I hauled the cart across the village and over to my cabin, which only took around half an hour in my estimation. Mihvay insisted on coming along despite my assurances that he didn't need to, saying that Vowteyz had given him a task and he wasn't allowed to abandon it until he was told it was okay to do so. At my cabin, I found my new iron axe then dug out the merchant's dagger for use as a utility knife. After eating more fruit and giving Mihvay some food as well, I headed out towards the tree line to begin looking for something to chop down.
None of the trees here are of a very good size, I grumbled while dragging the cart behind me. A constant buzzing in my ear was becoming distracting as I searched for a tree that was both old and relatively massive to cut down. He has been talking continuously since we entered the woods with no signs of stopping, I noted as Mihvay continued to jabber on about something totally irrelevant and frankly not very useful at all. I was learning a few new words from time to time but besides that, the conversation was a largely one-sided annoyance.
“How about that one?” Mihvay asked, pointing to a tree. I followed his finger and saw an old, slightly damaged tree. If I was looking for something to get structural wood from, I wouldn't cut this, but for firewood it might be ideal, I thought.
“Looks good, let's see how much is there,” I replied, following Mihvay over to the tree and setting down the cart nearby. It looked like it had been struck by some great force in the past which had split it open, but managed to stay standing long enough to heal back up. Regardless of the healing, the internals of the tree were obviously damaged. Its leaves were a full shade paler than the trees around it and looked somewhat dry, with several limbs cracking apart from a lack of water. I looked at the trunk, which was around half a meter in diameter, and judged how many swings it would take to fell it. Maybe twenty, I guessed, I suppose it depends on how hard the wood is.
“Are you really going to cut it down with just that axe?” Mihvay asked. Looking at the axe in my hand, I supposed it was a bit on the smaller side but saw no reason why it wouldn't work. As an answer, I marked a spot near the bottom of the trunk with my eyes and swung the axe, sinking it more than halfway to the hilt with a single blow. The tree groaned and cracked under the force, and small splinters shot out around the impact site. “Oh wow,” Mihvay gasped, taking a few steps back.
“You should stand over there,” I said, pointing to a location that would be far out of where I planned for the tree to fall. Mihvay obediently moved, and then continued to watch as I made quick work of the first cuts. Once the trunk was split I could see exactly what had gone wrong with the tree. The inner living bark was horribly damaged around the site of the impact, greatly reducing the tree's overall health. I suppose that healing effect doesn't work on plants, I noted, I can't decide if that's fortunate or not. I chopped the back of the tree, getting ready to fell it, then put away my axe. Placing both hands against the trunk and bracing myself, I simply gave it one final shove and the trunk gave way, snapping like gunfire as the tree thumped to the ground and kicked up clouds of dust.
“That was really loud!” Mihvay laughed. “I've never cut down a tree before.”
“That was the easy part,” I said to him, “now I have to cut it into pieces and put it in the cart. You can help with that if you plan on staying. Use this-” I tossed the merchant's knife, sheath and all, towards Mihvay, “-to start taking off the branches near your end while I work on splitting my end.” Mihvay was looking at the knife with greedy eyes, but caught himself and nodded, sitting down at what used to be the top of the tree and going to work. I moved my cutting line to a rough one hundred and ninety centimeters from where the trunk had been split and began swinging.
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“I have to go home,” Mihvay said sometime later. The sun was beginning to set and darkness was falling, so I assumed he would want to leave. He handed me the merchant's knife, which was now filthy with tree sap and chlorophyll, and slumped his shoulders. “Are you sure you're going to stay out here?” he asked. “You could probably just bring back what you have now and it would be fine.”
“He wanted a full cart,” I replied, “I'll bring him a full cart. Go home if you need to.” Mihvay nodded and walked back in the direction of the village. While I was happy to finally have some silence, the impending night darkness would make working much more difficult. I should have brought food, I thought, a rather stupid oversight considering I've been eating regularly for long enough to have grown accustomed to it. Another tree caught my eye, younger than the others but thick and with few branches. I can eat when I get back to the cabin, I thought, at least the rest I've been getting on that bed makes it so that I'm not as tired at night.
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Just before dawn I was chopping up wood outside the old man's house. After filling the cart up I had taken the liberty of bathing in the nearby creek, then eating in my cabin, before deciding not to rest for fear of doing so for too long and missing the deadline. My heads-up display told me that I was tired, but not exhausted, so I brought the cart back over and started the final stop. The other firewood was made of sections of trunk approximately twenty to thirty centimeters long which had been split into quarters, so I followed the same pattern with my own delivery.
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Once the last piece had been split and stacked back into the cart, I put away the axe and slumped over against the outside wall of the house. The sun was rising, though it had not yet crested the hill, and my eyes began to feel heavy. I suppose I can rest, I thought, the light will wake me once it's strong enough. I breathed deeply, then exhaled, and I was somewhere else. Everything was fleeting, as though my active short-term memory was reduced to nothing. I knew I was asleep, and I knew I was in a dream, but every time I tried to focus on the dream at all my awareness of it vanished. The sound, it's like someone's talking but it's all muffled, I thought in a haze, surprised that I could even think inside a dream.
