A Glibertarians Exclusive: Season of Ice VII
At the homestead
A hands-span of days after Hengist reckoned they had enough firewood – and indeed, the shed was full to overflowing – the first snow came. Mabinne awoke in the night to a strange luminosity from the window. She got up, even though the bedroom had grown chill with the fire burned down to coals and looked out through the glass.
The snow was already at least ankle-deep, and more was falling, great, silent flakes.
She heard Hengist rouse, but stayed at the window, watching. It rarely snowed in Beretan, and then only wet, spitting pellets, miserable stuff; she had never seen this kind of snow, the great, crystalline flakes floating gently down.
She gently fingered the binding collar, still on her neck. She had once commanded the cold; now she could only watch it.
Hengist had tossed another log onto the bedroom’s guttering fire. Now he came to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder out the window.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“It is, sweet,” Hengist agreed. “And so are you. But it’s cold, here by the glass. Let’s be back under the furs.”
It was cold. Hengist had his hand extended. With a small sigh, she took it, and allowed him to lead her back to bed.
Two days later, early in the morning, two men showed up on horseback. They knocked on the front door as Hengist and Mabinne were just sitting down to bowls of hot boiled groats with chunks of beef, Hengist’s favored breakfast.
Hengist looked up at the knock. Mabinne was still standing, so went to the door and opened it to find two men she had not seen before; Ikslunders, clearly, like Hengist, but older, their dark blonde hair and beards shot through with gray. They were thickly clothed in heavy leather and wolf furs. Behind them, their horses breathed plumes of mist into the cold air. Large lances were carried upright in leather holsters on the saddle, one on each side, each with a long iron blade on the end.
“Jordvir, Engvar!” Hengist called. “Come in! Will you eat?”
The two men said they would, and came in, kicking their snowy boots off in the anteroom.
“Taken a new wife, have you Hengist?” the one called Engvar asked in a gravelly voice. “A pretty one, she is.”
“This is Mabinne,” Hengist answered simply. “My sweet, this is Jordvir and Engvar, they are brothers with a big place up north on the edge of the steppe. They are mammoth hunters.” Mabinne’s eyebrows rose; Hengist had not corrected Engvar’s use of the word wife. She opened her mouth to object, but at the last moment, chose not to.
“We are farmers,” Jordvir chuckled. “But, yes, in the winter, we hunt mammoths, for the meat, the fur, and the fat.”
“We are low on rendered mammoth lard,” Hengist mused. Mabinne had noted that to Hengist only the day before. “I wouldn’t mind some mammoth meat, either. Sweet, you’ve never tasted the like; rich, fatty, smooth. A mammoth roast is a feast all on its own.”
“He speaks true,” Engvar agreed.
“Putting a party together, are you?”
Jordvir drained a cup of tea. “We are,” he replied. “Thought you might be interested.”
“Usual split?”
“Yes,” Jordvir said. “The tusks to the man who strikes the fatal blow. Equal shares of meat for all in the party. Pelts likewise divided.”
Hengist looked at Mabinne. “I would go with them, sweet, if you’ve no objection. I’d be gone three, maybe four days. I can ask Gerd to come stay with you if you wish.”
“There’s plenty of wood and plenty to eat,” Mabinne said. “I’ll be fine.”
“As you wish. Boys, let’s finish eating, and I’ll get my gear together.”
They rode off at mid-morning, Hengist on the more spirited of his two horses, lances like the others bore framing him as Mabinne watched him ride away through the snow.
The next few days passed slowly. The house seemed strangely quiet without the big Northman’s bustling presence, and the big bed seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to warm up. Mabinne found she had to stoke the bedroom hearth-fire up more to sleep warm; she hadn’t realized how much warmth Hengist’s presence generated under the furs.
Chores occupied most of her days. Hengist normally cared for the milk cow and the ducks, all of which required attention morning and evening, but Mabinne had grown up on a farm, and had lived on one after her marriage, so none of the chores were new to her.
And even on her own, the big estate’s requirements left her with idle time during the day. She had only herself to cook for and she ate relatively little, so even meal preparation didn’t take up much time.
On the second afternoon, she walked down to the lake.
The sun was already growing low in the sky, setting the western horizon glowing orange behind a few scudding clouds. Mabinne walked out onto the small dock and looked out on the cold waters.
