by Garon Whited
“I am sure it would be. It would be interesting to have a small band of perfectly normal soldiers wielding rays of fire upon our enemies—while our men remain safely hidden behind armored walls. I am sure a small army could be reduced to charred meat in short order. I would hate to think of all the loss of armor and weapons as the rays melted them; such things make good plunder. Worse, if any such rays were to be stolen and used against us… perhaps it is too dangerous to make the inventions of my thinking; it would be a shame for the barbarians to take the products of thought and cut down our own soldiers.”
Sir Peldar was holding his eating-knife in a fashion that suggested I had pinked him.
The baron laughed. “Well returned, Halar. Son, meddle not in the affairs of wizards, nor antagonize where you need not. I tell you again, Halar is no doddering fool to be taunted, but is worthy of some respect.”
“As you say, father,” he replied, but his eyes were burning. I think his father’s rebuke stung him more than my remarks.
“Lord?” I asked.
“Yes, Halar?”
“It occurs to me that the good knight was speaking of seaborne invaders, not so?”
“Yes. Kamshasa must approach on the sea; there is no land route.”
“Perhaps I might be permitted to build a version of my device so ships can be destroyed at sea? One large enough it could not be stolen, only destroyed.”
The baron glanced at his son.
“Of course,” the baron said. “I am sure it will be a pleasure to see the product of an inventive mind.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
I had words with a glassblower right after lunch. Archimedes would be proud, I think; I was swiping his concept and modifying it a little.
On the way back to the manor, though, I had an interesting encounter. I was riding Bronze at a walk and a kid came dashing out of a house to tug on my stirrup.
Bronze stopped and I looked down. “Yes?”
“Are you the new wizard?” he asked. He was still slurring his words, slightly; I put him at about five or six. He reminded me of the sticky kid that nearly bowled Jon over; different child, of course, but the attitude was the same.
“Yes.”
“Show me a magic!”
Gravity being something I fool around with a lot, I leaned down from the saddle, picked him up, held him at arm’s length, and dropped him. He slowly fell to the ground, around a third of his usual speed. He whooped and went bouncing—literally—up the street and back to me again. This attracted no end of attention.
“I can almost fly!” he declared. “Can you make me fly?”
“Not yet; I’m still working on it. I’m a young wizard. Ask me again when I’m an old wizard.”
He jumped up and landed in front of me on Bronze’s back.
“Show me another!”
There were a lot of people watching with interest—and a lot of them were children.
Oh, why not? It’s sort of a tradition Jon started. I could spare the time and energy.
I waved my hands and chanted for a moment. It isn’t necessary to do that, but it’s easier to actually reach out and grab magic than to just think about it; maybe it’s a psychological crutch, but it works.
I hummed for a bit as I worked, and a cobblestone cleared its throat, or sounded like it. People gasped and stepped back from it. It began to sing “Danny Deever,” that being the first tune that came to mind. After a moment, another cobblestone joined in, and then another and another. By the ending of the song, I’d managed about two dozen in the choir and people were tapping their feet. Nothing like a good hanging to get people all excited.
The stones finished their song and babbled individually, thanking everyone, thank you, thank you, we really need to practice more, thank you. My amazed little passenger was fairly splitting his face with glee.
“Do more!”
“No,” I replied, and handed him down to the ground under normal gravity. “I have much to do and little enough time to do it. But I’ve enjoyed showing off a bit. Now you run along.”
A grown man stepped up on the other side of me. “Your pardon, lord wizard?”
I glanced at him; most of the rest of the people were going on about their business, maybe with a few more smiles than before. He seemed harmless enough. Sandy-haired, thin, dressed in striped hose, loose tunic, puffy sleeves, leather vest, all colorful. On his back was a lute.
“You have it,” I answered.
“This humble troubadour begs the boon of knowing your name, that it might be immortalized in song.”
“You may call me Halar. And why should I be immortalized in song?”
“Any singer must respect a man who can make the stones themselves come to life and sing. Is it not one of the Nine Great Deeds of Cyril the Bard?”
“Of course,” I said, wondering who Cyril was. Oh, a bard, of course… There’s a lot of context to this culture that I just plain miss. “So why immortalize me in song? I cheated; I didn’t enchant the stones with my music, just with a spell.”
“Far indeed have I traveled, and many a spell I’ve seen. But never has a wizard brought forth song from a stone. It is the first of which I know.”
“Oh. Well, if you think it’s worth it, go ahead. People call me ‘Halar’.”
“Thank you, lord.”
I rode on and gave the matter no more thought.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH
Baret has a slaughterhouse. I paid it a visit a couple of hours before dawn.
There is enough grassland around here to warrant ranching and shepherding, and it’s easier to drive live animals into town than to butcher them and haul meat. It’s one of the city’s export industries.
The blood from the animals is considered a waste product. How nice!
I used Jon’s I’m-not-here spell to wander in and look around. I’m definitely coming back for evening snacks.
On a more human note, the glassblower is coming along nicely with my order. With some luck, he may be done today. If not, tomorrow or the next. I find I’m anxious to see if I can really build this thing. Using magic to tweak physics—if it works, it will open up a whole slew of possibilities for me to look into!
