Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One

by Justan Henner

  “I…” Jem’s words caught in his chest. “Trin… How could I?” he asked. “How could I, Trin?”

  She shrugged. “Think about it, Jem. If you knew that you would continue hurting others, wouldn’t you want to stop yourself? Wouldn’t you want to spare them?”

  He did want to spare them, but that was why he needed her. She was the person who could help him be happy. If he had forgiven the Legion, tonight’s events would not have happened. Trin was the only one who would help him find happiness. She had promised.

  “But I need you.” Jem took a step closer. She grabbed his hand and held it in both of hers.

  “You don’t, Jem. I’m what’s holding you back. Once I’m gone, Fate will have no way to reach you. Once I’m gone, then she can’t make me into Death, and she can’t hurt anyone else.”

  “But what if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not.”

  “How do you know?”

  Her smile was sad, but it was confident too. “It just makes sense,” Trin said.

  Jem sniffed. “It doesn’t make sense, Trin.”

  She lifted his chin and flashed him a wide smile. “You know it does,” she said.

  “But… but what if… what if…” He nodded in spite of his protestations. The life he’d lived was too cruel to be a child’s destiny. Something had gone wrong. Someone had interfered.

  “I know why you’re here, Jem.”

  Jem met her eyes. “What?”

  “I know why all this has happened to you… I know why we were brought together. And… and I know how.”

  “What do you mean, Trin?”

  “Fate wants to make me into Death… But the other gods… I… I spoke to one of them.”

  “To a god?”

  “Yes. He wore the body of a man I had killed, but it was Just. It was the god of Justice, and he confirmed everything that I had ever believed. Proved to me that I was right, and showed me for a fact, that you were the baby I placed into the deacon’s arms.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “He came just now, while you were with Taehrn. He wore the clothes of a courtesan, but it was Just, in the flesh of the man I killed just before you and I met.”

  “You… killed?”

  Trin glanced away. “Yes, Jem. As I’ve said… Fate is making me into what she wants. She probably knew I wouldn’t become what she wanted on my own, so she’s easing me into it. She gave me a reason to kill, a reason to defend myself, but that’s not important. The gods brought him back to life, and I think they’ve done the same for you, just like you’ve said, and I think I know why.”

  “Why?”

  “For exactly the same reason Just came to me. To stop me. To stop Fate. Think about it… He used that soldier to convince me that I’ve got to do this. To show me that it’s the only way. Well, you’re another of my victims. Why else would you and I have found each other again? What kind of coincidence is that, that I would meet you after placing you into your father’s arms? The gods have guided us together in order to stop Fate. That man, the god of Justice, he told me what I have to do, told me plain as day, that this was the only moral thing to do.”

  Jem glanced at the dried blood on his arm. He thought of the courtesan who had bumped into him as he left the tent. “Was he wearing white robes patterned in green?”

  “How’d you know?” Trin asked.

  “I…” Jem paused. “Something isn’t right, Trin.”

  “You’re blooding right about that, Jem. Fate is trying to make me into Death, but the other gods don’t want that. She used me to corrupt the lives of others, and that’s what happened to you. She used my life to spread Death, to put death into other’s lives. Like yours. Like your father’s. To kill those miners and your uncle. Fate has immersed us both in death. She has made both of us into killers. But you… I think you were supposed to be something different.”

  “Different?”

  “Of course. Think about it. I met your mother, and… and I thought she wanted to hurt you, but what if I was wrong? Maybe she wasn’t going to kill you. Maybe she had you on that altar because she knew you were special, and she was going to make it so. I think that’s what it was, Jem. That courtesan thought she was giving you a better life by handing you over to Indaht, but my curse ruined it. Because Fate made her believe that it was so. You were supposed to be with your mother. You were supposed to live a happy life as the son of a courtesan, but Fate and I swept you up and chewed you whole. We put you with your father instead. Fate wanted to kill you and maybe she succeeded, but just like the courtesan outside… maybe the gods brought you back and guided you here to stop me.”

  “But what if I’m here for another reason? What if they’ve manipulated us just the same as Fate?”

  “Then this is the way we stop it, Jem, by stopping me. If there is no Death, then the gods go back to normal. It’s just like Bell said. Ever since I desecrated that book, it’s like everyone’s been stirred into a frenzy, the Cleric, the Grand, the Magistrate and Taehrn… But if my actions did that to them, what did it do to the gods? I’m Death, Jem, and I’ve got to be stopped. It’s the only way the gods will stop meddling in your life.”

  “But maybe there’s another way.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “You said there might be. That’s why you gave me the page, isn’t it?”

  “I lied. The page says only one thing, that I am fated to bring death into the world if I’m not stopped, and that only death can stop me. When I gave it to you, I already knew the way, I just didn’t want to do it.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Look at it,” Trin said. “Look at it, and see for yourself.”

  “I don’t want to,” he whined. He was afraid to. What if she spoke the truth?

  “You have to.”

  Again, he shook his head. “Is this why you made me promise to do anything I could to help you?” he asked. “Was this why?”

