer, she could see that none of them were quite solid. Their edges blurred slightly, like watercolor paintings left out in the rain. When they moved, they left faint afterimages trailing behind them. And their eyes when she could glimpse them beneath their hoods were hollow, lightless voids.
"Captain," Tobin muttered nervously. "We should leave. Something's not right here."
But Mira's gaze had already caught on a nearby stall.
On its velvet cushion lay a bar of star-metal —the rarest substance in Eldoria, mined only from fallen sky-stones, worth more than entire fleets. Its surface shimmered with shifting constellations, a fragment of night given shape.
"Interested?" asked the merchant behind the stall. The figure was female or had been once. Her form flickered occasionally, revealing glimpses of bone beneath translucent flesh.
"Genuine star-metal," she smiled. "Fallen during the Meteor Shower of the Third Age. There is no other piece like it left in the living world."
The Third Age?
The living world?
The phrases sent ice down Mira's spine, but she forced herself to focus on the metal. With this, she could buy a fleet of airships. Could retire wealthy. Could finally stop running routes and settle somewhere safe.
"How much?" she asked, stepping closer unable to help herself.
The ghostly merchant smiled, revealing teeth that seemed too numerous for her mouth. "A simple trade. The star-metal for... a memory."
Mira blinked. "What?"
"A memory," the woman repeated sweetly. "Just one. A small one. Something you won't even miss. The taste of your favorite meal, the sound of your first ship's deck in rain. We collect them here, you see. Memories are currency here. More valuable than gold."
"That's absurd," Mira said. "You can't buy memories."
"Oh, but you can." The merchant's tone darkened, the edges of her form pulsing with blue light. "You'd be surprised what people will give to forget—or to gain."
Mira hesitated. It seemed too easy. But wasn't that how the best deals always felt?
"Just a memory? That's all?" She wanted to confirm.
"That's all. And in exchange, you receive something worth a fortune." The merchant's hollow eyes fixed on her. "Surely that's a fair trade?"
"Don't do it, Captain," Tobin said urgently. "Please. We should go. Now."
But Mira was already reaching for the star-metal. "Which memory do you want?"
"Oh, I'll know it when I take it. The best ones always reveal themselves." The merchant extended her hand—trans
lucent, skeletal, wrong—and placed it over Mira's heart.
The world went cold.
End of Part I : The Transaction Begins