World A Week: Steel

In which the verser gets the point.

I woke on a dusty and wind-blown hillside to a world of brown except for faint glints in the bright sunlight far away. Retrieving my stuff took a few minutes, and scouting out the near area for any others took a few more.

Nothing and nobody about, I decided.

Squatting down by a small stream going down what I called the back side of the hill which is to say, the opposite side from what I versed in on, I looked out over hills dotted with tough bushes, and slabs of rock. Over the hill, behind me lay a flat plain, and I think a lake in the distance.

The water tested out clear and pure, so I filled several waterskins, and took a drink right then for the best waterskin to carry water in is your own skin.

A prayer for guidance came hard, but I felt some peace about heading toward the lake. No other direction seemed as promising. My telepathy worked, barely, and my telekinesis, also just barely, and the same for pyrokinesis. Nothing else psionic worked.

So, I snapped my fingers in a quick firelighting spell, and nothing happened. Befuddled, I started to pray and cast spells at random until I found the parameters of magic in this world.

In the end, simplicity described it. No quick magics worked. No magics under a minute even had a chance, and in fact, the minute to three minute magics were harder I’d say than most worlds that allowed them. But with a bit of trepidation, I was able to summon an air elemental. The tornadic entity bobbed and wheeled in front of me waiting for a command. It would soon leave unless I gave it a task since most air elementals are not known for their steadiness of purpose or patience.

“Master Sorceror.” I heard from uphill and to my right. I spun around with my gladius held out and low. A boy, in poorly tanned goatskins, and armed with a thick knife at his waist crouched looking down with an expression of fear mixed with wonder.

He saw my sword, and fumbled loose his knife putting it on the ground in front of him. I sheathed my blade, and nodded for him to take up his weapon.

“What do you want, boy?” I asked in Middle American English which appeared to be his tongue as well.

“Only a chance to work, to serve your mightiness, to …” I waved him quiet grasping very quickly that it was one of “those” cultures where the flattering the elite was a fine art.

“Why, boy, and don’t lie to me of the radiance of my face, or the wonder of my presence. I am a sorcerer, and ill inclined to lies.”

He sat back, and then forthrightly looked in my face.

“I, my sister, and even those of my village that remain need a protector. We would die in your service as needs be.”

“Ah.” I said, and looked down at my campfire. I’d heard this story too many times before. Sometimes it is a lie, but all too often, it’s the exact truth.

“Right then, lets pack up.” I pointed at my backpack for the boy to carry it figuring to test his honesty and true willingness to help me. “Thank you for your time, spirit of the wind. Go in peace.” I said and bowed courteously to the wind which bobbed back, and then shredded itself in little gusts going hither and yon.

He looked bemused at my pouring water on the campfire, but since I was a sorcerer, apparently that allowed some eccentricities. Indeed, he started babbling about the four elements of the universe, and how I showed no favor between them thus making myself able to use fire and water. It was a neat theory to explain my actions; except for the fact that it was not true.

It also showed me to be early in this world’s timeline. “The Four Elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water” is ancient Grecian in my first world’s history.

We walked several miles, and to my surprise, the undernourished looking lad toted the backpack the whole way.

Coming over a hill, I saw an old man with a bald head, and solid white hair, and a linen tunic jump out at us with this preposterous piece of silverware. A giant claymore nearly seven feet long he brandished toward me. I batted the thing aside with the gladius that I found in my hand without even thinking about it.

Some yelling by the kid got everything calmed down, and the sentry apologized, but I merely complimented him on his bravery. Trying to be honest, I found I could not praise his swordsmanship, so I merely held my tongue.

A varied clot of twenty comprised the group. Old women and men, young children with my new friend the oldest of the lot, and those crippled by disease or swords were my group.

They told a tale of woe of how the raiders from Calt had swooped down on their village, and taken all the men not killed in the ambush in the fields and the young women of the village as slaves. I’m not fond of slavers, and while I cannot stop every evil, it falls to me to try my best even in a world which seemed beset with evils.

Still, I needed to help these people first.

They need food, and shelter, and protection from the lesser bandits they mentioned.

So, I told them of the boy’s offer, and put it to them. Serve me, and I would try to protect them, and rescue their beloved ones. Sure, I could have done it out of the kindness of my heart, but I had things they needed to do, and this would get them to do it. Besides, I don’t think they understood notions like “disinterested kindness.”, and sometimes I wondered if I did.

With a bit of discussion, and a shared feast which involved a number of secretive tests such as “accidentally” pricking my finger with a knife, and dropping a bit of salt on my head (the salt and most of the food was mine since they had hardly anything more than berries and roots.) they assured themselves that I had not clothed my demonic self in human flesh.

They agreed, and then waited for me to fix things. This would not do. I sat back, and got out my notepad, and began to sketch out some magics with some alterations according to the theories I’d been taught. I wanted massive rituals which included everybody in them. They had to be part of the solution, and not just the recipient of my bounty.

Every person went out, and brought back a rock of their choice to lay in a circle precisely measured atop a commanding, nearby hill. I’d chosen the hill because the pendulum spell for discontinuities I’d learned from somewhere, I forget where, showed it to be clean of discontinuities. The cap of the hill was formed of solid rock so it would be an excellent foundation once I bound the base of the tower with it.

We all washed in cold water, and scrubbed down with sand. Then at high midnight, I commanded them to take up their stone as they sat in a circle around the circle, and cry tears for those lost to bind the stone of their pain to the heartrock of the earth.

I’d have liked to have kept everyone up their until dawn, but they were not up to it, so instead I gave them a few hours of sleep, and we came back at dawn. The rocks chosen were all firmly melded to the hill.