She felt the weight of the binding collar on her neck. She stuck an index finger under the collar and wiggled it, but there was almost no play in the device; it fit well.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and concentrated. Her hands rose, making the sign for an ice-bolt. She bore down, mentally, forming the signs in her head and with her hands for the spell, but nothing happened save for the binding collar growing warm.
She tried a wind spell. Bearing down again, mentally, and physically, she thought she felt the slightest response, but then the collar began to grow uncomfortably hot. She let the spell drop.
I wonder if that’s how it’s supposed to work, she mused. If I start being able to work some magic, the collar grows hot and burns.
I wonder if I could overpower it, freeze it out before it grows hot enough to kill me.
There didn’t seem to be any way out short of Hengist removing the collar. Meanwhile, it was growing dark; with a small sigh, Mabinne walked back to the house.
Five days later, in the morning, the hunting group returned.
Mabinne was in the back of the house feeding the ducks, who set up such a gabble while she was scattering grain that she didn’t hear the horses approaching. Her first warning was when the mammoth hunter Engvar walked around the house and hailed her.
“Mabinne,” he called. “You’d better come along. Hengist has been hurt.”
She felt her heart suddenly skip a beat. Why? She wondered briefly but hurried to follow the big Northman.
In front of the house, several men and horses were assembled. Hengist’s big gelding Toothbreaker was drawing a travois made of two long mammoth tusks; as she drew near, Mabinne saw Hengist lying on the travois.
She broke into a run. As she stopped beside the travois, Hengist looked up at her; his face was pale, drawn up in pain, but he managed to smile.
“Sorry, my sweet,” he breathed. “I’m afraid I didn’t dodge in time.” He coughed once and faded into unconsciousness. Mabinne saw blood on his lips.
“Help me get him inside,” she told the others.
Once Hengist was bundled inside, changed into a nightshirt, and laid to sleep in the main bedroom the main body of the hunters left. Jordvir and Engvar put up Hengist’s gelding, stacked the mammoth tusks up against the front of the house, and spent some time transferring a large quantity of mammoth meat and fat tightly wrapped in mammoth hide into the cold cellar beneath the house. With that done at last, Mabinne made hot tea for Engvar and Jordvir, and when that was served and the three were seated at the big dining table, the brothers told Mabinne the story:
“It was morning, the day before yesterday,” Jordvir began. “We spotted four cow mammoths, with three youngsters. We were planning how best to move in on them when Hengist sighted the old bull, up on a ridgeline.”
“A grown bull is still fine eating,” Engvar added, “not quite as good as a young cow, of course, but the tusks are worth a pretty price, either in trade or in workings. Nothing like ivory for handles, jewelry and so on… But forgive me. Jordvir, go on.”
“Hengist wanted to go after the bull, so we split the party. The Hardresen brothers went to take one of the cows, while we two and Hengist went for the bull. We had it planned, you see; we two, on horseback, would approach the old fellow from the front, gaining his attention, while Hengist approached on foot from the rear, taking advantage to get in close and strike a deep blow with one of his lances. While we rode into position on the ridge, Hengist tied Toothbreaker to a bush and took up his two lances.”
“I was in a better position to see what happened next,” Engvar explained, “as I was a bit higher up the hillside. We two rode in about ten paces apart and paused about fifty paces from the old bull. He had seen and scented us, of course, as the wind was from us to him, but old bull mammoths aren’t afraid of anything. He trumpeted at us, of course, and shook his tusks at us to warn us off. We each took up a lance in case he came for us, but otherwise we sat still. The old fellow stopped feeding and watched us in turn, which was of course what we wanted.”
“Hengist is a brave fellow,” Jordvir added. “Coming in on foot like that. Some would say foolhardy, but we’ve seen him do the like before. The young fellow just doesn’t seem to know fear.”
“Yes,” Mabinne breathed softly. “I have seen that about him.”
“Hengist came in from behind and downwind,” Engvar continued. “I thought he was moving to hamstring the old fellow, and sure enough, his first blow struck true, breaking the hamstring on the bull’s off hind foot. The bull really let out quite a roar, but mammoths can’t move much with a hind leg crippled, so that struck him in place. We started forward intending to attack from the front.”
