A Changeable Market in Slaves

A Changeable Market in Slaves by James Alan Gardner

In the first day of the Month of the Quill, Slavemonger T’Prin finally admitted to himself he was bankrupt.

 On the first day of the Month of the Quill, Slavemonger T’Prin finally admitted to herself she was bankrupt.

 On the first day of the Festival of Galactic Harmony, Slavemonger T’Prin finally admitted to himself that the Avatar of Financial Abundance had not accepted his sacrifice.

 On the first day of the Month of Joyous Struggle, Mother Machine awoke Slavemonger T’Prin with the cheery message, “Good morning, Citizen. In order to serve you better, your credit chip has been reduced to scrap plastic.”

 On the first day of the Month of Desolation, Slavemonger T’Prin found no cup of blood by the coffin when he rose at sunset. The servants were dead, the chapel had been desecrated, and his possessions were gone, down to the last gold candlestick.

 On the day after the orcs had been driven across the river for another winter, Slavemonger T’Prin discovered the contents of his storehouse had gone with them.

 On the day after his revivification, Slavemonger T’Prin was informed by an embarrassed Integration Counselor that he had been reclassified as Financially Bereft, Category III (Organ Donor).

 On the third day of Ragnarok, Slavemonger T’Prin finally admitted to himself that business would not improve.

 On the day after Judgment, Lucifer informed Slavemonger T’Prin of a universal truth: you really can’t take it with you.

 On the day after his reincarnation, Slavemonger T’Prin realized money is useless to those without opposable thumbs.

 It was the first day of the Month of the Quill, a cold gray day with the wind blowing down from the hills like a banshee looking for fun, a day when the whores on Galadriel Boulevard were lowering their prices to get indoors faster and the thieves from Rudyard Alley stole gloves instead of gold; the sort of day when you long to be inside with someone who’ll say she loves you and maybe for a while you’ll even let yourself believe it because you want to think there’s such a thing in the world as warmth. Not the sort of day for sitting in your office and going over bank statements again and again, looking for anything that will tell you it’s all a mistake, that the money isn’t really gone like a woman who’s decided she needs time to find herself.

My name’s T’Prin. I sell slaves.

 He awoke, remembering nothing. They told him his name was T’Prin, that he’d been a slavemonger, that he was now bankrupt. They thought he’d want to know what date it was and kept repeating it to him.

He’d never heard of the Month of the Quill — he knew the months by other names. But he’d call it Quill if they did. He’d play along with everything they said until he found out who he was this time and what the hell they’d done to his eyes.

 “I say, fellows,” said Waddams after the sherry had been poured and the esteemed members of the Zambezi Club were settled into their accustomed postprandial positions, “did you hear about old T’Prinzy?”

 Slavemonger T’Prin thought his worst problem was impending bankruptcy. Had he but known of the gibbering horror that was even now slithering from the well behind his isolated country home, had he caught the merest glimpse of its fetid claws dripping with noisome ichor or its thousands of facial

 tentacles blasphemously quivering with subliminal phallic intent, had he suspected for a single moment that before the night was through he would come face-to-face with the malevolent forces that wait in a place beyond darkness for the call that will summon them into our blindly unsuspecting world… perhaps the demands of his creditors would have occupied less of his mind.

 As she drove along the yew-lined driveway toward the imposing Jacobean manor where she was to serve as governess to the T’Prin offspring, Harmony Bellancourt thought back to the unsettling interview where she met the broodingly handsome master of the house and said to herself, “I suppose it doesn’t matter that he’s a notorious slavemonger, as long as he pays me.”

 Month of the Quill. Day one. Slaves restive. Hungry. Told them I was bankrupt. They thought I was lying.

Those muties will have to learn to believe me.

 Slavemonger T’Prin came onstage wearing his trademark leather and leopard skins and immediately broke into his hit single “Month of the Quill.” The throbbing beat reached into the audience like a grimy fist, grabbed every blood-meat heart, and squeezed with a grip that tore away candy-assed restraints. It was a sonic drug, an injection of Primo Primeval that mixed with the other chemicals in the mob’s bloodstream to make a groin-grinding stew. Maybe the preachers were right when they said T’Prin was morally bankrupt; but bankrupt boys could still kick ass and the preachers shouldn’t forget it. When Slavemonger played, the audience demanded  to be slaves; and they were, by God, they were.