by Eric Ugland
“Seems like that isn’t the worst thing to be around here.”
“I enjoyed speaking with you this evening.”
“Ditto.”
“Ditto?”
“It means, uh, the same. I enjoyed it as well.”
“Oh. Well, then, ditto.”
“Yeah. Good night.”
She gave me a smile, lingered for a moment, then walked off, her dress swishing and swaying behind her.
“Lovely girl.”
Startled, I had the spoon to Tarryn’s throat before I knew what I was doing.
“Easy now,” the warmancer said, pushing the spoon down until it was against my side. “I know you are probably able to skin me with that, but I would prefer to keep all my bits where they started.”
Tarryn sat down in the spot Eliza had been sitting in. “Have a seat, my lord,” he said. “I have something I would like to chat with you about.”
Chapter 61
Most everyone had drifted off to bed. Once the sun set, there was little activity around the holding. We didn’t have much in the way of candles or any other artificial illumination yet. Also, the shared quarters limited other entertainments after dark. If you know what I mean.
But a few of us were still awake. The two lutra were on guard, unwilling to let anyone else cover the ‘town’ after the kidnapping. A little work remained going on in the barn, and the Northwoods tent spilled light out of its flap. Perhaps a strategy session was going on inside. Then, there was me and Tarryn. We sat next the fire, in relative silence. I was waiting for him to tell me what he’d wanted to talk about. He was, I don’t know, waiting.
“This is a strange spot for one such as me to find myself,” he said, finally talking. Just too bad he wasn’t making much sense.
“Tell me about it.”
“I am.”
“I meant— please go on.”
“It is partly confusing for me to be this open with anyone else, but you are the leader of the hirð I joined, so I feel there should be no secrets between us.”
“Are you implying I have secrets?”
“I know you have secrets.”
“And you want me to tell them to you?”
“I want you to admit them to me.”
“So you already know my secrets.”
“I have theories.”
I took a deep breath and held it a moment while I thought about how to reply to the man. I knew, in a way, that this had to relate to me not being a natural born Vuldrannian.
“No one has told you?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“The secret you’re thinking of, is it, I mean, does it have to do with me coming from somewhere else?”
“Aye, that is the one.”
He held his hand out for me to wait. Then he did a quick chant and a little flourish with his hands. I saw a dark series of runic letters rush out and fall into a rough dome shape around us.
“Just a little help to keep us quiet,” he said, with a wink.
“Hey, do you think you could teach me magic?”
“No. Now—”
“Why not? I can cast a spell.”
I reached inside, and pulled my mana together and cast humus. The cubic foot of dirt came together, holding its shape for a mere heartbeat before collapsing to the ground in front of us.
“I am suitably impressed,” Tarryn said. “But there are a number of reasons I am unable to assist you on this unwise course of actions—”
“Like?”
“Like you have no room left in your body for anything but muscle. Mana and muscle are not friends, my lord duke, not unless it is a partnership you have engaged since your very birth. And a discipline you have mastered in balance. You have not built any such pathways for mana to flow. So no matter how large your storehouse might be, you will never cast spells with any ease. Even that, which is a piddling thing, took you effort, did it not?”
It did seem to require more exertion for me to cast a spell as opposed to any of the other magic users I’d seen.
“Have you more advanced spells?”
“One, greater tame.”
“Oh? I am legitimately impressed you managed to learn that.”
“It, uh, maybe knocked me out.”
“And have you attempted a casting?”
“Yes.”
“How did it go?”
I thought about Barry the mimic, and felt a pang of sorrow. But I also thought about how I’d definitely passed the fuck out after casting it.
“Not that well.”
“So there you go. Perhaps, if you had been using magic this whole time, it would not be quite as big a deal as it is now. I can see the look in your eye — you want to know why. You want to say that it is not fair. But it is just the way the gods have chosen to make this world work. Perhaps it is to keep such monsters as yourself from also casting spells.”
“Monsters such as myself?”
“You are a bit monstrous of late. But, before you push us further down a path of tangents, you have asked your question, and were about to tell me a truth.”
“I’m from another world.”
“Ah, yes, there it is.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Once one knows to look for the tells, yes. It is.”
“Yeah, I’ve tried to tone it down.”
“What is your world like?”
“This is my world now.”
“But of course it is. Just—”
“You want to know what my old was world like?”
“I am a man of infinite curiosities. Perhaps you could tell me a few things about the place.”
“If you promise to help me figure out how to do all this, uh, leveling stuff better in this world, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about my old world.”
“We are tied together, big man,” Tarryn said. “If I can help you be better, I help myself.”
I sighed, looked at the fire, then up at the sky. The stars spread out across the darkness, both beautiful and terrifying. I still hadn’t gotten used to the breadth of them. Or how different they were. I still expected to look up and find the Big Dipper and follow its point to the North Star. I still searched for Orion’s belt, looking in vain for the Pleiades. But nothing like that was here.
