Chương 265: Chapter 264 - Earth, Sea, and Sky

Alexander smacked at the burning straw with his bare hands. It spread further.

"Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck." He scooped the burning clump up, held it in front of him at arm's length, and shoved it into the ring with a thought. The straw vanished. Alexander exhaled and brushed his hands off.

"Totally under control." Droney beeped from outside. The bond disagreed. He shook his head, then pulled a spare change of clothes from the ring. A white suit and black shirt. He swapped out the ruined pants and tugged the shirt over his head, wincing as his ribs protested, before pulling the jacket on, leaving it unbuttoned. Then he paused. He didn't know where the OACS was, but his armor was in the ring. Except the locals had kept him alive. For a few days, according to Droney's intel dump.

They'd given him a hut, and even let their kids in and out without a concern in the world. They'd earned a measure of trust, and walking out in full armor wasn't the way to repay it. He pulled his combat boots out and put them on though. Between those and the cybernetic arm, he had enough metal to fly if things went sideways. Alexander stood, rolled his shoulders, and walked toward the sunlight filling the doorway. He ducked slightly beneath the frame, and stepped out into the village.

Rolling green hills stretched in every direction, rising and falling in gentle waves beneath a wide sky. A mountain range lined the horizon to the west, its peaks dusted white. The village spread out around him. Straw huts like his own sat alongside leather yurts, arranged in a loose semicircle around a communal clearing. No permanent foundations. No stone. Everything built to be taken apart and moved. His hut sat at the edge of the clearing.

A large campfire burned at its center, and over it hung an iron pot wide enough to bathe in, its contents bubbling steadily. An old woman sat beside it on a stump, bent nearly double with age, two fingers of her right hand making slow circles in the air. A wooden ladle stirred the pot in time with her movements, turning on its own. The rest of her fingers were missing. People sat on logs and flat stones around the fire. Dozens. Men, women, children. Talking, eating, mending.

Their clothing was a mix that Alexander's mind snagged on. Wool and leather, hand-stitched and practical. But also cotton, woven fine enough to suggest manufacturing, though nothing machine-made. Metal pots sat on rough wooden boards. Iron knives rested beside bone-handled tools. A woman nearby wore bone clips in her hair while sharpening a steel axe on a rock. Good steel. Bad iron. Cotton alongside leather. Bone beside metal.

The material quality was wildly inconsistent, and nothing matched the level of magic he'd already seen wizards use. They could travel into space and fly across the sky, but their tools looked like they'd been scavenged from three different eras. Most of the adult men carried at least a knife. Several had spears leaning within arm's reach. A few bows hung from yurt supports. Three men stood around the clearing, armed, watching. Guards.

One of them had been watching his hut carefully, and his posture stiffened as Alexander stepped out. His hand moved toward the short sword at his hip, then stopped. He stayed where he was. Alexander's gaze swept further. Another oddity was how few metal wands there were among the entire population. He counted three across the whole camp. And no sign of staves or spellbooks. The two children from his hut sat near the fire, pressed against the side of the largest man Alexander had ever seen outside of Titanic.

He was enormous. Shoulders like a draft horse. Arms as thick as Alexander's head. He wore a leather vest over bare skin, and a string of polished bones hung around his neck. One massive hand rested on the head of the child who'd controlled the sword fighter. He was the Tier 2. The man looked up. His eyebrows rose. Alexander could imagine just how much he stood out compared to these people. White suit. Black shirt. Cybernetic arm catching the sunlight.

Droney drifted lower, settling into position above his right shoulder. The man patted one child's head gently, then stood, waving off one of the warriors who made to follow. He stepped around the people sitting near the fire, picking his way with a care that seemed practiced for someone his size, and walked toward Alexander. Alexander tucked his hands in his pockets and waited. The man stopped a few steps away.

He studied Alexander in silence, his gaze moving from the cybernetic arm to the white suit to Droney hovering above his shoulder. Taking his time. No rush. Then he spoke. The words meant nothing. The same rapid syllables the children had used, though deeper and slower. But Droney translated directly into Alexander's mind. Days of recording every conversation in the village, mapping grammar, building vocabulary. The little drone had been busy. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval.

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"Do you understand me?" Alexander inclined his head.

"I do. Thank you for taking care of me." Droney translated his words back. The man's eyebrows shifted at the sound of Droney's speaker producing his language, but he just smiled.

"I am Wargah. Your spirit familiar was very fierce in its protection of you." Wargah nodded at Droney.

"It refused to let our shaman near to check your wounds. Only Minlah was permitted to enter at first, though it must have judged the children safe as well." Alexander glanced up at the little drone.

"Droney is a machine, not a spirit familiar." Wargah grunted.

"I do not recognize that word, but I sense your soul within. What else could it be if not your familiar?" The man had a point.

"Minlah?" Alexander asked.

"Yes. She told us that you saved her, even though she struck at you." Wargah closed his eyes and bowed his head, until his chin touched his chest.

"We of the Earth, Sea, and Sky, are grateful for your mercy." Wargah straightened.