So, a new dawning for peace, for justice, I cried as the sun rose, and I visualized a mighty tower rising. Stones began to rumble in past the sitting circle, and meld themselves to the stones already there, and within the space of an hour, a five story tall tower stood on the hilltop.

My body bobbed and swayed in exhaustion, and I braced my arm on the boy’s shoulder as I studied the work we had done.

It did not look exactly like I expected. It expressed optimism, and defiance of slave traders, and the pain of the oppressed. It looked great to me. After I checked it for discontinuities, and walked in and looked about, I came back out.

“Let us dedicate this tower to the Lord of Justice and Peace.” They looked baffled, but then near-visibly shrugging their shoulders they consented having the pantheists’ tolerance for new gods. So I taught them “A Mighty Fortress” by Martin Luther, and they horribly butchered it being unfamiliar with the musical style, but they loved it anyways, and I think the tower liked it too.

Curious, I turned to face the tower, and I addressed it.

“Tower?”

“Yes, sorcerer?” Rang across the hill.

“You will protect and shield these people, and those they choose as their own?”

“With my last grain of sand after I am battered by a thousand siege engines.” He/it answered fervently, and I nodded well pleased even if a bit surprised. I had created or let into the universe some sort of locus genii, a spirit of a place, but without meaning too. Maybe every building of consequence in this universe had its guardian spirit?


I spent the next two days damming a creek so as to fill a cistern in the lower floor of the tower, and spelling seeds to grow fast. The villagers brought me useful seeds, and built a bramble barrier between the crude fields, and animals and bandits. This field lay on the backside of the Tower.

Later, I started to whistle up a wind, and then stopped, and conducted the lengthier summoning of a wind elemental for the task of carrying me into the sky. About five miles away, I spotted a herd of wild boars.

The leader was of tremendous size, nearly five hundred pounds, and so I did not want to give it a fair chance, and I began to prepare my magic. However, the canny beast led his group into the deeper underbrush before I could get a spell off.

Thinking a bit, I constructed cages of poles from tree limbs, and vines that I enchanted for strength. Food placed inside them for bait (precious food too) lured the beasties back in the night hours, and I watched the herd make its way into the five cages.

The doors fell, and the rage struck fear into my heart, but I saw the cages held except for the one owned by the big boar himself. Nothing to do, but kill him, and hope for the best.

I ran over, and jabbed my gladius through his neck, and pulled it out. He looked at me stupidly, and then bawled in anger some more. So I repeated it, and it was like I scratched the monster.

“What are you doing, sorcerer? Hit it!” The boy yelled from nearby, and his grandfather came up with that ridiculous sword of his, and told his son to let the beast out. Before I could stop the insane plan, the boy did, and the granther took a whale of a strike at its neck as it came out.

So, it got really angry. I jabbed like a nurse desperate to find a vein, and the granther yelled at me to stop scratching it, and hit it like he was. It was a desperate moment with us jumping in, and jumping back, and screaming like madmen as the mortally wounded, but not yet dead beast roared about seeking to take us with it, and I fell back not upon my training, but upon ancient human instinct. Whack it with your club.

And I saw actual decent damage for the first time with my sword. After a bit, I leapt on the pig’s back intending to cut its throat, but it bucked me off, and trampled on me. This let granther break its back with a mighty cleave. And the two of them finished it off.

Then they started weeping for the poor dead sorcerer, until I sat up, and they ran off screaming. It took a bit, with me hobbling and chasing them to get them to calm down, but eventually they did, and I pointed out that I hadn’t got trampled very much before granther got the boar.

We chopped up the pig, and carried it back for a feast.

There I learned that nobody thrust with their sword. Why would you want to do that? It hardly does any damage, I was told. Perplexed a bit, because I knew a good penetration to a vital organ was probably more dangerous and immediately fatal than any old hack, I shrugged and adjusted my battle techniques.

Unfortunately, my sword, the gladius is specifically made for thrusting. But the people understood, after all, I was a sorcerer, and who ever heard of a sorcerer being good with a sword?

The next morning we fetched the pigs on a troika I made, and it took all morning despite the magic I used.

Still, that left plenty of time for the bramble bush cage to be made for the monsters. And several of the village immediately set about trying to tame the man-killers.

Once we got that finished, I ruled it was time for another feast. One pig had been a complete and murderous monster so he got the chop. I did not try to use the point of my sword this time. Instead, I let the others handle the job.

That night I sat on my “throne”, a rock chair overlooking the fire circle and my tribe, that my tribe had secretly made for me, and ate a choice piece of innards. To these people, with their lack of fat in their diet, the innards were the most prized portion.

They considered me a bit weird for wanting a steak instead, but my slice lay cooking near the fire.

Then a stranger in a bearskin kilt walked into the firelight. He looked about without being obvious about it, and then helped himself to a leg of the boar which he proceeded to chomp on as he stood by the fire.

The light showed his muscles, and his seven foot long sword, and his long, blonde hair to good advantage. My people stirred, some nervous, and some protesting.

He looked about with a wolf-like gaze, and they shut up.

The bold young boy dared to ask him why he did this.

“I see no lordly man to stop me. It is my right.” He spoke with a definite and complacent arrogance. Of course, he was better and more important than these people was his attitude.

“I am lord here. Who are you?” I said trying to be polite.

“I am Conan the Barbarian. And you are?” The challenging gaze he returned me chilled my blood, but not as much as my knowledge.

I had fallen into Mr. Howard’s fantasy where bold swordsmen cut down evil sorcerers. Since I was mostly a sorcerer here, that was a problem.

I considered how to answer in a way best suited to preempt problems when the boy answered for me.

“He is a mighty sorcerer, and not afraid of any steel!” The boy boasted.

“Really?” Conan said around a mouthful of my pig.

Great. Just great.

Tadeusz