“So,” Trin continued. “That brings us to where we are, Jem. You want my help to be happy. Fine. I want to help, but we’re going to make a deal. Taehrn’s a damned fool, but even fools have got some worthwhile ideas in their heads. A friendship is about helping one another, and that’s what we’re going to do. You help me and I’ll help you.”
Jem frowned. “Of course, Trin. Why wouldn’t I?”
“No,” Trin winced. “Don’t be saying that now. Don’t be saying it yet. You say it now and it’s like I’ve cheated you. You told me everything about yourself, now I’ve got to tell you everything about me. Otherwise, you’re agreeing to a bad deal and I’m not that kind of merchant, Jem.” She bit her lower lip as her gaze trailed away from his.
“So then,” Jem said. “What is it you haven’t told me?”
Trin’s attention snapped back. She looked at him then nodded before crossing to sit on the cot beside his. She placed a hand on his knee. “All right, here it is. That story I told you. The one about the old witch, the scryer, it wasn’t fake.”
“So?” Jem asked. “What’s that matter? You sat to tea with a priest.”
“No, Jem, I mean she wasn’t fake. And over the years, I’ve come to learn she wasn’t no witch either. She was a god.”
“A god?” Jem asked.
“Yes. It’s true, Jem. There’s a reason Taehrn, Bell, and I decided to go there. ‘Cause people called it the ghost house. There was supposed to be the ghost of an old scryer there, one who either died or left when the Cleric came to Trel fifty years before. Taehrn and me, we thought it was a joke, but it was a funny one, right? Because Bell was just a kid, and at that age he was gonna believe anything, so we thought we’d give him a good scare. Well, like I said, he wouldn’t go near the place, and when we got there, neither would Taehrn, so I had to show them what’s what. Anyway, you know the rest. The point is, that witch wasn’t supposed to be there. The house was supposed to be abandoned fifty years before, but it wasn’t.”
“So, the rumors were wrong? That doesn’t make her a god.”
Trin shook her head. “They weren’t wrong, Jem. I went back. At first, I’d thought she was just screwing with me ‘cause I’d ruined her evening, but then I started thinking about it, and it started bugging me, so I went back. She wasn’t there, Jem. The little cottage was empty, covered in a thick dust, cobwebs everywhere – you know the deal. She wasn’t there, and she hadn’t been for a long time. A lot longer than the two weeks I spent brooding over the stuff she’d said.”
Jem frowned. “It’s odd… but it’s not proof she’s a god. Maybe it was just a ghost, Trin. Or a demon maybe.”
She scowled at him. “What? You believe in spirits and demons, but you won’t believe it was a god? Don’t you pay attention to doctrine? The gods are everywhere, scheming and plotting to ruin people’s lives.”
“What?” Jem laughed. That was not the doctrine he had read.
“It’s true,” she said. “Just look at the story of Just. He and the Mother live a simple life back in Trel, being worshipped far and wide in their little fishing shack, and then the next thing you know, they’re ruling the whole blooding peninsula, their fingers, and their family in every city and every nation. Think of the people you know who’ve got ambitions like that. Think of Taehrn. They don’t just give that shit up lightly.”
Again, Jem laughed.
“Don’t laugh,” Trin said. “Think about it. Just last night you were telling me the gods saved your life. That they pitied you. Well, if they can interfere in your life, why not in mine?”
“Well, sure,” Jem said, “they can interfere, but why would they want to control you?”
“Well, they don’t. At least, not all of them… That’s just the kind of god Fate is.”
“Fate?”
“The witch. That’s her name. She’s a god, an old one.”
“I’ve never heard of her.”
“No,” Trin said. “Neither had I. When I first set out to find her – to find out how to stop what she’d done to me – I didn’t know her name.”
“‘What she did to you?’” Jem was skeptical. Trin seemed a rational person, and maybe, given his own childhood, he should have been more open to the idea, but it just seemed mad. But… but that was the thing. Trin wasn’t emotional. She didn’t sound delusional. She spoke as if these things were facts she had accepted long ago.
