Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One

by Justan Henner

  The flames continued higher, but not outward. They could not. The house on the right was too far. The shop on the left a short distance, but still, the fire did not spread. It was balanced perfectly within the square; half a foot into the alley to the left, three feet on the right. The Well was precise. The Well was powerful. The flames went ever upward.

  The carpenter at her window did not see the light reflected in the panes of glass. The revelers in the tavern drank and listened to their tune. They could not hear the crackle. For them, the song was incomplete. The smith sat upon his porch. The only smoke he could see or taste was that within his pipe. And the girl? The girl did not feel the warmth. She simply continued chopping. That was unfair. He opened his eyes and looked to her. She met his gaze.

  Sudden alarm, her pupils darting to the flames, then back to him. One last swing. The axe bedded in a log, she climbed over the fence. He watched her as she came, the light weaving across her form, the shadows shrinking away to find their last bastions of defiance. She met him on the cobbled walk and turned to face the fire. She said nothing for a moment. Together they enjoyed the scene.

  “You’re leaving then?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. His voice was calm.

  A small tear followed the curve of her cheek. A soft glint of water in her eye. “Where will you go?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What about him?”

  The boy said nothing. He looked into his flames.

  A low sob. More tears. A quick flash of color in the window. Then another. And another.

  “The inks,” he said.

  She nodded. She held his hand.

  “There’s no heat,” she said.

  “There is. You just can’t feel it.”

  “Does he?” she asked.

  Again, the boy said nothing.

  She let go of his hand. Another sob followed by a low whine. Another instrument added to the dirge.

  He put his arm across her shoulder and held her close. She did not resist, but placed her face on his chest. Tears dripped onto the cloth of his shirt. He continued to watch the fire. The smith went inside. The carpenter extinguished her candles.

  After a time, they moved back to the fence. They sat with backs against the large sign at the head of the walk; a painting of an ink pot and a quill with the word “Scribe” written in his father’s hand.

  As the flames died, so did the music from the tavern. A little after midnight she fell asleep. He left her where she was. He did not kiss her when he left.

  In the morning she will wake to find him gone. The smith will be the first to notice the charred remains of the shop. The roof will have collapsed hours ago. He will walk to the fence and find the girl leaning against the sign, tears cutting trails through the soot that coats her face. The smith will ask what happened. She will say nothing. He will leave her where she sits and walk among the still warm embers. Soon, the street’s denizens will gather in the front yard.

  The smith will find no sign of the boy. Instead, he’ll find the remains of the boy’s father laid upon scraps of burnt cloth, all that is left of a woolen blanket and a cedar bed frame. The innkeep and his brother the sexton will spend the day digging. The carpenter will build the casket.

  The smith will go back to the girl. He will ask her where the boy has gone. She will not answer. The smith will understand, he has had his heart broken too. For a time, the girl will sit alone. The smith will return. He will bring shovels and a wheelbarrow. The smith and the girl will gather the charcoal. There is no sense in letting it go to waste. Her father will watch from their porch, nursing his broken leg, a smile on his lips despite the pain.

  Later, the townspeople will gather behind the little chapel. The musician and his apprentice will agree to play in return for an extra night of lodging at the inn. The song will be a sad mockery of the chorus of the night before. The drums will echo in the girl’s mind. One Trask is dead. The other is gone. She will feel hollow inside.

  The priest will give a sermon. The sexton will shovel dirt onto the casket. The smith will support her father’s weight so that he can place a hand upon her shoulder. He will hold her tight. Not as tight as the boy. She will cry, but no one else will. The scribe and his crimes were well known.

  The town’s sole official and soldier will be told the fire was an accident; a stray ember from the clamp next door. An accident, unforeseen. No one will be able to explain why they did not see the flames. The priest will claim it is an act of the gods. The sexton will agree.

