Cold obsidian

“Oh, wonderful!” Kangassk gulped. “Then I’d better build the fire right away. At least I’ll feel safer.”

He didn’t even look at the tinderbox. Most likely he didn’t even know what a tinderbox was. Why would a Kuldagan dweller even need such a thing to make a fire? They have dragonlighters for that.

Kan promptly fished the dragonlighter out of his pocket. The pocket dragon was squeaking, clawing at his jacket, and trying to squirm out of his grasp. The little thing had just eaten all the tasty crumbles Kan poured into the pocket, so it was too full and sleepy to work, no wonder it was fighting back.

“See, this is a lighter,” said Kangassk, showing the dragon to Vlada. “Just squeeze it in your hand and – whoosh! – you have fire.”

Then he did squeeze the little dragon in his hand and moved its snout above the brushwood. The branches were a bit damp, so it took them some time to catch fire.

“See!” said Kan, clearly proud of himself. “Lighters are cool! We…”

There came a thin farting sound… Kan stopped dead mid-sentence, swore, and opened his hand. There was a grey foul-smelling spot on his palm.

“You little shit!” he roared.

Vlada had several minutes of good laugh as she watched Kangassk chase the rebellious dragon in the tall grass. The nimble little creature apparently had a lot of fun as well. After its owner had tired himself out and dropped the chase it quietly returned to its nest in the jacket.

It took way longer for Vlada to calm down. She burst out laughing every time she looked at Kangassk.

“He either has a rear valve defect like half of the lighters have or maybe he’s just an uppish beast…” Kan tried to explain, so hilariously embarrassed it only made Vlada’s fits of laughter worse.

Sasler didn’t quite understand what had just happened down there but seeing the kids laugh he couldn’t help but smile himself. He wished he could warn them somehow.

The young adventurers went to sleep without leaving a lookout. They trusted their chargas to keep them safe. The beasts had keen hearing and could see in the dark as well as cats do. On top of all that they were huge, sharp-toothed, long-clawed, and insanely fast. The kids carelessly used them as fluffy pillows at the moment, but if Sasler had attempted to approach the camp the beasts would be at his throat in no time. Approaching the kids in the daytime was a no go as well. This way he’d have to deal with the nervous young archer as well as chargas.

That night Sasler went to sleep with a heavy heart.

Riding a charga is like riding a wind. Kan read about the nomads who lived on the edge of the civilized parts of Omnis and rode the tall beasts with cloven feet. The nomads’ legs bent in as a result of so much harsh riding, their backs suffered as well. No charga rider ever faced such problems. Chargas run as lightly as they walk.

The day went well. Nobody bothered the travellers, the ancient woods didn’t slow chargas much. Kangassk, a desert dweller to the bone as he was, finally put up with the forest. It didn’t seem so “haunted” in the bright sunlight, after all. Also, Vlada’s unruffled composure reassured him every time his fears tried to return.

Twice they stopped to rest and eat during the day, on the third stop they made a camp. Kan volunteered to make a fire again. This time the pocket dragon did his job without accidents. Soon, the tired company was chilling out after a long day, waiting for the soup to boil in the cauldron. Vlada’s charga was busy grooming her spotted coat, very cat-like. Kan’s charga curled up by the fire. As for the tired people, they watched the sun slowly sink beyond the forest, each filling the silence with their own thoughts.

After the simple, but filling supper Kangassk fished a book out of his backpack and leaned against his charga’s furry side to read.

“I see you with this book every time we camp,” said Vlada cheerfully, “What is it about?”

“This is the Encyclopedia of No Man’s Land,” he replied with a hint of pride in his voice and demonstrated the dusty cover to Vlada. The title was barely visible there.

Vlada nodded respectfully. Kangassk couldn’t help wondering whether the young warrior could read at all, but dropped the thought quickly for he had no desire to make a fool of himself by underestimating her again.

Suddenly inspired, Kan decided to go not for a summary, but a real paragraph instead. He started reading, his confidence fading with every page. After having read five of them he had to admit he had gravely overestimated himself. The text looked as alien to him as if it had been written in a foreign language.

“Why would someone write like that?” He spat out a curse. “You must really hate your students to torture them so.”

With a deep sigh, Kangassk gave up. He turned over a few pages and found the summary translating the muddy paragraph into a proper human speech.

“…It took the worldholders thousands of years to refine the magical system of Omnis. The problem with stabilizing the magic field emerged right after the creation of Hora Tenebris, the central generator of magic in the young world. Many living creatures are capable of stabilizing magic on their own, but humankind does not possess that ability. Since unstable magic was impossible to control, humans needed an artificial stabilizing system.

The prototype stabilizing system consisting of dozens of small stabilizers equally distributed across the continent turned out to be ineffective and dangerous. The catastrophe that followed its test is described on page 568 of “The Sources of Magic”, vol. 21).

The next system was based on two high-capacity stabilizers: ember Hora Solaris and moonstone Hora Lunaris. Each of them had an effective radius half of that of Hora Tenebris. They were placed on the opposite sides of the continent to equalize each other and provide a stable magic field for humankind to use.

The area where their zones of influence intersect and cancel each other is known as No Man’s Land, an anomalous, unstable magic region.”

“Listen, Vlada!” Kangassk remembered all of a sudden. “I wanted to ask… Well, I heard a lot of scary stories about the Burnt Region back in Aren-castell. Do you know what happened there for real after the gold rush?”

“It’s a long story, Kan,” said Vlada in a saddened voice, scratching her purring charga’s chin.

“Just tell it to me in a nutshell. Pretty please?” Kan pleaded, with the cutest smile he could manage.

“Okay. In a nutshell,” Vlada gave in, “This region fell into complete anarchy during the gold rush. Lots of people from South and North flocked there. Little villages sprang up along the banks of the mountain rivers. People washed gold, traded gold, fought over gold. Add the region’s unique properties, those considering gunpowder, to the mix to get the idea what local wars looked like. You’ve seen the shell cases on the old road… In the end, half of the region turned into a burned wasteland. That was when it had gotten the name.”