“He came around the crippled bull on the downhill side, where I was approaching,” Jordvir added. “I intended to strike from the left, as my brother came in to strike from the right, but we rode well clear of the trunk and tusks, you see, so it took us a few moments longer. The bull was making quite a commotion, of course, and Hengist saw a moment, so he ducked low and came in fast, intending to strike for the heart with his second lance. You’ve seen the lances, dear lady; that’s what they are made for, almost a sword on the end of a long pole, meant to strike deep on a large, strong animal, and at such things Hengist excels. But the mammoth, while immobilized, wasn’t helpless; as he came in, it sensed him moving, and pivoted on its three good legs. Swinging its head with tusks low, it caught Hengist up on its tusks and threw him.”
“The only reason he’s alive at all is because of his initial strike,” Engvar explained. “When he was struck, he was tossed a good twenty paces down the hill, and were it sound, the bull surely would have followed to trample him or seize him up in its trunk and dash him against the ground. As it was things would have been less dire, but when Hengist landed he struck a large rock.”
“We moved in and killed the bull then,” Jordvir concluded. “That is the meat and fat you have below, and the bull’s tusks at the front of the house. Hengist had sat up and waved at us, so we did not at first understand the extent of his injuries, but once the bull was dead, we went to him and saw blood on his lips.”
“One of the Hardresens is good at physicking and takes care of injuries and illnesses for the local folk in their area. He examined Hengist and said he had several broken ribs and had taken a nasty hit on the head. We bound his ribs and bandaged him up, but that night he fell into raving. None of us slept that night, but towards morning Hengist fell into a deep sleep. We had done with our butchering – the Hardresens spooked the cow herd and didn’t land a blow there – so that morning we made up the travois, broke camp and brought Hengist to you, travelling through last night to get here.”
“The tale is told, then,” Engvar said, yawning hugely.
Mabinne looked at the two men, noticing again the gray in their beards. “Traveling through a day and a night, you must be exhausted. Wait here, I’ll bring food and some ale. When you’ve eaten, go into the extra bedroom, just through there, and I’ll bring you hot water for washing. You can sleep there as long as you like.” She stood and turned towards the kitchen, then turned back. “And thank you so for bringing Hengist home. I will do my best to care for him. He will be fit for next year’s hunt, I promise.”
The brothers slept through the balance of the day, rising only in the evening for a meal before immediately heading back for more sleep. Mabinne reminded herself again that they were older men, probably well past their normal limits of exhaustion after the hunt, the butchering, and the overnight journey to get Hengist home. When Engvar and Jordvir finally left the next morning, she had prepared food and drink for them for their journey. She hugged them both as they made to depart. “Thank you again for bringing Hengist home to me,” she said. “I’ll take care of him. He’ll live, and be well as before, I promise you.”
“You are a good woman, to care so for him,” Engvar said with a sad smile. “Hengist is lucky to have you here. Be well. We’ll let his kinfolk know, I feel sure his sister will want to come help you care for him.”
He must recover, she added to herself. Otherwise…
“Thank you both,” Mabinne told the brothers. “I will be glad to have the help of Hengist’s kinfolk, if they can spare the time for the journey.”
Then the brothers left, and she was alone, with Hengist still unconscious in the big bed.
Incentives – oh how they work!
<==
this would have been the perfect time for this to turn into choose your own adventure.
Is the magic specific for ice stuff or can it heal?
I imagined magic in this world to be very specific; Mabinne can generate ice, cold winds, and the like, and that’s about all. This is my first time using magic as a prop device, so I’m probably being rather cautious in how I use it – for now.
Probably for the best. As I’m sure you know many writers end up using it as a get out of jail free card.
I’ve found that having an internally consistant set of constraints and making sure to establish most of the tools ahead of time helps avoid that trap.
The only way that magic can be consistent in a world that also obeys the laws of physics is for magic to come from sentient beings or be sentient itself. If magic can’t say “yeah no, not going to do that in this case,” you wind up with paradoxes.
That doesn’t make sense.
Physics is completely self-consistent. By its nature. Magic breaks the laws of physics, by definition. The only way your technomagical world doesn’t completely break down is if there are arbitrary limits put on magic.
Which does not require sentience.
