The Teller of Small Fortunes

by Julie Leong

It was, perhaps counterintuitively, the Middle City denizens who were most resentful of their place—for from their spot on the slopes, they were constantly reminded of both the heights to which they daren’t aspire and the depths to which they might sink, should they somehow lose their wealth and status to the machinations of Eshteran politics.

But I never wished to make you so unhappy here.” It was not an apology—but it was something. An acknowledgment. Tao looked back at him. It would be so easy to continue hating him—to let the hurt and humiliation of her adolescence seethe and fester—but instead, she pushed it all down. She shoved away, into some dark crevice of her mind, the memories of tiptoeing through this extravagant house—of hearing his voice criticizing her, dismissing her, cutting her down—and instead reminded herself of why she was here: to help Mash find his daughter. To help bring a family back together again, even if her own had been splintered beyond repair. With that in mind, her stepfather seemed small and unimportant before her—nothing more than a pale shadow from the past. So: “I know,” she said to him. There was nothing else to say.

Tao moistened her lips, mouth suddenly gone dry. She had imagined this moment in a thousand different ways before. She’d played the scene through in her mind; scripted herself a speech that made her sound dignified and mature. She would be like jade: cool and impervious, unaffected by such silly things as childhood memories. But all of that fell away now, and she could think of nothing eloquent and cutting to say.

I suppose that we two were both very lonely here, weren’t we? And needlessly so—for we could at least have been lonely together.”

“I’m not sure I’d belong there anymore. But I do still miss it. We were happy there. And we were a family.”

After stabling their wagons and mounts just outside of Margrave so as to better avoid detection, Silt had led the others through the winding alleys of the Lower City with more confidence than knowledge. If not for Mash’s towering presence, they likely would have paid for his inept navigation with their purses, if not their lives, but as it was, they made it through unharmed, although many eyes watched them go from the shadows.

He had a dark goatee—likely grown in an attempt at gravitas—but it served only to make his chin look like it was wearing a rather small and furry hat.

“Why should I join the Guild, anyway? So that I can drink wine, and wear fine robes, and fatten the pockets of the Crown and its ministers like you do?” To get rich and powerful and help Mash find his daughter, you idiot. “What?” Melea furrowed her brow. “Is that what you think the Guild does?” “Everyone knows it’s true. That the Guild just collects anyone with enough magic to be any kind of threat, and instead makes them useful to the Crown. Makes them servants—rich, important, comfortable—but servants all the same.”

“So you’re bureaucrats instead of servants,” said Tao savagely. “That’s no better.

“I have learned, in my many years, that doing what’s right may not always feel good. But I’ve found that if I ask myself not who will gain what from my action or inaction, but who will suffer—how many, and how much—my choice becomes clear.

There’s no such thing as greater good—there’s just good, and the more of it we can do, the better.”

venal

I am the Teller of Small Fortunes. She thought of the ship that had brought her from Shinara to Eshtera, and the many roads that had taken her far from Margrave and back again. She thought of her mother, and of her friends: of Mash’s gruff kindness, of Silt’s cheeky smile. Kina’s arms around her at the campfire. She thought, too, of the others that she had met along the way—Esther; the witch in Shellport; the Shinn shopkeeper in Craghorn. Strangers who had flitted in and out of her life only briefly, but in doing so had shaped the course of her journey. As she had theirs. I am Tao, she thought. And I’m not alone anymore.

clarion

Tao blinked up at them. “You…you came after me? To Margrave?” She’d absorbed very little of Kina’s explanation and was still stuck on the basic fact that they were here, with her, in the Guildtower of Margrave. “Did the fever affect her mind, do you think?” said Silt to the others in an undertone. At Tao, he smiled encouragingly, and said in exaggeratedly loud and slow speech, “Yes, Tao. We are your friends. We came to get you.”

He looked at Mash in befuddlement, who simply shrugged back—the universal symbol of men who have failed to understand something very important.

“Those in the kingdom may not always have treated you as one of our own, but know that you are. This is for you to carry on the rest of your travels. You may not need it, but…well, times change slowly. People, too.

farrier’s

Still, Tao looked around at the beaming faces of her friends, and let herself feel joy; she was a cup of tea, overflowing with warmth and wrapped in loving hands. This time when she left Margrave, the sun shone down, and Tao’s heart was full.

profligacy

She rather thought that she would prefer to make her mistakes out of excessive ignorance rather than out of excessive knowledge.

legerdemain!”

This was far more like the meals of her childhood, the ones that felt more like dreams now than memories.

Tao read the letter from her mother, and as her friends crowded around her, her heart shattered into a million pieces and stitched itself back together again. The sun shone down and the birds sang, and the little caravan of three wagons remained there on the road, unmoving, as the Teller of Small Fortunes wept with inconsolable joy to never, ever be as alone as she had been, ever again.

One could choose to be nothing, or one could choose to be happy.