Without Ernard’s advice, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. It was probably just a dying whim to him—imparting that information—but for us it was a lifesaver. No one else had taught us what we needed to do.
For the next six years, we focused on preparing for the Path. We didn’t change our behavior all that much; we still got into trouble for being where we weren’t supposed to be. But now we also listened to what we weren’t supposed to hear, and recorded it all in ledgers. We planned on making money from trading, like Ernard had suggested.
I wrote about the price of wheat, why stormy seas meant that gemstones increased in value, and what made coffee more valuable per ounce than gold. I wrote about who traded with whom, and which ship captains were reliable and which were drunkards. We recorded everything my brothers and I could learn from snooping around and eavesdropping when the ascor thought they were alone.
Not everything we learned could be trusted. The ascorim swirled beneath everything, and lies were as common as truth. If Cenarro was telling another ascor that the vegetable crop in the country was poor this year, we had to figure out if he was helping him with the knowledge, if he was lying to set up some kind of trap, or whether there was a deeper motive. The shifting of alliances, the subtle cut and thrust of wordplay, the tactics and stratagems of each ascor had to be taken into account. Who said it and to whom was often more important than the information itself. Sometimes there was more to be learned from a lie than from the truth. As Ernard had warned us, without understanding the ascorim, all we knew was worthless.
So we collected knowledge, tried to understand it, then burned the records after we had learned all we could. In the days leading up to the start of the Path, we were on double alert to hear as much as possible. The newer the information, the more useful it could be to us. And two days before the start of the Path, we discovered a valuable nugget. We learned that Black Lightning, an aphrodisiac recently popular among the ascor and richer marshals, was made up of simply two parts black pepper and one part nutmeg.
We investigated further. One small barrel of black pepper could be bought on the wholesale market for two golds, one small barrel of nutmeg for three golds. Three small barrels of Black Lightning cost fifteen golds. We could make our own Black Lightning, undercut the price, and still make a great profit. But we had no hope of getting the initial seven golds to buy the black pepper and nutmeg. The Raine bankers might lend a gold or two to Greens at ridiculous interest rates, but we needed more to buy the spices at wholesale rates. We spent days discussing various options, coming up with schemes. Eventually we hit on a plan. It required timing, nerve, and daring. The most ingenious—but also riskiest—part involved stealing the money from the Black Lightning seller without him ever realizing it. But what better way to get the heart racing and the blood pumping? To walk the Green Path meant to embrace risk.
Any overall strategy we attempted would have one large flaw. If we succeeded, one of us would be a Select, and one a Chosen. There was no possible way for all three of us to win a place in the Refuge. But at the start of the Path, the chances of even two of us surviving were so small that it wasn’t worth talking about that scenario. We concentrated on what was directly in front of us.
So when the Path began, we had a clear purpose and began to implement our plan. We’d accumulated small sums of money over the years, and had hidden it in a few cubbyholes around the city, ready for the Path. One of the cubbyholes had been plundered and was empty, but the other two contained several silvers each. This was enough to buy the few small things we needed to get started.
We found an abandoned house not far from the merchant quarter. Empty houses are common in Arcandis, so finding a suitable place was not difficult. It was a mess, though, so it took several days to clean it and set it up the way we wanted. But with three brothers working side by side, laughing and joking with each other, the hard work was enjoyable.
The place we chose had three rooms. The front room faced a busy road, and the back room opened out onto a narrow alleyway, and we outfitted both of them like the shops of successful merchants. Or as close as possible without having any money to buy merchandise or furnishings. A third room, between our separate shopfronts, was to be used as our warehouse and was key to our plan.
We drew straws for which room and role to take in our scheme, and I drew the middle room. So I waited in the dim light while Sorani and Frodan went out to persuade the buyer and seller to come to us. My thoughts raced, trying to plan for everything that could go wrong. Unfortunately, there were too many things that were out of control. Even getting the buyer and seller to our store was uncertain. So when I heard voices in the front room, I rushed to the adjoining door to listen. Frodan’s job was to bring Greft, a spice wholesale seller, with his nutmeg and black pepper.
“Welcome to the new store,” came Frodan’s voice. “It’s not much now, but we have great hopes. Thanks so much for coming to me.”
“Well, you didn’t give me much choice,” Greft said. “You offered me generous terms then insisted I come all the way over to your store.” He looked around. “Though you were being charitable calling this a store. This better not be some trick.”
I kept my ears strained for the sound of voices from the back room. Sorani and the Black Lightning buyer were late. We needed to do simultaneous deals—that was at the heart of our plan.
“No trick,” Frodan assured him. “We need to run a small test on your spices to be sure it’s what we need. I have two vials, so if I could just get samples from you...”
I almost stepped in to try and delay Frodan. If we took a sample and the buyer didn’t come, then this was all for nothing and Greft would never agree to another trade with us.
“You can have your samples, but I don’t have all day,” Greft said.
“My brother should be here in a moment. I apologize for the lack of tea,” Frodan said. “We are new to business, but that’s no excuse. I asked for tea to be ready for you.”
