I thought that I must have tipped over into madness. Was that some weird form of bipolar syndrome? Not that I knew anything about that either.
“A…are you reading my mind?”
“Just how are you managing to do that?”
“Probably not. Put it in layman’s terms I can understand.”
“Ah, okay…where do you come into this, were you part of that interdimensional memory storage?”
I concurred. I certainly felt like I was dying.
“What exactly are you?”
My dad always said that talking to yourself was fine if you didn’t answer yourself too.
A picture of a woman in her thirties with glasses, tight black dress with a white top and tied up hair came to mind.
Oh bugger, I forgot she could read my thoughts.
Did that librarian have a sense of humour?
Ah, that was better. Now I could think. Her constant comments were the mental equivalent of walking blindfolded on a peak hour four-lane highway and hoping to miss the traffic only to be buffeted by the wind of passing trucks.
So that was the spongy feeling I had when I started to fill it. I wondered what that ethereal energy stuff was.
The industrial analogy didn’t fill me with positivity when memories of what happened to Chernobyl and Fukushima surfaced in my mind.
It sounded like a regular complaint from my mom about the state of my bedroom when I was younger. At least for that moment, there was nothing I could do, and the voice in my head it seemed wasn’t going away anytime soon. With those thoughts drifting in my head, I eventually managed to fall asleep.
The next morning the camp seemed to be livelier since nothing significant happened during the night. My green pendant incident seemed only like an unpleasant dream. Life continued as usual. I arrived at the blacksmith and Grenfell waited for me under the workshop awning. He unceremoniously dropped a piece of elongated metal on the worktable and said,
“I want you to do to this metal what you did to your knife the other day. I need to confirm something, but first tell me your impressions about that unfinished knife.”
When I asked, he refused to say more, only insisting I do what he asked. The last time he appeared after I had passed out on the table, unfortunately there was no hiding away from that situation and I still felt a bit like a dork for doing that. It was embarrassing to say the least. It seemed he suspected something but didn’t say what. I was certain he hadn’t spoken to anyone about me passing out, at least no one else questioned me about it.
“This metal is different to the previous metal you gave me.”
“In what way?”
“Well for starters, this metal feels different. When I hold it, the metal feels dead while the other metal felt more alive and responsive. The other metal I could visualise and manipulate better, this one feels more resistant to me and the weight is different, it feels lighter.”
I held the knife in my hand feeling its weight,
“Yet there’s more material in this iron.”
The old man’s eyes opened slightly, was that surprise? Since he didn’t say anything more, I repeated the experiment I used a few days previously, but that time I restricted myself to just the basics, I wasn’t in the mood to fall unconscious again.
Goodness my heart. I hated when her voice suddenly jumped out at me, I thought we discussed speaking etiquette.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I swear that voice was sarcastic.
“Are you okay Shane?”
Grenfell seemed a little concerned with the lack of my focus.
“I’m fine. Should be finished soon. There, done.”
A completed knife lay before me, similar in shape but only the material differed. I may have overdone it again as Grenfell thoughtfully stroked his chin.
“I thought so. You’ve got both appraisal and transmutation skills. You’re something of a prodigy.”
“Transmutation ski...?”
And then my world faded to black. Bugger.
When I opened my eyes again, I stared at the top of my sleeping tent, piecing my thoughts together again. My eyes caught the fleeting movement of a young boy running from the door. Was that Kris, I wondered? Red hues on my tent from the setting sun showed I had already been out for a sizeable part of the day. I still felt better than after my pendant incident though. I’d be lucky if I still had a job after I passed out once again. Before I could worry any further Grenfell turned up to the tent door.
“Ah, I see you are awake.”
Now the disappearing Kris made sense. He had no doubt been recruited by Grenfell to keep tabs on me to see when I woke up. Grenfell continued,
“Don’t worry, I made up some story to the boss about you working hard while inhaling to much forge smoke. He probably senses something’s not totally right about my story but for now he’s just giving us some rope.”
Why didn’t that make me feel better, and as if to make that situation worse a voice said,
“I’m sorry about worrying you. I have truly little understanding of what’s happening to me and I would love to figure it out.”
I decided to change the subject.
“No. I’m not worried. I just needed to confirm something and as I previously said, you have two skills.”
“Yeah, before all my lights went out, I think you said I had an appraisal and transmutation skills.”
Grenfell stopped talking to me for a moment and looked at Kris.
“Find your mother before she comes looking for you.”
Kris’ disappointed face said it all. He wanted to hear the whole story, even if he didn’t understand what a ‘trans-mutant’ was. He could imagine Shane turning into a mutant after sunset, roaming the camp looking for the sissie girls that always bothered Kris.
“Get moving, you know how your mother gets when she must start looking for you.”
It didn’t take any more persuasion than that and he disappeared from the tent door.
“Now that we have removed the burning ears we can continue. Have you heard of ethereal skills?”
“No.”
“Mmm, you are far greener than I thought.”
Grenfell looked at the young man that recently joined the woodcutter’s camp with Orilay. He had a good disposition, was kind, gentle and naïve. It wouldn’t be long before someone reported about his skill to the nobility. If Shane weren’t ready for them, they could make life difficult for him.
Grenfell sighed and sat on my bed, next to me, and showed me his knife that I worked on before I collapsed. Even without a handle, its form looked sleek, and deadly. I couldn’t help but ask,
“Do you mind if I keep this?”
“Uh, no problem, it’s yours.”
“Thanks.”
“Most people in this world have something called ethereal skills but they can’t use them. Personally, I know of a handful of people who have them. Most of them live in Shimmerstal, one lives all by herself in the wild, and the last doesn’t know what he has and uses it like an ogre with a bad disposition.”
