Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

I made the other three tubes and then added half of a disc to partially close one end off. That would be the back and it would let someone touch the enchantment to launch it from the tube. I didn't need to do that myself, since I could do it remotely; but, the mages couldn't. They needed contact to do it.

The construction crew came back and dragged a huge tree behind them. They stripped it of bark and branches in seconds, then started cutting it up into the pieces they would need.

“We're ready.” One of the weight mages said from my front door.

I stood and went inside to my work room and there were two coins there. One had a very elaborate drawing on it, full of unnecessary swirls and images, which told me that it was a crest of a house. As an enchantment, it would be useless. The other one, however... I picked it up and studied it.

“My grandfather designed the family crest with that as a base.” One of them said. “It showed off our secret and kept it hidden at the same time, so even if people who studied enchantments exclusively, would see that it was gibberish and would think it wasn't real.”

“Do you know where he got this design?” I asked, very curious, because I recognized it. It was exactly like the one that was in the enchantment book that I had hidden. It was also a mess of extra lines and more magic channels than necessary. It would take a lot of magic to charge this thing up. After years of doing it and carving it myself, I knew that the full enchantment would achieve something besides what I had been using it for.

Negative weight.

“No. He just revealed it one day after coming back from a long trip.” The other mage said. “Now you know the family secret.”

I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “I'm glad you didn't try to lie this time.”

“You know it's real? How?”

“I told you that I can recognize the markings, even if I can't read the descriptions.”

“We felt the difference and the sameness in your enchantment.” The first man said. “We know it's more efficient. Please, please show us.”

“I'll do better than that. I'll show you how to carve it.”

“Thank you!” They gasped at the same time.

“You don't know what this will mean to our family.” One of them said. “Mother is going to faint.”

“Or ask for your hand... after she disowns our father.” The other joked and they both laughed.

I flipped over the wooden coin and used the pencil to draw out the very simplified weight enchantment with the intentional errors I had incorporated. “Do you do engravings yourselves?”

“No, our uncle does them.”

“Sharp tools are essential, as is the angle and groove left.” I said and deliberately showed them how to carve it with the errors. An altered magic channel only let it accept so much magic and a truncated weight reduction let it only negate about 70% of the weight. It was nearly identical to their own; just a lot of the other marks, lines, and grooves were unnecessary and I had left them out.

“By the Son's Light.” One of them said. “May I?”

I nodded and he infused it like a potion to activate it. It glowed for ten seconds and the other mage took in a sharp breath.

“Brother! You did it!” He exclaimed and hugged the other man. “You've never activated an enchantment before!”

“I'm not even tired!” His brother said, quite happy.

“I want to try it.” The first one said and I pointed to the workbench. A drop of number ten potion later, he channelled some magic into the enchantment and he moved the desk around as if it was weightless.

“That was the easy part.” I said and they both looked at me. “Now we have to take that one foot wide coin and make it 4 inches across.”

“What? But... the tools...”

“Smaller lines, grooves, and marks.” I said. “Scaling is the problem. It's going to take some practice to get it right.”

“Or smaller tools.” One of the men said and his eyes widened. “Private Drake! Cut your tools in half!”

“What?”

“If we need smaller tools to carve, then make them. Your knife can cut a lot of things, so bisect your wood carving tools. You can buy new tools later, assuming you ever want to go back to making enchantments full size again.”

It took a bit of trial and error on an old chisel to figure out the best way to do what he said, then I sliced my good engraving tools right down the middle, making twice the blades for them to use. Some number ten potion and an added piece of wood to round out the handles again for ease of gripping, and the two of them started practising on scrap wood to show me the difference.

They also showed me a neat way to make things smaller. They drew lines across and up and down on the large original one that was still attached to the workbench, then drew the same number of lines onto a smaller round piece of wood. Then they copied what was between those lines onto the smaller version in the right spaces.

“There we go. One small enchantment.” One of the brothers said and handed me the piece of wood. “It won't enchant like that, though. You need stronger wood.”

