All That Glitters by Auston Habershaw

decided to take his wine and get the hell out of there. Before he went, though, he gave Jenwal a wink and a significant look. “Careful, sir—­she bites.”
    He found Artus and Brana sitting around the campfire outside the pavilion—­Jenwal’s squire had been sent on some kind of errand, or perhaps was answering nature’s call. Tyvian sat himself on a log and sipped his wine.
    Artus, who had been sullen pretty consistently since Derby, roused himself from his adolescent doldrums to ask a civil question. He was sipping something out of a cup made of silver and inlaid with rubies. “Where do they get it all?”
    â€œGet what?”
    Artus motioned to the elaborate camp setup and the pavilion. “We’ve passed, what, fifteen guys like this since we been on this road? I’ve seen more fancy castles than I can count, too. And these weren’t defensive keeps neither, or watchtowers—­these were castles of rich knights in rich clothes.” Artus shook his head. “Where do they get all the money, is all I wanna know. I mean, these are fertile lands, sure, but all this ?”
    Tyvian grimaced, but in truth welcomed the return of an Artus who didn’t actively despise him. “Loans. Investments. It’s all very complicated, Artus, but basically it’s like this: Eretheria has been fertile farmland for thousands of years. There hasn’t been a drought of any significance for almost a century. Now, what does that mean?”
    Artus frowned. “Lots of crops, I guess.”
    â€œCorrect—­lots of crops. Lots of crops means guaranteed income. Guaranteed income means the capability to take out loans against your future prosperity.”
    Artus nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that—­but then you gotta pay it back, right? You’ve gotta pay back more than you borrowed in the first place. Why would you do that, when you could just wait a bit longer?”
    Tyvian shrugged. “You’re not thinking like an ambitious Eretherian peer, Artus. Why wait when you can borrow money to invest in your land to make it worth even more money? Then, you can refinance your loan for even more money, which you can then reinvest.”
    Artus laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? That’s crazy—­you can’t do that forever.”
    â€œOf course not.” Tyvian grinned. “When things get tight, though, you can just invade your neighbor’s land and seize a particular part of it—­say a well, for instance—­and then you can pay off the loans with the new income that land generates.”
    Artus shook his head, considering the implications. “That still sounds crazy to me.”
    Tyvian nodded. “It is, in fact, crazy. I assure you of that. Such Eretherian financial gymnastics also happen to be the basis of the entire economy of the West. That, Artus, is where they get all the money.” Tyvian motioned to the smoke climbing into the night sky. “From everywhere and nowhere in particular.”
    Hool stalked into the firelight and threw Jenwal’s squire onto the ground and sat on him. He was unconscious. She said nothing, but took to examining her human nails with some curiosity. Her illusory hair was mussed, and not in a wind-­blown kind of way. Tyvian sighed. “Hool, what did you do?”
    Hool glared at him, and in her copper eyes Tyvian could see every inch of the man-­eating beast she was. “That man touched my breasts.”
    Tyvian swallowed hard. “Did you . . .”
    â€œI didn’t kill him. I just hurt him,” Hool said simply. “We should leave now.”
    Tyvian looked down at the velvet-­wrapped object in Hool’s hands. “Fine,” he said. “But we don’t steal anything.”
    Hool shrugged. “Who would want all this stupid stuff anyway?”
    Tyvian ducked back into the pavilion to check on Sir Jenwal’s