Something slapped across my face, stinging the skin but not harming it. My eyes opened then quickly shut again as the scene they found was too bright to look at. “Ah, what's going on?” I thought out loud, blinking rapidly and trying to focus.
“I said get off my property before I have the guards haul you off of it!” the old man from the day before snapped. Behind him, a boy about Mihvay's age stood with a utility knife pointed in my direction, looking nervous. Right, I thought, I was cutting wood and then I finished up. The sun was about halfway to noon, making it well into the morning. I didn't wake up in time, I winced, at least I didn't sleep at the cabin, that would have been worse.
“I brought the wood,” I said, having changed to the local language now that I was properly awake. “It's about two and a half trees' worth.” The old man narrowed his eyes at me.
“Yeah, and who did you steal it from?” he demanded.
“I cut it myself,” I replied, “that's why it's still green.” While the older tree's wood was fit for burning, the other wood was clearly not and would have to be left to dry for at least a few days.
“So it's useless then,” the old man countered, “you didn't bring me firewood. Either way get out of here.” Taking a breath, I stood up and assumed my full height, standing over both the man and his grandson. I wasn't intending to intimidate them, but simply make my position clear.
“I fulfilled my end of the deal old man,” I said. “You should allow me to observe your grandson's training.” The old man grinded his teeth in his mouth, then exhaled through them. The grandson, Yaevb, was very uncomfortable and looking like he wanted to speak up.
“Grandfather, maybe we could just-” he began.
“Fine,” the old man snapped, “you sit right there and don't move a muscle. Yaevb, grab some wood and bring it over here.” The grandson exhaled in relief and put away his knife, scurrying over to the pile of firewood that wasn't in the cart and looking for some pieces to use. “My name is Pae'eyl,” the old man grunted at me. “You will call me that or you will call me sir. Call me 'old man' again and you're out of here.”
“Of course sir,” I replied. The terms of the agreement were fairly standard. Yaevb came back over with a few smaller pieces of wood, and the lesson began.
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“I told you boy, you have to see the flames in your mind when you do it!” Pae'eyl snapped at his grandson. I had been sitting in place for what felt like an hour watching the boy hold his hands over a piece of wood and repeatedly chant in what I now understood was an archaic dialect of Uwrish, praying for spirits of some kind to light up a fire beneath his hands. He was not successful in the least, earning smacks with a stick from his grandfather whenever he made some sort of minor mistake like changing his body position or mispronouncing a word.
“Yes grandfather,” the boy muttered before resuming his chant.
“The chant and the hand form isn't even the most important part,” the old man griped on, “you're focusing too much on them and not enough on the flames themselves. Those other things are just to help you get your mind right so you can influence the spirits to make fire.” Maybe he would have more success if you didn't penalize him for screwing up the forms and chant then, I thought of saying. Pae'eyl, as if he could read my thoughts, looking in my direction coldly. I had also had a piece of wood laid out in front of me, but had yet to receive any instruction.
Pae'eyl looked like he was going to say something to me, but then with a snap and a crackle smoke began to rise from the wood in front of Yaevb, who jumped back in surprise and grasped his left hand. No fire broke out, and when Yaevb released his left hand I could see a long burn slowly fading away on his palm. Did he somehow use the ability on himself by accident? I wondered.
“I did it!” Yaevb smiled, just before the stick in his grandfather's hand swung down across his head. He cried out in pain, clutching the impact point, and looked angrily at his grandfather with tears in his eyes.
“You damned near burnt your hand off,” Pae'eyl sighed. “I told you already, you need to be close to the wood because only the spirits near you can hear your thoughts, but you have about a hand-span of space. Stop thinking that you can only light a fire right at your skin.” As much as I had no doubts that Pae'eyl's underlying explanation for how the effect worked was incorrect, I did notice that the woman I had seen lighting the fire at the party had kept her hands close to the wood as well.
“Yes grandfather,” Yaevb muttered.
“Maybe it would be easier if you simply showed him how you do it?” I suggested. Pae'eyl's eyes locked onto me with an icy glare. I had been silent the entire time after asking a few basic questions during Pae'eyl's initial short lecture about fire-making, so I supposed he was surprised that I spoke up. Without even looking, Pae'eyl contorted his free hand into a gesture, curling in his outer fingers partially and holding his thumb out straight with his index finger in a pointing position. He put his hand near Yaevb's log, bent his thumb's first joint, and fire started almost instantly under his palm.
“I'm sure that was very helpful to him,” he condescended, “thanks for wasting time and firewood.” On the contrary, I thought as I began to piece together just how this strange ability must have been interacting with the brain, that was about the most helpful thing you could have done.