by Kim Fielding
“Thanks, but I’m actually hoping for advice.”
Osgod grinned. “Oh, I’ve plenty of that too, but it’s not always as fresh as the eggs.”
“That’s just fine,” Phin replied with a laugh. “I think sometimes advice is better when well-aged. I have a lot of… things growing in front of my house. It’s a mess, and I don’t know what to keep. Can I look around your garden and see if I recognize anything?”
“How about if I come to your place and show you firsthand?”
That was better, but Phineas knew his neighbors were busy people, and he didn’t want to interrupt Osgod’s work.
As if reading his mind, Osgod said, “A little break will do me some good.”
“Okay then, if you don’t mind.”
It was a ten-minute walk, which Osgod spent pointing out the wildflower plants lining the dirt track. None were blooming yet—and Phin would never remember most of them—but he enjoyed it nonetheless. Maybe at least a little knowledge would sink into his brain.
Back at his place, Phineas gave a quick tour of his brewery-in-progress, and Osgod seemed eager to sample the results when they were ready. But when they wandered to the front of Phin’s hut and Osgod saw the state of things, he put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “This is a mess.”
“I know. It wasn’t so bad a few days ago, but everything’s growing really fast.”
“What did you do last year?”
Phineas shrugged. He’d crashed here almost a year ago, but even after he’d recovered from his injuries, he’d been far too traumatized to worry about gardens. Besides, he’d stubbornly held on to the irrational hope that he’d be rescued. That, despite the fact that he knew nothing about electronics, he’d somehow rig a communication device out of the ship’s mangled parts and find a way to send an SOS in the right direction, and someone there would hear it in a timely fashion and know where he was and launch a starship to come fetch him despite the immense distance. With these fantasies clouding his mind, he hadn’t done anything with the vegetation other than keep a pathway clear.
“Well,” Osgod said, “a lot of this is weeds. But you have some salvageable herbs and vegetables. Let me show you.”
Phineas watched and listened closely, and Osgod seemed pleased to have an attentive student. He was just in the middle of describing how to prune a fruit-bearing vine when a child came running up the road, panting and red-faced. “Sky-Demon! Sky-Demon!” she yelled with unnecessary volume, even once she had Phineas’s full attention.
He caught her before she could run into him full-tilt. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Her eyes were huge. “It’s Thozzon. He dropped stone-cold dead!”
Thozzon’s death turned out to have been fast but memorable. He’d hauled a wagonload of fermented milk to the main square, apparently in preparation for an upcoming festival. He must have already forgotten the lessons he’d learned from the soul-reaper’s visit, because when the villagers objected to his price, he started yelling that they were ungrateful. He was in mid-rant when his face went purple and he dropped like a felled tree, right there in front of Gurthcir’s favorite bench.
By the time Phineas, Osgod, and the girl arrived at the square, most of the villagers had gathered to stare at the inert corpse. They weren’t celebrating his demise, by any means, but nobody was mourning either.
“What killed him?” Phineas asked.
“Greed,” Gurthcir said with a sniff. “A stone heart doesn’t beat well, does it?”
“No, I guess not.” Phin looked at the sturdy beast still hitched to the wagon. Only a few people in the village were wealthy enough to own a sykaen, and of course Thozzon’s was bigger and stronger than the others. It seemed indifferent to its owner’s carcass and far more interested in whatever vegetables a nearby woman carried in a basket. “Will the sykaen and Thozzon’s other animals be okay?”
Gurthcir patted Phin’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure the beasts are taken care of, and since Thozzon had no heirs, we’ll send a message off to the queen. Her people can decide what to do with his things. We’ll make sure the milk doesn’t go to waste.” She dropped a broad wink. Then a thought clearly occurred to her. “Did you get everything he promised you?”
“Yes.”
“If you need more, you could take a look. It’ll be a fortnight before the queen’s people get here.”
“No, that’s okay.” It didn’t seem right to take more than he’d bargained for.