“It’s a different place, very different,” I said. “There’s, uh, a lot more people there.”
“You have big cities there?” Tarryn asked.
“Oh yeah. Plenty. Everywhere. Many filled with millions of people. Some with ten million people. Hell, there are more than I can count with over twenty million.”
“Million—?”
“But, you know, there’s no magic there, so—”
“Wait. Stop talking. There’s no magic?”
“None.”
“Then how did you come here?”
“Magic, I guess.”
“But—“
“Dude, I don’t know.”
“No magic,” he said, staring into the fire. “That is most distressing. A world where I am completely and fundamentally useless.”
“Nah, we’d find a use for you.”
“I could not— cannot imagine it. It is so, I mean, how does it, I—” he stammered out some syllables, but he’d run out of words.
“We don’t need to talk about it, man,” I said. “It’s a very different place, with a whole different set of rules. And no, like, leveling stuff.”
“How do you know how much health you have?”
“You have to just, you know, guess.”
“But that is so barbaric.”
“It does add a certain measure of mystery to the place, I guess. But it’s just the way the world works there. You don’t have Choices or skills, no abilities or nothing like that. I have to say, I prefer a lot of what’s here.”
“Even though that is your home?”
“Even though. I tend to think the best home is the one you chose, not the one you’re born into.” I patted his knee. “Get some s
leep.”
He was so flummoxed, he just stared into the fire and did nothing to stop my leaving.
Chapter 62
I walked into the longhouse, fully expecting to get a night’s sleep amongst my people, but a single step inside revealed two very important things. One, most of my people snored. Two, I was too big to squeeze into that place. Laying my giant butt down would force at least two others into a standing sleep, and that just wasn’t going to be okay.
Instead, I turned around and headed back out. The community fire still burned, and Tarryn still stared into the flames, still shocked learning about Earth and the lack of magic. I couldn’t see the lutra, but I assumed they were out and around somewhere. I skirted around the firelight, sticking to the edge of the darkness until I got to the mountain. I climbed up the cliff wall until I got to a small shelf. I plopped down and looked around at the world spread out before me. I was up higher than I’d anticipated, but it meant I could see a massive amount of the valley.
Straight down below, I could see the village. And by village of course, I mean our two buildings. I tried to visualize the town growing. Where things would need to be, efficiency wise. I thought about what Lee had said, and mostly ignored everything Essie mentioned. But, at the same time, I also found her refreshing in a way. She was just so different than most of the others I’d met in Vuldranni.
I knew I needed to make some decisions about the base and the building thereof. Up here, I figured I’d be safe from anything looking to eat me, and any of my underlings who were looking to throw things at me.
We needed walls.
There was a massive wall there already, in a sense, because we had a fucking mountain range behind us. But was there a way to use it other than a barrier between us and the Empire?
I thought back to the games I’d played, the base-building I’d done. I always liked to dig into places. Could we just build into the mountains, like dwarves? I mean, there were dwarves living amongst us — maybe this was something they could help us with. But the reality of living in tunnels carved out of rock with no windows? That was less desirable than in a game. It seemed oppressive. And it meant leaving all of our craftspeople outside the protection of our rock-mountain-home thing. Unless, of course, we brought all of them inside as well. But I knew I didn’t want to live under a mountain full-time, and I had to imagine that was a similar feeling for the others. Digging a home out of the rock just wasn’t a wise long-term move.
But we still needed walls. And a castle. It made sense to have a castle. The castle was the hub of the medieval city and the medieval world. If I remembered my medieval history correctly, which was probably not the case, the castle also served as a projection of power for the region. A symbol of strength. A big sign that said: fuck-off, assholes. We could all live in the castle until we got homes built. But, then again, thinking back to my medieval history, I seemed to recall castles were the work of huge teams of people over multiple years. I didn’t think we had that long.
I sat there, buffeted by the wind, and thought while I watched the valley sleep below me.
“Quite an interesting corner of the world you have chosen,” came a posh voice at my side.
I looked over and nodded at Mister Paul sitting there. It said something that Gods intruding on my life was no longer that startling.
“Seems nice enough,” I replied. “And welcome to my dukedom, Mister Paul.”
“Thank you,” he said, a slight bow of his head and wide smile across his face. “Good fishing?”
“You know, I have yet to check that out. I have seen some big fish in the river, just haven’t had the chance to toss a line in.”
“And the lakes?”
“Lakes? I knew there was one, but—”
“I believe there are three,” he said. He squinted for a minute, almost like he was looking at something far off. “Four. And a half, let us say.”
“Oh, well, I guess chances are good there’s some decent fishing somewhere.”
