Enkaku slumped in his chair and woefully regarded the dish of mushrooms at the end of the table. There was something about the climate in Binan, with its cool shadowed forests and mineral-rich soil, that produced top-quality mushrooms. Many of the local specialty dishes incorporated them, whether as part of a sauce, as additions to a stew or savory pie, or just on their own, served up as they were here with butter and herbs. Since Enkaku's father was the mayor, they had the pick of the crop. This plateful was still hot, sizzling invitingly and sending up wafts of fragrant steam.
"May I have some mushrooms, please?" Enkaku asked meekly.
His father looked up at him. "Don't be ridiculous. You don't like mushrooms."
"I do, really! I eat them all the time."
"Nonsense," his father scoffed. "The last time I gave you mushrooms, you made a face and spat them out."
"I was just a little kid then! I didn't want to eat anything then but bread and jam!" Enkaku protested.
"Well, I'm not going to give you food that you're just going to waste," said his father, spooning sauteed mushrooms onto his dish.
Enkaku considered pointing out that he was an adult now, just turned twenty, and could presumably be relied on to know what he did and didn't like to eat. He could have reminded his father that he'd been eating grilled skewered mushrooms at the fair not so long ago, or that he had been a regular buyer of beef-and-mushroom pies at the Cloverleaf for years. He was really going to miss Atsushi, who had been a good man and an even better cook. The food at the Mountain's Arms had never held a candle to Atsushi's. Enkaku sighed.
"I'll just have some eggs, then," he said resignedly.
Enkaku picked at his eggs and toast. There was bacon, too, but he'd already learned his lesson about that. A few months ago he'd made the mistake of saying a particular batch had been soggy and undercooked, and ever since then his father had been upbraiding him about his irrational dislike of bacon. In another ten years, he thought sourly, there would be nothing left he was allowed to eat.
"So did you have any plans for today?" his father asked.
A dangerous question. Enkaku thought about this for a while.
"I'd thought I might visit the stationer's," he offered. That was respectable enough. Besides, although Binan did not have a book store as such, sometimes the stationer would also have a few books for sale. He also had a nephew who worked the front counter sometimes, and who was attractive and pleasant to talk to, and just possibly respectable enough to be seen with the mayor's son. That counted for a lot.
"Well, that's all right," said his father.
Enkaku heaved a small relieved sigh.
"However," his father continued, "you can't do that just yet. I have other plans for you."
Of course you do.
"You might not have heard," said his father, "but the owner of the Cloverleaf Inn has unfortunately passed away."
"I know," said Enkaku softly. "He was my friend."
"Nonsense," said his father briskly. "He was an innkeeper. He was outside your circle. What reason would you have to interact with him?"
There was absolutely no way to answer that question without putting himself even further in the wrong. Enkaku settled for nibbling on his toast and trying to look non-confrontational.
"Anyway," his father went on, "I've been going over the paperwork, and I've just about got it settled for you to take over the inn.
Enkaku sat up with a jolt. "But... but..."
His father beamed. "I knew you'd be excited. It's a wonderful opportunity for you, and for the family."
"But I don't..." Enkaku started to say that he didn't want to be an innkeeper, realized that was pointless, and finished, "I don't know how to be an innkeeper."
"You'll learn," his father said confidently. "It's such a useful career. That inn gets all sorts of business from out-of-town merchants. You'll be able to make a lot of useful contacts."
It was on Enkaku's mind to point out that there was more to running an inn than just making contacts. He shoveled another forkful of eggs into his mouth.
"Well?" his father persisted. "Aren't you excited?"
"I don't quite know what to say," Enkaku hedged.
"Well, never mind. Just go down to the town hall later and fill out the paperwork," said his father, "and then go by the Cloverleaf and see if you can do something about that squatter."
Enkaku tried not to grimace at that. What was he supposed to do about that, anyway? The most he could do was to ask the man very politely if he'd consider going somewhere else. That had already been tried by people more persuasive than Enkaku.
