Craze softened under the loving
touch and encouraging words. He glanced over his shoulder at a father. Maybe
Bast really did mean well. Craze wanted it to be so.
His pa poured another shot of malt,
handing it to Craze. Craze sipped the drink until it mellowed his gruff mood,
replacing it with a growing trench of vulnerability induced by the flow of
alcohol.
“It’s good to know you believe in
me, Pa. I’m not so sure though. Siegna’s all I know. This tavern is all I know.
How do I spread the Verkinn race among the Backworlds? There’s no Verkinn out
there by which to mate ‘n start a village of my own. There’ll just be me.”
“I taught you well. You’ll find
your way. When you be settled ‘n prospering, I’ll send you a wife.”
“Yerness?” Craze had been courting
her the past year. The idea of leaving her brought on a wave of nausea. He
wanted to run his hands over her curves again and feel the tickle of her laugh
against his throat. He touched the spot on his neck her lips had last touched,
cradling the memory of pleasure.
His father wouldn’t meet his gaze,
scrubbing at the sticky spots on the bar, washing and wiping, scouring past the
filth into sawdust. Cold climbed all over Craze, inside and out.
“She’s
seein
’
somebody else, isn’t she?” Craze had to know for sure what he’d be leaving
behind. He punched the bar. The tree moaned. “Who?”
“It be for the best if you leave
her alone. Just pick up your bag ‘n go.”
The words hit harshly, causing
Craze to wince and pound on the bar top again. The tree growled. He gulped down
the malt and held the cup out for another.
His father waved a hand in refusal.
“There be no time. Get the coveralls on ‘n get going. Your transport to
Elstwhere leaves in an hour.”
“An hour? That’s so sudden.”
“A successful man puts his
business—”
“First. I know, but—”
“You’ll most like fall on your face
some, but I taught you to keep getting up. Prosperity ‘n success be found by
getting up again ‘n again ‘n again, as many times as it takes. ‘N by finding
the right people to take advantage of.”
“I know, but—”
“The council wants this, too. It be
for the good of all of us. My time talking with you be up. The council comes
now. We agreed that if you ain’t already on your way to the docks by now, they
could chase you off.”
His father pointed at elders
gathering outside, wearing council robes, prodders slapping loud and
intimidating. The electrified ends sparked every time the Verkinn elders
smacked the clubs against their palms. The flashes reflected in the growing
puddles flooding the packed-earth roads. Three council members were joined by
more, becoming twelve then twenty. All of that show of threat for him and
sanctioned by his father.
Craze’s reason ached from the
whiplash of all the contradictions, all the switches from savage to tender. He
couldn’t sort out
Bast’s
true feelings, and here he
was suddenly branded an outcast among his own kind.
“They only raise prodders to chase
off
leechers
‘n undesirables,” he said. This had to
be a nightmare. He banged his head on the bar. Pain flashed through his skull,
white to vivid, consuming his senses, tasting sharp.
“Don’t go getting hysterical about
it,” Bast said. “It’s temporary. I told them it was the only way to get you to
go, to brand you a leecher. They want the prosperity you’ll send home. The rise
of the Verkinn must come again.”
Bast’s
stance didn’t
soften, a snarl curled his lips. No matter the words, he wanted Craze gone. “All’s
you have to do is go out there ‘n do what you do. When fortune strikes, which
it will, the council will say you was on a secret mission for the Verkinn. A
hero. A big hero, never a leecher at all. See, nothing to worry about. Unless
you disobey me ‘n the council’s wishes. You to go, my boy. Now. No more
arguing.”
The words cracked like dried out
branches in a windstorm. Bast held out his hand and Craze clasped the flesh as
velvety as his own. Verkinn skin was soft as downy fur, irresistible to other
races. But that wasn’t why Craze couldn’t bring himself to let go. He didn’t
want to leave Siegna or the village and everything he knew. He couldn’t accept
he would find another world and his place in it. As far as Craze was concerned,
his place was here. With Yerness. What was up with her?
