The questioning was slow, and painful. The giant didn’t remember many details. He knew that he and his pack had a lair about a day’s journey north of their current location, but place-names meant little to him. He remembered being ‘vomited forth’ from the earth, but again, not where. He remembered humans being there to hold him down and force him into the earth . . . and one or two being there when he took his first sweet breath of air again . . . but his memories were hazy, and he shook and bellowed in rage, and, paradoxically, wept at the same time. Spoke of marrow and blood and running in the wilderness. Sigrun was sickened after finishing the questioning, and she could see the same horror in everyone’s eyes. “If it’s true,” Brandr said, quietly, “then someone with enormous magic is turning humans into jotuns and ettin.” He pointed at the two-headed body, and then looked back at their captive. “We should kill him. Honor his request for a different kind of death. Strangle him, or give him a warrior’s death with a blade to the throat. We cannot stay here. And we cannot take him with us.” He jerked his head at the western horizon. “We lose the light.”
The words were practical. Even honorable. But something in Sigrun balked at them. “I . . . no. If the wolf could be . . . unmaddened . . .” She looked around, and saw the beast still lying on the side of the road, feet stretched out in front of it, watching her, and panting. “Could not the man?” She looked up at the giant, and tried to see a person in the eyes. It was difficult. There wasn’t much left in this creature that was human. Just enough for her to pity him.
Kanmi grimaced. “I hate to agree, again, with our esteemed liaisons, but . . . I don’t think there’s anything we can do for him. Aside from which, are we taking in cannibals now? Even if you could restore his sanity, he’d have to live with that memory. I’m not sure anyone should.”
Sigrun stared up at the beast. “I would not even know where to start,” she admitted.
Brandr turned back to the rest of them. “The longer we stay here,” he noted, “The more chances we have to be ambushed again. We should go.”
Adam turned and gave Brandr a direct look. “With one vehicle wrecked, we’re hardly going anywhere, anyway. Unless you two opt to sit on the roof.”
Sigrun wasn’t sure why Adam was being so snide with her old friends. She thought she’d dealt with the issue at breakfast this morning, but apparently not.
Brandr sighed, clearly leashing the last of his combat adrenaline as he stared at Adam, and counted off on his fingers, “You, Matrugena, Asha, Eshmunazar, his wife . . . Sigrun can fly . . . .”
“That puts her in danger of lindworms,” Erikir cut in, sharply.
I do not actually require a seat in the vehicle, Lassair pointed out, placidly.
Minori held up a finger. “Technically, I can fly as well. Nowhere near as well as Sigrun and Asha, however.”
“Show-off,” Kanmi muttered.
“You just won’t apply yourself, Kanmi-kun.” Nipponese apparently had very few endearments. Minori instead periodically added endings to people’s names that Sigrun honestly wondered if the woman made up on the spot.
“Too many other things to learn, Min.”
Minori shrugged, and found a patch of road on which to sit cross-legged. “With Asha demanifested, Sigrun can help me in the air. That means you could all fit in a single car. Though it will be a snug fit.” Sigrun deeply appreciated Minori’s diplomacy here.
“I’m not sitting in anyone’s lap,” Kanmi warned, and blew into his gloved hands. “That being said, I’m for getting into the non-wrecked vehicle and warming up for a while.”
The Nipponese woman actually grinned up at her husband. “Sig-chan . . .” she said, turning to Sigrun, who raised eyebrows at her. She hardly ever got the shortened form of her name from anyone else but Adam, Trennus, and maybe Erikir, and the honorific at the end just sounded wrong. “We do have a few minutes. Do whatever you did to the wolf, with ah . . . Sari-chan.” Minori raised her eyebrows, clearly delighted to have gotten around the issue of Saraid’s Name.
That was a wild creature, Saraid cut in, quietly. Wild creatures are subject to me.
Lassair, suddenly spoke up, as well. One comes, she noted, quickly. Human mind, but not. He walks through the woods, and there is a wolf or a dog with him . . . I think? She sounded confused. I will assist Stormborn with the giant. Everyone else, make yourselves ready. He comes from the west.
“Other side of the road from where the others attacked,” Adam noted, shortly, digging in the trunk of the motorcar, and coming up with the box in which he’d carried an Aphek machine gun, disassembled, into the country, and began putting it together. The paperwork from the Odinhall had been a bitch, but they’d finally given him the permits for it. “I’m done trying pistols.”
Other than Caliburn, Sigrun thought, absently, as Lassair, in phoenix form, dropped from the sky, and then shifted to human form before resting a hand on Sigrun’s shoulder.
Can you reach into his mind, sister? Lassair asked, urgently.
Sigrun stared at the mass of colors in front of her, trying to remember anything Freya had taught her about this. At the time, she’d mostly been interested in how not to use the othersight. She’d focused intently on those lessons, and a drowsy sort of lassitude had permeated her throughout the rest of her time with the goddess . . . and with a start, Sigrun realized why, as the goddess’ words unfolded in her mind. Words she had no conscious memory of, at all.