  That night, the girl will return to chopping wood. Though she will have plenty of charcoal, there will still be a broken axle to fix, and the carpenter will require cuts of precise lengths. She will spend the night working herself to exhaustion, with tears upon her cheeks. No one will bother her. She will be left alone with her pain. The boy will suffer alone as well.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A day south of the village, the boy, Jem, spent his first night alone beneath a tree. He heard the soft rippling of the river, a slight echo of his tears as he mourned his loss. He hated himself for that. Not for what he had done, but for the emotions that he now felt. He should not miss his father, but he did. He felt regret stronger than he had ever felt in his life. He missed the smile, the joy, the justice of the night before. Where had it gone? Why should the feeling stop?

  The death was well deserved. His father had done many evil things, had been both ruthless and ambitious. But Jem’s soul twisted. His heart slowed in his chest. He cried. For two days, he had not slept, and still he couldn’t. The pain was too great. Did she lie to me? he wondered. Was it all a trick?

  She would not do that, he said. She would not do that. He repeated it. Again. Again. He cried some more. The fire burned next to him in its pit. He gazed into it. He knew she did not lie. She wouldn’t. Why would she? She hadn’t. He could not shake the doubt. The fire ate away at the twigs within its reach. There was beauty in the flames. The guilt lay in the ashes. The pain lay underneath.

  He did not wash. He was still covered in his crime. The ashes coated his arms, his legs. He could feel them upon his face. His tears dropped onto the dirt beneath him. They dried on his cheeks. The salt wore at his skin. He knew he couldn’t trust her and that was what hurt the most. He should have been able, but he could not. When he had found her, she had refused to meet his eyes. The pain had been in those eyes. The truth had been there too. But her eyes were not before him now. Jem had only his memories to trust. But he could not trust himself. Not after what he’d done. Not for what he was.

  The townspeople had been so certain. He could trust their judgment, could he not? They had known his father.

  But had they known his father? Indaht Trask had worked at the garrison most of his life. Until recently, he had not lived among the townspeople, only visited from time to time. And the people hated the soldiers. Would they have lied? Did their hatred mislead them? Soldiers were said to do such things. Aging Miss Hatch had said as much. They must have lied. They had wanted Jem to kill him. It was the old hatred in their hearts. They had killed his father.

  But Jem knew that was not true. He had killed his father. And he had known his father’s crimes as well as the townspeople.

  It was pain that did such things. It was pain that hurt him now. That poisoned his thoughts. That killed his feelings. He could not trust the only person he truly loved. And that’s what hurt the most. His father had denied it. He’d said that he had not hurt her, but how could he trust his father when Jem had loved her so? Why would he lie? Why would she lie? Could his father really hurt him?

  A knot of hunger. A memory of the lash. The death of his friends. Yes. Yes, his father could. And had.

  Jem closed his eyes, searched within himself. He held onto the memory of when he’d looked into her face. He saw her eyes before him. He saw the pain there. He saw the shame, and deep within, the anger. Jem trusted that image and felt the justice in his soul. He opened his eyes and
looked into the fire. Again, he saw the beauty. Again, he saw the triumph and the retribution in the flames. But it had been his father.

  The guilt was still there, too.

  Jem woke late into the next day, his throat raw from the cries and screams of the night before. His chest was numb, his heart broken. The pain had not ended in his sleep. The dreams that plagued him spoke to his worst fears. He found her lying with his father. She moaned out her delight. He cleared his throat behind her and then she cried out rape. It had been the worst betrayal. His father went up in ashes beneath her. She smiled and she whispered, “I love you, Jem. Do this for me.”

  But that was not the way it had been. She hadn’t asked Jem to kill his father; he had found her the morning after the rape. It had taken him the entire day to get the truth from her, to hear what had happened. She hadn’t wanted him to know of his father’s betrayal. She had been protecting him. From the truth or from a lie? Furious, Jem changed his thoughts.

