Immortal at the Edge of the World (7 page)

When you’re about to be lynched because someone thinks you’re not human and a goblin rides up, I’ll be honest, it’s really hard not to point that out to somebody. I didn’t, but I sure thought about it.

When he stopped at the scene everyone there took a half step back and relaxed, like kids who were about to fight until Mom walked by. Given how this lot felt about strangers, I had to think they knew him.

The goblin took a long look at me, and I at him. He had thin black hair and a tiny wisp of a mustache. His riding gear was an expensive combination of leathers of a unique design for this area. No sword that I could see, so he probably only had one or two. He was from the Orient, quite clearly, and yet of the two of us I was the one who everyone seemed to think did not belong.

“Ho, Garivald,” the goblin said. “What goes on here?”

Garivald looked annoyed and spoke tersely. “Nothing to concern you, Hsu. Travel on peaceably and leave us to the Lord’s work.”

The goblin named Hsu did not, thankfully, do this. Instead he dismounted and led his horse off the road, handing me the reins. I took them without comment. I also took the small dagger he slipped into my palm without comment.

I was going to like this Hsu fellow, I decided.

“Is this he?” Hsu asked. “The legendary crossroad devil you have been anticipating?”

“As I said, it’s not your concern,” Garivald repeated.

“
Into town he rides, on a great steed with promises of wealth untold, and on his head there would be horns and on his feet hooves. And the steed would carry him on six legs and breathe fire. His eyes would glow in the night with the souls of the damned.
I will be honest, Garivald, I do not see the resemblance.”

“He works magicks to appear as a man to us,” Garivald said, as if this was the most obvious thing ever.

“That seems like a waste of a good description, then.” Hsu reached into my wagon and pulled out a ceramic bowl. To me he asked, “Is this cursed cupwear forged in hellfire?”

“No, it’s a bowl made in China,” I said. He gave me an arch look. “Fine, Persia.”

“Persian ceramics, Garivald. I suppose having touched this I am now cursed?”

“You trifle with the wrath of the Lord,” Garivald spat.

Hsu sighed and rolled his eyes. “This simple merchant is not the devil you seek.”

“Simple?” I asked.

“Simply human.”

“Yes, that.”

Garivald was still having none of this. “One final warning, Hsu, this is not your concern.”

Hsu paced around my wagon, poking at the stuff and generally looking like someone who didn’t much care how many people threatened him and told him he had to leave. I was glad for this, even though I was a little annoyed by the visible disdain he showed for my goods. Some of it was pretty decent.

“How goes your church?” Hsu asked Garivald, while holding up a trinket in the waning light. “Have you set your foundation?”

“You know well we have not,” Garivald said. He was turning red from the exertion of being civil.

“Oh yes, that’s right. You require a relic first.” He put the trinket back. It was a crappy piece of brass hammered to a chain by someone with not a lot of skill at hammering, but on a good day I could talk it up into being the rarest necklace in the kingdom.

“A relic?” I asked Hsu. “What sort of relic?” I was mentally conducting an inventory.

“A holy relic,” Hsu said. “As a God-fearing man you know this, I’m sure. And perhaps you can help?”

“How might I do that?”

Hsu laughed. “I have looked over your wares, peddler, and there is little to see. But
I
know you have a treasure. A holy treasure. A treasure that only a God-fearing and definitely entirely human man such as yourself could carry without bringing down the wrath of the heavens. Tell me! Where have you hidden it?”

Garivald was nearly as confused as I was. “Hsu, what are you talking about?”

“Oh, he knows!” Hsu said with a laugh. “Many miles have I traveled looking for the very man that stands before you now, for word of him has spread all through this valley and many lands beyond!”

“But why did you seek him?” one of the townsmen asked. At least the rabble was buying into this.

“Yes,” I agreed. This was turning into quite a performance and I still wasn’t sure where it was going. “Why
did
you seek me?”

“Humble Garivald,” Hsu said grandly, “you have sought a relic on which to base your humble church to honor our Lord.”

“Humbly,” I added helpfully.

“While I have gone far and wide looking for the peddler the people spoke of, the man who carried with him just such a thing!”

Garivald looked nonplussed. He still had lynching in his eyes. “And this is such a man?”

“Imagine my surprise, to follow his path right to the very spot I’d hoped to lead him! It is truly the work of the Lord!”

In a grand gesture, Hsu wrapped his arm around me as if to lift me, or possibly embrace me. He didn’t fully commit to either option, but when he was done my pocket felt heavier than it had a moment earlier.

“You would have us believe that the foundation of our church is delivered in the hands of a devil?”

Hsu sighed. Garivald required some patience, as the smartest person in the village was still not all that smart, clearly. “This is what I have been trying to tell you, my humble friend. This is no devil.” To me he asked again, “Where is your treasure? If you reveal it I swear you will be given a fair audience.”

“I always keep it on my person,” I said. “It is the only safe place. But I do not trust these men, lord Hsu. I don’t think they are ready to see it.”

The question of why Hsu was doing any of this was one that would have to be answered as soon as I was no longer at risk of being torn apart by fanatics, but I had finally caught on to what he was doing.

“No, these are only humble, god-fearing men!” Hsu declaimed. “They don’t truly mean you any harm! Tell him, Garivald. Tell him you are humble.”

“I have said so,” he said.

“And that you will not harm him,” Hsu added.

“I would see what he hides.”

“The burden I carry is great,” I said, trying to very hard to sound extremely serious and powerfully burdened. And humorless, because again: no sense of humor around these parts. “For years I have carried it, and I wished only to pass it on to he who was worthy, he that the Lord Himself spoke of when I first came into possession of this relic.”

“The Lord spoke to
you
?” Garivald said in disbelief.

