Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One

by Justan Henner

  Null blinked and stood. “Of course, my King.” She didn’t know what to think. She placed her hand upon the knob, but the king’s voice forestalled her.

  “Null,” Erin said. He paused, clearing his throat.

  Null glanced at him over her shoulder. “Yes, my King?”

  “I…” he started. “I have spoken with my mother. I hope that you do not begrudge your name.”

  Null clutched the note in her pocket. She turned her head to the door and did not answer, for she did begrudge her name.

  The king continued without an answer. “I know that Tyvan tells you it is an apt name… And he is right, but not in the way he thinks. When the queen gave it to you, I did not think anything of it, but… since then, the name has taken on a special meaning for me, and I truly hope that it does not serve to discourage you. You are not nothing, Entaras.”

  Null’s chest felt heavy. Her world was changing, but she didn’t understand why. First Beda, and now Erin. There seemed no reason for their sudden acceptance. Perhaps… Null wondered. Perhaps, they finally trust me. But she was a mage. A mage in Lock. And no matter how loyal, a mage was not to be trusted.

  “My King, I would very much like to spend time with you.”

  His eyes lifted. “Thank you,” he said. “You do me a kindness.” He flipped his wrist, motioning for her to leave, and Null did. When the door closed behind her, she fled. She didn’t know how to feel. It was difficult to believe what she had just heard and harder to believe it had been genuine. She took a passage to the servant’s quarters and left the palace through a side door. The courtyard was empty and the night calm. Null stopped and drew a breath. The fresh air relaxed her panicked lungs. Her mind attempted to explain away their sudden compassion.

  Only one scenario made sense. They fear me. Without Mycah to keep me in check, they fear that I might do something treasonous… I hurt that Vandu the other day. They must fear I will do so again. But Beda’s kindness had begun before that, and no one had made any mention of it – at least not to Null’s face. Maybe it was the High Cleric’s letter, she considered. He offered me refuge in Trel. Maybe they fear that I will turn against them… that maybe I will betray them to the Legion… and now they hope only to appease me. The idea depressed her, but it made sense. She was loyal. She would never betray her king, and yet, it was the only explanation for their sudden interest. They do not know me, she thought. They will never trust me, no matter the fact that I am determined to serve him. No matter the fact that I would never hurt him.

  I must simply do better, she reasoned. I will do everything I can to make them trust me, and when I have run out of things I can do, I will attempt the things I can’t, because I am not going to give up. I won’t let them take my life without getting anything in return, even if it is nothing but their trust, hard won after a lifetime of servitude.

  Null wiped her eyes. She felt as if she should be crying, but there were no tears. She took pride in that. I will do better, she promised. And one day they will accept me. She pulled up her skirts and continued walking. Entering the dormitories, she found her way to Mycah’s chamber and let herself in, without knocking. The queen sat at her drafting table, studying ledgers. When Null entered, she offered only a grunt and a half-hearted wave; her face looking troubled and her attention distant.

  Null sat in her usual seat and lit the oil lamp. The spellbook waited on the table. She pulled it closer and opened it. Removing the parchment from her pocket and quietly unfolding it, Null pressed it into the spellbook and pretended to read, but she didn’t have the desire to. For once, her lack of enthusiasm was not for the book’s unsavory content. She still intended to confront the queen and despite her determination, her nerves had built to a crescendo. Null flipped through a few of the spellbook’s pages before sighing.

  She was growing tired of books. During the day, she read from Teachings of a Whore in the library, and by night, she read Mycah’s spellbook in his study. The study felt empty without him, but the queen preferred her drafting table and had refused to move it to Null’s sitting room. “It is foolishness to do so,” the queen had said. “Mycah’s study is available to us, and our things are already there.” But the room reminded Null of Mycah’s absence and only served to magnify her loneliness.

