Writing took most of the morning. It was… alright. Mazelton looked over at the small stacks of previous drafts, and all their crossed out passages. It was hard to know when a thing was too lurid, so he had kept editing the more colorful bits out.

He had really wanted to include a Cabell masturbating with a fish. Nothing quite said mad depravity like a fish fetishist. He looked at the deleted passage longingly. No, knowing when to stop was the elegance of art.

Maybe just the heroic last stand of the Ma, protecting those disabled orphans… he decisively put down his brush and fled before he wrote again.

Mazelton stepped out into the inn, collected a stick of roasted potatoes and onions from the bartender, remembered he needed to gain weight, collected a second stick of roast wheat dumplings in a sweet sauce, and went to find Policlitus. It was time to conclude the negotiations with the Xia.

Their battle was immense. Heroic. Besieged on all sides, the two heroes fought without retreating a step. After a seemingly endless struggle, they slew the foul wizard and claimed their prize. The business was formed. Their interest was fifteen percent of the profits, a revocable license, five percent ownership and auditing rights. Policlitus looked like he smelled a rat, but couldn’t spot it. Mendiluze looked like he had triumphed in a titanic struggle, and without needing the help of some useless polisher.

Mazelton and Xiatoktok had been chuckling about it right through the “negotiation.” Mazelton walked with everyone to the door of the bank, then escaped back to the little restaurant he visited the day before. He would have yet more food. He was already feeling full, but he was determined to pack in the calories while he could. The bread and oil remained delicious. The carrots were a disappointment- starchy, lacking salt, and greasy. He sighed, ate them anyway, and contemplated ordering a second round of bread. He could eat it slowly.

“While I do like the bread and oil here, too much will make you fat.” Xiatoktok smiled warmly at Mazelton, who waved him into a chair.

“Chance would be nice. People tell me I look like a creepy skeleton.”

“As opposed to a not-creepy skeleton?”

“What’s creepy about skeletons? I’ve got one myself, and I’d bet you do too.”

“Still collecting skulls?”

“I’m emigrating. Where would I even keep them? Though, I must congratulate you on your excellent zygomatic bone- it really plays off the parietal bone. Takes an already good skull up a big notch.”

“How kind of you to say. Really, that’s too much. You have a fine Ma exemplar skull, if I may say.”

“Second rate, just second rate. I know my limitations.”

Their hands flickered back and forth, glances lingering here and there. Talking about the talking. Mazelton enjoyed being able to really speak to another human being for the first time in a long while. Madam Lettie, bless her, never spent much time in the big cities of the Eastern Edge. The Pi knew about unterspracht, of course. They just couldn’t be bothered, unless they really had to.

“You said that you had a few minor matters?” Xiatoktok asked.

“Yes. First, I thought I would add a cup full of dirty water to the buckets already flying at the Cabells and the Confeds.” He handed over the essay. “Take it as payment for the second matter, and a part of the price of the third.”

Xiatoktok briefly glanced at the essay before returning his attention to Mazelton.

“What would you like me to do with this?”

Mazelton grinned and pricked his finger with his belt knife. He squeezed some fat droplets of blood onto the paper and smeared them around a bit. The words smudged a little, but it was still legible.

“You found a body slumped against the Clan House on Istokpoga Island, down in the Archipelago. Known Confed agitators were pawing at the corpse, bloody knives still in their hands. The Xia guards swiftly dispatched the scum, naturally, and recovered this letter from the corpse. Clearly, they had caught poor Mazelfo before he could publish his testimony. While the Xia have no particular love for the Ma, you felt that it was only right to see the essay widely distributed in cheap print form, or even read aloud by concerned local citizens in pubs across the Eastern Edge.”

Xiatoktok grinned. “Not long enough to publish by itself, but it would take no time at all to collect similar “testimony” and put out a pamphlet.” He quickly looked it over. “A restrained level of depravity and horror. The drug fueled cannibalism is nice, ties in with the self destructive greed theme.”

“I’ve made better, but thank you.”

“Sort of surprised you let the Bo have the heroic last stand.”

“I have a whole scene in my head where the Ma Clan elders defend an orphanage full of townie disabled kids. A toddler with no arms or legs wiggles over, to weep over East Guardian’s corpse. It’s awesome!”

“Never mind, even fiction should have its limits.”

Mazelton flicked a pinky, suggesting that Xiatoktok’s genitals had their limits too. The distinguished gentleman chose to ignore the gesture, and pressed on.

“The second matter?”

“There is a grocery store in Cold Garden.” Mazelton described it and its approximate location as best he could recall. “Please deliver this core to the perfectly round cook who works out in front of the grocery store.”

“Perfectly round?” Xiatoktok laughed.

“Your servant will see immediately what I mean.”

Xiatoktok picked up the core and examined it. To his expert eye, it was a basic, good quality core. Well polished, almost certainly from an old polisher pine. Nothing special, though he wouldn’t sneer at it if he found one on the street.