“Yes, Jem. She… has been using me. My whole life, she has been using me to get what she wants. You… you remember the story of that baby? Of the courtesan I found in the woods south of Lane?”
“Of course.”
“Fate sent me there.”
“She told you to meet that courtesan?”
“No. Nothing like that. The god doesn’t work that way… She… The woman… the courtesan said as much. I didn’t know then who she meant, I hadn’t discovered Fate’s name until after the fact. But looking back, I know for certain. Remember what the courtesan said? She said that she had made a deal with Fate, and that Fate had told her I would come. The courtesan knew I was coming. I sure as shit didn’t, but the courtesan did.”
“Trin… can we start at the beginning?”
Trin sighed. “Where do you want me to start, Jem?”
“Well, you said you went looking for Fate. Why? And how do you know that this woman you met is really a god?”
Trin closed her eyes and nodded. “Right,” she said. “Right. I’ll go back to the beginning. Back to when I was still living in Trel.” Trin paused as she stared at the ceiling. After a short while, she licked her lips then met his gaze. “Like I said, at first I thought the old scryer was just messing with my head because I’d ruined her evening, but then I started noticing stuff… Stuff that wasn’t normal, that went along with the thing she’d said about bringing death into the world.
“You see, at about the end of that first week, I was down at the docks with my father, at the tavern where he met with all the ship captains who ran his crews. Well, one of them cheated him. Downright stole the ship and all the cargo on it. It about ruined my father, and even though the priesthood was obligated to do something about it, they just weren’t interested because a lot of those men and women still knew my father as the man they’d imprisoned for skirting the Writ twenty years before.
“Anyway, I was worried, and upset, so I wished the man dead, and the next day he was. Heart just burst. And I know, that sounds like a coincidence, and that’s what I thought too, but then it started to get to me, because I kept running that witch’s words through my head… so I went to see her again and that’s when I found she wasn’t there. Well, then I started paying attention, and that sort of thing was happening all over the place. People I’d known just started dying without good reason, people who I was coming into contact with every day.”
“But Trin… don’t you think that maybe that’s… just the normal flow of life? You were seeing people die around you because people die. It’s a normal thing.”
“Sure, and that’s what I kept telling myself. But the older I got, the more I noticed it, and the more it seemed that it was coming from me.”
“But maybe that’s because you were looking for it?” Jem asked.
“Oh, now you sound like Bell and Taehrn. All right, then let’s pretend that’s so. Let’s pretend that these people around me are just dying because it’s natural. Then how come it got worse the older I got? How come the older I got, the more people I knew that were dying?”
“Because they were getting older too,” Jem said
Trin shook her head. “No, Jem. You don’t understand. I told myself that, too, but… but there are moments in my life where that deal I made with Fate takes on too literal a meaning. Like what happened with me and Taehrn.”
“What…”
“I’m barren, Jem. I can’t have children. Like the witch said, it is my fate to bring death into the world. And that’s exactly what I do. You see, Jem, you can draw a line from me to every major, ca
tastrophic event in Trellish history for the last twenty years. The Gableman’s Riots? I was there. Shortly before the tyrant put himself in power, I met him in an inn. He was just a dockworker then, but he and I sat down and had a meal together. You know what he said to me? He said he was happy. He said that he loved his life. That it was simple and clean, that he knew exactly what he had to do every day to make sure he and his family got fed, and that he liked that. Well, me? I had to open my big mouth. I had to ask him, ‘Well aren’t you upset that Gable’s deacon is Trellish? Don’t you think that’s odd even though you’re supposed to be a part of Trellahn now, that Gable don’t get to represent itself?’