“In a dream, yes.”

I pulled the thing Hsu had given me from my pocket. It was a partial leg bone from a pig, as near as I could tell. “The night after I discovered this . . . bone . . . He came to me. I knew it was special, for truly when you touch it you can feel its . . .”

“. . . Holiness?” Hsu suggested.

“Sure, yes. Holiness and grace and God things and such. All that. And the Lord said to me, he said, ‘Take this . . . finger bone? . . . to the place where it is most needed.’ So I have looked for that place.”

“And here you are!” Hsu said.

“Here I am! With this finger bone, which belonged to . . . a saint. I’m pretty sure.”

“Not just a saint!”

“No, not just a saint!” Okay, I knew there were saints, but coming up with the name of one was going to be difficult. This would probably have been easier if I’d actually met Jesus back when I worked in Galilee.

“Whose bone is it?” Garivald said breathlessly. I realized we finally had him.

Hsu looked at me, but I wasn’t nearly confident enough in my Christian lore to pull out an impressive name. At that time Christianity was still an upstart little doomsday cult to me.

“None other than John the Baptist!” Hsu said. Everyone there gasped and took a step back, which was really, really funny.

And thankfully, he picked someone I had heard of. “It’s true! This bone is from the hand that baptized Christ!” I said. It was hard to believe they were taking this seriously, especially since if anyone was capable of positively identifying a pig bone it had to be a gathering of farmers. But it was working.

“It appears,” Garivald said, “we have been mistaken, kind sir. That you would travel all this way to deliver so great a relic to so humble a setting . . . you truly do the Lord’s work. But what can we give you as trade for such a great thing? We have so little.”

He had gone from pompous to obsequious so suddenly it took a lot of effort not to be a little obnoxious, but Hsu had already described it as a gift and while I could have probably gotten a decent meal or something out of it, I pretty much just wanted to get the hell out of town before someone introduced a new crazy.
 

“Just take it,” I said. “Found your church on it, and I promise no devils will darken this road.”

I walked it over to Garivald, and honestly when he fell to one knee to accept it I nearly cracked up. I was
that
close.

And that bone must have come from one remarkable pig, because the second Garivald touched it he started to tremble with the kind of ecstatic joy you only really see in full-blown fanatics and very expensive prostitutes. “It is truly a holy relic,” he declared.

And just like that I was free to go. The lynch mob was no longer lynch-inclined, and instead wanted to take turns holding the exhumed finger bone of John the Baptist.

“You should pack your wagon now,” Hsu said under his breath.

“I believe you are correct,” I said.

“Up the road, on the other side of a crest, there is a dirt path that leads to nowhere in particular. Meet me at the end of this path.”

So I guess we were dating. “I thank you for your help here, lord Hsu, but why should I agree to meet an armed goblin alone in a deserted wood?”

He smiled, just widely enough for the sharp points of his teeth to reveal themselves. “Because this goblin has been looking for you for a very long time,” he said.

*
 
*
 
*

The dirt path was as Hsu described, although it didn’t actually lead to nowhere. It led to a very old tree on a low hill. The grass around the tree was trampled down, and the markings on the lowest bough suggested this had been a hanging tree not so long ago. I wondered if this was where I’d have ended up had Hsu not come along and decided probably not—hanging is something people tend to do to other people, not to devils.

There is no such thing as a devil. Or suppose I should say that there is no species I’m aware of that uses that word to self-identify. I feel like I need to make this clear given what I’ve already said about demons and iffrits and so on.
Devil
is a word generally reserved for Judeo-Christian hell-spawn. They’re often described in a way reminiscent of satyrs—hooved feet, for instance—and satyrs are also real. Likewise, devils can prey on the living and are associated with the night, much like vampires, who are real as well.

Basically, if you took the worst aspects of demons, satyrs, and vampires, and threw in the personality of an iffrit, you’d have yourself something pretty close to a devil. But again, devils aren’t real. As far as I know.

It was nightfall by the time Hsu reached the clearing. I’d started a small fire by then, in anticipation of spending the night under the hanging tree and thinking about all the food I wished I could be cooking on said fire.

“Good thinking,” was what he said by way of a greeting. “It will get chill around here soon enough.” He tossed a pair of dead rabbits at my feet. “And now we can cook these.”

He’d arrived by leading his horse up the path rather than riding to me, which made his approach quieter. I had still heard him, but I was expecting someone so I was listening. It was a more polite entry, certainly. If I had heard someone riding hard toward me I might have braced for a less pleasant guest.

Rabbit was definitely one of the things I had been thinking of maybe cooking over my fire. I held them up. “Fresh,” I remarked.

Hsu sat down on the opposite side of the fire, cross-legged. It was a pose I associated with the Hindus of the Far East.

“It’s a gift. Not from me, from Garivald and his people. I told them it seemed a shame, you going away hungry.”

“Hungry, but with all my parts attached,” I said.

“If that is your bottom line, you must be a terrible peddler.”

I laughed. “On certain days, continuing to breathe comfortably is sufficient payment. On other days, a good meal and perhaps some wine.”

“Then wine we shall have,” Hsu said. Reaching into a saddlebag he pulled out a leather pouch and handed it to me over the fire.

“This village had wine to spare? I should have stayed longer.”

“No, this is mine.”

I took a sip, and handed it back, and then got to work skinning the rabbits. “You passed through Constantinople,” I said. “Your wine gives you away.”

“The wine wasn’t made in Constantinople.”

“Nothing is made in Constantinople. It is from a particularly fertile valley in the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean—whatever that territory is called this season—but the marketplace for this wine is Constantinople.” It should not be an enormous surprise to anybody that I am an expert in the field of alcoholic beverages.