Seiðr can be used to enchant people and objects, mind and matter. You can mold both the seen and the unseen with it. You have the ability now, to see what most humans cannot see. And it is far easier to shape what you can perceive, than that which is . . . intangible. Abstract. Your own form, for example—ah, yes. You resist this lesson. You are who you are, and you will be no other, even in so small a matter as shape or size. Very well. I will sink this lesson so deeply into your mind, that it will slumber until you are ready for it.
But for the moment? Know that if others can shape the thoughts of those around you, their minds may be warped. Changed. They can be made to betray you, and they themselves will not even realize that they have been shaped, until the moment in which they strike. Illusions are a part of seiðr, both hallucinations and figments. This? This is how you reshape a mind.
My lady? Sigrun remembered asking, drowsily. That can be abused. Horribly. No mortal should have this power.
Perhaps not. But some hold it. Is it not a good thing, then, to be able to remove its effects? To restore a mind to a wholesome state, free of the shackle of another’s will?
Yes. Slavery is unjust. Choice is all we have.
Spoken like a true daughter of Tyr. Now, pay attention. You won’t remember this . . . until it’s needed . . . .
Sigrun’s eyes had drifted shut, and now snapped back open in a horrified sort of realization. This is what I used on the wolf. The fenris. I used seiðr. But . . . I can’t do that. Panic. Sigrun was just as subject to fear as any other mortal, and for an instant, her stomach churned. This is not me. This is not who I am. What else did Freya put in my head?
Lassair actually reached up a little and touched Sigrun’s hair. The long braid, past her waist now, after fifteen years of growth, was always knotted in a tight bun at the nape of her neck during combat situations, or in dangerous areas. It doesn’t matter what else she put in your mind. What matters is, we might be able to undo what has been done to this man.
Warmth. Light. A bracing sensation. “Or . . . we could melt his brain out of his ears like so much slush,” Sigrun muttered, and forced down the nausea. Concentrated, aware, that behind them, the others were assembling in a defensive line. Aware that the fenris, who’d been sitting peacefully in the middle of the highway, had perked up his ears, and started to his feet. Her lips tightened. “All right. Let’s do this.”
She looked with her other eyes, and sensed Lassair working with her. The spirit’s healing only worked internally; Sigrun’s only worked by taking the wound on herself. Her
stomach churned, again, at the notion of experiencing the creature’s madness herself—I’d never get out of it, it would never heal, I’d be as mad as Sophia, forever—and then she reached out. Put a hand on the face, stretching up on tip-toe to do so. Lassair? I need you to do what Saraid did with the wolf. Unknot the strands. Let me see . . . . There were too many. The wolf had had too many for an animal, and some human elements, but the giant had thousands of interconnected thoughts and memories. But Saraid and Lassair stood. . . just a little outside of time. They had eternity, effectively, in which to comb and sort the strands. So Lassair did just that, and Sigrun began to perceive, dimly, which ones had been . . . cut. Snapped, really. Does this one go here? she asked Lassair, feeling helpless.
No, here, I think.
Adam would be better at this than I am. He likes puzzles. Oh, gods, I hope that one goes there . . . .
. . . yes, I think it links here. No. Not that one. That’s a memory from . . . after the transformation, I think? Blood. Violence. Pain. Hunger. Leave it out.
Sigrun realized that she was sweating, and was grateful to Lassair as the spirit wrapped an arm around her waist, and they kept at it. The giant shifted and groaned in pain as they worked. “Please . . . please . . . I don’t want to remember . . . .”
His speech is improving. Less crude.
Just keep going, Lassair, I can almost see a shape here . . . oh, gods, the strands are slippery . . . are we going to make him who he was? Or is he going to be some . . . arbitrary, third person? Not the man he was, not the monster he is now, but some . . . man in a beast’s body?
Don’t worry about that. Work on making the shape. Then he can shape himself, later.
You are very wise sometimes, Lassair.
And from behind them, now, a low, rumbling voice, in perfectly understandable Gothic. “Waes hael, nifaras.” Nifaras meant strangers. “Have you encountered trouble on the road? What do you mean to do with the creature you have captive?”
Sigrun sweating, slid the last strands of thought into place, feeling as if she were weaving a tapestry without a loom, and peered over her shoulder.
Adam called back, in his Hebrew-inflected Gothic, “We were attacked. We mean the creature no harm, but do not know what we might do with him. Two of our number are attempting to . . . soothe him.”
“What to do with him? Why . . . give him to me.” The voice was still far too deep for a human throat, and resonated in her bones, but the person speaking wasn’t visible, other than . . . bright reds and yellows? Sigrun squinted, trying to make her othersight go away again, but the colors remained.
And then her mouth dropped open, watching the others raise their weapons, as another giant emerged from the tree line, a wolf at his side. But this one was clothed, and like a Sami tribesman of the north, a reindeer herder, bright reds and yellows and greens on his woven tunic and pants. Massive hides protected his feet from the icy snow, and he carried what looked like a small cannon over one shoulder. He had the same low-slung jaw and prominent fangs of the other giants, but his blond hair was long, and well-kempt, tied back in a braid. His blue eyes held sharp intelligence, and the wolf at his side was the almost the same size as the fenris now panting to Sigrun’s left, though it appeared to be female
“What . . . who are you?” Brandr demanded.
