by Kim Fielding
Deep breath. “To see if you have some spare brewing equipment I could use. I’ll try to pay you for it later, if I can.”
Thozzon squinted at him. “Brewing equipment?” Then his face pinched up like a grape turned suddenly to a raisin. “You plan to compete for my business.”
“No! I mean, not exactly.” Phin didn’t want to lie. “I’m trying to find a way to support myself so I’m not a burden anymore. I want to try making a drink we have back home, made from fermented grains. I thought maybe people would enjoy it in addition to your milk, not instead of it.” His ale would have a lesser kick than the milk, which had an alcohol content high enough to curl his nose hairs.
“Grains? Like those?” Thozzon gestured at his fields.
“Yes. At least I hope so.”
This conversation had progressed considerably better than he’d expected. Thozzon now stared at him as if Phin were demented rather than disgusting, which was, Phin supposed, an improvement. Still, he was astonished when Thozzon stepped outside the house, clearing the entrance to the doorway, and inclined his head. “Come in.”
Somewhat trepidatiously, Phin obeyed.
His own hut comprised a single room, as did most of the others in the village, although a few had a loft or small storeroom. In sharp contrast, Thozzon’s house had a large central space with a half-dozen doorways leading to other rooms, not to mention a steep stairway to a second story. His floors were stone, not dirt, and they were strewn with colorful rugs. More rugs adorned the walls. Phineas noted ornate cabinetry instead of open shelves, furniture that didn’t look battleworn, and a fireplace almost as big as Phin’s entire hut.
But Thozzon didn’t look as if he especially enjoyed his luxurious surroundings, and he certainly wasn’t trying to show them off. He quickly ushered his visitor to a dark wood chair with a red-and-yellow-patterned cushion. After Phin sat, Thozzon paced restlessly, his fingers twining with one another. His habitually stooped posture had disappeared. He wasn’t an old man, Phin suddenly realized. At least, not as old as he’d previously assumed. The lines on his face came from frowning rather than age. He must be somewhere in middle age, although Phin couldn’t guess more accurately than that.
While he waited for Thozzon to do whatever he was working himself up to do, Phin silently admired the handiwork of Thozzon’s knickknacks, all a little dusty, now that he was looking more closely. He also noticed that the house smelled a little like sour milk and ashes.
“You’re not truly a demon, are you?” Thozzon seemed entirely serious.
“No. I’m just a person, like you.”
“You’re a witch, though. How else could you fly?”
Phin tried not to groan. He’d had a similar discussion with other villagers several months ago. “It’s not magic. It’s….” Science. Physics. Technology. But this language had no words for any of those things. “A machine. Like the mill that grinds the grain into flour. If I was a witch, wouldn’t I have flown away by now?”
Thozzon nodded reluctantly. “That would be powerful magic, to be able to fly.”
Honestly, Phineas had never given it much thought. Ships zoomed through space all the time. When Somboon had informed him that they were going to take a vacation on one of their planet’s moons, Phin had been delighted at the thought of a holiday at a nice resort—he and Somboon had never taken one together—and slightly irritated they’d be stuck inside a cramped starship for the few hours it took to get there. It had never occurred to him that they might encounter a space anomaly and end up folded into another solar system, where their poor ship would do its best to land them on a planet with a survivable atmosphere and human inhabitants. He absolutely hadn’t expected to crash-land, lose his husband, and end up stranded.
“So you’re not a demon or a witch,” Thozzon said. “But do you know how to destroy a soul-reaper?”
Phin shook his head. He had no idea what a soul-reaper was, although it didn’t sound friendly.
“Didn’t think so.” Thozzon shuddered. “One of ’em knocked on my door last night. I didn’t let it in—I’m no fool—but it stood outside and called and called until I couldn’t stand anymore. I asked what it wanted. But I knew. Oh, I knew.”
“What?”
“My soul, of course! It said when I die, it’ll come gather my soul and take it away.”
Nope, definitely not friendly. “What will it do with it?”
