Fenn Hallows's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Fenn Hallows caught the plank before it fell on his foot. The nail had rusted through again. He held the board against the stall post and squinted at the market beyond, where three buyers walked past without looking up. One of them laughed at something. Fenn was fairly sure the laugh was aimed at his roof. He was old, stooped, and patched at every seam. His stall was worse. He had built it himself thirty years ago, and it had leaned a little more each winter. Now the sign hung crooked over a counter of trinkets nobody trusted: bottled inks, bent keys, charms strung on wire. He wanted this stall to become the place where mortals and gods traded across the same counter. Today it could not even hold a shelf. A small white creature ran down his arm and sat on the plank. The luma squirrel had pale markings that glowed faintly along its back. It sniffed the rusted nail and chattered at him. "I know," Fenn said. "I know." He let the plank drop and walked out from behind the counter. He looked at the whole hut from the front, the way a buyer would. The roof sagged. The shutters hung open at wrong angles. A rope of charms drooped so low it brushed the dirt. No one would bargain here. No one would even stop. He took the strings of charms down. He took down the bent keys, the cracked bowls, the tin cups. He piled everything on the ground and stood in front of an empty counter. Then he started over. He pulled the leaning post straight and wedged a stone under its base. He tied the crooked sign flat with fresh cord. He arranged only six things on the counter: three inks, two charms, one small carved box. He swept the dirt in front of the stall until the ground was clean enough to stand on. The luma squirrel watched from the roof beam. When Fenn stepped back, it hopped down onto the counter and curled beside the carved box, tail bright against the wood. A woman passing with a basket slowed. She looked at the squirrel. Then she looked at Fenn. "How much for the box?" she said. Fenn's hands were shaking. He put them flat on the counter to hide it. "Depends what you'll trade." She set down a copper coin and a folded paper. "Coin, and a message. I need it carried past the split arch by dusk." Fenn looked at the paper. Past the mossy basalt arch was a half day's walk, and the fungi there made people sick. He thought of the sagging roof behind him, and the empty months. He picked up the paper. "Done," he said. The woman took the box. The luma squirrel chittered once, sharp, as if it already knew what the paper would cost him.