Frodan was clearly trying to delay Greft. I rushed over to the door of the back room to make sure there was no one there, then returned to listen to Frodan, twisting my fingers together.
“I don’t care about the Helion-cursed tea,” Greft said. “Do you want to test the samples or not?”
I heard a noise from the direction of the back room. There wasn’t time to be sure that Sorani had brought the Black Lightning buyer, so I strode into the front room just as Greft was turning away.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “If you’ll give me the sample, I won’t be long checking it out.”
Greft looked at me, then at Frodan, frowning at both of us before handing over the vials of spice.
I took them back into the middle room. I quickly checked the back room, and was rewarded by the sight of Sorani talking with Yuzeel, the aphrodisiac buyer.
Sorani was trying to persuade him that we needed the payment first.
“I insist on receiving the merchandise first,” Yuzeel said, “before I hand over any money. I still don’t understand how a Green would get any Black Lightning, never mind three barrels of it.”
I took the two vials of spice over to a table. I quickly measured out two portions of black pepper and one portion of nutmeg, mixed it up with a pestle in a small bowl. In the dim light, it was hard to know when it was ready. I could hear voices beginning to rise on either side, so I knew both Greft and Yuzeel were getting impatient. I needed to hurry, but I had to make sure the sample was fully mixed or the whole plan would fall to pieces. It was a fine line.
Finally happy, I took a vial of the mixed spice, which I hoped was now indistinguishable from Black Lightning, into the back room and handed it over to Yuzeel. I smiled as I did so, but inside I was quaking. This was going to be the riskiest part of the plan, and we were in too deep to abandon the deal with no repercussions. There was little margin on the Path for failure, especially at this early stage.
Yuzeel poured some powder from the vial onto his finger. He sniffed it then tasted it with the tip of his tongue. “This is the good stuff. Sells very well coming up to the Infernam, as you could imagine. Nothing like an upcoming apocalypse to get people horny. Bring out the rest of it.”
“We need to see that you’ve brought the money,” Sorani said.
“Now that’s insulting. Have I ever not paid for anything in my life?”
“Forgive us for being cautious,” I said. “But if this deal doesn’t go right for us, it means our certain deaths come the Infernam. As Greens, our lives aren’t worth much, so we are an easy target if someone chooses to cheat us.”
Yuzeel took a pouch from his belt and threw it to Sorani. The pouch was the same common brown bag we’d seen him use in other trades. If it hadn’t been, we’d have been in trouble. Sorani opened the pouch and poured some gold coins into his hand, then nodded and poured them back into the pouch and pulled the string around the top to close it.
“Hey, not so fast, let me see,” I said, pushing forward and reaching for the pouch. It fell to the ground.
“Hold it there.” Yuzeel moved forward and picked the pouch up from the ground. “That’s still my money.”
“Sorry about that.” Sorani pushed me back into the middle room. “Now go get the rest of the product.” As he released me, he slipped the pouch of gold, hidden in his sleeve, into my hand. Although he’d practiced the switch thousands of times over the last few days, I was still impressed at how well he’d done it. I was looking out for it, and I was only now sure that it was a pouch of iron pieces that had fallen to the floor and been picked up by Yuzeel.
Sorani went back to Yuzeel and I poured the golds onto a table. I took the seven required and returned to the front room where Frodan still waited with Greft.
“What’s going on? What were you doing back there?” Greft demanded. “If this is some trick just to steal the sample off me, then you two are in big trouble.”
“No, not at all. Here’s your money.” I counted the seven golds into his hand.
Greft looked suspiciously at me, then examined several of the coins in detail. “I know something strange is going on here, but I can’t put my finger on it,” he said. “The money seems real, and that’s all I really care about. But if I find I’ve been cheated in some way, I’ll come back, and it won’t be pretty.”
He gestured to his man, who followed him out, leaving the three barrels behind.
“Give me another gold.” Frodan watched Greft leave with a frown on his face.
“Why?”
“He’s leaving here with a bad taste in his mouth about the deal.”
“Fine, there are gold coins on the table in the middle room.” There wasn’t time to argue. I picked up the barrels of spice and carried them into the middle room while Frodan took a gold coin and disappeared after Greft.
I resented Frodan for wasting time when we were in the middle of this delicate operation, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I poured the black spice into a large bucket then added the nutmeg. I used a large pole to swirl it all around, then, with a large pestle, I ground and mixed and churned it all together. I could hear the sound of raised voices in the other room, so I knew that Yuzeel was getting impatient.
If Yuzeel decided to abort the trade, he’d soon find out that we’d stolen his money and replaced it with pieces of iron, and our lives would be worth about the same amount as those same bits of metal. But I couldn’t rush this. It had to be fully mixed, and it had to look and smell and feel exactly like the Black Lightning Yuzeel was used to. I had to rely on Sorani to delay him long enough and concentrate on my own task.
My hands grew slick with sweat and my arms ached. Over and over, I repeated the same process: Swirl the bucket with the pole to bring the unmixed stuff to the top, then churn it with the pestle until all the powder I could see had the same consistency and color. I didn’t have time to be careful, so it didn’t take long until my clothes and all the floor around the bucket was covered in a dark gray powder.
