The Contract

Abellium was a quaint town regularly voted “Most Lovely Town to Settle Down” by the Ninaviet Gazette and “Worst Place to Acquire Gold and Glory” by Mercenary’s Quarterly. It sat on a scenic cliffside overlooking the Sea of Okhotsk, its crystal-clear blue waves lapping at the rocks hundreds of feet below. The sun was always shining even when it was raining. For reasons unknown to the villagers, even an otherwise overcast sky always left room for the blazing sun. Of course, none of them had ever posed the question to one another, knowing that it was best not to look a benevolent god horse in the astral mouth.

It wasn’t perfect, of course - a few of the cobblestones were loose and Samuel Brownbread, the local baker, had recently stopped making his signature blackberry pies. The day of that announcement was the first riot the town had ever seen - two irate citizens showed up with dull pitchforks and made a fuss in the town square. The clean-up took several entire minutes.

Aside from these glaring imperfections, however, no one had much to complain about. Families had been there for generations, content to stay in their familial homes. Of the few dozen children born each year, only a few were adventurous enough to venture past the surrounding lush, green fields that provided plenty for them. Those that left rarely returned, finding themselves better suited to seedy back alleys or grand capital cities than farming and Bingo Tuesdays at Sister Lazili’s Church of the Lucky Lady.

Donovan Fletcher had never dreamed of leaving, much less imagined it, considered it, or even waved at it from a distance while it crossed his mind. He owned the biggest general store in town, an easily won accolade given that it was the only general store in town. He had inherited the aging brick building from his father, who had inherited it from his father, and so on for several generations. The two-story, boxy facade had faded to a light maroon, a facade which Donovan dutifully scrubbed clean every Sunday morning despite the lack of dust or dirt ever accumulating on it.

The brightly-lit interior was filled with rows of oak shelves with anything the people of Abellium could possibly need - farming equipment, salves, herbs, wine, clothes, and everything in between. He got most of his goods from traders who passed through town every so often, the stockpile amassing over the decades. He even had a sword, a bow, and a few arrows in the back room, forgotten at the bottom of a crate of rope he bought some years ago. It was only after careful testing that he determined which end of the sword to grab to tuck it in a closet.

As far as he was concerned, every day was a gift worth celebrating and that was doubly, if not triply, true on 23 Gerez. By the town’s count, Fletcher’s Big Box Shop was celebrating its 500th anniversary. As the oldest building in town, it stood as a symbol of Abellium’s longevity and prosperity. Preparations had been underway for months - colorful streamers hung between buildings, wine flowed freely, and a massive feast was planned for the evening. As the guest of honor, Donovan had been entirely uninvolved in the planning which was just as well as there were always items in his shop that needed rotating.

Still, he knew it was unrealistic to expect to avoid having to do anything but sit in a big chair for a big dinner, an expectation which was confirmed when Bureaucrat Kieron came bursting through the door gut-first.

“Donovan! Beautiful day for a feast, isn’t it?” he asked as though every day weren’t a beautiful day for a feast. As he lumbered into the shop, the brightly colored medals he wore all over his tunic jangled and swung wildly with each step, threatening to knock over carefully placed knicks and knacks. When asked, Kieron always said he won the medals “in the war” but refused to offer specificity regarding which war. Still, he was a natural leader well-suited to the day to day tasks of hand-shaking and money-spending.

“I assume it is, haven’t been outside today yet,” he said he still refers to Kieron here. “I really wish you all would let me help, it feels strange to be cooped up in here with everyone else running around.”

“Nonsense, young man, nonsense!” said the 38 year old Bureaucrat to the 37 year old shopkeeper. “You’ve done more than enough, taking care of this place. I’ve never heard of a shop lasting this long anywhere in the country, or even any building, now that I think of it. This place is a symbol of the good fortune Abellium has always enjoyed.”

“If you say so. It’s really not even work for me, you know. Everyone works hard and I’m no different than any other citizen of the town,” he same thing as previous hesaid foreshadowingly. “Besides, with everything else going on, no one is even shopping today.” Kieron looked around and grabbed a small, wooden box from a nearby shelf and plunked it on the counter. It was carved with slender roses and vines and smelled of pencil shavings.

“I’ll take this...uh...jewelry box,” he said, glancing down at his many adornments to see if any might fit. “There you go, now you can say you’ve had a productive day!” As he reached down to his belt to grab his coin purse, he stopped. Donovan eyed him for a few seconds but His High Jubilance was frozen in place.

“Uh...Kieron?” Donovan said, reaching across to poke him in the shoulder. “Are you okay?” When his poking proved ineffectual, he ducked underneath the side of the counter and sidled up next to him. “Is this some sort of weird, holiday prank?” He poked him harder this time, his flesh sinking like wet dough but provoking no response.