  “No, Jem, I thought I’d do it myself if it came to it, but I can’t. I’m not asking this to hurt you. I just can’t do it on my own. I’m desperate.”

  “I still won’t do it.”

  She shrugged. “Then I’ll find someone who will,” she said. “Or maybe I’ll just wander out into the rot, I’ll wear a Legion tabard, and I’ll wait for someone to find me, and I’ll hope they do it quick. Or maybe I’ll finally find the courage to do it myself. It doesn’t matter, because I’ve decided. It’s inevitable, Jem.”

  Mouth ajar, he stared at her. For several seconds, he just stared at her. “But what if there’s another way?” he asked again.

  “Then I would have found it. I’ve searched for fifteen years. This is all there is, and it says it plain as day. Only by dying can I be stopped. The gods have confirmed it. Just himself has confirmed it.”

  Jem pursed his lips as he studied the carpet.

  “Where is it, Jem?” Trin asked. “Where’s the page? I can show you again if you don’t believe me.”

  He didn’t answer her. He kept his eyes on the floor.

  Trin searched his pockets until she found it at his breast. Without acknowledgement, she unfolded it and read aloud. She pointed out the phrases he didn’t want to hear, explained why this was the only thing that could be done.

  As she spoke, Jem cherished her voice. He wanted to remember it, even that sad determination which convinced him she would find a way to die, even if he did not grant her request.

  Trin didn’t repeat the threat a second time. She didn’t have to. It stuck with him as she read the page, and with each word she spoke, he pictured a different way that it could happen. That determination would make her life miserable, because she would dedicate herself to finding another way to die. How many times would he have to walk into this tent fearful that this time she would be gone or dead?

  And did it really matter? The Lockish Guard was already here. If he did not grant her request, she would die tonight anyway because of what he had done. Better he killed
her quick than she live her final moments at a soldier’s mercy.

  “Okay,” Jem said.

  His answer didn’t excite her. When he finally consented to the deed, she didn’t celebrate as though she’d won some heated contest, she simply offered him a resigned smile and a sad nod, as if it were the answer she had expected all along.

  “Thank you, Jem.”

  With his hand still held in hers, she leaned past him and retrieved the knife. She turned his palm so it faced the ceiling, then placed the knife in his hand. Trin pushed his fingers around the hilt.

  “I won’t hold it against you,” she said. “If there’s something after this, I won’t regret it, or haunt you for it or anything like that. I’ll be happy, and I’ll be at peace, because I’ll know that you did it because I asked, and because you loved me.”

  He felt empty. Every fiber of him wanted to protest, but he had nothing else to say. It was protest without purpose, because he believed what she said. He had that feeling again, that feeling of just vindication he’d had when he killed his father, and it told him that what she said was right.

  “I do love you, Trin.” He thought of that story, of what she had said about his mother. “And I don’t care if she was trying to kill me. I had you instead. Even if only for a short while.”

  She laughed a short, awkward laugh, one that blinked tears from her eyes. Trin hugged him, and for a long time, they said nothing. Jem held back his tears as best he could.

  From the beginning, he should have seen this coming. Taehrn had spoken the truth. Jem was a killer, it was things like this that he was meant for, but the Well was correct also; to be a killer need not mean he could not grant mercy. If this is what Trin wanted, then Jem would do it.

  “How…” Jem tried. His voice broke, and he had to start again. “How do you want me to do it?”

  Trin held his arms as she leaned back to look at him. She was taller than him. He’d never noticed it before, but she was taller. “I hadn’t thought about it,” she said. She held up a finger to forestall him. “Oh. But before we talk about that, I have something I need to give you.”

  There was something he had learned from his days at Liv, and from those hours spent confronting Elyse, and from those days after his father’s death – from all those troubled moments which had broken him thoroughly, from witnessing the pain of the miners, to those hours of silent agony as he watched Elyse cry on the floor, unable to speak, and to those days of wanting to die, but forcing himself not to end it: that the suspense would be the worst part, both for him and for her.

  Letting go of his arms, she turned and took a step toward the chest at her bedside. Raising the knife, he acted before she had time to notice. With a quick but gentle hand, he grabbed her chin and held it back as he drew the blade across her throat. As the shock stole her legs, he dropped the knife and caught her, then eased her to the floor, to lie on that fine, comfortable rug.

  If he hadn’t done it right away, then he never would have. His doubts would have plagued him, and eventually, he would have broken down, and he would have cried, and they would have had the same conversation again and again until he finally relented. This way, she wouldn’t have to wait, she wouldn’t have to worry or fear, or second guess. She could just die, without the pain and sorrow of wondering when it would come or if it ever would.

  He cried as he did it and he cried after. Once she was on the floor, he put the pillow from her cot behind her head, and then went around her so that she could see his face. She didn’t convulse like Lu, or jerk like Taehrn, or scream in agony like his father. She just lay there on the floor with a confused frown, which as her neck bled and her eyes lulled, slowly turned to a warm smile. He used the Well to take the pain from her, and he was certain she knew it, because her smile said so.

