by Jack Geurts
Regardless, Imharak would soon find himself immersed in the bustling heart of things. Skins and furs sold from streetside stalls. Spices piled high in brightly-coloured pyramids and spilling out of sacks to dust the beaten earth. He would see people haggling over weights and measures, the cost of fruit or a sacrificial lamb. He’d see ox-drawn carts laden with crops grown in Alba and elsewhere. The indistinct voices like music to him as he passed by unnoticed.
Perhaps that was the best thing of all – the fact that here, no one knew his name. He was just another man in a cart, making his way through the world. Coming from somewhere, going somewhere else. A man you might get talking to in a tavern or sell a blanket to. Just a man with no name. A face, a smile, then gone forever. Forgotten.
Naturally, there was contact between Alba and Daetia – merchants and farmers and the like – so he was sure that some people here knew his name, knew his face. But the people who could piece the two together were so few and far between that it was almost as good as no one knowing him at all.
Besides, having a demon in their town was not something the people of Alba liked to advertise openly, even to their own kin. It was something they preferred to forget about as much as possible, and so likely the rumours of his existence had remained just that. Rumours.
And rumours spread by drunken merchants or country rubes were not to be trusted.
Still, he couldn’t help but notice there was something different about Daetia today.
Everything was quieter, more muted than usual. Stallholders and shopkeepers weren’t selling hard or in some cases, at all. Indeed, some of them had already closed for the day. The ones that remained open seemed more sparsely-stocked than he was used to. The few people he saw on the street were stone-faced, and when they did talk, it was in hushed tones, like there was some big secret everyone knew except him.
Imharak felt exposed, a cold fear bleeding into him like winter steel on the back of his neck. What did they know that he didn’t? Were they talking about him?
He shook himself out of it. They weren’t even looking at him or going quiet as he passed by. They didn’t know him here, except as a rumour.
What on earth could it be then?
Imharak pulled up outside the iron merchant, directly opposite the wharf and with a clear view to the horizon. The harbour itself was empty. A few fishing boats tied up, but that was all. The Merchants’ Road was likewise deserted – the wide, cobbled lane that was normally choked with carts and wagons going in opposite directions.
A strange, unnerving quiet hung over everything like a fog. Not a single slaver selling flesh for coin. Not even a breeze to rock the boats where they stood.
All was still.
The iron merchant’s shop was simply a large window in a mudbrick wall with a shade jutting out overhead. The bottom of the window served as a bench, over which money changed hands and behind which, the iron merchant stood, waiting eagerly for his next sale.
But not today.
Today, he was nowhere to be seen.
Merlin didn’t even lift his head as the boy climbed down and approached the window. He could only see the bare mudbrick wall that ran behind it, shielding the rest of the shop from view – the back room where the merchant housed all his wares.
The boy wasn’t sure what to do. He leaned his head inside the window, seeing a doorway off to the right that led into the back room. Telling Merlin to stay put, he walked down the alley that ran along the right flank of the building, and a little back from the main road, there was a loading bay of sorts. A wider door where Imharak would bring the wagon to load it up after handing over the correct payment. He approached the door and peered inside.
Normally, there were barrels of raw sponge iron everywhere. Barrels that the merchant would buy wholesale from Erephos and sell to local blacksmiths and not-so-local blacksmiths like Gaius for a handsome markup.
Today, the shop was empty.
Well, empty except for the lone merchant sitting against the wall, drinking undiluted wine from a goatskin. He didn’t even notice Imharak was there until the boy spoke, and when he turned his head, it lolled, his eyes struggling to focus.
“What do you want?” he said, slurring his words.
“From an iron merchant? Hmm, let me think...”
“Clever boy.” He turned away, took another sip from the wineskin.
Imharak said, “Where is everything?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes. Too many people want what I have to sell. I am...too successful for my own good.”
“Wouldn’t a successful businessman be sure to replenish his stocks before he ran out?”
The merchant looked at him again, like he was trying to be angry but couldn’t seem to muster the strength. “You tell me, clever boy.” He drank, and there was a long silence before he continued. “The boats did not come.”
“What do you mean, they didn’t come?”
“I mean...they didn’t arrive. They failed to appear. The time at which they were supposed to get in passed and they were not in.” He took a sip, calmed a little. “The boats did not come today. Nor did they come yesterday. Nor the day before that. The boats from Ardos, Erephos, Imber – none of them came. What am I to do?”
“Okay...” said Imharak, trying to find the right question to ask. “Why didn’t they come?”
The merchant shrugged.
“There has to be a reason,” Imharak said. “They wouldn’t just stop coming.”
Still nothing. The boy began to feel the reality of his situation settling in.
“We need that iron,” he said, hearing the desperation in his voice. “We depend on it.”
“A lot of people depend on a lot of things that didn’t come. A lot of things that don’t look like they’re coming anytime soon.”