“Huh,” said Donovan, staring at him. “I’m...going to go get you some help. If you can hear me, don’t go anywhere.” He slowly backed away towards the door, not taking his eyes off Kieron. He fiddled with the handle behind him, sliding out as soon as he had the space. When he shut it and turned around, he noticed two things: one, it was a lovely day, perhaps the loveliest he’d ever seen. The sun shone brightly over a cloudless sky and the town looked more festive than ever with more draping banners than he thought existed in all the world.

Two, everyone in the street was frozen. Everyone seemed to be suffering from the same affliction as Kieron. Pelkin, the bread baker from down the street, was bent over in a particularly unflattering position. Aniah, dressed in the usual drab cloth of Midoriman proselytizers, seemed to be in the middle of a lecture to an unfortunate passing soul. Most strange of all, it was quiet, perhaps for the first time in Donovan’s life. It was not a peaceful quiet so much as it was the kind of quiet one might find buried six feet underground, separated from the rest of the world.

At least it was quiet until he heard a door slam shut a block over. Anyone with a functioning survival instinct knows that if the entirety of existence goes down for maintenance around you, it would likely be best not to run towards strange noises. However, Abellium was not a town which encouraged the growth of survival instincts but only naive curiosity. As such, Donovan darted down an alley towards the block, emerging from the other side to see a golden haired, golden skinned, and golden clothed young man brushing himself off in front of Kieron’s estate.

“I thought for sure - oh,” the man said, noticing Donovan on the other side of the street. “You must be the son of Fletcher.” His light voice danced through the air, tinged modulated? Mellowed? by what sounded like a howling choir of angelic wolves. “I just assumed you’d be in the biggest house here, given your history.”

“My...grandfather was Bureaucrat but my dad didn’t want it and neither did I.” Donovan couldn’t take his eyes off the man despite the fact that the sun reflected off his outfit enough to blind someone. Looking more closely, even his eyes were flecked with gold though there were hints of a darker red behind them.

“Weird,” said the man. “Never heard of someone giving up the divine right to power and rulership. First for everything, I guess.” He looked up and down the cobblestone street for a moment before rising 20 feet in the air, surveying the landscape from above. Donovan’s jaw dropped open and a nearby fly nearly took up residence before he shut it again. A minute later, the man floated back down. “Say, what’s the population of the town now?”

“Uh...a little over 5,000, I think. Why do you ask?” A thin, wooden plank appeared in the shining man’s hands with a few pieces of paper on it. He consulted it for a moment before he smiled and let it disappear.

“Perfect!” he said. “That’s more than enough to satisfy the bargain your ancestor made. I was really hoping to return from my first assignment with good news.” Questions raced through Donovan’s mind - who is this man? Which ancestor? What bargain? Why didn’t I eat breakfast this morning?” He seized on the first.

“Can we please slow down for a second?” he asked. “Who are you?”

“Oh, yes, of course, very rude of me,” he said, straightening himself up and turning his piercing focus on Donovan. “I’m Caphriel, Child of the Light. I’ve come to collect.”

“Collect on what?”

“No one told you? Not your dad, your grandfather, no one?”

Donovan just shook his head.

“Well, they really should have. Very important bit of family history, I’d say. Your ancestor, Tallin Fletcher, agreed to cultivate 2,500 souls over the course of 500 years in exchange for a powerful blessing of good fortune from the Light. In my briefing, I was told there were only about 100 people living here back then. He really did a great job, I can’t believe no one told you about this.”

“I’m a little surprised too,” Donovan said, his legs now shaking. What happens now?”

“Now we harvest the souls! As the deal said, ‘When bellies are full and pleasures are done, the clock shall strike midnight and the sacrifice shall be made.’ So I’m here to take the souls.

“It’s not midnight,” Donovan said.

“I’m sorry?” Caphriel looked around at the people frozen in place before turning up and gazing directly into the sun. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. It’s only the middle of the afternoon.”

“Huh, it all looks so dark down here compared to up there,” he said, absent-mindedly pointing upwards. “My mistake, I’ll pop back down in 12 12 hours from the middle of the afternoon isn’t midnight hours. It’s important that these agreements are followed to the letter. See you then!” With a smile and a nod, he vanished without a sound as the people of Abellium unfroze and resumed their business. Donovan spun his head around wildly, waiting for someone to jump out and tell him this was all some sort of practical joke.

Audomar, the town’s resident beggar, had been sitting against the building behind Donovan when everything froze. When the world suddenly came rushing back to life, Donovan had just teleported in front of Audomar as far as the man knew. He yelped.

“Where in the great gallop did you come from?” he said. “I was just sittin’ here, mindin’ my business, gettin’ ready for my lunch break, and there you were all of a sudden.” Audomar stood up and looked at the shaken Donovan. “You alright there, buddy? You look like you just saw a ghost.” Donovan slowly reached out and grasped Audomar by the shoulders, both to confirm he was real and stabilize himself.

“I think we’re all going to die. Or maybe just half of us. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.” The adrenaline was pumping through his veins, the only thing keeping him from finding a crate, standing on it, and shouting “the end is nigh!” It was fading quickly though and polite shock was turning into confused panic and terror. The adrenaline pumping through his veins was the only thing keeping him …Audomar looked at him intensely for a moment then shrugged.

