The Orb of the First Person - A Tale From Ynnraile

[Yvain Wintersong]

Dear, dear, Avakair. Small, barely even a city, but heavy. Heavy with stone, heavy with age, heavy with history, heavy with dreams, heavy with memories. And quiet in the dawn of the not-quite-springtime.

Only in the old square, before the big cathedral, were people out in any great number. Me, and my colleagues, preparing for the Grand Bizarre. It was Vivantiasday, so there would be a Bizarre. There had been one every Vivantiasday since at least the days of Tristran Wintersong and more likely the beginning of the world. When the city flooded, back in the days of Goldshire, the enterprising merchants had built makeshift rafts and held the Bizarre in the muddy waters of the Mathwin.

To my left, Bran Brownleaf was erecting his little stall of religious figurines, hand-carved out of soap by his wife. To my right, Cian Diarsan set up in small tubes the painted sands of Babkha. Laden with the heat of the deserts from which they had been imported at great expense, said the sign on his booth, and thus a certain remedy for colds and bad air. Cian was a good man, and always willing to lend an erb or two to any of us who were short on cash; I did not hold it against him that I often found him on the beaches south of the city, collecting sand for his tubules.

On my own sign, I had written no such grandiose claim. I just had "CURIOSITIES". One word, but so mysterious, so suggestive. It drew the sort of person who frequented the Bizarre like a moth to a flame, and often with the same effects.

Whenever someone in Ynnraile found something they didn't understand, they sent it to me, and I sold it. It was a good job. It kept me humble, to be subjected to a continuous stream of incomprehensible objects. And it kept me with a roof over my head. I was a good salesman, aided by a commanding voice and a handsome demeanour (some said I bore an uncanny resemblance to the Baron, Yvain Wintersong, but I never noticed it myself).

As the sun rose, the first customers began to trickle in, and the Bizarre began. Odds and ends from all over the world, miscellany, an amalgamated melange of potpourri, objects so unusual that the convocation in which they were sold was named after a synonym for "strange". Before I moved to my present location, I used to set up my stall next to a dealer in exotic insects. Useful for feeding pets, or for scientific research, or for scaring a woman, or for whatever one uses exotic insects for. That was before the Jaihan wasps escaped, killing their vendor and devastating that whole section of the square. Bran and Kian proved better neighbors.

At about five past 8, a well-dressed, bespectacle man stopped in front of my stall and began to examine an incense holder. "Can you tell me more about this piece?" he wanted to know. "I'm quite taken by it."

"Are you from Shirekeep?" I asked, exercising my remarkable skill at judging accents. Most of the visitors to the Bizarre were tourists from out of town, so I'd had some practice over the years. It always made customers more willing to close a deal when you'd ferreted out some piece of personal information. As if it meant you were astute. "You won't find anything like this there. This washed up on the beaches. Must be from the ancient Five Islands that sunk under the sea. Five thousand years old if it's a day."

"Are you serious?" asked the man. "And...only five erbs? That's...remarkable!"

I don't feel guilty about the provenances I make up for my curiousities. I sell wonder. I sell the ability to go to your friends, to the girl you want to impress, and tell them you own an artifact from the lost Five Islands. That's a joy you can't put a price on, and I sell it for only five erbs. Some museum that sells it for five thousand might condemn me, but my customers end up a whole lot more satisfied than theirs do.

As I watched him walk away, and pocketed my five erb, I felt a glow of satisfaction. I was not just a salesman. I was, in a sense, an author. I sold objects and stories. One story, one object, for one low price. I did it as well as any fancy author from the universities, and a customer who bought one of my curiousities ended up happier than one who bought one of their books.

"Yes, excuse me, what does this one say?" Now it was a woman, a college student by the looks of her. Accent was hard to place. Maybe Kildare or the islands. She was pretty, and she had good taste. She was looking at a rounded rock with some miniscules cut into the side. Ancient Ynnrailian, the speech of fairies. Not everyone in Ynnraile could read it, but my father had taught me the old ways.

It means "The Orb of the First Person" I told her. That much was true. "The Orb of the First Person" was written in miniscules on the object's top, almost too small to believe a human hand had etched it in. Bought it from a woman who bought it from a woman who found it in one of the fairy mounds. You're not supposed to root around in the mounds - bad luck if you do, not to mention illegal - but artifacts from there fetch a decent price. This one, in its long chain of possession had lost any proof of its authenticity - though it was authentic - and so ended up with me.

"What does it mean?" she asked me. I'd wondered that myself. Orb of the First Person. It had a ring of ancient legend to it; the sort of thing that might partake of some ancient fairy magic. It wasn't just the sort of thing I could invent a story about on the spot. I spent days thinking something up worthy of such an artifact.

"It means," I explained to her "that this orb was once owned by Aisher, the first man in Benacia. He and his wife came across the sea from Apollonia, riding twin dolphins, and came to the kingdom of the fairies that existed here. Long before the Treesians, or the Kasmodani, they were the ancestors of all the aboriginal people of Ynnraile.

