D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

“Mallos ca!” he shouted. He was ticked and started yelling angrily at Saint Dane. I won’t write the words as I heard them because, as you know, his language made no sense to me. I’ll just tell you the translation that Osa gave me.

“Mallos has chosen a different subject for the Transfer and Rellin is telling him that it is not fair,” Osa explained, though I pretty much figured that out on my own. “He is pleading with Mallos to use the choice he made yesterday.”

I could see why. This new guy was much heavier than the original guy. If they had mined enough of the glaze to balance with the first guy, there was no way they’d have enough to balance with the second guy. Rellin begged Saint Dane for fairness. Saint Dane didn’t flinch. He looked at Rellin like he was a bug. Then one of the knights stepped up to Rellin and slapped him on the side of the face with his spear. Rellin spun around and I could see the fiery anger in his eyes. He was already bleeding from the smack on his cheek. I could tell he was a breath away from leaping at the knight’s throat. But he didn’t. That was smart because the other knights were standing right there, ready with their weapons. He would have been hammered.

“Look at me, Rellin,” commanded Saint Dane.

Rellin looked up at his enemy on the horse.

“Being a loyal subject, you should want to do more for Kagan than is expected of you,” Saint Dane said with an arrogance that even mademy blood boil. “Are you telling me that you are doing the least amount of work that is necessary?”

Rellin answered with a seething yet controlled tirade that Osa translated for me.

“He is arguing that mining glaze is difficult and dangerous. Every ounce they pull from the mines comes at a huge cost. He says they mine as much as they possibly can.”

Saint Dane snickered and said, “We will see.”

He then gestured to the knights. One of them jumped up onto the platform, grabbed the skinny guy who was sitting on the end of the seesaw and pushed him off the platform. Then the other two knights dragged the heavyset guy up onto the platform and jammed him down into the seat. This guy was scared. He looked to Rellin with pleading eyes, but there was nothing Rellin could do.

“Now,” said Saint Dane. “You may begin.”

The miners looked to Rellin, who gave them a slight nod. They had no choice, so they went to work taking the glaze from their basket and putting the stones on the opposite end of the seesaw.

“What happens if they don’t make the weight?” I asked Osa.

“Let us hope you do not have to find out,” came her ominous answer.

The miners quickly placed the glaze stones on the scale, starting with the larger ones and working their way down to marble-sized ones. The villagers’ eyes were all focused on the scale. My guess is that no one was breathing. I know I wasn’t. When the miners were about halfway through, the seesaw began to move. Ever so slowly, the heavy man on the opposite end of the scale began to rise. As soon as he felt himself move, a look of relief came over his face. Maybe there would be enough glaze stones to balance him after all. With renewed hope the miners continued to pile the stones on the scale. Slowly the scale moved and the heavyset man rose into the air.

I could feel the mood of the crowd beginning to turn. They were going to do it. They had mined more than enough glaze that day, just as Saint Dane had demanded. With the last few small stones, the scale rose until it was perfectly level. It took every last one they had, but they made it. If this had been a World Series game, the crowd would have erupted into a cheer. But this was no game. Even though I could sense their joy and relief, no one made a peep. I saw them secretly exchanging little smiles of joy. There were even a few quick, secret hugs. It was a good moment. Even Rellin looked relieved, though he tried not to show it. Throwing victory back in Saint Dane’s face would not have been a smart thing to do.

Saint Dane didn’t react. I couldn’t tell if he was happy they had mined so much extra glaze, or ticked that the Milago had met his unfair challenge. He swung his leg over and jumped down from his horse. He climbed up onto the platform and looked at the level scale with a slight smile. Suddenly the mood of the crowd grew tense again. What was Saint Dane doing? He looked to the heavyset man who was swaying on the end of the scale. The man looked down, afraid to make eye contact. Saint Dane then walked to the end of the scale where the glaze stones were piled into the basket.

“Well done, Rellin,” he said. “You have mined quite a large amount of-” He suddenly stopped talking, and leaned in closer to the basket of glaze stones. Throughout the crowd people started holding one another’s hands for strength.

Saint Dane gazed into the basket of stones and said, “Rellin! I am surprised at you. There is a stone in here that is not pure glaze!”

Uh-oh. Rellin made a move to run to the basket, but two of the knights held him back. Rellin yelled something at Saint Dane, but it didn’t matter what he said. Saint Dane reached into the basket, grabbed the largest glaze stone, and picked it up. Instantly, the scale tipped and the heavyset man slammed down onto the platform, hard. Saint Dane carried the stone over to Rellin and held it up to his face.

“You know that Kagan only accepts stones of pure glaze,” he said through smug, clenched teeth.

Not that I’m a geology expert or anything, but that stone looked just like every other stone in the batch. Saint Dane was changing the rules again.

“You know what must happen now,” he said with mock sadness.

Apparently the heavyset men knew it too. He scrambled to his feet and jumped down off the platform. He wanted out of there, fast. But the knights grabbed him and held him tight.

“What’s happening?” I asked Osa.

Osa didn’t answer. She kept staring at the scene with sad eyes. I figured I was going to find the answer soon anyway and turned back to watch the last act of this drama.

One of the other knights quickly grabbed a heavy chain that was attached to one end of the wooden platform. He pulled on it and half of the platform top lifted up like a trap-door. Underneath there looked like…nothing. The platform was built over a huge hole.

“It is the first mine shaft that was dug here in the Milago village,” Osa said without taking her sad eyes off the scene. “It is a pit that reaches down farther than the eye can see. I am afraid there are many lonely bones resting on the bottom.”

My mind was racing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They were going to toss this guy down the mine shaft!

“Why don’t the Milago do something?” I said. “There are hundreds of them! Why don’t they stop it?”

The knights dragged the heavyset man closer to the open pit.

“Bagga! Bagga va por da pey!” he cried. It was horrible.

No one in the crowd moved. No one tried to help the poor guy. Even Rellin. It was like they knew it was futile. I noticed that next to me, Loor reached to her back and grabbed hold of her wooden weapon. But Osa put her hand over her daughter’s.

“You know it is not the time,” she said softly.

Loor didn’t release her weapon at first. I could feel her tension. One push, and she would be down there, swinging away. But today was not that day. She kept her eyes on the scene and released her grip on the weapon.

The knights dragged the screaming heavy man up to Saint Dane, who looked at the poor guy without a trace of sympathy and said, “If you weren’t such a glutton, you may have lived to see another day.” Saint Dane then nodded at the knights, and they dragged the poor, screaming man toward the open pit.

“Ca…ca!” he pleaded. “Maga con dada pey! Maga con dada! Moy fol wife, and two children! Please! I must take care of them! They will be alone!”