Islands in the Sky

3.15

Sema waited for an hour, standing quietly on her own. Then, growing tired, she asked the man who was obviously guarding the inner building’s door if she might sit upon a pile of sacks of grain that was nearby.

He nodded offhandedly.

Sema sat down, and kept waiting. The grain was actually quite comfortable, and she didn’t especially mind waiting now that she didn’t have to stand. There had been several other people waiting too when she arrived, in a group near the door, and more came and went as she sat there. Some stayed only briefly, as if delivering messages, and others were inside for some time, as if they were having longer conversations. Sema assumed they were discussing their trades.

She was obviously having to wait until all the other business was done, but she didn’t mind. She had nothing else she needed to be doing right now.

She watched people come and go from the group near the door, and listened them talking to one another. It seemed that Quen Tosal was an important merchant, and that he did a lot of different kinds of trading, and most of these people were here to sell cargoes or shipping space to him. Sema listened, hoping to learn something useful, but she didn’t learn anything, not really. People were just chatting with one another, not actually discussing anything important.

She sat quietly, and waited, and the others went inside ahead of her.

She waited, and eventually, when all the others had taken their turn, she was shown into the smaller inner building.

She went inside, and looked around, curiously. She was in a room containing a desk and shelves and very little else. The desk was piled with paper and open ledgers, and there were more ledgers on shelves on the wall. There was a glowing bulb, a device of the ancients, in the middle of the desk, lighting the room.

There was a man, older and greying and quite gauntly thin, sitting in a chair behind the desk. Sema assumed that was Quen Tosal.

“You wished to see me?” he said.

Sema nodded. “I’ve been sent to you by…” she said and stopped, abruptly. She realized suddenly that she’d never asked her dock manager’s name.

She’d never needed to ask names before. She just hadn’t, in her life, in a village on an island where she’d known every single person since she was born. Or since they had been.

She stopped, looking at Quen Tosal, slightly embarrassed. “A man who runs a dock,” she said. “About five hundred steps from here.”

She pointed the direction she thought it was. She was fairly sure she knew which way to point, because the office door was behind her and that faced the warehouse door, which faced the dock, and she could guess from there.

“I forgot to ask his name,” she said, deciding to be honest. “But he told me to speak to you. We agreed a trade, that I would pay him, if he helped me. And so he told me about you.”

Quen Tosal nodded. “I don’t know this man,” he said. “But that is hardly important.”

“Oh,” Sema said. “Isn’t it?”

“Not especially, not if we have business to do. Many people know of me. What is it you wish to trade?”

“Firewood,” Sema said.

Quen Tosal sat there looking at her, and Sema realized she was supposed to keep talking, to explain what she was offering.

“I have a boat,” Sema said. “I made a boat, and came here, and then I realized the city was short of firewood, but that firewood was just lying around on other islands. So I want to go and get it from other places and bring it here.”

“You made a boat?” Quen Tosal said. He actually sounded interested in that, and Sema suspected he might have ignored the rest of what she said.

“From wardrobes,” Sema said. “Filled with rocks. So they would float.”

“Of course. How clever.”

“It took me a while to work out how,” Sema said, deciding to be honest again.

“Still, you did so. And then you sailed your boat here? To Anew-Hame?”

“Yes,” Sema said, and was honest again. “Although I met some people fishing who told me the way.”

Quen Tosal nodded. “But you can navigate?”

Sema looked at him, not understanding.

“You can set a course?” Quen Tosal said. “You can choose a direction and follow a path along it?”

“I can,” Sema said. “Mostly.”

“And now you want to go and get firewood?”

Sema nodded. “I do. Since wood is simply lying around on other islands, and yet is worth a lot, worth things to trade, once it is here.”

Quen Tosal nodded. “That’s how trade works,” he said. “It is about the where as much as the what.”

Sema didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say.

Quen Tosal seemed to notice her uncertainty. “It is good you know that,” he said. “That is all. That you know how trade works. Many people do not and they are often more difficult to deal with.”

“Oh,” Sema said. It was fairly obvious that knowing was a good thing, even though she wasn’t sure she did. “Well, I know,” she said quickly.

Quen Tosal smiled, and Sema wasn’t sure he believed her. Then he said, “I can see that,” quite gravely, and to Sema’s relief.