Standing Between Earth and Heaven
An Endhaven Novel
Jura City, Book 1
Douglas Milewski
Copyright Douglas Milewski, 2012. All rights reserved.
https://sites.google.com/site/endhavenproject/
Table of Contents
The Feast of All Gods
Ammelites
Commotions and Promotions
Minding the Money
Dogs Barking in the Night
Live By the Rod
Bang Shift
The Knackery
A Kitchen for a Cook
First Act of Justice
Awake With the Moon
Three or Four
Tin Dragons, Iron Chains
Relighting the Fires
Gifts of the New Year
The Road to Langurud
Holding Onto Death
Facing the Serpent
No Greater Secret
Your Own Madness
Spirit Box
Negotiating in the Ashes
Nothing in Hand
Black Locust
End of the Earth
Judgement of the Choir
Using Steel
The Digger
Glossary
Creative Commons License
License
The Feast of All Gods
Maran hated thunderstorms. When she was a child, she would hide at the sound of thunder. According to her mother, the first time that she had ever heard thunder, she immediately burst into tears. That only happened once. Dwarves, including Loam dwarves, were not known for their emotional outbursts.
Even though she hated thunderstorms, she grew to see them as magical. Those days after a storm raked through, she would rush out to a window to view Jura City and the valley beyond. For a few brief hours, no coal smoke filled the air. She could see beyond the battlements to the iron forge down by the river, and across the river to the Hadean Mountains. Below, in the dwarven city, she watched the coal smoke slowly fill in behind the battlements, then drift upward, once again damping out the sun.
Today, Maran did not so much hear the thunder as feel it in her head. It felt like a bird had just pecked deep into her brain. The intense stab to her temple surprised her so completely that she dropped her knife badly. It hit the counter, bounced, then flipped all wrong, landing tip down on the floor.
“Bird brain,” Maran scolded herself. She picked up her knife with great fear, only to find her fears justified. The fall had snapped off the tip of her ceramic blade. Maran’s heart ached at the mistake. “I can’t fix you right. Grandfather made this for Great Aunt Getta. I’m no match for him. Fixing you will need to wait.”
How could she drop a knife? That was shameful. That made no sense. Loam were cooking dwarves. Maran had cooked all her life. You care for nothing more than your knives.
Something stabbed at Maran’s brain again. This time, she heard the low rumble through the din around her. A few of the human kitchen workers heard it as well.
“STORM’S COMING!” Maran yelled though the pain.
The other kitchen workers stopped, listening for a few seconds. Most heard nothing, so went back to their work. A few seconds later, another rumble came through. Outside, a flash lit up the mountains. The storm was running up the valley from the south, moving fast.
Why was the storm coming from the south? It was late spring. Thunderstorms usually came from the north.
Curious, Maran walked outside the guildhall to see the storm. It moved fast. Already the wind had picked up, blowing the dust about. Dust devils picked up coal ash from the cobblestoned yard, making the air smell of smoke and rain. A few Horsebreakers ran about unhitching their wagons and rushing the teams to their stables. A few stray hairs escaped Maran’s kerchief, tickling her face like feathers.
The thunderclaps boomed over all other noises now, lighting up the Ironmonger forge brighter than daylight, making the world seem ever too red and ever too bright, even through shut eyes. Blinded, Maran blinked and squinted, her eyes overwhelmed by the glare.
The storm’s oddness riveted Maran. She stood there, despite the pain in her head, contemplating the arriving thunderhead. Against the night sky, the storm roiled as if a great, sinuous snake thrashed about, occasionally striking down. When lightning struck, the pain pierced Maran’s head again, just behind her right eye.
The wind picked up more, blowing Maran’s skirts between her knees, outlining her thick thighs. Sparks from the crematorium whipped upward, flying skyward in frenetic patterns, like bullets randomly fired into the sky. The remaining horse teams now stamped anxiously, growing panicked. Flags whipped on the poles, snapping.
