Chapter 3: The Second Beginning

James - aka: Landar

I woke up covered in sweat, tucked into my sheets in a way that made it difficult to squirm out. “What is this?” I asked as I strained against the bedding with all my strength.

Which it surprised me to learn, wasn’t very much strength at all.

“What?” I asked as I opened my crusty eyes and found I wasn’t tied down with ropes or anything nefarious. Yup, that’s just bedding, I thought with amazement. Some pretty damn good bedding.

I tried to kick out of it, but my legs were just as tightly tucked. “What is going on?!”

I stopped fighting and listened to my voice. “Hello? What? That’s not my voice.” It was too high pitched, squeaky, and child-like. I haven’t sounded like this since the second grade, I thought as my mind reeled.

A coma. That’s the only thing that made sense. I must have been hit so hard I was put in a coma for years, to wake up so weak, unable to even un-tuck myself from bed.

A woman opened the door to the small stuffy room I was in. Her bright golden hair framed a youthful face, creased with worry and eyes swollen with tears. “Oh, you’re awake!” The woman’s sad puffy eyes lit up, and she turned around and yelled back into the room behind her. “Tomas, Tomas come quick! Landar is awake!”

I have to admit; I was a bit intimidated by the giant that came through the door. He barely fit inside the small space. His shoulders were broad. He was almost tall enough to need to duck walking inside. His head was covered in a thick mesh of brown short-cropped hair, and his expression was one of relief.

“Boy, you gave us a scare.” The man bent down beside my bed and kissed me on the forehead.

“What?! Who are you? No, don’t!” His kiss was wet, and when he pulled away, I felt it lingering on my forehead. He wiped it away with a rough and calloused palm as he placed it on my head.

“You’re still feverish, but it’s breaking. Do you not remember us?”

“He’s speaking better than he has in days,” the woman said, her eyes brimming with tears of joy.

“True. But if he’s not remembering us, it’s best if we go get a healer.”

“I’ll go fetch Mother Margeret.” The woman darted out of the room fast enough to make my head spin.

“Don’t worry, boy. Mother Margaret said that if you survived the fever, you’d survive this bout with your illness.” His cheerful expression vanished for a moment. “Though she did say it would be likely to come back.”

As the man’s thumb rubbed my forehead, multiple curse words came to mind and started bubbling off my lips until, almost like someone turned on a light switch, twelve years of childhood memories filled my mind. I winced at the pain, and my vision swooned.

“Landar. Landar, are you okay? Your eyes just went cross,” asked the man who I now knew was my father. Had been my father for twelve years in this world. Twelve years of sickness, and him sitting nearly constant vigil over me whenever he had the time to spare.

I shook my head, and my vision focused. I felt a wave of pure exhaustion roll over me. It was not a totally unfamiliar feeling. When it passed, I looked up into the massive brute of a man’s eyes, and found worry and love.

“Dad?” His smile could have cracked boulders as he pulled me into a hug.

At least I’m no longer tucked in so tight I can’t move, I thought as I uselessly pushed against his gigantic arms. God, is this what other people felt when I hugged them? It’s suffocating and terrifying!

“Don’t worry son.” Father, Tomas was his proper name I remembered, let me go and eased me back into bed. “You need your rest, boy. Sleep, I’ll wake you when Mother Margaret gets here.”

With that permission, and the man’s extremely heavy hand resting on my chest, probably limiting my oxygen intake, I fell fast asleep.

***

When I woke up, I was tucked in tightly again and unable to move. I sighed, giving in too the fact that my mother’s tucking skills surpassed my strength. After my initial struggle, I found an old woman sitting on the small stool that was the only other piece of furniture in the room.

“Hello?” I asked, my voice still sounded odd to me.

“Oh good, you’re awake. Your mother is cooking, and your father is at work for the evening. She’ll be bringing in stew shortly, I suspect. How are you feeling, Landar?”

I remembered this withered old woman only vaguely. She had tended to me several times before when my illness had grown bad and I had been bedridden for days at a time.

“I’m feeling better, but really weak.”

The old woman searched through her gray robes while nodding to herself. “Yes, that would make sense. You’ve experienced muscle fatigue worse than I’ve seen in nearly anyone else. Ah, here we go.” She produced a small piece of glass the same size as a pocket watch and lifted it to one eye.