“Of course, I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just something I’d noticed while I was down there, you know because all the deacons in Trel itself were local, and it was the kind of thing my father was always talking about, having lived through the Writ and all… Well, he frowns at me – the tyrant that is – and the whole rest of the night he’s all quiet. The next thing I know, I hear he’s slaughtered that deacon, taken his estate, and is calling himself the High Cleric of Gable. I did that Jem. Me. It’s like it was all there waiting for me, like the whole situation, him, his personality, the unrest in Gable, it’s like the whole of it was set up for me to make that one stupid comment and set it all into motion. And you know why? Because it was fated, Jem. Because that is what Fate does. That is what she’s always done.”
“It still seems…”
“Coincidental? I know, Jem, and maybe if it were just that one thing, I’d agree with you. But it has happened over and over. Look at this war here. It’s got my prints all over it, Jem.”
Jem glared at her. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Two months before all this happened, I went into the Cleric’s library to steal a book. I’ve been researching this for years. Going all over the world, from here to the Horn, to the farthest parts of Lock, and I even tried to get into Gellin, looking for proof of what I already knew, looking for evidence of Fate. Well, I finally found it. There’s an old book I found in Settin, one they keep on display in the Settish Conclave that’s supposed to be proof of Just’s existence. It’s a book called Just’s Fables, and it’s got a whole bunch of stories in it. They’re supposed to be tall tales, a bunch of allegories written by the god himself, but one of them explained exactly what I’d seen as a child; an old woman with a cane, who lives in a small cottage and offers deals to mortals, who promises rewards in exchange for tasks, but the problem is the task is rarely what she says. Well, it called the woman the Fatereader. Sometimes, just Fate.”
“That… that is strange.”
“Isn’t it?” Trin said. “Of course, Bell doesn’t believe me. He says I’m just fitting events to what I want to believe while ignoring all the things that contradict my beliefs, but it was right there, Jem, written down by Just himself. Well, the book gave me a name for her. And once I had it, I realized that Fate had been guiding other parts of my life, parts which I had thought normal. Like that courtesan. For some reason, Fate sent me to her, probably to deliver that child.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, Jem… but I’m sure it’s true.”
“But aren’t you supposed to cause death? You saved that child.”
“I… I know. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not the same as everything else Fate has done to me… But the courtesan said that boy was important to her. She talked about being unable to do what Fate does, said it was too cruel to raise him so that he would be what she wanted. She also said that I was supposed to accomplish something, Jem… And I think about what Fate said, and I think that was it… I think I was the replacement.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, that courtesan… she said that she had been trying to make the child into something, something that she had tried to create several times before, and that she had failed, but that I wouldn’t. She said that I would accomplish what she had failed to do, said it like Fate had told her so… And I think, Jem… I think it’s because of the deal I made with Fate. She said I’d be a god… And I think I know what god she wants me to be… I’m going to be Death, Jem.”
“What are you talking about? There is no god of Death.”
“Not yet. But there will be. You see, after I found Fate’s name, I kept looking. It took a long time, but eventually, I convinced Bell to help me. Well, he did, Jem. In his studies as a legionnaire, he found a book in the Cleric’s library which mentioned Fate. Problem was, the library’s private. Priesthood only, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to join a cult and wait all those years in the hopes of proving myself worthy of joining the priesthood. Or worse, marrying into it. No thanks. No way.”
“Wait… the book in the Cleric’s library? You mean the one you desecrated?”
Trin nodded, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a scrap of paper. It was the page. The same page she cried over at night… Jem shivered. What could it say that upset her so badly?
“My plan was to go in, steal the book and leave. I snuck in through a window, found the book and the passage I wanted, but when I went to leave, someone had closed the window behind me. When I tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. Not one of those windows would open, not one. Problem is, I uhh… hadn’t told Bell what I had planned to do, and there’s guards all over that place. Owl Guard like Bell, whose sole job is to kill anyone that might be a threat to the High Cleric. Well, the window was locked, and I knew I couldn’t break it or else I’d risk someone hearing the noise and killing me on sight, so I figured the safest route was to let some priest find me instead of some guard… But well, that presented the problem of taking the book out with me… so I spent half the night reading, and when I found the passage I needed, I stole the page and… well, you know, I had to hide my theft somehow. I couldn’t have them tracking me down because there was a page missing. Better they thought the book had been ruined by some drunk.”
