Cold obsidian

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.”

“What was its name before?” Kan got curious.

“Green Hills Region”.

“Okay. Sorry for interrupting you. What happened next?”

“One of the gangs took over the region in the end. A man from Kuldagan, Crogan, was the leader. I have no idea which city he came from, but it sure wasn’t your Aren-castell. His thugs destroyed whatever future the region had. People prefer not to enter it any more. That means no trade. Everyone who could leave has left this place. Now the Burnt Region is just Crogan’s base where he returns after raiding the neighbouring regions.”

“What’s that guy like?”

“He’s a bloodthirsty monster if you ask me.”

Crogan had had hiccups for the whole day as if someone, according to a popular superstition, was thinking of him and not in a good way. His old wounds started aching, too, which made his mood even worse.

The leader of the dark horde poured himself a goblet of wine and sprawled on the sofa by the fireplace. His pet hyena, a gentle puppy to her dear owner but a vile, snappish creature to everyone else, rested her shaggy head on his feet. Crogan always had a soft spot for hyenas, preferring them to dogs. Once in a while, he let his pets tear some unfortunate prisoner apart to keep them happy. He was a kind master.

Crogan’s stone house looked quite cosy, at least until his guests learned that there was a torture chamber in the basement. Judging by all the hunting trophies and furs in the rooms you could think it belonged to an old hunter. A very religious old hunter, you might add after noticing the exquisite porcelain statuettes of the Three in the red corner. No servant was allowed to touch them. Crogan himself dusted the statues every day, before the prayer. He prayed quite often and with passion. It helped him to feel better about himself and always made his conscience, whatever left of it, shut up if it tried something.

“My lord!” someone shouted behind the door. “Your son has arrived!”

“Send him in,” ordered Crogan and took another sip from the goblet.

Young Crogan, named after his glorious father, was just twelve years old but looked like a proper thug already. His father thought the lad had a great future. He didn’t tell his son this, of course. Presumptuous kids are too much trouble.

“Well, well, son,” the crime lord smacked his lips, “I’ve got some news about your new adventures today. Would you kindly remind me what I told you to do?”

“You wanted me to collect the tax from Goldygate,” mumbled young Crogan.

“Yeees. And you did what?”

“Dad, I…”

“Shut up!” old Crogan roared. “The Three will punish you! Do you know how they punish those who disobey their parents?”

“But I…” the son tried to defend himself again.

“They will throw you into a fire pit,” he smashed his fist on the armrest, “The hottest fire pit, high in a…”

That was the moment when Crogan’s pet hyena heard a familiar word which made her jump with joy, eyes burning with hunger, teeth snapping. She thought it was that time again! Time to tear somebody apart! Fun time!

“Dad…” Young Crogan turned marble-white. “Dad, please, no hyenas…”

The crime lord stopped dead mid sermon. It took him a whole minute to realize what had just happened. All this time his son was staring at him with wide eyes, absolutely terrified, while his hyena was dancing about, yelping, snapping, waiting anxiously for the command to kill.

“You little fool!” Old Crogan roared again, this time with laughter soon followed by his son’s relieved sniggering. “Okay, you’ve learned your lesson,” said old Crogan, almost good-naturedly now, “What was that you wanted to tell me?”