by William Cali
“I’m just trying to get a feel for things in the village, you know? The way things work, and all that.” He stared at Hanar as he tried to hash out his statement. How long is he gonna stand there scratching his beard? “I’m just asking… She’s a good-looking woman. Is there a… uh… Mr. Lyle?”
Hanar laughed. “I see, I see. You think she’s attractive! I guess I can see how you would feel that way.”
Pent frowned, afraid he had overstepped with his question. Hanar was the closest thing to a friend he had in Somerville, and he didn’t want to betray his trust.
“What’s the deal with you and her anyway? She said she taught you everything you know.” Pent shuffled nervously before continuing, “You don’t have a relationship with her, do you?”
Hanar laughed again, even harder than before, until tears glittered in his eyes. He stepped ahead of Pent and moved to open the door to Lyle’s place. As he reached forward, he turned and smiled.
“She’s my sister.”
* * *
Breakfast at Lyle’s was a pleasure. She fed them corn and a grilled beef-like meat, and it definitely hit the spot. Despite the good meal, Pent was relieved when Hanar went off to talk to Mother Lyle alone. Embarrassment tied his stomach into knots just thinking about his thoughtless question to Hanar, and he was having a hard time talking to either of them at the moment.
There was only one other person in the house, and Pent hadn’t met him before. He was tall, with a broader figure than most he saw in town. His hands were well calloused, the sleeves of his shirt wrinkled and stained with grime and dirt, and his short-cut hair was black as night. His face served as a contradiction to his body, as he had a gentle jawline and a soft nose and eyes. When the stranger finished his meal, he walked over to where Pent sat, still eating.
“It’s not hard to point a newcomer out here, especially one that looks as you do. But even without that, we don’t see a lot of visitors to Somerville. You are named Pent, correct?”
Pent washed down his bite with a few gulps of water. “That’s right.”
“It’s good to meet you. You’ve already become the most exciting thing to talk about around here.” He sighed and crossed his broad arms, looking disappointed with something. “You don’t seem that special.”
“I’m not really. Just a regular guy in a strange new land. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Oh, right.” The man’s face reddened, embarrassed by his lack of social grace. “My name is Faldo. I’m sure you’ve heard of me before. Key advisor to the chief, lead architect and builder of Somerville. And my grandfather, he—”
“Oh, so your sister is the one who makes clothes!” Pent interrupted Faldo while dabbing his face with a napkin. “I was hoping she could help me out. I was just talking to Hanar about this. My clothes are really taking a beating.”
Faldo narrowed his eyes. “She lives two houses down from Cenk, the house that looks like its perpetually on fire. I can have a word with her and tell her you’re coming. She’s always looking for new business. Always lazing about if you ask me. Speaking of which, I’m quite busy myself. If you’ll excuse me.” He turned in a huff and left.
Pent stared after him for a moment. “I wonder what his problem is.”
* * *
After leaving Lyle’s, Pent made his way to the house he thought belonged to Daley. Both Hanar and Faldo had mentioned talking to her themselves, but it was another opportunity to get to know someone new. And that guy did just say he was busy. Pent poked his head into the tailor’s hut, and the woman inside beckoned him to come in.
“So, you’re the newcomer then?” she said. Pent was shocked how similar she looked to her brother. She had soft, rounded shoulders, and an oval face with almost no jawline to speak of. On Faldo, those features looked out of place and too delicate. But on her, they were fitting. Her flowing hair was just as dark as her brother’s. “What are you staring at?”
“Uh, nothing. Sorry, I just met your brother. The two of you look alike.”
She blinked. “Is that surprising to you? Of course two siblings would look alike, even if one is more useful than the other. We had the same mother. The same father too. Is it different where you’re from?”
“No, of course not.”
“So then why are you staring?”
Pent blushed. “Sorry about that. Your brother said you’re the person to talk to when it comes to clothes.” He tugged at his shirt. “This is looking like it’s on its last legs.”
