Gravemound by Kim Fielding (snow like ashes TXT) 📕

a story from when you were a very young man. Tell us how you met your spouse.”

That was a specific and strange request, but Phin owed her at least this much. “Um, okay.” He frowned as he organized his thoughts. But his grief had clearly progressed; the memory was more sweet than sad. “This was when I was in….” He paused because there was no local word for university, or for schools in general. “I was in a place where people spend a few years learning things.”

“Like what?”

He snorted. “Nothing that’s come in handy here. Anyway, it’s an intense experience for most people. Stressful. I took up a….” No word for hobby either. “An activity to calm me down. I learned to brew a drink.”

“Fermented milk?” Gurthcir looked interested in that, and so did everyone else within earshot. The stuff was very popular, although everyone complained about the taste.

“No, we don’t have much of that where I’m from. This is called ale.” He used the term in his native language. “It’s made from grains.”

“You can drink arrowgrass?” asked a plump old man, looking astonished.

“We don’t have that where I’m from either, so we use other grains, but I bet arrowgrass would work. You ferment it, add some stuff to it, and there you go. It’s not as strong as your milk, but it’s nice to drink.”

A hum of astonishment rose among his listeners, who’d even stopped knitting, but Gurthcir hushed them. “Tell us more.”

“Well, my friends made fun of me for it. They said it was a waste of time.” Why bother with alcohol when pharms could instantly give you whatever kind of buzz you wanted? “But I did it anyway. It was fun. Creative. Relaxing. And one day when I went to buy some supplies, I met a really cute man who was there for the same reason. We started talking and we just clicked.” He snapped his fingers to demonstrate.

His audience members nodded as if they understood the phenomenon well. Gurthcir poked him gently with a needle. “Could you make this ale here?”

Phin considered. “Maybe. I’d have to make some adjustments for local ingredients, but it might work. I’d need tools, though.”

“What kind?”

“Um, pots. Buckets with lids. Spigots. Bottles and bottle caps. A few other things.”

“The same things that are used for milk, sounds like.”

He shrugged. “Probably.”

“And if you had these things, you could make enough for the whole village? Because we’d all want to try some.”

Everyone nodded in eager agreement.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then there’s the solution to your problem, Sky-Demon. There’s how you can be useful.”

Phineas Coleman, brewmaster from the stars. That had a nice ring to it. For the first time since he’d landed here, he felt a tiny spark of optimism. Which quickly went out. “I have no way to pay for any of that stuff, though.”

Gurthcir waved a wrinkled hand. “Only one person in the village ferments milk, and he owns all the equipment you need. But you’re going to have to persuade him to give you some, and that won’t be easy.” By way of explanation, she pointed toward a large house that hunched beyond the others, as if too proud to exist among the common people. The house was a veritable castle in comparison to Phin’s little place, and it was home to the one local who hated Phineas’s guts.

“Thozzon won’t give me anything.” And, sadly, small business loans didn’t exist here.

“You won’t know unless you try.”

“He won’t even talk to me. He just glares. He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

To his surprise, everyone laughed. Gurthcir patted his leg. “It’s not to do with you, Sky-Demon. He’s a miserable sod. Treats everyone like shit under his boots.”

It made Phineas feel slightly better to know that the antipathy wasn’t personal. But it didn’t get him any closer to setting up a brewery. “So why even bother?”

“Why bother to make ale, eh? Isn’t that what your friends said? But look where it got you. You met your love that way.” She gave him another needle poke, this one hard enough to make him rub his arm. “Sometimes the value of something isn’t clear at first. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth anything.”

True enough, he supposed. And Thozzon wouldn’t murder him simply for asking. Probably. Phin stood and gave her a smile. “Thanks for the advice, auntie.”

He squared his shoulders. No time like the present, Phineas. It was time to swallow his pride and do some groveling.

Thozzon’s house was made out of stone, just like Phineas’s, just like everyone else’s. But somehow Thozzon’s stone seemed more solid. Threatening, almost, as if it might collapse on intruders. Most of the huts, including Phin’s, were an irregular assembly of curves and humps, without a right angle or level surface to be found. They looked almost like living things, strange stone mushrooms risen out of the ground. Thozzon’s, however, seemed more deliberately constructed, a brooding alien presence.

Phineas hesitated near the door, gathering his courage as he gazed out at Thozzon’s newly planted fields. Thozzon was wealthy by village standards. He lived in the biggest house, controlled the milk fermentation, and owned some of the nicest farmland. He showed up at the village celebrations dressed in fancy robes that weren’t locally produced, and he’d stand at the edge of the square frowning and avoiding everyone else. Unlike the rest of the villagers, he showed no inclination to share what he had, and his reactions to the sky-demon had bordered on hostile.

But worrying wasn’t doing Phin any good. After a few cleansing breaths, he straightened his shoulders and knocked on the heavy wooden door.

Nothing happened. Phin was debating whether to go away or knock again when the door creaked open. And there was Thozzon, dressed in his ornate clothes, the corners of his mouth drawn down into their usual disgruntled creases. However, his pale hair, usually carefully plaited, was a knotted mess, and his pale eyes were red-rimmed. That was new.

He said nothing—just stood in the doorway