Death
and the
Merchant
Copyright © 2019 C.H. Williams
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the author.
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
ISBN- 13: 978-1-7333569-2-3
For Elsie.
PROLOGUE
I was born with one foot in a world of ink and paper. And since that moment, I’ve spent my life trying to crawl into the pages of a book. I’m convinced that’s where I’ll die, too. Between the lines of a novel.
It was said that the gods wield not weapons but fountain pens.
It was said that only gods write the beginnings.
We’re sitting here, trying to think up better beginnings than the ones we got. I didn’t want my story to start with defeat.
But I write the endings
I write the endings
I write the endings
THE LETTERS
What curious things we find, in ink and parchment.
The comfort of home, the thrill of adventure.
The ones we love, the ones we’ve lost.
Tales of joy, and tales of sorrow.
And in our minds, the lurking question.
Is it real.
Is any of it real.
As real as any of us can be, my darling, for we are all just figments of someone else’s imagination.
~Greysha Boewliç,
‘A Natural History of the Unnatural: A Memoir’
FLETCHER
“And she danced in the light to spite the demons, driving them back to the shadows. If only she’d remembered that torchlight is fleeting, and darkness inexorable.”
~ ‘Enchantress of Frost’ and Other Collected Tales
The life of a Drada was never quiet.
Dark had long since fallen as Fletcher lingered in the streets of Taylor Town. His ears pricked with the occasional shouts of delight still echoing through the avenues, shrieks of laughter bubbling over from the taverns as the festival-goers continued their revelry beyond the town square. And amid the scuff of boots on the rough cobblestones, the creaking of barroom floors, the rush of a silver piece being slid across the worn wood of a table…
He could hear it.
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.
The thrumming provoked a wistful smile on his lips.
Somewhere, the hiss of someone taking a drag echoed in the wake of a match strike, and the phantom smell of tobacco reached him, imagined in the rush of noise. The crisp crunching of leaves underfoot wafted through the air, the papery residue of autumn being ground against the street by the soles of worn canvas shoes.
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.
He was having to strain to hear it, now. Her heartbeat. If the moment had been perfectly still, if not another soul had dared to even breathe, he might’ve listened a little longer. As it stood, though, the sounds of the night threatened to swallow it up completely, even as he waited, less than a block from the square.
The town square. The normally dreary lot, littered with debris, had been transformed tonight into something utterly transcendent. Lanterns had been strung between the trees, trunks had been draped with gorgeous swaths of colorful fabric…
Then there’d been Elsie.
With an exasperated sigh, he leaned back against the cold brick of the alley, closing his eyes as he tried to hold onto the sound.
Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.
It was faint, now. Or perhaps it’d gone, and all he heard was the reverberation of a memory pounding in his ears.
The humming fiddle had drawn forth a tune, strings whining as the hiss of resistance was sent dancing through the air, set in time to the quaking of reeds, rattling along to the straining membrane of the drum, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, and that, he knew, had been the music of the spheres—the sounds the gods had hummed when they’d forged the world into being.
Her dress had whispered beneath his hands as they’d danced, murmuring the long-forgotten tune, and he’d almost breathed the words into her ear. Held tight in each other’s arms, the faint tang of sweat lacing the air, his heart pounding in tandem to hers, he’d been ready, finally, finally, ready—
The bell tower had sent a shattering blast through the air, sending the moment crumbling into the oblivion.
Swearing quietly, he opened his eyes. His cheek still burned where she’d kissed him goodnight. The sweet smell about her had soaked into his tunic. She was impossible to leave behind.
Beautifully, mercifully, wonderfully impossible.
The censure was heavy in his jacket pocket.
That Rodion had been sent to deliver the notice was salt in the wound. It was a petty show of dominance on Augustus’s part, sending a friend to deliver the reprimand. Just another way to drive home his brother’s relentless mantra, pounded into the heads of every trainee.
Loyalty before amity.
It wasn’t his fault he loved a human. And it sure as hell wasn’t his fault that he was locked by law and loyalty from spilling his secrets. As it stood, though, he was in love with a human—and as far as El knew, she was, too.
He pulled out the notice, the creases silent as he unfolded it for the millionth time. The Council hereby issues the formal censure for the violation of the direct orders from a commanding officer, with the knowing disobedience—
Absurd. It was absolutely absurd.
Staying true to form, his brother had at last pulled rank, summoning the power of the Council to deliver the death-blow to an already crumbling career.
It was a taunt, done in a fit of childish spite. Then again, Augustus hadn’t ever mastered the art of a dignified command, in his quick-to-anger voice that barked through them all, his petty scowls of—of irate—of pathetic, infuriating—
Elsie would’ve had the words for it.