The giant laughed, without humor. “I was Vidarr Lindgren. City-guard in Gotaland, once. Landsknecht, after that. After that, one who was lost. Then one who came back to the surface of his own mind, like a swimmer breaching the surface of the waves just as his breath burns in his chest.” The massive creature stared down at them all. “And most recently . . . I’m the fool trying to rescue other lost swimmers.”
Chapter 5: Illusions
One of the major problems in teaching sorcery is dealing with the misconceptions caused by mythology. While sorcery is a function of will, and your personal ability to draw in energy from your environment and use it, human sorcerers still must follow the laws of physics and biology. Gods, naturally, do not have as many of those constraints, but it has been my general observation that most powers demonstrated by gods also follow the rules of the physical universe in explicable fashions that humans simply do not have the power to perform.
What sort of myths do people believe about sorcery? A common one is metamorphosis. “You had better behave, or he’s going to turn you into a frog, warts and all!” I’ve heard it from a generation of students, all of whom seem to believe I cannot hear what they’re whispering in the back row of the classroom. Well, I could. It would, however, require several problems to be solved:
1) Overcoming the principle of conservation of mass. I could turn one average-sized human male into a five-foot, eight-inch tall frog that weighs around eight stone, or a hundred and sixty pounds. Or, I could turn that same human male into an amphibian that is a mere three inches tall, but its material nature would require that I compact a hundred and sixty pounds into a volume smaller than my closed fist. This would make it impossible for the average frog, with the average frog’s musculature, to breathe, let alone move. Not to mention the issues of the heart pumping blood that might be considerably thicker and more viscous than average.
Potential solutions:
Remove the mass. Take only eight ounces of the body of the man and make it into the frog, leaving the rest of the body untouched, and . . . somehow craft a vascular and nervous system and internal organs out of a slice of that person’s gluteus maximus. Of course, in sorcery, it is far easier to work with existing systems, and this would not actually transform someone, so much as create a dead frog out of the ass of a man. One would then also need to apply the spark of life, and transfer the consciousness of the man into the frog born of his ass. As you can see, the more one thinks about the issue, the thornier it becomes.
Elect the mass elsewhere. Bend the laws of physics, transmute the man in his entirety into a frog, and pass the majority of the new-born frog’s mass into the Veil. This does at least allow us the possibility of returning his mass to him at some point in the future, assuming we can locate it. And assuming we have the ability to create a wormhole between here and the Veil. For that, let me refer you down the hall to the Summoning Department.
2) Reshape mammalian body parts into amphibious analogues. Just how good someone was in biology class twenty years ago would come into play. How many chambers does an amphibian’s heart have? Or would you place a human heart in the chest cavity? The cold-blooded metabolism is regulated by the brain, and a frog can’t be warm-blooded. So let’s consider the structure of their brain. Would the resultant frog even be self-aware? Would it retain the ‘soul’ of the man, and have any comprehension of the punishment inflicted? How about when you go to turn him back? Can you guarantee the shape of the human brain, the synapses, the memories?
I could go on. However, I think we’ve clearly established that this sort of a spell would require enormous attention to detail, several years of preparation, and would not be easily reversible. All in all? If someone irritated me that much, as, say, someone sitting at the back of this very room, with their hat still on, and, perhaps, talking to a neighbor while I’m lecturing? I’d find it far easier and quicker to turn the air around them to plasma momentarily. Just long enough to get their attention, and remove every hair on their face, to include their eyelashes and eyebrows. And all I’d need to do is snap my fingers.
A threat? Baal’s teeth, no. I don’t threaten. After all, no one in my classroom would be stupid enough to do any such thing. Now, everything I’ve just diagrammed on the board goes out the window when we’re talking about the gods. The gods have eternity in which to study systems. While they use the laws of physics, I’m not entirely sure that they’re bound by them. And they are infinitely more complex than most human beings. Including those members of the species sitting at the back of the room, wearing hats.
All right. Apparently subtlety isn’t working. Get out of my classroom. You just failed the semester. You’r
e too stupid to be a sorcerer. Out.
—Kanmi Eshmunazar. “Simplifying Complex Systems and the Law of Unintended Consequences.” Recorded lecture at the University of Jerusalem, Iunius 15, 1972 AC.
______________________
Aprilis 25-26, 1970 AC
The next several minutes had been pandemonium, more than a half dozen voices speaking at once. Adam had been startled but pleased to see that the two bear-warriors weren’t moving to attack; they were, like the rest of them, standing ready to defend themselves, but they didn’t leap forwards immediately. For his part, Adam lowered the barrel of his machine gun, and let the strap over his shoulder take the weight. “You’re well-spoken,” Brandr finally told the giant. “Unlike the creatures that attacked us.” His gesture took in the massive corpses alongside and on the road itself.
“I am different from most of my brethren, yes.” The giant took a step forward, staring past Adam at Sigrun, the other giant, and the first wolf. “I have never seen one of the fenris so calm before, other than Ima here. But Ima is . . . like me. She is different than the rest of her kind.”
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