The Ice Lands

by William Dickey

  I looked back at Talia. She wasn’t turned around anymore.

  “Hey, I thought you said you wouldn’t look,” I said awkwardly covering myself with my hands.

  “I said no such thing, besides I needed to hand you these.” Talia held out a dry towel and a wool poncho identical to what she wore. Talia was small for a beastman and her clothing would fit me better than most.

  “I don’t need the poncho,” I said accepting just the towel before drying myself off.

  “Oh, so he is not so shy after all,” said Talia, approving my perceived preference for nudism.

  “I have my own clothing. Inventory,” I said, summoning the pale blue screen that was invisible to all but Mai and myself. To most of the people in my world, the inventory screen was a useful little cupboard capable of storing one cubic meter of items, but for me as an Otherist it was thousands of times larger. I had all sorts of stuff jammed inside including extra sets of clothing. I summoned a thick black tunic and pants from thin air, surprising Talia.

  “What? Haven’t you seen people from my world do this before?” I asked as I put the clothes on.

  “I have heard about it, but I have never seen it with my own eyes,” said Talia. This came as a surprise to me. When we arrived from Earth, people ended up all over the place. The phenomenon was wide spread, I thought across the whole world, but didn’t know for sure.

  “Aren’t there any people from my world here?” I asked. “Or did they not appear in the Othal Confederation.”

  “No, they appeared here just like in Xebrya,” said Talia.

  “Then why haven’t you seen them do things?” I asked.

  “We do not really deal with your people very much,” said Talia awkwardly as if she wasn’t sure what to say.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Let us just say that we did not really get to a good start with your people and they mostly exist separate from us,” said Talia. “Now that you are all cleaned up, let us get you something to eat.”

  Talia changed the subject as quickly as possible, making what she was trying to do blatantly obvious even to me. She was hiding something about the others from Earth. I spent the next few minutes trying to probe her for more information as we made our way to the mess tent. All my attempts fell on deaf ears.

  The mess tent was empty and the large fire pit out front was cold, but Talia managed to scrounge up a few apples and some jerky. I’d only just settled in and taken a few bites when Izusa returned.

  She regaled Talia with the story of what happened. Then Talia directed me to a small tent where I could get some sleep.

  I was alone and under fur covers in the small tent. I could tell from the snoring that Izusa had taken only a moment to fall fast asleep. I’d been awake just as long as she had, but I wasn’t tired in the least. While Izusa ran, I couldn’t even scratch my own ass so now that I was free I was itching to do something.

  “What am I going to do now?” I whispered to myself though Mai couldn’t help but overhear and think that I was talking to her.

  ‘I would have thought that obvious. You have to get the hell out of here,’ said Mai. I didn’t give her any sign of having heard. I was still angry about her actions a week ago during the battle for Crystalpeak. Shortly before Izusa kidnapped me, I learned it was Mai who’d taken control of my body at the end of the battle. She’d saved my life and had decimated the beastman forces, but I learned she’d been lying since the moment we met. She’d said she could only adjust my sight and hearing so that I could see and hear her, but now I knew she could fully control me whenever she wanted. The only thing that prevented her from turning me into a puppet was that she couldn’t do so all the time. Her signals put enormous strain on my sensitive nerves and would fry them if she held the reigns for too long.

  Anger and fear swirled whenever I saw Mai, but so did gratitude and a sense of understanding. She had saved me in the battle and she’d only latched onto me to end her loneliness. She’d spent ten thousand years alone in the blue gem now embedded in the palm of my left hand, I knew what the dark pressure of loneliness felt like, but I couldn’t begin to imagine the amount that would coalesce over such a long period. For the moment, I would keep a careful eye on Mai and take any advice she gave with the greatest scrutiny.

  “What would you suggest?” I asked. “Killing myself is out of the question, not that you would want that but I’d only resurrect in a city they control. As for running, I wouldn’t get very far. Those beastmen are amazing trackers.”

  ‘How about fighting?’ Mai suggested.

  “Do you think I’d stand a chance at that? Look how many of them there are. Though I suppose there won’t be very many for very long…” I recalled the conversation I’d overheard between Izusa and Talia. Izusa was going to escort me to her clan once she’d rested.

  “I may not be able to take on all the beastmen, but I might be able to take Izusa on alone,” I whispered. “How strong was she again?”

  Mai had three useful functions. First, she was created by the Travelers, an advanced race that lived thousands of years ago, so she was quite knowledgeable when it came to them and the artifacts they left behind. Second, she could process and enhance my senses before passing them onto me, giving me access to night vision, super smell, etc. And third, she was adept at analyzing the abilities of those around me to generate a rough level of my opponent and a list of potential weaknesses I could exploit.

  ‘Izusa is around level 103,’ said Mai. ‘She’s considerably stronger and faster than you, but her defenses aren’t very good. If you catch her off guard, it’s not impossible.’

  “Status,” I said, calling up the blue semitransparent screen containing my own information so I could review it.

