Amaladak In The Marketplace

Chapter One or at the very least an early chapter. We meet Amaladak and his Sons.

            Amaladak is a creature of habit. He arises each day at first light. He washes while water for his breakfast heats to a boil. He makes tea. It steeps as he dresses for the day. After dressing, he gathers his shadowboxes, checks on his inventory and sips his tea.

            When he’s done with tea (four minutes, generally), he carries the shadowboxes out with him to the back of his small shack and places them in his old gray wooden wagon, in with his rolled up market tent and folded chair. He then wheels the cart around front of his house and ducks his head back inside for a last look around. He makes sure all is as it should be, then begins his trek to the marketplace.

            His routine and his timing all revolve around sunrise. The rules of the market are simple: market tents may go up only when the disc of the sun rises above the horizon. And all market tents must be down by the time the disk of the sun disappears below the horizon. Amaladak has been in place, in his place in the marketplace, as the sun has first appeared every day for the last thirty-odd years. This is why his routine exists. It helps him make sure he can set up in the same place each day when he sets up in the marketplace.

            This is what his father did. It’s what he’s done, and it is what he hopes one of his two sons will do following after him. His family has had the first corner on approach from riftside since back in the early days following the glorious overthrow of the mad tyrant Ishibar, for almost the last one hundred and fifty years. Back when, legend has it, shadowboxes actually worked, and focused the magic of Aphir.

 

            Amaladak shielded his eyes as the disc of the sun rose riftside. He jumped when his son Rigar startled him.

            “Father?”

            Amaladak hadn’t heard him approach. He was noticing something different, something out of place, something disturbing his routine. Something Unusual. It wasn’t something happening, but something that wasn’t happening. Someone who wasn’t there today after being there so many days for so long.

            “Rigar! I didn’t hear you come up. Good, glad you’re here. Let’s get the tent up...”

            “Father, what’s wrong? You look upset. Am I late?”

            “No, no, you’re fine. I just noticed that one of the men I usually see here every morning isn’t here today. Struck me as odd, that’s all.”

            “That’s pretty rare, huh? You don’t see too many people cede their market stakes.”

            “Nope. You don’t.”

            “Who was he?”

            “You know, I really don’t know. We’d wave to each other from a distance each morning just before the sun came up, but I never knew his name. After we’d wave, we’d each start setting up our tents, and others would spring up between us soon after, I wouldn’t see him. The few times I managed to venture away from our tent came always late in the day. I never seemed to be able to find him or his tent. I figure he must be an early exiter out of the marketplace.”

            “Where did he used to set up?”

            Amaladak looked into the market past his long shadow. He tried to measure the distance with his eyes.

            “Hmm. I don’t see... wait a minute, right there, there, where that red wagon is unloading. Probably poaching his space. I don’t recognize them.”

            “It’s not really poaching if he’s not here, though, right?”

            “No.” Amaladak didn’t feel like talking anymore. It was strange, but he felt a loss. He missed his morning wave. He felt like he had lost a friend. Funny.

            They set up the market tent in silence. Amaladak let Rigar set up the inventory display.                        He unfolded his chair and set it in front of the tent, positioning it to catch the rays of the early sun as it rose. He sat and laid back in the chair, relaxed and closed his eyes. The sun felt warm on his face, and he was drifting into sleep a bit as he waited for Rigar to finish putting out the shadowboxes.

           

            Amaladak dreams a brief waking dream. He sees the man as he always did and waves. The man looks at him. He does not wave back, and Amaladak sees that the man now has no arms. He looks back at Amaladak. Amaladak sees his eyes are dark black holes. The holes expand and the darkness merges together and begins expanding out from beneath the hood of the man’s robe. Amaladak sees the darkness now pours from the man’s empty sleeves as well.                 An empty sleeve rises, mocking the usual wave. Instead of a hand, darkness waves out like a billowing black snake.

            The darkness is filled with stars, as if the night sky pours out of the man’s head and arms.   The stars fill his vision and he feels himself being absorbed into the darkness.

            He feels cold.

 

            “Amaladak, you old goat! Won’t make any money dozing away all day!”

            Preastong stood in front of his chair, blocking out the sun.

            “It’s amazing to me you make any money. Ugly as you are, Preastong, I’m surprised you don’t scare all your customers away!”

            “Ah, you’re just jealous! I just scored another primo market stake! Can you believe someone let a space lag on the main drag?”

            “Oh really? Whose space are you poaching now, Preastong?”