"I'll see what I can do," he mumbled.
"Excellent," said his father. He polished off the last few bites of his breakfast and inspected the dishes on the table.
"They always make too much," he muttered. He gestured to a servant. "Here, take these away. Maybe the cook can find something else to do with them."
Enkaku watched with longing as the dish of mushrooms, barely touched, was carried out of the room. His father stood up and began walking away as well. As he left, he glanced down at Enkaku.
"You're getting too thin," he remarked. "You really need to eat more."
Atsushi and Kinshiro appeared just outside the familiar front door of the Cloverleaf Inn. Atsushi looked up at it hungrily, as if he hadn't seen it in years instead of only a few days. It looked, he thought with a pang, rather dark and forlorn. In all his years, he'd never seen the inn empty like this. Even in the foulest weather, on those days when not a single customer showed up, there would at least be a lantern lit inside and smoke coming from the chimney. Now there was no sign that so much as a beetle was living there.
Kinshiro looked up thoughtfully at the empty building.
"At any rate," he said, "no one has done anything damaging to it yet."
"There is that," Atsushi agreed. He began walking slowly around the perimeter of the building, reassuring himself that all was as well as it could be. The herb garden was looking much better than he'd expected. Someone (perhaps a kind neighbor?) had been weeding and watering it in Atsushi's absence. The firewood pile was lower than Atsushi remembered, but then, his last day on earth had been a hectic one, and he might well have burned through more wood than he'd realized. Even if someone had been stealing, who was he to begrudge them a little wood? He didn't need it. On the whole, though, the building had withstood its temporary abandonment surprisingly well.
He was investigating the back of the building, the side that looked out over the forest, when he felt a prickle on the back of his neck.
"Hey, Kinshiro," he said, "is it just me, or does it feel like someone is watching us?"
Kinshiro looked around, seeming more interested than alarmed. "No one mortal can see us. That doesn't mean some of the local spirits might not be watching, though."
"Is that bad?" Atsushi asked, toying nervously with his glasses.
Kinshiro gave him a reassuring smile. "Probably not. A place this far into the wilderness probably has a lot of nature spirits living around it - possibly even some of the Old Ones. This is the sort of out-of-the-way place they tend to turn up."
Atsushi nodded at that. "My grandfather met a Dwarf, once. And there's a story that when we first opened the mines, a dragon came to check it out, but it went away when it figured out we were mostly mining copper."
"Dwarves are a possibility," Kinshiro agreed. "We might have even stirred up the local crossroads god."
"Do we have one of those?" Atsushi asked. He'd heard of those, of course, but he'd never considered that there might be one in Binan. Somehow, he'd always imagined that they spent their time on lonely roadways in the middle of nowhere. "We barely even have crossroads."
"It doesn't have to be an actual crossroads," said Kinshiro. "Most any man-made structure that isn't actually inhabited will do - walls, gates, bell towers, pavilions, anything like that. Most decently-sized towns have at least one."
Atsushi nodded, digesting this bit of information. It made him feel rather proud, he decided, to think that his little town was still good enough to rate its own personal guardian god. "So why doesn't he come out and say hello?"
Kinshinro smiled thinly. "I am Aurite, and you are my consort. If the king had ridden his chariot through Binan, would you have come out and said hello, or would you watch from a safe distance until you knew for certain that he was willing to chat?"
Atsushi was forced to admit that this was a point, even if he wasn't sure he liked the idea of being ranked so highly that even other gods found him intimidating.
"Let's go inside," he said.
The two of them slipped through the back door, without the bother of opening it. The inside of the inn was dark, and Atsushi paused a moment, not so much to let his eyes adjust as to try to absorb the fact that the inn was empty in the middle of the day. He walked around slowly, taking things in. Yes, everything was as he'd left it, all the tables and chairs in their proper places, the remains of a fire in the fireplace, the little shrine to Sulfur in its niche on the wall, all the mugs hanging neatly on their hooks. He frowned a little.
