by Mark Eller
“I’ve held dozens of diamonds,” Kerrad said. “This one is real.”
“You’re the oldest man here,” Dern said to Caleb. “You ever seen one of these things before?”
“No,” Caleb admitted. “I’ve heard they glitter, and this thing seems to have a little shine to it so I guess it might be a diamond, but was I you I wouldn’t take my word for it, or his. This man’s too easy with promises.”
Dern studied Caleb with sad eyes. He made a brief gesture with the hand holding the small stone. “He’s given us more than words.”
“As you love me,” Caleb insisted, “I’m telling you—”
Dern shook his head. “But I don’t love you, old man. I love Vista. I mostly give you honor and respect because you’re her family, but we both know you’re not what you once were. You’re old and crippled and pretty much useless. Your mind has become weak and suspicious. No Caleb, your time for making decisions is over. It’s my turn now. I was elected headman of Greenswale so this is for me to decide.”
He nodded to Jolson. “How about you. Ever see a diamond?”
“Yes,” Jolson answered. “I walked on them in Hell.”
Dern closed the hand holding the pebble into a fist. Kissing his knuckles, he grinned and tossed the stone back to the trader. “I don’t have much land planted. None of us do because so much of the land around here won’t even grow weeds, but what I have is yours. I’ll start harvesting my grain first thing in the morning.”
“Now that,” said Kerrad, “is what I wanted to hear.”
* * * *
Dern worked his fields for two days while Caleb rocked in his chair outside the bakery and voiced his worries to Vista and sometimes to old Argo who often came by for a visit since he and Caleb had been friends for close to forever. Vista, in her turn, passed those worries to Dern when they met in the early evenings. The two of them laughed at the wandering minds of old men.
Those two days saw much work done. At the end of them the wagons were mostly filled and the land stripped almost bare. Much of the grain still clung to the stalks, but Kerrad claimed he wasn’t particular about how clean it was. He didn’t even care that a good bit of the grain was wet and so in danger of growing mould in a week or two. The miners, he said, were desperate and hungry. They wanted food now. They didn’t want to wait until the grain was properly prepared. Dern nodded his understanding and led the party of salt collectors who filled the last wagon half full with salt in less than three hours. They would have added more, but Dern judged a half wagonload was all the mules could pull.
Kerrad gave him a hearty wave on the morning of the third day just before he motioned for the wagons to begin rolling. Dern peered through the haze of dust cast up by wagon wheels. The air was sharp, unseasonably cold, and a few snowflakes fell from the clouded sky. He patted his pouch where the diamond stone resided, smiled, and called for a celebration.
“Ain’t got nothing to celebrate,” Argo sourly told him. “Caleb is right. This here is nothing but stale farts in a cow barn. Emptier than shit.”
“Sure we do,” Dern insisted. “We’re the next thing to rich. In just a few weeks we’ll be richer than rich.”
“We’ll be hungry in a few weeks,” Caleb said from his chair. The rag man, Jolson, sat beside him, shivering. “Most of our winter supplies just went down the road.”
“We’ll get more,” Dern assured him, patting the lump in his pouch. “Harrowville will have their crops harvested by now, and they always have three times what they need. I’ll grab a wagon and head out that way tomorrow to see what kind of a deal I can make. They’ll pretty much give me anything I want since this diamond is worth more than their entire village.”
“In what direction does Harrowville lie?” Jolson asked.
Dern pointed. “It’s west, the same way as the wagons are traveling. I might even catch up to them before nightfall tomorrow since I’ll be traveling unloaded. “
“I’ve been told the King’s city lies to the west,” Jolson said. “Caleb said a miller along the way might have warm clothes I can wear. I will go with you.”
“Second village along the road is more than a fifty miles away,” Dern warned. “Much of the land in between is used by herders and a rare few farmers so it’s pretty unpopulated. Most of the people and villages in this area are to the east and south of us.”
“This does not matter,” Jolson said. “It is on my way.”