“Of course. So kind of my fair brother, I’m sure he spared nothing but the gentlest words of praise for me.” She smiled in earnest. “The name’s Daley, in case you were curious.”
“Right. Mine’s Pent, pleased to meet you.”
“Hm.” She stood up and circled Pent, sizing him up as she studied his body. At first, he felt flattered until he realized she was trying to figure out what size shirt he would fit into. I guess they don’t have measuring tape in this world either.
She stopped and raised one finger in the air. “You’re a big one, no question about that. Let me take that cloth off your back then. You can wear this oversized tunic while you wait if you’re afraid for your modesty.”
“I’m not,” he said, “but if it’s all the same I’ll take the tunic. It’s cold in here.” He stripped his shirt off and handed it to her. She grabbed it and flung the tablecloth sized tunic at him.
“Thanks for the help, I really apprec—”
“Let me stop you right there,” she said. “Need you to do something for me. Need you to talk to my brother, tell him to add an expansion to my house.” She pointed to one side where the wall had been cleared of everything. “Knock this down, add another two rooms, doorway between them. You got it?”
“You can’t ask him this yourself?” Pent asked.
“Ask him? I’m asking you to ask him. I’m taking time out of my day, making this stuff for you, and you won’t ask a simple question?”
“Uh, sure, meant no disrespect. But if you have something specific in mind, you would be the best one to tell him.”
He had already lost her attention as she focused on the tailoring project.
“Just do it and be gone.”
I’ve heard about sibling rivalries, but damn. Pent left Daley’s home, more confused than he was when he entered.
* * *
Pent wandered away from Daley’s house towards one of the homes Hanar had pointed out during their tour. Pent took one look at the house and shook his head. Damn, this place is a dump. It had the same style of construction as nearly every other house in the village, but it was much more worn. Wooden planks were coming off the siding, large sections of grass were missing in the front, and there were patches of dirt and holes littered around. A small hitch had been hammered into the ground by the entrance, seemingly with care, while the rest of the building was in disarray.
Behind the worn down house was a much larger building. “Some kind of storehouse?” It made him nostalgic for his job. The Market Palace had a large warehouse area where trucks dropped off their cargo. “Man, never thought I would be missing that place.” He shook his head, trying to brush the thought aside. “Don’t know what else you could use such a big building for. Gotta be storing stuff in it.”
He walked up to the front door, and a man stumbled out. His skin was tanned as if he had been laid out in the sun to roast on more than one occasion. He was wobbling uncontrollably. When his left foot sunk into a hole, he took a header into the ground. His nose slammed into the dirt, and he made no attempt to break his fall with his arms.
Pent rushed forward and helped turn the man over to his side. His nose was busted; blood was gushing out and staining his cloth tunic a dull red. Pent glanced around to see if anyone was watching this pan out. If the chief comes by, it’s gonna seem like I punched this guy in the face.
Pent helped him to his feet and immediately realized two things. This was the man he had seen earlier that day when he had toured
the graveyard with Hanar. The man that had been wobbling around the gravestones, sobbing at the base of one of them.
The other thing he noticed made it obvious why he fell so harshly. He’s drunk as hell. Pent could smell it on him, his breath, his clothes. He had the stink of bourbon on him, something like Wild Turkey or Jack Daniel’s. It was a familiar smell, a nostalgic one. Pent was sure he would miss out on some of the modern amenities while he was here, but maybe a drink or two could take his mind off that. Probably not as many drinks as this dude, though.
Pent walked him through the door to enter what he assumed to be the drunken stranger’s own house and sat him down on a log bench. Pent glanced around the room. The decorations were bare, and the craftsmanship on his furniture was slipshod. The furnishings suggested a man with a different set of priorities in life.
Perhaps it was the familiar surroundings, but the man began to stir a bit. “Who are you?” He slurred the words, and Pent couldn’t help but laugh. He mumbled like a midnight bar hopper who fell asleep in the gutter. Some things don’t change from world to world, I guess.
“My name’s Pent, don’t think we’ve had the chance to meet before.”