"This orb was given to him by the dolphin-god Taccon, to aid him." I had to be careful with this part. Even though she was clearly a foreigner, I didn't know if she lived in Avakair nowadays. If I told her it had some kind of magic power, she might try it out, and then come to me and complain. "At the time, he used it give life to the men he created out of soil to populate the region. So, as you can see, it's a very important historical artifact. When Aisher died, Taccon took back the orb's powers. Now it has no magic at all; just an inert lump of stone. But still, an amazing window into the history of the province. I'm afraid I can't part with it for less than seventy erb. Baron Wintersong would probably throw me in the dungeons if he knew I'd sold it instead of putting it in a museum somewhere. It could even be dangerous. It comes from a fairy mound, so it's got to be full of stray magical energies."

I watched her calculating, and did not permit myself to smile when she said "Forty erb."

"Sixty," I said. "I'm taking a risk."

"Fifty," she countered. "I'm here from Gong Li for the Jasonia Day holiday weekend, and I barely
have enough money for the plane trip back as it is."

"Fifty", I agreed, and handed over the erb.

As I took the erb, I felt a sort of wave of heat wash over me. It was a strange feeling, something I couldn't place. I stood there, for a second, just savoring it.

"Are you okay?" the merchant asked.

"Yeah, yeah," I told him. "I'm fine. I just feel - different. When you picked up the erb, did you
ever feel a sort of heat wave?"

"Yes, now that you mention it," said the merchant. "It's a sign that the ancient fairy magic is still lingering. The same spirit that it gave Aisher's men of clay lingers in it still."

"I thought you said the Dolphin God took back the orb's power when Aisher died," I asked him. I didn't really think the salesman was being quite on the level with me. I mean, I'd like to believe that the orb had fairy magic, or used to be owned by the first person on Benacian soil, but what are the chances of an artifact like that ending up in an old Ynnraile flea market? I bought it because it was pretty, and because the story, true or not, let me connect a little deeper with this fascinating land. When I get back to Kildare, I'll probably use it as a paperweight.

"Ah, yes, part of the magic," the merchant said. "Part of it, perhaps, lingers still. It's a bit outside my specialty, you see..." I let him go on, though I wasn't really listening. Mostly I was thinking about whether I had enough time to take the train down to Syrelwynn and see Wintersong Keep before my flight back to Hau'oli Ena the next evening. I smiled politely as he finished his speech, and walked away.

Avakair was starting to come alive (as alive as it ever did), and although it held a certain charm, I decided to spend the night in Syrelwynn after all. I hurried through the mid-morning crowds to see if I could reach Victory Station before the 10:30 train left. I soon got lost in the city's narrow medieval alleyways, but luck favored me, and after a final row of little shops and stray-cat infested corners, I saw the imposing edifice of the train station. I looked at my watch. 10:18. Just enough time to buy a ticket and get on the train before the window seats were all taken. I didn't want to miss the rolling green Asantelian countryside.

I was just about through the doors of the station when someone accosted me. I can't describe it any other way. He grabbed my arm, twirled me around to look at me, and stared at me with a ferocious look of pure need. It was the merchant I'd bought the souvenir from.

"I need it back," he said, short on breath. "Here, here's your fifty erb." He thrust five crisp ten-erb notes into my hand, the innocent face of Kaiseress Aure I mocking his urgency from the paper.

"Did you follow me?" I asked. "What are you doing?" I couldn't quite excuse him for the rude way he had grabbed me. 10:20. I needed to make that train. He was still holding my wrist.

"Look," he said. "There's been a mistake. I need that orb. I'm sorry. Here, I'll pay you extra." He passed me another Aure.

I think I'm a nice enough person. He seemed to want the orb pretty badly, and giving it to him would have been the nice thing to do. But not grabbing a lady who's running to catch a train is also the nice thing to do, and the crazy merchant (who really did look like Yvain Wintersong, it was quite startling) hadn't done it. "No," I said.

"Please!" shouted the man. "I don't know what happened, but ever since I gave away that orb, I feel...I feel like what I do doesn't matter! That I'm not important anymore! That everyone is ignoring me! That it was only that orb - just the orb - that made my life stand out from the background, from the crowds!" In a sweeping gesture, he indicated the throngs populating the station interior.

"You're crazy," I told him. With a burst of effort, I managed to break away from his grip. 10:25. Still enough time to catch that train, if I hurried.

[Andreas the Wise]

Ooh, mysterious, very interesting ... good read too (though the swapping of characters was marginally confusing)

[Erik Mortis]

Aure.. I thought I had those notes destroyed...

[Yvain Wintersong]

Ooh, mysterious, very interesting ... good read too (though the swapping of characters was marginally confusing)

I hope it wasn't too mysterious. You did "get" it, right?

[Andreas the Wise]

I believe so ... you were the shop owner, and the orb kept your shop working?

[Yvain Wintersong]

Fraid not. The whole "looks like Yvain Wintersong" bit is meaningless and exactly the sort of thing I should've resisted the temptation to add.
Try analyzing the title more closely...

[Andreas the Wise]

Is it something to do with the person having the orb having their story bit in first person?

[Erik Mortis]

if true the story should have switched once he gave the orb to the girl...

[Andreas the Wise]

It did once he sold it to her ...

[Yvain Wintersong]

Andreas is right. And Duke Erik, it did, didn't it?

[hypatias mom]

I love the story. Is there another chapter in the offing?

[Erik Mortis]

So it did.. how did I miss that?

I am pleased. Wiki it!