The Dust of Rumors Covers Him

By Mike DeFrench

 

There is a world where all roads and rivers converge at a single point: the Inn at the Crossroads.
Logan has always lived at the Inn. He works there, as one of the indentured servants known as the Children. Waiting for the day that he will finally regain his freedom. The days are long and the work is hard for the Children. And each task they get is different. Anyone can pay for their servitude, and have them do whatever labors are needed.
But they can never hurt them. If they do...the Master of the House always finds out. And he is never forgiving.
Or so the rumors go.
And the rumors surrounding the Master of the House at this inn, are infinite. Some say he is the most powerful man in the world.
But they're all just rumors.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike DeFrench
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201381196

Mike DeFrench

Mike DeFrench is a horror, fantasy, and science fiction writer from Indianapolis, Indiana. You can follow him on social media @defrenchwriter. Or go to defrenchwriter.com. To read the stories as they come out, and to stay up to date on any news, subscribe at defrenchwriter.substack.com

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Mike DeFrench

The Dust of Rumors Covers Him

One

Ignoring the slurred bursts coming from the conversation at what was (hopefully) his last table of the night—which was occupied by a group of solidly-drunk patrons, as they endlessly argued behind him—Logan finally allowed himself a moment alone. Decided to step outside into the open air, away from all the smoke, the nonsensical babble, the searing eyes of Jayson (his master for the day/evening). It would be good to take a second just for himself—and then he would finish the night’s labors once this last table was done, and finally go home.

He stood on the balcony of the supposedly high-end (not to mention: high-up) watering hole of a bar that was known in the as The Roost. It was the highest watering hole in the entire Inn. In the entire world—probably.

Logan looked out at the clear night sky that was bathed in swath of multicolored stardust, and he wanted to be one of the many birds that flew off into the free air illuminated by those heavenly bodies. Full and huge, the moon hung low against the infinite blanket of light-pocked blackness behind it, and it spilled its light down over the many turrets, towers, buildings and courtyards that made up the so-called Inn-at-the-Crossroads.

The air outside the balcony was much more cold this high up, and the fading warmth from the waning fire within wafted out into the night. The sweet and thick smell of cigar smoke came with it but quickly dissipated into the high winds.

Logan breathed in the cool air, crisp and clean, infused with the ethereal scent of the dying autumn season.

He could taste it and it was like catching the first snowfall on your tongue. The death inside of the aroma was like you were drinking the cold elixir of the god of winter and he was saying: stay in your home. And it made Logan wished he had a home. A real home. As in: an actual building with an actual family inside of it. A place where a warm fire burned and a warm meal was served for dinner. And a mother might give warm hugs to a cold child...

It was a stupid thought, he knew—the other Children were his family, always had been. And it was only on nights like this that he even had that thought, that feeling of emptiness in his soul. There was something about the huge moon and the cold air and the sound of the wind, it made Logan remember something that he couldn’t really remember. It made him feel this hollow pang in his gut like a nagging stabbing nostalgia, a longing for a past that he had no memory of, a desire to return to a home that didn’t exist and a family that had abandoned him so long ago...

It was a stupid thought.

He pushed it down.

His thick golden-brown hair fluttered in front of his face, and his hot exhausted breath just barely made a cloud before him. It floated there for half a second before disappearing when a breeze came, cool in the thin high air, chilling the skin of his arms even though the thick, grime-caked cloth of his tunic. Instinctively, Logan gripped the smooth, sanded wooden railing of the balcony just as the whole place began to