            Preastong wasn’t known for his ethics.

            “I got the space fair and square. No one can call me on this one, it was open for a good space after sun up. Now it’s mine!”

            “For today. Don’t you have work to do?”

            “Nah, the boys have it under control. You need more children, Amaladak, to help you and carry on the business. Two is paltry, and only one assists you here. Do you lack the seed or is Naran barren?”

            “May the rift swallow you, Preaston. You’ll move or die where you stand for insulting me like that.”

            “What, will you capture my poor soul in one of your shadowboxes? Ha! Worthless things!” Preaston turned and walked off.

            “Don’t let him get to you, Father.” Rigar stood at the side of his father’s chair. “That’s just what he wants. You know Tanager would be here if he could be. He just can’t stay still, is all. He still does a good job with the boxes.”

            Amaladak looked over at the shadowbox display set up by Rigar. Tanager did do good work on the boxes. Tanager’s shadowboxes looked as good as if not better side by side with the ones Amaladak had made. He had always shown a gift for the complex carving of the borewood that the boxes were made of, and a knack for fitting the small carved pieces together in the intricate patterns the boxes required. He was better and faster at it than Amaladak, but Amaladak hadn’t told him that yet. He knew Tanager suspected that Amaladak knew this to be the case. Tanager knew it for himself, had known it for at least a year now. Amaladak knew he had to validate the boy’s talent soon. But Tanager lacked discipline. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t sit still, showed no affinity for the marketplace. He, Amaladak and Rigar had struck a compromise. Rigar did the market duties and Tanager carved the boxes. Amaladak did both.

            Poor Rigar showed no talent for creating the boxes, but was competent in the marketplace. To Amaladak, it seemed two sides of his own personality had split off, one into each of his sons. At least he had two strong young sons.

            Preastong had probed a sore spot. Though he was sure his seed was strong, and Naran still bled, they seemed unable to conceive another child. Twin sons was a good start and a good omen, but when no more children were forthcoming many in the village began to murmur and mumble behind Amaladak’s back. He heard their rumblings and tried to ignore them, but the question of why he and Naran were not blessed by Aphir with more offspring ate away at him.

            He looked over Rigar’s display. Each box occupied it’s own space, and each had to be placed so that boxes of different dispositions were kept apart from each other. The boxes no longer bore the magic of old, but it was still apparent when two opposing boxes were placed together. They just looked wrong.

            “The display looks good.”

            “Thank you, father. Tanager’s new one didn’t want to fit in, but it seems okay up and towards the back.”

            “Yes, I see it there. I see what you mean, but it should be fine there for the time being. Perhaps it’s destined to be sold today and doesn’t care to sit still... much like its creator, come to think of it!”

            Tanager would be along soon enough, probably with a new shadowbox. He could build them twice as fast as Amaladak, now.

            The morning passed uneventfully. Tanager did not appear. Nor did any customers. It was a quiet day in the marketplace. As the day grew longer, many of the other merchants began wandering the marketplace. Most would leave sons and daughters to tend their tents for an hour or so in the afternoon. It was good training, and it was good to take a break and trade gossip and small talk with old friends, acquaintances and competitors.

            From his sleeping mat in the back of the market tent, Amaladak heard Preastong giving Rigar a hard time. He got up and dusted himself off, then came out from the back of the tent to see Preastong trying to grab a shadowbox from Rigar, who was trying to keep it beyond Preastong’s reach. Preastong was still attempting to get it away from Rigar when Amaladak appeared.

            “Ah, Amaladak, good,” Preastong said, straightening himself and his robes. Tell your son here my credit is good!”

            “Credit? You want credit with me? I’ve never given you credit before...”

            “I’ve never bought anything from you before! But you know I’m the wealthiest merchant in this marketplace, come on!”

            “Why this sudden interest, Preastong? I’m surprised you even want a shadowbox, after all you’ve said to mock them over the years. ‘Useless vestiges of old superstitions,’ ‘wastes of good borewood,’ I could go on...”

            “Well, yeah, I know, I haven’t... look, this one is different. I don’t know what it is. But I remember seeing it this morning when I was here, and I kept seeing it in my head all day today. I guess I like it. I know I want it.”

            “Then you’ll pay, just like any other customer, eh? No credit. It’s not the way.”

            “The way... damn you to the rift, Amaladak, okay. Okay. I’ll hold to the old superstition and pay you up front,” Preastong said. He turned and began to walk away, then turned back to Amaladak.