  Name

  †Isaac N. Stein†

  Level

  50

  Class

  †Otherist†

  Exp

  123/11350

  Health

  450/450

  Satiety

  85/100

  Stamina

  430/460

  Hydration

  71/100

  Mana

  67/100

  Status

  Conspiratorial

  Vitality

  45

  Strength

  34

  Agility

  40

  Endurance

  46

  Magic

  10

  Dexterity

  40

  Energy

  15

  Defense

  30 (+2)

  Intelligence

  50

  Unused

  10

  †Skills†

  †Cooking Lvl. 5 (23.9%)†

  †Skinning Lvl. 4 (12.1%)†

  †Blacksmithing Lvl. 15 (29.1%)†

  †Leatherworking Lvl. 4 (13.4%)†

  †Carpentry Lvl. 2 (93.1%)†

  †Otheristry Lvl. 10 (5.2%)†

  †Sigil Mastery Lvl. 4 (5.0%)†

  †Mana Recovery Lvl. 3 (14.8%)†

  †Sewing Lvl. 8 (0.3%)†

  †Sense Jeopardy Lvl. 1 (55.0%)†

  †Artificing Lvl. 7 (62.8%)†

  †Riding Lvl. 5 (16.8%)†

  I gained many levels during the battle at Crystalpeak, but was a bit disappointed that I had already spent most of the stat points to increase my health and stamina. Such things were very useful in a long, large-scale battle but now that I planned on taking out Izusa such advancement was almost useless. To stand a chance at beating her, I’d have to go hard and fast, finishing her off before she could retaliate. It also troubled me that my defense was so low. Normally, I made up for the lack direct stat points in defense with a decent set of armor, but I couldn’t do so this time. Izusa would become suspicious if I started traveling in heavy armor and the clang of metal would ruin any hope I had of sneaking up on her.

  I still had a few points left unassigned, but I couldn’t bring
myself to spend them on defense. In a sneak attack, agility and strength were more important. Agility to insure I could strike before she could react and strength to increase the damage done by a single decisive blow.

  I did just that, splitting my unassigned points equally into Agility and Strength, before moving on to the next issue.

  I looked through my inventory. Inside was a wide selection of weapons, anything from broadswords to compound bows that I had replicated to arm the Crystalpeak defenders, but I lacked my weapon of choice, my spear. The original had been lost in the aftermath of the Crystalpeak invasion and my spare had been lost when Izusa kidnapped me. It had been in my hand when the beastwoman had knocked me over the head and when I woke up it was missing.

  I could use a different weapon, but if I wanted a real chance against the beastwoman, I needed a spear.

  “I’ll just have to make a new one,” I decided.

  ‘But how are you going to do that?’ asked Mai.

  “I guess I have to sneak out and find a forge,” I said. “Izusa will be out for at least a few hours, so will most of the beastmen, at least until sunset. The beastmen have weapons and armor so they must have forges, I’ll just go into the city and have a look.”

  I quietly got up and out of the tent, dodged past a couple watchmen, not too difficult since they were more focused on looking out from the encampment, left the swathe of army tents, and entered the city proper.

  The beastman city was silent and empty, much like a human city would be at night although it was the middle of the day. The buildings, were surprisingly similar to the army tents, consisting of a wooden frame covered by skins. However, the city buildings, yurts, were many times larger than the tents and built more robustly so they would be difficult to move. The dirt streets seemed wider than normal, but so did everything else. It was like being a child again, everything was too big for me.

  ‘How exactly are you going to find a forge?’ Mai asked. ‘It’s not like you can ask someone.’

  During our journey, Izusa said there were some humans in Dewpoint, but they were all slaves, craftsmen to make weapons and armor and mages to condense mana crystals to power artifacts. I knew it was safe for me to be walking down the street so long as I looked to be heading somewhere, anyone who saw would just assume I was another slave performing a task as ordered, but if I started asking questions, it would be obvious that I wasn’t.

  I looked at the sky. To the east, a thick pillar of black smoke marred the otherwise clear air. Given the amount of smoke, I doubted it was a cooking fire.

  I walked down the street towards the dark pillar. As I approached its base, I realized it wasn’t from a single fire but several coming from a cluster of compact yurts. The beastmen had set up a large industrial center operated by their human slaves, which explained why it was operating in the middle of the day. The beastmen may have preferred to operate in the dark of night but human workers needed the light of day.

  “Hey, what are you doing over there?” said a beastman strolling around the perimeter of the mock industrial center. Even though the human workers had nowhere to run, someone had to keep an eye on them to insure they were working.

  “I’m new. They sent me over here to lend a hand,” I said, the only thing that could have made any sense to the guard. Why else would a human slave be there but to work?

  “Hmm… there were some more craftsmen coming in but I thought it was not until tomorrow night,” said the beastman, scratching his chin.

  “I guess I arrived early,” I shrugged.

  “I guess so,” the beastman nodded. “What is your craft?”

  “I’m a blacksmith,” I said.

  “A blacksmith… We do not have any vacant forges at the moment… But you can give the old man a hand. He moves a lot slower than the others,” said the beastman. “It is lucky you speak our language, it makes things a lot easier. Maybe you can help me translate.”