“Eat it. That’s what a soul-reaper does. And then the soul is stuck inside it, doomed to spend eternity squashed in there with all the other souls, traveling through the night. No sunlight, no freedom, no peace.” Thozzon’s voice shook as if he might burst into tears at any moment. He’d stopped pacing, but now his thin body swayed and shook. “And do you know the worst part? It’s my own fault.”
Phineas was beginning to wonder how much of his own fermented milk Thozzon had drunk and whether it would be possible to slink away without causing too much offense. But Thozzon seemed distraught, not dangerous. Maybe he just needed someone to rave at. As far as Phin knew, the man didn’t have any family or friends. Phin could empathize with the ache of loneliness; he felt it often in his little hut. “How is it your fault?” he asked gently.
Thozzon stopped pacing and wrung his hands. “I’m selfish!” he wailed. “I’ve spent my entire life thinking about myself, seeing how much wealth I could amass. I never shared my food when others were hungry. Never clothed those who were cold. Whenever people have asked me for even the smallest thing, I’ve turned them away.”
That was consistent with Phineas’s experiences with the guy, not to mention the tales he’d heard from the villagers, who said that Thozzon had nothing but a stone for a heart and dust in his veins. But saying so wasn’t going to help. He tried a smile. “Well, now that you realize the error of your ways, you can reform.”
“It’s too late,” Thozzon said sadly, his head drooping. “The soul-reaper said so.”
“You could give me some equipment. That would be a good start.” It was worth a try, right?
Thozzon lifted his head, a spark of hope in his watery eyes. “That’s right. You want to ferment grain.”
“I can’t pay you now, but if I’m successful—”
“No! I will give you what you need. As a gift.”
Phineas blinked. “That’s very generous of you. Are you sure?”
“Yes! Absolutely! I will give you my very best equipment. And not only that. I’ll give you as much arrowgrass as you want from my highest quality stores. And my finest stoneware jugs. And anything else you need.” He held his hands wide, palms-up, indicating his entire home. “Anything you ask for.”
“Why would you do that? I’m a stranger.”
Thozzon lifted his chin and firmed his jaw. “Because I’ll ask you to do something for me—something nobody in the village will do.”
Unease slithered in Phineas’s belly. “Do what?”
“After I die, sit in the cemetery and watch over my grave for three nights. Keep the soul-reaper away. If you promise to do this, you can have whatever you want.”
Babysitting a corpse was not high on Phineas’s to-do list, but he really needed Thozzon’s help. Besides, the guy was genuinely upset. Phin didn’t mind giving him a little peace of mind. And although Phin had no powers of precognition, he assumed that Thozzon’s death would occur at some point in the distant future. He nodded. “Sure. I can do that.”
“You swear that you will?”
Phin hadn’t quite forgotten everything he’d learned as a lawyer. “I swear that I will do everything within my power to guard your grave for the three nights immediately following your demise. Furthermore, I will also take reasonable measures to prevent anything from, um, reaping your soul.” He doubted whether contract law had evolved very far here, but back home, this arrangement would have been binding. It had all the elements: mutual agreement, an offer, an acceptance, sufficient consideration paid for services, and mutual capacity to follow through.
Thozzon seemed bo
th satisfied and relieved. “Thank you.” His calm demeanor had crept back. “Now come with me and show me what you need.”
Phin left Thozzon’s house and headed toward the village center with a barrow full of brewing supplies and a promise that Thozzon would send everything else to his hut the next morning. It was much more than he’d expected when he knocked on the door, yet many uncertainties remained. Would he be able to make decent ale out of the arrowgrass? Would anyone here want to drink it? And as a separate matter, would he have anything to fear when he finally had to sit in the graveyard? His chances of success at brewing were more likely than his hopeless attempts to repair the starship’s communication computer and call for rescue. He knew a lot more about ale than electronics.
Gurthcir was still sitting in the square when Phin returned. He now recognized her knitting as a baby sweater.
“Well, look at that!” she said as a dozen other people clustered around Phin and his barrow. “Did you knock him out cold and take what you needed?” She cackled at her own joke.