He shivered again, and Dern felt an instant wave of sympathy for the poor wretch. Jolson was an uncomfortable fellow to be around. In fact, he was about as strange as a man could be, but it wasn’t in Dern to be unkind to such a scrawny, miserable being. A wagon would be faster travel for Jolson, and he could huddle beneath a blanket while he rode. Besides, Jolson had spent too much time deceiving Caleb with his impossible tales. The way Dern saw it, the sooner Jolson went down the road, the better. Caleb’s health was failing fast so the only people he needed talking nonsense to him were his friends and family.
It’s a sad thing,Dern thought,to watch a man’s mind grow weak from age.
“I wonder,” Jolson said,” why the trader did not get his grain from Harrowville.”
* * * *
With Jolson beside him, Dern looked into Harrowville’s community storage cellar and stared unbelievingly at the pile of not yet cleaned grain. The pile was only three quarters as large as it should have been to feed this village for the winter, only a fifth of what he expected. There was no sign of the excess grain Harrowville normally owned.
“I need warm clothes,” Jolson said.
“You won’t find them here,” Wills Thatcher, Harrowville’s headman, replied. “We sometimes spend the winter carding wool and making thread, but we won’t have no excess this year on account of we sold all our sheep. I‘m afraid you‘ll have a hard time convincing anyone to let go of something when they don‘t have the means to make more.”
Stunned, Dern turned his gaze onto Thatcher. “What happened to your harvest?”
Wills shrugged. “Had a bad year all around. A good part of our starter seed was moldy and didn’t sprout. Had us some bad weather what washed out three fields and there was a four day freeze right smack in the middle of summer. Then there was a fire what took out a couple more of the fields, and this early cold caught us by surprise. I’m afraid Harrowville’s going to have a rough, hungry winter.”
“There’s always fish,” Dern said hopefully. “Folks have always been envious that you have a lake filled with fish.”
Wills shook his head. “Nope. Lost everything there, too. Some kind of red colored growth spread over the entire lake’s surface right after the freeze. It pretty much killed off the fish. Fact is, we‘d be starving before much longer if it wasn’t for some people what drove through here yesterday. They sold us this here grain and the wagons it sat on for our few sheep. The strange part of it is the owner didn’t take none of them sheep for himself. He gave ‘em to the people driving the wagons and then headed off by himself early this morning, driving the last wagon he owned. Don’t know what was in that one. It was covered by a tarp.”
“Salt,” Dern said bitterly. “The wagon held salt.” His stomach roiled, and he wanted to puke. Caleb had been right. There was no gem mine. There would be no riches pouring in. The people of Greenswale, his people, would starve instead of owning most of the country around them.
Wills scratched his head. “Don’t know why he’d want to cart salt around. The stuff makes food taste a bit better, and it’s good for curing hides and meat, but there’s so much of it around your area the stuff is cheaper than dirt.”
Fumbling at his belt, Dern pulled his pouch loose and poured the diamond into the palm of his hand. “My people need to eat. Will you take this for the grain? You can sell it for more twice as much closer in toward the cities, and you have the mules and wagons needed to transport the food you buy back to Harrowville.”
A look of perplexity upon his face, Wills took the stone and exa
mined it carefully. “Well,” he finally said. “I’ll grant it’s pretty enough, but I don’t see how a piece of quartz can be worth nearly what you’re claiming.”
“Quartz?” Dern said flatly. His mouth suddenly went dry. A muscle twitched in the corner of his mouth and the world took on shades of red. “We was told this is a diamond.”
“There were some quartz mines about three hundred miles west of here,” Wills continued. “My pa took me into one when I was still a boy. Never was much of a market for it so the mines closed down a couple of years later.”
“Quartz,” Dern said again. Images flashed through his mind. He saw Vista’s rosy cheeks turn pale and hollow. He saw the skeletal bodies of Hasty Cobb’s and Rafin’s children spread out in the snow. Worst of all, he saw Caleb’s and Radno’s accusing eyes. “I’m gunna run down that Kerrad Traveler and have a talk with him.”
Frowning, he studied Jolson. An uncomfortable aura exuded from the wretch. Dern didn’t want to put a name to the aura’s nature, but he knew it bespoke of something dangerous, and Jolson did have an unseemly hook attached to his arm.
“Kerrad’s still going west,” Dern told Jolson, “so that’s the way I’m going. Do you still want to come along?”