The drunk stared at the ground. A drop of slobber began to accumulate on his lip. When he spoke, his lips barely moved. “Oooooh, you’re the new guy. Saw the chief talking to you over there earlier.” It came out as one jumbled mess of words as the man’s head bobbled back and forth.
“So, you got a name, buddy?” Pent asked.
“Buddy, ooooooh, yeah. Lemen. Hey, my name is Lemen.” He tried to stand up, almost made it upright, but then tumbled back into his seat. “May have had… a little too drink to much.”
“Oh yeah?” Pent shook his head. “And here I thought it was the flu or something. You seem to be having some trouble standing up.”
“Ooooh, yeah. Some trouble… some trouble standing up. Too much to drink, too muh.”
“Maybe, maybe. So, where’d you find the drinks at, my man?”
Lemen chuckled in between hiccups. “My man, my man. I make it. I make it good, too. But you gotta test it. You don’t test it, you can’t tell if it’s good. But you test it and you don’t feel good. Or maybe you feel too good. But you gotta test it if you want to feel good. Or to make sure it makes you feel good.”
“You know,” Pent said with a smile, “maybe you could use someone impartial to help you out with that. Maybe if someone got to taste it fresh, it would help you figure out better if it was good or not.”
“Oh yeah, thas a good idea there. You go ahead over through that door now.” He gestured towards a brown door that blended in with the wall. “Keep the good stuff there. Or it might be good, I can’t really tell. Hey, you should help me out! You could test it, help me figure out if it’s good, okay?”
“Sure thing, man. I mean, if you insist and all. I can definitely help you out.” Pent moved towards the door, eager to leave Lemen’s company.
Pent gasped as he entered the side room and took stock. “Sweet mother of God.” Barrels upon barrels were stacked all over. Each was about half as tall as him, and they were stacked five high, all the way to the back of the room. How far they went he couldn’t tell. At least now I know what the warehouse is for…
Pent stepped up to the closest barrel and jostled it around. It barely budged, but he could hear the sloshing of liquid inside. “You would need a forklift to get those up there, how in the hell…” He shook his head. The ones on top are probably not full. I mean how could they be? This thing has gotta be a couple hundred pounds at least.
A mug made of tarnished metal caught his eye and he grabbed it, and then opened the nearest barrel. The liquid inside was a dark color. It could have been black, but the room was poorly lit and Pent assumed that is was a dark brown. Never heard of black liquor before, anyway. The smell was undeniably alcoholic. It was a kind of bourbon or whiskey, and very potent. There’s fumes coming off this stuff. It’s like whiskey moonshine.
Pent dipped the mug into the barrel, drawing from it until his mug was half full. A nervous thought flitted through his mind, and he briefly contemplated the safety concerns involved here. This was distilled liquor made by people who did not have health and safety regulations preventing them from distributing actual poison to their people. I wonder how many years need to pass before they make something like the FDA… His reservations only lasted for a moment, though, before he brought the mug to his lips and took a sip.
Pent involuntarily coughed and winced at the same time. “Rotgut bourbon, but this is definitely bourbon.” He took a deeper drink and felt the bottom-shelf swill coursing through his body. It settled poorly in his stomach, burning like a hot coal from a stoked fire. He called it quits with that and poured the rest back into the barrel. This stuff was strong, and he wasn’t trying to get plastered in this warehouse. He still needed to make a good impression on these villagers. Hobbling around town might work for Lemen, but he didn’t want to test his own luck.
He walked back into the room, imagining that Lemen would be knocked out. The drunk was still in the chair, but his eyes were wide open. He must have gotten up while Pent was away because he was now holding some kind of cookie. He munched on it as his eyes locked onto Pent’s.
“What ya think?”
Pent gave him a thumbs up. “Good stuff. Strong enough to grow hair on your chest, that’s for sure.” He glanced over his shoulder to the storage room. So many barrels. For a village of this size, it was overkill. They would all have to be alcoholics to get through that amount. “Man, you guys really like your swill here, never seen this much booze in one place before.”