“Good lad.”
“Um, but, what about him?” He tilted his head toward the motionless body.
“We’ll get him planted before he starts to go bad. Do you still intend to watch over his grave?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
She nodded. “Then follow along so you can see where we put him.”
The cemetery was a good distance from the center of the village. Everyone agreed that the best course of action was to carry Thozzon there on his own wagon, so some villagers quickly unloaded the milk while others wrapped the body in an old blanket and hoisted him into the now-empty wagon bed. With one man slowly leading the sykaen, Phineas and a few other villagers followed behind in a sort of funeral procession.
When Phin had first begun visiting Somboon’s grave, he’d found the concept very strange. Land on their home planet was too scarce to waste on corpses, so the deceased were cremated instead and their remains added to the biomixture used by the rooftop ag-domes. Bereaved family members could pull up a holo on their vidscreens when they wanted to visit with the memory of the dearly departed.
But there were no holos or vidscreens here, and eventually Phineas had found some peace as he sat beside the gentle mound where Somboon lay. Phin learned to do as the locals did, decorating the gravemound with arrangements of small stones, making it unique and special. The cemetery itself was a pleasant place, with soft grasses, several enormous trees for shade in summer, and a low wall that was perfect for sitting. It gave Phin solace to know that his husband’s final rest was in a good location with plenty of quiet company.
Thozzon’s burial party chose a spot near the wall, a little apart from the nearest mounds. A young woman named Irbet distributed shovels, but when Phin reached to take one, she shook her head. “You have a long night. Better for you to get your rest now.”
True enough, he supposed. He detoured to Somboon, pausing long enough to set a few new stones on the greening hillock, and then headed back to his hut, which wasn’t far away. After frying and eating one of Osgod’s eggs and a footfruit—a delicacy much tastier than its name suggested—he washed up with a pitcher of water and climbed into bed. He had no time to be surprised at how quickly he fell asleep.
With the shutters closed and the fire out, Phin’s hut was so dark that he thought he might have overslept. He stumbled blindly to the door and was relieved to find the evening sky painted in oranges and pinks. He had plenty of time to reach the cemetery before nightfall, so he ate some nearly stale bread and another footfruit before gathering a few items to get him through the night: a warm blanket, a basket of snacks, a clay water jar, and a starstick. The last item was nothing but a sturdy branch with a smooth rock affixed to the end; if rubbed gently, the rock would emit dim light for a few hours, like a very strange flashlight. The villagers used starsticks to light their way on dark roads and inside their huts when a fire wasn’t appropriate. Phineas had asked how the starsticks worked, but everyone simply shrugged and said they were magic. Well, they were handy at any rate.
Suitably supplied, Phineas set off for the cemetery. He was more than a little nervous and wished he had some kind of weapon. Not that it would do him any good. The local consensus was that you couldn’t harm a soul-reaper. Besides, Phin had no idea how to use any kind of weapon and was more likely to injure himself than an opponent. He’d never been in a physical fight, not even with fists. He’d just have to hope that the reaper would leave his living soul untouched—along with the body it was attached
to.
The moon was nearly full tonight and the sky clear, so he barely needed the starstick even after the sun set. Birds called softly from the trees as they settled into their nests, insects chirped, and a soft breeze carried the scents of tilled earth and fresh growing things. All very restful. On his own planet, there had been so many artificial lights that it was hard to tell day from night, and he was almost never alone. Every walking surface had been hard and unforgiving, not like the soft soil now under his feet. The sounds had been strident and artificial, the smells harsh and chemical. He realized that despite his anxiety over the night’s duties, he was walking more easily than he ever had at home, his shoulders relaxed, his steps leisurely yet confident. His lungs finally had room to fully expand, and his heart had found its own steady rhythm.
“It’s not so bad here,” he said to the evening. “It’s feeling like home.”