"Kinshiro," he said, "how much time has passed in the human world since we left?"
"About the same as it has for us," said Kinshiro. "Maybe a little less. Why do you ask?"
"Because there's no dust in here," Atsushi replied. "There aren't any spider webs. Someone has swept the floors and put all the things away that we didn't bother cleaning before we left. I mean, maybe some friendly neighbor tidied it all up for us out of respect, but who's been coming in here and dusting? Even the windows are clean."
"You're right." Kinshiro was turning slowly in place now, taking everything in. "Someone has been here. Recently."
There was a creak on one of the upper floors. Atsushi jumped and looked nervously at the staircase, but Kinshiro put a calming hand on his shoulder.
"Whoever it is," he said, "he can't see us, and he can't hurt us. Come on - we'll sort this out."
Atsushi nodded and regathered his courage. He started up the steps with Kinshiro close behind him. The upper floor, like the main room, was spotlessly clean, but it was not entirely dark. From beneath one of the doors on the rearward-facing side of the building, a thin sliver of light showed. As Atsushi stood and listened, he heard another creak, and then a grating sound, as of someone shifting a chair on the rough wooden floor. Annoyance filled him. Who did this stranger think he was, moving in on Atsushi's home territory? Without thinking, Atsushi stormed straight through the door to give this interloper a piece of his mind.
And stopped short. The person occupying the upstairs room was a pleasant-faced young man of about Atsushi's own age, dressed in austere black with a hint of gold trim about the cuffs and collar. He was just settling down at a desk, apparently getting ready to write a letter. Atsushi stared at him.
"Arima?" he exclaimed, and then, realizing that Arima couldn't see or hear him, quickly materialized and tried again. "Hey, Arima, it's me!"
Arima gave a jolt, nearly oversetting his inkwell, but when he looked up his face was alight with smiles.
"Atsushi!" he exclaimed. "I am glad to see you."
He sprang to his feet to embrace Atsushi like an old friend. Atsushi hugged him back. They not have known each other more than a few weeks, but after you had died for someone and then had him perform your marriage ceremony, certain protocols could be relaxed.
"I'm glad to see you too," said Atsushi.
"As am I," said Kinshiro, phasing into view behind him, "even if I'm not sure what exactly you're doing here."
Arima disentangled himself from Atsushi's embrace to stand back and bow to Aurite.
"My lord," he said respectfully. Then, somewhat to Atsushi's surprise, he stepped forward and embraced Kinshiro as well. Kinshiro seemed rather flustered by this, but also pleased. He even raised his arm, somewhat awkwardly, to pat Arima's shoulder a few times before pulling away. Atsushi grinned. Apparently being ruler of the gods didn't offer a lot of opportunities for spontaneous hugs. Arima stepped back, looking pleased with himself.
"So what are you doing here?" Atsushi asked, before awkwardness could set in. "I would have thought you'd be back in the City of Seven Pillars by now."
"Ah, well," said Arima, looking uneasy, "I suppose you could say I'm protecting the inn."
Atsushi blinked. "Protecting it? From what?"
"That depends on who you ask," said Arima. "Why don't we go downstairs, and I'll fix us all some tea and tell you all about it."
This suggestion was accepted by everyone. Atsushi had a shrewd notion that Kinshiro had been missing Arima's particular knack for tea-making. Within a few minutes, all three of them were sitting around the prep table in the kitchen, sipping tea from chipped mugs and eating apple tarts.
"I really couldn't do this without the support of the locals," Arima was saying. "The food would have run out days ago, but they've been slipping me things through the back door, as it were. Everyone seems to agree that the situation is unfair, but I'm the only one in a position to do something about it."
"What is the situation?" Kinshiro asked. He'd been pushing his apple tart around on its dish for the last few minutes without tasting it.