“Of course not, auntie. He gave me everything I need.”
“I would think he’s been possessed, but what demon would stoop to taking up residence in that sour old husk?” More laughter, this time joined by everyone else.
“He traded me for a favor. Um, what’s a soul-reaper?”
Her expression instantly turned solemn, and everyone else backed up with little hisses of fear. “Why do you ask?” Gurthcir said carefully.
“Thozzon said a soul-reaper visited and, uh, threatened him. He was really worked up about it. He says that after he dies, he wants me to watch his grave for three nights.” Now that he said it aloud, it sounded pretty insane. A little boy burst into tears and was comforted by his grandmother, who gave Phin a reproachful look before carrying the child away.
“Sit down,” Gurthcir commanded.
Phin sat on the bench near her but outside of easy knitting needle range.
“You don’t have them where you come from?” she asked. When Phin shook his head, she clucked her tongue. “Such a strange place it must be.”
“It’s really different from here.”
“Do you have wars?”
He winced. “Yeah, we do.” When he was at university, people from a neighboring solar system had tried to take over his planet, apparently because they’d managed to blow up their own. The battles had lasted only a few weeks but resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths—including his parents and younger sister.
“We’ve had many. The last was almost ten years ago, and we lost a lot of young people who went off to be soldiers. That’s why so many of our houses are empty.”
Including the one Phin had been given. He shivered as he thought about its previous occupant—speared or hacked or clubbed to death far from home. “I’m sorry.”
Gurthcir nodded. “I lost a husband in an older war and nephews in the last one.” She reached over to pat him, her calloused, wrinkled skin warm against his hand. “We honor them with our memories, Star-Demon, but we also move on.”
Phineas sniffled, but he didn’t want the original issue sidetracked with more attempts at matchmaking. “Soul-reapers?”
“They were human once, long ago. Something changed them. A curse, maybe, or a disease, or maybe just their own evil nature. Now they roam the land, looking for the newly dead so they can eat the souls.”
Back home, Phineas would have laughed off a tale like that as pure fantasy. But he’d seen some strange things in this place, so perhaps there was at least a kernel of truth to the story. “That’s creepy.”
“It is. Luckily, most of us needn’t worry about it. The soul remains with the body for only three days—then it moves on to wherever souls are supposed to go. And in the sunlight, reapers are nothing but errant breezes, unable to harm anything. So it’s only three nights you have to worry about.”
Phineas stopped mid-nod when a terrible thought struck him. “Somboon,” he croaked, his throat almost too tight to speak.
“Oh no, dear, it’s all right. You were recovering from your accident, but we watched over him for you. We kept him safe.”
“Thank you.” Cool relief rushed through his veins. He took a few deep breaths. “Watched over—that’s what Thozzon asked me to do.”
The gathered crowd murmured at this, but Gurthcir waved them to silence. “The reapers can’t take a soul if a living person protects it for those three nights. It’s the lonely ones they go after. The unloved and abandoned. The lost.” She sighed. “And the soldiers and victims of war who are left unguarded. That’s how the reapers have survived for so long—they’ve profited from our wars.”
Phineas glanced at the barrow full of jars and sieves and other brewing equipment, all good quality and in fine shape. “Thozzon’s not a soldier, auntie.”
Gurthcir paused her knitting. She looked both sorrowful and fierce. “That man has never lifted a finger to help anyone. He doesn’t stand guard when others die. He doesn’t share what he has, not even when he has too much and others far too little. He overcharges for fermented milk. He’s thought about nobody but himself. Some years ago, just before the most recent war, a terrible drought killed our crops and our animals. Thozzon had plenty of food in storage and he could have given it away without endangering himself, but he refused to hand over anything unless people paid extortionate amounts. Most of us couldn’t afford it. Children starved to death.”
The other villagers nodded, a few of them blinking back tears.
“That’s terrible, auntie. But I promised him I’d watch over his grave when he dies. Is that okay?”
“Of course, Sky-Demon.” She smiled warmly and gave him another pat.
