The Retired Abyss Innkeeper-Chapter 68: Nobody Asked What the Adjacent Nothing Was Adjacent To

Chapter 68: Nobody Asked What the Adjacent Nothing Was Adjacent To

I came back with the second chalkboard.

The room looked exactly the same. Twenty-five entities, all facing the same direction. The Walker somewhere in the middle, fog drifting along the ceiling like it paid rent. The Entity of Note at table six. Bram at his end of the counter with the jug. Torvel at the edge of his cart, both associates behind him, notebooks balanced on one arm, writing with the other.

None of that bothered me. The problem was the cart.

It had stopped between the far table and the corridor entrance. That forced anyone coming from the north corridor to detour around it to reach the counter. I’ve had guests walk into carts before. The guest had been fine, physically.

They’d stood there looking at their hands, which were also fine, and then sat down without saying anything. The soup had been good that morning, which somehow made it worse. Once that happens, you develop strong opinions about cart placement. They tend to stick.

"I need to address where the cart is," I said.

Torvel looked at me. "The cart can be repositioned."

"East wall. Far side of table two, not the near side. Keeps the corridor clear. Gives me access to the counter from both directions without navigating anything."

He looked at the east wall. Then at the cart. His fingers moved against the side of his coat. "The repositioning is manageable," he said. "I’ll need the space acknowledged as part of the occupancy arrangement."

Bram didn’t look up from his jug. "Th’left wheel’s off-true."

He set the jug down. Looked at the left rear wheel. Picked the jug back up.

"It’s calibrated for the terrain we came through," Torvel said.

"It’s off-true," Bram said, and drank.

Torvel produced a document and set it on the counter in front of me. The counter height required some effort from him. He made that effort. I didn’t comment. Neither did he.

I didn’t pick it up.

"I won’t sign anything until the maintenance terms are settled. There was a delivery supplier who left a cart here for what he said was one morning. It became six."

I continued, "By the fifth morning, I’d put a bottle on it because the counter was full and the cart had a surface. When he came back on the sixth morning, we had a conversation about whether the bottle constituted a claim on the cart. It didn’t. I knew that going in."

The memory itself bothered me.

"The problem was that I’d started the conversation at all. By then, the cart had already become furniture in my head without my agreement. Furniture has rules. Rules require maintenance agreements. And those are easier to negotiate before the jug gets involved."

I looked at Bram’s jug. It did not look negotiable.

"So. Terms. Cart goes by the east wall. Wheel is your responsibility. Any drip, residue, or effect on the floor beneath it counts as a condition of occupancy. Same clause as atmospheric residue for guests. Section four of the guest agreement. Applies to everything brought inside."

Torvel listened with his hands folded. "Agreed," he said, and put the document away.

That document disappeared faster than on previous attempts. I noted that under working relationships and moved on.

I set the second chalkboard on the hook beside the first and looked at the top. The problem with a second chalkboard is always the heading.

The first one names itself. The second declares a category, and categories come with scope issues. I once wrote "Seasonal" and spent more time answering what counted as seasonal than listing anything. The trick is accuracy without inviting questions.

I wrote "Fares" at the top and stepped back.

That would do.

Torvel moved in front of the board. He was about the right height for a counter. Less so for a chalkboard. He turned and faced the room.

The twenty-five were still facing him.

"The first offering," Torvel said, "is Unoccupied Dark."

About a dozen of the twenty-five became slightly more present. Not dramatically. Their human-presenting forms, which usually put in a steady effort to resemble people the way a grammatically correct sentence resembles conversation, tightened at the edges. More commitment.

The ceiling fog drew in slightly, like the room had taken a shorter breath.

"A quantity of darkness that has not been disturbed since before the present era arrangement of light," Torvel said. "We cannot demonstrate the sample. Demonstration constitutes disturbance, and disturbed stock is no longer the product.

Torvel turned to the chalkboard, "Instead, we provide documentation of origin and a provenance chain extending back to before provenance was a concept. Confirmed variants carry full documentation. Unconfirmed variants are less expensive. The difference is the documentation."

He paused.

"I’m told that makes no sense. I disagree."

I thought about the corner in the lower cellar. Not the same thing. Similar enough. I’d meant to give it its own lamp schedule entry for three seasons.

Kept filing it under general lower cellar out of convenience. That was sloppy. I made a note.

"The second fare is Passage Before," Torvel said. "Transit through the interval preceding the present arrangement of things."

Torvel put the new fare in the board, "Standard booking is one way. Return is available as a separate purchase. Duration is measured in approximately. What you are approximately crossing is described in the supplementary documentation, available to registered accounts and not read aloud."

One of the twenty-five lost certainty for a few seconds. The human shape slipped around the shoulders and collar.

The clothes and whatever was in them disagreed briefly about their arrangement, then settled.

"Pricing varies by departure specificity."

"I see," the Walker said.

Not to anyone. In that register that arrives just below sound and works its way up. It landed exactly when Torvel said departure specificity.

Torvel paused. Half a second. Looked at the Walker. Then continued.

Fifteen of the twenty-five changed slightly. Together, but not identically. Like a room reacting when something spoken matches something already there.

"The third fare is A First. The first occurrence of any event the client selects. The event must be future."

Torvel nodded in clarification, "Price scales with category count. A first that is simultaneously the first of its kind, the first of its era, and the first within a given spatial boundary costs proportionally more than a single-category first. We have an illustrative example."

He paused.

"The example involves bread."

The Entity of Note adjusted its head angle. Just a little. The same adjustment it makes when the second item in a sequence differs from the first. I’ve seen that look during lessons. Also every morning when bread comes out of the kitchen.

"The fourth fare is Adjacent Nothing."

Bram set the jug down.

"Not nothing itself," Torvel said. "The border of nothing. The adjacency is the product. Standard quantity is described as sufficient. What constitutes sufficient is confirmed at time of delivery. Available stock is currently being evaluated by my colleagues."

Both associates were writing quickly. Whatever they were writing had nothing to do with what Torvel was saying. It never did.

"The evaluation has not finished," Torvel said. "We treat this as an advantage."

The entity at table four became more defined. Its edges sharpened until they were the clearest thing in that part of the room. Its hands were still on either side of the bowl.

The bowl hadn’t moved. The distance between the hands and the bowl had changed, somehow.

I noticed Adjacent Nothing had gone uneven at the end on the board. The chalk was running low. I added replace chalk to the list.

Bram looked at the board. Picked the jug back up. Said nothing.

The entity at table four turned toward Torvel.

It moved completely. First time since it arranged itself at that table with the bowl. It turned away from the table and toward him. Completely. No middle to it.

Torvel pivoted toward it smoothly. His associates’ pens stopped. Both at once. That was the second time I’d seen that happen. The first was during the sewer survey announcement.

"The standard rate for first-time dimensional accounts," Torvel began, and then stopped.

He looked at the entity. The entity looked at him.

"We’ll need to discuss method," he said. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

I considered the problem briefly. I had no idea what payment method it would choose.

[SYSTEM LOG]

Abyssal fares: board active, four entries, second chalkboard, Torvel.

Cart: east wall, maintenance terms confirmed verbal. Wheel: Torvel’s responsibility.

Transaction pending. Entity, table four. Method unconfirmed.