"The long and short of it is," said Arima, "that the mayor wants to take over the Cloverleaf."
"That's news to us," said Kinshiro. "Our impression was that Atsushi's sister received a message from the town clerk telling her she needed to come here and see to the disposition of Atsushi's property."
"I expect the town clerk acted without orders," said Arima. "My impression is that he's been asking the mayor what to do about it for some time, didn't get an answer, and finally took matters into his own hands. Certainly the mayor wouldn't have let him send that message if he'd known about it. He wants to turn the business over to his son."
"What? But he can't do that," said Atsushi. "I mean, it belongs to my sister now. She's the one who inherits. She'll probably sell it or rent it to someone, but nobody has the right to take it from her without her say-so."
"I agree completely," said Arima, "but Mayor Sousa doesn't see it that way."
Kinshiro frowned. "What other way is there to see it? The law is very clear on who inherits, and it isn't him."
"The way I understand it," said Arima, "if you go back far enough, this building, or at least the land it stands on, used to belong to a particular family. At this point, the inn itself has probably been added to, renovated, and repaired so many times I doubt if so much as a nail of the original building is still here. Be that as it may, the original inn was constructed by this family and passed down through it for some generations, but they eventually died out. As it happened, when the last of that family finally died, the inn had a busboy and general pot-scrubber..."
"A job I know well," Kinshiro murmured.
"...who had been doing most of the work for the aging owner already," Arima continued, not missing a beat. "When the old owner died, the busboy took over the business. No one was surprised or objected because the young man was a fixture around the place already. That man was Atsushi's great-great-great... well, I've forgotten how many generations it was. A distant forebear, in any event. The point is, Atsushi owes his ownership of the inn to him. The problem lies in the fact that he never officially inherited the inn. He wasn't a relative, even by adoption. He never paid anyone for ownership of the inn, and he wasn't named in the deceased's will. I don't there ever was a will. He just took over because no one else wanted the job and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The mayor contends that since Atsushi's ancestor never had any legal right to the inn, neither has Atsushi, and therefore the property belongs to the town."
Kinshiro frowned. "That isn't right."
"I know it isn't," Arima agreed. "I checked. Your law and Sulfur's both agree - a property that goes unclaimed for more than seven years becomes officially ownerless, and can be freely taken by anyone who wants it, unless someone else with a prior claim can prove that there has been some deception or other dirty dealing involved."
"What does that mean?" Atsushi asked, a little befuddled by all this family history and legal talk.
"It means you can't steal someone's diamond necklace, hide it in your cow barn for eight years, and then claim it's yours," said Arima. "And in this case, it means that if your ancestor held the inn in good faith for seven years and no one came forward to claim it, which is what it sounds like happened, then legally it is yours and there shouldn't be anything anyone can do about it."
"Then why are they trying?" Atsushi asked.
"I believe there is an opportunity for profit involved," said Arima. "But the dubious legality of the situation is why I'm still here and the inn is still unclaimed. I don't think anyone is really willing to try any shady dealings as long as I'm here looking over their shoulders. Ostensibly, I'm just here keeping looters away until someone actually claims the inn, but everyone understands what sort of looters I'm here to dissuade." He looked eagerly at Kinshiro. "Have I done all right?"
"You've done flawlessly," said Kinshiro.
Arima glowed at the praise. "I live to serve."
"So what do we do now?" Atsushi asked. "I mean, he's obviously not going to accept Suzume's letter, but we can't just let them take the Cloverleaf. It's..." He held out his hands, at a loss.
"It's home," said Kinshiro decisively. "We have a right and a duty to protect it."
"Can't we just go and ask the mayor to leave it alone?" Atsushi asked. "He'd have to listen to us, wouldn't he?"