A moment later, a light glow appeared around it. “Yes, yes, I see. You have virtually no foundation of strength at all now, you poor thing. Though it appears your mental, and spiritual foundations have jumped dramatically. Hmmmm.”

The old woman leaned against the wall, one eye closed, examining me through the small piece of metal rimmed glass. She stayed there for what felt like a long time.

“You might have a bright future as an accountant, or scrivener, or even a Priest. If we can find an outlet for your mana-poisoning, that is.” She put away the glass and pulled out a small piece of paper she had scribbled some notes on.

“Mana poisoning?” I stammered. I had heard of mana before. It was in all the games I used to play as a child, and in some of my favorite books. “Like, magic?”

The woman gave me a sharp look. Her penetrating glare was broken only when my mom entered the room carrying a wooden bowl of stew. “Broth Landar. Drink. It’ll help you recover.”

I tried to get out from under the covers but was unsuccessful. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, help the boy.” My mother scrambled to obey the elderly woman’s demands. Lightly sitting me up and handing me the bowl.

“Thank you, mother.” My mother stiffened. Concern rolled off her like a waterfall, but I ignored it. My stomach howled with rage the moment I smelled the weak broth.

As I drank, Mother Margaret let out a light chuckle and began explaining things to Elsbeth. The woman who I now oddly felt strongly attached to. Almost more than I did my mother before she passed from cancer two years ago in the mountains of West Virginia.

“Your son has undergone some significant changes. I’m not exactly sure how, but as his body has withered away, his soul and his mind have both sharpened. To the peak of the foundation stage. The fevers must have allowed the magic inside to transform him a bit.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Elsbeth asked, worry tinging her words.

“That remains to be seen. Mana-poison can kill a child of his age. We’ll be lucky if it burns his mana pool to ash before it takes his life. That would be the best thing, for the boy and for your family.”

“Then we will go to the temple and pray the gods will see it done.” My mother said, her voice firming with conviction. A conviction that made me wince. I’d never been particularly religious. Oh sure, I believed in God, I guess, but it had never played a major part in my life.

Elsbeth sounded like a true believer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’d known and worked with plenty of good people who believed in what I thought were strange things.

But none of them had been my mother.

Caroline smoked three packs a day, drank more than most sailors, and could out play a Vegas strip prostitute in Texas hold ’em nine times out of ten. I thought as I finished the bowl of broth. My actual mother was not really the churchy type.

My stomach was heavy, and my eyelids drooped. Every fiber of my body screamed for me to sleep and recover. “I’m tired” my body stretched and nearly all of my weakened muscles cramped.

I winced.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“This will happen until you begin working on your physical foundation again.” Margaret said with a tisk. I tried to rub my legs as they cramped, but even leaning forward was almost too difficult for me on my own.

Mother Margaret and Elsbeth, my new mother, pulled the sheets back and began massaging the muscles in my arms, back, and legs, allowing the cramps to ease. It helped, and the pain ebbed a bit, allowing exhaustion to win out as my body’s primary concern.

The pain was severe, but I’d felt worse in my life. Though it’s difficult to remember when exactly. Probably during my time in basic training. Before they were finished, as the cramps finally stopped getting worse, I drifted off to sleep.

***

I woke up with two sets of arms wrapped around me. As a bachelor I’d have felt pretty lucky to have two beautiful women clinging to me as I woke up. But seeing as one was my mother, and the other was my elder sister who I had only vague memories of, it didn’t have the same appeal.

Instead, I felt like I was trying to fight for every breath. I tried to push them apart and give myself a bit of room to breathe properly.

With much effort, after about twenty minutes of struggling, I extracted myself from them and sat up on the bed. My body ached, my shoulders and back muscles felt like they were on fire.

I sat there letting my body rest, and I examined the room for the first time with fully awake and aware eyes. My sister and mother slept on either side of me. I suspected to keep me from falling off the bed. My father, Tomas, was nowhere to be found despite it being dark as night outside. The one window to the outside world that allowed natural light in through wooden slat shutters was dark. It was the only clue what time it was.

A sound came from past the door, from where I knew the second of three rooms in the house was. I quietly lowered myself down to the ground, and it shifted under my feet. For almost a full minute, the world tilted back and forth like I was on the deck of a ship in rough waters.

Once the world stopped spinning, and my legs stopped shaking, I walked to the door and opened it, peering into the main room.