“Pa! I—”
“It’ll take you forty minutes to
get to the docks for the trip over to Elstwhere. They’ll make sure you get
there in time.” He gestured out of the window at the antsy elders waving their
electrified incentives, glowing like peril in the deepening dusk.
“We counting on you,” Bast said.
“Me. I’m counting on you. I’m the one who said it had to be you. ‘N just so you
don’t hear it from someone else, the council rose me in status last week. I’m
permitted to take on ‘n I intend to take advantage of my new rank. Yerness will
be my second wife.”
Craze jumped up off his stool.
“What?” Yerness would marry his father? When did that happen?
She had said from the moment they’d
met, she would only take on a mate of high rank. Rank Craze might have earned
by now if the council and his pa had granted him his own
ganya
tree to grow his own business. It should have happened three years ago when he
turned seventeen, but the elders kept saying resources wouldn’t permit it. They
just didn’t want to share. Obviously neither did Bast.
Eventually, Craze’s charms had
softened
Yerness’s
resolve. He promised he’d get the
council to grant him a tree and believed he stood on the precipice of being authorized
one. Attracted to his ambitions, she claimed she’d found joy in his arms.
Didn’t seem so now. Seemed she’d stuck with her goal to be wed to someone of
higher caliber. That part didn’t surprise him too much. But his pa? Craze’s
stomach pitched threatening to heave up all the malt he’d drank.
Crushed, he sank back on the
barstool molded from a small
ganya
tree painted a
festive red. “Why? Why her?”
“She was on the list of potentials ‘n
your ma likes her. No point in dwelling on it. What be done be done. Get along
now. The elders is about to brand you a leecher. If you piss them off, they
might not be so forgiving later. You don’t want that ‘n you ain’t safe here no
more.” His father gestured at the council gathering outside, more than twenty
of them now, brandishing prodders. “Get changed ‘n get out.”
Bast’s
features turned cold and brutish, his teeth showing in a display to emphasize
Craze’s degrading status. His father was suddenly a stranger, wheeling about
and marching out of the bar, never glancing back, as if Craze were some drunk
overstaying his welcome.
On top of the shocking news of
losing his girl to his pa, Craze was to be branded a leecher. Seriously? He
wasn’t a Verkinn bum sucking off the success of others without putting in any
effort of his own. He’d worked hard to help his father’s tavern succeed.
Slumping on the chair, he played with the empty crock between his hands, biting
his lip to keep from screaming. Neither his pa nor Yerness were worth
disgracing himself further.
“I’ll never be so fooled again.” He
pounded his fist on the bar. The
ganya
tree quivered
with Craze’s latest assault, letting out an eerie whistle, protesting its
continued mistreatment.
“Sorry.” Craze rubbed over the spot
he had smacked, smoothing over the insult. “None of this was your
doin
’. Was it mine?”
He raked over recent events and his
behavior toward his father and Yerness. The only thing he’d been guilty of was
trying to please them. His father had wanted more patrons coming in from other
worlds, so Craze had spent time down at the docks selling servings of malt,
sending the eager to the tavern when they clamored for more. Yerness had wanted
a new dress, so Craze had saved his chips and bought it for her.
She should have said no. His father
should have said thanks and shouldn’t have been so chintzy with the chips,
behaving as if the business hung on dire threads. Obviously it didn’t if the
council had raised his pa’s status. Craze couldn’t understand why Bast and the
elders couldn’t think of another way to get him off Siegna. A leecher? He was
hardly that. His efforts in tending the family business had been double
Bast’s
. Neither the measly startup fund, nor his lowered
standing were fair rewards.
“Shit.”
A scratch at the window made him
start. Three councilmen glowered, their noses and prodders pressed on the damp
glass. Their lips mouthed, “Leecher.” The clubs sparked like fury, ready to
chase Craze off as a village pariah. Worse than being torn to pieces, the
humiliation of it burned, killing his dignity. If all Verkinn lost esteem for
him, Craze might as well be dead.
“Shit ‘n fifty times over.”
He stood up and went over to the
sad little canvas pack in the corner. Inside were a couple of shirts, the
coveralls, and a photo of his family—Ma and Bast and his two sisters. He left
the photo on the floor, letting his clothes fall on top of it as he stripped.