Well, at least Phineas now had a better understanding of what he’d agreed to and why Thozzon was so desperate to make a deal. He stood, but before he continued onward to his hut, a question occurred to him. “Are reapers dangerous to living people?”
Everyone laughed as if this was the silliest thing they’d ever heard. “Of course not,” Gurthcir replied, her knitting restarted. “As long as we’re alive, our souls are stuck on too tight to do reapers any good.”
“So to protect Thozzon’s, what do I do?”
“Tell the reaper to bugger off.”
Thozzon might have been the world’s worst neighbor, but he followed through on his word, personally delivering a wagonful of bulging grain sacks and additional supplies the next morning. He didn’t help Phineas unload them or carry them into his hut, and Thozzon’s sour expression suggested he wasn’t at all pleased to have been forced into this position. But Phin hadn’t expected him to suddenly transform into a friend.
As soon as the wagon was empty, Thozzon hurried away, leaving Phin to decide where to store things and how to set up his little brewery. His hut was too tiny to do more than temporarily house the sacks of grain, but he also had a long, low structure that must have once been a barn or something similar. Although most of the roof was missing, all the walls and some of the roof beams were intact. He guessed that, with some help, it wouldn’t be too hard to make the building sound again.
So Phin spent the next couple of days cleaning out the debris from inside the barn and tamping down the dirt floor. He even managed to install new shelves against the interior stone walls, where the old ones had rotted away. and he fashioned a makeshift door out of an extra blanket. It wouldn’t be enough during the winter—a chilly season here—but that was months away. He’d construct something better before then.
For the first time since the crash landing, he was looking at the future with optimism. It felt as if his tomorrows contained possibilities instead of despair. This certainly wasn’t how he’d expected his life to turn out—living largely alone in a low-tech world, frighteningly distant from everything he’d known—yet when he looked at it objectively, it wasn’t necessarily worse than his original path. Practicing law had been a way to make a living, not his soul’s passion, so he didn’t miss it especially. His curren
t hut was more rustic than his old apartment, but also more charming, far quieter, and surrounded by all the open space he could possibly want. He did miss some of the technology and creature comforts, but not the noise, the crowds, the feeling of being constantly surrounded by metal and glass and concrete and plastic.
Oh, but Phineas missed Somboon, even the things that had once annoyed him, like the way Somboon sucked his teeth loudly when he was concentrating or the dirty laundry he never managed to put in the ion cleaner. Sometimes, especially at night, the loss felt so great that it caused Phineas actual pain. Yet he also found himself smiling at sweet memories now, which he hoped would eventually overwhelm the bitterness. And Gurthcir’s matchmaking attempts were starting to feel simply premature rather than horrifying.
Someday Phineas might open his heart again.
But in the meantime he had plenty to keep him busy. Arrowgrass wasn’t the same as the grains he was used to, so he started his experiments with local yeasts and bittering agents, knowing it would be a while before he produced anything remotely drinkable. But that was okay. Gurthcir’s granddaughter had recently had a baby, so Phin—in addition to the fermenting trials—helped her husband and older children with their chores while mother and infant spent time together. He also helped a neighbor dig an irrigation trench. With such contributions, he didn’t feel too guilty about his continued dependence on the villagers for food and other necessities. If all went well, he’d be contributing more fully soon.
On the third day after his visit to Thozzon, Phineas decided to deal with the swiftly growing plants in front of his hut. If he ignored them much longer, he’d end up with a jungle. But it didn’t seem right to simply yank them all out, especially if some might prove useful. So after he woke up and ate a quick breakfast, he walked to his nearest neighbors, a family of seven who seemed content to live in a hut scarcely bigger than his own.
The oldest member of the family, Osgod, was tending to the garden and greeted Phin cheerfully. “Morning!” he called as he stood up straight and brushed loose soil from his hands. Like most of the people here, he was shorter than Phineas but sturdily built. His waist-length hair, bound at his nape by a cord, was as white and fluffy as a midsummer cloud. “Come by for more eggs? We’ve plenty today.”
