Chapter Two: The Trade

A cluster of brown houses awaits me as I approach the village of Sparks. The town has grown some since I was last here, some three months ago. My wagon rolls into the town and I wave a hand to a familiar man with a beard.

"Hello, Ben," I call.f

"Hello," says Ben. He probably doesn't remember my name, with all the other roamers who come and go. I hop off my wagon.

"Good trading time?" I ask.

Ben frowns. "You know it's our custom to arrive one day before you want to trade and stay in the Pioneer Hotel."

"I got sidetracked," I lie. "I meant to get here yesterday. One of my oxen ran away." I've used this excuse before. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. "I have to get back on the road tonight." I hope I haven't made this excuse to Ben before.

Ben frowns deeper. "Hmm."

"So…" I continue. "Could you tell everyone that there will be trading now?"

Ben looks annoyed, but cups his hand around his mouth, making a pseudo-megaphone. "Attention all citizens of Sparks. A roamer has unexpectedly arrived and wishes to trade. Trading will commence in the plaza as soon as possible. Attention." The doors of some nearby houses open and people step curiously out into the street. "Trading will commence in the plaza as soon as possible." The people run off, spreading the word. "Come," Ben says to me. I board my wagon again and urge the oxen to follow Ben. He leads me through the village towards the plaza. People walk around me, holding bags of food and other goods with which to trade. When we reach the plaza, I halt my oxen in the middle of the semi-circle and hop off. The villagers are congregated all around me.

"Greeting all," I begin in a deep, booming voice. "I have been traveling to the remote, very remote, houses in the Empty Lands. I have found houses visited by few roamers in the past. I have a lot to offer you." To begin with, I take out the sack with the potato pieces, open it up, and take out a piece. "Four pieces of a potato! Great for planting. Think of how many potatoes you can harvest from just four pieces. Any offers?"

"A potato!" A man jokes, holding up a small potato roughly the size of my four pieces. Everyone laughs.

"Two artichokes!" A woman ventures.

"Two carrots!"

"Three plums!"

No more offers come. The woman who offered the plums comes up. I hand her the sack of potatoes and she hands me the plums. "Pleasure doing business with you," I say, as I always do. The woman smiles and returns to her spot in the plaza. I hold up the next item. "Silverware! Two forks, a spoon, and three knives. Only slightly dented. Offer?"

There is a murmur of interest in the crowd. Silverware is fairly rare.

"Three pieces of cheese!"

"A loaf of bread!"

"Three bags of corn!"

Everyone immediately stops bidding. I am surprised, but obviously happy. Three bags is a lot to pay for silverware. "Sold!" I cry unnecessarily.

People start mumbling unhappily as the man walks up with three bags of corn. He hands them to me and I plunk them down in my wagon. I give him the silverware and he walks back to his spot, head down. "Pleasure doing business with you!" I call. I can hear people muttering phrases like "food waster" and "going to be the death of us all". To discourage this, I quickly hold up one roll of paper towels. "Three of them, I've got. What will you give me?"

"Three oranges!"

"A head of lettuce!"

"Jar of applesauce!"

"Sack of prunes!"

The bidding ceases, and I pointed to the man who offered the prunes. He came up with a sack (a lot smaller than I thought it would be), and I hand him the paper towels, saying "Pleasure doing business with you" instinctively,

"You too," he returns.

I scowl at his back for a split-second, and then return to my business tone. I reach into a bag and hold up a leafy herb. "A rare herb! Great for numbing pain and healing cuts. A whole bag full of them!"

Some people perk their heads up; always a good sign.

"Two jars of jam!'

"Three jars of pickles!"

"Three donuts!" a man shouts. Some people beside him laugh and say, "Come on, Ethan."

"A sack of asparagus!"

No more offers come. A woman with bushy, grey hair comes up with a decent-sized bag of asparagus. "Pleasure doing business with you," I say, and hand her the herbs. She smiles and walks back into the crowd.

