by Jason Fry
He vaulted back over the fence, thinking Grandmother wouldn’t have approved of taking such a shortcut instead of using the gate. This time he made certain to shut the door of the house behind him, though Lapis, as usual, had to take her time deciding whether or not she wanted to come in.
It was nice and cool in the storeroom, and Stax’s resolve wavered as he mopped his brow.
“That oak tree will only be a tiny bit taller tomorrow,” he told Emerald, who had curled up on the furnace and looked ready for another nap. The gray-striped cat closed his eyes contentedly, yawned, and began licking between his toes.
“Oh, I suppose you’re right,” Stax said. “Hard work today means leisure tomorrow. Hmm. Wonder where I heard that. Certainly not something Father or Grandmother would have said. Hard work today, more hard work tomorrow. That sounds more like them, now doesn’t it?”
The tool chest opened with a wheeze of hinges, revealing its carefully arranged contents: swords and axes next to shovels and hoes. There were stacks of armor and quivers of arrows and coils of bowstrings. Pairs of shears sat next to compasses and planks of exotic wood brought back from Stax’s father’s expeditions.
Stax selected a diamond-bladed axe, testing its edge and quickly pulling back his finger. He slung the axe over his shoulder, giving Emerald a companionable ear rub, and headed for the back door. He thought about removing a diamond chestplate or at least a helmet from the armor stand in the trophy room, but immediately decided against it. He hadn’t sighted a creeper on the ridge in many months, the day was oppressively hot as it was, and surely the axe would be sufficient protection against any unexpected hazard.
“Though an axe wouldn’t be the right tool for that job, now would it?” he asked Coal, who was trotting across the lawn next to him, tail held high. “Grandmother would have a fit!”
Stax glanced guiltily at the shady place in the garden where the Stonecutter gravestones stood, but a few minutes later he had climbed to the top of the ridge, peering up at the sun, which was now nearing the horizon. There was the oak tree ahead—a young tree, only recently grown from a sapling to fight its way through the shade of the birches and stretch its limbs to the sun.
“Wrong place for you, I’m afraid,” Stax said apologetically, giving the young oak a little pat and looking to make sure Coal had chosen a safe distance for snoozing. He swung the axe at the oak’s trunk, the deep, heavy thwack echoing off the hill and the gleaming white-and-pink walls of the house. A few strokes and he’d hewn the tree through, allowing him to take aim at its limbs and leaves, until he was standing on the stump, sweating freely now, surrounded by leaf litter and debris.
“There’s a good day’s work done,” Stax told Coal, whose only answer was to stretch a little farther in search of sun. Stax hopped off the oak’s stump, cut it down, and began to gather the wood he’d chopped, whistling cheerfully until the place where the oak had stood was clean and neat. Maybe it was his imagination, but Stax thought he could already even see the grass growing over the bare patch on the ground.
The sun was now touching the distant hills to the west, and its light left the placid surface of the sea dappled with pink and orange. The shadows had crept across the back garden, toward the cheerful lights of the house.
“I guess we’ll make it an evening swim, then,” said Stax, holstering his axe.
Before his swim, he fed the cats, added the oak to the house’s supply of timber, and returned the diamond axe to its proper place in the storeroom. He thought about taking one of his father’s swords with him out to the pool, but decided against it; the back garden was well lit, and in the unlikely event of trouble, the door to the enchanting room was just a quick dash away.
And so Stax snoozed idly in the pool, his elbows up on the polished diorite, while the cats played in the garden and the stars wheeled overhead. And, as he’d predicted, no trouble found him.
It was the last night he’d be able to say that.
An unexpected caller * A tour of the estate * Unwelcome questions are asked and reluctantly answered * Into the mine * A promise of more company
Stax should have known the visitor was trouble when he came to the wrong dock.
Visitors who had business with Stax knew to land their boats at the end of the lawn, in the shallow cove Stax’s father had carefully squared off for such arrivals. This let Stax see that visitors had arrived, but it also showed off the estate at its best: Before conducting business, visitors would walk between the lines of birches, pass the fountain, and ascend the diorite stairs.
Everyone arriving on business knew that, because of course they didn’t come unannounced. They would go to the Stonecutter mining office first, and speak with someone there, and that person would hurry off to the estate to tell Stax of the new arrival. That was the way it had been done in his father’s time, it had worked well then, and Stax had seen no reason for anything to change.
This visitor came unannounced too.
So it was that Stax was finishing breakfast in the house and explaining to Emerald that no, he couldn’t have another cod when he spotted a boat made of dark wood approaching the southern shore.
“What’s this now, kitties?” he asked, mildly annoyed, and looked across the lawn to see if another boat was arriving in the cove, where it belonged. But there was nothing there.
“What’s this?” Stax asked again, as the boat neared their little family dock and the person inside shipped his oars. He was definitely going to land.
“What a bother,” said Stax, checking to see if his robe was clean and deciding it was clean enough. “What a bore.”
