A deal worth making

I am staring at a dead blade of grass. At least it used to be a blade of grass. It has sort of gone mushy and lost its shape. I suppose its cells have burst their cell walls. I cannot get it back to life. It seems that some changes are qualitatively different from other changes. I don’t particularly like this power, but I am master of life and death, whether I like it or not. Is it thereby beyond my magical powers? I need to test this. No, it burns just fine.

Now that I have the rest of the day full of unplanned leisure, there is time for more research. Technically it is a bit silly of me to be uncomfortable with this. Fire heats your house and can burn down a house. A knife can do surgery or cut a throat.

And again, having immolated the plant matter, it is gone. I cannot restore it. Should I now leave Melo’s chamber, go to the kitchen and uncook an egg? Before I waste any more time, I probably should at least try, though I suspect it wouldn’t work, as cooking somebody is definitely lethal. Maybe I could try a less drastic biochemical change, like undo caramelization of sugar. Or maybe something even more basic. The railings on the stairs leading up to the entrance to the chamber are made from iron and slightly rusty. Yes, I can undo that. The metal within a few meters is back to a pristine condition. Have I removed the rust or reduced it to metal, chemically speaking? This needs checking. I scrape off a bit of rust and do the magic.

This turns out to be a mistake. As soon as I am done, whatever was the result of the experiment bursts into flame. I have to heal my left palm. This hurts my pride as well as my body. It looks like I was foolish enough to create metallic dust. If you distribute metal finely enough, it may react with the oxygen in the air. To a man who can set things on fire with a thought one more way to perform arson is useless. But it is an important safety tip. I kick the little stone I had in mind as the next object of experimentation away, just in case. It looks like limestone to me, calcium carbonate chemically speaking. Several grams of finely distributed calcium metal are not a good idea.

Let’s do something more basic. I remove the band I tie my hair back with. I straighten it on the ground before me. I fold it. Then I do the magic. Yes, it unfolds. This is fun. I can undo the undoing. A very limited form of telekinesis. This is way cool.

I need to do more fun things. Let’s head for the kitchen. Lunch time approaching everybody but Zewrepa and Melo is in the kitchen area. I get strange looks as I pour a bit of vinegar into a cup. Damn. This is definitely alcohol now. But is that conclusive? The feeling about the powers that was once so clear has started to become mixed. Can I be sure I reduced acetic acid to ethanol or did I merely restore an earlier state? How do I tell the difference? Anyway, lunch first.

I am getting odd looks as I do the dishes with magic. They had been clean before they were used. I restore that state. „I saw a priest heal our stud bull. That your powers are not coming from the gods I know. But this feels like blasphemy.“ Hildegard says while leaning back on the bench. Maybe she wants to evade a thunderbolt from heaven, never mind that it would collapse the rock above us to hit me.

„Do priests get power from the gods?“ I reply. I get a look as if I asked whether water is wet. Still Hildegard seems to have been trained to answer direct questions, so she replies „They are given to them.“. Which sounds a lot more court and surprised in Latin than you may think.

I shrug and ignore her and Anjali, who have not understood the exchange. I briefly wonder who has the translation ring. I’ll ignore that for now. I also ignore Hildegard getting up and putting the dishes back onto the shelves. I close my eyes in deep concern. Why are the gods unleashing the Fimbulwinter? This is also an attack on mankind. In fact they are making us fight each other. Well, they make the mighty without food murder the weak with food. I shall not delude myself. Do they intend that or is it a side effect? More importantly, if I go, defend and feed a small island or costal city, will I make myself a target of religious militants? Maybe even with direct divine support?

Anjali is alarmed and annoyed. Whatever the naive girl said has hit him hard. That may be a weakness of the wizard, but they don’t have a spare. She puts her hand on his arm. „What is wrong?“ she asks. I sigh „It never ends. I feel so stupid. I did not know that priests have magic. I didn’t consider what the gods want with this winter. When I murdered that kid for the food in their cellar I did exactly what the gods want from me. We are killing each other. I killed men for cheese. I am supposed to protect you. We have a little baby here. More on the way. I have the power but I don’t know what I am doing.“ She is not used to dealing with men in that state. It scares her. Men don’t like to know that they were observed in their moments of weakness. There is no use in pretending that it didn’t happen. And she really cannot afford him to let helplessness develop into anger. Even if it weren’t aimed at them, it still would be true that angry men do stupid things. She embraces him. He leans into her. His stout body does not fit his behavior. What to say?

