Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One

by Justan Henner

  The afternoon sun was nearly blinding as she took her first step out into the world. She blinked the pain aside, hardly paying it any notice as she scanned the yard outside the Alchemist’s Wing. The once regal field used for relaxation and study had shrunk, the large expanse overlooking the western cliff filled by an overlarge, stone monstrosity that could only have been made by her sister Tyrena. With its moss-covered stone, high-steepled towers, and grand balconies, the sight of it jolted her to a stop.

  “What is that?” Sybil demanded.

  “Uhhh… what are you?”

  Sybil turned to the voice at her side. It was a Legion sentry, garbed in the red and black, same as she remembered, but for an owl insignia on his breast. That, at least, was a relief. If the Legion remained, then so did Just.

  “I am Sybil,” she said. “Where is Dydal?”

  “Excuse me?” the man asked.

  Sybil pursed her lips. She had forgotten, even Ivan hadn’t known Dydal’s real name. What was it Ivan called him?

  “Your leader…” Sybil tried. “The High…” Oh, what was it?

  The man gaped at her, his wide gaze wandering over her face and arms. “The Cleric, ma’am?”

  “Yes, that’s it, where is the High Cleric?”

  “He is away, ma’am, as he has been for the last two months.”

  “How about Ivan then?”

  “He is in the chapel, ma’am.”

  “The chapel?”

  The man pointed to the stone monstrosity which despoiled the once pristine view. The damned thing was so large she couldn’t even see the observatory on the adjacent hillside. Gods, what if the observatory’s gone? If he’s let her tear that down, I will kill them both.

  The man licked his lips then glanced away. “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you a god?”

  “Of course. I built this university. Now how would I go about getting into that disgusting wreck?”

  “Wreck, ma’am? You say you founded this university, so you are Mason, then?”

  Sybil glared at him. “What? No. I am the Alchemist. Tyrena did not found this university, but I imagine she built that… that… thing, yes?” Again, she pointed to the chapel.

  “Yes, ma’am.” The man frowned. “Ma’am, should I be calling you anything special? My lord perhaps? Or your godliness. I’ve never met one before, but the steward says that gods take their titles to be very important.”

  She answered him with a dismissive wave, still studying the massive chapel. “Alchemist will do.”

  Sybil was furious. She had explicitly forbid Tyrena from building here. Three times she had asked, and three times Sybil had told her absolutely not. The Alchemist’s University was a place of research, not some pedestal on which Tyrena could build one of her eyesores. It didn’t matter that the hilltops overlooking the city were a ‘prime location,’ Sybil had gotten here first. But that was just like Tyrena. Forbid her anything, and suddenly she must have it, just as she had tried to steal Rift from Galina. The damned girl had no proper respect for the boundaries of others.

  Sybil turned her gaze back to the guard. “What year is it?” she demanded.

  “Year, Alchemist?”

  “Yes, the year. When I left, it was the seven hundredth and fifty-second year since Just’s Referendum. I need to know how long I’ve been gone.”

  The man squinted. “Oh, well, I don’t know, Alchemist. I’ve never heard the years numbered before, but that sounds like a very good idea.”

  As she often did when she panicked, Sybil began to breathe. How could this man not know the year? Surely, he had to be uneducated, but that was truly baffling – since her university’s founding, Just had ever sent his soldiers to be educated, at least in the basics of mathematics and engineering. She had meant to save her questions for Dydal’s return, but it seemed she would have to get an early start on her interrogations, starting with this one.

  With morning tea in hand, Ivan stepped out into the daylight. After a busy few days helping Alchemist – and many sleepless nights – he had finally awoken refreshed. He had thought only the Cleric could give him as much grief as he’d felt the last few nights, but he had been mistaken. Sybil herself was not a problem, nor were her children, but her knowledge of the modern world seemed severely lacking. He had tried to correct her when she misspoke, but the trouble was, he was no longer sure of himself. Oftentimes, it was difficult to tell whether she was wrong, or if she simply knew secrets he did not.