“I see you’ve got a lot to get to,” he said, backing away slowly. “I’ll see ya at the feast tonight.” Audomar wandered off towards his home at the edge of town, paid for with his begging wages. Donovan began to wander back in the direction of his shop, hoping to find the mayor still there waiting for him.

As he passed through the crowded streets on his way home, he was greeted with many pats on the back and nods of recognition. “Congratulations,” some said while others threw ceremonial garlands of purple lilies around his neck wait why flower garlands? Seems weird as an offhand thing. He could muster up no response aside from the occasional grunt.

When he arrived back at the Shop and opened the heavy oak door that had miraculously seen no weather wearing over the year, he found the mayor going aisle by aisle, looking under shelves and cabinets.

“Kieron,” Donovan said, his voice testing the air like a mouse might when it’s not sure the neighborhood cast cat is gone. His rasp was so low, however, that the Bureaucrat was not distracted from checking a selection of crates in the back corner. “Kieron!”

Having managed to master speech again, he got Kieron’s attention this time, who jumped and hit his head on a hanging lantern, mercifully unlit.

“Donovan! Ow. The strangest thing happened. You were here, then you weren’t, so I thought it best to see if I could find you. How’d you disappear like that?”

“Well, I...did you think I might be inside a box?”

“If you learn one thing leading a town, it’s that you can never be too thorough.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, hurrying back to the place in which he felt most comfortable - behind the counter, ledger at his side and ready to make a sale. He took a deep breath, inhaling slowly, taking refuge in the conflagration of scents from the various dried foods, hardware, and salves that lined the store. He then let out a long, blood-curdling scream, causing the Bureaucrat to once again jump and smash his head against another lantern.

“Why are you screaming?” he he here means Donovan screamed. After a few more seconds, Donovan’s piercing cry turned into a ricocheting yelp before settling into an echoing gurgle.

“Just now, I talked to...someone? Something? He was gold. And he could fly. He said that my ancestor had made some sort of deal to make my family successful. The town, too.”

“That explains so much!” said Kieron. “Why, good man, that ancestor of yours, good man. No wonder Abellium is one of the best places to live in Ninaviet.” The Bureaucrat bounded back for the door, far too satisfied with an incomplete explanation. “Very forward thinking of him, we must be sure to give him recognition at the feast tonight.”

“Wait,” said Donovan, “there was more. He said he was here to ‘harvest the souls.’ Part of the deal, apparently. The number 2,500 was mentioned.” Kieron stopped and slowly turned, his medals not jangling for once.

“I don’t much care for that word, ‘harvest,’ it doesn’t have a nice ring to it. Are you sure he didn’t say something more like...celebrate? Commemorate?”

“No, no,” he said, mindlessly scribbling some numbers down on the already-full pages in front of him, creating an accounting nightmare which may or may not have been a problem by the end of the day. “He used the word harvest, that part was very clear. At midnight, apparently.”

“You know, Donovan,” the mayor said, walking up to the man and wrapping his arm around his shoulder, no easy feat from across a counter. “You’ve had a long week. I know you’re not big on these sorts of big speaking engagements. You’re stressed out. Who knows what you heard or saw? Probably just a mild, hallucinatory fever brought on by the perfect summer weather.” He placed the back of his thick, slightly damp hand on of his head. “Indeed, you’re burning right up! Best you just go get some rest and not mention this little adventure of yours to anyone else.” Kieron looked at Donovan with an intensity neither man had ever experienced before in their passing acquaintanceship.

“But...I know what I saw. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it for the rest of my life.” He refers to Kieron failed to consider how the likelihood of living for another 11 hours and 42 minutes might undermine the claim.

“Alright, let’s say you’re right. Some flying gold man is going to come down and kill us all-”

“Half of us,” Donovan interrupted.

“Half of us, quite right. He’s going to come down and kill half of us at midnight. What do you want me to do about it? Make a speech? Start a riot? Get half the town killed in chaos and confusion? Get you killed when they find out it’s your fault?”

“It’s not my fault!” Donovan said despite not being entirely sure whether or not that was true. “It’s Tallin’s fault! He made this deal, I didn’t ask for it.”

“Well, you’ve got his name, so if the good folks of Abellium start looking for someone to blame, it’ll probably be you getting poked with the people’s pitchforks,” he said, prodding Donovan in the side to punctuate the point rather harder than necessary. “Is that what you want?”

“Well...no,” he said, massaging his now slightly bruised rib cage.

“I thought not,” said the Bureaucrat, dusting himself off from his search of the shop. “I’m glad you’ve come to agree with me now. If you have no more nonsense then, there are still many preparations to observe being made! I look forward to your speech tonight devoid of any topics that might spoil the evening.” He trundled toward the exit at a slow pace befitting a man of his literal and metaphorical stature, leaving Donovan behind to soundlessly mouth for some argument that might convince Kieron to take action.