“But what does this have to do with the war?” Jem asked.
“Well, the High Cleric decided the best way to solve the issue was to send me to Lock to procure another copy. He gave me a letter asking for the original kept in Dekahn, the Lockish said no, and as soon as I get back, this war’s started.”
“So then…” Jem began. “What does the page say?”
Trin sighed as she sagged forward. “Exactly what I didn’t want to know, Jem.” Trin held the page out to him. “It confirms everything. Fate’s existence, the task she set out for me, the end result. I have a destiny, Jem, and it’s not a good one.” She thrust the page closer. “Go ahead. Take a look.”
Jem was hesitant to do as she said, but her gaze was insistent. He took the page from her and unfolded it slowly. The language was cryptic, as if it had been intended as poetry that hadn’t quite hit the mark, but it read like doctrine. As he read, Trin hovered over him, pointing to passages and then reading them aloud.
“See?” she said. “Look here. ‘From the moment Fate met Death as a child, she and Death were two forces opposed and intertwined, one dependent upon the other, each the other’s foil.’ And look here: ‘Death is young, too young to know what she is, but the Reader has read the girl’s fate, and knows her future. She is to bring Death into the world.’ It’s just like the story I told you, Jem.”
And it was, but the language was vague, vague enough that it might describe anyone. There was no guarantee that it spoke of Trin specifically… And yet with all the other details, he believed her. It was a single sentence which convinced him she was right: ‘She is to bring Death into the world.’ The sentence was too specific. It was word for word what the witch had reportedly told Trin she must do. It was possible the details of Trin’s story had changed after she had read this page, but he had heard her retell several stories, again and again, and they were consistent every time she told them. He didn’t think she was crazy, or that she would lie to him about something so serious. She might not be right, but he had to trust her judgment.
> “See, Jem,” Trin said. “That’s why I need your help. You and I, we’re unique. We’ve lived through situations most people wouldn’t believe, but you, you can do things I can’t. The gods have given you a gift, Jem. That magic you’ve shown me. I don’t think it is a coincidence that you and I have come together like this, but I think you and I can help each other. I can help you find happiness, and you can help me figure out how to break this curse.”
Jem glanced at the page then back to her before he answered. Her enthusiasm worried him. It seemed too… passionate, too overconfident, like the passion existed only to compensate for a darker truth which lie underneath the surface.
“I don’t know how I can help, Trin. I can use the Well, but I don’t really know how it works. It kind of just… responds.”
“That’s okay,” Trin said. “It doesn’t have to be an easy task. I don’t expect it to be, and maybe we won’t even need it, but you know the kind of stuff I’ve lived through, because you’ve lived similar things yourself. That’s why I had to tell you, Jem. Are you willing to help?”
“I…” That enthusiasm nagged at him. Irrational was the word. It seemed irrational. But this was Trin. Wouldn’t he do anything for her?
Jem bowed his head. “Of course, Trin. I don’t know what I can do, but I’m willing to try.”
“Good. In that case, I promise to do everything and anything I can to help you, too. But I want the same promise from you. Anything and everything. I need you to promise.”
“Of course.”
She nodded. “Good. Read that again, then.” She pointed to the page. “I need a fresh pair of eyes on it. I’ve worked some things out, and I’ve got some theories on it, but I want your opinions before I go telling you anything else. How’s that sou-”
“Excuse me, Miss Cavahl.”
Jem’s head swiveled to the entryway. A young soldier, one about Jem’s age, poked his head into the tent.
“Sorry to interrupt, but the First Legionnaire is requesting his scribe’s presence.”
Trin scowled. “All right, tell him he’ll be right there.”
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 116