"I'm a failure. I hardly notice whether the sun is shining or not, because I have no time.
"My parents couldn't give me any support, and my education wasn't much. Alone in the city, I was searching for a future.
"I looked for many jobs, but no one hired me. Perhaps no one cares for a man who isn't good with words, doesn't like to talk, and hasn't shown any real ability.
"For three whole days I ate only two loaves of bread. The hunger kept me from sleeping at night. Luckily, I'd paid a month's rent in advance, so I could go on living in that dark basement instead of braving the unusually bitter winter wind outside.
"At last, I found a job—keeping the night watch at a hospital, watching over the morgue.
"The nights at the hospital were colder than I'd imagined. The wall lamps in the corridor weren't lit, and everything was dim; I had only the faint glow leaking out from the rooms to help me see my own feet.
"The smell there was foul. Now and then a dead person would be brought in stuffed into a body bag, and we'd help carry them into the morgue.
"It wasn't a good job, but at least it let me afford bread, and I could use the free hours at night to study. After all, few people were willing to come to the morgue—unless a corpse needed to be brought in or carried off for burning. Of course, I still didn't have enough money to buy books, and for now I saw no hope of saving any.
"I have to thank my predecessor. If he hadn't quit so suddenly, I might not have gotten even a job like this.
"I dreamed of taking a turn on the day shift. As it was, I always slept when the sun rose and got up when night came, which left my body somewhat weak. My head would throb from time to time, too.
"One day, the porters brought in a new corpse.
"From what others said, it was my predecessor—the one who had quit so suddenly.
"I was a little curious about him. After everyone had left, I slid out the drawer and quietly opened the body bag.
"He was an old man, his face greenish and pale, covered everywhere in wrinkles. In the very dim light he looked quite frightening.
"He had little hair, most of it gone white, and his clothes had all been stripped away—not a single scrap of cloth left on him.
"For a dead man with no family, the porters surely wouldn't pass up the chance to earn a little extra on the side.
"I saw a strange mark on his chest, bluish-black. I couldn't make out its exact shape—the light was just too dim.
"I reached out and touched the mark. There was nothing special about it.
"Looking at my predecessor, I found myself wondering: if I kept going on like this, when I grew old, would I end up like him…
"I told him that tomorrow I'd go with him to the crematorium and personally carry his ashes to the nearest free cemetery, so the people in charge of such things wouldn't find it too much trouble and just toss him into some river or dump him on some patch of wasteland.
"It would cost me a morning's sleep, but luckily Sunday was coming soon, and I could make it up.
"With that, I fixed up the body bag and pushed it back into the drawer.
"The light in the room seemed to grow dimmer…
"After that day, every time I slept, I would dream of a great fog.
"I had a feeling that something would happen before long, that sooner or later something—I don't know if it could even be called human—would come looking for me. But no one was willing to believe me. They thought that in such a place, doing such work, my mind had gone a little wrong, and that I ought to see a doctor…"
A male guest seated at the bar turned to look at the storyteller, who had suddenly stopped:
"And then?"
The male guest was in his thirties, dressed in a brown tweed jacket and light-yellow trousers. His hair was pressed flat, and beside his hand rested a plain, dark bowler hat.
He looked utterly ordinary, like most people in the tavern: black hair, pale blue eyes, neither handsome nor ugly, lacking any distinctive features.
To his eyes, the storyteller was a young man of eighteen or nineteen, upright of figure and long of limb, with the same short black hair and pale blue eyes—but with deeply defined features that made him striking.
The young man looked at the empty wine glass before him and sighed. "And then?
"And then I quit my job, went back to the countryside, and came here to spin you a tall tale."
As he spoke, a smile spread across his face, a smile with a hint of mischief.
The male guest was taken aback for a moment:
"That story you just told—it was all a tall tale?"
"Haha." A burst of laughter erupted around the bar.
As the laughter died down a little, a lean middle-aged man looked at the somewhat embarrassed guest and said: "Outlander, you actually believed Lumian's story? He tells a different one every day. Yesterday he was an unlucky wretch whose fiancée had broken off their engagement because of his poverty—today he's a corpse watcher!"
"Right, going on about thirty years east of the Serenzo River, thirty years west of it—he just talks nonsense!" another tavern regular chimed in.
They were all farmers of Koldu, this large village, dressed in short jackets of black, gray, or brown.
The black-haired young man called Lumian braced both hands on the bar and slowly stood up. Smiling, he said: "You all know this isn't a story I made up. My sister wrote it. She loves writing stories more than anything—she's even a columnist for the Novel Weekly or something."
With that, he turned and spread his hands toward the out-of-town guest, smiling brightly: "Seems she really does write well.
"Sorry for misleading you."
The ordinary-looking man in the brown tweed jacket wasn't angry. He stood up as well and answered with a smile: "A very interesting story.
"And how should I address you?"
"Isn't it common sense to introduce yourself before asking someone else's name?" Lumian said with a smile.
