CHAPTER 14: The Spider of House Mycelere

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FOURTEEN: The Spider of House Mycelere

What Restrains ambition is Harm, what keeps subjects Busy is Work and what Motivates all men is Profit.

—Orlon 8:5 The Craft of Kings

Thousands of voices washed over ‘the Middens’, rising from the bowl of the Arena. The sound wave crested as Cal and Saknoti stood on the sailor’s balcony, their eyes feasting on the colorful panoply from the great stadium.

The crowd had gathered for the jousts, just another weekly event leading up to the great Tournament held to celebrate the fall harvest. Bright, proud banners of knightly Orders and jousting societies flew from poles atop the amphitheater. Thousands milled in the great plaza that surrounded the heroic Arena mixing with the shouts from vendors selling every comfort imaginable for the crowd’s pleasure.

Saknoti gently asked, “What do you see?”

Where Cal would have once looked upon this scene with a mixture of envy and anticipation, he now saw something else entirely, “Disease. I see thousands afflicted with all kinds of obsessions, gathered together in one needy throng.”

“Very good, Calidon. You correct. And yet, is beauty in its intensity, its passion.”

Cal raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“There is vibrant youth in Arena. A place of many beginnings. Without obsession, no one ever begin any hard task.”

The diminutive foreigner paused for a moment, and then said, “I think it is time you joust in Arena.”

Is this a trick? If I jump at this chance will he then proclaim I am not worthy to learn his teachings?

Sensing his protégé’s uncertainty, Saknoti shook his head. “Is not trick, Calidon. But is test. No Mind is like polished gem: throw it in sewer and nothing sticks to surface. Fight in Arena and you shall know self.”

“Lord Mycelere owes you. You save important trade mission. You need horse and armor to fight in Arena. House can help.”

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 After six ascetic weeks with Saknoti, Cal emerged from the Middens. He walked down to the docks and hired a small skiff to navigate to the Dryhtern, the free trade zone in Selinger Bay. Just after the Collapse, Prince Gedwolan granted eight lords an independent charter to a vast collection of uninhabited islands in Selinger Bay for providing soldiers during Gedwolan’s reunification war.

While Gedwolan’s war quickly failed, the settlement survived. For centuries, the Dryhtern was little more than a few island marketplaces; but, when Keldrin I invented banking, commerce in the Dryhtern exploded. Within forty years, the free trade zone had grown into a massive network of marketplaces, banking houses, craft halls, and merchant guilds which operated almost independently from the City. House Mycelere, like every other large merchant guild, based their business among the islands in Selinger Bay.

From a distance, the Dryhtern displayed a splendor of wealth, power and opulence. Land was at such a premium that massive stone buildings covered every square inch, creating as much space as possible. Not satisfied with utilitarian piles of stone, the edifices raised by the Merchants and Traders of the Dryhtern displayed elaborate statues, friezes and stained glass windows.

Their buildings are a testament to soaring ambition.

As the commercial cathedrals expanded, the clear blue waterways between islands shrank to narrow brown canals clogged with boat traffic. It was into the maw of this confusion that Cal’s oarsman poled his small vessel.

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