That woman’s life moved in metaphors. She’d have said something like, He doesn’t know how to draw bees to flowers. Not that exactly, of course—the way she’d have put it would’ve had music to it. Would’ve somehow been clear, even though the words rung of nonsense. And she’d say it, too, with that faint lilt on her tongue, the flare that betrayed her as a woman Valley-raised, those soft vowels and swallowed consonants making her words flow like water.
—position, and subsequent investigation, is suspended, pending appearance before Council and Crown—
Grinding his teeth, the notice crumpled beneath his fingers, the crackling of crisp parchment filling the air. With a flare, it dissolved to ashes, nothing but glowing embers drifting down from the palm of his hand.
And still, the words burned before him.
Commander Praequintelya is heretofore ordered to cut contact with the human settlement.
Effective immediately.
ELSIE
“Fortune favors the bold.”
~Unknown
In the light of the pale moon, Elsie’s fingers found the laces holding the sweat-soaked satin to her hot skin. She gave them a tug, and the gown seemed to melt, pooling auburn on the floor. Cool autumn air brushed her bare skin, sending a pleasant chill down her spine as she drew in a deep breath, ribs reveling in their new-found freedom, and still, his riddle was pounding in her ears.
I wish that we could never end.
He was an idiot. An angsty, absurd, naive, sweet, soft-hearted, lovable idiot.
Fletcher had forg
otten, in his moment of worry.
I wish that we could never end.
Those seven words, and he’d forgotten that she did not bend to the will of fate. Seven words, and he believed, actually believed she would cave to circumstance.
Seven words, and he’d forgotten that she wrote the endings.
Wishes were for fools and cowards not brave enough to curse the gods. For fairy tales and godmothers and crumbling wells, and all manner of creatures make-believe borne of ink and parchment and the disturbed imagination.
They were not for farmers and bastards and broken Valley people.
What had even catapulted such a thought into his head, she didn’t know.
She flipped a match from the box on her desk, the cheap wood threatening to splinter as it flared to life. It lingered only long enough for her to coax a catch against the lamp wick, guttering resentfully out as warm light blossomed across the drafty walls of the farmhouse bedroom with all the grandiose promises wicks tend to give.
Promises, to her thinking, were rather like wishes.
Her lamp had promised heat.
What she had, though, was a crumpled sweater, countlessly mended, with too-short sleeves, bathed in the cold, yellow light.
It’d been Teddy’s. Before that, it belonged to Tom, and before that, it’d been cheap, rough-spun wool, mildewing and sold for a discount.
Still, she could remember burying her face in the scratchy folds of wool as her brother scooped her up on his hip, the leaves turning in the autumns of her childhood, and so she’d been resigned to loved it, that scraping gray yarn whispering safe, safe, safe into her ears as he carried her home.
But it wasn’t warm.
And that had been the promise.
She stuffed the slick gown into her canvas bag, a tight, wrinkled-by-the-time-she-got-to-town, undignified ball of red. It was Sam’s problem, now.
Turning to leave, though, she paused.
She’d caught it, out of the corner of her eye, hadn’t registered it until her fingers lay ready on the cold brass handle.
A letter, on her desk.
Her gaze flicked back to the twirling script that scrawled her name, curling like ribbons across the thick parchment of the bulging envelope.
Elizabeth.
Two steps, and she’d snatched it up, and frowning, she slit the seal, wax shattering across the worn-wood floor.
This was left, the words seemed to simper, in my possession.
The locket was slender, the golden chain glittering as it caught the light.
So from the mother, so to the daughter.
A Valley quip to blame the bastards.
And thus, yours.
Bastards like her.
Respectfully,
Bastards like Elsie.
Commissioner Clark Carson.
THE MURDERERS
Someone, it seems, has developed a taste for pastries—and I do not mean the sweet desserts for which our district has come to be known.
The daughters of the merchants are dying.
Panic has spread, and they are more than content to let their children be taken by this investigator from the mountains, for they think it to be a hemorrhagic fever from the south, and they are afraid of what might be brought into their doily parlors if vigil for the dead should be held in their homes.
It is not a fever, as I am given to understand, though he burns them anyway, as is the mountain custom, which we can all agree is a more poetic end.
Someone has taken to poisoning the pastries.
~Sam Alderton,
excerpt from a letter dated August 25th
AUGUSTUS
“Knowing, they say, is half the battle. Even so, it’s no guarantee you’ll win the war.”
~Risa Barrett
“General!”
The unceremonious pounding of knuckles threatening to splinter wood roused Augustus.
Long gone were the days when the fracturing sound of bone-on-barracks-doors elicited the snap-to alertness of a green cadet—and still, he grinned, rolling off the cot, that tremor of excitement in his bones, that taste of adrenaline in his veins…it had become the sweet breakfast he yearned for each day.
“Enter,” Augustus barked back at the door, turning for the basin by the closet. Dress uniform, three standard-issue sets of fatigues, three sets of training garb, all hanging inside a glorified cupboard. No more than he was permitted. No less.