"Okay, I'm almost out of goods," I say. "Are you in need of wood?"

Nobody speaks. I sigh and vow to go to Pine Gap next. "Well, I'm out. Thanks for trading today, and hopefully I'll see you again soon,"

People begin to disperse back into the village. As I am putting my things back into my wagon, I notice a dark-haired boy and a dark-haired girl close by, arguing.

"Come on Doon, just go up and show him," I hear the girl say.

"Okay, okay," the boy says. He takes a deep breath and steps forward. "Hello," he says to me.

"Hello," I say.

The boy shuffles his feet. "Um, I'm Doon Harrow, and she is Lina Mayfleet."

My eyes light up. The names sound familiar. "Oh, you're the ones who found the way out of the underground city! And found the diamonds?"

"Yes," Lina says.

"And did you want to show me something?" After I ask this, I realize I shouldn't have implied that I was listening to their conversation.

"Yes, he does," says Lina. "He's been working on a new diamond project and we've been waiting to give it to a roamer. Show him, Doon," she adds to the boy.

Doon hesitates, and then takes out a small, flat box. He opens it, and I gasp. It's filled with jewelry. Necklaces made of silver links. Golden bracelets. One bracelet of red stones. An obscenely large ring. And all of them have at least one shard of a deep blue diamond on them.

"Are those from the diamonds?" I ask rhetorically.

Doon answers anyway. "Yes."

"We've been buying jewelry off of roamers," says Lina proudly. "And he puts the diamonds on."

"How?" I ask.

"Well, we hit two diamonds together in order to get shards," says Doon. "And then we use fire to meld them onto the jewelry. It took us a while to figure out how to get the shards to stay on, but we did eventually."

"And, this jewelry, what does it do?" I ask, picking up the bracelet. It has seven tiny shards of diamond on it, making it glitter every time I move it.

"Same thing a whole diamond does," replies Doon. "They don't hold their charge as long, since they're smaller, and you obviously can't put a light bulb on them…"

"Which is why we bought this," breaks in Lina, holding up a string with multicolored pieces of glass on it.

"What's that?" I inquire.

Lina shrugs. "We got in from a roamer. He said it came in box that said 'C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S lights' on it."

"This, is a light?" I ask, amazed.

"Well, many lights," says Lina. "Here." She picks up the ring and puts in on her finger. Then she unscrews a red piece of glass from the string and inserts in on the bottom of the ring. She flicks a switch near the diamond and a bright fiery red light emits from the bulb on the ring.

"Wow," I exhale, as Lina flips the ring upside down so the light in on top.

"Of course, it's not very practical if you want a lot of light," continues Doon. "But if you want to see in the dark corner of a house and can't fit a whole diamond in…"

"Or if you're carrying a lot of things and can't hold a diamond…" adds Lina.

"These are better."

"Plus, they make good engagement rings," giggles Lina.

Doon rolls his eyes at me. "Yeah. And the bracelet is even better."

Wordlessly, I hand over the bracelet. Lina unscrews seven lights from the string and Doon keeps talking. "And the best part is that they don't have to be in the sun that long. Since they're so small, they fully charge in one minute!"

"And this charge lasts…" I venture.

"Only half-an-hour," admits Doon. "But if you're wearing it, it'll constantly charge whenever it's off. So you're not likely to run out of light."

"Here." Lina holds up the completed bracelet. Seven tiny light bulbs protrude from the metal. She puts in on and flicks a switch. Multi-colored beams of light shoot out from her wrist in all directions. As Lina holds it up to her face, I can see different colors flash on her flesh. She rotates her wrist and the colors dance across her face so quickly that I get dizzy.

"We've been waiting for a roamer to come so we could spread the jewelry to other settlements," says Doon. "And you're the first one to come,"

"What do you want for them?" I ask eagerly.

"Um…" Doon hesitates. "Well, first of all, do you have any jewelry we could put a diamond shard on?"

