Chapter 02: Trading Cities 01

This trader's city has suddenly thrown itself back into commerce and congestion, its streets filling again with merchants from all over the great empire. Most of them are marching into the great harbour, searching for trading barges to carry their wares to the hungry cities across the desert and up to the horizon. I put down the bottles and coins I had been counting to transport to my abode in the marketplace, then step onto the dock to look over the long line of merchant ships waiting to come in. I have already made a decent profit today, but I have no interest in taking risks that might further corrupt my morals. I've finally got a place to call my own here, and I intend to keep it.

Yes, it is all chaotic. The city is growing with every dawn, spreading itself out into the plains and rising from the empty cities of old. Long abandoned temples, scorched cities and paupers' apartments stand stark and lonely as I watch from the top of a hill, watching the trampling streets and sounds of commerce rolling past. The traders are volatile and distracted by their pleasures and struggles, burning away their individuality to fill the void with commerce and commerce alone. I hear a battle on one street, in the darkened alleyways behind a wet market.

Yet this is the city where I will settle, doing whatever I can to fill my heart with the little joys I can find and enjoy. I remember a stray cat prowling the market, rustling through sacks and crates. I couldn't even tell if it was male or female. Perhaps neither, the details are vague and hazy, almost forgotten as I looked over my bounty of coins and bottles. I briefly think of my life in the desert, and the long journey through the deserts to reach the city. Then I remember my friends from home, coming to welcome me. I will never see them again in this city of traders, making only commerce and commerce alone. The cool steps of my home place rest in my heart too, long gone, almost forgotten, but it stays there nonetheless.