Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (4 page)

active.

One of my favorite abusive spell research ideas in pen-and-paper RPGs

was always tapping the kinetic energy of the Earth’s rotation to generate mana.

No luck with that here. Which wasn’t surprising, actually - it was hard to make

that work in a way that didn’t violate conservation of angular momentum.

Hmm.

Of course, the idea that finally worked was no less mind-boggling. Mana

is a form of energy, if an exotic one. Matter and energy are different forms of

the same thing. Transforming matter into mana required a very complex spell

with high energy requirements, and it wasn’t especially fast. But by the time I

thought of it I’d recovered enough to pull it off, using the mass of my little

amulet as the source of matter.

How much energy? E=mc^2, baby. The flow rate wasn’t especially high,

but my little amulet would provide a steady supply of energy for centuries

before it ate itself.

Figuring out how to lock the spell down as a permanent enchantment took

another hour or so, and I eventually had to punt and use my instinctive ability to

control my own magic to handle turning it on and off as needed. The meta-

magic aspect of my mana element was enough of a grounding that I was sure I

could work out a proper way of embedding on/off controls in an enchantment,

but I’d probably need an afternoon of trial and effort to get there. No time for

that now, obviously.

Avilla came out with a set of clothes for me while I was working, and

waited with a faint smile while I awkwardly dressed myself. No zippers or

Velcro, of course, just lots of buttons in odd places. But that was fine. I just

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counted myself lucky she was offering pants and a shirt instead of a toga or kilt

or something.

Then I got to the shoes, and frowned as a though occurred to me.

“You just happened to have shoes in my size lying around?”

“Of course not, Daniel. I adjusted them. I may not be much use in a fight,

but I’m good at domestic magic. Did I get the size right?”

I tried them on, and wriggled my toes. “Yeah, looks like it. That’s pretty

slick.”

She smiled prettily at the compliment, and I had to remind myself she was

taken. And probably a lesbian, unless her joke earlier was meant as an offer.

Damn, but she was cute.

She went back inside to pack, and I shook my head. Hadn’t I had enough

woman troubles for one week? Focus on not dying.

It took the witches hours to get ready to leave, but the reasons why went a

long way towards reassuring me that they were just a couple of young women

with unusual abilities rather than some kind of monster in disguise. They

washed up and changed and fixed their hair first, and spent a good while

fussing over each other and debating what they should wear. When they finally

got down to packing they spent forever agonizing over what to take and what to

leave, and it was pretty obvious to me that neither of them had ever done

something like this before.

I didn’t want to leave until dawn anyway, so I didn’t worry about it. The

time they spent dithering was just more time I could spend getting ready.

Once my amulet was finished I spent some time pacing and thinking,

while I got used to the feel of drawing energy from it. My personal supply of

magic worked more like physical fatigue than the mana bar in a computer

game, and I got the feeling I could damage myself if I tried to use too much

magic to quickly. The fight with the troll had been pushing my limits, and it

might take a day or two to completely recover from that.

But my artificial power source was more like a machine. It could feed me

energy forever, and drawing on it let me work magic without tiring myself.

There was still some mental fatigue involved in channeling the energy, but I

could go for hours before that started to get to me. So what was the next most

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important problem we were going to face that I could fix with magic?

Well, that was obvious.

Enchanting a cloak to shed warmth was far less complicated than my

mana exploit, but my understanding of fire magic was a lot weaker. It took

quite a bit of experimentation to get the right intensity to make the garment

comfortably warm without being too hot, and by then the first light of dawn

was starting to creep in through the hole in the wall.

The girls came trooping down the stairs at that point with a rather

ambitious-looking pile of belongings. A bulging pack for each of them, of an

odd design that didn’t look terribly comfortable to my eye. A short pole with

several sacks hung from it, which I guessed they meant to carry between them.

Another, larger pack that Avilla set down in front of me.

“Can you check the weight on that?” She asked reasonably. “I’m trying to

save as many of granny’s implements as I can, but I wasn’t sure how much you

can carry.”

I picked it up, and mentally revised my estimate of the girl’s strength. It

had to weigh sixty pounds, and she’d carried it over in one hand with no

obvious effort. Avilla was a bit more solidly built than Cerise, but she was

more statuesque than amazonian. There was no way she had enough muscle to

pull that off naturally, so it had to be some kind of magic.

I hefted the pack for a moment, and slung it on my back. Ouch.

“That’s going to get heavy after a few miles of road. I take it you were

hoping to load me up with more?”

She bit her lip, and nodded uncertainly. I sighed.

“Look, Avilla, I know it’s hard to leave things behind. But we can’t

weigh ourselves down too much or it’ll get us killed. For all we know we

could run into an army of trolls a mile down the road. How fast do you think

you and Cerise are going to be able to run carrying all that?”

I nodded at the pile they’d accumulated on the kitchen table.

“Um... not very fast?” She looked crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Daniel. It’s just,

I’m a hearth witch. I’m almost powerless once I step past my threshold, and if I

can’t even cook and sew properly what use am I?”

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Well, that was a fair point. But I was trying to encourage her here, not

make her even more worried.

“You’ll have a home again someday, Avilla. But we have to keep you in

one piece until we find a place to rebuild. Tell you what. Make a pile of the

things you can’t bear to lose that are too heavy to carry easily, and I’ll seal

them up in a stone vault under the house. That way the goblins won’t find them,

and we can come back for them someday.