Kinshiro smiled. "You'd think that would be the case. In reality, humans have difficulty comprehending some things, and having an actual god turning up in front of them in all their radiant glory and issuing proclamations is one of those things. They're impressed at first, but when it's all over, they start thinking perhaps they imagined it all. That's one of the reasons priests have to go through so much training - except for a few special cases," he added, with a nod towards Arima.
"So what do we do?" Atsushi repeated. He rather thought that in this case, appearing before the mayor in a blaze of glory might have been rather fun.
Kinshiro smiled a little. "We do things the subtle way. Have you ever seen someone for whom everything seems to go wrong? Suddenly their tools break, their workers quit, their shipments are delayed or lost, roofs fall in, windows crack, wells run dry, animals escape, food spoils. That's what happens when a god turns against you. I know it isn't in your nature..." He cast Atsushi a fond smile. "...but if you've ever been tempted to engage in petty revenge, now is your chance."
Atsushi blinked. "Is that allowed?"
"For mortals, no. For us, yes," said Kinshiro.
"May I help?" asked Arima.
"I'll find something for you to do," Kinshiro promised. He considered. "Anyway, I'm still on vacation. I might as well use my time for something important."
Atsushi smiled. "All right then," he said. "Let's save the Cloverleaf."
Enkaku sidled up the road, looking anywhere but at the inn. He looked at the road, at the other townspeople, at the neighboring houses and shops, trying to convince himself that he was going somewhere - anywhere - else, and that the could be surprised when the Cloverleaf finally loomed up in front of him. It wasn't working, of course, but he had to try. He paused for a little while, watching a few children with a jump rope chanting one of the nonsense rhymes that they loved so much.
"A pulley for the bucket, a clapper for the bell, a copper for the old man who lives in the well," they sang. He found himself envying them. They didn't have any responsibilities, and no one was trying to make them do anything they didn't want to do, at least not at the moment.
It's okay. You can do this, he told himself. Just ask him politely, and if he says no, you can go back and say you tried. It will only take a minute.
With that mild encouragement, he managed the last few steps he needed to reach the door of the Cloverleaf. He raised his hand to knock and paused, unable to make himself proceed.
The window opened, and Priest Arima leaned out.
"Good morning, Mr. Sousa," he said pleasantly.
"Oh, ah..." said Enkaku, off-balance. "Good morning, your holiness."
Arima went on smiling at him. "It's a pleasure to see you again. Is there something I can do for you?"
Enkaku took a breath, straightened his spine, and endeavored to look commanding.
"I'm here to tell you that you can't stay here anymore," he said. "I mean, you were only staying on to protect the inn from looters, but, um, you don't need to do that anymore because ah... because I'm going to... going to..." He trailed off and shrugged. "Well, you know."
"I see," said Arima. He settled himself more comfortably, leaning his elbows on the windowsill. "Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you."
"But you can't," Enkaku protested. "This is a proclamation from the mayor."
"I understand," said Arima. "Nevertheless, I'm afraid I can't help you. You must understand, I'm not a citizen of this town. I report directly to the great god Aurite, and Aurite agrees that this site is sacred to the god Epinard and should be maintained in his honor."
"I've never heard of Epinard," said Enkaku.
"He's something of a new development," Arima replied, "which is one reason why he is so eager to claim this place as his own. He needs to increase his notoriety."
Enkaku stared at Arima in disbelief. A large part of him said that there was obviously no such god as Epinard, and that Arima had invented him just for an excuse to keep anyone from taking the inn. Precisely why he should be so invested in keeping the inn to himself was a mystery, but it was clear that he was bluffing. At the same time, Enkaku couldn't quite bring himself to argue. It wasn't that there was anything threatening in Arima's posture. He was as relaxed and smiling as ever. At the same time, there was something in the way he leaned so casually on the windowsill that suggested he had no intention of getting up to open the door, and his pleasant expression gave the impression that any arguments would roll over him like a river over a stone. He wasn't going to be nasty or put up a fight. He simply wasn't going to be budged.
"I see," said Enkaku. "Thank you for your time."