In the meantime, Peldar is being a jerk.
So there I am, out in the courtyard, trying to learn how to not get my brains bashed in by Davad, when Peldar comes out of the manor in his armor. Upon seeing me, he steps up and declares that Davad is too skilled to be a fair match. I’m thinking to myself that this is instruction, not a match, but Peldar doesn’t seem to grasp that.
This armored lunk takes up a practice sword, closes his visor, and has at me.
To be truthful, he’s good. He’s very good. But he’s not as good as his father, and nowhere near Davad. Which put him well above my level of actual skill…
We whacked and clacked and occasionally clanged—he was armored, after all—back and forth for a while. I let him carry the attack; the armor weighed him down and wore him down. I also kept an eye on how he fought, watching for his weaknesses. I have Davad to thank for that; Sasha taught me a lot of good moves, but Davad taught me how to size up an opponent and find weak spots. I attacked on occasion, but quickly found that wooden swords against full armor are rather pointless, even when you are trying to hurt the other guy. So I backed away, circling, parrying and forcing him to pursue me if he wanted to fight.
Once Peldar started slowing down, I attacked in earnest. I beat his sword aside, carrying my own out of line as well. This allowed me to step forward, plant a heel behind one of his, and shove him hard in the chest. He went down in a clatter of tinware and I stepped on his sword-wrist to keep it from being a nuisance. Then I hit him in the helm with a two-handed blow, once, twice, three times. His helm rang nicely.
That was it for Peldar’s practice. He wasn’t hurt, as such, but his brain was swimming through a lot of ringing noises. Davad just shook his head and picked up where he had left off; I think he was a little easier o
n me after that, though.
“You know he’s not going to forgive you that,” Davad pointed out, after finishing my pre-lunch beating.
I sat on the edge of the front steps and massaged my aching knee. Well, the one that was aching worse.
“You mean like I’m not forgiving you for beating the tar out of me every day?”
“No, I mean the part about making him look bad in front of men he will someday command. When he inherits the barony.”
“Oh. I should have bowed down and taken my beating?”
“It might have been better,” Davad hedged.
“Or I might just get beaten every day after that. It’s hard to earn someone’s respect when they think you’re slightly below river-sludge.”
“It’s harder to earn their respect when they are plotting to kill you. The boy has been a vengeful, bitter person since the baroness passed away.”
I handed the wooden sword to the squire collecting them and recovered my staff; it was proving more useful than I anticipated, and I leaned on it heavily.
“How did the baroness pass on?”
Davad shrugged. “She was giving birth to the baron’s second child, a daughter. The child was stillborn and the baroness died of it. Jon tried to help, but his magic was useless.”
Hmmm.
“Thank you, Davad. I did not know that.”
“May it help you. Do you need a hand getting upstairs?”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
He smiled, slightly. “It’s my job to hammer you into a swordsman, regardless of the pains you must endure. It doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“Good point. Thank you, but no. I think I can manage today; I’m just tired.”
“As you say. I’ll know to hit you harder tomorrow.”
I groaned.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH
True to his word, Davad. Apparently, the baron spoke with him about my being a tough fellow; Davad beat the unholy bejeezus out of me today. I learned a lot—pain being wondrous motivating—but I don’t know if I can stand to get pounded like that every day. Maybe it’s normal for people in this world to accept being hammered on regularly, but I don’t like it. Not a bit.
The good news is I’ve been doing some experiments with spells for my Archimedes Ship Destruction Ray. The idea is to get a lens—a big magnifying glass, essentially, about three feet across—and enchant it. The enchantment takes almost all the radiant energy that hits the glass and turns it to red light; everything that hits the glass moves up or down the spectrum to the same wavelength. Makes a pretty blinding light, I can tell you. It’s not perfect efficiency, I’m afraid; only about ninety-five percent or so. Some of the light—or other radiations—don’t make it all the way to red. That’s actually a good thing.
This light gets put through a smaller lens, turning it into a ray. I’m cheating again; the local glass technology is rather depressing. Instead of just focusing it, the enchantment on the smaller lens causes the light waves synch together, forming one big wave with a very small beam diameter—about one one-hundredth of a millimeter, I think, but it’s hard to measure. It’s in that neighborhood. Magical laser light!
The ray, in turn, gets bounced off a mirror to hit the target. There is, however, a catch; the mirror is enchanted to shift the light way down into the infrared—otherwise, it would be too bright to look at. Again, it isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot smaller step than the enchantment on the collection lens; it doesn’t have to shift the frequency very far. Any other “leftover” colors of light aren’t affected, which makes a very bright, very tiny spot wherever the ray is striking.
That’s a very hot spot, indeed. I was trying it out, experimenting with the spells on some small lenses while the glassmaker is working on the big one. I got a three-inch glass to melt lead and heated iron to a nice glow with nothing but a trio of candles for power.