The out-of-town guest nodded:
"I'm Leyn Kos.
"These two are my companions, Valentin and Lia."
The latter words referred to a man and a woman seated close by.
The man was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with a touch of powder on his yellow hair. His eyes were not large, and their color was a shade deeper than lake blue. He wore a white waistcoat, a blue fine-wool coat, and black trousers; he had clearly taken some care with his appearance before going out.
His expression was rather cold, and he scarcely glanced at the farmers and herdsmen around him.
The woman looked younger than the two men. Her long, light-gray hair was gathered into an elaborate bun, and she had wrapped a white veil over it to serve as a hat.
Her eyes were the same color as her hair, and as she looked at Lumian her gaze carried an undisguised amusement; whatever had just happened seemed to her merely entertaining.
In the light of the tavern's gas wall lamps, this woman called Lia showed off a pert nose and beautifully curved lips—in a rural place like Koldu village, she was beyond question a beauty.
She wore a white, pleatless cashmere dress that clung to her figure, with a cream-colored little jacket and a pair of Maxiel boots. Two small silver bells were tied to her veil and to her boots, and when she'd walked into the tavern earlier they had jingled all the way, drawing every eye and making no small number of men stare fixedly.
In their eyes, this was the kind of fashionable attire one would only see in big cities like the provincial capital Bigor or the capital Trier.
Lumian nodded to the three outlanders:
"I'm Lumian Lee. You can just call me Lumian."
"Lee?" Lia blurted out.
"What is it? Is there something wrong with my surname?" Lumian asked curiously.
Leyn Kos explained on Lia's behalf: "Your surname is a frightening one. A moment ago I nearly couldn't hold my voice steady."
Seeing the puzzled faces of the farmers and herdsmen around him, he explained further: "Anyone who's had dealings with sailors and sea merchants knows a saying that circulates across the Five Seas:
"Better to run into those pirate admirals, even kings, than to meet a man called Frank Lee.
"That man's surname is Lee, too."
"Is he very frightening?" Lumian asked.
Leyn shook his head:
"I don't know. But since there's a legend like that about him, he must be pretty formidable."
He dropped the subject and said to Lumian: "Thank you for your story. It's worth a drink. What would you like?"
"A Green Fairy." Lumian didn't stand on ceremony and sat back down.
Leyn Kos frowned slightly: "A Green Fairy… absinthe?
"I think I need to give you a word of warning. Wormwood is harmful to the body, and this drink can bring on madness, even hallucinations."
"I never expected the fashions of Trier to have spread all the way here," Lia added from nearby with a smile.
Lumian said "Oh":
"So people in Trier like drinking Green Fairy too…
"For us, life is hard enough already. There's no need to fret over a little extra harm. This drink lets our spirits relax all the more."
"Very well." Leyn sat back in his place and looked toward the bartender. "One Green Fairy, and add a Spicy Heart for me."
Spicy Heart was a famous fruit brandy.
"Why don't I get a Green Fairy too? I'm the one who told you the truth just now—I can lay out everything about this brat, the whole story!" the lean middle-aged man who had first exposed Lumian's daily storytelling shouted in displeasure. "Outlander, I can tell you're still in doubt about whether that story was true!"
"Pierre, just to get a free drink, there's really nothing you won't do!" Lumian called back loudly.
Before Leyn could decide, Lumian added: "Why can't I be the one to tell it? That way I could get an extra Green Fairy."
"Because then they wouldn't know whether to believe what you say," the middle-aged man called Pierre said with a smug grin. "The story your sister loves to tell the children most is The Boy Who Cried Wolf. A man who always lies is bound to lose all his credibility."
"Fine." Lumian shrugged and watched the bartender push a glass of pale green liquor toward him.
Leyn looked at him and asked, seeking confirmation: "Is that all right?"
"No problem, as long as your wallet can cover the cost of these drinks," Lumian said carelessly.
"Then one more Green Fairy." Leyn nodded.
Pierre's face broke into a broad smile at once:
"Generous outlander, this brat is the biggest prankster in the village. You'd do well to keep your distance from him.
"Five years ago, his sister Aurore brought him back to the village, and he's never left since. Think about it—before that, he was only thirteen. How could he possibly have worked as a corpse watcher at a hospital? Mm, the nearest hospital to us is down the mountain in Darlier; it takes a whole afternoon to walk there."
"Brought him back to the village?" Lia asked sharply.
She tilted her head slightly, setting off a jingle of bells.
Pierre nodded:
"Aurore moved here to settle six years ago. A year later, she went out on a trip and brought back this brat. She said she'd picked him up along the way—a vagrant boy, nearly starved to death—and meant to adopt him.
"And then he took the surname Lee along with Aurore. Even the name Lumian was given to him by her."
"I've even forgotten what I was originally called," Lumian said with a grin, taking a sip of absinthe.
It seemed he felt not the slightest shame or self-consciousness at having his past laid bare like this.