The main room worked as a kitchen, living room, dining room, and workshop all in one. The third room was a small storage pantry where we kept firewood, a clean water basin, food, and other necessities. But the main room was where most things were kept, and where most interaction happened.

My father, Tomas, sat at the table. Head in hands as he rubbed a wet washcloth over his face. When the white cloth came away, it was nearly black from the soot and grime it had removed. He noticed me watching, smiled, and motioned for me to close the door and join him.

I did, but honestly I already wanted to crawl back into bed. My body was tired, and my legs shook unsteadily with each step.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen, I thought as I desperately wanted my old body back. I looked more like Tomas than a lanky scare crow in that one.

After I had closed the door behind me, he picked me up and sat me on the bench that served the table instead of chairs. Sitting right next to him. “It’s good to see you up and about, little one. You’ve spent too long in that bed.”

“Thanks” was all I could think to say. We sat there in companionable silence as he put the cloth away and then grabbed a small whittling knife. He began working at a carving he had been whittling for the last several weeks.

“You're good at that dad. Looks like a good bear.” I said, motioning towards the nearly incomprehensible four legged brick he had been carving. Tomas laughed softly.

“This is meant to be a dog, my boy.” I winced. It looked nothing like a dog. Well, maybe if I squinted, turned my head sideways, and imagined it to be a really fat dog. Maybe. “It’s alright you won’t offend me. It’s for the temple orphanage. The Gods don’t care what your skill is in the offering of tithes, as long as it is done with dedication and care.”

That felt like something I’d heard before. “Progression, not perfection,” I parroted back something I had heard other religious people back in West Virginia say. It felt right, and it met with a look of approval from my giant of a father.

“Those are big words for one so young.” I felt the soft touch of a massive hand on my shoulder as he patted my back. “Words of wisdom. A man can only do what he can do. The gods know his strength, as well as his weaknesses and will consider all of it in the end. When we stand before the Mother to be judged of the Father.”

I had no idea what any of that meant. But it felt very important somehow. I could tell at least Tomas felt it was.

“Father?” He went back to whittling, but I could tell he was listening. “Can you tell me what you do again? For work?”

The massive man’s face broke out in a broad grin. A mix of pride in me, happiness at the question, and exhaustion from his shift reminded me of better times. With Lillia, before things turned bad with her mother.

The pang of sorrow over missing my daughter swept through me, but I knew she would be okay. She was on the verge of going to college. And I had friends on Earth who would look after her no matter if I was dead or not. She was a good girl, with a solid head on her shoulders. I found the mirror of my emotions plastered on Tomas’s face when my new father answered my question.

“I’m Captain of the southern guard house, son. The strongest warrior there.” He flexed an arm, and I found his muscles in just his biceps were almost as large as my torso. The man made me, in my former life, look fat and weak though we shared a frame size.

Which was a hard thing to do. I had still kept in shape despite my change in career from soldier to diplomat. And my physical presence often helped in negotiations where another country thought just because I was relatively inexperienced I’d be a pushover.

How the hell is this guy the father of this scrawny scarecrow? I asked myself as I examined my new body compared to the man who had sired it. I should be jacked to the nines. Not looking like Jack Skellington lost a fight against both anorexia and dwarfism.

“It’s a hard job, but it’s good work. I keep beasts from harassing travelers, check the lower nobility visa’s as we are a regional capital, and manage the training and education of the other guards. It’s a hard job, son, but it’s a good trade.”

The room fell back to silence as Tomas struggled with the ‘dog’ carving and I watched. After a few minutes of watching him struggle, I had had enough.

“Father?” He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “Can I try?”

He gave me an uneasy look. “Are you sure you can hold the knife without hurting yourself?” His question was perfectly legitimate. But I felt it stab at my pride, anyway. I thrust out both hands and with a smile, he handed the knife and the wood block over. “If you’re sure.”

My hands almost immediately started cramping and my arms ached, trying to hold both at once. So I placed the figure down and held the knife from the flat edge with both hands. It was awkward at first, but I’d learned to whittle as a kid years and years ago back home.

The first thing I did was run an open hand over the wood to feel its grain. It was a soft wood, and was knotted and gnarly. The grain changed direction almost every inch. I gave off a frustrated grunt as I took the knife and began carving.

I didn’t last long, but by the end of my five minutes working on the thing it already looked closer to a proper dog than it did a bear.