“Are you calling me an ogre?”
I smiled, knowing all too well what he was referring to.
“Not that you look like an ogre or anything like that. You have a skill that’s so rare and powerful people will do anything to get their hands on it.”
“I’m assuming that’s not a good thing for me.”
“Not for you or the people you care for. So, I shouldn’t have to tell you it’s best you kept this information and your skills to yourself.”
“I don’t think that should be a problem although I suspect it will be difficult at best.”
“I agree, and you are going to need all the help you can get. I’m going to make this really easy for you, become my apprentice.”
“You mean a blacksmith apprentice?”
“I’m no ordinary blacksmith boy. I’m a weaponsmith, and one of the best in the kingdom.”
As much as I enjoyed frolicking in the woods, anything had to be better than woodcutting, and so my blacksmith’s apprenticeship started. I had no idea what I signed onto though, we hadn’t even discussed a salary. The fact that I worked for the woodcutter’s crew under the camp supervisor didn’t matter. From then onwards Grenfell took me as his apprentice and he paid my wages. The usual straight face of the supervisor appeared at my tent, come to think of it, I’d never seen him look flustered.
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better thanks, I seem to be in the habit of doing this, I apologise for my tardiness.”
“No need to apologise. Besides, you’re going to make it up tonight seeing you’re all rested and all, because I have the perfect job for you.”
Why didn’t I like the sound of that?
“One of our guards can’t work tonight because there’s something unusual happening with him. It’s not just him, a whole bunch of other people are infected by that infernal madness again.”
My hearted dropped as I had a sickening feeling of what happened. The ‘infection’s’ simultaneous occurrence with the disappearance of my drying ‘herbs’ wasn’t a mere coincidence. The supervisor rostered everyone in the camp for cleaning duties. That particular afternoon, it became the guard’s turn for cleaning the camp terrain, only for him to find some odorous bush just lying about. He diligently picked up all the bundles and dropped it, along with all the other bit and pieces of wooden rubbish, onto the campfire used for burning trash.
Unfortunately, for everyone that happened to be downwind of the ensuing cloud of white smoke, within a few moments they all became stoned as hippies at a sixty’s peace rally. Unfortunately for the guard, Ralph, who happened to be the closest to the fire, his trip to Lalaland was by far the worst. I heard he bravely fought everyone off that tried to help him, while running naked around the fireplace flapping his arms and making cries like a phoenix. The rest of the stoned brigade couldn’t stop laughing at his antics until they couldn’t stand anymore.
“Since I have few people that can help tonight, you’ll have to do a double shift. I’m sorry that I’m dropping this on you at the last moment. When I find the culprit behind this, I’ll…”
He didn’t say what he’d do, but then I didn’t dare ask and heroically volunteered for the next few nights guard duty as well, giving me more kudos points in his book. I would need all the points I had if he ever discovered who was root cause for the other night’s unplanned festivities and today’s flapping phoenix. His mile of satisfaction at my volunteering sent chills down my spine. Why did I get the feeling he knew something? The good news, although I couldn’t tell him at the time, was that the guard’s sudden avian madness would be over by the next day.
After sunset, I took up guard duty on one of the corner posts near the gate. Still mentally kicking myself for being dumb enough to leave the drying plants just lying around, the voice of Haruhime below the tower interrupted my self-harming thoughts.
“Is it okay if I come up?”
“Yeah, sure. Just head up the ladder, sorry I can’t come down there, boss’ orders.”
I couldn’t leave the post unless someone relieved me. Once up, she could only stand about an arm’s length away from me. There wasn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre, not that I was complaining. The view from up there was far better although in the light of the two moons there wasn’t too much one could see.
“Are you lonely standing here? It’s the first time I’ve been here, and it seems pretty exposed to the elements.”
I could see why she thought that. The corner platforms were only a few steps wide, extended a little over the wall with a basic slanting log roof for protection from weather and arrows and I could just reach the roof with my hand. A log wall with arrow slots formed the guard wall and came up to chest height which didn’t make for much of a barrier when it came to Ogres, but then it preferable to camping with carte blanche access.
“I didn’t think about that before, but now that you’ve brought it to my attention, I’m not going to be able to handle thinking about it anymore. You’ll just have to stand guard with me tonight and help me through it.”
She laughed,
“Ha, ha, ha. Nice try. Although on a similar subject, I wanted to tell you that I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
I’ll be honest, that was a bit of a shock for me. It wasn’t as if I formed a romantic relationship with Haruhime, but I really enjoyed her company even if she had a few personal issues.
“I’m sad you’re leaving; I’ll miss your company. It’s been a new experience for me, and I’ve learned a lot from you.”
“It’s not my first time helping the woodcutters out; I’ll help out every now and then as there isn’t a lot of work in our town. But I do have to carry on with my own work. Besides, you’ll be heading back in a little while. I heard you got an apprenticeship with Grenfell, so you’ll be based in town. You know now that I help run the Screaming Banshee in town and you’ll eventually need a place to stay. You’re more than welcome to lodge with us.”
“What? I was having such a wonderful time with Orilay, I thought I could stay with them forever.”
“He, he, he. He has enough children to look after already.”
As the evening progressed, we had a good chat for a while after that. I suppose we took some liberties by talking to each other while I was on duty, but Haruhime assured me that she’d first asked the supervisor for permission. He understood as it was her last day there. When she finally left, I felt a sense of unease about her departure, like baking a cake then opening the oven door to check it, only to see the cake collapse. For a while I simmered in my thoughts. But I realised I had unfinished business I wanted to sort out while I had the time.
I wondered about that.