  She had to admit, there was one minor comfort in the room; by reading the spellbook in Mycah’s study, she almost felt as if he were by her side, teaching her as he always had. But that comfort was short lived, for each time she looked up from the pages, she felt Mycah’s absence. Most of his things were still here; the dusty cauldron, the painting of Mystic and her husband Rift, and the assortment of alembics and glass vials – but those things were meaningless without him here to ignore them. Strange that these objects, objects that he never used, could become such a large part of his identity. It made her nervous to know that he was apart from them, that these useless trinkets were out of his reach. What if finally, he had need of one of these scrolls, or the crystal ball; what if he was hurt because of some object he had forgotten?

  The Old Guard and Hegemon Blake would arrive soon, but Mycah would not be with them. He would be with the soldiers left in the East, defending against Atherahnian cultists until the Trellish were defeated. It might be years before she saw him again. The Trellish seemed intent on this one large push against Dekahn, and surely the Old Guard would stop the Legion from taking it, but what would happen after? The Trellish might lead them on a chase and burn down half the countryside before the Old Guard caught them, stretching this war on for months, or even years.

  The queen’s presence was reassuring, but it was not enough. Of late, Queen Tepa seemed more a gaoler than a friend. She would not allow Null out into the city – not that Null wanted to go out, but she would at least like the option – and she seemed intent on stripping Null of any privacy. Each morning, when Null went to the library to study Dydal’s book, the queen was there to greet her, and when Null retired for the evening to read her spellbook, the queen went with her. Their progress had been minor, and the revelations nearly nonexistent. No matter how vague, nor how elaborate, neither the spellbook, nor Teachings of a Whore, could voice the High Cleric’s reason for this war.

  She did have one comfort though, and a surprising one at that. Beda had taken to visiting with them at odd times, usually at night when Null studied, and she asked many questions. The questions were never intrusive, always pleasant and polite, as if Beda truly wanted to learn about Null. Null was beginning to think that she had made a friend, a real friend, not a mentor or a warden like Mycah and the queen. She had even had a chance to ask Beda a few questions, nothing meaningful like Beda’s history, or whether Beda had truly been able to read the spellbook when Rin Tepa could not, but the questions were not formal either. Mostly, Null asked of Beda’s life as commander, and for a wonder, the woman actually answered.

  That was how Null had learned of the Vandu making trouble in the city. There had been several brawls between the city folk and the Vandu, and a man had been killed today, disemboweled by a horse warrior. Null did not have much sympathy for the Vandu, as they had treated her as badly as the Atheists, but she wondered if it really were the Vandu who had started all these fights, as Tyvan claimed.

  She knew what it was like to walk through Dekahn as ‘different.’ The Dekahnians were cruel to those they did not understand. She could recall more than two dozen occasions when she had been accosted by a passerby while traveling the city. It was always the same jokes, the same insults, shouts of whorespawn and cultist, so it would not surprise her if the Vandu had received similar treatment, especially with the leather harnesses the men wore as shirts. That simply wasn’t proper dress for a Dekahnian man.

  The queen tsked and Null looked up from the spellbook. Rin Tepa stared at her, or rather stared past her, a strange look of concern in her eyes. Null had felt something earlier in the evening, three quick bursts of pain: if wrongness had a physical source, those bursts had come from it. They had
been weak, but no less violating, and ever since, the queen had seemed off.

  “Is something wrong, Queen?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Queen Tepa snapped.

  To hide her shock at Tepa’s tone, Null lowered her eyes back to the book. The queen was often terse, but she was never rude.

  “I am sorry, dear,” the queen continued, her tone softening. “Yes, you are right. I feel that something is wrong, but I cannot place it. It is almost as if… as if they are vanishing. I do not understand it.”

  “As if who are vanishing?”

  “Oh, do not worry about it, child. It is nothing, I’m certain. Just a trick of my senses, that is all.” The queen’s beads clicked as she shook her head.

  “You are certain, Queen? If it is your nerves, I could make you some tea.”

  “No, Null, it is quite all right.” The queen smiled. “But thank you. I know things have been tense lately. I am sorry if my unease has unsettled you.”