            “Don’t you dare sell that to anyone else before I get back here!”

            “Don’t you worry. It’s yours, if you’re willing to pay.”

            “I’ll be right back!”

            Preastong stormed off. Amaladak watched his back as he plowed off through the market crowd.

            “Weird.” Amaladak shook his head, “It’s been a strange day. How much did you charge Preastong for the box?”

            “I told him it wasn’t for sale, not to him. Then he pressured me. He really wants the box. He didn’t seem like himself. He got all strained and angry, but kept trying to negotiate with me. He said he’d pay six hundred for it just before you got up.”

            “Six Hundred! Six hundred? None of ours have ever sold for more than one hundred.”

            “None of yours have, father.”

            Amaladak turned to see Tanager standing at the edge of the tent. Another shadowbox was in his hands. Another new one.

            “Tanager! How long have you been there?”

            “I heard most of Preastong’s ranting and raving. It’s so gratifying to be so loved and wanted, isn’t it? I’ve never seen him act like that.” Tanager screwed up his face into a parody of Preastong’s grimace, “Gimme that! Mine!”

            “What did you mean none of mine have? Have you sold shadowboxes outside of the family trade?”

            “Relax, father. I only sold one, and it was just yesterday, so I didn’t have a chance to tell you about it. I was bringing it in yesterday afternoon when a man stopped me and offered me three hundred on the spot. So, I took it. Then I was hungry, so I got some food, and then some drink, and then one thing lead to another and I drifted off. Look, I made this box to make up for it. And, here,” Tanager dug into his robe and pulled out a small sack. “There’s still two-fifty here. I just had a little fun.”

            Amaladak was livid. Tanager had no discipline. None. Amaladak was ready to explode.

            “How dare you! Who do you think you are? Do you no longer want to belong in this family?”

            “Father!” Rigar shouted

            “Quiet, Rigar! This is between your brother and I alone.”

            Tanager just looked at Amaladak, said nothing. Rigar spoke up again.

            “This is not between you two alone because it involves the whole family. I won’t let you throw Tanager out of the family over this! It’s my family, too!”

            “Look, father, you’ve gone and upset poor Rigar. Thank you, brother, but don’t you worry about me. Worry for yourself and father and mother without me.”

            “I do. I see what father won’t say. You have the gift. I do not. You’re better at it than father. But that doesn’t make you better than us. You need us, too.”

            “Do I?”

            Their discussion is interrupted by the reemergence of Preastong from the crowd.

            “Six hundred! There!” He slams a fat purse down on the display table in front of the shadowboxes. “Now give me my shadowbox!”

            Rigar shook his head disapprovingly as Amaladak handed the box to Preastong.

            Preastong turned the box around in his hands. He stroked the smooth bottom, caressed the fluted towers that grew up from the base. The top half of his shadowbox looked like a small village kept within the walls of a great towered fortress, rendered in miniature. The base was carved as well, each of the four side panels decorated by one eye.  Two were open, two closed. Preastong kept running his hands over it. To Amaladak it looked somehow disgusting and wrong, like a lecherous old man fondling a little girl.

            “Take your box and be gone, Preastong. It’s yours now.”

            Preastong turned without looking up from the box and wandered off into the crowd, bumping into people without noticing them. Amaladak turned back to Tanager.

            “I made that box just for him. It won’t make him happy.”

            “Oh really? Now that’s talent,” Amaladak said with heavy sarcasm for Tanager’s benefit.

            “Please, father, spare me the drama. I just knew as I carved it, as I put it together, that he would want it. I just knew it. And I knew it would never make him happy, either. I just knew that, too, I don’t know how. And I don’t know why, either, ‘cause I certainly don’t care about it.”

            “Who did you sell the other box to, yesterday?”

            “I don’t remember. Some merchant. Like I said, he approached me.” Tanager looked into the marketplace. “I haven’t seen him here today.”

            Amaladak saw that Tanager was looking in the direction of his missing morning waver and wondered if his son had sold that man the shadowbox.

            “You know, Mother said you’d act this way. She suggested I not tell you for a couple days.”

            Amaladak scowled. Naran always favored Tanager, even now that Tanager was of age to find a wife soon himself. The boy shouldn’t be dragging her into this, thought Amaladak.

            Tanager stayed until sundown and helped break down the tent, roll it up, and pack it up in the wagon after the sun’s disc had slipped below the horizon.

           

Author's Note

This is in it's very early stages. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.