Sorani came in and I chased him out. “Just delay Yuzeel another few minutes,” I urged, not giving him a chance to talk.
It took me a lot longer than I expected to get the whole batch mixed. At every moment, I was tempted to finish up and take it in as is, but I had to be sure. When I was finally happy with the result, I poured from the bucket back into the three barrels, watching carefully to make sure the consistency was the same throughout. Then I closed the three barrels, and gave each of them one last shake for luck.
I put one barrel under each arm and picked up the last one in my hands and hurried out as quickly as my awkward load would allow. The room was empty. My heart was already racing and now it threatened to charge all the way out of my chest. Was I too late? I carried the barrels outside. Sorani stood by the door and was glaring at the back of Yuzeel, who was halfway down the street. But Frodan had returned and was now talking to Yuzeel.
I hurried toward Frodan and Yuzeel. Yuzeel was swinging the pouch of iron pieces between his fingers. It was only when I caught up with them and heard a friendly laugh from Yuzeel that I was sure that the deal was not yet dead.
“Here we are—three barrels of Black Lightning as promised,” I said as calmly as I could manage, placing them at Yuzeel’s feet.
“What happened to you?” Yuzeel looked me up and down.
I looked down and realized that I was covered in a dark gray powder. I had forgotten to clean myself off. “A minor slippage,” I said weakly, dusting down my tunic with my hands.
“Show me.” Yuzeel nodded at the barrels.
Frodan bent down to open one of the barrels.
“No, that one.” Yuzeel pointed at a different barrel.
Frodan shrugged and flipped the lid off the indicated barrel and Yuzeel dipped his finger in it. He held his finger up, twisted it around, studying the powder sticking to it. Then he wiped his finger clean on his trousers.
“Seems good. You shouldn’t have lied to me about it, though.”
“Lied?” I swallowed.
“Yeah, Frodan told me all about it.”
I forced a weak smile. What had Frodan told him?
“We didn’t want to admit that we didn’t have the merchandise we were selling in our hands,” Frodan said.
Yuzeel clapped me on the back. “No need to look so worried. If you’d been honest in the first place, I wouldn’t have gotten so mad with Sorani.”
“I told him how we received the wrong barrels from the merchant,” Frodan told me, “and how we didn’t realize it until just before he arrived.” Frodan touched my shoulder. “Eolnar and I have been running around trying to get the mix-up sorted in time to make this deal. You can see the sweat on Eolnar’s brow.”
My smile was stronger this time. “We didn’t want to appear incompetent. We should have checked the barrels before bringing you to us.”
“Well, it’s your first deal—you’ll learn,” Yuzeel said. He nodded to his man, who picked up the barrels.”
I half-turned away when he stopped me.
“Aren’t you forgetting something important?” He dangled the money pouch in front of us.
I gave a start. It was important, but not for the reason Yuzeel thought. I took it from Yuzeel and put it in my pocket.
“We won’t make good merchants if we forget to get paid,” Frodan said with a laugh.
“You certainly won’t,” Yuzeel said.
Frodan took a gold coin out of his pocket and handed it to Yuzeel. “As you can see, there was some spillage, so the barrels might be light. Plus, for your trouble in being kept waiting.”
“No.” Yuzeel held up his hand. “My time isn’t worth that much.”
“That much and more.” Frodan took Yuzeel’s hand, put the coin in it, and curled his fingers around it. “I insist.”
“Very well.” Yuzeel walked away, shaking his head.
I grabbed Frodan’s wrist. “Why did you give away a gold to each of them? You’ve nearly halved our profits.” I wasn’t mad with him; I couldn’t be angry after the crazy plan we’d come up with had actually succeeded. I just wanted to understand.
“It’s our first deal, and Greft and Yuzeel are influential with other merchants. It’ll make it easier to get future deals if they spread the word that we’re good trading partners.”
I shrugged. I didn’t care about anything at that moment except celebrating our improbable victory. We returned to where Sorani waited for us.
“Sorry I let him get away,” Sorani said. “I ended up getting angry and getting in a shouting match with him. I then thought it best to let you two finish the deal.”
“Well done in getting him to wait that long,” I said, throwing my arm around his shoulder. “Frodan came up with a clever explanation for the delay. The merchant ended up happy.”
“Most importantly, he never figured out that he paid for the goods before he received them,” Frodan said.
Sorani linked his arm around my shoulder and Frodan did the same on the other side. We began to walk back into the shop, then realized we wouldn’t fit three abreast like this. We laughed but did not separate. Instead, we turned around and walked in sideways. It must have looked foolish, but we always solved problems by going at them sideways together, rather than separating.
We’d bought a small bottle of liquor and I don’t think such a small amount of liquid ever caused the same amount of merriment before or since. We were unused to alcohol and already drunk on the success of our plan. We laughed until tears came to our eyes and then laughed some more. I didn’t know it was possible to be that happy, but I know I will never be as happy again.