“Why? What do you know about it?” Imharak could feel the merchant growing tired of him, but he also knew Gaius was going to be furious when he came back empty-handed. The least he could do was have some answers ready.
“Rumours,” said the merchant. “All I hear is rumours.”
Imharak’s jaw tightened, but he bit his tongue. “Care to elaborate on those rumours?”
The merchant drank his wine and didn’t look at him.
“Was there a storm?”
“No. No storm.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because,” said the merchant. “Storm might delay the boats for one day, but every day they are setting sail from all over the island. If there is a storm, a ship can weather it, they can go ashore or they can sink. Either way, the next ship will be at most a day behind them, so even if the first ship sank, another should have arrived yesterday at the latest. Storm would have cleared by then.”
“And if it didn’t?”
“I don’t know of any storms in these parts lasting more than a day. Do you?”
Imharak had to assume the iron merchant knew more about the weather and the habits of ships than he did, so he didn’t argue.
“What rumours do you hear, then?”
“Just rumours,” said the merchant. “But you can’t trust rumours. Often, they’re naught but lies.”
Except for when they’re not, Imharak thought, his mind naturally going to the rumours surrounding himself. If they were true, then those surrounding the absent ships might also be. In his experience, any rumour, no matter how farfetched, usually contained at least a kernel of truth.
But the merchant didn’t seem too keen on sharing what he had heard. Instead, he took another large swig and stared at the far wall, signalling the end of their conversation.
Dissatisfied, Imharak went back to the cart. Merlin was still sleeping, and he stroked the hound’s fur, looking out over the vast and empty sea. It used to be the former quality that troubled him. Now, it was the latter.
He didn’t know what he was going to tell Gaius when he got home. They only had enough sponge iron to last them another few days or so. Af
ter that, they’d just be doing repairs. It wasn’t too bad, he supposed – a lot of their current work was repair work, living as they did in a farming community. The people of Alba always had things they needed wrought or repaired, and Gaius was the only blacksmith for leagues in any direction.
Worse came to worse, they’d start melting things down to make new things. Buying them back from the townsfolk to repurpose them as something else, something more useful. If they could turn a profit, that was. And that was a big if.
Hopefully, the ships came back before things got too desperate. They certainly couldn’t count on the kindness of their neighbours to see them through the leaner times.
Standing there, looking out over the empty docks to an empty horizon, Imharak felt a deeper kind of worry setting in. Not so much about how Gaius would react, or even how they would make ends meet in the coming weeks and months. More pressing in his mind was a single, burning question.
Why hadn’t the ships come?
CHAPTER 4
Legend Of The Shepherd King
It was a long ride back to Alba.
As they came down the home side of the pass, the salty tang of the sea air was lost, and the dry, dusty smell of the bush filled Imharak’s nostrils once again. Merlin woke and sat up straight alongside him. The boy scratched him behind the ears, and the dog leaned in, sniffing him, licking the side of his face. The boy smiled, but his mind was elsewhere.
By the time they reached Alba, Gaius was cleaning the workshop. Imharak dreaded going inside and telling him what had happened, but as it turned out, he didn’t have to. Gaius came outside himself, first with a smile on his face, then with no smile at all.
“Where is everything?”
“The boats didn’t come.”
Gaius frowned. “What do you mean, the boats didn’t come?”
“Exactly what I said. They failed to arrive. I’m not sure how I can phrase it any clearer than that.”
“Was there a storm?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“Of course I did. It was the first thing I asked.”
“Then, what happened?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Said he’d heard rumours, but that’s it.”
“The iron merchant?”
“Yeah.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell you?”
“He thought they were probably lies.”
Gaius shook his head, teeth clenched and bared a little. “We need that iron, boy.”
“That’s what I told him. But he wasn’t lying, Gaius. I saw the storeroom. It was dead empty.”
Gaius looked like he was about to curse or say something harsh, then stopped himself, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
After a moment, he said, “I’ll go in tomorrow, first thing. You’ll stay here and mind the place while I’m away.”
Then he went back inside.
Early next morning, Imharak woke to the sound of wheels bouncing over rutted earth. He went out onto the roof of the workshop and saw Gaius holding the reins and the oxen pulling him out of town. He was wearing his warm, heavy cloak against the bitter chill and had a neckcloth pulled up over his head like a hood. It was still dark enough that he would likely reach port before the sun had even touched him.
The boy couldn’t sleep, so he went downstairs where Merlin was sitting patiently by the door for his master to return. Ready to wait all day, it looked like. He corralled the dog inside and fixed them both breakfast, then threw some hay to the goats.
Gaius hadn’t left him any explicit chores, and the place was mostly in order, so after he’d done that and cleaned a few things, there was nothing left to do.
He would have liked to go out and explore the ruins a little more, but his master had told him to watch the place. Gaius would be in a foul enough mood as it was without coming home to find his apprentice missing.
No. Better to stay put for now.
