I. The Dirt We Sell Them

Heisa shut the window and closed the drapes. She spun around back towards the wooden desk in her dimly-lit office, facing the two troublemakers who had just been escorted into the room by her guards aboard the ship.

“Please, sit down,” Heisa let out exasperatedly.

The two young men looked at each other, almost in a mocking way, but walked forward and sat down, reluctantly, in the two simple chairs waiting for them. Heisa nodded to the three guards behind, indicating for them to leave the room.

The door shut behind them.

“So,” she began, “let me get this straight. Apparently, You both were looking for the passenger ship bound for Suisei,”

“That’s correct ma’am,” The red-haired one on the left interjected,

“...which is where you live. But, in the journey between Seor City and the docks, you happened to ignore all the signage pointing for the passenger docks and turned left towards the cargo docks. Accidentally.”

“Yes, that’s right ma’am.” The brown-haired one on the right cut in. Was he smirking?

“And then as you walked up the dock, you surmised this ship, which had nobody going in and out of it except for large men moving around boxes, was the ship you were looking for.”

“Exactly,” the red-haired one said again,

“We have tickets too, to prove it!” the brown-haired one cut in. Hurriedly he reached into his pocket and plopped the two tickets on the table in front of him, looking up at Heisa for approval with a cautious smile.

Heisa glared at them both.

“And, then,” she returned to recalling the events, “Ignoring all the context clues, you got on this vessel anyway, and could not find the seating area. So, it just so happened that the first guard who ran into you two found you in the cargo room rummaging through crates.”

“Yeah we got lost.”

“Yep, lost ma’am.” The two chimed in.

Heisa stared again, dumbfounded. The two did not budge and continued to feign an air of ignorance. She let out a sigh as she set her hands on the desk, arms stretched out. She leaned forward, pulling up her own chair as she slouched into the seat. Finally, resting her head above both hands clasped together, she let out a slight grin at the two before she spoke frankly.

“I know bullshit when I see it.”

The two started, frowning suddenly.

“Whatever scam you’re pulling, you’re doing a terrible job. First of all, it’s Lightsday. Are you aware the passenger boats don’t operate on Lightsday?”

The men looked dumbfounded. Heisa went on,

“And I have trouble believing a man like yourself lives in Suisei, given the fact that I have never seen a red-haired Suiseian in my life. Also, you know the work docks are gated off by the king’s personnel. You either forged your information to get in or you slipped past them—there’s no way an honest traveler could get mixed up and accidentally stumble here. Finally, that ‘ticket’ you have here is a clear counterfeit. I can tell by just looking at it from a distance, but the color is off. It’s also not stamped with a proper seal, whatever this mark is—”

She went to reach for the ticket but the moment her fingers grazed the paper, Heisa froze. Her face turned to panic but it was too late. Deep orange fluorescence filled the room like a dam broken open, then gushed back into the ticket in an instant.

“Well that paper proved useful, finally.” Neosk said with reluctance.

“You’re so stupid you know,” Furuk torted back, “Have you ever even seen a Suiseian before? Of all the islands off the coast, you pick Suisei?”

The brothers bickering was nothing new, rather, just a way they got through work in a day.

“Oh, I don’t know! Does it matter? We got to the operator, and she’s locked now.”

“Yes, thanks to my phosler, not any of your ‘cunning’ or ‘wit,’ however.” Furuk again fired back. He always felt like the defensive one in these arguments.

The two turned their eyes back to Heisa, who was still locked into that position-- fingers just touching the ticket, back lurched forward and mouth slightly ajar. Her face was stuck between confusion and horror, and her eyes illuminated a rumbling orange, similar to the color that had just flashed before from the phosler. In just a few moments, her body began to grayen, and her clothes quickly sprouted mold. She wouldn’t be dead, not for a week at least, her soul had just been locked and the timing of her physical body accelerated. Neosk was right, they had locked Heisa and done their bounty, more or less.

“I suppose the magerian will be happy then. Poor thing though,” Furuk conceded.

Neosk agreed, but what could he do? This was just another day following his bidding. “Let’s go.”

From his gray, rugged coat, Neosk pulled out a palm-sized disc. It shone black and was smooth like glass. He pressed his finger into it, somehow disturbing the surface of the disc as if it were water. Like the phosler’s explosion of orange before, this time an explosion of umber haze filled the room. When it dissipated in about ten seconds, the room was empty—There was no trace of Neosk, Furuk, or Heisa.



Five minutes passed before Iwani, the senior of the three guards, decided to peer inside. He thought it strange not to hear Heisa calling for them to take the two away by now.

What greeted him made no sense.

He croaked out to the other two,

“Silm? Lep?”

The two, slightly shorter in stature, ran in after him. Once they both saw what was in the room, nobody, they stopped in their tracks and gasped.

“Wait, how long did I doze off?” Lep asked sincerely, scratching his short, scrawly hair.

“Five minutes.” Silm responded quickly. He understood something strange was afoot.

“Can you explain this, Silm?” Iwani inquired, turning toward him. They were both a step or two ahead of Lep, who was a fairly new recruit aboard Heisa’s company.

“No,” Silm said shortly. He studied the room.

“Wait, so there’s no trapdoors right? Or a backdoor I didn’t see?”

“No, Lep,” Iwani went on. “It’s just the door we came in, and the window behind the desk, which looks completely untouched. You can’t close it from the outside anyway, and…” He went up the window to verify, “Yeah, it’s locked shut.”

“I’m pretty sure we’d hear a splash too, considering the ocean behind us.” Silm cut in frankly. They were in the southern coast of Seor, a city off the coast of the moderate-sized island country known as Shinyrx. While slightly to the west the coast had fairly shallow depths, Shinyrx’s southern end was a giant cliff in its ancient times, before the second rivering had turned it into an island.