„You are protecting us. You are doing what needs to be done even while you are impaired. You are inventing new stuff for a motherless child. We have been eating what you have gotten us.“ she follows her inspiration. He lifts his head and asks „You think so?“ „Yes, you are our hero.“ Anjali confirms.

Branislava finally gets what is going on. She approves of it. A man who doesn’t have to sleep alone is a happier man. She wants the man who can call on fire and lightning and feeds her to be happy. Specifically she wants him to be also happy with her. She is a married woman and hugely pregnant. Her approach will have to be through his stomach.

She notices the blond northern girl leaving the room in a hurry. That could mean trouble ahead.

I am happy to have company. She seems to have experience with assisting in magical research. In fact she is taking notes. That includes even drawing the setup. She is talented at drawing. „How do you measure how much air weighs? Do normal scales show nothing because there’s air on both dishes?“ she contemplates and complains „But then you’d see something if you exchanged one dish with a smaller one of the same weight!“. I smile, this feels like … an institution I rember liking, but not rember itself. I will not let that spoil the moment. I explain „No, it is because of buoyancy. Objects can float in air like in water, it is just more difficult. In particular air floats in air, so it weighs nothing. Even scales based on a spring would show nothing. We can’t measure the true weight of air. We can measure the weight of different kinds of air compared to normal air.“

She is taking notes. In a script I cannot read. Presumably her native language’s script. That may turn out to be a problem. „Why aren’t you noting down our experiment in the Atlantean script?“ I ask.

Anjali is concerned. Everything went well, after she decided that the wizard, no the man, may just need some company. The things he does are even familiar. She just needs to surpress the associations. But this question. She needs to respond. Better be spontaneous than perfect. „I don’t dare write the accursed tongue. I am not a powerful wizard. I cannot afford to be associated with Atlanteans.“. He looks surprised „Afford? I can see you hating them. In fact I should expect you to. Sorry for being rude.“ He looks away. Can he really be that oblivious? She remembers that he has lost his memories. „Yes, afford. Some hate Atlanteans so much that they are doing something about the hatred. They tend to hex first and then ask questions. If they bother to ask questions at all.“ she explains.

He sighs and says „Just another thing to be aware of I didn’t know enough to even ask about.“ Anjali finds him a bit annoying in that mood. „Why don’t you concentrate on what you can do instead of what you don’t know? You already know a lot, even western natural philosophy. Everybody is foreign almost everywhere, though few ever are put in a situation this has consequences. But this winter is going to change that.“ The outburst scares her a bit after the fact but he replies immediately „Knowledge is power. You will defeat an enemy if you know more about him than he knows about himself.“. Then he immediately stops. She does not want him to think about their situation and has to keep the conversation going. „This sounds like a quote. Are you a military officer?“. He shakes his head „Not I myself. Many in the family …“. He smiles. „A memory“ he exclaims happily. He looks embarrassed and asks „I am sorry. With you and the others being forcibly removed from your family I should not talk about family. Do you miss your family?“

He is trying to be nice. She has to repeat it to herself. Yet she cannot lie. There are spells that can detect direct lies. And a few wizards can read your aura. She is in the bad situation descending from people with the spark that her aura is bit stronger than average, making it easier to read, but she has no way of controlling it.

„My family sold me. I did not meet expectations.“ she keeps her reply short. He looks as if he doesn’t know what to say. As he should, for he says nothing. Anjali has to salvage the conversation „You were talking about different kinds of air. Like how the air we exhale is different from normal air?“

It turns out that I can make different gases. In fact the energy requirement corresponds to their concentration in the air and their purity. I could probably fill a room with pure oxygen. I am prone to arson.

The setup is a pair of glases set with their mouths down into a film of oil as a sealant on different sides of a scale. I had to abort the attempt of filling a glass with helium halfway through for mana reasons, but I filled them with oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and now, for the next experiment, with argon. That surprised Anjali, who thought that air has three major components, apparently oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

The test object is a broken piece of ceramic. I am proud of that. This rules out the experimental uncertainties. If I work on the whole object, we’ll get a restored ceramic object. That may smash the glass, but nothing else should happen. If I work on the substance and restore it, we’ll get clay, which is about as harmless a substance as I can think of. If I chemically reduce it, we’ll get, I guess, a mixture of silicon and aluminium. Where does the oxygen go? I don’t know.

First I make clay. I am very happy to know that Anjali knows the concept of a control experiment.

In a second run I proceed to chemical reduction. I can feel two points of resistance. I choose one.

The result is a lump of silvery metal with some quartz attached.

Anjali is getting a strange look in her eyes. She barely waits for me to acknowledge that she can now get the result out. With an awed voice she whispers „Mithril“.