He slouched away feeling oddly let down. It wasn't that he was so enthused about the idea of owning an inn. In truth, he had no clear ideas of what he wanted to do with his life, but if anyone had asked, the first answer he'd have wanted to give was "Go somewhere else." The last thing he wanted was to be tied down to a job that would keep him in this dull little town forever. It wasn't as though his family couldn't afford to let him see a bit of the world if they would only let him. Besides, even if he'd wanted to stay in town, he was sure he didn't have the temperament for innkeeping.
But that wasn't the point. The point was that he was sick and tired of being pushed around, ignored, dismissed, and generally treated like a nonentity. His father treated him like a personal automaton, his mother was too busy pretending to be an invalid and getting waited on to do anything but say "that's nice, dear" and "not now, dear, I have a headache", and now even random priests were dismissing him out of hand.
I wish there was some way to make people listen to me. I just want to be in control of my life for once, even just a little bit...
Fat chance of that, though. It seemed like no matter how he tried, he couldn't get anyone to take him seriously. No, he already knew how things were going to turn out: he'd tell his father how things had gone with Arima, his father would go down to the Cloverleaf and bully the priest out of it, Enkaku would be shoved into a job he was ill-suited for and didn't want, and he'd spend the rest of his life working at the Cloverleaf, or at least stay there until his father thought of something even more ridiculous to do to him. It was enough to make him want to just lie down in the street and let a cart roll over him.
As he trudged his way back home, he once again passed the children with the jump rope. They had changed places around, so that the little girl who'd been jumping earlier was now helping turn the rope while a freckle-faced little boy turned the rope, but they were still singing the same song.
"I'm going to the market, I have some things to sell, I'm going to make a bargain with the old man in the well..."
And just like that, the idea came to him - a wild, wonderful, perfect idea. There was a solution to his problems. He could strike a bargain. It would have to cost him, but he was at the point where he was willing to give up anything if only it would get him what he wanted. All he had to do was find a crossroads god.
Normally, finding a god was not an easy thing to do. You could go into a temple and pray to Sulfur or Aurite or any other god, leave them an offering, and hope they'd make some time to answer you. Even if they did, though, they would probably just give you what you asked for, without the bother of turning up in person to chat with you. You had to do something pretty spectacular to actually coax a major god into speaking with you personally.
Crossroads gods, on the other hand, were meant to be accessible. They tended to stay in one place, and unlike major gods, they were known to strike bargains with humans. It was said that they could give you anything you wanted, as long as you were willing to pay the price they asked. The cost could be anything from a single wildflower on up to a promise to become that god's attendant in the afterlife. Enkaku wasn't quite sure he was willing to commit himself to an afterlife as the servant of some second-tier god, but he hoped he might be able to make some other, less costly bargain. Other people got out of their parents' homes and lived their own lives. It couldn't be but so great a thing to ask. All he had to do was figure out where the nearest crossroads god was, and he thought he had a pretty sound idea of where to look.
With these plans in his mind, he arrived home in a better frame of mind than when he left. He found his father in the parlor, drinking tea and going over some papers.
"Did you talk the blighter around?" was the predictable greeting.
"Not yet," said Enkaku vaguely. "He said something about the inn being sacred ground."
"Nonsense!" his father huffed. It dawned on Enkaku that a lot of things seemed to be nonsense in his father's world. "That's just an excuse."
"He seems very sure," Enkaku offered.
"Well, we'll just see about that," said his father. "I'll speak to him myself later, and I have no doubt I'll be able to talk some sense into him."
Enkaku agreed that this sounded very likely and retreated to the safety of the library. He spent the rest of the afternoon digging through old histories and city records, and occasionally wondering whether or not his father had spoken to Priest Arima or not. He had a vague sense that even his father would have to expend some effort to make him move. If Enkaku hadn't been so eager to avoid being saddled with an unwanted inn, he would have enjoyed watching his father's irresistible force being pitted against the immovable object that was Arima. As it was, he hoped that the priest would be able to hold out for at least a little while.
