The Price of a Wooden Man
The first thing Mugi learned about himself was that he had been discounted.
A paper tag hung against his chest. Beneath a smear of dried mud, somebody had crossed out one price and written another. A second hand had added FLOOD DAMAGE — NO RETURNS.
He could read the words. He did not know how.
Water covered the shop floor. It reached the bottom shelf on the opposite wall, where three small suits of armor leaned together beneath a painted sign. One wore a crown of wooden leaves. Another had a fox’s narrow face worked into its pale helmet. The third was missing its head.
Mugi looked down at his own hands.
His fingers were wood.
He opened and closed each hand, watching the joints move. The grain curved around his knuckles. A dark split ran through his left palm, and when he touched it with his other hand, he felt pressure from both sides.
He had expected to find someone inside the armor.
There was only himself.
A cord held his right wrist against a display peg. He pulled it loose, taking a sliver of the wall with it. His feet slipped off the shelf, and he fell into the water.
The noise brought a man through the doorway behind the counter.
For a moment, the man stared. He carried a ledger under one arm and a kitchen knife in his hand, apparently interrupted while eating.
Then he put both objects down.
“Stay where you are.”
Mugi tried to stand. His left knee bent reluctantly, scraping against something caught beneath the joint.
“There’s a piece of wood stuck in my leg,” he said.
The man’s eyes moved toward the front door.
“Who brought you in?”
“I was on the shelf.”
“I can see where you were.”
Mugi pointed to the loosened cord.
“My arm was tied up. I took it off.”
The man approached slowly. He wore a brass key on a chain around his neck. Mugi watched the key swing and felt an urge to move away before he understood why.
“Let me see your chest.”
“Why?”
“There should be a maker’s plate under the rim.”
The man reached for him.
Mugi stepped backward. His bad knee struck the shelf, and the headless armor toppled into the water beside him.
Both looked down.
The empty shell settled on its side. Water entered through the neck opening. It did not try to rise.
Mugi waited for it to move.
The man caught his wrist.
“Enough. You’ve already damaged one fitting.”
“You’re hurting my hand.”
The grip loosened, but the man did not release him.
Outside, wheels struck a rut. A woman shouted for somebody to keep the rear of a wagon clear of the ditch.
Mugi turned toward the sound.
The shopkeeper moved between him and the door.
“You can’t leave wearing that.”
Mugi looked down at his chest, at the tag floating against the wood.
“Wearing what?”
“The shell.”
“I don’t know how to take it off.”
The man’s expression changed. The impatience remained, but something calculating joined it.
“You don’t have to. We can sort this out.”
He reached for the loose cord.
Mugi pulled his hand free and ran.
His knee nearly failed at the threshold. He caught the doorframe, dragged himself over the step, and stumbled into daylight.
The flood had left a brown stain halfway up the buildings. Broken furniture lay in the road. Beyond the houses, fields disappeared beneath flat water, with fence posts showing where the ground ought to have been.
A maintenance wagon stood outside the shop. A stone-bodied Donguri was bracing its rear wheel while a Wayfarer woman tightened the harness.
Mugi stopped beside her.
“Please don’t let him tie me up again.”
She turned, saw the trailing cord, and looked past him toward the shopkeeper.
“What happened?”
“That shell belongs to my stock,” the man said. “I have the purchase record inside.”
The woman crouched in front of Mugi.
“Did he buy you from someone?”
“I don’t know. I woke up on the shelf.”
She examined the tag without touching his chest.
The stone Donguri left the wheel and came closer. His shell bore a worn, antlered creature worked into the breastplate.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked.
“Since the water reached me.”
“And before that?”
Mugi searched for an answer.
He knew what a shop was. He knew the purpose of a wagon, a knife, a key. He could read the sign above the doorway. But when he tried to remember yesterday, there was nothing to reach for.
“I don’t remember.”
The shopkeeper held out his hand to the woman.
“You know what those shells cost. I lost half my stock in the flood. I can’t lose the rest because one of them has started talking.”
The stone Donguri looked at him.
“I’m standing here because one of them started talking.”
The woman rose.
“We’re taking him out of the water.”
“You’re taking my property.”
“You can bring your ledger to the road camp and explain the claim there.”
She offered Mugi her hand.
He accepted it before she could change her mind.
From the wagon, the shop looked smaller. He could see the shelf where he had been fastened and the empty place left by his departure. Above it hung a faded painting of a woman holding an open shell in her hands. A golden bird spread its wings behind her.
“Who is that?” Mugi asked.
The driver followed his gaze.
“Veyra. Most armor shops keep a picture of her. The First Shellwright.”
“Did she make me?”
“She lived a very long time ago.”
That did not answer the question. Mugi suspected the driver knew it.
The stone Donguri climbed onto the wagon beside him. Up close, the antlered figure on his chest was chipped and weathered. Repairs crossed it in three places.
Mugi touched his own paper tag.
“Do you know who made you?”
“No,” the stone Donguri said. “I know the man who repaired my hip, and the woman who taught me to drive this wagon. Those are names I’ve managed to keep.”
The wagon began moving.
Mugi watched the shopkeeper recede behind the muddy windows. The man was still standing in the doorway, holding the cord.
“Where are we going?”
“To finish clearing the road,” the driver said. “After that, Hearthcross. There’s a repair camp there.”
“Can someone fix my knee?”
“Yes. And if you’ve been hurt worse than we can see, the ground there helps Donguri recover.”
“How?”
The driver glanced at the stone Donguri.
Nobody answered immediately.
Mugi looked ahead. The road crossed the flooded fields on a raised bank of pale stone. Beneath the wagon wheels, names had been cut into blocks worn almost smooth by age.
He could read some of those too.
He had never seen the road before.