I went outside and grabbed the small four inch coins and brought them back inside. “Do it on these.” I handed them six of them. “I'll do the movement enchantments.”

They nodded and got to work, and so did I. I used their copying technique and made the inefficient movement enchantment to fit on the four inch wide circle of wildwood. I used my knife, since the tools were currently being used by the two brothers. I was still done before they were and infused the small enchantments. It took only a fraction of the same magic that the large one used, too.

“They work! They took our magic!” The brothers said loudly.

I looked at them and felt that they really had done it. “Good work. Let's go test them.”

“Yes, sir!” They said and gathered them up. I grabbed the movement ones and we went outside. I was quite happy to see two of the small catapult braces had been built.

“We can't finish the other two until we get more rope.” One of the construction crew members said.

“We only need one to test for now.” I said and they cranked down the closest one. “You put it on a swivel?”

“You need to aim it.” The man said with a smile.

“Thanks.” I said and picked up six logs and applied number ten potion to attach the weight enchantments to the end and then the movement enchantment on top of that. I slid one into the tube and activated the weight enchantment, then took a deep breath.

“Everyone back.” Mage Lukas said and they all stepped away.

I concentrated and touched the movement enchantment on the bottom of the log inside the tube that was angled up at a forty-five degree angle. I slammed it full of magic and the log rattled slightly in the tube for a second and then shot out like a crossbow bolt. All of our eyes watched it go about 60 feet up into the air, curve, and fall back to the ground a fairly good distance away.

“That was great.” Mage Lukas said, not quite enthusiastically, and the construction crew laughed. “What's so funny?”

“That was a dry test to see how fast it was.” One of the men said as I loaded another log. “Now we'll see what it can do when properly launched.”

“I don't know what you mean.” Mage Lukas said as I charged up the second log.

I put my hand on the lever on the side that would release the rope under tension, then I shoved magic into the enchantment and pulled the lever. The small catapult sprang up as the movement enchantment activated and most of them couldn't follow the thing with their eyes, because it moved so fast.

“WOOO-EEEE!” One of the construction men yelled loudly. “I can't even tell where it went! Ha ha!”

“I can follow the enchantment to get it back.” I said. “The problem is a flat log isn't going to do much.”

“Carve it to a point.” One of the construction men said. “It might work.”

“Not on a dragon.” Another said. “We'd need a metal tip and as sharp as possible.”

“We can use short swords.” Mage Henrietta said and we all turned to look at her. “The strike team has a pile of them in the supplies as backup weapons.”

“That... that might do it.” I said as I thought about it. “If we remove the handles and insert the tang into the top of the log...”

“...all of that force the movement and catapult launcher adds to it will go directly into the blade.” Mage Lukas said. “Even a dragon couldn't stand for long with several of them hitting it at once.”

“We only have four of them and limited ammunition.” Mage Henrietta said.

I walked over to the other large wooden mold and tapped it. It was solid, so I tipped it up and out popped a five foot by five foot piece of wildwood that was two inches thick.

“I've been meaning to ask what you were going to do with all that glue.” Mage Lukas asked.

“Cut it up and enchant it.” I said and charged my knife. I cut it up into 25 one foot wide squares, then cut each square into 9 smaller squares. I did the 'attach to a log' trick to roll them in a circle and cut off the corners to make them all round.

“Good god.” Mage Henrietta whispered as I now had 225 round wildwood coins to enchant.

“The setup takes longer than the actual work does.” Mage Lukas repeated my words with a laugh.

“We'll get more logs and more construction materials!” The construction crew said and left again.

“I'll keep an eye on them.” Mage Lukas said and followed them.

“Mage Henrietta, I need your services.” I said and she came over to me. I had to take one of the sets of engraving tools from the brothers to let her work on making the limited movement enchantments. Surprisingly, she got it on the first try. I gave her a knowing look and she gave me a demure smile in return. “Work well.” I whispered and split the pile of coins, then went to gather more springy trees.