He was still muttering variations on this as he opened the south door—he got to “inconvenience” and “imposition” while pulling on his right shoe—and started across the lawn. The sheep, not used to seeing him at that hour, offered bleats and baas of curiosity, or at least as close as sheep get to being curious about things.
The hill fell away to the water on the south and west side of the sheep pen, and on the west side Stax’s father had built a trim little boathouse of birch, with a dock extending out into the water. It was Stax’s favorite place on the estate, and on many mornings he and the cats liked to eat breakfast out on the dock, after which the cats and sometimes Stax would enjoy a brief snooze.
Sandstone steps led down to the water from the south lawn, and as Stax strode down them the visitor stepped out of his boat and turned to face him. He was slim and not much older than Stax, with bright blue eyes that were always in motion, jumping from Stax to the boathouse to the larger house at the top of the hill.
Something else struck Stax as odd: The visitor was wearing a suit of mismatched armor—a gold chestplate above diamond leggings and leather boots—and his clothes were a riot of clashing colors and looked like they didn’t fit. Some of his garments were too small, to the point of looking uncomfortably tight, while others were baggy and saggy. A diamond sword hung at his hip but his belt was too big, and he kept hitching it up as he took in his surroundings.
“Good morning,” Stax said, remembering he should be polite before shooing the visitor away. “I’m afraid I must have forgotten our appointment, Mister…?”
“Oh, we didn’t have an appointment,” the man said with a smile that struck Stax as faintly mocking. “Boring things, appointments. I go where I want, when I want. And now I’m here.”
That sounded faintly rude, and Stax didn’t like it. His father probably would have turned it into a joke, but then his father loved visitors and meeting new people, and at some point while living alone Stax had decided he wasn’t fond of either. Or rather, he hadn’t quite decided that but had started acting as if he had, until they’d become one and the same thing. That can happen to people who spend too long with only themselves for company, and I’m afraid it had happened to Stax.
So instead of making a joke, or turning the conversation
somewhere different, Stax stared at the new arrival and crossed his arms over his chest.
“And your business is…?” he asked.
“You might call me a collector,” the man said, his eyes studying the house with his intent blue gaze. “Of experiences.”
“I don’t see how experiences can be collected,” Stax said.
Now the man laughed, a braying guffaw that went on an uncomfortably long time.
“I’m sure you don’t, Stax Stonecutter,” he said.
Stax had made up his mind that he didn’t like this unannounced visitor, but it was mildly reassuring that the man knew Stax’s name. That suggested he at least had some reason for arriving on the dock. He tried to think of how his father would have handled this situation.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Stax said. “You know my name, but I’m afraid I don’t know yours.”
“That’s because I haven’t said it. But since we’re going to be well acquainted, it’s time I did. Fouge Tempro, at your service.”
And Fouge Tempro gave Stax a low bow, then looked up with a grin that struck Stax as unsettlingly similar to the look a predator might give a particularly plump meal. And what did that mean that they were going to be well acquainted?
Stax reluctantly decided his father would have treated this Fouge Tempro like any other potential business partner, even though he had arrived unannounced and was behaving strangely, even rudely. “Never let a poor first impression get in the way of turning a profit,” his father had said—or at least that sounded like something he might have said.
Stax didn’t like the idea—what he most wanted to do was order the man to go away, and this minute—but he forced himself to behave the way he thought his father would have.
“Well, now that we know each other, how I can help you, Mr. Tempro?” Stax asked.
“By giving me a tour of your home,” Fouge said. “It’s an impressive property. You must have worked very hard to make it what it is.”
“Well, yes,” Stax said. “Er, that is, my father did most of the work, to be honest. My job is more to keep things running.”
“And what does that require?” Fouge asked.
“Why, well…hmm.” Stax wasn’t quite sure what to say. Cutting down the occasional oak tree and plucking tufts of tall grass from the lawn didn’t seem like the kind of work that would impress a potential business partner.
“The house mostly runs itself, to be honest,” he said. “As does the business. Really, Mr. Tempro, you should have stopped by our office before your visit. There you could see samples of the minerals we mine, as well as blocks we’ve shaped and polished. I assure you our workers are the best in the business. Stonecutter by name, stonecutter by trade—that’s what we say!”
This forced cheerfulness sounded ridiculous to him, but Fouge was barely listening.
“Offices, bah,” he said. “Offices are where people go to die, once they’ve given up and accepted what the world thinks they should be. For a collector like me, the home is the key to understanding a person’s soul. So, lead on, Mr. Stonecutter!”
And he gestured at the house, as if their roles were reversed and Fouge was the one who lived there and Stax the visitor asking for a favor.
Stax was so flummoxed that before he quite knew what was happening he was leading Fouge around the grounds, showing him the allée of birches and pointing out that the fountain’s central pillar was made of glowstone, which lit up the lawn at night.
Now, if you’re like me, you’re probably thinking, NO, STAX, DON’T! CAN’T YOU SEE THIS IS A HORRIBLE MISTAKE?
And, without skipping ahead too much, I can tell you that Stax spent many, many lonely nights and anxious days thinking something very much like that. But Stax had grown up happy and comfortable, without ever having been touched by evil, and like most people who grow up that way, he thought that meant evil never would touch him. He would figure out that he was terribly wrong about that, but by then of course it would be too late.