“Yes,” Jolson answered.
“What do you want me to do with your quartz?” Wills asked.
“Do whatever you want,” Dern snapped. “Throw it in your lake for all I care.” Glaring at Jolson, he stamped off to the wagon and climbed into the driver’s seat. Jolson managed to clamber in beside him only moments before Dern set the mules off at a run. Kerrad Traveler had more than half a day’s head start, but he also had a heavy load.
* * * *
Dern’s right-side mule stepped in a hole and collapsed minutes after Dern was able to make out the distant shape of another wagon. Head hanging low, the other mule stopped in its tracks. Cursing both animals, he jumped out of the wagon.
“Hurry up,” he snapped to Jolson. “We can catch him if we run.”
Jolson remained in his seat and shook his head no. “I have no stamina for running. Catch him if you can. I will follow.”
“Follow then,” Dern ordered, and then he ran like he had never run before. His feet pounded into the road with a steady rhythm which ate distance faster than the mules had managed for the last hour. Cold air burned his lungs. Coughing, he continued running because the wagon was closer. A swift glance over his shoulder showed him Jolson trotting far behind, moving with a fluid grace which belied his claim of lacking stamina.
“Gutless,” Dern cursed, and he stretched out his legs so he could cover ground faster. The wagon drew close quicker than he had expected, and then it was close enough so he could see it had stopped beside the trail. The wagon’s mules grazed at the end of a tether. Kerrad Traveler leaned nonchalantly against the sideboard, watching him approach.
“You seem in a bit of a hurry,” Kerrad observed when Dern finally reached him.
“Thief,” Dern panted. “Blackguard. Liar.”
Kerrad straightened. “Well, I’ll admit to being a liar. I’ll admit there ain’t no gem mine so there won’t be no more gems, but I ain’t no thief. I paid for this salt and those crops all fair-like with the rock I gave you. I sold the grain at Harrowville for sheep, and my drivers paid me handsomely for them, which is why all of this started. They have a reputation as some of the best wool merchants around, but a flux hit their herds. After their sheep died they hired me to find them some new ones with a bit of quality in them.” He smiled. “It wasn’t personal. You folks just happened to be part of the equation.”
“It’s personal to me,” Dern growled. His breathing gradually eased, and strength came back into his limbs. He took a step toward Kerrad, feeling powerful when the man moved back. “My friends and family will starve because of the worthless rock you gave us. Nobody will give us food for it, let alone land.” He reached the back of the wagon lifted a corner of the tarp. Dirty encrusted chunks of salt lay within. Reaching inside, he lifted a chunk twice as big as his fist and smiled at the heavy weight of it. “You’re gunna give me the money your drivers gave you.
Frowning, Kerrad drew his belt knife. “Do you have the diamond with you?”
Dern snorted. “No, and I don’t have the bad fairy what steals children’s teeth with me either. Give me the money.”
“Sorry.” Kerrad shook his head. “It’s my policy to never renegotiate a deal. People will get to expecting it every time they feel cheated. I paid you several times what your crops were worth. I won’t pay you more. Besides, the drivers didn‘t pay me with coin. I got myself another wife.”
“I’ll be sorry to tell her she lost a husband,” Dern snapped, and he leaped forward. Kerrad raised the knife, but Dern dodged and gave the chunk of salt an underarm throw, driving it into the pit of Kerrad’s stomach. Kerrad blanched and gagged, and Dern had his hands around the man’s neck before Kerrad had a chance to recover. A leg snaked around Dern‘s, jerked, and Dern fell to the ground, pulling Kerrad down with him. A sharp pain ran through his arm. Fire stitched across his side, and then Dern felt a knife’s tip press against his belly while he stared into Kerrad’s steady, angry eyes.
He released his grip on the man’s throat.
Coughing, Kerrad drew in rasping breaths, but his eyes remained steady, as did the knife. “I don’t renegotiate,” he finally said. “Are we finished with this nonsense?”
Dropping his hands to the ground, Dern nodded. Blood stained his left sleeve, and his side hurt. His fingers brushed against the chunk of salt.
