by K. B. Bogen
“Aren’t ye supposed to maybe figure out something?”
“Necessity is a bitch!” Erwyn groused, by way of an answer.
Nevertheless, if the weather got any colder, he would have to find a way to keep them warm. Preferably before they froze to death. Though his pack seemed virtually bottomless, Chesric could not seem to produce anything to keep out the cold.
That was suspicious, since he seemed to have everything else in there. Erwyn noticed that if the problem required a straightforward, easy spell, Chesric could come up with a more mundane way to solve it. But if it required something new, the old man had nothing to offer. Coincidence or planning?
Meanwhile, Erwyn studied the problem at hand in some depth. The increasing cold prodded him to find a speedy solution. Finally, teeth chattering, he determined to try some imaginative spell-casting. If it didn’t work, either he’d be back where he started, or he wouldn’t be around to care.
He started with the flame spell, concentrating it on his cloak.
Chesric took a cautious step backward.
“You have no faith in me,” he commented, still working on his spell.
“It’s not a question of faith. It’s a question of good sense.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Before the fabric could ignite, Erwyn fused the foxfire with the flame, weaving the two spells together by feel. Then he spread the combined effect throughout the material of the cloak.
It worked!
The results seemed to surprise Erwyn more than Chesric. The fabric felt warm to the touch, but not burning hot. As he ran a cautious hand over the cloth, the young sorcerer’s eyes widened with wonder.
The foxfire spell subdued the heat of the flame spell very nicely. Of course, the garment glowed slightly, but at least he would be warm.
Best of all, foxfire spells didn’t fade. It would hold until dismissed or the energy of the spell-caster ran out. Or he died, in which case, as he’d stated earlier, he wouldn’t be around to care.
Having verified that Erwyn could wear his cloak without risking personal injury, Chesric presented his cloak to be ensorcelled in like manner. They traveled the rest of the day in relative comfort. Relative, that is, because their cloaks came to a point slightly above their knees.
Erwyn resolved to try the same trick on his boots at the earliest available opportunity. That would leave only the three inches below their cloak hems. He wondered idly how many pieces his knees would shatter into if he fell.
Any Port in a Storm
That’s the Cold of the West
“WHEN TRAVELING THROUGH MOUNTAINOUS REGIONS, REMEMBER TO TAKE PLENTY OF WARM CLOTHING.” — Sorcerers’ Almanac, Section Two: On Weather and Its Effects
The rest of the trip through the mountains turned out to be exactly what Erwyn expected a trip through the mountains to be: cold, wet, and, occasionally, work.
Snake Ridge resembled the Impassable Mountains, at least in one respect. The path through the range was fairly smooth, as mountain paths go. Still, sleeping on snow-covered rock wasn’t Erwyn’s idea of a good time. Their cloaks kept them warm enough. So did their boots, once Erwyn got around to bespelling them.
But there was still the matter of the space between the bottom of their cloaks and the tops of their boots. Their travel cloaks were short. And even if he went to the trouble of fixing their trousers, it still wouldn’t do anything about the fact that the heat just melted the snow into the tops of their boots. And melted snow was, well, water. Wet, cold water.
They reached the highest point in the pass, denoted by a sign which read “It’s all downhill from here!” scrawled on a convenient boulder. Erwyn found it when he walked into the edge of the rock. They also walked into the heaviest snows they’d seen yet.
Snowflakes swirled around them on the wind. A wind which had an annoying habit of occasionally playing with their cloaks, as well. A magic cloak doesn’t do much good if it’s flying behind you on the breeze instead of protecting your back.
As luck would have it, or maybe it was planning (Erwyn couldn’t be certain), Chesric found a cave a few feet past the sign. A cave big enough for two travelers to stretch out comfortably. More or less.
Erwyn cast a sideways glance at Chesric. He got the impression the old man had been there before. He didn’t have much time to follow that thought, though.
“It’s a might chilly in here, don’t ye think?” Chesric puffed and rubbed his arms dramatically.
“Yeah, so?” He didn’t feel up to falling into the old knight’s traps.
“Well, how ‘bout we put together a fire.”
“Sure thing. You got any firewood left?”
“Nope.”
“Of course not.”
Erwyn buried his nose in his cloak. With his cloak and boots radiating their own warmth, he felt comfortable enough. But he didn’t particularly want to sit up all night. And if he stretched out on the cold, hard ground, his cloak would slide off, letting his legs get cold.
Besides, he wouldn’t get much sleep with Chesric huffing and puffing and swatting himself all night. But what could he do this time?
Maybe ... he toyed with the idea for a moment. Couldn’t hurt, could it? So he tried the cloak spell in reverse.
This time, he formed a foxfire ball and tried heating it up with the flame spell.
Chesric stopped puffing and watched while the flame ball formed in the center of the cave. Erwyn fed it until it grew large enough to keep the cave comfortable. A fire ball that fed on itself.
Without even a “thank you,” the old man wrapped himself in his cloak, lay down beside the ball, and went to sleep. Snoring, as usual.
Erwyn just shook his head. Maybe some day he’d get used to the old man.
Chesric snorted loudly and rolled over.
Then again, maybe he wouldn’t.