Fouge said little during the tour of the grounds, which made Stax wonder if he were bored. But being in his familiar surroundings made Stax feel more at ease, and slightly less irritated at having his peace interrupted. And anyway he was genuinely proud of the estate, from its energetically squawking chickens and multihued sheep to the drifts of flowers that carpeted the terraced hills. Before too long he was enjoying giving the tour, at least a little, and he opened the front door and invited Fouge inside.
Coal, Lapis, and Emerald heard the door open and sauntered out of the bedroom, where they’d been sleeping in a puddle of sunshine. But all three cats stopped at the sight of Fouge Tempro, their tails suddenly held low.
“Hello, kitties,” Stax said brightly. “We have a visitor!”
One of the things about Stax that annoyed his neighbors and the workers at the Stonecutter office was how Stax seemed much more at ease talking with his cats than with other people. He was more cheerful with the cats and somehow better at making conversation, even though, as far as his neighbors knew, the cats had never held up their end of the bargain.
This time, however, the cats’ opinions were clear. Coal hissed at Fouge, her black tail swollen into a bottle brush.
“Now, Coal, mind your manners—” Stax began, but before he could finish all three cats shot off in different directions, making themselves scarce.
“Huh,” Stax said, scratching his head. “I don’t know what got into them.”
“Animals don’t like me, and I don’t much like them,” Fouge said matter-of-factly. “Lead on, Mr. Stonecutter. Lead on.”
Fouge had no more to say about the inside of the house than he’d had about the grounds. His eyes skittered over the paintings, the furniture, and the flowers in their pots, betraying no apparent interest—until Stax led him to the trophy room.
“This room is on the site where my grandmother spent her very first night here,” Stax said. “That was just a hole hacked out of the hillside. Grandmother didn’t even have a bed. She huddled inside all night, listening to monsters howl on the other side of a dirt wall. And look at it now.”
Stax looked proudly around the room at the polished diorite-and-granite walls, the gleaming suits of armor that had belonged to his grandmother and father, the framed blocks of precious metals that symbolized the Stonecutters’ good fortune, and the massive map that covered an entire wall.
“You should have left the hidey-hole as it was,” Fouge said. “As a reminder.”
“Oh, I don’t need a reminder,” Stax said. “That’s what this room is all about.”
“It’s certainly impressive,” Fouge said, walking up to the map and craning his neck to see it better, his eyes tracing the blue squiggles of rivers through green swathes of forest and jungle. “But what are all these flags I see on this map?”
“Outposts of the family business,” Stax said. “Some are houses—none as impressive as this one, mind you. Others are little more than a hollowed-out space with a bed, a furnace, and a crafting table. My father created a network of them for his business dealings.”
“What a busy man your father was,” Fouge said. “What happened to him, then?”
“He died a few years ago,” Stax said. “His boat was lost on a trip back from our southern operations, just a month after Grandmother’s death. And my mother passed away when I was a boy. So it’s just me.”
“Hard to be all alone in the world, with no one to watch out for you,” Fouge said.
“I miss them, every day,” Stax said. “But I can take care of myself.”
“Can you, then?” Fouge asked, but he wasn’t even looking at Stax; he was intently studying the map. He pointed to a green flag at its center. “We’re here, are we not?”
“That’s right. That’s the Stonecutter peninsula. Home.”
“And this would be the ice field I
had to navigate to reach you,” Fouge said, tapping a section of the map just east of the peninsula. “Hazardous seas, Mr. Stonecutter. But of course you’d know that, seeing how you live so close to the icebergs.”
“Oh, I’ve never taken a boat out there. Too dangerous. Too risky. What would be the purpose of a journey like that, Mr. Tempro?”
“To see what’s practically at your front door,” Fouge said, then shook his head. “Never mind. What about this flag here, up in this orange area to the north? That must be an interesting spot.”
“Badlands, by the look of it. Never been there either,” Stax said, a bit stiffly. “The folks in our office could tell you more about the outposts, if that’s what you’re interested in.”
“It seems you’ve never been much of anywhere,” Fouge said, and Stax opened his mouth to object, thinking that was the final straw and this was his chance to order this disagreeable man to leave.
But before Stax could get the words out, Fouge smiled broadly. “But then who can blame you for staying home, when you live surrounded by such beauty?”
That was the first polite thing Fouge had said. Stax decided to look at the bright side—it was good that the man had finally remembered his manners. Stax nodded modestly, but Fouge had already turned to look out into the back garden, his eyes moving from the pool to the hatch in the lawn.
“That hatch leads to the main Stonecutter mine,” Stax said, a bit reluctant but determined to do what was right for the business. “Would you like to see it?”
“Very much so,” said Fouge, and Stax led him out the back door into the backyard, then opened the hatch. He climbed down a ladder that ended at the top of a narrow stone staircase, then waited for Fouge to join him. It was cool belowground, with a faint ripple of a breeze rising up the stairs.