A human girl stepped up next to Maran. It was Annalise, Maran’s scullery maid, grinning at the celestial spectacle. The wind whipped the girl’s hair into more of a mess than it usually was, her face frequently disappearing behind the chaotic black veil. Her hand did its best to clear her face again, to no avail. “This is a good one, ma’am.”
The sky flashed red again.
Annalise made the sign against evil. “Red lightning means lost ships, ma’am. Bad luck.”
A few drops smacking the cobblestones were the only warning they received before the rain arrived in cascading sheets. They both dashed for the kitchen, along with all the others who were caught outside in the downpour.
To Maran’s surprise, she did not find herself as wet as she ought to have been. Her new dress and skirts had shed the water, leaving her mostly dry. It seemed that her new dress, made from elven material, was not only light and tough, but somewhat water resistant as well.
Annalise, on the other hand, had all her clothing clinging to her. Maran made a note that her dress was too dirty, too worn, and too small for her developing chest. Now that she was working for Maran, she actually got enough to eat and was putting on proper weight.
Lightning flashed again, deafening the kitchen.
The storm raged above them now. The lightning flashed and split their ears with no hesitation. Each bolt blinded them for seconds, leaving their eyes filled with white and red and green. For Maran, the torture increased a thousandfold. Each peal brought a stab, bringing a surreal multicolor world to her worn eyes.
The brightest and loudest thunderbolt hurled down onto the steelworks building. Sparks flew off the metal roof as the lightning bolt bounced several times across the roof, then jumped, arcing into the yard, striking a horse.
“Wow!” Annalise shouted, barely audible. “That was a real mast splitter.”
That bolt had nearly split Maran’s head.
The heart of the storm paused above them. The thunder continued as if it would never stop. A dull roar deafened her. No breaths existed between one flash and the next; one bang and the next. Dulled senses wondered if the storm would ever end. Then, with a vast clacking, hail dropped onto the cobblestones, beginning small, but quickly growing to blueberry-sized pellets.
The pain was now too much. Maran sat down, holding her head. She feared that the storm would never end.
Annalise knelt down and patted her back. “Are you alright, ma’am?”
“It hurts my head.”
Despite all Maran’s fears, the storm’s heart did move along, drifting further north towards the reservoir. The spaces between bigs booms slowly lengthened, and the booms themselves slowly dulled from a cacophony into dull grumbles.
The rain stopped, almost as if someone had blocked a sluice with a board. Silence returned but for the drips and spatterings from the rooftops.
“Wow,” said Annalise. “Great tempest.” She smiled her young smile. Nothing about the storm seemed to disturb her.
Maran rubbed her head.“When I was little, my mother would tell me how the Red Lady made storms. The Red Lady would fly up in the sky, and look down, and see the growing things, and know that her sister, the White Lady, slept below. Then, in hatred for her sister, she would summon the winds, and summon the rain, and hurl invectives against the farms, doing her best to blow down the buildings and wash away the crops.”
“She’s the sinker of ships, ma’am. Gales down and drown.”
Annalise was a Demmarian, who had been a sea-going people before they had migrated to Jura City. They came, like so many others, when the western provinces collapsed. All those humans were refugees.
“Have you ever been on a ship?” Maran needed to change the subject. She could not tolerate the storm any more. Just asking the question made her eyes flash. She now saw in blues and purples.
“Never a sight. Not me. Not Grandpa. Great Grandpa did, up in Demmaria, before Fera Nea.”
Maran wanted to ask more, but a man wailed in the forge yard. They looked over to see a Kalt Horsebreaker standing by the dead horse. The dwarf threw himself onto his beast, trying to rouse it, but the horse would not move. In short order, he understood its death, wailing and beating his hand against its flank.
To her own shame, Maran wondered if they could roast the horse before dawn. The fires were still up.