“Settling a debt?”

“A promissory note.”

Xiatoktok took a closer look at the core, even pulling out a small remnant tech and putting it over his eye.

“I have only ever heard of these, if it’s what I think it is. A genuine Ma promise stone.” He lightly chuckled. “Rumor has it that the promise is carved into the atomic structure of the core itself, legible by only the most painfully advanced technologies… and any main line Ma.”

“True. You can’t use tools to carve it. You have to essentially turn the core into part of you and do the etching with your own heat. It’s not painful or anything, but it is intensely-” he waved his hand “fiddly. It’s annoying. You can’t really do much productive with that technique, so most people don’t practice it. It discourages being casual about making them.”

“I can believe it. What message should be delivered to the cook? Who’s name, I note, you didn’t mention.”

“I don’t know his name. It doesn't really matter. Just hand it to him, and say that Polisher Mazelton is emigrating to New Scandi, and he meant what he said. And that he should send the core when he needs to call in his favor.”

“Simple enough. He must be a good cook.”

“He is.”

Seeing that Mazelton didn’t want to elaborate, Xiatoktok gave him an urbane smile and asked “The third matter?”

Mazelton handed him a short shopping list.

“Nothing too pricey there, but the material requirements are absolutely non-negotiable, and must match exactly. I don’t have the week or more I would need to make the connections necessary to source the materials. So… interested in taking a middleman’s cut?”

“Another round of bread and oil, please!”

“Any chance of you picking up the tab this time?”

“None whatsoever. Oh look, the new wine is in.”

Mazelton walked back to the Caravansary. They would be leaving first thing in the morning, and he wanted to make sure everything was packed away properly. Duane had done a good job. Mazelton knew how to put the saddle on the cheve, but this one had all kinds of d-rings and a particularly deep seat. It even had a sort of wooden horn at the front of it, whose purpose was a complete mystery.

“How, exactly, does all this work?”

Duane contemplated the question a bit, then with a serious look on his face, looked over at another teamster. Who rolled their eyes, and answered.

“Short answer is, for you, don’t worry about them. They are all places to attach things. Generally tools, weapons, water, rope, bed roll, anything you would need to spend pretty much the whole day in the saddle, and spend the night outdoors too. It’s a second hand piece, but in excellent condition. Believe me when I say that you don’t want to be breaking in a new one.”

“I expect I will pick it up with time.”

The teamster nodded encouragingly, and Mazelton walked off to check the polishing supplies Duane had picked up. He was only a little hurt to hear the teamster mutter that the cheve would have a heavier saddle than rider. He had wanted to save a little money, so he hadn’t asked Duane to pick up oil. Money be damned, he spun on his heel and marched off to find an oil trader.

The oil trader looked like someone who had heard that oil traders were meant to be round, cheerful fellows, but was determined to prove the world wrong out of spite. The miserable wretch crouched on a stool behind his counter, like a not-quite-dead spider waiting for a not-quite-bright fly to crawl past. His eyes were tinged with red, and seemingly never blinked. Mazelton wondered if he had ever blinked.

The oil came in a bewildering number of varieties and grades. Some from seeds, some from nuts, others from fruit and even grain. All painfully expensive, even the grain oil. Mazelton had a very hazy recollection of big clay jars of oil being carried in by wagons into the Clan house, so he had always subconsciously thought that it wasn’t too dear. He was wrong.

“You must keep it out of the heat, or it will turn rancid. Keep it in its clay jar. Do not put it in a glass jar, no matter how pretty it is. It will go rancid.” The dealer breathed out his rote warnings in a single uninflected breath. Mazelton hadn’t even picked his oil yet.

“I was wondering what oil I should buy. Do you have any-”

“Cooking or seasoning?”

“Seasoning mostly though both would be ideal.”

“How much?”

“Enough for me and maybe one or two others, home use? Perhaps a couple of spoonfuls a day?”

“That one.” The dealer pointed at a clay jar with a blue square painted on it.

“What is it?”

“If you don’t know, it doesn't matter. Forty rad.”

“You what?!”

“Pay or scram.”

They went thirty rounds, Mazelton refusing to leave until he had irritated the dealer as much as the dealer had irritated him. Eventually he left with a big jar of mild seed oil, and without twenty nine rad. He would have settled for thirty, but the wretch tried to charge him a handling fee.

He had replaced what was gone, filled what was empty, repaired what needed repairing. The new camp stool stood arrogantly, not realizing that it stood in the three legged shadow of a fallen hero. New seasonings had come to replace the old. Oil was purchased. He had a saddle, new (to him) boots, and plenty of good rope. Mazelton had gone over his inventory with Policlitus, and Policlitus reconed he was ready. That evening, he walked out to the western edge of Cold Harbor, and watched the sun set. No mountains yet, but the hills were starting to rise.