Thanks to the remaining three pots of number ten potion, I could make eight more tubes per pot with enough materials. I wouldn't have the time to do that many, so instead I reinforced the already completed ones and refilled the mold with springy trees and potion. They set by the time the construction crew came back with another large log to make the bases and another two dozen logs of the right size for ammunition.

I made four more tubes and they built the bracket for the launchers. We still didn't have ropes, so that part would have to wait until we went back to the others. I reinforced the new tubes as well, then used the fortifying waterproof potion on the catapult brackets. Everyone stared as the wood greyed slightly and became very strong.

“M-m-marry me.” Mage Henrietta moaned. “Please... I need... good lord in heaven.” She whispered. “You are a treasure beyond measure.”

I walked over to her and touched her shoulder. “Keep carving.” I said and shared a little bit of magic with her.

“Mmmm!” Mage Henrietta clamped her mouth closed to stop herself from being louder. “You... you are wrecking my composure, David.” She said and looked up at me with longing. “You are too good to be true.”

_______________

You have a choice to make. It will only affect your standing with Mage Henrietta and the Henrietta family.

A) Agree. B) Deny it. C) Lie. D) Tell the truth. E) Show her your magic potential. F) Choose two.

Maybe she'll get my point if she knows what I can really do. I'll choose D and then E.

_______________

“I'm not good.” I said and leaned down to whisper in her ear to make the petrified hand dangle down in front of her face. “That's a real human hand. I caught him stealing from me and he got away with it, so I took it.”

Mage Henrietta trembled and I smiled.

“I had two other hands. One is back at the garrison and the other was taken by the drill sergeant at training camp. Both men attacked me. I killed the one that was a mage.”

She looked at me with wide eyes.

“I've also killed a man for insulting a woman and for killing her husband.”

“Diane.” Mage Henrietta whispered and I nodded. “You took her for yourself.”

“It didn't happen like that. She was grateful that I had come back the next season instead of staying away and I helped stock her store.”

Mage Henrietta didn't respond.

“I'm not a nice...” I started to say and she reached up to touch my mouth.

“Don't lie.” Mage Henrietta said with sly smile. “Diane may have gotten to you first; but, she's just as bad as I am for wanting you for what you can do.”

“I'm covered in torture scars.”

“I don't care what you look like. You haven't seen me turn away from looking at your face, have you?” Mage Henrietta asked and I shook my head. “All you've done was protect yourself and avenge a wrong done to a friend. I don't see an evil person when I look at you. I see a man who's been through hell and lived.” She stood up and turned to face me. “You're a man that will change things.”

“But...”

“You've already changed things and more change is coming.” Mage Henrietta whispered. “I am very close to falling in love with you and we haven't even kissed yet.” She said and put her arms around my neck.

“Wait...”

“No.” She said and kissed me as she pushed her magic into me. My mind kind of went on automatic with most of my face tingling and I kissed her back. She moaned as my magic went into her in return and I suddenly remembered doing the same thing with the Hag. It had felt absolutely amazing to have sex and share magic, and I knew without a doubt that Mage Henrietta knew that, too.

Mage Henrietta felt the magic potential between us and broke the kiss as she looked into my eyes. “Did you know that it's rare for nobles to actually love their spouses?”

I shook my head no.

“We could be one of the first.” Mage Henrietta said and surprised me by kissing my damaged cheek. She let go of my neck and rubbed her hands on my chest briefly. “Now get to work and assemble the ammunition.”

“Yes, ma'am.” I said and did exactly that. I knew an order when I heard one.

It took a while to get everything all set up properly and we all worked hard to finish as quickly as possible. Once we had exhausted nearly everything, I put the tools and supplies back into the house and locked and sealed it up. The crew loaded up the boat with everything and it was very crowded as they all got in.

I activated the weight enchantment and easily pushed the boat off of the dry area and into the water, then hopped in myself. I activated the movement enchantment and Mage Henrietta only moaned a little and hugged my arm closely as we travelled back to where the others were waiting for us.