“All is well, my boy, all is well,” he said, before opening the door and shutting it behind him in one smooth motion. For the second time in the afternoon, he Donovan was was left standing in stunned silence. If the Bureaucrat wasn’t going to do anything, who would? There were no mercenaries in town at the moment - they always got directed to his shop first thing on arrival to resupply and none had stopped by in weeks. He ran through a mental list of everyone in town but generations of easy living did not mold the kind of person that could take on...whoever or whatever it was he had met earlier. If it came right down to it, the blacksmith’s apprentice, Krem Kher, at least looked the part. His biceps were bigger than most people’s heads. Maybe he would have a chance, certainly a better one than the town’s bed-tester, Soft Roland.

As he pondered the options, he felt a sensation in the back of his mind. There was a spark hiding somewhere, giving off a dim light in a long unused corner. It took him a moment to recognize it and even longer to think to try and get a better look at it. He willed it forward, summoning it out of the shadows. As it accelerated towards the more active parts of his brain, he saw it for what it was - an idea. It crashed into his consciousness and he nearly collapsed from the shock and potential of it.

He rushed to the back room, tripping over his feet several times on the way. Even with the idea seized, it was a slippery thing, uncomfortable with being noticed and eager to escape back to whatever dark corner that birthed it. It required all of his focus and attention to maintain, making otherwise trivial activities like breathing and walking trialsome. With some exertion, he finally reached the corner of the little room a few feet from where he started, fiddled with his keys for a moment, and flung open a trap door in the floor.

He had come down here only once before. His father, Vindo, had taken him to the cryptogenic tomb of ancient records when he was but a young, innocent man of 22. It existed in stark contrast with the room above, all meticulously laid out rows and sparkling clean stained wood. This was a cold, dark place filled with dust, spiders, and worst of all, reams of unorganized paperwork. It seemed as though Donovan’s forefathers did not share his passion for leather bound binders.

As he descended down the ladder for the second time in his life, however, his mind was not on the overall chaos of the last 500 years of recordkeeping. That was for the best as he was already hanging on to only a few threads of sanity and seeing a pile of receipts stacked by neither date nor value would likely have broken him. No, the wriggling idea he continued to wrestle with was that of a single, small box sitting at the end of the long dungeon. Vindo had pointed it out to him on his tour, though it was hard to miss. Everything down here was somewhere between 5 to 500 years old and showed the appropriate level of decay. Generations of termites had lived, dined, and died like kings on the volumes contained within.

This one box stood in stark contrast to those others, especially the others that shared its age. “My father told me never to touch that,” Vindo had said. “His father told him the same as did his father before him.”

“Why not?” he remembered asking.

“Don’t talk back to me, boy,” Vindo replied. “That’s enough cryptic warnings for the day, let’s go up and have lunch. Your mom made stew.” It was a good stew.

The warning seemed moot, however, given that the box was emblazoned with the words “DO NOT OPEN, IGNORANCE IS BLISS - TALLIN” on every side in crude, glowing red lettering. It was the only instance in his life that he could recall where letters lit up of their own accord, casting a dim radiance over the surrounding crates. He found it strange at the time but given that it had nothing to do with good business practices or salesmanship, he had quickly lost interest.

It seemed a touch more relevant now though. After his encounter that afternoon, it was the one other unexplainable phenomenon he had ever happened upon. As he approached the box, the room grew warmer, almost like the box was on fire. However, even as he walked up and sat down next to it, the heat never became uncomfortable.

He had never been this close before and was shocked to find that there was no lock on it. Tallin must have been very confident in the literacy levels of his future kin and their capacity to follow instructions. At this point, however, the day was unlikely to get any worse so for the first time in his life, Donovan decided not to comply with direct instructions. He began to reach out for the box, feeling a crackling, but painless, spark erupt between his hand and the wood. The energy built as he got closer and dark whispers swirled through his mind. The voices of warning grew louder before he finally placed his hand on the latch and flipped it open, silencing them.

It was an absolute mess. Papers strewn all over the base, stacked up about halfway through the squat container. It seemed collation was a skill that skipped one or 25 generations. All of the documents were in perfect shape, however, and the lettering on them was a beautiful gold script, glowing similarly to the letters on the outside of the box. They were warm to the touch and much to his delight, featured page numbers in the lower right-hand corner. A brief glance at one of the pages made it clear that it was some sort of contract, albeit one that Tallin had not bothered to put in any sort of order.

Fortunately, Donovan was something of a local legend in Abellium for his passion and skill in tedious organizing. Unbeknownst to him, he was actually known throughout the country for it, with traders often telling stories through tears of the notorious Donovan Fletcher who made them prepare order forms in quadruplicate. For those who were accustomed to skimming a little off the top, a bit from the bottom, and just a hair around the middle, it made their skin crawl to consider such meticulousness.

He lifted the box up, shushing whatever lingering voices still swirled around him, and marched the box back up to his desk. There was This was where the magic happened which for once was literally true as he dumped dozens upon dozens of papers upon its mahogany surface. They fluttered through the air as though they only obeyed gravity as a courtesy rather than out of necessity.