The dead horse reminded Maran of her own grandmother’s words. “A dead horse means bad luck. Mark my words, this may be terrible, but worse will come.”
The last thing that Maran needed in her life was more bad luck. What she wanted was for her life to just settle down. She never sought turmoil. Given the option, she would pick dull and predictable over her current life.
Arany, the Horsebreaker vodie, rushed up to the wagon half-dressed. She shook her head upon seeing the dead beast and pronounced it gone. With dawn fast approaching, Arany began a hurried funeral for the horse.
Needing a bit of quiet as her headache slowly calmed down, Maran walked over to the funeral to provide moral support. For the first time in her life, the kitchen proved far too loud.
The funeral proceeded quickly. Arany raced against time. At the first glimpse of sun, the Feast of All Gods would begin. The end of the year would arrive. Everyone would put all the fires out and the kitchen would go quiet. Even funerals and burials would need to wait.
After the short funeral, the Kalt skinned his horse, then gave the carcass to the kitchen. The butchers made short work of it, yet broke no bones. That meant something, but Maran did not know what.
In no mood to watch the dismemberment, Maran wandered back into the kitchen. Before she could enter, the crematorium meister came dashing over, his raggedy coat flapping about him. “Meister Maran! Meister Maran! I need you.”
“What do you need me for? I have no idea what I can do for you.”
“The cremation is done. The Kurfurstin Mother is all ashes. Someone needs to collect her ashes and take her to the new Kurfurstin.”
“In no way is that a job for a cook.” Maran doubted that it was even the job of an Eighth Rod, which was her other title. Professionally, she only had one response. “That’s your job.”
The cremation meister was ready for that. “Ordinarily that’s my job. However, I’m not touching her remains. I won’t do it. She had powers, they say. Unknown powers. You are a Loam, a digger, you do it. The White Lady likes you. After that, I’ll do the other ashes.” The meister pointed to the other three ovens.
Maran felt annoyed at this stunt, but she had to admit that even dead, the Kurfurstin Mother scared the daylights out of her. Who knew what kind of powers she had that no one knew about? The woman was a legend unto herself, dead or alive. The cremation meister had every reasonable reason to fear her ghost.
The old Kalt took out a dirty silver coin and pressed it into Maran’s hands. “I’m givin’ you your due. I remember the old ways. Don’t say I’m not respectful. I’m beggin’ you. Be a digger for me. Take up her ashes and put them into her urn.”
A digger. That was an old term that he kept using. Maran’s grandparents used it, but only sometimes. The term was short for grave digger, one of the traditional jobs of a Loam. The Hadeans considered corpses unclean, and the Loam were the lowest caste, so the Loam traditionally administered to the dead. That is, they had done the lowest jobs until Svero killed the Loam court and kicked all her people out of Jura City proper. Without the Loam around, desperate Kalts took the jobs. They did they work, but they didn’t understand more than the basics.
“Have mercy, ma’am?”
The dirty old Kalt spoke so earnestly that Maran relented, if for no other reason than that he respected her. “Yes, I’ll do it.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Thank you. Do you know what you have to do?”
“I think I do. My mother is a priestess of the White Lady. She was an agricultural priestess, but still, she taught me something. I can do the basics.”
“I don’t know anything about priestesses, ma’am. I just need a digger.”
The crematorium meister took Maran to the ovens. He watched dutifully as Maran raked the ashes, then nodded approvingly as she used a sieve to separate the bone from the ash. Once completed, Maran placed the bone fragments into a beautiful jade urn.
The crematorium meister sealed the urn with melted gold. His duty complete, he handed the urn to Maran. “This is for the Kurfurstin. Will you take it to her or do I need to pay you more?”
“That was enough. I think my duties include this. The Missus took me to meet the Iron Duke and made me the Eighth Rod. I’m stuck with her.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Now wait a few seconds. Please give me time to leave. I won’t be happy until there’s a hunk of iron between us.” The crematorium meister made the sign against evil while walking backward out of the room.