I already know I don't, but in case I picked some up and somehow forgotten about it, I look thoroughly through my goods. No jewelry. I go through it thrice more to make sure none suddenly materialized. Finally, I stop looking and turn to Lina and Doon.

"Any luck?" asks Doon. I shake my head regretfully. "That's okay. Not many roamer have jewelry."

"I don't bother picking any up, usually," I say. "Not many people are interested, and I get almost nothing in return."

"What else do you have in there?" asks Doon.

"Just wood, really," I reply.

Lina and Doon look at each other. Finally, Doon says, "Okay, we'll sell you these cheaply if you promise to give them out to roamers along the way."

"And sell all the jewelry that you find to us," adds Lina.

"With a discount," finishes Doon.

"Of course," I say. "How many planks?"

"Um…three?" says Lina doubtfully, looking at Doon.

"Three," confirms Doon. I get three decent-sized planks and hand them over. He gives me the box. I examine the jewelry in awe.

"I'll try to pick up some more jewelry for you, but I can't promise anything," I say. "It's hard to find."

"We had some jewelry in Ember," says Lina sadly. "Not real jewelry, like up here, just something shiny. But nobody thought to bring any up."

"Ember, your underground city?" I ask.

Lina nods.

An idea forms in my head. It seems so outrageous, I feel reluctant voicing it. "Maybe, if you tell me where this underground city is, I can go down and look for some."

Doon laughs. "No way. It's a long, steep path into the earth that you have to walk on for about three hours, and it's pitch black inside. There's also a pit that we had to build a bridge over, but who knows if it's still there? Forget about it."

I persist. "But if you went down there…"

"And that's another thing," Doon goes on, ignoring my question. "When we went down there after getting the diamonds, there was still plenty left. Now, we've taken all the useful things."

"Like jewelry?" I ask slyly.

Lina knows exactly where I'm going. "It isn't worth it. The only jewelry we had in Ember was glass or stones on strings."

I'm disappointed, but I'm also stubborn. "But even if I found some, you could use it. And there are probably other valuable things down there."

"Not anymore," replies Lina. "When we found the diamonds, we took everything worthwhile down there."

"Maybe you missed some things," I suggest. "Like jewelry.'

Lina and Doon look at each other for a long time. "Okay," says Doon finally, shaking his head in exasperation. "Go north-east from here. It took us a full day walking, so I don't know how long that would take you with your oxen."

"About half a day, maybe a little more," I reply promptly. It's true; going by wagon is almost twice as fast as just walking.

"Right," says Doon. "So go north-east for half a day, if your estimate is accurate, until you see a large rock."

"Wait a minute," I interrupt. "Do you know how many large rocks are out in the Empty Lands?"

"I was getting to that," says Doon patiently. "Go north-east until you see a large rock. There should be a grove of trees there."

I am about to ask him if he knew how many groves are in the Empty Lands, but he cuts me off. "Go into the grove and look for a metal door. That's where the diamonds were. If you find that, then you know you're in the right spot."

"Okay," I say. "So how do I get into this underground city?"

Doon sighs and takes a big breath. Lina takes the hint and explains. "Go find a little dent in the earth."

"With stones around it," interjects Doon.

"Yes, with stones around it," says Lina. "Go into the dent and you'll find a small passage…."

"Is the passage big enough for my wagon?" I blurt out.

Lina smiles patiently. "No, it's much too narrow. Anyway, bring a diamond and some jewelry, because, like Doon said, it's pitch-black."

"So how did you see when you were living there?" I ask. I want as much information as possible, if I'm going to roam there.

"A generator, powered by a river. There are light bulbs on poles everywhere. I disconnected the generator, so they aren't lit up. Now can you stop asking questions?" Doon is annoyed now. "Let's go, Lina."

"And how far up…" I begin feebly, but Lina and Doon have already walked far away.

"A pleasure doing business with you!" I call.

Sometimes it's hard being a roamer.

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To anyone who caught it, yes, that was an Ethan Frome reference.