It took Donovan a little over an hour to get the papers in order from pages one through one hundred and seventy-seven. By the time he finished, he had a neat little tower that brought him more pride than most people get from the birth of their first child. The first page glowed in front of him, bearing the words “A Binding Agreement Laid Forth Between Tallin Fletcher of Ninaviet and the Rather High Order of Anakim, Sealed in Blood and Bone, Bond Eternal.” The only other words were in a smaller script at the bottom of the page which read “this is a copy.” He had never read or signed a contract that was more than fourteen pages long so as nervous as he was about pouring over this ancient text, he was also more giddy than anyone should be at the prospect.

Even at his voracious pace, it took him almost the entire day to read the entire thing, line by line. He could not be sure but a lot of it looked like it had been completed before his ancestor had even seen it. While the vast majority of the writing looked like it had been crafted crafted? by a holy being made of divine light, every so often there would be a blank line with the name “Tallin” scrawled in using what must have been either the juice of a cherry or, more likely based on the title page, blood.

Much to Donovan’s horror, it appeared as though Tallin had indeed made a deal with someone or something in the Rather High Order of Anakim, one which would grant him and his descendants prosperity for 500 years, including fair weather, bountiful harvests, and luscious heads of hair. One of the pages had a map laying out all of these boundaries, the lines for which were drawn very carefully to ensure the city’s good fortune never expanded beyond its borders.

It sounded like a good deal, at least until the end. In exchange for prosperity in life, Tallin had promised not just his own soul but that of all his descendants, which Donovan unfortunately took to include himself. He had enjoyed a simple life, even a good one, but it hardly seemed worth trading perhaps 80 good years for an eternity of the unknown. That was not the only price, however, as the 2,500 souls that Caphriel mentioned were right in the document, plain as day. It was stringent on the matter as well, even specifying that everyone within the town borders would be frozen with the exception of any Fletcher heirs and the requisite payment would be collected.

And there was no way to stop it. Every clause was closed and every provision was padlocked.

2,500 people were going to die tonight, off to some conveniently unspecified fate. Tallin didn’t even care enough to figure that out. He slumped down in his chair, the soon to be setting sun pouring in through the window over his face. As he gazed out in despair, the sun began to blot out. Could it be happening already? No, it had definitely not been 12 hours yet. Then why was it getting darker?

A moment later, the blotting entity pressed itself against the window, the Bureaucrat’s rotund face almost flattened against the glass.

“Donovan!” he said. “I’ve been knocking on the front door for 20 minutes! It’s almost time for the feast. Come on out, won’t you?” Donovan shook himself free of his stupor and wandered toward the front door of the shop he had called home for his entire life. As he passed through an aisle of half-price, quarter-functional weapons, he could not help but wonder if he would ever see the place again when he left. He took one last look at everything before opening the door, just in case this would be the last time he passed over its threshold. For the briefest of moments, everything felt right.

Then the banging on the door started. He opened it up to find Kieron bent over and panting, exhausted from his minutes-long journey.

“You should have been seated 15 minutes ago,” he said. “Everyone is wondering where you are. Well, that’s not exactly true, we all assumed you were here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be late before, though. It’s got some people a bit miffed.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever miffed anyone before, I’m sorry, Kieron,” said Donovan. “But I went digging through my basement and I found this old contract that can confirm everything I told you this afternoon, if you’d just come-”

“Oh, not this again,” Kieron said, righting himself. “This is just getting silly now. I’m sure you had a good laugh about it after I left, but come now, we have feasting and smiling to do. Why, I haven’t eaten in almost two hours. Can you imagine?” With the conniving speed of a politician, Kieron wrapped his arm in Donovan’s and all but dragged him down the street towards the central square. He tried to find the words to make his case, to offer the nugget of information that might produce a solution in a cleverer mind than his own, but could come up with nothing that might sway the town’s chief administrator and theoretical problem solver.

They reached the main square just as the last vestiges of Donovan’s willpower were evaporating into despair. It was beautifully decorated, colorful signs with incidentally ironic phrases like “Here’s to Another 500 Years!” and “It Just Keeps Getting Better!” dotting the surrounding buildings. There was a massive table circling the central fountain with chairs on either side, enough to seat at least a few hundred people. Bottles of fine wine were situated every few feet, as were entire roast boars, mountains of cheeses, and veritable bushels worth of bread. Every citizen of Abellium ate like minor nobles even on the worst days but this was a meal fit for the Kingly Collective of Ninaviet.

He did not so much take his seat of honor as much as he was thrust into the large, cushioned chair on the northern side of the circle. Kieron sat next to him in a chair that was only slightly smaller, chafing the Bureaucrat both mentally and physically. The townspeople all around the table burst into a loud cheer as Donovan slumped down, all of them too politely hungry to notice his dour mood. It was not a second after he sat that everyone dug into the food, paying him no mind for the next 30 minutes.