Therefore, to try and escape by swimming would be folly. The alleged kidnappers would have had a better chance walking out the front door.

“I just don’t understand,” Iwani gave out in a sigh. Lep added more conjecture,

“Did they run past us, and we all just didn’t notice? Shit, I cannot believe I’m failing this job already.”

“No lad, I would be cut first if that were the case.” Iwani reassured Lep.

Silm was inspecting the room, looking for clues. He ran his finger across a bookshelf on one side of the office, seeing volumes of inventory and Heisa’s monetary records.

“But,” Iwani jumped back in, “I suppose that’s the best theory we can go off of right now.” He had just stood up after inspecting all the floor boards. There were no signs of cuts or prying.

Lep was simply standing and staring around blankly as he noticed the two more experienced men seemingly doing real work: Iwani—the no-nonsense, former general; and Silm—A man who was not only quick on his feet but quite educated despite his mere title of guardsman. Heisa’s company was but a moderate-sized shipping one. They had just taken in today’s load from Shinyrx and would have been making a departure for another island-nation, Seido, to the east, in the following morning. Lep assumed that wouldn’t be happening anymore.

Silm’s voice pulled Lep back,

“I suppose so, Iwani.”

“Alright then you two, let’s just lock up the ship and draw in quarters. I’ll tell the crew when they arrive tomorrow the situation. I don’t think they’ll be happy about losing a job, but there’s not much we can do.”

Silm nodded in approval, and the two of them headed for the door.

“Wait,” Lep jumped in. He saw a look of surprise from both of them across the room by the doorway, “you’re not going to report this to the city guard? Or at least the port staff?”

Silm held back his tongue in a cringed face. Surprisingly, Iwani let out a brief chuckle before responding to Lep,

“Son, you really don’t understand this shipping business, do you?”

Lep looked at him blankly. Iwani went on,

“No one in power above us can look into our ship. The reason our jobs even exist, Lep, is because of exactly that.”

“But,” Lep blurt out, confused, “Our boss has been kidnapped!”

“No, Heisa’s not our boss,” Silm interjected sharply, “she simply operates the ship. You have never met our boss, and you likely never will.”

His perplexed look didn’t budge.

“Since Silm’s been hired two years ago,” Iwani went on, “we’ve had three different ‘Heisas’. They are replaced and moved around, and it wouldn’t be the first time an operator’s been kidnapped. So we simply do nothing. We wait for the sailing crew to arrive tomorrow, inform them, and before sunset a new operator will come to take over.”

Lep just grew more and more confused. Something wasn’t adding up.

“Silm, it seems like Lep hasn’t fully learned what we do here. Why don’t you show him what those two were looking for in the cargo room.”

“Are you, are you sure Iwani? Can we trust him yet with this—”

“Yes, Silm. This window of opportunity, while an operator isn’t present, is our only chance. Let’s have Lep be elucidated.”

Silm nodded with reluctance and walked out the door, beckoning for Lep. Iwani split off from them. The two went back to the room where the thieves were initially caught, re-opening the crate that was just rummaged into.

“It’s just… dirt? Sand?” Lep looked at Silm, confused.

“Reach inside.”

Lep, feeling dragged along a thread he couldn’t control for the last week in this job, dug his hand into the crate until he felt something solid. It was slightly wrinkled yet smooth, and he gripped his hand around it. With a shift in his legs, he pulled out the object from the crate.

“It’s... a book.” Lep said.

“Read it.” Silm commanded.

Lep turned from the blank cover to its first page. There was no dedication or summary, just straight text. He began to read into the first couple sentences before he put the book down and asked Silm outright,

“What does the Zenkurian royal family have to do with anything? I don’t see how who sleeps with who matters.”

“Do you really not understand?” Silm pressed in a mocking way, “Read more, out loud.”

“At approximately half-past sunrise in the secondary Zenkur villa, it was regarded by a well-informed source that Iraga, fourth in line to the Zenkurian fortune, was engaging in risque copulation in the midst of their garden with opposing Yallinx priestess Sendi. This scandal is a scorn upon the supposedly untarnished realm of the Zenkurian…”

“This is propaganda, Lep.” Silm interrupted, “that is what this ship transports. Seido is a parliamentarian state, and there’s a fringe group that wants to slander Zenkuria. This is the dirt we sell them, literally, so that they can get the information they need.”

Lep stood back in shock. He looked back over the text again as he held it over the box of earth. Sure he was new, and hadn’t known the details of what they transported, but, propaganda?

“That’s why nobody in power can know about what this ship is or even who its employees are. Even the agents who buy the info aren’t aware of our existence. Our goods would have been passed through three or four hands before they got to the faction leaders they were bound for. So to every dock this ship’s parked at, it’s nothing more than a simple shipment vessel for construction materials. All that Seor will know is that we ship dirt for some contractors there.”

Lep began to take it in and understand, slightly. His mediocrity wasn’t a fluke, no, but a tool to pass the ship off as a simple thing. His role was just to prop up its long-standing ruse. Silm noticed his discomfort, and decided to call it there for now.

“Let’s meet back up with Iwani.”

And so the two of them walked back as the sun began to set. Of course, time in this region did not operate normally, so the night would be pitch black in around thirty minutes. As they rounded the hull, Iwani could be seen pulling up the gangway. They walked past Heisa’s office and made their way to the quarters.

Lep lay in bed staring up above at the wooden ceiling, He could not help but feel inadequate. This job, the one thing he thought was finally working for him in the right direction, turned out to also just be a joke pointing towards him. His feelings of disappointment and dejection were natural, but he had no idea the world into which he had just embarked. The world led by fears, lies, and control through propaganda had little room for self-pity as Lep would soon find out.