And why you need the self-consistant framework. “free energy for all” is going to be a very short story
It requires an arbiter. The limitations have to be set down by the omnipotent universe-creator, even if they don’t actually write themself onto the page.
Iain M. Banks wrote a whole lot of pages in a “free energy for all” universe. But for pretty much all the other Magic+Real World, it’s pretty easy to find either inexplicably unexploited applications for magic, or inconsistencies with the supposed “rules” of magic.
I write magic within the constraints of the laws of physics.
I have a character who can conjure things, for instance, a candy bar, but they come off the shelf of a store (matter cannot be created or destroyed). And her bank account is tied to her magic so she can pay for what she conjures.
Can or have to? If it’s “have to” and the price of the candy bar is automatically deducted, you’re using the arbitrary “value” as a way of sneaking in sentience. Something/someone has to know today’s price.
Did The Hyperbole highjack Not Adahn’s account?
My guess is the arbiter is the conscience of the caster rather than a base constraint of the conjuration. It would be the caster’s knowledge of the value for the payment side of the act.
But this is speculation, since that’s Moj’s world.
I spent waaaaaaay too long going over the kinds of thaumaturgy in pop fiction (looking at you Harry Potter) and as a former GM, if you don’t use your arbitrary abilities from time to time, your PCs will get completely out of hand if you’re playing D&D, Mage or Ars Magica.
From what little I’ve seen, Rowling’s rules are not self-consistant.
I think Rowling was pretty much obviously making up whatever crap she felt was needed for each book — and having the rest of her characters act like “Of COURSE that’s always been there too!”
Why in a world where most adult wizards teleport do you really need the Knight Bus? Floo powder? Flying cars?
Of course this is the same universe dumb enough to say “Oh, sure… Wizarding Hitler is probably back — but we’ll just treat it as a British internal matter instead of moving in secret to take out his KNOWN FOLLOWERS after their government provably lied to us about it for over a year and pretty much designed a prison to be his armory (all his followers and the guards would certainly prefer his side).”
And the rules of quidditch…
Rowling’s world is a fun read at times — but she really does require almost everyone to be complete and utter morons.
I haven’t thought that far. I say “can” because she can choose to be a thief. There is a special prison (Faraday Cage) for low-level magic users (people who have varying levels of magical ability, but not to my character’s level) commit other crimes, including stealing.
Even conjuration of existing matter makes for a whole new class of thief. And if the conjuror has qualms about crime, they can open the most effective express shipping company ever.
I think this first dawned on me when some Maharishis were trying to recruit me. If experienced meditators can really tap into infinite energy, you’d think that there’d be a lot of them exploding when a fly went up their nose. And honestly, it wouldn’t take more than a few Exojoules to wipe out a lot of real estate, and that’s far from infinite energy.
They’re not. But again, they can’t be.
dammit that was replying to UNnCivs JKR comment.
Ayo. When it comes to the counterfactual, the limitations are far more interesting than the powers.
Yes.
Got a plot problem? No problem… whisk it away like magic! 😉
Thanks for setting guidelines for your universe and sticking to them, Animal. One of the things I definitely appreciate in SF and Fantasy.
i found the magic in Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrel interesting… did not seem to have any clear rules or boundaries but it worked overall and did seem to have various limits
Hm. Hengist or his family would send for a healer then, seems they’ve the gold for it.
Do you believe?
I can’t remember, if he dies, is it impossible to remove the collar?
I believe so, yes.
Yes. If he dies, the collar stays on until she dies.
Ruh-roh. That never ends well.
Really?!
– George A. Custer
“Scooby and Shaggy, go check out the basement. I’ll be in the master bedroom with Daphne and Velma.”
Scooby says: Bow chicka wow wow….
Good line.
God bless the internet.
I think Musk bought Twitter just to troll. Trump has been reinstated but hasn’t rejoined yet. This is fantastic.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1594500655724609536?cxt=HHwWgIC-qb_55qAsAAAA
My breathless left wing friends keep telling me the new Twitter is a disaster, he’s a terrible manager, and the whole she-bang is going to collapse soon.
I’m enjoying the hell out of 2015 Twitter though.
What’s great is Musk and Trump don’t even get along. Musk just knows this is good for business.
Yes. He made the offer as a troll and then they pissed him off.