To his relief, it was clear by dinnertime that Mayor Sousa had not been able to shift the recalcitrant priest, and was in very poor spirits over it. He grumbled and blustered throughout the entire meal. He was certain Arima was lying about his holy proclamation. He was probably lying about being High Priest Arima - after all, who in this tiny town had ever or would ever make the long trek to the City of Seven Pillars to find out for sure? For all any of them knew, he could be some wandering brigand, possibly even one of those who had murdered poor Atsushi. Privately, Enkaku didn't think he bought that theory. Arima may or may not be who he said he was, but there was no way he was any sort of bandit. For one thing, he'd been sporadically conducting services in the local temple, and Enkaku doubted that there were many bandits who had memorized the prayers and litanies to the god of law and justice. Still, it kept Mayor Sousa busy, so all Enkaku had to do that night was nod and say "mm-hmm" or "no, of course not" as the situation demanded. Eventually, his mother declared she was tired and wanted to go back to her room, his father shuffled off to his study for an after-dinner drink, and Enkaku was at last free from all parental supervision.
The first thing he did was go up to his room to raid his cash box. One of the few good things about being the mayor's son was that he was given a liberal allowance. He fished through his savings and came up with a single gold coin, the coming-of-age gift he'd received on his eighteenth birthday. He'd been saving it for something special, but he felt this was more important than anything else he might buy for himself. Now all he had to do was wait.
The traditional time for making crossroads bargains was midnight. It was fortunate for Enkaku that his father's preference for ceremony meant that dinner was generally a prolonged meal with several courses, which meant it was already late. Enkaku sat by the window, nervously trying to read a book and listening as the town crier wandered up and down the streets counting out nine bells... ten... eleven...
No one Enkaku knew had ever made a crossroads bargain. Most people seemed to be of the opinion that if such a thing existed, it probably did so somewhere else. Binan, they seemed to feel, couldn't be important enough to merit its own personal god, even a minor one. And yet, as long as Enkaku could remember, the local children had been teaching each other skipping songs and clapping games about the "old man in the well". There was a well at the center of town, a nice big one with a red roof, but there had never been any hints that there was anything supernatural about it. Enkaku had been a little dismayed by that fact, but a few checks of the city records had turned up the solution he'd been looking for.
Time to go, he decided. With his heart hammering, he wrapped himself up in his cloak and picked his way silently down the stairs. At this time of night, both his parents were asleep and the house staff would either be in their own quarters or sequestered in the scullery finishing the last of the washing-up. There was no one to notice as Enkaku slipped out the front door and started up the street.
At the far end of town, there stood the remains of an old farm. Most of it had been long ago torn down and built over, but a few things still remained - the moss-covered remains of an old wall, a bit of stone that marked the foundation of the original farmhouse, and, nearly hidden by half-grown trees and weeds, a well. The roof that had once covered it had long ago rotted away, and some of the stones had come loose and fallen. The whole of it was coated with moss and lichen, so that in the dark, it was almost impossible to see, and even by daylight, it was easy to overlook. Small children were warned not to play there in case they fell in. Now Enkaku picked his way carefully towards it, using the old wall as a guide and shuffling his feet so he wouldn't stumble into it.
It took several minutes of searching, but at last he found it. It looked ominous in the dim moonlight, a perfect black circle leading down into who-knew-what. For all Enkaku could see, it might go all the way down to the Abyss itself.
"A copper for the old man," he murmured, and tossed the coin down the well. He listened, counting the seconds as they ticked by, but even in the still night, he never heard a splash. He realized he was holding his breath and let it out slowly, waiting.
The well began to glow green. A wind brushed by, carrying with it a warm summery scent of ripening fruit, like melons growing in the sun. Enkaku felt a sudden thrill that was half fear and half delight, as he realized he was about to actually see a god. Then the lights gave a sudden pulse, and there was a man siting on the edge of the well.
