The Final Reward

You know, some people call the next life the ‘reward’.

The people of the town welcomed me well. It makes sense, of course.

I attended Mister Harris’ funeral. I didn’t feel so right being there because I never knew this feller, but the Sheriff, Ms. Garriton, insisted I stick around because I might be able to get something useful.

A whole lot of people clustered about the open mouth of his grave. He was well liked, they tell me. People all dressed in tears and black. It never feels right to have a funeral in the summer. The Architect’s light cast a long, long shadow across his tombstone as it started to set. A whole lot of wildflowers grow in the graveyard this time of year. Depending on who you are, it might feel like a taunt, a reminder of the beauty of life that the dead will never see again. For others, it’s affirming. A reminder that life goes on. I’ve been both people.

I kept my eyes out, hanging in the margins where I belonged; none too close to the departed, but not far enough away that I wouldn’t catch some off behavior. Everyone took their turns, stepping up to the pulpit to say their goodbyes, and leaving their last and most important message. One by one, they carved a symbol into the lid of his coffin; Myrian’s coin. A sigil, that he might find luck and safe passage into the afterlife.

When everyone had said their goodbyes, the priest took to the pulpit and spoke.

“It is no greater testament to the number of lives Mr. Harris graced than the countless lines which now, too, grace his final respite. The path to the next life is a perilous and frightening one, but with your blessings, and with all of the good he’s done, it is certain he will walk head high into his Final Reward. That he was taken from us so abruptly will not soon fade from our memories, but the Gods will surely receive him with warmth and love, and it will be to Them to judge those responsible. May They show mercy as Mr. Harris would want, may Mr. Harris find the peace and fulfillment that he deserves away from the woes of our world, and may we… one day see him again.”

They lowered him into the grave, and it seems like that was… it. Everyone just shuffled off, after that, silent and heavy with sorrow. Except for one man; I saw him linger, but he wasn’t in black. His clothes were ragged and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. So there I stayed, taking drags off of a quickly dwindling cigarette and preparing. Facing the recently departed is never a pretty process. After all, if they’re still around, they are always in pain.

But when I rang that bell, I saw everything. Everything but him. A cascade of spectral colors, sprawling Graveroots consuming the entire graveyard, and even the sprout of his own. They shimmer so strangely in the sunlight, as if, by their nature, they aren’t meant to exist in conditions so lively and fertile. But there wasn’t one spirit among the tangle, a rarity in a cemetery. There was only silence. I sighed, and took my leave, none the wiser about who it was.

—

I asked the Sheriff about that man. She told me his name is Harper. She doesn’t know much more than that, except that he’s the town drunk and he causes plenty of scenes. The cops have had to intervene a good few times, but they never bother bringing any charges. They just let him cool off in the jail and send him right back out, and apparently he has the good sense to keep his head down for at least a few days after that.

One night, as I was heading back to the inn from the Sheriff’s office, I caught a glance at something in an alleyway. Turns out it was Harper, leaning against one wall and staring into the opposite like it had a gun held to him. Bottle in his hand, of course.

—

I visited the crime scene; a quaint little house on a hill just outside of town. Great view. Another ring of the bell, and there was nothing. To be honest with you, things are all the creepier when I’m alone in a house at night and the bell doesn’t turn up anything at all. It always feels like something is wrong. There was blood on the wall, where they said someone hit Mr. Harris. I checked his safe, and it looked like somebody had broken the thing open, but… all the money was still there.

It seemed like Mr. Harris had passed on proper. His spirit wasn’t lingering anywhere here. It was like he’d never been here at all, really. The man lived scarcely, which doesn’t surprise me much. Ms. Garriton described him as a staid sort; respectable, but a little bit boring. Seemed he kept a decent amount of cash in his safe, but nothing out of the ordinary. Just the savings of a feller who doesn’t much trust the banks. (I understand, I don’t neither.)

—

I saw that fella, Harper, standing outside Mr. Harris’ house more than once. It’s him. I know it’s him. I’ve seen that look in a person’s eye before. He was looking at that house, perched atop a beautiful little hill, like a great fire was cresting it and he was ready to let it take him.

—

I was having tea with the priest who’d been there at Mr. Harris’ funeral. Fine man, he is. Very formal, very direct. A bit refreshing for a man of faith; a lot of them speak real cryptically. We sat together in his office, lit by a big, stained glass window shining with Fanekh’s visage, like he was standing over the both of us.

“I was thinkin’ about something you said during Mr. Harris’ funeral, sir,” I started. “You called it the Final Reward. Why do you call it that?”

