A Land of Death

Yuya didn't notice his own stench anymore.

He could have kept it in check, if he had found someone else to take him in after his deal with Gahari had run its course, had somewhere other than a dusty alleyway to wash himself. But none of the craftsmen in town, at least those who used their nimble fingers and their wits more than sheer brawn– scribes, tailors and the like– were taking apprentices. That left either digging into his funds to rent another pile of sheepskins somewhere, or taking work as a farmhand and living in one of the worker cabins along the edge of town. The former, he was hesitant to do, with how much food was going to cost here until the ongoing harvest was complete, and the farmwork… well, Ashset was probably going to find his little vagrant camp and lecture him about that again today. Same as the entire week before, and most of the one before that.

He crawled from a shadowed gap between two storefronts in the town’s market plaza, rolled out a blanket, and began his begging at the feet of the day's first shoppers. Generally, the people of Ak-Toum seemed patient, if not especially generous, with beggars. The handful of gate guards and bailiffs who kept order here, wherever clans and families could not handle it amongst themselves, rarely gave him trouble. He kneeled on an old blanket, bowed his head, and held out his cupped hands for alms.

He knew his first comer when a shadow lingered over him, its caster not uttering a word.

“Why aren’t you in the fields yet, Ashset?”

“We have finished harvesting Sorgat’s grain, and have a few days yet before we start on Akten’s melons. I will be sorely disappointed if you do not join us for the melon harvest, Yuya.”

“I told you, I don't have the strength or energy for manual labor. Nor do I stand much chance against this sun, although I have gotten a decent tan just from begging in the shade.”

“Children often say much the same thing when they come of age to work in the fields. Do you know what will give you the strength and energy for manual labor? Manual labor. Nobody will fault you much for being a little sluggish for your first few days, given your slight frame, and once you loosen up your back and get a few callouses, it will not be so bad.”

Yuya shuddered. An image of home came to mind, one that could be seen all over East Asia, and for thousands of years could hardly have been avoided in that part of Earth. A man in a conical sun hat, knee-deep in a flooded rice paddy, bent double in unending toil. If there was a Hell, Yuya was convinced it must look something like that. He had looked into getting a computer science degree to get as far away from that kind of work as possible. But the invention of the computer still seemed unimaginably distant on Nod, and begging wasn't cutting it. If the choice came down to back-breaking labor or starving to death on the streets, he knew his stomach would win out against his laziness. But surely a third option would present itself, before his money ran out.

Right?

He sighed. “I didn’t come all this way to toil in a damned field, but I don't intend to starve, either. How many days before the melon harvest begins?”

“Six. Counting today.”

“Give me until midday on the fourth. If I haven't found some other way to get a bit of cash by then, I will go to this Akten guy and offer my services.”

Ashset nodded approvingly and strode off, leaving Yuya mumbling angrily into his lap.

After some time cursing his lot, he heard a set or two of unusually heavy footfalls crunching over the mica-flecked earth of the market square. He looked up, and saw a man coming toward the shop on his right, then two more flanking him. The first wore a robe of saffron-colored silk, richly embroidered along its hems with armies of figures in profile clashing in battle lines, reminding Yuya a little of similar scenes on ancient Egyptian monuments, a little of painted Greek pottery. His escorts wore tall, pointed nasal helms that gave their faces a stretched look, and one-piece body armor of interchanging brass and steel scales that covered their torsos, arms down to their elbows, and legs down to their knees. One tilted a menacing bardiche across his shoulder, while the other carried a wooden chest about as wide as he, slotted like the offering box at a shrine on top. All three had wide, rounded-tipped, double-edged swords at their hips, with one-handed grips enclosed by knucklebows and tails curving out from the pommels, just long enough to hold with a second hand, if not as safely or comfortably as the first.

The well-dressed man entered the shop, his bodyguards lingering at the door. Its walls were thin and its windows lacked glass panes, so Yuya heard clearly:

“It is that time of year again, pawnbroker.”

“Uzdel, you know I have never come up short on my taxes. This last year has been tough, however; if I could just get an extension until the end of the summer harvests, when the laborers finally have the time and money to come spend–”

“The food shortage has also had an effect on my livelihood, Gekhat. I need more than pocket change to deliver to the provincial governor within the week. But I can make it easier for you. Luckily, this far from the capital, I am at liberty to accept goods as well as hard coinage for payment. The provincial armories sit only half-full at the moment. Turn over your whole inventory of arms and armor, and I will count this year's taxes for your whole clan paid in full.”

“All of us? There is hardly enough here to cover–”

“Do not presume to gainsay the appraisal of His Majesty's tax collector. If you will allow my men to collect what you have displayed here, I will mark your debts settled.”

“As you wish… thank you, sir.”

Uzdel the tax collector whistled, and the guards at the entrance filed in, idly leaving what they held in their hands just inside the door.

Yuya eyed the chest. If it was even an eighth of the way full of the low-value copper and pewter coins, he could probably buy a horse, ride for the capital of Jalabarta, and pay off somebody at this Great Temple of theirs to set him up with an apprenticeship under one of these djinn-invokers. Then he could really start doing things with his new life on Nod.

So long as he could figure out where the capital was. And figure out how to ride a horse as he went. And figure out how the Temple hierarchy and djinn-invoker oversight was set up. And didn't get caught right now.

He rose, and peeked around the doorframe of the pawn shop. All eyes were on a rack of polearms, as the guards bundled up its contents. Yuya dove for the chest.

He could hardly get it a hand's width off the ground. He hobbled back toward his dark alley, the massive haul hanging between his bowed legs. Without meaning to, he grunted under the strain.

Hardly was the sound out of his mouth when he heard the tax collector's voice behind him. The words were not the Jalabartan language in its modern form he understood, but they had the same intuitive feel of deep antiquity as the symbol he had found on his shoulder. “Din eparu khatan samayat, yid'im ban!”

The wind, previously still as death, picked up and swirled around Yuya, and something that felt halfway between a hard gust and a solid human hand seized his ankle and tore his feet out from under him. His forehead slammed into the edge of the chest as he was wrenched away from it, and he saw stars as he was dragged back to the tax collector's feet and pulled up to a kneeling position by the guards.

“Did you just invoke a djinn?” Yuya said, his head not quite clear enough for him to check his words before he blurted them out. “Teach me that, I beg you.”

One of the several rings on the tax collector's hand left a gouge in Yuya's cheek, as a backhanded slap sent his vision back into the night sky.

“You steal from the Crown– a crime for which most of the prescribed punishments are creative modes of execution– in a town still feeling the aftershocks of a famine– meaning all Crown officials here are still under orders never to be lenient with thieves– and instead of groveling for your life, you presume to ask for knowledge forbidden to all but the holiest of His Majesty's servants?”

“...Do I get a lawyer?”

“Your clan patriarch would get a chance to speak in your defense, but seeing as you are a foreigner and a beggar, I think we need not concern ourselves with that.”

“No trial?”

“This is your trial, and you are already found guilty. For your sentence… this town is loyal to the Crown and faithful to the Temple, but there is a village a day’s march north of here that could use an example.” The tax collector looked to his guards. “Secure this morning's collections, then take him to the tallest hill between Ak-Toum and Lish-Zadir. Crucify him.”