  He ate a little then walked out to the river where he washed the salt and ashes from his face then went back to the fire. It had burned out in the night. Jem ran his hands through the soot and rubbed it into the skin of his fingers and his palms, a reminder of his crime. A symbol of his veracity. He grabbed his pack, wrapped the blanket inside, and returned to the road.

  He looked north. Jem knew he couldn’t go back. He loved her. But he didn’t trust her. Worse, he could not trust himself. So, he would not go back. He would not put her through that.

  It was a long day of travel and he did not pass anyone on the road. He spent the day trying to avoid his thoughts. A task near impossible, but a task that must be done. Desperation bred creativity and Jem discovered interests he’d never had before. He stared at his hands as he walked, studying the lines within his flesh, feeling the grooves and rubbing the soot between his palms. He scratched his fingernails against each other, peeling away strips at a time. Once they were whittled to his fingers, he studied the lines again. He named his fingers, but not his thumbs. Never his thumbs. He laughed at that.

  The laugh was painful, it tore his throat. He looked back at his hands. The soot engulfed them. His thoughts poked through. He saw her face. He saw his father. He cried. He screamed his rage. He named his thumbs.

  Jem pulled his knife from his pack and tied the sheath around his waist. He found a pinecone. As he walked, he cut away the scales and let them drop to the ground. He walked slowly. After all, he had no destination.

  When his hands grew tired, he sheathed the knife.

  He looked at the river then studied the road. The road followed the river. Or did the river follow the road? He looked at the road. Studied its surface. An old stone path, built more than a century before. Each sett shaped, cut, and lain perfectly. A maze of rock and mortar, the road was perfect. Surely the river must follow such beauty.

  He drowned his thoughts with such distractions. But he learned that pain cannot be drowned. That regret and anger cannot die. The diversions could protect him for a time, but always the feelings would return, each time stronger.

  His father had been an evil man, but never a rapist. A brute, a sadist, a murderer; a coward, and a fool, but never a rapist.

  When darkness fell, Jem set up camp alongside the road. He didn’t bother to hide as he had the night before. He did not care.

  That night was as bad as the first.

  In the morning he stared blankly ahead. The pain had faded. Somewhat. The uncertainty had not. The world did not feel real. It was empty. Just like him. He looked at his palms. The soot was wearing away. He stood. Again, Jem rubbed his hands in the ashes. He sat against a tree and stared into the dregs of the fire. He would have to live with fires the rest of his life. He should have been smarter. There would always be fires. They would always remind him. In a way, he would carry his crime the rest of his life. One fire at a time.

  After a while, he stood, packed his blanket, but did not eat. He returned to the road. Today Jem did not look back. He simply walked south.

  For hours he walked, staying to the center of the road, making sure not to stray. He counted the stones. He counted his steps. Eventually, his mind simply counted. He drank from the river then continued onward. After a time, his mind stopped. He didn’t think. He just kept walking.

  Eventually, the river turned away, and Jem had his answer. The river must have followed the road, but like all admirers of beauty, it had grown bored and left to find another. Jem was not proud of his answer, on his face a grin of self-commiseration. Jealousy seared.

  Abruptly the road stopped. He had come to an intersection. He let his eyes trace the road to the horizon on either side.

  “Hello there!” a man’s voice called, high pitched and shrill. Jem looked up. An old man with dark skin, holding a staff and wearing a funny blue hat, sat on a large boulder at the head of the intersection. “Where are you headed?” the old man asked.

  Jem stared but did not answer.

  “Well, that’s all right. I already know where you’re going,” the man said, curling a finger through his long gray beard.

  “You do?” Jem asked.

  “Of course,” the old man said. “You’re going east.”

  “Why am I going east?” Jem asked.

  “Because, that’s the way it’s done.”

  “Oh,” said Jem. He turned west and started walking. The river had gone west, and so would he.

  “No! No! That’s the wrong way. That’s west. You want to go east.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well you should care!” shouted the old man.

  Jem stopped and looked at him. “Why?”