  Null closed the spellbook over a finger to keep her place. “I… I am not unsettled, but I…” She had been too afraid to ask Beda about the spellbook, about whether or not Beda could read it – what would she do if she found out that Beda’s recent politeness had been born from a lie? – but in this, Null would not be the coward.

  “Out with it, dear.”

  “It is about my name.”

  “This again?” Queen Tepa sniffed. “I told you, dear, it is just something I remembered reading.”

  “I… I know, but I read the passage, Queen. The one from Teachings of a Whore, and I just don’t understand. Null pulled the sheet of paper from the spellbook and read. “‘And the girl knew that she must make a priest.’” Null quoted. “‘One like herself, but less and more. Entaras Null, her priest of Nothing. And it became the girl’s obsession, to not only fulfill his desires, but to speak to him; her god of Absence.’ That is the only time Dydal’s text mentions the name. But… what does it mean?”

  The queen’s lips folded against her teeth. “Yes…” the queen mused. “It is hard for me to say, Null. I know a little of the Trellish gods, enough to know that the latter half of that quote is nonsense. Dydal writes of this god Absence as if the Whore were in love with it, but there is no god of Absence, and there has never been a god of Absence in the Trellish pantheon. Moreover, Dydal was her consort as well as her priest. They were in love.”

  “Wait,” Null said. “But how could they be in love if Dydal existed and the Whore did not?”

  The queen shrugged. “Stories, Null, that is how Trellish legends tell of it. But you may be right. I have always taken the girl in that verse to be the Whore, but it is possible the girl is someone else, especially since the Whore is a god, not a priest. You have read the book, much of it is as nonsensical and contradictory as that verse. To be honest, Null, I don’t know what it means, but the idea… hooked me. Trel has gods for everything. Sailing, law, travel, the arts, and for crafts and industry. But a priest of Nothing… It is not something I have ever considered, the idea of absence as a concept equal to all the others. I admit, Null… it has simply stuck with me, because of the power of the idea.”

  “But when I confronted you before, you said the title referred to a priest without an identity. It does not say that here.”

  The queen was silent for a few moments, her gaze pointed at her desk. “No…” the queen said, “it doesn’t. Call it… speculation on my part. As the idea stuck, my mind contemplated it, and it had been so long since I read the book, eventually I must have forgotten which ideas were mine and which I read in the text.”

  “So, my name is nonsense.”

  “No, Null, it is not. Your name has meaning to me, just as you-”

  The queen halted mid-sentence and shot to her feet, knocking over her stool and quiver. Scrolls slid out of the case and across the floor, but the queen did not seem to notice. Again, her eyes stared through the wall, as if she were staring out of a window Null could not see.

  “Oh gods,” she said, her words stricken with a terror Null had never before heard in her voice. “They are dying.” The queen charged across the room, leaving her things strewn across the floor, and threw open the door. Shocked, Null jumped from her chair and raced to follow.

  “Who?” Null asked. “Who is dying?”

  The queen glanced over a shoulder, her face the white of ash. “Not now, girl. Stay close, it will be safer at my side. Oh gods, why did I not realize? Oh, Erin.”

  Chills shivered through Null’s flesh. “Queen, please, what is wrong? What has happened to the king?”

  Mumbling, the queen ignored her and quickened her pace. Queen Tepa lifted her skirts and ran through the halls to the courtyard. Null gasped as she tried to keep up. She had never been much of a runner, not with her breathing.

  The queen charged into the courtyard and Null followed. When the queen stopped abruptly, Null had to dodge around her to avoid a collision. The queen stared into the sky. “Mother,” Tepa swore, “what is happening?” Red welts consumed the moon’s surface, dancing and swirling like a storm cloud in a hurricane.

  “What is it?” Null asked.

  A loud boom echoed from the library as the doors flew off their hinges and crashed into the courtyard. A man with brown hair and frantic eyes materialized in the doorway. In his arms, he carried Teachings of a Whore and upon his face, he wore a look of terror. As the man darted into the courtyard, another figure with a long wooden staff and the mask of an owl appeared in the doorway behind him, his hands reaching to grab the first man’s cloak. The fingers missed as the first man jumped away and rolled, springing back to his feet, and sprinting toward the corner gate. Oddly, there were no guards on watch.