He rolled up in his cloak and stretched out. Moments later he, too, fell asleep.
The next day was much like the previous. And the next. And the next. It seemed like an eternity before they reached the end of the mountains. An eternity punctuated by Chesric’s frequent and unending attempts to complete Erwyn’s education.
But, in spite of the discomfort, the two companions finally reached the other side of Snake Ridge just in time to bid farewell to winter. Or so they thought.
“WINTER IN THE PLAINS CAN BE AS HARSH AS IT IS SUDDEN.” — Sorcerers’ Almanac, Section 2: On Weather and Its Effects
As they left the mountains behind, the air grew warmer and the snow stopped. Erwyn even considered removing the spells from their clothing. He thought the better of it, though. The nights were still cool, even though spring was on its way. They could always tie the cloaks to their packs during the day, if necessary.
One morning brought with it an icy wind and a few flurries of snow. Erwyn hugged his cloak closer, glad that he hadn’t decided to return it to its normal state. As the day wore on, the flurries turned into a full-fledged snowstorm. They hadn’t escaped the weather by leaving the mountains, he reflected. Winter followed them down.
By nightfall, weary and cold, they had found no suitable place to make camp. Nothing but endless snow-covered plains. No bushes, no trees, nothing.
Erwyn wrapped the edges of his cloak around his cold-reddened hands. He was warm and relatively dry from the top of his head to the soles of his boots, but that small comfort only seemed to make the cold worse on his exposed face and hands.
“Can’t we just stop?” he whined for about the fortieth time since dusk.
“We need shelter,” Chesric replied from the folds of his coverings. “We can’t just stop in the middle of a field during a storm like this. We’d freeze to death.
“As long as we keep moving, we have a chance of surviving. Magical cloaks are nice, but I’m not sure how much help they’d be against three or four feet o
f snow. I ‘magine they’d melt it just enough to leave us encased in a nice little casket of ice.” He paused, as if thinking. “Of course, if ye’ve got some way of whipping up an inn or a hut or something ...”
Erwyn sighed. “Not that I can think of offhand.”
He thought about the sandcastle. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to sleep under an actual roof tonight, even if it were made of sand? If only he could reproduce it, life-size. If only there were some rocks or trees or something around here. If only he hadn’t decided that magic was better than marriage.
No point in wishing for things you can’t have, Erwyn thought. Besides, he found it highly annoying that he started thinking about marrying Heatherlyn every time the going got tough.
He spent a few minutes blissfully wrapped up in mentally building a sandcastle to hole up in. That didn’t last long. He didn’t care much for empty wishes.
After abandoning his fantasy, he entertained himself by watching the swirling white blanket around him. The snow reflected the pale glow from their cloaks, creating a circle of pulsing light. Erwyn stared at the flakes, fascinated, losing himself in the endless patterns they made while they danced about.
He let the snow occupy him as he trudged through the night, following the light of Chesric’s cloak. He tried to imagine what it was like to be a snowflake, floating and spinning through the air, without thought or care. It helped keep him from thinking about sandcastles and other forms of shelter.
He got so wrapped up in his reflections that he almost knocked Chesric down when the old man came to an abrupt halt.
“Merciful stars,” the knight whispered, his breath turning to steam in the cold air.
Erwyn stared in the direction Chesric was pointing. Then he looked up and the hood of his cloak slid back, allowing the snow to fall on his hair and down the back of his tunic.
In front of them, in the midst of all the snow, stood a castle. A full-sized, regulation, castle. Well, almost full-sized.
But, no matter what its dimensions, Erwyn didn’t trust things that appeared in the middle of nowhere.
He craned his neck, looking as far up as their cloak-glow permitted. Walls stretched up into the snowy sky, merging into the snowfall.
Curious, he freed his hands from his cloak and created a ball of foxfire in his palm. He gave the sphere of light all the power he could pack into the spell. It wasn’t much. The ball ended up being palm-sized, but it was big enough to illuminate the castle.
Holding his “lantern” aloft, Erwyn surveyed more of the wall.
In the light of the foxfire, the castle turned out to be only about twelve feet high. The steady fall of snow created an illusion of greater height.
The wall was smooth and featureless, except for the very top. Crenellations atop the battlements, no higher than Erwyn’s knee, took up two of the twelve feet.
Erwyn followed the line of the wall a few paces to his left. It made a sharp right turn only a short distance away. He turned around, heading toward the other side. Barely ten paces from the corner he’d just left, he found the other corner of the edifice.
There was something strange about the walls, though, something familiar. If only Erwyn could place it.
“Let’s see if we can find a door,” came Chesric’s practical suggestion.
Erwyn headed back to join his friend and together they searched for an entrance to the castle. Tired as he was, even the thirty feet along one side of the castle seemed endless. The snow sucked at his boots, making his progress achingly slow.
Chesric fared no better. He trudged through the knee-deep blanket of cold, shoulders slumped, head bowed against the weather.
Frost rimmed the ends of his mustache where they stuck out from beneath the hood of his cloak. His normally long stride shortened as he pulled one foot out of the snow, only to have to sink it into the white, icy stuff a few inches away.
