Gravemound by Kim Fielding (snow like ashes TXT) 📕

It was obvious that nobody had lived there for years, but it wasn’t a bad place at all by local standards. A nearby stream provided fresh water. The sturdy structure had thick walls that provided good insulation, a floor of well-packed earth, and a few pieces of serviceable furniture. Sure, it was a small house, but Phin was used to that. The apartment he’d shared with Somboon hadn’t been much larger.

It was, however, a bit of a walk into the village proper. Phin went every morning unless the weather was terrible, mostly so he could sit with the elders on several stone benches in the village center and practice the local tongue. This particular language hadn’t been programmed into the linguistics chip in his brain, so he’d needed time to understand and speak. They used to tease him about his accent and the way he mangled their words and grammar, but they’d been good-natured about it. The friendly joking had given him a good incentive to learn, and now he stumbled only rarely.

He’d already made this journey once today, but he set out again, strolling down the dirt track over gently rolling hillocks, watching the freshly sprouted plants in the fields as they reached for the sun. Only one sun. That had also taken some getting used to.

A few farmers waved as Phin passed, and he waved back. He’d helped them a little during harvest and planting seasons, but clumsily. Even the youngest kids were more useful than he’d been. He certainly wasn’t an able enough farmhand to make a living off it.

After about half an hour, he reached the village—four or five dozen huts much like his own, scattered haphazardly around a central square with a well. That was where the elders spent their days, gossiping and knitting as they looked after children too young to work in the fields. The village held celebrations there too—raucous affairs with loud music and lots of the traditional drink, which was made from fermented milk. Phin hadn’t yet figured out the details of the holidays here, but he was always invited to join in, which was nice.

Now he sat among the aged knitters, next to Gurthcir, a stick-thin old woman with a boisterous sense of humor. She was also a wonderful source of information.

“What’d you do to your paw, then, Sky-Demon?”

They’d called him that when he first landed, and by the time he understood what it meant, they were no longer serious about it. It was just a nickname. He could see why they’d used it sincerely at first, though, considering he came crashing down out of the heavens in what must have seemed to them a contraption straight out of nightmares. None of them had ever seen a starship before.

“I burned it.” There were no longer any signs of the injury, and Phineas wondered how Gurthcir knew. Maybe she smelled the ointment.

“You were trying your magic again, eh?” She poked him gently with her knitting needle. “No use in that. Your magic won’t work here.”

“Yes. I’ve finally figured that out.”

“Ah, good. So even a sky-demon can learn.” She cackled, sounding remarkably like the birds that locals raised for eggs and pretty feathers.

“Auntie, maybe you can help me.” Phineas didn’t yet fully grasp the complicated system of family relationships, but Gurthcir had recently told him he could call her auntie. He hoped that was a good sign.

“What do you need, my boy? My daughter baked extra bread this morning, if you’re hungry.”

Phin smiled widely. He still couldn’t believe how generous these people were to a complete outsider, especially when they had so little to begin with. “Thank you, auntie, but I’ve eaten. I need help with something….” He struggled for a moment to find the right term and settled on “Something bigger.”

A sly look entered her eyes. “Ah, you’re lonely. You need my help finding you a spouse.”

He blushed, and at the same time a familiar pang twisted his heart. He was lonely. Somboon, who hadn’t survived the crash landing, lay beneath an earthen mound in the village cemetery. But Phin didn’t want a matchmaker.

“Not that, auntie. I need a….” There was no word for job here, at least as far as he could tell. “I need to work for money.”

“We won’t let you starve, you know. Sharing is a blessing. Most of us think so, anyway.” She cast a glare in one particular direction, then turned back to him. “But you want to feel useful. I understand that.”

Phin nodded. “I tried to help with the farming, but I was mostly just in the way. And the things I’m skilled at aren’t any good here.”

She looked thoughtful. “You tell good stories. Ones we’ve never heard before. Everyone likes that.”

He wasn’t really all that great at it—he couldn’t do interesting voices and he tended to wander off on tangents. But the people here did enjoy listening to him talk about life on his own planet, even if they probably didn’t believe a word. Eventually, though, he was going to run out of things to talk about, or else the novelty would wear off and everyone would simply get bored. “I think I need more than that, auntie.”

Gurthcir gave a slow nod and knitted a few rows, her needles moving so quickly that his eyes couldn’t track them. He couldn’t tell what she was making, but he liked its mellow earth tones. She’d told him once that all the yarn used here came from a village far away, where the residents specialized in raising animals for fiber and for spinning and dyeing the results. It took nearly a week to get there—a distance Phin’s starship could have covered in minutes. Too bad Phin had no clue how to create yarn, or else he could save his neighbors a long trip.

“Sky-Demon, I want you to tell us a story right now.” Like the other elders, Gurthcir was still knitting, but her intense gaze focused on Phineas rather than her needles.

“Um, I—”

“Tell