“Oooh, yeah. Yeah, people like the stuff I make, the good stuff anyway. Not just for us though.”
“Oh?” Pent said. “That makes sense. Seems like way too much for just y’all.”
“Yeah, that’s our contribution, you know.”
Pent shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t. I’m new around here, remember? The chief hasn’t gotten around to telling me all this yet.” Pent was grasping for more info, and Lemen did not seem to notice. “Who comes and gets this stuff from you, Lemen? Someone from up north, maybe?”
Lemen jostled around, his head swinging from side to side. Pent wasn’t sure if he heard the question, but all at once the drunkard spoke: “Oooooh, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. You wouldn’t know because you’re new here, yeah okay. So, this guy, he comes around every once in a while. Every month or so, right. And he asks for our stuff.”
“Okay, so some guy comes around every month and buys this liquor from you. Don’t see anything weird about that.”
“Ooooooooooh, yeah. Except, wait. No. No, yeah, he doesn’t pay for booze, no. He just asks for it. But he’s not really asking, I guess. Yeah, he takes it. Gilbrand is his name. Yeah, he usually barrels a couple of takes, and then he’s off on his way.”
One guy takes a couple of those barrels? Full of bourbon? “I don’t really understand. Why does he take the booze from you guys? Why do you give him anything if he’s not paying?”
“Ooooh, yeah, we give him the booze. Or he’ll kill us all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Pent was slow to recover from the shocking revelation. When he did, though, he prodded Lemen to give him more information. Although many dangers had been hinted at by the wizard, Gordenthorpe, this was the first time Pent had heard anyone else discuss them.
From what Pent could gather from Lemen’s drunken rambling, Gilbrand was a large, physically imposing knight of noble birth who wore a full suit of armor and carried a long, dangerous blade. Each month, Gilbrand would visit the town of Somerville and demand several barrels of Lemen’s “fine” bourbon, which would be loaded up in a cart and hauled away by Gilbrand’s servants as he watched on imperiously. The knight offered no assistance and no compensation. When he had what he wanted, he would leave the town undisturbed.
“When I first saw Somerville, I was staring down from the top of the hillsid
e,” Pent said. “On the other side of the chasm, there was a large tower. That must be where he lives.”
Lemen shrugged his shoulders. The conversation seemed to be sobering him up a bit. He barely slurred as he said, “I don’t travel that far myself, especially not to the north.” Lemen shuddered, but Pent couldn’t tell if it was because of the booze or something else. “My traveling days are long past me. You would have to ask Hanar, or someone else more prone to wandering. It’s dangerous to wander around west and north of here. Most people are content to just live here in peace.”
“What kind of peace is that? This guy is just extorting you. Why doesn’t anyone fight back? This one guy can take your stuff just ‘cause he’s wearing a suit of armor? Get Cenk to make some for y’all, to even the odds.”
Lemen stared at his raggedy boots.
“He’s not allowed to do that. That’s one of the things that Gilbrand talked about with the chief when this whole thing started. He controls this whole area. We give him a couple of barrels of bourbon, we don’t build weapons, and in return, he protects us from this dangerous world.”
A sharp, bleak laugh burst out of Pent. “Yeah, sounds like a real humanitarian.”
“You can call it whatever you want, but we live happy and we live safe. The chief said we have to do what he asks, ‘follow the vassals,’ whatever that means. But we’ve been living like this for a while, and everyone is used to it and happy with it.” He burped, and then wiped at the edges of his mouth. “Why stir things up and cause trouble?”
Pent stared at Lemen for several moments, mulling over what he said. Just be safe, just be happy. Just do the same old and toe the line. He felt himself shifting mentally to the past. I’ve been spending half of my life just toeing the line, just doing the same as I’ve always done. Here was a village full of people, who seemed to be content in doing just that. Everywhere he asked, he got similar responses. Life is full of people like that, in my world and this one. Am I just another one of those people?