South Quay's harbor masts looked like a petrified forest at sunset, yards creaking in briny wind. Sharath stepped onto the counting-house balcony where Merchant Mistress Ranya awaited, parchment scroll flapping in her grip.
"Two hundred cycles a month," she said without preamble. "That's demand from the coast alone. My dockhands are bidding against one another."
Sharath winced. "Riverbend can't build half that number, even with the new line."
Ranya's braids—beads of shell and copper—clicked as she turned to face the harbor. "Then we build here. Shipwright carpenters aren't busy between launch seasons. Give them jigs, saw templates, and an overseer who speaks your gospel."
He studied the bustling wharf: cranes hoisting teak planks, sailors rolling tar barrels, gulls wheeling overhead. Idle capacity everywhere—if re-tooled.
That night, in a candle-lit loft above a rum-reeking tavern, they inked the South Quay Factory Charter. Ranya provided timber, warehouse space, and a quarter share of profits. Darsha Holdings sent Mira, six master jigs, and exclusive rights to the new quick-setting concrete pier blocks.
Within weeks a rhythmic tattoo of mallets joined the harbor's symphony. Shipwrights discovered that cycle frames, unlike hulls, needed tolerance measured not in thumb-widths but hair-breadths. Tempers flared; jigs warped in salt humidity. Mira countered with brass humidity shims and nightly classes on maintenance, turning grumbling craftsmen into precision zealots.
The first "Quay Swift" rolled onto cobblestones during a spring squall, spray lashing its oiled chain. Dock clerks whooped as a courier mounted and streaked three miles to the customs beacon in nine minutes—surpassing even Sharath's optimistic table.
Orders exploded. Ranya's ledgers ballooned; so did taxes funneled to crown coffers. Baron Sorrin, once cycle skeptic, petitioned for a factory concession on his inland estate. The Merchant Princes—those who controlled spice routes and wool caravans—vied for franchises. And beneath the wheeling gulls, South Quay's tide turned from salt and sail to spokes and speed.
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