I spent a lot of today working on that spell, refining it further. By extrapolating the spell into energy types I can’t normally see, I’m dragging radio, X-rays, and other energetic waves into the visible spectrum as well—anything that happens to hit the collection lens. At least, I think I am. Then again, maybe there’s more energy in sunlight than I suspect. I don’t know how much radiant energy that is, but it has to be a lot. I remember a high school lesson with a Fresnel lens—a big magnifying glass. Just the usual sunlight and a three-foot glass will melt asphalt, and that’s just a crude focusing, not even close to the fine, pinpoint laser beam I’m creating.
Mental note: I must play with this spell a bit; a variation of it could let me see ultraviolet, thermal, radio, and maybe other things as well. If I can drag ultraviolet down to red, why not just step it down an octave into visible light? Maybe tomorrow.
Keldun, meanwhile, has sent word that Geva is doing well—exceptionally well; she’s energetic and feeling wonderful. He also sent over a small chest full of gold coins, along with a velvet pouch of pearls. With the money, I bought some clothes and ordered some equipment and tools from the local craftsmen. I gave half the pearls to Shada, then returned all the rest.
I anticipate hearing from him again tomorrow. He strikes me as the sort who will keep trying to give until he feels he’s managed to repay me. If he keeps being insistent, I may let him—and then invest in some of his merchant ventures!
Mental note: send someone to find out what those are.
Other good news: Peldar has been keeping to himself and not bothering me. He didn’t show up to practice, and I’ve been left alone in my workroom all afternoon. Maybe he’s found someone else to pick on. Or maybe he just isn’t recovered from his headache.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30TH
Shortly after midnight, I was in my workroom, fiddling with my spell for shifting spectrums around. It works wonderfully for seeing in other frequencies; I can watch the world in thermal, ultraviolet, even X-ray or radio ranges—not that there’s a lot to see in the ultraviolet range at night, but it’s a bit brighter outdoors that way. The radio range is pretty darn dim. However, my nighteyes work perfectly in absolute black; I don’t think physics is going to explain that anytime soon.
Thus, when the Thing slid in through the window, I had a good view of it.
If some mad sculptor were to take a man and make him rubbery, then coat him in some sort of black, viscous slime, give him a mouth that was really a flip-top head full of teeth, make his eyes solid balls of red, remove the nose entirely, inflate him to seven feet tall, change his fingers into straight razors—and his toes into fangs—then the result might be something not quite as ugly as the Thing.
It half-oozed through the window—it was a high, narrow one, not really large enough for a person to go through. It reminded me of a pseudopod, or of an octopus. When it got mostly through, it flopped to the floor, rippled into shape, and looked around.
I think my reaction is probably fairly typical: I jumped up from behind the workbench, snatched up Firebrand, whipped the blade around—slinging the scabbard off in the process—and began backing away toward the door. I felt a low pulsing inside me, in my blood. I guess both fear and rage can bring it out.
It hissed at me as it crouched. Yes, it hissed a lot better than I do. Very intimidating. It gave me a good look at its tooth-lined throat and tentacular, sucker-covered tongue. It raised both hands, bent forward like a track star coming out of the blocks, and came straight at me.
I shouted and gave it a point-attack down the throat. Well, the mouth was open and it was charging at me; it seemed the thing to do. The hands whipped forward and around, slashing me open along the chest and the abdomen; they were so sharp they were merely a cold sensation, not even painful at first.
That was the only attack that landed; it ate four feet of steel to make it. While this did not, to my surprise, kill it, my twisting with both hands and slicing out through its chest did. It fell heavily, nearly in two pieces; it was pretty much bisected from neck to hips. I could probably have stopped there. But, despite my
being dead and therefore hard to panic, I went on and chopped through both shoulders, the neck, twice more through the torso, and then the knees.
Yes, I panicked. Once it was obvious the Thing was dead, the blood-thunder faded.
Shada knocked on the workroom door and I nearly jumped out of my shoes.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked.
“Yes!” I replied, then unlocked and opened the door. Shada stared at the Thing on the floor and stepped back quickly. It was slumping, almost melting, into the foulest goo I have ever seen.
“It tried to kill me,” I said, poking the remains with the point of Firebrand. The blade was clean; apparently demon goo either slides off or evaporates quickly. “It came in through the window and just went for me.”
“You did not summon it?”
“Hell, no! I don’t even know what it is!”
Shada stared at it for a while; it was a slowly spreading pool of ichor. The ichor was steaming, turning to vapor. I started a small spell to blow the vapor out the window rather than allow it to accumulate. Apparently demon goo evaporates into a noxious cloud. And it stinks horribly. I’m glad I don’t need to breathe at night.
“It was a demon,” she said, slowly. “I have never seen one like it…”
“’Like it’?” I echoed. “You’ve seen demons before? How many kinds are there?”
“I have. They are not common and cannot survive in the day, but Mama Ulegba once battled with a minor creature. I was but a girl…” she trailed off, still staring at the dissolving Thing. “I am not sure what kind this one is—or was. A devourer… I think. But I know them only from legends! I did not think they were real.”
That gave me pause. Shada lives in a world where wizards wander around, magicians go to college, a metal horse is merely cause for comment, and she does not believe in a particular type of demon?
“Why not?”
“They are legends, myths.”
“Like the nightlords?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Come out, please; I don’t want to watch it… it…”
