Page 3 of Still the Sun

“We don’t need it,” Balfid says.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Arthen remarks.

The old argument about the Ancients and the pieces of civilization they left behind goes beyond me and Frantess. It comes down to tools. Emgarden sprouted up in the middle of nowhere, for reasons no one can remember, and its resources are minimal. Everything is minimal. We can’t expand, we can’t trade, and we can’t mine. People need tools for mining, and we don’t have the metal for tools, even if I sacrificed every artifact I have, which at the moment totals two: the incomplete piece I was just studying and a drafting compass. Any minute now, someone will bring it up. Again.

Gethnen doesn’t disappoint. “We can try the mountains one more time.”

No one responds. They don’t need to. The mining of the mountains is a paradox; there are some ore deposits at their base, but we’ve no tools to access them.

“Keep the rock bar,” Balfid says.

“I’d rather lose it than my scraps.” I don’t take offense at the term they use for my piecemeal artifacts. That’s what they are, brass, steel, and other metal leftovers from an unknown history, and most in Emgarden see them as old toys from a time long passed. I’ve promised myself to forfeit all the scrap I have when our options run out, but the thought makes that gapingnothingin my core open wide and swallow.

Something is missing.

A familiar pang echoes in my chest. Rubbing my hand over my sternum, I take another sip of ale. Sleep and drink are the only things that keep that strange feeling at bay. The feeling that, like my brokenartifacts, something about me, too, is incomplete. It’s a sentiment I’ve never shared with anyone, even Salki. How could I put into words something so deeply visceral?

“Keep your rock bar.” Frantess doesn’t sound defeated. It’s a promise of more arguments to come, perhaps without such an accommodating audience.

She wouldn’t take the rock bar anyway. It’s a necessary tool for digging the wells, and there’s no water without the wells. Lore—some might call it scripture—claims that Tampere exists as one land among many, created by the World Serpent, whose discarded skin coils into entire planets, far beyond what our mortal eyes can see. But when the Serpent shed the skin we call home, Tampere kept all its water deep inside, so we have to dig for it. Only the hardiest plants with the longest roots—like the emilies—can survive without intervention. No wells, no food. The crops are planted where the wells are, which gives our farmland a somewhat eccentric shape, but who’s around to judge us? There’s only Emgarden. I’ve walked clear to the amaranthine wall and the Brume Mountains multiple times. If any living thing has built another village, town, or city, it’s too far to reach. So it’s just us and that old fortified tower. That’s why no one ever bothered to repair, nor finish, the haphazard stone wall surrounding our little corner of Tampere. What do we have to keep out?

If I could get enough artifacts, figure out enough pieces, maybe I could find a way to collect water from the fog. By late mist, it leaves condensation on some things, especially glass and metal. But that just circles me back to the same problem as before: lack of metal. Lack of tools. Even Arthen couldn’t spare anything for my experiments. The crops are too important, even if they’re dug and harvested with brittle trowels.

I glance up at the clock above Maglon’s head, the complement to the one in my home. It’s a square box with two narrow platforms, the first marked with eight ticks, the second with five, to mark hours. There are small dots to mark minutes between them, but they’re hard to seefrom where the clock hangs. Wider bands on the platforms mark first, mid, and late, for sun and mist, respectively. It has to be wound, but I timed the bands and springs in a way to align with the hours so the metal ball bearing that marks the numbers would be accurate. Once the ball reaches the bottom of the clock, a small plug kicks it back up to the top. Right now, the ball rolls past the fifth hour, into late sun.

Maybe I should get some food. And then some rest. But I’m not fond of the idea of trading Maglon for grain when I have some in my own cupboards. Standing, I stretch my back.

As if sensing my thoughts from the next table, Amlynn offers, “I’ll watch her, if you’d like. Get her to Salki by first mist.”

I glance to Casnia, who’s finished her drawing and occupies herself by freeing a sliver of wood from the wall. “Thank you.”

As I make my way through the crowd toward the exit, Arthen snags my wrist. “Where’s my knife, Pelnophe?”

I roll my eyes and pull free. “For the last time,Art, I never borrowed it.” I flick the side of his head and continue on my way. Next time that man asks me that same blasted question, I’m going to dump water on his forge.

Outside, I haul up my tools, feeling the soreness waking in my back, and head down the main road to my house. Mourners have crushed some of the emilies I passed earlier. I can’t tell if their centers still glow; the sun shines too brightly. Skirting them, I continue on my way. Everyone but Salki has crowded into the alehouse, so the streets stretch quiet and empty. I’m nearly home when I hear a soft, distant tone winging through the air. One I might not have heard, were it not for the funeral pulling everyone from their homes.

I’m no musician. I couldn’t pick the note from a scale or re-create it myself. But I hear it on the slightest stir of a breeze, as though it calls from the mountains themselves. A single high tone, softer than a newborn’s breath. Then it’s gone.

Biting my lower lip, I pick up my pace, stow my precious tools in their shed, and slip inside my little house. Kick off my shoes, soak somegrain. Devour it when it’s only half-softened, then drop into my bed before the ball on my clock can drop to the next platform.

I start at the knocking on my door. Stare at my ceiling a long moment while my mind shifts from dream to reality. I can’t remember what I dreamed. A hand, a tree ... but even as I try to recall it, it slips away, as intangible as the mists.

Mists.By the dimness of the room, I can tell it’s high mist. I sit up, listening, wondering whether my tools fell over and clattered against the side of the house—

Knock knock knock knock knock.Firm, but not desperate.

Stifling a yawn, I slip out of bed, stretch my back, and rub my eyes. “I’m coming,” I mutter, finger-combing my hair.

The knocking begins again. I wrench open the door, ready with a sharp word if it’s Arthen, or a soft one if Salki has sought me out.

But as I stare up into the green eyes of an utter stranger, my breath catches.

One coherent thought worms through my mind:He is not one of us.

Chapter 2

I know every soul in Emgarden, every soul of this dry and lonely world, and none compares to the peculiar creature on my front step. He looks unlike any person I’ve ever seen. He stands tall and lean, with skin paler than the sun should ever allow. Deep green, like the leaves of a sorghum plant shrouded in fog, circles his pupils. His hair is even whiter than his skin, hanging long, just past his waist, and loose, in sharp contrast with his dark, robe-like clothing, fashioned differently than the simple tunics and trousers the rest of us wear.

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