“Well done, Landar,” Tomas said. He took the rough dog shape from off the table and examined it.

“If you get me wood with a single grain, I can do better. A lot better than that.” I yawned, and my jaw threatened to spasm.

“I’ll see what I can get from the scrap pile tomorrow to bring back for you. Perhaps this can be something for you to do while you recover.” Tomas stood quietly and plucked me from the bench. “Come. Back to bed with you.”

I was asleep before he put me down.

***

That morning father slept while Elsbeth and my sister Tabitha cleaned and cooked for the day. I watched and listened as both women talked to me and explained and taught what they were doing and why.

As I listened, it became clear that this society was pre-industrial. Our class was clearly something close to peasants or perhaps freed-men. Father’s position guaranteed us free rent provided by the city guard, but it also brought in very little in the way of money. So mother and Tabitha had to work side jobs to pay for, make, or trade for everything else we needed.

Tabitha was fifteen years old. She’d have her coming of age ceremony in a year’s time, and there were already several suitors calling on her. The women talked about each of them like me and my friends would talk about sports back home. The same level of enthusiasm, and the same level of brutal scrutiny.

It made me nostalgic in some ways.

When I asked which of them Tabitha loved, she blushed and my mother laughed.

“Getting married for love is wonderful. If you can find it where you won’t starve to death. Your father and I are a good example of the right people at the right time. But it is very rare to find a young man to love who is capable of caring for you and your family. When you yourself are one day looking for a match, it won’t be among the women your same age most likely. It’ll be from those younger than you. And such marriages seldom come with love before the ceremony.

“Though it is very common for love to blossom after. Your grandfather and grandmother were like that, you know? An arranged marriage that blossomed into true love. That is what we are hoping happens for Tabitha.”

My older sister smiled back at me as she swept the floor clean of dirt and dust. “Moms right, Landar. Don’t worry, we’ll choose someone kind and reputable. Someone who I hope to grow to love.”

Wow, we really are in a medieval society. Holy crap. “But you wouldn’t deny her a match of love if she found one before her coming of age ceremony, would you?”

My mother stopped her work and looked over at me. “Only if he could provide for her. Otherwise? Yes, Yes I would. I wouldn’t be a good mother if I let my children marry for love and starve to death come their first winter.”

They went back to working and talking about the various matches and their merits while I listened.

It wasn’t until just after noon when father woke up. He showed Elsbeth the figure I had helped him carve, and she smiled as bright as the sun. “This is good work. Be sure to bring home more wood from the scrap pile for him to test his skill on.”

My father agreed, and we ate lunch together. The food in this world was rather simple. Reminiscent of frontier US, or European food. Some kind of potato substitute made up most of what we ate. But there was also a type of chicken, and various vegetables that all seemed to taste the same once steamed and boiled.

“Do we have flour?” I asked as I watched my family clean up after the meal. I tried to help a little here or there, but honestly, my body was useless. Just staying awake and asking questions was exhausting.

“We have some stored for winter. Why?” Elsbeth asked as she scrubbed the dishes in the small water basin.

“Just wondering. I’m interested in learning to cook.” My mother brightened almost instantly as she started talking about various recipes, cooking methods, and types of food. Apparently, one way she made extra coin for the family was baking bread for the neighborhood in our oven. Actual bread was hard to make, so most people ate what amounted to pancakes or tortillas. Things easily cooked in a pot or on a skillet over a fire.

But our apartment at the top of the four story complex was one of the few allowed to have a proper oven for baking. So the neighborhood occasionally brought their flour over and paid a tiny amount of coin to have it cooked along with ours. Usually, payment came as a measure of flour from what was being cooked. But when coin could be paid, it was added to the family’s meager coffers.

When I asked why we had an oven and the others didn’t, my mother smiled with a slight twinkle in her eye. “Your father’s position comes with a few privileges. Like free rent, treatment by the gray priesthood when one of us is sick, and of course the right to bake our own bread without a baker’s license. We should be grateful, few peasants are granted that right. Your father worked long and hard to get where he is, and it’s only thanks to him we are as happy and prosperous as we are. I’d be happy to teach you baking if you like, son.”

I agreed. But it would have to be later once my stamina and energy increased.

After father left, I ended up falling asleep. Dreaming dreams of baked bread and novels written in the 18th century about Pride and Prejudice.