  Too often, she would reveal some fact which conflicted with doctrine, and it was testing his faith. The prospect terrified him, for her appearance could shatter the priesthood’s very foundation. Doctrine would have to be rewritten, its errors corrected and clarified to realign with Sybil’s knowledge, but what would the peasantry say of that? Worse yet, how would his fellow priests respond? What if she revealed that the gods had never lived in the heavens? What if she demanded the Writ be reinstated? Such a simple act would create mass upheaval for the merchant class-

  Ivan halted as his eyes fell on the doors of the east wing. There she stood, a ruby goddess in bright daylight, a foot shorter than the legionnaire she berated. The massive Timur cowered before her raised voice, his eyes seeking desperately for escape. She was not screaming, but even from half the courtyard away, Ivan could hear her words.

  “What do you mean you do not know where Galina’s Land is? Have you never looked at a map?”

  Realizing his mistake, Ivan sighed. Each time they had needed something for their cleaning, such as the wheelbarrow and lanterns, Ivan had volunteered to retrieve it himself. Though it had taken them several days already, cleaning the Alchemist’s Wing of its buttons – and spiting the Cleric in the process – had been a worthy task for the steward, so he’d not thought to gather volunteers. They didn’t know of her. She hadn’t left the building, and he hadn’t thought to warn anyone of her arrival.

  With their smooth, crystalline skin, Sybil and her daughters were beautiful, but beautiful did not matter when it had no explanation except god or demon, especially when the people of Trel were fools completely dedicated to an idiot. Though it was true that she was a god, they wouldn’t believe it without their Cleric’s sanction, and already she was gathering a crowd of gawking priests.

  Ivan sipped his tea and strolled toward her, waving politely to those he passed. “Just another of the Cleric’s experiments,” he explained. “Go back to your day.” A few did. Most did not. For many, it had the opposite effect. Wearing amused grins, many of the damned blooders watched him now, instead of her – likely hoping to see how this supposed ‘experiment’ would blow up in his face, as the Cleric’s dealings often did.

  Hearing Ivan’s voice, Sybil turned to him with a curious frown. He took hold of her arm and pulled her away from the legionnaire. Ivan smiled as he turned his gaze on the young soldier. “Hello, Timur. Thank you for offering your aid. You may go defend the chapel now. Come, Sybil. Let us go back inside.”

  Timur’s face sank with relief, and as he turned away, Ivan had the impression he struggled not to run.

  Ivan lowered his voice as he led Sybil toward the east wing. “What are you doing outside?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?” she demanded. Her look was not approving.

  Realizing what he had said, Ivan winced. He offered her an apologetic look as he motioned to the doorway. It was not a conversation to have in public. Gods, it wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have at all. How would he explain to a god that she might be a burden on their faith?

  Her face was patient as she followed him inside. She looked thoughtful, her eyes focused on the point of her nose. “Ivan, what is wrong here?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean here, at the university. That man… he knew almost nothing. He thought that Mason founded this place. He did not know where Galina’s Land was. He lives on these grounds; how could he not know such things? He is a Legion soldier.”

  Ivan glanced at the door. Timur was the seventh son of
the Rorish Deacon. Since birth, he’d had a posting awaiting him in the Owl Guard, and the deacon had never seen the need in educating him. Even so, it was a fact Sybil did not need to hear. The problem she saw was far greater than the one man. It was the same problem he had noticed; they were from different times. She was ignorant of their culture, and they were ignorant of hers.

  The god breathed in quick, impatient breaths. “Ivan?” she asked. “How long have I been gone?”

  Her eyes were sad and afraid, her cheeks pale. He didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. The church had been founded more than four hundred years before, on a doctrine which claimed that the gods had left forever. Thus, surely she had been gone longer than those four hundred years.

  Ivan placed a gentle hand on her shoulder as he pointed down the hall to the chambers she called her own. “Perhaps we should discuss this in a more comfortable-”

  “Where is Tin?”

  “What?” Ivan asked.

  Ivan followed her gaze to the chamber at the end of the hall. One of her daughters stood over the wheelbarrow Ivan had given her, staring back at her mother with a look of horror.