  “Because, you’re supposed to go east. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and that’s the way it’s always been! And where is your guide? You need a guide!”

  Jem walked back to the intersection, centered himself within the square, and faced the boulder. He looked into the old man’s eyes. The man stood proudly upon his rock, looking down at Jem.

  “Who are you?” Jem asked.

  “I’m me! Who are you?”

  Jem turned and started west.

  “Fine!” the old man shouted. “My name is Lu. Now where is your guide?”

  Jem faced the old man. “I don’t have a guide,” he said.

  “Why don’t you have a guide? You have to have a guide.” Leaning against his staff, the old man scratched his chin, vibrating the long strands of hair that draped from his beard and scalp. With a satisfied grin, he straightened his hat. “I know! I’ll be your guide!”

  “No thanks,” Jem said, certain the old man was insane.

  “What do you mean no? Don’t you know who I am?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you, I am Lu!”

  “I don’t want a guide,” Jem sighed. “Leave me be.” Once again, he turned and set off west.

  The old man screamed.

  “Get back here!” he shouted, his voice laced with rage. “I demand that you listen to me!”

  Jem ignored him, continuing down the road.

  “I know what you did!” The voice had become low and menacing, the shrillness gone. The insanity vanished. Only calm clarity remained.

  Jem stopped. He placed a hand on the knife at his waist, the other closing into a fist. He returned to the intersection, and again, looked into the old man’s eyes.

  “What did I do?” Jem asked.

  The old man laughed. “Ah! Even you do not know. So poetic. Do they fester?”

  “What did I do?”

  “Yes, they must fester,” the old man drawled, nodding vigorously. “Did you even hear my words? Or do the lies erase them?” Lu tapped his skull. “Is there any truth in there?”

  A third time. “What did I do?” Fear and anger rose, the Wellstone slid, uncapping. Slowly. Slowly.

  “She lied to you. But you already know that, don’t you? You can feel it. I see it in your eyes. I feel it in the air. Hear it in your breathing. You know you’ve been aban
doned and betrayed. And you try to hide it from yourself.”

  “I hide nothing!” screamed Jem. “He forced himself on her.”

  “Did he? Or did she force herself on him?”

  “She did not lie,” Jem said aloud, but even he could hear the doubt in his voice. The Wellstone grated.

  “Ah! A game! Who lied to whom?” The man smiled. “Do you know? No, no, don’t tell me! I’ll go first: Him to her, and her to you, and her to him, and you to you!” A mad grin. “No, no, no.” The end of the old man’s staff ticked side to side in tune: “You to him, and him to you, and her to him, and you to you?” The smile spread wider. “No, I’ve got it! Her to him, and him to you, and her to you, and you to you! Can you guess which is the truth?”

  “They are all lies,” asserted Jem.

  “All lies? So close, but no. One more guess. I know the truth, but the question is: do you?”

  “What do you know?” Jem asked softly, the doubt and fear gnawing at his nerves. The old man laughed. Anger built in the back of Jem’s skull, causing his neck to burn. She didn’t lie. One hand hung at Jem’s side in a fist, the other on the dagger hilt. He felt the warm, leather wrapped hilt press back against his finger bones. The Well hesitated. Uncertain, unclear. The stone was free.

  “No, no,” Lu said. “I cannot give you the answer, you must guess first. But if you’re in the mood for questions, tell me, was the Whore still there when you left? No, I imagine not. She’s probably left to find another cock.”

  “What do you know?” Jem repeated, the insanity creeping now into his own voice. She is not a whore. She did not lie. He pulled the knife out of the sheath, a silent threat.

  “Hah! Another cheater joins the game! That knife cannot take the board. You must guess or else I win.”

  “Tell me what you know!” yelled Jem. His vision went red. His palms dripped with sweat. She did not lie, Jem lied. “Which is the truth?”

  The old man turned his head slightly to one side. Again, he laughed, then mockingly, “Ha! It matters not.” A dismissive wave. “They’re all the same.”