Agents of the Demiurge by Brian Blose Read Free Book Online Page B

2
    He took the name
Torrik as he entered the village. Torrik. The name of a man who
died in the previous world when he tripped over his own feet and
smacked his head into a rock. That Torrik had become a joke in his
tribe for suffering such an ignominious death. It was a good joke,
though the people of this world didn't have the proper constitution
to appreciate it.
    Torrik ignored the guest pavilion to first
walk to the edge of the water. This was not a sea like he had
encountered in the previous world. This water was known to be both
traversable and safe to drink. It lapped at the shoreline with
regular waves, but the people stared at him in perplexion when he
asked if it rose and fell in tides.
    Still, such a large body of water drew his
eyes as surely as the ground pulled his feet to it. Torrik breathed
the pungent air and stared at the distant horizon. It appeared to
go on forever, a little slice of eternity carved from water,
changing every moment with swift movements, blues and grays and
greens mingling with the reds and yellows of a setting sun in a
stunning tableau. The world was undeniably beautiful. A true
masterpiece. If no one else could appreciate that fact, he
could.
    And he served the Creator who had made all of
it.
    When the light faded, Torrik strolled back
towards the guest pavilion. The villagers had already gathered for
their evening meal in the open square at its side, and they smiled
as he joined them. A woman approached with a bowl of soup that bore
the unmistakable scent of fish, which Torrik had encountered far
too rarely in this plant-eating world.
    He accepted the bowl with a genuine smile.
“Thank you, friend.”
    The woman bowed graciously. All around him,
people watched with bright eyes. “You are very welcome to food and
shelter while you stay among us. We are a curious folk, however,
and you must be prepared for us to harass you for what stories you
have.”
    Torrik slurped his soup; closed his eyes to
savor the richness of it. He hunted from time to time when his
appetite for hearty fare overcame his desire to blend with the
locals. But the meat of land animals was one flavor and the flesh
of sea animals a completely different one.
    “I have many stories, friend. But first,
could you tell me if a White Man passed through here recently? I am
seeking a friend of mine, and I believe he came this way.”
    The woman bobbed her head. “He is here with
us now. Abner, come here now and sit with your friend!”
    When the white man appeared from the crowd of
brown-skinned people, Torrik licked his lips. He had hoped their
meeting would occur away from the eyes of people, somewhere they
could speak freely. But they would be able to talk around their
secrets without revealing themselves to the villagers. Unless the
meeting turned out less friendly than he hoped. In which case, he
had other concerns.
    The man was balding, overweight, and squinted
at everything in the manner of those with weak eyes. When the man
had an opportunity to properly assess Torrik, he folded his arms.
“I don't know this man.”
    Torrik hesitated. “I think we are watching
things for the same person.”
    “Watching things? What are you talking about?
I spend all my time fishing. Walked nearly the whole way around the
lake, I reckon. Stop a few days every village I come to. Maybe you
met me in some village, but I meet lots of people. I don't know
you.”
    Everything about the white man was wrong. His
irritable nature, his ignorance, the way he appeared oblivious to
everything happening around him. Torrik's eyes assessed the man
before him with the clinical efficiency of an Observer. This man
Abner was not Hess.
    In one of the villages he had passed through,
he had begun to follow the trail of the wrong White Man. To the
mindless creatures of the villages, there might not be much
difference between one pale stranger and another. But the gulf
could not have been larger.
    “This is not the white man I am seeking,”
Torrik