  “Iri,” Sybil raised her voice, but from the girl’s look, she had already heard. “Where is Tin?”

  Ivan followed as Sybil rounded on her daughter.

  “I tried to stop her,” the child whined. “I told her to stay here, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Where did she go?”

  Iri pointed into the chambers behind her. “She went out the window.”

  Sybil ran to the window and threw open the drapes. The glass panes had broken long before Ivan’s reign as steward, but every few years, he made certain to replace the drapes in order to keep the room dry. He had never thought anyone would use them as a way in or out of these chambers – all at the university knew the Alchemist’s Wing was the Cleric’s alone.

  “I don’t see her,” Sybil said. “Ivan, I don’t see her.”

  Ivan glanced at the child beside him. The yellow eyes of an owl stared back at him from behind bluish-gray flesh. “Shouldn’t be hard to find,” he said.

  “You don’t sound worried. Why are you not worried?”

  Ivan held back the obvious retort, that her daughters’ freakish appearance made them highly noticeable. Instead, “She could not have gotten far.”

  Sybil rushed past him, grabbed her daughter’s hand, and raced into the hall. “We have to find her, Ivan. She knows nothing of Trel and its people.”

  Perhaps she was right. Perhaps Ivan should have been more worried, but strangely he was not. He had wondered how he would break this news to Trel – that a god had come amongst them – but it was quickly becoming a lost cause. As he had learned over his many years of babysitting the High Cleric, sometimes it was best to simply let things happen. And perhaps his recent weeks of freedom had made him lazy, but any solution which allowed him to simply sit back and watch sounded like the right one.

  Ivan turned to follow her. If the citizenry did happen to panic in the streets, it would be difficult to claim he had tried to stop it if he didn’t at least accompany her.

  Kindrel paced the deck of her ship, glancing occasionally to the river mouth. It had not been long enough for Quill and Loy to have reached Dekahn and then returned, but she was growing impatient nonetheless.

  She should not have left them. She had a responsibility to her children and her crew, but she hated herself for what she had done. The prospect of facing the Fatereader a second time had terrified her, and she didn’t have it in her to do so, not after the first time. Quill was more than capable, he was skilled in almost everything he tried, and she knew that he would be safe – knew that as much as Fate hated her, that Fate would never harm her precious Quill – but the worry was driving her mad. Kindrel wished that she had stayed with them, if only to be at his side, and to know what was happening, even if it was bad.

  She was slow to react, she knew she was. Ever since she was a girl, she had always done what made her most comfortable, it was why she had been apprenticed so many years after the other younglings, but this time, she had made the wrong choice. From the late spring storms outside the harbor, to the burning moon in the sky, it seemed that the world was imploding. It had been too many years since her life had been truly challenged, and she had forgotten what was important to her. If the world was descending into mayhem, she wanted to face it at Quill’s side.

  The midmorning sun shone in her eyes as she leaned over the rail to look into the city. Though bright and sunny here in Trel, the western skyline was a wall of dark gray storm clouds. As much as she had hoped to avoid it, Minnerva had been forced to dock in Trel’s harbor.

  “What is that?” a small voice asked.

  Kindrel glared down at a tiny monster on the dock below. With ash colored skin and demonic eyes, the creature stood at the ship’s base, staring up at its oaken side with a perplexed frown. The creature – a child she supposed – was adorable with its heart-shaped face and bright, wide eyes. And then the thing blinked, its outer lids stationary as a thin translucent film dropped over her eye and then receded.

  An apt question, Kindrel thought.

  “Who are you, child?” She could feel the girl’s weak aura, so she knew the child was one of their kind, but she had never seen anything like her. There were godkind to the far east, past the bloodied shores of Atherahn, who practiced extreme forms of body manipulation, but this girl was not as… exotic as the Genscari.

  “Tin,” the girl said.

  “And where do you come from?”

  “Mother’s swamp.” The translucent eyelids blinked a second time.

  “Sounds…” Kindrel searched for the right word. “Quaint.” It really didn’t. “Who is your mother?”

  The child frowned. “Uhm… I think she said Sybil.”

