Whill of Agora Trilogy: Book 01 - Whill of Agora by Michael Ploof

of the room was a large oak desk. A short little man with large glasses hurried towards them. With an exaggerated hello and handshake he led Whill and Abram to the vault where the gold was kept. Once inside, Whill saw the twenty sacks of gold upon a large wooden table covered with a red velvet cloth. He opened one of the bags and let the coins fall out onto the table with a heavy clang. Abram took a coin and tested it with his teeth, then eyed it in the torchlight. The light reflected on the surface was deep orange. The emblem of Eldalon was stamped on both sides.
    “I’ll be taking a half a bag of gold today,” Whill told the little banker.
    “Of course, sir, and it will be our pleasure to hold the rest for as long as you want, at one percent interest, of course.”
    Abram scowled at the little man. “In that case we won’t be keeping it here long.” He grumbled and left the vault, mumbling something about damned vultures.
    After retrieving their weapons and leaving the building, they headed to the shipbuilder’s place. It was a nicely built and decorated home near the city’s ocean side. This time Whill tipped the wagon boy himself, throwing him a gold coin from his bag. The kid looked at the gold in his hand, astonished. Abram laughed. “You do know how much that’s worth?”
    “A wise man once told me there is no point in having wealth if you cannot use it to spread joy.”
    Abram smiled. “You’re a quick learner.”
    They left the astonished boy standing in the street and went to the front door of the house. After two knocks the door was opened by an old man in a brown vest with a white undershirt. His pants were a fine brown fabric, and on his feet he wore thick brown slippers.
    “May I help you?”
    “Freston, you old dog! Are you so senile you don’t remember old friends?”
    The old man’s frown turned into a wide smile. “Abram, I hadn’t expected you. Folks say you were killed in one of your crazy journeys.”
    Abram laughed. “There are more stories of my death than there is sand on the beach.”
    Freston chuckled. “Come in, come in. I was just about to have a little tea. Now I have someone to share it with.”
    Whill and Abram entered the house, which was just as nice inside as out. Paintings of ships adorned every wall, and numerous shelves were dedicated solely to small ships in bottles. Whill looked at these closely, wondering how they had been put inside. Freston led them to his study and offered them each a seat at his scroll-covered table. “Sorry for the mess, but a builder’s work is never done. I’ll return in a moment with the tea.”
    Whill noticed that the scrolls were ship drafts and blueprints. He cocked his head at one design that caught his attention. Freston returned with a tray and three tea cups.
    “Feel free, young lad. Those are just new designs I’ve been working on.”
    Abram and Freston talked while Whill pored over the designs. Freston’s sons now built most of the ships, he said, as he was too old for much of the work. But he was very excited about the proposition to build a ship of Whill’s own design.
    “Usually I build merchant ships or small sailboats, and even a few for the royal navy over the years,” he said. “Helping you bring your design to life would be a rare pleasure.”
    They talked for a while about Whill’s vision for his ship, and Freston wrote one detail or another down on a piece of paper. Abram added his recommendations to the design. After a few hours of drawing, planning, and calculating, they had a rough draft of what the ship would look like.
    Whill held the sketch up to the light. “She’ll be a beauty.”
    “That she will, and if done right, also one of the fastest that ever sailed these blue waters,” Freston agreed.
    They made plans to meet the following day and said farewell. Upon leaving the house, Whill and Abram stopped in their tracks. Outside Freston’s house there were fifteen kids with pull carts, all offering