After he closed the door, Maran counted to thirty, giving the meister time to escape. Confident that he was gone, Maran picked up the urn of Forsythe Saargi and took it outside into the light. The sudden brightness hurt her eyes, causing Maran to blink a few times. She turned away from the blue sky until her eyes adjusted.
The sun was now up. The Feast of All Gods had begun.
In the ruddy light, Maran examined the jade urn. Forsythe had spared no expense for herself. She had an urn of the finest jade, most likely pilfered from someone. The scenes on it depicted the White Lady directing skeletal fossors about in a forest of mushrooms, supervising them in building a tomb. Of course, the fossors were all Loam skeletons, as tombs were also considered unclean.
That was the final irony of the social ladder. Once you were dead, the Loam were in charge.
A motion caught Maran’s eye. The kitchen workers were dispersing and the kitchen was shutting down. Steam erupted from chimneys. The fires were being put out. Presumably, most of the workers were heading out to see family and friends. Some would stay here, as they had no family to visit. With no work impending, the kitchen workers pulled out tiles and put down money.
Annalise had family, but she had to stay. Maran needed her here. There were long days of hard work ahead. Unlike the main kitchen, the Kurfurstin’s kitchen could not stop. Maran walked over to Annalise. “Go get some sleep. Get whatever you can, when you can. Somewhere in there, I’ll find time for you to slip out and see your kin.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am!”
Maran knew that Annalise would not get any sleep, but she had to say so anyway. Doing so made her feel like a big sister. In that moment, Maran missed her own family again. Back home, with the sun up, her family would be walking into the fields to gather the morning crop and fix the damage from the storm. Even on the Feast of All Gods, they worked until they could work no more. Somebody had to grow the food, and the milk cows never took holidays.
Maran walked up to the Kurfurstin Mother’s suite. Just a few days ago, Forsythe Saargi, the Kurfurstin Mother, had run all the agricultural territories from this apartment. The woman had hated every moment of i
t. She had seethed in her guild’s shame and poverty. If not for their lack for gold, the Ironmongers could have bought a far more prestigious and profitable ministry.
“Ironmongers should not supervise farmers,” the Kurfurstin Mother had shouted at least once a day. That fact made Maran angry. Why were the Loam looked upon so poorly by the other dwarves? It seemed unjust to Maran.
Besides growing food and burying people, the only thing that her people did that other dwarves thought was of any value was cooking food. The Hadeans loved good food, or at least plentiful food, and no one provided that better than a Loam. They used to be all over the city cooking. They used to cook for emperors and kings. You didn’t have a proper home if you didn’t have a Loam in the kitchen.
The irony struck Maran. The Hadeans loved good food, but they despised the cooks. The Hadeans loved plentiful food, but they despised the farmers. The Hadeans loved beautiful tombs, but they despised the tomb builders.
The accumulating anger felt too much for Maran. She needed to get out of this compound and take a walk. The Loam were pacifists, but not saints, so managing anger was a necessary skill. Quenching your angers was among the most important of those skills. Maran placed the jade urn onto the sideboard and left the guildhall. She walked straight out of the forge with no idea where she would go. She just needed to walk and work off that anger, preferably by splitting a cord of wood, but this wasn’t home and she had no wood.
Down the street Maran went among the early morning bustle, among the humans. Flower sellers sold bundles to the flower girls. Young men carried tins of milk about and watched the flower girls, who watched the young men. Some exchanged knowing glances, as lovers do.
Flirtation was not what Maran needed in these moments of anger. She needed quiet. She needed a garden, and she knew where to find one, sighing as she went. Maran turned down the alley and walked for Altyn Tag’s house. She did not need Groppekunta Street. The last of the outside girls would still be walking around, hoping for some final customers, before they too turned in and slept for the day.
Standing Between Earth and Heaven Page 1