He didn’t mind the reprieve, though. He was lost in his own thoughts, all the sounds of eating, drinking, and merriment nothing but a dull buzzing in his ears. He had to give a speech soon, his first ever. He would have been nervous in the best of times and the doom that loomed over Abellium added an extra layer of unnecessary pressure.

When everyone had eaten their fill and met the two drink minimum necessary to sit through a ceremonial speech, the gathered crowd began to quiet and turn their attention to Donovan. What they saw did not inspire confidence - the naturally thin man was white as a sheet, the sinking rays of daylight only accentuating his narrow features. He looked better suited to scare children away from cemeteries at night than commemorate this most historic anniversary.

Kieron coughed loudly and directly into Donovan’s ear, enough to bring his focus back to the moment at hand. Donovan looked around at all the eager, slightly reddening faces, a naive excitement in their eyes that only existed because they had never heard Donovan attempt public speaking before. With the benefit of hindsight, he realized the past half hour would have been better spent practicing than wallowing. All he had was an opening line.

He stood up, his knees struggling to acquiesce to his brain’s movement demands. He ran his hands through his hair and stared at the top of the central fountain, hoping the stone, winged cherub might provide a source of inspiration.

It did not.

“People of Abellium,” he began, “many of you are going to die tonight.” The surrounding people looked at each other with varying degrees of concern, confusion, and boredom. Donovan had prepared nothing else to follow that sentence. However, Kieron elbowed him in the side so hard that he thought he felt a rib crack, so he thought it best not to conclude the speech there.

“...of joy!” he added. The crowd burst into a raucous, slightly nervous laugh that echoed through the square into the surrounding homes and shops where those who could not fit at the table celebrated. He chuckled as well, trying to convince himself that maybe this was still all an elaborate practical joke.

“This town has been my home since I was born,” he continued. “I’ve never even set foot from this place in my entire life. Why would I leave? The weather is perfect, the people are kind, and we’ve never been the epicenter for any great conflicts. It’s peaceful here.” Almost everyone was listening now with only a few people trying to quietly refill their drinks. “We have been blessed for 500 years since my forefather, Tallin Fletcher, founded this town.” There was a round of banging on the table in agreement and respect among the collected group. “If only he could be here today to see what he created...and to deal with the consequences,” he added under his breath. Kieron glanced over at him, eager to have this wrapped up before Donovan accidentally incited mass panic. His long pause was already causing agitation.

“To Tallin,” he said, raising a cup alongside everyone else. “I hope it was worth it.”

“To Tallin!” Kieron exclaimed, jumping out of his chair with a cup to offer a less ominous punctuation mark to Donovan’s remarks. “Father of all blessings upon us!”

Cheers of “to Tallin!” resounded as wine sloshed into people’s mouths. Donovan dropped back into his chair, the smile he had forced immediately disappearing. By his estimate, they had maybe three hours left before Caphriel returned to collect what was due. At least everyone else would enjoy their last moments in life, not knowing that the many blessings they and their families had enjoyed for centuries came at a high price.

“You could at least pretend to be having a good time, Donovan,” said Kieron. “I was worried there for a second that you were going to do something foolish.”

“What’s the point?” he said. “It wouldn’t change anything. At least everyone will die drunk, happy, and ignorant of what’s coming. Must be nice.”

“Yes, yes, it’s lovely” said the Bureaucrat, paying more attention now to the attractive tanner across the table than his despondent guest of honor. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I must see someone about getting my leather worked.” He stood up shakily with all the confidence of a man imbued with small amounts of power and large amounts of alcohol.

Many others had started to wander off as well, heading to other parts of the town where games had been set up and where taprooms were pouring freely for the celebration. Some made a point to pass by Donovan, giving him hearty slaps on the shoulder and offering glowing accolades such as “that could have gone worse.” Eventually, he was left sitting alone at the table as birds and insects began to move in on the unattended food.

“There shall be no infestation in Abellium,” he remembered from the contract. “While thou shalt encounter all creatures natural to the surrounding land, they shall remain a respectful distance from you and your goods unless you wish otherwise.” There was another half page of more specific regulations, listed as the “Fly in the Salve” clause. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how long it must have taken to iron out all of the details. He may not have respected his ancestor’s sacrificial machinations but he could certainly respect his shrewd legal instincts.

He had never thought before about how he might want to spend the last minutes of his life. As midnight grew close, he began to consider it, knowing full well that it was too late to implement whatever idea he might come up with, unless it was “sit in a big chair and contemplate the nature of contract theory.” He had no wife, no children, no friends with whom he would go out with after he was done with work. He had a shop and he had customers. That had always been enough. Though with the benefit of hindsight, it might not have hurt to go on the occasional date.

Lost in his own mind, he almost didn’t notice when the surrounding town fell into total silence as the moons crested overhead. There was no more laughing, no more pouring of drinks, and no more stumbling about. It was over.