The burial party had long since finished its work and departed, leaving the cemetery without living people. A fresh mound of dirt marked Thozzon’s grave. It was devoid of any ornaments, but Phin had picked up a few small stones as he walked. He set them atop the mound in a pleasing pattern.
“Maybe if you’d lived longer, your character might have fully reformed. I’m sorry we’ll never know. But I appreciate what you did for me.” Phin nodded at his own words and then settled on the wall.
Moonlit darkness surrounded him and the night stilled. The cemetery wasn’t creepy, he was pleased to discover. He felt almost as if he were sitting in a large bedroom full of people who were soundly asleep. He wondered if the dead could dream.
Time passed, but Phin couldn’t tell how quickly. No timepieces on this planet, not even the ancient mechanical clocks he’d once seen in a museum back home. He grew bored, which was almost a novelty. He’d rarely had the chance for that in his previous life, what with work and chores and holos to watch. Even here, he filled his days with various tasks.
“Neither of us would have predicted this,” he said to Somboon, even though his grave was quite a distance from Thozzon’s. Phin wasn’t even surprised to find he was speaking in the local language instead of his native one.
“Do you suppose space accidents happen often and the starship companies simply cover them up? If I could sue them, we’d be filthy rich. Maybe I should’ve appointed someone to sue in my absence, just in case, but that money never would have done us any good anyway.”
The stone wall had become an uncomfortable perch, so he slid off and sat on the much softer grass beside Thozzon’s grave, his back propped against the wall. He yawned. “It’s going to be hard to stay awake. I guess I should be thankful Thozzon died when the weather was good. I’d be pretty miserable sitting here during the winter.” Another yawn. “Where do souls go after three nights anyway, assuming a reaper doesn’t eat them? Are they stuck on the planet where the person died? Is there an entirely different plane of existence? Do you get to unite with ancestors? That would be interesting. I’d have a lot of questions for them.”
For a while Phineas thought about who he’d most want to meet in the afterlife and what he’d discuss with them. When that proved insufficient to keep him alert, he stood, stretched, and ambled around, keeping Thozzon’s gravemound within sight. The cemetery contained a lot of dead people, some with neglected sites while others—with loving arrangements of stones—were kept well maintained. He assumed that the uneven ground he walked on hid graves so old that the mounds had eroded and the living had forgotten their existence.
“That’s not such a bad thing,” he said to Somboon. “The living should go on with life, and the dead should move on to whatever it is they do. I hope you’ve moved on. I’ll always remember you. Always miss you. But if you can find love, I hope you do. I wouldn’t want you to be alone.” He meant this sincerely and was certain that Somboon would feel the same about him. His husband had possessed a human’s usual assortment of shortcomings, but possessiveness and jealousy hadn’t been among his collection.
With a noisy sigh, Phin trudged back to Thozzon’s grave, where he’d left his evening’s supplies. Maybe now was a good time for a snack. What he could really use was a caf-pod like the ones he used to chew when, in his other life, he had to work late. But those didn’t exist here, and he didn’t know of a local substitute.
He paused to stare at the stones he’d placed on Thozzon’s mound. “I’ll remember you too, if that’s any solace. The good part, I mean. How you shared the things I needed for my brewery. I think almost everyone has at least a little good in them. It’s too bad yours was so deeply buried. And now it’s buried forever.”
A footstep scraped on the ground behind him, and Phineas spun around with a gasp.
The soul-reaper stood several paces away, tall and thin, clothed in rags. It was backlit by a bright moon, so Phin couldn’t make out its features, but he could hear its quiet breaths. It had something long and thin slung over a shoulder, probably a weapon of some kind. Wonderful.
“Go away!” Phineas hoped he sounded braver and fiercer than he felt. “I won’t let you have this soul, so you might as well skedaddle.” He planted his fists on his hips and glared.
The reaper laughed.
That wasn’t the response Phin had expected. It was a dry sound, rusty like long-unused metal parts, but it was definitely a laugh. And not an evil one. At least he didn’t think so.