He looked younger than Enkaku had expected, perhaps no older than Enkaku himself, and was even rather attractive. He had sleek dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and his eyes showed a clear pale-honey gold even in the moonlight. It was hard to tell what color his robes were in the dark, but Enkaku thought they might be deep green.
"You don't look like an old man," Enkaku blurted.
The god grimaced. "Well, no. I mean, I am old, by human standards. Not so much by god standards. But maybe you'd take me more seriously if I looked old? Because I could do that if you want. Or maybe I shouldn't. Maybe you'll think less of me if I just start changing my appearance to suit you. I'm the god, so I should be in charge, right? But then again, it's a god's duty to attend to his followers..."
"Um, excuse me?" Enkaku interjected. He had, it seemed, found someone even easier to push around than he was. It seemed like a good idea to head him off before he spent all night dithering. "Are you really the crossroads god? Because if you are, I'd really like to make a bargain, please."
"Oh, right." The god seemed to pull himself together with an effort of will. "Yes, I'm Uriya, the guardian god of Binan. What is your request?"
"I just want to stop my father from controlling me," said Enkaku. "He dictates every aspect of my life! He tells me what to eat, what to wear, who my friends should be, what job I should take. I never get any say in anything. If I tell him I don't want something, he contradicts me and tells me I do! It's driving me crazy! And now he wants me to take over the Cloverleaf. Atsushi was my friend, and he's only been dead a few days, and it feels wrong to just walk in and take his stuff, and I don't want to do it." He looked pleadingly at Uriya. "Can you do anything for me?"
Uriya looked thoughtfully up at the sky, tapping a finger to his lips. "Hmm... that's a tough one, all right."
Despair crept over Enkaku. If even this god couldn't help...
Something seemed to occur to Uriya. "You say your father is trying to give you the old inn?"
"That's right," said Enkaku, wondering what that had to do with anything.
"I see," said Uriya. He seemed to be debating furiously with himself, lips moving silently as he conducted his internal argument. At last, he said, "You're willing to pay the price to get what you want? Whatever I ask?"
"If I can," said Enkaku.
"Good enough," said Uriya. "Wait right here - I'll be back in a flash."
There was indeed a flash. Enkaku jumped backwards at the flare of green light and nearly tripped over the wall. He was still trying to settle himself when there was another melon-scented flash, and Uriya reappeared.
"This should do the trick," he said. "Here, take this."
He held out his hand, and Enkaku leaned in for a better look. The object he was holding was a ring, green with verdigris. It was set with a translucent blue-green stone, possibly a beryl, so smooth and so like the color of the band that it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began.
"What does it do?" Enkaku asked.
"It's... well, you might call it a ring of independence," said Uriya. "As long as you're wearing it, if someone tells you to do something you don't want to do, all you have to do is say 'I am my own master' and they'll back down. I can't let you keep it forever, but you can have it for one full phase of the moon. After that, the ring will fall to pieces. And it won't work on gods," he added sternly, "so no fair trying to use it to get around the rules, all right?"
Enkaku nodded vigorously. If he couldn't get his act together in a month, he might as well give up. "I understand."
"Good," said Uriya. "Then go ahead - put it on."
Enkaku reached for the ring, but just short of touching it, he stopped. He looked suspiciously up at Uriya.
"Wait," he said. "What's this costing me?"
Uriya looked down at the crumbling old well. "I'm tired of being ignored. I've been protecting this village since the day of its foundation, and most of the people in this village don't even believe I exist anymore. I'm tired of being stuck in an old well in a muddy field no one ever goes to anymore. I want people to pay attention to me again."
"So... you want me to build you a shrine?" Enkaku hazarded.
Uriya hesitated, clearly considering what his next words ought to be. At last, he shook his head.
"No," he said. "I want you to give me the Cloverleaf."