The water was brisk against his skin, drops skittering down the surface of the basin as he shook his hands off, reaching for a rough towel.
“Sir.” An aide was lingering in the open door, a rush of chilled mountain air curling through the veritable closet of a room, already the wood beginning to creak and groan with the reluctance of the cold.
“Close the gods-damned door, Epherias, let’s leave a little mystery for the rest of the barracks today, shall we?” Snapping up a pair of undershorts, Augustus didn’t break the aide’s gaze. Epherias’s cheeks turned bright pink, those pale eyes looking nervously away, searching, trying to light on anything, any place, except Augustus. “Report.”
The boy oozed privilege.
Three months an aide, and still, Epherias still couldn’t see any of them as the soldiers they were. Every morning, pounding on Augustus’s door with the nightly report—half the time apologizing for the interruption, like he was a serving boy bringing breakfast—and Epherias was a trembling mess. He’d trail after Augustus, making for the mess hall, and more often than not, end up frozen in place as Cook dished the steaming porridge into his bowl, lost in his own anxieties. And, of course, he’d sink down with the rest of the cadets, gulping down a few bites of food before the end, but not daring a word to any of them.
Any of them, save Lya.
Lya, his betrothed, and they’d joined together—or, she’d joined, and he’d followed, which made Augustus want to hurl.
But Epherias would pad after her to the training hall, all the same, where he’d lurk by the sidelines, wringing his hands until Augustus pushed him into the ring, and whimpering, Epherias would throw a few feeble punches at the woman he so deeply loved, Lya, all the while, pinning her fellow cadet in a few quick moves. And with tears in his eyes, he’d brush himself off and slump against the wall, waiting for the next round of pummeling.
Just like Fletcher.
Only, Fletcher hadn’t followed a betrothed to the compounds.
He’d followed an older brother.
“Report,” Augustus echoed again, louder, snapping his fingers in annoyance. “I don’t have all day, Cadet.”
“I—I, um—it’s the human settlements,” Epherias stumbled, “they—they’re marching towards the western g-g-gate, it isn’t, um, many—t-twenty or thirty strong, b-b-but they’re angry, and it—well, s-s-sentinel forces report possible illicit—”
He froze, fingers half-way through buttoning his gray trousers. “Don’t tell me they got their hands on—”
“Blood-magic, yes, sir.”
Jaw clenching, he could still feel his scarred forearms burning, welted with still-fading slits running elbow to wrist where they’d tried to drain him. There was an uncomfortable slickness to the scars, his calluses not catching quite right against the strained, too-tight skin. The medics had given him ointments, of course. But they might as well have given him cucumber water, for all the good it did.
He didn’t dare seek the touch of a Healer. Not that he’d have permitted the flesh of a human to touch his own, after what they’d done to him.
Augustus yanked the gray coat from the closet, metal clattering as the hanger tumbled percussively to the floor. “Next time, start with that.”
There was bloodlust on the air.
Valoxus pawed the ground, nickering as Augustus pulled the reigns taut. A monstrous warhorse, black as sin and silky as night, the muscular back rippled beneath his legs, nothing more than the barest tack lain upon the glorious creature. Horse and rider were one—leather and steel and pads and buckles,
it was superfluous to the bond they shared.
And atop the magnificent beast, he knew he was the picture of power. That gray uniform, those glossy black boots, the dark bars emblazoned on his breast to boast his historic rank—twenty-one and a General—it was nothing compared to the strong jaw, the cropped-short blonde hair, the pale gray-green eyes, just like his father’s, and gods, his physique, honed through years, towering above them all as he’d pushed past six feet with ease. That, and the gleaming silver blades flashing in the morning light, the spark of power rippling through his very being, a taste of the clash to come…
They feared him.
He could see it in their eyes, riding before the line.
Fifty pairs of eyes followed him. Fifty pairs of eyes, terrified of what he would do if they looked away. Fifty pairs of eyes that lived for the taste of their General’s curt nod of approval like it was the bread of life.
Through the pass to the sprawling plateau, Augustus inhaled the sweet air bled from the snow-capped peaks.
He could hear them, in the distance.
They all could.
The heavy breathing, clodding feet pounding carelessly against the painstakingly flattened pastures of the highlands, the hissing and spitting of angry words through yellowed, rotting teeth, the worn leather sword-belts clanking with dull iron blades, blades he knew well, blades he could still feel, needling deep into his skin, draining him of the magic they craved so badly.
Human.
They were so painfully, tragically human.
These were not the docile, submissive creatures that had allowed themselves to be corralled within the sequestered lands of Aerdela. These were not the humans that had been all too happy to forget their world was teeming with magic, to forget that there were others in this life beyond themselves.
Death and the Merchant (River's End Book 1) Page 1