  The owl man groaned as he set off to follow. When he vanished from the doorway, a third man wearing green and white robes – Priest Twil? But where is his mask? – sprinted from inside the library. Placing a hand upon the doorframe, Twil bent over and wheezed, his eyes widening as he followed the path of the two men. He cursed and set into a run.

  Null stood and watched, stunned by this odd performance.

  “Come back here, fiend!” the owl man shouted. Ropes sprang from his staff, rotating around their center like a Vandu bolas.

  The lead man glanced over his shoulder and yelped. And then a ball of fire shot from his hand, growing larger the farther it traveled, until it was large enough to devour the ropes in its crimson maw. The owl man swung his staff into the flames, driving the meteoric mass from its course. Null screamed as the fireball expanded, swirling like the flaming moon, and headed directly for her. Her mind blank from fear and surprise, Null shut her eyes. She did not know how to stop it. She had never seen such a thing. She threw up clenched fists and was swept off her feet by the detonation of blazing, orange light, and a wave of heat.

  Null blinked and rubbed her eyes to clear them of smoke and dancing stars. A fourth man, a twenty-something year-old with long black hair and a flat nose, stood over her, a yellowish half shell of light outstretched in front of him. The last tendrils of flame swept off the half shell’s edges and dissipated before the man let the yellow shell drop away.

  “Where did the other one go?” he asked.

  “Who?” Null asked, still reeling from her near death.

  “The old woman. The god. She disappeared the way Niece Kindrel does. Where would she have gone?”

  Null peeked over her shoulder. Queen Tepa was indeed gone. “I… I don’t know where she went. She was right beside me… The palace perhaps? What do you mean god?”

  “Bah,” the man said. “How could godkind as strong as you be as ignorant as the rest of these fools? The Farmhold was to be my sanctuary, and all I find are madmen, weaklings, and the dead. I had hoped those in this palace would at least be aware of themselves, and could lead me to Just, but you are as worthless as the rest.” The man turned and sprinted away, following the path of Priest Twil and the others.

  “Thank you,” she said, but her voice was strained by con
fusion and worry.

  Mumbling incoherent curses, the man seemed not to hear as he left through the corner gate. Null’s eyes wandered the courtyard. Scorched paving stones littered the remaining setts. Soot and smoke drifted in what had been a peaceful night sky. She coughed and her lungs grew heavy. The panic stirred, and within seconds, burgeoned into a prison; a vise gripping her lungs. Null fumbled at her chest, but she was too upset to make the magic work. The queen needed her, but movement only made her breathing worse. She lay on her back, closed her eyes, and drew heavy breaths through a throat like narrow reeds.

  “You are welcome,” Loy whispered as he turned the corner. He had seen the mage’s fear as the ball of fire had headed for her, and could not let her die. It was his moral duty to save her life. He had seen too much death tonight, and been blamed for too many atrocities. It was nice to be thanked for a kindness, even one so small as doing what was expected of any moral person. If he, a Second, could not show that kind of decency then the world was in trouble. She had been a mage, and perhaps he should have stayed longer to speak with her, but the other two had caught his interest.

  He was certain that it was her aura that had drawn him to the palace, but as he approached the gates, another had materialized within the stone silo, stronger than the woman; stronger than Kindrel, stronger even, than his father’s. He had always believed Father Order the most powerful of all the gods, but that masked man’s aura eclipsed his father’s. Feeling of numbers and tasting of papyrus, and riddled with the feel of humanity, the man’s aura had shocked him. Humanity, papers, and numbers. Morality, Law, and Reason. Though he had never heard of Just wearing the mask of an owl, he was certain it must be him, and even if it was not Just, the man was strong enough that he might know Just’s location. And if Loy could not catch him there would always be time to backtrack and speak with that other woman later.

  CHAPTER FORTY