The Wheel Turns (Short Story)

THE WHEELS OF TIME DO NOT ALWAYS TURN AS THEY SHOULD.

The flaws and ridges of the wheels bump on the well-worn road of life, tossing souls off the wagon though they were prepared for a longer journey. It might have been better for them to hold on a little tighter to the rails, but what is the joy in life when your only focus is the ending?

The wheels were poorly oiled the day Nylis was hanged. He bellowed with all the breath in his lungs that it was not his fault. That the world was cruel. That I am cruel, even. He may be right, should I follow the lead of my brothers and sisters to interfere with the lives of men. But I do not, so I am not. And poor Nylis was left kicking out the thieves' dance as the crowd watched on—eyes wide—some full of horror, others of vengeance, and more than a few of weary resignation.

You see, I knew this was coming. From the minute the desperate thought came to Nylis' mind, I knew there would be no averting this. For a man of his understanding, he had made few wayward decisions in his life. He had always tried to make the right choice, so when the time came to make it, he did not fret over the consequences. He just…did what must be done.

The problem was that, when the fears and woes of your fellow workers niggle at your ears in the early hours of the night, and you remember the life leaking from a goat when you clamped your hands around its neck for waking the sick child, and you see the old-age nobles throw your hard-earned money wherever their whim lands that day, you feel, as Nylis did, that you should make a decision.

A terrible thought. The Harbel family was old, stretching far into the past. Their patriarch and matriarch were worse for the wear, having struggled so to start this new, free kingdom just to fall to the same plights and pitfalls as the last. Nylis had wondered when they might pass on and leave the ruling to their only daughter, Kalia. But the hope that she would be different was weak. Raised by her parents, she would be much the same and marry some power-hungry, pin-headed brat of a nobleman. Together they would pilfer the money of Nylis’ coworkers in just the same way as those who came before them, and those who would come after them.

Did you know I was there, sitting in the unused chair in the corner of his bedroom, when Nylis decided to kill her? It was dark that night in the wooden shack Nylis called home. Some might call me cold—or evil, even—that I would let such thoughts stir in a man’s mind. That I would allow Kalia’s life to be snuffed out in such a plot. But, I remind you, I am the god of fate. Not of nagging thoughts or quiet sufferings. I only reign over what is to be, not what could. And so I watched.

The next day when he spoke his plan in a small whisper to his two closest friends, I listened. Poison, an architectural accident, even scraping their money together to hire an assassin—all these ideas were scrapped. Poison could be given to the wrong person. Accidents were too hard to plan. And an assassin, well, they kill for the highest bidder. 

It had to be one of them. Or two.

They chose Nylis and that man full of wrath, Kernden. Both had doubts, and both knew it might end with another pithless nobleman lording over their village, or worse, with a noose tightening around their necks. The Harbel family would last two, maybe three years with only the parents. They were far too old to have more children.

Of all the men to lose something, Nylis knew he was the best choice. No wife, no parents, no children who needed him. Only the rough calling to a dark business. He heeded it and made his choice.

When the time came, and they were standing on the walkway across from Kalia’s reading room on a bright day, Nylis knew he had to make a decision. The same one he had made at least a hundred times leading up to that day. When they bought the stewards’ attire, when they offered their services, when they spoke to the lords of the house with murder in their eyes. He had so many times made the choice, and here he was, making it again.

I stood at the half-open door, watching both of them. Watching Nylis and watching Kalia. She was ready, I knew, for death. It surprises me when one so young is prepared for their fate. But it happens every so often, as it did with Kalia. She was tired but fulfilled. Hopeful, yet sure. A mind like that makes me wonder what the world would be like if she had lived a little longer.

But it was not so. Nylis approached the door, grabbed the handle, twisted, and entered the cavernous reading room. Kernden stepped in behind him, and Kalia barely even noticed. She was absorbed with the shape of a cloud outside, and the end of a book she had finished, and how she knew, at some point, that everyone would forget her.

Watching Kalia think, Nylis stopped. He had made his choice. Finally, with no misgivings, with no decisions otherwise. And he would do what had to be done.

Nylis turned on one heel, nodded to Kernden, and strode for the door. There would be no deaths this day.

But Kernden had also made his decision. And, being such a god as I am, I knew his destiny as well. And when he stepped up behind Kalia’s chair, knife in hand, I could not bear to look. I had seen it already a thousand times in Kernden’s eyes: the blood, the quiet gurgle, the rage. And lastly, that terrible idea when he saw Nylis’s horrified face.

Kernden leapt for Nylis and cuffed him across the side of the face. The man, unprepared, dropped. He dragged Nylis over to Kalia’s corpse, dabbed her blood over his hand, face, and neck, and slipped the knife into his hands. Then, after a quick wash in Kalia’s basin, he put on the best horrified look he could—not unlike Nylis a minute earlier—and ran to the Harbel’s door in a fit.

Then he lied, and lied, and lied. And they sent guards up to Kalia’s reading room, and even once Nylis was awake, they did not believe him. And on the day he was to be hanged, when he pleaded with the prison keeper, he was not listened to. I listened.

When he was strung up to be hanged, my eyes were the only ones filled with tears. A man such as Nylis should not be thrown from the wagon in such a manner. But that which the wheel decides will and must happen. He died, and Kernden went free to be made lord of his little village when the Harbels passed away, for all that he had served them in their time of grief.

He lived a long life. And on his plush deathbed, while Kernden reflected on his many choices, I watched. I waited for his life to slip away, and at the moment it did, to catch his soul and deliver it into eternal judgment.

For his fate was not in the successes of this earth, but of an everlasting damnation in the choices of his past.

That was The Wheel Turns, another short story I wrote in my writing group! I came up with the prompt for this one: we created our own mythological god, then wrote a story from their perspective with the prompt: "In a freshly-established kingdom, the first murder has taken place: a young noble girl of only twelve. Nylis was blamed and hung for it, but claimed to the end that the fault lay elsewhere."

This god is Cetriphuse, the god of fate and destiny. (Can you tell I'm interested in fate?) I'd be really interested in writing more about him, and how he observes/interacts with the world. I felt pretty good about how I wrote his perspective, too.

I hope you enjoyed! Cheers!