“Plenty to catch out there.”
“I bet.”
I kicked my legs against the rock, like I was a little kid in a too-big chair.
“Before I get to the main reason why I am here, I must preface it with a sprinkling of praise and a dash of pleasant surprise. I think we both know very little was expected from you, dear Montana—”
“I’m not sure—” I tried to interrupt, but he kept going.
“And your impact on the, well, proceedings, was mostly a surprise to me. I had been engaged with — well, it matters not. But I had lost track of the time completely, and you were an, I hesitate to use the term ‘afterthought’ since it has such negative connotations, but let us be honest for a moment. You were an afterthought. By some stroke of luck, there you were in a perfect position for me to pluck you up and pop you in here. And in the spirit of full honesty, I was not planning on watching you past that little trip down the mountain, which went so much better than I could have possibly anticipated. Just the most entertaining little slide. And your face, when you did not quite make the leap? priceless.”
“Wait—“
“In any case, you soldiered on admirably, not only becoming the brute you are today, — which, to be fair, you look just fabulous lately, though please find a tailor and a barber because this wildman wearing ill-fitting clothes is only going to fly for so long — but also becoming, dare I say it, a hero? You might very well be one, and that is, well, surprising is the least I can say about the matter. Especially considering our initial discussion vis-a-vis your desire to eschew things like heroics in your search for a solitary life fishing in a mountain lake.”
“I’m very confused.”
“I understand, and I sympathize, but I cannot say more, unfortunately. You will just have to peek around the details to discern what truth you can. But I am here now to offer you some guidance. Or criticism. Perhaps. The line between the two can be so fuzzy. There is no simple way to say any of what it is I am trying to say. But you have been, well, there have been complaints.”
“Excuse me? You were just saying how impressed and surprised you were with me.”
“I was impressed. I have no complaints. Not really. And I have also been surprised, but your recent efforts have been… less than well received.”
“By who?”
“Whom.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“Right. Well, as I told you, there are others involved in your progress. Your story, as it were.”
“They’re watching me?”
He snapped his fingers, then said, “This happens every time we speak! I forget that I have had to remove some of our past conversations from your memory. Let me say little more on the topic except for, perhaps, a nudge.”
“A nudge?”
“In a better direction.”
“What’s that direction?”
“Towards being a better leader. You are quite shit at leading right now.”
“I could’ve told you that.”
“Yes, but now I am telling you that.”
“How do I do that? I mean, can you give me a boon or something to help me with that?”
“Have you something to trade? Have you done some great service for me?”
“I mean, isn’t everything I do somehow in service to you?”
“Yes, but that is in a different way. That trade has already been completed.”
I looked at what I had. Which, you know, wasn’t nothing, I had my bag of holding and all the crap I’d taken from the wyrm matriarch, including her skin. A lot of skin.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got a real hankering for wyrm skin.”
“I do not.”
I picked up a rock. I thought about throwing it, but realized all my friends were down below and a rock falling from this height might be, well, unpleasant. I set it back down.
“Some free advice then?” I asked.
“Advice is a more nebulous sort of term. Advice for a leader? There are count
less experts who do little else but think about how to advise leaders.”
“There really isn’t a worse person you could have chosen for this.”
“I disagree. I imagine there are plenty. You have a single quality that makes you great—”
“I don’t want to be a leader.”
“Exactly.”
“What? No, I’m saying—”
“I choose to ignore what you are currently saying. Whether you like it or want it, you have been tasked with leading these people, and you have accepted that responsibility. Now, while it might be entertaining for me to watch you run away from your responsibilities, I cannot imagine it will be particularly good, long term. For either of us. And for better or worse, we have managed to tie ourselves together, so I fear we must look at the long term.”
“Okay, then help me.”
“My dear boy, why do you think I am here?”
“Shits and giggles?”
“Well, those too. But also to provide you assistance in this, your time of need. The problem is, you need to ask the right questions.”
“What should I build?”
“For your little village?”
“Yes.”
Mister Paul crossed his legs and put one perfectly manicured hand up to his mouth. Then he peered down at the village. He looked to the east and the west, tapping his chin.
“It is indeed a conundrum. You have yet to explore your dukedom, which means you know little of the dangers you face from without—”
“There are the dark goblins.”
“A stupid name for a vile creation.”
“You know about them?”
“I know of them. Not overly so; I am not a scholar of the goblinoid. But I can tell you a few things.”
“Provided I ask the right question.”
“Precisely.”
“Should I worry about them?”
“Oh yes. Very much so.”
“Are there, uh, are there other creatures out there?”
“Many. Probably more than even I know of at the moment.”
“Ones that I should be concerned about?”
“Define out there?”
“In, uh, this valley.”
“Oh yes.”
“Dangerous ones?”
