Sword of Might Chapter 1

Chapter I

The wind howled menacingly in the darkness which cloaked the world outside the time-and-weather-worn croft. Jerrod huddled closer to the hearth, trying to absorb at least a modicum of the inadequate heat that the fire there produced. Unfortunately, whatever heat came from the small blaze was absorbed by the unseasonable cold that gripped Seremoreh. Even the warm, yellow light of the fire seemed curiously dim as if it was much further away than the stride or so it actually was.

"Probably another of the pointless pranks that the old buffoon calls tests," surmised Jerrod. "When will he finally give me something worthy of the talents which he himself has said are the greatest of those of any of his pupils since Felonim?" Gathering mana about him he focused his spirit and his will into a thaumaturgic trance. A quick motion of his left hand combined with the uttering of a minor word of power to infuse his clothes with a warmth of their own which went far beyond their normal insulating effects.

"There," Jerrod thought self-satisfiedly, "that should suffice to pass the test." Moments passed, and the unnatural chill had only slightly abated. "Curious," Jerrod mused, "that should have been more than enough to warm me under any normal circumstances. Oh well, I suppose that would have been too simple a solution. Gathering his energies once more, he invoked the spirit of the flame in the hearth and requested its aid in warming the room. The fire flared quickly and began burning with a crackling roar that went further toward breaking the chill and gloom that had crept in from the outside.

Finally in a state which approached something like warmth, Jerrod began to reflect once more upon the peculiar events which had transpired over the last five-day. First, the frost had come. It was no normal frost, but a frost like that found only during the deepest part of Winter in the highest of mountains. Those who had hoped to produce the much-valued late-harvest wines for which the local region of Rai Valley was famous had been devastated as their fruit turned to ice on the vine. How could such a frost occur so close to Harvest time? Such a strange happenstance at the temperate latitudes of the Silver Sea was unheard of in the annals of Seremoran history. And the frost was no freak event that had passed with the coming of the sun the next day. No, a wintry chill had gripped the land ever since and it showed no signs of abating. The cold had wrought even more permanent damage as few of the local peasants had bothered to replenish their winter stores of wood and coal so early in the Autumn. Families shivered as househeads trudged out into the blustery winds to gather whatever fuel that they could from trees that resisted the axe almost as if their sap had turned into veins of adamantium within them.

Not only the human inhabitants of the land had suffered. The cracked and rime-covered trees were also clearly casualties of the unnatural winter. Even the sturdiest of branches bowed under the weight of the ice that covered them. Any lesser limbs had snapped like the merest of dry twigs under the boot of the Lord of the Frozen Lands. The most unfortunate victims of the chill, however, seemed to be the fish and fowl that had been abundant throughout the region. The fish were trapped in ice that formed in the pools and streams so quickly that they could not reach deep water. Those birds that were not frozen before they could escape to more tropical climes were starving because the snow and the frost had covered their food sources on the ground. Their carcasses littered the earth throughout the woods near the master's hut.

As if the unprecedented freeze were not enough, two days after it began, the master had disappeared without a word to Jerrod. While Astall frequently disappeared, he almost never did so without leaving Jerrod detailed instructions about caring for his garden of herbs and magical flora and his divers collection of small animals. Both the fauna and the garden were surviving, but only barely. The garden had escaped the fate of its outdoor kin only because it was protected by both the roof of the croft and the magic of the master mage. The beasts and bugs were also protected somewhat by the roof of the croft, and like Jerrod they fought to ensnare even the tiniest filaments of heat that wafted out from the hearth.

The cold and the disappearance of his mentor had combined to create a situation that did not bode well for Jerrod or for the denizens of the valley which had been under the care of the master mage. When Jerrod's teacher had disappeared without a word in the past, it had never been for more than a day and only twice in dire emergencies had even that long passed. With each passing of the sun, Jerrod grew more worried. Since his apprenticeship was nearly finished, Jerrod felt a growing weight of responsibility to do something to save the valley and its residents before the ice and howling wind stole not only the meager heat that fires were able to generate, but the lives of those who had survived the initial blasts.

Unfortunately, Jerrod had no idea how to do that. He was now in the process of poring over the master's magical and historical tomes to find some hint as to what was going on not only in the valley of Rijstafel but across the rolling landscape of all of Seremoreh. So far he had a great deal of luck -- all bad. He had not the least inkling as to what had unleashed the unseasonable and unreasonable cold. Until he knew more than he did at present there should be little that he could do to help. Even if he did find out what had caused the Lord of the Frozen Lands to visit, he could conceive of little that he could do to combat so fierce a blast of winter. The master, on the other hand, could undoubtedly solve the problem with his skill in the three realms of magic: thaumaturgy, sorcery, and wizardry; or perhaps his knowledge of alchemy and herbal lore (although the latter did seem a bit more far-fetched). Well, undoubtedly was perhaps too strong a word, since the master had not solved it yet and might even have abandoned everyone in the valley to an icy fate.

"Stop that," Jerrod admonished himself, "as the master has shown me, negative attitudes lead to negative results. Besides the master has undoubtedly gone to effect a solution to the wintry weather that required both time and solitude. In his haste to accomplish so important a task, he merely neglected to leave his customary instructions with me. I will certainly be receiving word from him soon."

Jerrod was startled out of his reverie by a staccato hammering on the door. "It's as if I'm living one of those tales told to children by elders at a fireside," Jerrod mused. He moved toward the door with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. No villager would be out in this wretched weather by choice and any traveler who had arrived at this late hour would have had to have pushed on for at least two hours past dusk, the hour when wayfarers customarily set up camp, so whoever it was must be either in dire straits or at least had business which was imperative. "That is presuming it's not a band of cutthroats," Jerrod mused. "But no bandits would dare assault the abode of so great a mage as the master, and, anyway, they wouldn't knock."