Asher Converse's Arc

Chapter 1 of 30

Asher Converse wanted a tavern, and he had no walls to hang a sign on. He stood in the muddy square of The Crossing, a gold chain at his throat, and counted the men with no place to drink. Six of them leaned against a shuttered stall. Travelers, magic-workers, men off the road with coin and nowhere to spend it. They needed a room. He meant to build them one, and soon. But a tavern needs a building, and every building in The Crossing already belonged to someone. He had asked at three doors that morning. Each owner named a price too high, then laughed when Asher named a lower one. He never took the first offer. That habit had carried him a long way, and it was not helping him now. A tall man watched him from the shade of the well. Leather vest, two flat gold chains, a mustache. He had bought a round for the whole square an hour ago and learned every name in it. His name was Tucker Hoskins, and he had a way of listening that made men talk too much. "You keep knocking on doors that won't open," Tucker said. "Waste of good knuckles." "I need a room with walls," Asher said. "Big enough for a crowd." Tucker rolled a coin across his fingers. "There's the old grain house past the market. Empty since the roof leaked. Owner's a drunk. He'll sell for whatever gets him to the next cup." "Why tell me?" "I like a place to drink when I pass through," Tucker said. "And I like watching a man overpay." He almost smiled. "You'll overpay. But it'll be yours." The grain house sat crooked and gray, one wall bowed, the roof open to the sky in one corner. But the walls were stone and the room ran long. Asher paced it and heard how sound carried. A man could pack forty souls in here. The owner sat on a barrel by the door, a jug in his lap. He named a price. Asher named half. The man scowled and clung to his jug. This time Asher did not push lower. He set his coin on the barrel, then added two more. "Enough to keep you drunk a month," Asher said. "And I don't want the roof. I'll fix that myself." The owner looked at the coins, then at the sky through his broken roof. He drank. Then he pushed the deed across the barrel and walked off toward the nearest tavern that wasn't his. Asher held the deed. He had his walls. Behind him, Tucker leaned in the doorway and looked up at the hole in the roof. "Rain's coming," Tucker said. "And that corner's rotten through. You buy a room with no roof, friend, and the first storm buys it back." Asher looked up. Clouds were stacking over The Crossing. He owned a tavern now, and it could not keep the weather out.