Made with AI trained only on my own artwork. The honest story of how, and why →
I sell memory.
Not a popular trade, put that way, so I don’t usually put it that way.
On the sign it says BROKER.
Under that, in smaller letters my grandsire cut, IF IT PASSED THROUGH HERE, I KNOW WHO CARRIED IT.
That’s the honest advertisement.
Crossroads like mine, where the west road crosses the river road and the Andilain trade comes down to meet the coast trade. A thing everyone needs and nobody sells is somebody who remembers.
Who bought the grey wool cheap in the spring and sold it dear in the autumn. Which drover waters his ale and which waters his horses...and which does neither...and is therefore to be watched. What a bale of Iskäri dye is truly worth, as against what a stranger will pay for it.
I keep it all.
Up here, and down here in the ledgers.
The same thing twice.
A gnome’s memory is good, but a gnome’s memory that’s also written down is a fact.
I deal in facts.
Thirty years I’ve kept this post. I have sold ten thousand small memories to folk who needed them. Just a copper or two at a time.
Thought nothing of it.
Then a courteous fellow in a grey coat laid an old coin on my counter.
He bought one, same as anyone.
But then he did a thing nobody in Thirty years had done.