So, he and Merlin played fetch on the road outside and afterward, Imharak retired to the courtyard to read while his hound dozed in the sun. He read from the scrolls in Gaius’ library, or what passed for a library in Alba. The townsfolk had no use for the written word unless it formed an accounting of their finances. Indeed, most of them could not read or write, and those that could had no time for literature. They passed their stories from mouth to ear, as their ancestors had before them.
Presently, Imharak read an account of the man known to history as the Shepherd King.
The story had begun, like all stories do, as an oral tradition, told from parent to child over crackling fires. Finally, it was transcribed during the Great Captivity, when the Liberites were enslaved in Kemet, forced to build their monuments and grow their food. A once-mighty people brought low.
But the story of Armentarius started long before that time, long before the Liberites were mighty or even Liberites at all.
It started with the end, when the gods decided to destroy the world with fire.
Not the end of one life, but all of them. Save only a few. The lucky ones. The chosen ones. The rest of them burned like straw when the fire came. Fire that rained down from the heavens and reduced great, towering trees to ash. Fire that dried up all the rivers and oceans deep. Fire that scorched the memory of evil from the face of the earth, and gave those chosen few a clean slate on which to build the world again.
A new world. A better world.
The few were led by a man who until now had been nameless. Caelos, King of the Gods, had appeared to this man and told him to gather up the righteous and head for the river delta. There, he would be safe.
And so he went. He gathered up those rare souls who were singled out by Caelos for salvation. He took them to the delta, and there, they were safe.
An island on a sea of fire. A paradise in the midst of hell. The one place the tongues of flame left untouched. Unscorched. The one place the sun still shone and the rain still fell and the plants and the trees grew tall. The one place where man and beast could stand and watch the razing of the earth beyond their borders and hear the screams of those burning.
They were terrified and grateful, and as the world burned, they put their faith in the gods.
When the fire stopped at last, those outside the delta – those intended for death, but still living – were not long for this world. Those that hid beneath the earth would wish they had resigned earlier, for, in the ensuing days and weeks, any rations they had were consumed.
Starvation pit man against his brother, husband against wife, father against child. Blood was spilled and drunk and flesh ripped raw from bone. But without water, it was a futile savagery.
Those that sought refuge in the delta were turned away and welcomed a spear in the ribs when they stood firm, as the gods had instructed their chosen.
The last of them died wandering that hellish, jagged waste where once a mighty sea had filled. And when finally his lungs could take no more of ash and smoke, he fell upon the ground and was gone.
It was only after the dust of his bones had been scattered by a hot east wind that it rained, and it rained for days and weeks on end. Rain the likes of which the earth had never seen. Rain that filled the rivers and the oceans, and great trees sprouted once more from the ash. The fertile delta spread beyond its boundaries and covered the face of the earth.
Armentarius, as he came to be known – the man who shepherded the righteous to safety – was crowned king of all those he had saved. He built his city there and called it Peleset. His kingdom he called the ‘black land’ – or Kemet in his own tongue – for that was where the rivers flooded annually and made the soil rich and fertile.
After the city was built and the kingdom settled, the Shepherd King made a pact with Caelos, that he would not destroy the world again as he had just done – that he would not claim even a single human life. Caelos vowed that he would not, lest his own power be forfeit. And that was the end of the scroll.
But it was not the end of the story.
From what he had read and what Gaius had told him, Imharak knew the people spread outward from Kemet, to settle in all the lands of the earth. He knew that as the Shepherd King passed and the centuries with him, the people who would become known as the Liberites found themselves forming the servile class of Kemet.
Like many slaves, they were a conquered people. A people who had settled in the hill country east of the Kem. A people who called themselves the Colacosi, and who were known to their neighbours as the Hillfolk, the Fishermen. The People of the Long Lake.
He knew that sometime in the interim, the Kem had forgotten Caelos and instead formed a cult around their sun god, Bast.
He knew that eventually, things would get so bad for these slaves and Caelos would grow so angry that he would be forced to act. He could not destroy the world again as he once had, but he could send another Armentarius to save the righteous.
And she would become known to history as Libera. The Lioness.
But that was another story.
Imharak rolled up the scroll and tucked it back onto the shelf with the others. There were at least a hundred scrolls there, collected by Gaius over his lifetime. Epic poems and plays, religious texts and official decrees. Bought with silver or traded for pieces he had made himself.
Thousands of years of world history condensed into a few scraps of parchment, packed tightly into a single shelf in the dusty back room of a blacksmith’s workshop, alongside sealed clay jars of oil and wine. Grain to last them through the winter.
Imharak struggled to even grasp it, the immensity of time. The sheer magnitude of it was enough to make him feel insignificant in the grand scheme of the things.
For a blacksmith, Gaius had an uncommonly broad knowledge of things. History was his primary love, but he also had a fondness for language and culture. Anything about how things came to be the way they are. He used to say that in order to understand the present, or to have any hope of predicting the future, one must first understand the past.