“I mean it. I made a promise, so you’ll have to reap somewhere else. Somewhere far away.”
“Who are you?” asked the reaper. Like its laugh, its voice sounded out of practice too, although it was surprisingly soft. Phin would have expected a reaper to screech.
“None of your business. I’m alive, so my soul’s not up for grabs.”
“I don’t want your soul. Or his either.” The reaper pointed at the grave. “My own’s too heavy already.”
“But….” Maybe this was a trick. Did reapers have souls of their own? He should have asked Gurthcir more questions when he had a chance. “What do you want then?”
There was a long silence before the reaper answered. “I’m hungry. Could you share some of your food?”
Phineas had been under the definite impression that reapers subsisted on souls alone. But then, as he stood there stupidly, the obvious finally occurred to him. “You’re not a soul-reaper, are you?”
A long sigh in response. “I don’t think so.”
The man—because that’s what he seemed to be—waited while Phin fetched his starstick, activated it, and lifted it high. The face looking back at him appeared entirely human. Gaunt, dirty, and badly scarred, yes, but there was nothing monstrous about it. “Who are you?” Phin asked.
“A traveler. I’ll leave if you’d rather. But if you’re sitting guard tonight and want some company to keep you awake, I could be that.”
Phin thought he detected something plaintive in the man’s tone, as if he asked for very little and expected even less.
Well, why not. Phin wouldn’t mind someone to talk to. He beckoned. “I don’t have a lot of food with me, but you’re welcome to it.”
The man moved slowly, a severe limp twisting his gait, but his smile revealed no discomfort. When Phin sat on the grass beside the wall, the man lowered himself beside him with a soft moan. Phin wordlessly handed over the basket.
The man looked at the collection of nuts and dried fruit. “You’d better parcel out as much as you’re willing to share, or I’m apt to eat it all.”
“Take it. I’ve eaten already.”
The man thanked him and then, surprisingly, didn’t gorge himself. Instead he moved each morsel gently to his mouth and chewed slowly as if savoring every bit of flavor. The bright moonlight gave Phin the opportunity for a better look. The traveler’s long, tangled hair was threaded with only a little gray, which suggested he wasn’t very old. But his brown eyes seemed ancient, and his face—deeply creased by old scars—could have been any age. He wore layers of ragged clothing and appeared to be carrying only a small pouch and
sheathed knife at his waist and that thing—Phin guessed a sword—over his shoulder. He smelled of sweat and dirt and crushed herbs. His boots looked as if they’d walked a million kilometers.
“You’re not from this village,” the man said eventually, not looking at Phineas.
“No.” Phin pointed up at the stars. “I came from there.”
“Are you a god?”
Phineas chuckled. “No, and not a sky-demon either. Just a man.”
Finally the companion turned his head to gaze at him. “You’re lost.”
“I….” For no concrete reason, Phin found it hard to swallow. He blinked a few times. “Yes. I’m trying to make this place my home now.”
“Home.” The word echoed quietly from the man’s lips.
“My name’s Phineas Coleman. Phin. Will you tell me yours?”
The response came long after Phin had given up on getting one. “I used to be Kendo.”
“Can I call you that now?”
“That would be nice.”
“Well then, Kendo, it’s nice to meet you.”
Kendo gave a small smile, paused, and then pointed at the gravemound. “A friend?”
“No. I barely knew him.”
“Then why guard his soul so bravely?”
Phin snorted. “I don’t think I was very brave.”
“Of course you were. You confronted danger in order to protect another. That’s an important form of courage.”
Neither Phin nor anyone he knew had ever thought of him as courageous. Back home, it was Somboon who took over during times of crisis. And after crash-landing here, Phin had remained an emotional wreck long after he should have buckled up and soldiered on. But he had stood up to Kendo when he mistook him for a reaper, hadn’t he? “Thank you.”