The “what does Musk know about Social Media or IT, he makes rockets and electric cars.” Comments I keep hearing from random idiots and pundits.
Much more than he knew about rockets and cars before he founded companies that dramatically changed both. He founded PayPal and other early internet companies, so IKT appeared to be more in his wheel house than rocket scientist and automotive engineer.
I’m not a fanboy for the guy, but give credit where it is due, the man via his companies has accomplished more than nearly anyone alive today. The fact that he took government money from direct subsidies and NASA funding doesn’t negate what he accomplished. If you wanted to make a rocket company and didn’t work with the largest customer, you would not be successful. If you are making electric cars and the gov is throwing money at you and your customers to buy your vehicles, you would be a fool to not take the money instead of Ford, GM, Toyota, or Nissan.
Not to mention Starlink… and a lot of the innovation for re-usability for Space-X from my (admittedly outsider) opinion is leveraging advances in IT. The AI to auto-land back on Of Course I Still Love You, the sensors and managing that data for each unit (test and otherwise), there’s a LOT of IT in what Elon’s been doing and I’ve always assumed he had some sense of herding the cats that are programmers and software developer types to get that done. (Even if it is in ways I can’t stand like feature locking in Tesla and all…).
The man doesn’t make rockets or cars or technology – he runs businesses.
He’s supposed to be pretty hands on with the processes, though… so I think he understands more than your average MBA type.
Cats are liquid
So why is it so difficult to exchange them for goods and services?
Not very portable and hard to sub divide.
I kept all my cats in a big vault, but after a few years they weren’t worth anything.
Until you open the vault, they’re in a superposition of worth and worthless.
Turns out that Mabinne is a fine and caring woman.
We gotta do something to help get Hengvist back on his feet and get that damned collar off.
Another great chapter, Animal, another long week to wait. Thanks
Another great chapter, Animal, another long week to wait.
Animal is actually making me look forward to Mondays.
Thanks?
Good story, no question. While Hengist seems like an OK guy, but I can’t shake the fact that he murdered her husband, raped her, and enslaved her. I wonder if she can.
<— Looks innocently skyward, volunteering no information.
Yeah, if I was him, I’d be very wary of taking that collar off.
Perhaps some wintertime crisis that Mabinne can deal with if he gives her powers back?
she could do a play on vagina dentata and freeze the schlong mid coitus and snap it off
I’m giving you gold here Animal, gold
I would only use a device like that if I was writing a musical.
Vagina dentata,
What a wonderful phrase.
Vagina dentata,
Ain’t no passing craze.
It means no weiner,
For the rest of your days,
It’s your weiner-free,
Girl cavity,
Vagina dentata!
(Apologies to webcomic artist Aeire.)
Queen of Wands was how I originally go into webcomics. So many of the author from that time have turned into self-righteous scolds.
David Willis (It’s Walky, Roomies, Dumbing of Age, Shortpacked) is a friend of ours, but frankly I just can’t get into his later work. He’s gone too woke for me. Lots of webcomics seem to have gone off the rails one way or another.
Heh… I used to read Shortpacked and some of Roomies — he started losing me when he basically restarted his whole universe and threw the later characters in with the earlier ones in college or something. (Dim memories — haven’t thought about that universe in years).
Only webcomics that have stayed with me the whole time would be GPF and Sluggy. Neither are woke or un-woke really… they just do their own thing and entertain. There’s a Sluggy somewhere in the archives (already at my link limit for this post so not going to try to find it) where Torg’s explaining elections to Kiki the (talking) ferret using two balls… with one side looking to squeeze everything they can out of your balls… and the other just wanting to take one of your balls for the poor or somesuch… So “irreverent” seems much more likely than “woke”.
I suspect the issue is the open-ended nature of the product. If you have to keep creating content on a deadline and don’t have a cohesive story to advance, your rails are slippery. It all depends on the creator how long they can keep it going.
It’s healthier to tell a story, put a pin in it when you wrap up an arc, then move on to a different story, even if it’s tantamount to creating a different comic.
who did not have a rough first date now and then lead to a relationship
Which also came back to mind when she blithely opened the door in today’s installment.
Call me nuts — but in a world of raping and pillaging marauder gangs (on both sides if we’re to believe Hengvist), I think I’d be a little more careful greeting strangers. Just sayin’.