“Good then.” Kerrad’s knife point moved away from Dern’s belly. “Because I’m hungry. I only stopped here to fix a bite to eat.”
“Eat this!” Dern snapped. Twisting to the side, he swept his right arm up and slammed the salt chunk into the side of Kerrad’s head. “Eat it!” he shouted. “Eat it! Make bread with it and eat it! Starve on it!”
Blood sprayed as Kerrad dropped to the ground. Kneeling, Dern slammed the salt into him again and again until a hand grabbed his wrist.
“He’s dead,” Jolson said calmly.
Panting, Dern dropped the salt and started to cry. “I-I never…he deserved to die. He deserved it. He ruined us with promises and a chunk of quartz.”
“Diamond,” Jolson corrected as he knelt beside Kerrad and fumbled awkwardly at his cloak’s fastenings. “The stone was a diamond. I told you I walked on them in Hell. The headman was wrong, but that doesn’t matter because the diamond is likely gone. When I looked back as we left the village I saw Wills heading for the lake.”
Dern gasped and looked down at his bloody hands, at his killer hands. “Why?” he whispered. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
After rolling Kerrad’s body over, Jolson tried to jerk the cloak free. “I needed his clothing. The weather is becoming colder except for when it is hot.” He fingered the cloak’s thin material. “Do you think this will protect me?”
Dern felt his heart still. He looked up from his red hands to study Jolson’s impassive face. “A cloak. All of this was so you could get a cloak? Half my village will starve because you didn‘t tell me the diamond was real.”
“Caleb said I would likely die if I did not obtain warm clothes,” Jolson explained. His voice remained even, but it displayed the faintest hint of a troubled mind. Rolling Kerrad back over, he tugged at the cloak’s top clasp. “Could you tell me how to release this, and please don‘t think of violence. You are wounded and I am much stronger than I appear.”
“Caleb will die,” Dern said miserably. “Vista will die, and so will Rafin. People who gave to you without asking anything in return will die because the only way you could think to get a god’s damned cloak was through murder.”
“Your murder,” Jolson said calmly. “I merely watched.”
“Have you no compassion?” Dern demanded. “You told us you had gained a conscience.”
Jolson’s fingers managed the intricate twist needed to undo a clasp.
He smiled thinly, unfastened the rest, and pulled the cloak away from the body while Dern helplessly watched. Jolson folded the cloak into a bundle, stood, and started walking away. After several paces he stopped, turned, and looked to where Dern sat on the ground. Self-loathing blazed from his eyes. Dark, shadowed colors dripped from his hook’s evil tip. With his face twisted by conflicting emotions, Jolson held the hook up before him.
“I hate what this has done to me. It gave me a shadow conscience I cannot keep sealed away. The conscience makes me weaker as it gains strength.” Sweat broke out on Jolson’s face as he stared angrily at the hook. Dern knew he watched a tremendous battle when Jolson’s trembling arm lowered the hook down to his side. Hanging his head, Jolson groaned. “This conscience is worse than Hell. How can men live with this thing inside them?”
“Uncomfortably,” Dern answered, “but a conscience allows us a live as a society. Without it, we’d soon tear each other apart.” He looked at the dead man and tried to swallow, but his mouth felt too dry.
Raising his head, Jolson stared at Dern with haunted eyes. “In Yyles,” he said, “salt sells for a hundredth its weight in gold. The same must be true in other large cities.” He waved his hook hand at the wagon. “Sell this, and you can buy more than enough grain to feed your little village. With work, your people will someday be rich.”
Dern licked his lips and nodded. “Thank you.” He studied his bleeding arm for a moment before bending his head to see the blood staining his side. “Can you help me bind my wounds?”
Jolson’s expression became brittle steel. “No,” he said bitterly. “You ask too much.”
Shaking out Kerrad‘s thin cloak, he draped it across his shoulders and walked away.
Chapter 3-- Changer’s Challenge
Yellow eyes glaring fury, Mathew Changer kept a firm hand on the reins of his damn horse. The thing was skittish. No, skittish was too mild a word. The oversized bay was frightened as hell. Its breathing came heavy. Its movements were jerky, and it kept trying to wrench its head around to look at the half-were riding its back.