  The beastmen guard led me down the street a couple hundred yards to one of the smoking buildings. The yurt was large, but the opening at the top was too small for the fire burning within. A second column of smoke leaked out the flap of a front door, choking me a bit as I followed the beastman inside.

  The yurt was dark and warm. Piles of cracked and broken weapons and armor plates lay in crates on one side, near the entrance, while the stone and metal of a forge dominated the back of the yurt, stained black from the coal rich smoke that constantly saturated it. In one corner, leaning against a hole in the tent that served as a window was a blacksmith at work, pounding away at a slab of hot steel in the shape of a massive sword. I couldn’t make out the blacksmith. What little light came from the window was concentrated on the work in progress.

  “Hey you,” the beastman called. “You are always moving so much slower than the others, so I thought you could use a helper.” The beastman pointed to me then to the blacksmith then mimed hitting something with a hammer.

  I translated the beastman’s words for the blacksmith.

  “I don’t want any help,” the blacksmith roared. “Any other idiot you bring would only get in my way. I go slower than anyone else does because I actually spend the time to do a good job and you know it. Otherwise you would have already cleared me out.”

  I grinned at this response, both because it was heartening to see a man in a similar situation maintain his sense of spirit and because I recognized that gruff voice and demeanor.

  The blacksmith set down his hammer and moved into the window light so he could castigate the beastman some more, proving I hadn’t been mistaken. It was Kanis, the blacksmith from Mill Valley who’d first taught me the craft.

  Even though I recognized the old man immediately, I was still shocked. I had thought him dead after I saw the burned bodies left behind in the town, but apparently, Kanis had been one of the lucky ones, if you could call it that. Instead of being massacred, he was made into a slave and forced to make weapons for his enemies so they could do the same to others.

  I didn’t translate the blacksmith’s rebuttal, but it wasn’t hard for the beastman to guess it.

  “You know what to do,” the beastman grumbled as he turned and left the tent. The beastman proudly knew nothing of making the weapons he relied on. He had no idea about how to assign me tasks to help the blacksmith.

  Kanis followed the beastman to the flap door and made sure he was gone before turning to me.

  “What are you doing here?” Kanis asked. “I thought you got out of this mess.”

  “I did, but they hunted me down and…” I quickly explained everything that had happened, starting from that cold winter night where the beastmen attacked to what brought me to Kanis’ new smithy.

  “That’s quite some story. I’m surprised that she went so far to track you down,” said Kanis, referring to the fact that Izusa had waited months and traveled hundreds of miles to catch me.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Do you have any idea why she did that?”

  “No, I just met her one time. She was asking about that interesting spear you made. The only strange thing was she didn’t seem to care about the mechanism you conceived to make it collapsible. All she cared about was that symbol you carved into it,” said Kanis.

  “My maker’s mark?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kanis nodded. The “†” symbol was something I had carved into all the things I created. It served as a signature of sorts, but that wasn’t the only place I had seen it. I originally took the symbol from the various menus and screens associated with the Traveler interface and since then I’d seen it on several Traveler artifacts. Most notably, it had been plastered across the front door to Lemuria, the Traveler ruin under Crystalpeak.

  I wasn’t sure what Izusa wanted from me, but from Kanis’ statements, I had a clue. It had to be related to the Travelers.

  “Anyway, we’re supposed to be working,” said Kanis, returning my attention to the matter at hand.

  “Yeah, I guess we’d better make things look good in c
ase the watchman comes back around,” I took up a second set of tools and lined up on the other side of the forge to begin working. “The beastman was complaining that you work too slowly.”

  “You know I couldn’t put out something substandard,” said Kanis.

  “You’re telling me that’s all it was,” I said. Kanis might have been a perfectionist but his great skill meant he could still work quickly.

  “I might have been taking it a bit easy of late,” Kanis shrugged. “I saw no need to produce more than was necessary.”

  “Think you could speed things up, at least for today?” I asked.

  “Why? What did you have in mind?” said Kanis between beats of his hammer, he’d already returned to work.

  “I came here to forge a weapon for myself and hide it away for when I attempt my escape,” I explained. “While I work on that you could make a couple extras so it looks like I did something.”

  “I guess I could do that,” Kanis grumbled a bit. He didn’t like that I’d be claiming credit for another blacksmith’s work.

  I knew that even if Talia didn’t check up on me in my tent, Izusa would likely wake around sundown and she definitely would. This meant that I had only around six hours, not much for what I wanted.

  I spent the first couple of hours making the spears basic form. A collapsible shaft was significantly more complex than a solid one, but given the number of times I’d done it, everything went smoothly. I embedded a mana crystal in the spear’s head just like I had in the spear I’d used to win the Millenius Tournament and survive the beastman invasion of Crystalpeak. However, I didn’t engrave a fire sigil into the butt of the spear. The purpose of this spear was to help me deal with Izusa. The fire sigil was useful because it either provided crowd control or gave the spear a boosted range when thrown. Neither would be useful in initiating a sneak attack on the cautious beastwoman, so instead I carved a different set of sigils. In the end, I finished just in time. The sky had grown uncomfortably dark, but no one had come looking for me.