Other random thought — and a sure indication I don’t hunt… but if you have a herd with several cows and only one bull (and an elder at that)… should you be taking the bull? Not sure if they can tell if the calves have a male within them, and I understand the male’s tusks are almost certainly larger and more valuable… but just thinking you’re risking this herd dying out if there isn’t another male in range (like if the bull drives off any competition or just kills male calves or something… what? It isn’t like anyone outside of the Ancient Apocalypse possible civilizations really recorded the full herd habits of wooly mammoths! 😉 )
“Call me nuts — but in a world of raping and pillaging marauder gangs (on both sides if we’re to believe Hengvist), I think I’d be a little more careful greeting strangers. Just sayin’.”
Yeah, I was half expecting her to be carried off by some other bandits.
JP Sears offers his unique take on Trump 2024
“I look forward to being homeless”.
Yeah.
Would it be a hate crime if a Bernie voter shot up a cowboy bar?
Of course not. Just like it’s not a hate crime when someone decided to run over a bunch of wypipo at a Chistmas parade.
Funny how the FBI didn’t investigate that one. Hmmm.
well cowboys are kinda gay
At the very least, they’re frequently secretly fond of each other…
Apropos.
also what % of cowboys are POC?
also are there furries who call themselves cow boys?
So many questions
During the actual historical period of driving herds to stockyards for transport to packing plants? Quite a few, depending if you consider Mexicans POS or not.
if you consider Mexicans POS – I do not you racist
Based on my very limited anecdotal dataset, not many in the US (unless you include Mexicans, and even then, not all that many).
“…also are there furries who call themselves cow boys?
Here, let me Google that for you…
*Googles*
Um…hmm. Huh. That is something.
I’ll be in my bunk.
Grats to any Aggie Glibs
https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2022/11/15/texas-am-meat-judging-team-wins-national-title/
Bro Dean is an Aggie. I’ll be sure to mention this when we get together for the holiday.
If that competition does not immediately precede a BBQ championship, I will be disappointed.
Uh oh.
Fantastic chapter, Animal!
This is a turn I didn’t see coming.
Finally we get to see who the world’s greatest nation is… The United States or Wales.
“How many countries are in this country?”
If we go by mascots — have to say, a dragon would take down an eagle pretty readily….
Nah man. The Eagle’s too fast.
You don’t need speed, just cunning.
Sadly for the Dragon, it doesn’t exist, and thus lacks any cognitive ability.
Careful — too much logic on such things and you’ll be killed in a zebra crossing.
Not if Jesus was aboard.
Wait, Jesus was a broad? I must have been absent that day is Sunday School
Wales, not quite as big as New Jersey.
Great story Animal. I’m still curious about her growing love for him, is it real or an effect of the collar.
Also in memory of one of my favorite authors who died today:
Petra by Greg Bear:
https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781618249401/9781618249401___4.htm
“ ‘God is dead, God is dead’ . . . Perdition! When God dies, you’ll know it.”
Spectacular colorized footage from 1907 of the arrival in Helsinki of the Tarmo, a Finnish steam-powered icebreaker.
I understand Finnish are often socially awkward so a good icebreaker is necessary
Well, they do love to tangle
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18925633
I like how people are just casually running and walking around the ship as it breaks through the ice.
They’re not even stopping to take selfies.
Knowing many Finns it didn’t surprise me.
Weird but fearless.
Yes! A car even ran in front of it. No one seems concerned.
They call them shitcoins for a reason.
https://twitter.com/coryklippsten/status/1512539530682806275
Studying for my medical coding course. If I read “pregnant people” one more time I’m going to rip this book in half like Jamie Somers did that telephone book on Bionic Woman.
Perhaps a … pause before taking Rash action.
Something about this comment makes me itch.
You’ve just scratched the surface.
I’m not sure this is going to fly with much of the country.
‘The votes are in… there’s no ballot stuffing, there’s no ‘fowl’ play — the only ‘red wave’ this season is going to be a German Shepherd, Commander, that knocks over the cranberry sauce on our table’
🙄
well cowboys are kinda gay
Willie does not approve
One of my clients just clicked on a phishing link, and it sent her to The Epoch Times. What the hell?