At midnight on the mark, Caphriel appeared in town again, standing right in the fountain. In the glint of moonlight, he looked even more radiant than he did in the day. It almost felt insulting to be killed by someone so pretty. How was it fair to be blessed with both divine power and divine good looks?

“In any other circumstance, I would have appreciated your punctuality,” said Donovan. Caphriel glanced up from the board he was holding, surprised to find Donovan right in front of him.

“This is lucky, I thought for sure I would have to run around and find you again,” he said. He looked around at the surrounding table which still had enough food to feed a small army. Despite sitting out for many hours now, it all smelled as fresh as the moment it came out of the oven.

“My remarks could have used more polishing,” he said. “But yes, I’m glad everyone got to enjoy it before you...do whatever it is you are going to do.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” he said. “Just a few thousand years of energy generation will wear out most souls then it’s off to the Void.” Donovan was overwhelmed with several new questions but Caphriel didn’t pause long enough to get any of them in. “You know, we make deals like this all the time,” he continued. “But I’ve never actually talked to a human. Weird, right?”

“Yes, that is very strange,” Donovan said, long dormant wheels grinding to life in his head. “I thought that specification in the contract was odd too.”

“Contract?” said Caphriel, who had already wandered off to the edge of the town square where a few people had been frozen mid-joke. The being appeared to be taking measurements, one hand gliding effortlessly into the people’s bodies while he counted on his other hand.

“The contract that Tallin signed?” Donovan added. The wheels were slowly turning now, ungreased for years. Caphriel just shrugged, extracting what looked like a sliver of silver condensation out of the town cobbler’s body and inspecting it closely.

“I’m in collections, not contracting,” he said. “Besides, we lost a lot of those records a few hundreds years back in the third Godwar. It’s a good thing Ahiah remembered ironing out all the details with Tallin, we might have missed this otherwise.” Somewhat uncomfortably, the wheels picked up speed. He felt like all of this information might be useful to someone more clever than him but unfortunately, everyone else was rather indisposed at the moment. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to be familiar with the moral turpitude of this woman, would you? I’ve never actually had to do an Appraisal before.”

“We’re not close. She did fix my shoes a few times, though. She seemed like a good woman.” Donovan got up and slowly walked over to Caphriel, who had moved on to her husband. “So you’re saying you’ve never actually seen this town’s contract?”

“Oh no,” Caphriel said, devoid of the divine wisdom that compels most people to stop giving up valuable information for free. “Ahiah just gave me the basic details - the end date, showing up at midnight, not freezing you, the number of souls, that sort of thing. More than enough to come down and collect.”

“I see,” said Tallin, doing some mental calculations. He had never lied before and wondered how hard it might be. He regretted not trying it out in a lower pressure situation. “It’s interesting that you should mention that because I discovered today that Tallin kept a copy.” Caphriel did not find that fact as interesting, given that he now seemed to be checking the size of people’s soles.

“Fascinating,” he said without turning.

“And my copy…” he began, not sure where the sentence might finish. “...said we got 1,000 years.” The lie tasted strange on his tongue. This at least got Caphriel to stop his work and address Donovan directly. He once again summoned his paperboard from thin air and began to review it.

“1,000 years?” he said. “No, no, Ariah definitely told me 500 years. See?” He turned his papers toward Donovan and pointed to a glowing script similar to the one he saw earlier but in a completely different language.

“I’m just telling you what my contract says.” Iron, that was the taste. Lies tasted like iron.

“Can I take a look at it?” Donovan tried to hide his grimace, he knew he should have seen this question coming. This was why he preferred to just be honest, there was a lot less improvisation involved.

“It’s...all the way back at my shop,” he said. “You look like you have quite a lot to do here, so how about I go and get it for you?”

“That would be great, these measurements are going to take a while. Just come find me when you’ve got it.” Donovan nodded and hurried out of the square as Caphriel went back to work. Once he was out of sight, he charged down the perfectly uniform cobblestone streets back to his shop, his mind racing as fast as his feet.

He threw the door open and slammed it behind him, leaning up against it to catch his breath. It was dark now except for the soft glow coming from the back room, the contract emitting enough light to navigate back. Not that he needed it, he could have traced every square inch of the store with a blindfold and a concussion.

It just sat on the table, mocking him. While he did carry a great variety of items in his shop, he could not think of any pen of his that would allow him to forge a contract written by angels in magic ink. He flipped back through the ageless pages, only a few of which mentioned the 500 years timeline.

“Maybe I could just get rid of these…” he said to an empty corner of the room. “No, too suspicious.” He thought for a moment and didn’t like what he was coming up with. He couldn’t just get rid of the contract, Caphriel knew he had it now. Maybe someone could have stolen it? A rogue contract thief who set his sights on Abellium?

Except the contract stipulated that “there shall be no theft of property in the territory of Abellium.” Ariah might not remember that provision but if they did, he could only juggle so many lies at once. One was enough.