“Short answer, Mr. Clark, is that it’s just what we’ve always called it,” he said, chuckling. His laugh is charming. “But I think it’s fairly simple, really. We toil on this world as a test. Our souls are molten, still unformed and uncertain, and it is here that we may be molded into something worthy of divine countenance… or, we may not. To torture the metaphor a bit more, some of the Gods may choose to melt us back down, give us a second chance in a new self. Others will simply toss out the slag and the chaff, in favor of the pristine among us. Fanekh asks only that we show ourselves to be decent people, that we might earn a place in his Valley. To him, a dull and chipped blade is still worth his love, for all that which went into making it. It is only the truly broken among us that he cannot accept.”

“I see, I see… thank you for your insight, Mr. Jayce. I just have a lot of things on my mind.”

“It seems like you do. I can’t imagine that you do an easy job. My time with the departed is most often short; yours will be lifelong.”

I nod, solemnly.

—

I catch Harper lingering in front of the man’s house, again, in the dead of night.

I step up behind him, and quietly speak. “What are you up to tonight, sir?”

He turns, looking at me. He’s sober. More sober than I ever seen anyone.

“Mourning,” he says.

“Mourning who?” I ask.

“I don’t know yet,” he says, his voice flat and hollow.

“Why didn’t you take the fella’s cash?” I ask.

“I couldn’t,” he said. He didn’t seem surprised that I’d implicated him. I think he knew it was coming. “I just couldn’t.”

I gently draw my gun from my back, and press it to his.

“I know I did something awful,” he says, his voice breaking. “I needed the money. I was starving. I couldn’t do it anymore. I, I, I caught him in the tavern once and we talked for a while and he said he never much liked the bank and he doesn’t think it’s safe. I thought maybe he’d have money, I thought…”

We stood, in silence, for a moment. I wanted him to complete the thought, and instead he said: “… Please don’t kill me. I c-can’t do it. Fanekh… I’m so afraid of what he’ll say to me.”

I stop. I lower my gun. It was foolish, I guess. Feller could have whipped around and knocked me down before I could react. But he just stood there, staring at the ground.

“I’m not gonna’ kill you,” I said, low. I had planned to. But I couldn’t. “Get out of here. Get out of town while it’s still summer. Find someplace else.” He looked back at me in confusion. “You understand me? Go! Go!” I gave him a jolt with the butt of my rifle, and he took off, nervously looking back at me more than once like he still expected me to fire.

—

I don’t know why I did that. I told the Sheriff I couldn’t find a thing, and I insisted she couldn’t pay me. Whoever’d done it was just too smart for me, and Mr. Harris’ spirit was nowhere to provide testament. But to me, it seemed like a crime of passion, I said. Doesn’t seem premeditated, and there’s no history of killers in this town. I gave her my dearest apologies and I took off into the forest at night.

I don’t know.

Some folk kill so callously and just tell themselves that the departed got the better end of the deal anyhow, because they got to leave this world for a better one. But I can’t quite see it that way. The way I think about it, this world is our world. The next life isn’t a reward, at least to me—it’s a consolation. You get to spend the rest of your life basking in divinity, in a place designed to bring you happiness or peace. But down here? We get to build something all by ourselves. I understand if some folk can’t or don’t want that for themselves… but if they’re still here, they must want some part in it, and it’s hard to deny them of the one chance they get. Some folk are truly evil and deserving of their end. But some folk are just blighted, strained in ways we can never know or understand… and if I’m supposed to be deciding who falls into which category, I can’t take that lightly. Because the moment that I bring them to Death’s door is the last moment they will ever truly have a chance to make their mark.

When I kill a killer, from that point on that's all they'll ever be. That's all the Gods would ever get a chance to see from them. That's where their test ends. Some folks deserve to have that define them for eternity. Others... I don't know.

They say that the dead, awash in divine pleasures, never stop telling and retelling the stories of their mortal life.

Harper saw the blood on his hands, and then all over that safe as he scrambled to get it open, and by the end of it he couldn’t bring himself to finish the job. Ever since then he’d been staring into the middle distance like someone had hollowed him out. As evil and wretched as the thing he did was, I still think he deserves another chance to make a story he’d feel proud telling, and I wasn’t too keen to throw him at the mercy of the Gods at his very lowest. Mr. Harris already had a legacy, stories to tell and friends to meet in the beyond, and it seemed like he was content with that. I don’t think it’d do anybody any good to take another life.

I don’t know what happened to that fella. I hope he got his life together. Maybe found a town with less alcohol.