His shirt and pants were rank and worn from a day’s labor that had procured him
no benefit other than lost love, lost family, a lost home, and the vilest label
a Verkinn could acquire.
“That I didn’t earn,” Craze said.
He shook the pangs of injustice
from his bared shoulders knotted from years of hefting kegs and sacks. The
grievances wouldn’t go. They fed on each other until a heat built, intense and
scorching. He glared at the council outside. “I ain’t no leecher.”
Taking a fresh white shirt from the
pack, he buttoned it up and put on the special coveralls made from a thick tan
material. The new garments rubbed stiff against his skin, threatening to chafe.
If not for the other bothers poking at his peace, he’d curse about it until his
father apologized, which wouldn’t happen. Bast never apologized.
The skimpy bag contained mostly
belongings that didn’t offer Craze much help at survival. Verkinn law stated
his father could claim whatever Craze had earned while under his employ whether
branded a leecher or not. Seemed Bast had done so and, judging from the
sour-acting council, Craze couldn’t count on help from anyone in the village,
who were the only people outside his family he knew well enough to ask. To
start a new life, he needed more then the meager few things in the travel pack.
He surveyed the tavern and the only
home he’d ever known. Slipping behind the bar, he fingered the bottles and the
curves of the
ganya
tree. Liquor held as much value
as chips, so he put a few bottles in the canvas bag, and found some suspenders
depicting a higher Verkinn rank. The council must have bestowed them to his pa.
The insignia of status could help
from time to time, if anyone knew anything about Verkinn and cared. Craze
cared. He put on the pair of red suspenders and threw the two others in his
pack.
Rifling through a cupboard under
the bar, he found a jar of
ganya
seeds. He took them,
authorizing his rise into adulthood himself. No matter what the council and
Bast said, he was owed this token of status. At twenty, he was past the time
for it. His pa was right, it was time for Craze to make his way. He also grabbed
some towels, tape, a spool of super-strong filament, and a lantern.
From another cabinet behind the
bar, he scooped ricklits out of their cage into a smaller takeout carton. They
were much tastier than the dried fish flakes from Elstwhere, or the processed
grass curdles from Elstwhere’s other inhabited moon. The bugs’ iridescent
yellow and blue bodies cheered Craze. Their chirping did, too.
Rickl’ttt
.
Rickl’ttt
. At least
he’d eat well for a few days.
He still felt unprepared and
intended to rummage about some more, but the council outside had lost patience.
They bared their teeth against the window and smacked their electrified clubs
against the sill. The chant of, “Leecher,” rose in volume. Soon the whole
village would hear and Craze would lose his dignity along with everything else.
If that happened, there’d be no chance of coming back to Siegna ever, as no
Verkinn would want anything to do with him. Once a leecher, always a leecher.
He had to go.
Craze hoisted the sack over his
shoulder and opened the door. The wet evening rushed in, slapping him full in
the face with the feel and smell of Siegna, damp and mossy, earthy and
mineral-sweet. He paused to savor a silent farewell with the tree and his home,
until the council waved their weapons and advanced toward him.
Sparks arced from puddle to puddle,
flashing over Craze’s shoulder. He smelled the char.
“Leecher! Leecher!” Their voices
shook the
ganya
limbs, surging up to the tree tops.
Shit.
Having no other choice, he set out
toward the edge of the village. Hissing clubs and growling voices on his heels,
he hurried past houses and shops constructed from
ganya
trees, lanterns glowing warmly in the windows. He stepped over tree limbs and
through them, pushing vines out of his way. Youngsters swung on
ganya
strands above, chasing each other with shrieks of
laughter. It was what Craze would be doing, were he not being run off.
The sway of the canopy roared
softly in the breeze and summoned unbidden memories of Yerness in his arms so
vivid he could taste her kiss. Hidden in a leafy nook, they’d basked in passion
and lust, noses bumping, hands exploring, lost in the humid night panting and
moaning, indulging in the feel of one another. She couldn’t have meant any of
it, and it kicked at him until all his thoughts filled with her torment.