  Jem held her hand, and her touch was kind. She squeezed his palm in a reassuring way, and he squeezed back, unable to hide his sobbing. She watched him until she could no longer, and he forced himself to meet that gaze, to make her know that he was with her for this, and that he always would be. He wanted her to know that he didn’t hate her, that he understood why she had asked this of him; even though it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

  In the night that follows, the boy will dig a hole. He has no shovel, just his hands, the Well, and a woodsman’s knife. The blood on the blade mixes with the blood of the earth, and together, dirt and mud fall in clumps. It cleans the blade. A blade he knows. He does not know how, but it is the same knife he took with him when he left his home weeks before, and he wonders who it was that guided it all to this. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the gods have toyed with him.

  From outside his meager temple of four canvas walls, the boy will hear the horns in the chaos. They will sing of defiance, and then of failure and retreat. He will hear the men shouting, and the men dying, and the horses that whicker and bite as they kill with their riders.

  Fires will spread throughout the camp, from torch to canvas, then from tent to tent, but it will not reach him. There are flames outside already, flames of his own creation. Though the Legion dies, he needs his privacy, and as he digs his hole, those fires guard him.

  Already, he doubts himself. Already, he regrets what he has done. He does not dig a grave, but a well. One has brought him back, so it can for her. When he moves her body, the magic tries to make its claim, but the boy stops it. It was never her fate to be Death, it was only her fate to bring him into the world. And now she has.

  Late in the night, the boy finds her parting words. They are scribbled on the back of a bank note, signed from her to him. It is the same note she has mentioned before, the price of an ox and a wagonload of supplies. The words are simple, but they make him laugh, and then they make him cry, because they remind him of her.

  “You are not your wounds,” her last note says. “Stop being a whiney bitch.”

  He looks at the hole he has dug, and the body within it, and he says his goodbyes. She is dead, but he must go on. She died for him, to break the curse which held his soul, and he will not tarnish her memory by giving up. In the days that come, he will find happiness, so that even if she does not live on, her spirit will.

  The soldiers will hear his cries and it will frighten them. The magic and the anger both, keep the guardsmen back. They speak of the tent as they would speak of the rot, or of any other hell.

  And the boy will not know that he has gotten his wish. Trin has done for him exactly what he wanted. She has fixed him. She has given him an aspect. She has made him the god of Death.

  Outside, two gods sit in judgment. One a Heckler, the other blind Conviction. They sit beneath a tree, the lone tree in a field of green. It is a scene they find familiar, a treasured home the two find comfort in, but tonight, there is comfort for one only.

  They watch the tent and its ring of fire as flames spread through the camp. His soldiers die, but Conviction does not care; he is too focused on his own resolve. In the west, he feels his newest servant. The legionnaire has led a retreat, thinking for now that he is safe, not knowing what he has lost. The god will not be the one to tell him.

  “Do you not love the poetry?” Conviction asks. “Despite all my planning, all my words and worry… it is not she that kills herself. Instead, it falls to him, to that boy… to one of her many victims. And you say that you have controlled all, you say that I have reason to doubt, but how could you make such claims? How could you, when before you sits all the proof you need that I cannot be beaten? When before you sits justice in its truest form: a villain slain by him she’s harmed.”

  “You are a bastard,” the heckler says.

  “Then let this be a lesson. I will not be trifled with. Take from me, and I will take from you.”

  The heckler scoffs. “Do not be so certain that you have won. You must realize what he is.”

  “Yes, and I realize you used Wilt in a last, desperate effort to make it happen. But here I am, ready to end this, despite all your scheming. It’s o
ver.”

  “Is it?” the heckler asks.

  Conviction does not answer, but stands and leaves the protection of his hallowed boughs. He sets his sight upon the tent below and the god of Death within. The heckler stands but does not follow. The shadows lengthen at his feet. He could not save Trin, but he has one last gambit.

  “Would you like to know what deal your Mother made for him?”

  Conviction continues on, pretending that he’s heard nothing. His feet cross the flaming threshold; the tent and the boy inside are nearly within his reach.

  “A life free of Fate,” the heckler says. “The boy can have no fating. She cannot interfere.”

  Conviction pauses, the flames licking at his boots. “That means nothing.”

  “It means everything.”

  “He is Death.”

  “Yes. But he is Death without a fate.”

  “Yet it does not matter. This boy will be the same as that which came before.” Conviction turns back to the tent and begins to reach. His shadow dances upon the temple.

  “For just one moment,” the Heckler says, “see the world through my eyes. You killed Death, and you brought the Call. Fear of some worse result has kept you from killing Fate. You know that I speak true.”

  Conviction glowers, but his hand does not falter.

  “For just one moment, see the path I have lain bare… ‘Only Death can end one’s Fate. Only Fate can combat Death.’ By killing Death, you unleashed the Call, but what should happen if Fate does it for you? Or better yet, if Death kills Fate?”