Gromma and Nop
"The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."
3rd Day, 29th Run, 937 Years After
While one sits, the other digs, and at every grave the two men trade. The day is darkening. The work so far has been a wash. It is the season when crows nest on tombstones in the frosty air, and the birds are not frightened as they watch the curious visitors who have taken an interest in their home. Nop, looking more human than usual, slouches on a stool, rubbing his thigh with one gloved hand and clutching a brown glass bottle in the other. Behind him stretch the results of their search: rows of pilfered graves, none the one needed. He sighs. This new skin is too tight.
The shovel finally hits wood. Gromma pauses. After so many hours he no longer expects to find anything, but it’ll be good to rest on the stool and let the sweat dry from his beard. Nop, standing at the edge of the grave, sips from his bottle as Gromma struggles with the aged, warped lid of the coffin, which does not appreciate being asked to open.
“I’ll kill ye, devil’s box!” mutters Gromma. He pulls the handle with both hands and all his strength, but the box is old, set in its ways, and immune to insults. After several more minutes of fruitless pulling, just as Gromma feels as if his teeth might crack before the wood, he feels Nop tap his shoulder.
“I was wondering if you would remember,” says Nop.
“Ye’ll be next,” says Gromma, taking the crowbar, but Nop smiles at the threat. It has been decades since the two of them last duked it out. Nop’s not a fighter the way he used to be, but he wouldn’t mind another go sometime soon. Good for the circulation. He knows that Gromma doesn’t say it so plainly when he means you harm, though, and Nop lets himself enjoy watching his partner struggle.
Eventually the crowbar does the trick. The pair brace themselves as the lid swings open, but this is one of the lucky coffins, far too old for to have any remains of odor. In fact, there are few remains of a corpse either, other than a few crumbling bones and some grey stain on the lining. Even the maggots would be disappointed at the pickings. No worm-like appetite in Gromma, though! He’s grubbing for something more permanent than flesh. It’s an easy search, won’t even have to wipe his hands after, something most would take as an invitation to slack, but not this man, no! He takes his time with it. Never know what could be hiding in that nook you didn’t bother with. He hoists himself from the hole and his watcher doesn’t even bother asking the result as they trade drink for tool.
The two stand there as Gromma takes his sips. They are both thinking of the vastness of this cemetery. In any direction you can’t even see the end, just open field and tombstones, and though time is not something either has ever had to worry over neither are they fans of tedium. The work will get done, they’ll see it through, but they’re yet to meet a graveyard more interesting than a girl or book, and Gromma’s just drained the bottle. Nop scowls at him.
“That would have been nice to have,” he says.
“Ye shouldn’a taken so much of it yerself,” Gromma says, and belches.
“Only because you’re a tediously slow digger,” says Nop, and looks at the crow that’s sitting on their next tombstone. “There’s a king buried beneath one of these slabs, my friend. We ought to be able to offer him a drink.”
“He weren’t no king,” grunts Gromma. He tosses the bottle into the open grave.
“Not in name, no,” says Nop. He has begun his digging, thankful the earth is still soft from the morning’s rain. “Rather in stature and blood. Is that not enough?”
“Nah. Not enough.”
“Hm,” says Nop. For several minutes after they do not speak. The only sound is the sinking of shovel into dirt. When he finally continues it is, “Well, he certainly died a king’s death.”
“A martyr ye mean?”
“Alone.”
After a long, quiet time the shovel hits wood, and Nop motions for the crowbar. The coffin lid, worn with age, pries open easily. Nop looks in, looks up, grins. “This is it.”
Gromma is scrambling into the hole before the sentence has left the wind. He stares down into the open compartment. The laugh he lets out upon seeing what’s inside belongs to no human. It is wild and sharp and somehow echoes through the open air, driving away every crow, and he is still cackling as Nop reaches into the compartment to pull out the skull inside. Sitting in one eye socket is a red, round gem, uncut, rough. Nop takes it gingerly between his fingers. He turns it, inspecting every angle.
“All that’s left of a failed king,” he says in a quiet voice. This time no objection to the word.
“Tha forgotten bastard traitor.” Gromma can’t stop snickering. He reaches out a hand, and Nop drops the stone into his palm. It is heavier than it looks. Peering into it, Gromma almost thinks he can see a light. “’For days o’ woe and hunger, rot, we’ll make a sacred killing spot’. Fuck tha ones who said different, laddie. Cowards all.”
“You’re a wordsmith when you wish to be, friend,” says Nop. “I couldn’t have expressed it better.” He has taken a small wooden box from his pocket and opened the lid. Gromma gingerly places the jewel between the velvet lining. The skull is still in Nop’s other hand, and with its grin seems in on the joke.
“Only one story ever worth tellin’,” says Gromma, “An’ it ain’t got a happy ending.”
“Or it has no ending at all. How fortunate for us.” Nop slips the box into his coat pocket. Overhead, a curious circling crow watches the scene. “Here we have a mountainous man who thought he was an anthill, who thought the best thing he could do in life was die. Yet time’s storm carried him to our feet, and thanks to that we’re going to have quite a bit of fun.” He drops the skull onto the pile of dirt beside the grave.
“Aye,” says Gromma. “Here we’ve got a hero.”