Willpower alone kept the two adventurers moving. Willpower and an innate dislike of freezing to death so close to possible shelter. They both needed rest and the familiar, friendly warmth of a roaring fire. Even enchanted cloaks had their limits.
So, of course, they didn’t find the door until they turned the third corner. They’d gone in exactly the wrong direction! Erwyn groaned softly. If they’d gone right instead of left in the first place, they’d have saved themselves the extra walk.
There, in the center of the last wall, they saw the faint outline of the doorway they sought. Hope flared inside Erwyn. Silently praying that the inhabitants would be friendly, he and Chesric approached the door of the castle.
When they got close enough to see the entrance clearly, they realized that they wouldn’t have to deal with any “inhabitants,” after all.
People Who Live in Sand Castles
The Weather Outside is Frightful
and a Fire’d Be So Delightful
“NEVER DEPEND ON A NEW AND UNTRIED SPELL FOR SURVIVAL.” — Sorcerers’ Almanac, Section Six: On the Successful Use of Magic
Erwyn stared at the door, feeling his stomach sink to a point near his toes. His palms itched furiously.
In the center of the last wall was the entry to the castle. The door.
Standing in front of that door, Erwyn felt the oddest feeling wash over him. Like he’d seen the castle before. Which he had.
He knew now that no one lived in the building before him. And why it stood there, in the middle of nowhere. Right where he and Chesric would stumble upon it in the middle of a raging blizzard, at night, in unknown territory.
He also knew why Chesric stood there, shivering in the cold, staring wide-eyed in Erwyn’s direction, mouth open, and making no move to enter.
It was a sandcastle. Not precisely the one he imagined. This one was smaller. But it was large enough to accommodate two cold, tired travelers. Large enough to protect them from the worst of the storm. Assuming, of course, that it was hollow.
Well, no way to tell until he tried. Resettling the pack on his shoulders, he reached out and pushed. The door swung inward easily, throwing him off-balance. He pitched forward onto the floor, which was, of course, sand.
Erwyn sat up, sputtering and spitting, trying to get rid of a mouthful of sand. The foxfire ball followed him inside. Chesric followed the foxfire.
Squinting against a bright light that was intended to pierce the gloom of the blizzard, Erwyn turned to his surroundings, toning down his spell as he did so. He accepted the wineskin Chesric handed him without a word. He took a long, slow swallow and looked around the room.
Not a big room, as he’d expected. About twenty-four feet square, with the ceiling only seven feet above the sandy floor, scant inches above their heads. He did some mental calculations.
If the walls were twelve feet tall, including the two foot crenelations, then the roof was ... Erwyn gulped nervously ... about three feet thick. How much did a twenty-four foot square slab of sand, three feet thick, weigh? He tried not to think about it.
Suddenly he wished he’d been more specific when he “conjured” his sandcastle. But then, what could he expect on such short notice?
While Erwyn admired his own handiwork, Chesric busied himself with more practical matters. His bedroll lay unrolled, and his pack sat neatly in a corner along with Erwyn’s, which the young sorcerer had dropped while he was tasting the floor.
Chesric began laying a fire, carefully placing small sticks in a hollow in the sand.
“Where did the wood come from?” Erwyn eyed Chesric suspiciously.
“Carried it in me pack,” Chesric replied, not looking away from his work. “Stuck some wood in there before we set out. Never know when ye might be needin’ some.”
“’Set out’ from where? In the mountains, you said you didn’t have any firewood!”
Chesric shrugged. “I guess I was wrong. Didn’t see it in there when I checked that night.
Anyone can make a mistake.”
Not quite convinced, Erwyn rolled out his bed. Just how much stuff did Chesric cram into that thing, anyway? And how could he manage to lose a bundle of firewood in it?
Erwyn pulled his journal from his pack and settled himself onto his blanket. He hadn’t made an entry in the book in ages.
He flipped it open to the last page and began reading the entry. He’d been reading for a couple of minutes when he realized that Chesric was staring at him again. He looked up into the old man’s face.
“Yes?” he asked.
Chesric looked expectantly at the ceiling. “Won’t do much good to start a fire, ‘thout no ventilation. D’ya suppose I could poke a hole in the top without bringin’ the whole thing down atop us?”
Erwyn looked at the ceiling, too, very aware of the slab of sand kept in place overhead by a very tenuous spell over which he had little control. Not to mention all the snow building up on top of it. Was it his imagination, or did the edge to his right slip ever so slightly?
Gripping his journal to keep his hands from trembling, Erwyn moistened his lips and replied, “Chesric, I doubt that poking a hole in the ceiling would be a problem. Let us just hope that no one comes along to poke a hole in me!”
He laughed, hoping he sounded more cheerful than he felt. As long as he kept part of his attention on the castle, he reasoned, he didn’t need to worry. And he could do that in his sleep. He thought.
Erwyn put his book back into his pack. The journal would have to wait a little longer. He didn’t think he could concentrate on it, anyway.
Chesric used his sword to make a hole in the roof and soon the fire crackled briskly.
“Uh, Chesric?” Erwyn eyed the fire. “What’s to prevent the smoke from filling the room and making it very difficult to breathe?”