  Kindrel paused. “The Alchemist?” It seemed the world truly was changing – hopefully for the better.

  The girl nodded.

  Kindrel glanced at the gangway then back to the girl. “Where is she now, Tin?”

  Tin’s face darkened, a touch of light pink blooming on her gray cheeks as she broke their gaze.

  Kindrel sighed as she crossed to the gangway and dropped it to the pier. “Well, you had better come aboard, then. Have you ever seen a ship before?”

  Tin’s mouth spread to a wide grin.

  “Sure, I saw her,” the thatcher said. “Asked me what I was doing, and when I explained I was fixing that roof there, she got bored and wandered off.”

  “Do you know which way she went?” Sybil asked.

  “Yup, she asked me what there was to see in Trel, and I figured she meant monuments, so I told her about the university, the plaza, and Sailor’s Wharf. She asked what a wharf was, and I said it’s where the ships docked, and she asked me what a ship was, and I said it’s a boat that goes on the ocean, and she asked me what the ocean was, so by then I was tired of all the questions, so I told her to go look for herself, and that’s what she did.”

  “And how long ago was this?”

  The thatcher shifted the nail he chewed from one corner of his mouth to the other. “About an hour ago. Say, is you and them some kind of god, miss? I mean I saw that skin of hers and the first thing I thought was, well that’s right strange, I’ve never seen a seal this far inland before, and then I looked farther over the edge of that roof and saw she’s got arms and legs, too, and I figured, well that must be one of them newfangled gods, you know the kind the Smith’s Cult been talkin’ about coming here recently and-”

  Ivan fidgeted beside her. “The Smith’s Cult has been discussing gods returning to Trel?”

  “Well sure, ever since the Cleric came down about two or three days ago, telling us the Smith himself’s been reborn up north, and that he’ll be coming back soon to usher Trel into a new golden era. Even claims he’s the one made all that nice new metal coming out of Riften and that he ain’t no blooder or nothing.”

  Sybil regarded Ivan w
ith a disapproving look. They had trailed Tin’s path across half of Trel for almost three hours now, and it was no time for theological discussions.

  “Well thank you, sir,” Sybil interjected. “You’ve been a great help.” Yanking Ivan’s wrist, she led both her children – the ten-year-old and the steward – toward the docks.

  “See?” Ivan said. “I told you there’s little to worry about. Your daughter is fine.”

  “She is headed for the docks, Ivan. I do not know the last time you’ve gone there, but last I did, it was not a place for children.”

  “Nor young, idealistic historians,” he sighed. “Still, what is the worst that can happen? She might stumble across some badmouthed sailor, or an unsanctioned whore? Even if she stumbles upon the wrong types, they will be too frightened, or in awe of her, to do anything about it.”

  “But what if they are not, Ivan? She is young-”

  “Mother, what’s an unsanctioned whore?” Iri asked.

  Sybil glared at the steward. His answer was dispassionate. “It is a whore who is not a member of the priesthood.”

  “Like grandma?”

  Sybil held Ivan’s gaze. “Yes, daughter, like grandma.”

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about this steward. He had a kind heart, but his idea of service was rather tongue-in-cheek, as if this entire ordeal amused him. It almost reminded her of Just, who was never able to take anything seriously, but she and Just were familiar, and this man was not.

  Oh, Sybil chided. You are being unfair. It is not his fault that Tin disobeyed. He has offered his time on several occasions, and without asking for a thing in return.

  If she were being truly honest, her real problem was the shock of what Trel had become. For three hours, they had followed Tin’s path, through narrow streets packed with dirty, uneducated masses, past garbage ridden alleyways – often filled with bodily waste despite the sewer system which had existed even before she was born – and poorly maintained buildings. Much of the city had become a slum, and its people a disgrace. Before she had left, the literacy rate was near seventy percent, now she predicted it nearer to one in five. The thatcher they’d just passed had been one of the more educated Sybil had met today, in that he had displayed some basic knowledge of geometry in his roofing techniques. She was beginning to fear that her family was truly gone, and that their fall had led to the devolution of culture and intelligence.