"We also took in survivors from one of the nearby villages. They say they witnessed you do battle across the sky with Keda, one of the Twin Souled." His eyes sharpened.

"And the man that brought flame and death upon the villagers. One of your own kind, yes?" Alexander frowned. The problem with translation was knowing whether meaning carried over, if nuance had been lost or added.

"Yes. Flashpoint was one of my many enemies." Wargah pursed his lips.

"Flah-shi-poyn-ta."

"He was better known as Flashprick." Wargah tried again.

"Flah-shi-prick-a." Alexander grinned.

"Exactly. Perfect." Wargah smiled. Then the smile faded.

"I must know. Did you slay Keda the Twin Souled?"

"Yes." Wargah sighed.

"Then you have been cursed. He and his brother will come for you once they have recovered."

"Oh, no. Don't worry. There's no recovering from what I did to him." Wargah shook his head sadly.

"The Twin Souled are immortal. To kill Weyda is to suffer the death of a thousand cuts. But to kill Keda is to suffer the inevitable retribution of the Twin Souled hunting your family and friends, until only you remain to beg for death. It is known to all." Alexander raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think I'm explaining myself properly." He pointed to his foot, raised it, then stomped on the ground.

"I did that to his head. Pop. He's gone-gone. And my friends killed his brother when they attacked our world." Wargah watched and listened quietly, but the sad look didn't fade. Instead, he reached out and patted Alexander on the shoulder.

"You are welcome to stay with us until the turn of the moon, but then you must depart. I cannot risk their vengeance falling upon my people." Wargah bowed his head again.

"Forgive my cowardice. It is shameful, especially after you saved one of our own." Alexander blinked. Even if Droney's translation wasn't perfect, his miming skills were top-notch. There was no way the man didn't understand what he'd conveyed. And yet the sad look, the apology, and the way his shoulders slumped slightly at calling himself a coward was all very real. And from a Tier 2, too. Wargah was very convinced the two wizards were going to return. Perhaps it wasn't impossible.

He didn't know what magic could achieve, nor the significance of them being 'Twin Souled.' Alexander shrugged. He'd just kill them again if they showed up. Besides, he wasn't going to be sticking around for long, and any immortal wizards that wanted a fight would have to do it in his backyard next time.

"I understand," Alexander said.

"You're just looking out for your people." Wargah tilted his head.

"Gratitude." Then he turned and gestured to the cooking pot. The people seated around it had all turned to watch him and Alexander chat.

"Will you sup with us?" Alexander glanced at the pot. That seemed a riskier proposition than two dead wizards coming back to life. But if he knew anything, it was that it would be rude to decline an offer to share a meal with the people who'd saved him. Hopefully his Constitution was high enough to deal with multiversal stomach bugs.

"Sure." He followed Wargah back to the fire. The big man settled between his children, who immediately pressed into his sides and glared at Alexander. Wargah chuckled and pointed to a flat stone nearby. Alexander sat. The old woman turned to him. She gave him a toothless smile that creased her entire face, then grabbed a wooden bowl from the stack beside her stump. The ladle floated out of the pot on its own, splashed a generous serving into the bowl, and settled back into the pot.

She hobbled over, pressed the bowl into his hands, and patted him on the head before shuffling back to her seat. Alexander looked down at the bowl. It looked like a thick stew with chunks of root vegetable and what he hoped was meat. His stomach grumbled hungrily. A reminder that he hadn't eaten in days. He sipped from the bowl. It was actually pretty good. A bit salty, but no worse than the time Annie tried to cook pasta. Wargah smiled. Conversation resumed around the campfire.

Voices overlapping, children laughing, the old woman settling back onto her stump. Droney started feeding translations into his mind, but Alexander cut that off after a few seconds. A dozen simultaneous conversations layered on top of each other was too much even for Multithreading. Alexander turned to Wargah. There was a question that had been bugging him since the moment he'd first broken free of the fortress and taken in the surroundings. The camp had only made the curiosity worse.

"I don't mean to be rude, but I'm a little confused about something." He paused.

"Okay, a lot of things." Wargah nodded at him to continue.

"I thought you wizards needed incantations and material components to cast spells? But you're doing magic without those things. I don't see any spellbooks or staves. Only a few of you have wands, too." People had stopped talking partway through Droney's translation. By the end of it, everyone had fallen silent around him. Wargah studied him for a moment.

"The magics you see around you are simple cantrips. Tricks and charms available to all who can touch mana. The spells you speak of are far more complex. They require vast knowledge, and intricate preparations. Archmages may bind them into their staves and spellbooks, but all such magics belong to the Empire of Stars." For a moment, the only sound was the crackling of the fire and the rustling of clothes. Wargah's voice dropped.

"Wands are permitted in return for service, but the people of the Earth, Sea, and Sky are not permitted staff or spellbook. Should any of us be caught with either, the Stars will punish not only the offender, but their entire clan, village, or city with death." Alexander frowned. He tilted the bowl and slurped noisily. Well, there went his plan to give them the staff and spellbook he'd stolen from the ship.