The Isles of Zephyros — The Decennial Market
Mira gasped heavily as she felt something was pulled from within her, a sensation like having a tooth extracted from one's chest. Images flashed through her mind: she remembered her mother's face, her teaching her how to read the currents and her stories about her father. Mira always wondered if it was true he died in the sea or he simply left them.
But they were all..
Gone.
The memories didn't just fade away they felt more like they were ripped away, leaving holes in her consciousness.
When the merchant finally withdrew her hand, Mira stumbled backward. Her chest... It felt heavy and cold. Wrong somehow.
"Excellent," the merchant purred, his voice full of satisfaction. "A fine trade indeed."
"What.. " Mira's voice trembled. "What did you take?"
"Nothing you'll miss. " The merchant said sweetly. "That's the beauty of it. You won't even remember what you've lost." The merchant's form flickered, and for just a moment she saw what she truly was: a hollow thing, a shell filled with stolen moments, a specter wearing memories like a beggar wearing stolen clothes.
"But you'll feel the absence. Oh yes. You'll feel it like a phantom limb. You'll wake in the night knowing something precious is gone, but unable to name what. That's the price of doing business with the dead, Captain Mira Tessali."
The market had gone silent again. Mira looked around and saw that all the merchants had stopped their calling. All the shoppers had frozen in place. And they were all staring at her.
Hundreds of merchants and buyers stood motionless, their forms flickering faintly in the ghostlight. Every single one of them was translucent. Hollow. Dead.
"No," she whispered.
"Oh yes," said a familiar voice. The first merchant, the one in purple robes, appeared beside her. "Welcome to the eternal market, Captain. You've made your first trade. Do you understand what that means?"
"Captain run!. " Tobin grabbed her arm. "Captain, we need to go!"
But Mira's feet wouldn't move. She looked down and saw faint blue light beginning to emanate from her boots, and saw the edges of her body starting to blur just like the merchants around her.
"Any deal made with us binds a piece of your soul to the market," the purple-robed merchant explained, almost kindly.
"That's why we only appear every ten years—it takes that long to accumulate enough spiritual weight to manifest. Every trader who comes here, every fool who makes a deal thinking they're getting something for nothing... they leave a piece of themselves behind. And eventually, those pieces grow. They accumulate. They drag the rest of you back."
"How long?" Mira managed to ask, even as she felt herself becoming lighter, less solid. "How long before.. "
"Until you're fully one of us? Oh, it varies. Some resist for years. Decades even. But you'll always be drawn back when we manifest. You'll always hear our call. And each time you return, you'll trade a little more. Give a little more. Until there's nothing left of you but the urge to trade, to collect, to bargain. Until you become just another eternal merchant, selling pieces of yourself to the next desperate fool."
"Before you become one of us?" The merchant's smile deepened. "That varies. Some resist for years, even decades. But you'll hear the call again when the moons align. You'll feel the pull. You'll return. Each visit takes more of you. Until there's nothing left to bargain but your voice, your shape, your will. Until all you want is to trade, forever."
Mira looked at the star-metal in her hands. It was already starting to fade, becoming translucent. An illusion. There had never been any star-metal. Just bait for the trap.
"Captain!" Tobin was pulling her, dragging her back toward the Sparrow. "Fight it!"
She tried. She really did. But part of her was already anchored to the market, already bound to the pale stone beneath her feet. She could feel it like a hook in her chest, tethering her to this place between life and death.
With enormous effort, she stumbled forward, letting Tobin pull her toward the ship. The ghostly merchants didn't try to stop them, they just watched with those hollow eyes, patient as the grave.
They knew..
She'd always be back.
Mira and Tobin collapsed onto the deck of the Sparrow, and Tobin immediately cut the mooring line. The ship began to drift away from the marketplace, and as they retreated, the fog rolled back in. Within moments, the Decennial Market had vanished as if it had never existed.
No platform.
No merchants.
No sound.
Mira lay on the deck, breathing hard, feeling the absence inside her like a wound. She couldn't remember what she'd lost. Couldn't name the memories that had been taken. But she could feel the holes they'd left behind, and they ached with a pain that had no source.
"We have to tell someone.. Warn people. " Tobin was saying, his voice shaking with fear. "We can't keep this to ourselves. Make sure no one else.. "
"No one will believe us," she said flatly. She sat up slowly, cradling her head in her hands. "A market that floats between worlds? one that appears once a decade? Ghosts who trade in souls? They'll say we went mad."
"But Captain—"
"Help me to my cabin," she said. "I need to rest."
He hesitated, then obeyed.
But she knew she wouldn't rest. Not really. Because she could still feel the hook in her chest, the binding that tied her to the market. And she knew with terrible certainty that in ten years, when the twin moons aligned again and the barriers grew thin, she would feel an irresistible pull. She would find herself drawn back to that pale stone platform, to those hollow-eyed merchants, to the eternal trading that had no end.
That night, the Sparrow sailed west across the desert winds. Mira stood alone at the rail, the twin moons reflected in her eyes. She tried to remember why she'd taken to the skies in the first place.. what dream had driven her to become a captain. But the thought slipped away before she could catch it. The space it left behind was bottomless.
And in that hollow space, she heard them again.
*"We'll see you in ten years, Captain. We'll be waiting. We're always waiting. "
The voice was soft, almost tender, carried on the high winds.
"The Market never closes. Not really. Not for those who've made the trade."
Mira gripped the railing until her knuckles whitened. She tried not to think about how long ten years was.
Tried not to think about how short it felt.
____________________________________
In the Ashmir Desert far below, a caravan of traders halted their wagons to watch the sky. High above the dunes, pale blue lights flickered, pulsing and coiling through the clouds before fading into the night.
They made signs against evil and hurried on, whispering to whichever gods still listened, not knowing that somewhere above them, a piece of someone's soul was being weighed, measured, and found wanting.
They did not know that something unseen was already stirring above them,an echo of the Market, waiting for the next alignment, the next bargain, the next fool.
The market was patient. It had eternity to wait.
And there were always more merchants. Always more fools who thought they could outsmart the dead.
Always.
End of Tale II — The Floating Marketplace
Recorded by Orin Blackwood, Chronicler of the Seventeen Lost Years.
"Those who trade with ghosts seldom leave with what they came for. The Market remembers every debt."