Her face lit up like she’d just gotten a stay of execution. “Really? You

mean it? Thank you, Daniel!”

She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. Then she spun and ran

back into the kitchen, babbling excitedly to Cerise about reorganizing the bags.

I just stood there stunned.

Wow, that girl could kiss. Her lips tasted of honey and cinnamon, and that

wasn’t poetic license. It must be some kind of magic, but whatever it was it

was damned effective. The warmth of her lips on mine lingered for long

moments, and the memory of her generous bust pressed against my chest kept

replaying itself over and over in my mind’s eye.

Cerise gave me an amused look over her girlfriend’s shoulder. I shrugged,

and smiled back. What was I going to do, pretend it hadn’t happened? Besides,

I was pretty sure it didn’t mean anything. Avilla was just a touchy-feely sort of

person.

The sun was fully up when we finally set out, but not by much. It was

shaping up to be a clear day, with a cold wind blowing out of the north and the

temperature hovering somewhere just below freezing. Not the best weather for

travel, and all of us were a bit beat up from the fight. But I was determined to

put some miles behind us before the goblins tried again. With any luck they’d

give up on us once we left the area.

“We’ll see what state the village is in, and then decide how hard we need

to push,” I told the girls. “It would be nice to stop early and get some rest, but

the important thing is making sure we move far enough to break contact. If we

have to we can find a spot to hole up and recover tomorrow, but that won’t

work if the goblins are tracking us.”

Cerise eyed me speculatively. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

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Sure, kid. Twenty years of computer games, mostly RPGs but some RTS

and first-person shooters for variety. Give me a controller and I’ll be right at

home. Only this was real life, not a game.

But she didn’t need to hear that. She had to be terrified enough already. I

certainly was, and I had a lot more magic to work with than she seemed to.

I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could manage. “This isn’t my first rodeo.

I’ve spent the last few years doing academic work, and I’m having to adapt to

some big changes in the power set I’ve got access to, but I can manage.”

She and Avilla exchanged a look. “That explains it. You seemed a little

out of shape for a guy with the skills Lady Hecate mentioned.”

“Oh? What did she say about me, anyway? I never had a chance to ask her

why she picked me.”

Cerise gave me a look like I’d just asked why water was wet. “Who else

would she pick? I mean, she said her divinations didn’t get all the details, but

how many guys can say they’ve slain... oh, what was that list again? A few

dozen dragons, a bunch of demon lords, the King of Liches, the Riftlords, the

Blade Queen of the Devouring Swarm - not that I know what half of that even

means, but it sure sounds impressive. I’ve never heard of a hero who made

such a career out of traveling to distant worlds to save them.”

I stopped in mid-stride, staring off into the distance. Good god. She

thought my video game exploits were real?

No. Hecate had known perfectly well I didn’t have magical powers. She

must have had a reason for talking me up to Cerise, then.

“Daniel? Is everything alright?” Avilla asked in concern.

“Yeah. Sure. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“The Goddess has that effect on people,” Cerise smirked. “So, think you

can stop Ragnarok?”

“Ahem. Let’s not get carried away there, Cerise. Judging from last night

the monsters here are pretty tough, and I don’t have a boatload of mystic

artifacts or an army of heroes at my back. Which reminds me, if I’m going to

pull off this ‘traveling wizard’ act there are a few things I need to know...”

That diverted them from my supposed accomplishments for a bit, at least.

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Cerise chatted amiably about her land’s society and local customs, filling in

the details I’d need for my charade with a skill that spoke of formal training. I

tried to focus on memorizing her lessons, and building up a plausible

backstory.

But inside I was sweating bullets. Talk about having high expectations to

meet!

Several hours passed, and we made decent progress as the sun rose

higher. Then around mid-morning it was Avilla’s turn to suddenly stop for no

apparent reason.

Cerise immediately froze, and began scanning the trees around us. We

were on a little game trail with a thicket on one side and a dense stand of trees

on the other, and about a million places for enemies to hide all around us.

“Avilla?” Cerise asked. “What is it, sweetie?”

“The woods,” she replied, her eyes still out of focus. “It’s the goblin

shamans. They’re doing something to the spirit of the wood. I can feel the

blood of their sacrifices seeping through the trees...” She trailed off, and stood

there swaying for a moment. Then she snapped back to herself.

“We have to go,” she said urgently. “Now! They’re waking the trees.”

Cerise went wide-eyed, and turned to plunge on down the trail briskly.

We both moved to follow. But it was already too late.

Twenty yards down the trail Cerise ducked under a low-hanging branch,

and it whipped down to flail at her. She stumbled back, clutching her head, and

a bush beside the path grabbed her.

“Cerise!” Avilla’s butcher knife was back in her hand, but I doubted that

would get the job done.

“Stand back,” I told her, and formed a three-foot force blade extending

from my fingertip. I hacked the bush apart with a few quick strokes, and Cerise

tore herself free. But by then Avilla was struggling with a clump of vines that

dropped from the tree over her head.

I cut her free too, and we ran.

From there every step was a battle. The branches flailed at us, leaving us

battered and bruised before we’d gone half a mile. Vines and bushes grabbed

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at us, and I found myself constantly hacking away with the force blade. Roots

shifted underfoot, rising up to trip us whenever we were distracted by another