Caphriel mentioned that their copy had been destroyed. He lit a lamp on the table and grabbed the cover page, his ancestor’s name shining brightly in his face like some sort of cruel joke. He held the page over the fire and for a few moments, nothing happened. It would have made sense if it couldn’t be destroyed by mortal means. But just as he was about to give up, it caught. After another few seconds, all that remained was a pleasant ash that smelled like rosemary and jasmine.

Destroyed in a fire. That seemed like a reasonable story. Localizing the fire to just one countertop seemed a little far-fetched, though. He knew what he needed to do but the thought of it filled him with an almost crippling pain and anxiety.

The whole shop would have to go. He twisted the plan over in his head again and again but could see no other solution. Working quickly to make sure he wouldn’t change his mind at the last second, he emptied a few canisters of oil over the floors, walls, and shelves. He had poured his heart and soul into this place, it was all he had. And now, for the sake of the town and the people in it, he was going to destroy it.

They had better be grateful.

As the last drops of accelerant dripped near the entrance, he stacked the contract nearly in the deepest pools of oil he could find. When he had left earlier in the evening, he wasn’t sure he would ever get to come back. Given the circumstances, he almost wished that he never did.

He exited the shop, checking up, down, and across the street to make sure Caphriel hadn’t made his way to this part of town yet. Seeing no one around, he lit a match and tossed it inside, backing away as he did so. He could see the fire spread throughout the store in seconds, the glow of the contract drowned out by the roaring flames. After what seemed like a realistic amount of time to escape a burning shop, he began running down the streets, calling for Caphriel.

He found him still in the square, having moved on to the chief of the town guard, perhaps the most pointless occupation in the town.

“Caphriel!” Donovan said. “I have terrible news.”

“Oh?” he said, turning. “What is it?” Donovan simply pointed in the direction of the now blazing fire, smoke cascading into the sky. “That doesn’t look good.”

“I was getting the contract together to bring here, like we discussed. But I knocked over a lamp, and...well, it all just got worse from there.” The fewer details, the better.

“So no contract?” Caphriel asked.

“I couldn’t save it. I really tried.”

“Hmm,” Caphriel said. “Of course my first job in the field would be complicated. Well, my paperwork says 500 years and apparently your contract said 1,000 years. And now we don’t have any copies to work with.”

“It’s a conundrum,” Donovan added, grateful for Caphriel’s apparent inexperience.

“I better run this up the ladder.” Caphriel then disappeared, leaving Donovan alone in the night. He really hoped that whoever was “up the ladder” wasn’t keeping an eye on anything happening down here. After about an hour of waiting, the adrenaline of misleading a demigod had worn off and Donovan started to get bored just in time for Caphriel to return in a blinding flash of light. He had a huge stack of paper in his arms.

“Alright, I talked to Ariah, who talked to their boss, and they think they came up with a solution.”

“I’m listening. Again, really sorry about the fire.”

“It’s okay, there’s a reason we have a few hundred of these agreements up and running at a time. ‘Redundancy is key,’ I hear that a lot. Anyway, Ariah was so sure the Tallin contract was 500 years but without an astrally binding document, not a lot we could do about it. It’s a good thing Tallin made it so his descendants wouldn’t get caught up in the Appraisal, huh? Otherwise I would have just gone straight to work down here.

“Yeah, lucky me.”

“So they drew up a new contract. All of the terms here are mostly the same with just a few tweaks. Abellium will get another 500 years and it’ll still have all the same perks. In exchange, though, we are upping the soul count to 10,000 to account for exponential population growth. That’s what I was told, anyway,” he said, clearing a large section of table and putting the papers down.

“Seems fair.”

“So if you could just give it a look and sign it, I’ll take our copy back and leave you to it.” Donovan reviewed the contract which seemed to be written on a much sturdier paper than the previous version, each page thick enough to merit using an entire tree for its production. His great, great, great, great, great grandson certainly would not be employing this same trick a second time. Presumably these dealmakers had also learned their lesson about backup copies, a lesson Donovan had mastered by the age of 12.

When he finished reviewing and signing the slablike papers, Caphriel smiled and gathered them up, their weight appearing to be no problem for him at all.

“Pleasure meeting you, Donovan,” he said. “I hope your descendants are as facilitative as you are.”

“Right...descendants.” It occurred to him that he might need to get to work on that. With another smile, Caphriel disappeared again and the sounds of life returned. Kieron stumbled over to him, throwing an arm around his shoulder.

“Check it out, Donny,” he said, slurring, “it’s the middle of the night and we’re not dead! Told you that you were just crazy. Isn’t it better to be crazy than dead?”

“I suppose you were right,” he said, enjoying the cool night air and the joy in which everyone was sharing. He knew the future would bring doom again but he could worry about that tomorrow, a list of worries which now included finding a wife, having children, and rebuilding his shop/home. It was a lot to take in but he had earned a moment to rest.

“Kieron,” he said, shaking the messy Bureaucrat awake from his standing half-slumber.

“Yeah?”

Donovan looked up at the stars, pleased with just how much better the evening had gone than he expected. “I might need a place to stay for a little while.”