Moments after awakening, the constellations moved, and I caught a large cluster of lights. Oddly enough, they mostly seemed to revolve around singing, dancing, and musical performance in general.
The entire rumbled and shook for a long moment, tossing me back onto my bed until it subsided. Confused and concerned, I left the fabricator room and immediately noticed two new doors had appeared in the entry space. One was small, the size of a closet door, while the other was a great double door that stood from floor to ceiling.
The smaller door held, surprisingly, a very large closet full of clothing. It was well-lit, with a chair and a mirror near the door. The clothes themselves ranged from the mundane but high quality to the nearly scandalous. I blushed, holding up a two-piece outfit that couldn't cover more than a full square foot.
There were shoes, boots, heels, all manner of footwear. Overclothes, underclothes, hats, gloves. Accessories all laid out on racks, bracelets and necklaces and more besides.
Looking through it all, I was really happy to have it. I'd not been much of a clothes person, but the only thing I'd had to wear since I got here were these parkas. Picking through the collection, I found a long-sleeved blue dress. It was divided at the waist, seeming whole yet both legs were covered fully. The neckline was high enough to suit me, just above the collarbone.
Finding some proper undergarments wasn't difficult. Trying everything on, I looked myself over in the mirror. Aside from the messy hair, I felt it was a severe improvement.
A pair of black leather boots and gloves joined the ensemble. After working my hair into a reasonable approximation of neatness, I was pleased with my appearance for the first time in a long while. All I needed was a little bit of makeup and a proper brush and it'd be perfect.
New outfit acquired, I poked my head through the double door and goggled at the sight that greeted me.
It was a large hangar, easily mistaken for a garage but for the sleek aircraft within.
Walking forward, I examined the craft. It superficially resembled a blockier F-14. It was done up in neutral whites and tans with no visible logos or markings.
Climbing up the short ladder to the cockpit, I felt an odd déjà vu as I looked within. It felt familiar in a way I couldn't place.
I settled into the chair, running my hands over the controls. A moment of hesitation, and I flicked a few switches in an order I recognized as the startup sequence. The instrumentation flickered to life as power flowed through the craft, and a loud, low whine started behind me. A few more switches flipped and knobs turned, and the whine became a roar, loud enough I was regretting not having ear protection on hand.
I closed the cockpit, feeling the thrum of the engines behind me reverberating through my body. My hands reached out and touched a lever, before pulling it.
The seat jolted as the cockpit seemed to dip forward, while simultaneously risings. The instrument panels followed the chair as the canopy slid forward into a vertical position, then armor plating slid over and obscured my view of the hangar. A series of whines and resonant clicks filled my ears for the next few moments as a large panel slid forward in front of me and connected to the instruments, then flickered to life.
It was a screen, showing a view of the hangar from a higher perspective. The controls had shifted as well, but I maneuvered the sensors as though I'd done it for years.
Looking down at the craft, it had become a humanoid mech. Two arms, two legs.
I flipped the lever back, and everything reverted to the aircraft format. Shutting it all down, I leaned back in the surprisingly comfortable chair and smiled broadly.
I didn't know what this was, but it very much seemed designed for combat. Some sort of… Variable fighter? Variable mech?
Either way, it represented the solution to a whole host of my problems. This thing was bound to be packed full of all manner of advanced engineering I might be able to repurpose. There was a set of operations documents in a small locker, and retrieving them, I set to reading.
There was a great deal of technical information on the craft, the documents revealing it to be a Northrom VF-1S all-environment variable fighter and tactical combat battroid. Battroid apparently was a portmanteau of the words Battle and Android used to describe the humanoid configuration.
I whistled at the performance specs. A walking(!) speed of over one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, Mach two point seven one at ten thousand meters, and Mach three point eight seven at thirty thousand meters. In the intermediate stage between fighter and battroid mode, it could walk at a hundred kilometers per hour while maintain a five hundred kilometer per hour flight speed.
It was powered by two six-hundred-and-fifty-megawatt thermonuclear reaction turbines, technology that seemed far above the ecotech I had access to. Nuclear power plants in a combat aircraft seemed like absolute madness. Those two plants producing more than a gigawatt combined could power a large city! Easily!
The only downside that I could see was that they only needed to be fueled once every twelve years. Ha! What a downside that was!
The craft wasn't even unarmed, for all that it had no external weapon pods attached. The sensor package was placed below the cockpit in fighter mode and was the head of the battroid. It had four Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannons mounted atop it, each with a wide swivel arc and firing six thousand pulses per minute.
Four anti-aircraft laser cannons could probably ward off a large number of Wights, or slavers, or anything else I could think of.
The immediate concern, then, was what exactly had these machines been built to combat? Whatever it was, it required an engineering solution so incredibly insane as to render conventional warfare obsolete. Why build a jet that turned into a fourteen-meter-tall infantryman?
The maintenance documentation was incredibly detailed and in depth. There were a massive host of potential problems, solutions, and part labels. Trying to keep this thing going without the specialized equipment it needed would be difficult, but not quite impossible. Only borderline impossible.
As far as replacement parts went, I could just toss the whole thing into the recycler. A conspicuous set of ports along the far wall of the hangar clued me into that possibility. That didn't solve the problem of individual part failures, and if it were to be damaged and pieces lost, I'd not be able to build another unless I happened to have the resources in the fabricator.
Otherwise, my best bet was to take it apart piece by piece and recycle each individual component. I might be able to use the One Power to substitute the tools and other equipment I'd need for that, but I'd have to practice my fine control lest I ruin some irreplaceable component.
The false earthquake earlier had distracted me from that one-time information dump that the lights give me. I took my time reaching out with that ethereal arm to examine the new lights.
Eleven lights in total, all surrounding one that seemed as faint as any but extended some sort of aura over the others in the cluster. Almost as though the brightness of most of the lights was diminished one or two steps.
Five revolved around singing and performance. The smallest of those was a really basic ability to sing decently, one gave a boost to my reflexes. Another gave me the ability to remember and improvise lyrics, the fourth was a sort of intuitive empathy, and the fifth was complicated. Projecting emotions through my performance, if my interpretation of the vague feelings I got from the light was accurate. That could come in pretty useful, I could sing to lift people's mood or demoralize enemies and anything in between.
Aside from those, one of the largest lights in the cluster was another leadership boost. A greater charisma and the dubious "ability" to portray myself as a true representative of my beliefs. The passion I had for my ideals would show through my voice and posture whether I want it to or not.
Another of the smallest lights was training to operate the variable fighter. That, at least, explained how I could even turn the thing on in the first place. The other three were the closet of clothes, the hangar, and the fighter itself.
Well.
I'd not been the most musically inclined before, and I still didn't feel any urge to go and become some sort of performer, but I could work with it.
So far, these lights hadn't contained anything useless to me, for which I was thankful. The hangar could make for more emergency habitation, considering the whole pocket dimension seemed to be maintaining a comfortable temperature. Having a whole array of perfectly fitted clothes was a peculiar gift considering I could have just made some, but the myriad styles present gave me plenty of options.
Who knows, maybe it would give me an actual place to sleep one of these days? Not that my improvised bedroom wasn't great for what it was, but it certainly wasn't intended to be a place for someone to sleep.
Anyway, I had business to be about. Opening up the cockpit, I stepped out of the fighter and descended the ladder.
I made my way outside, noticing the sun had risen pretty far. It was late morning or thereabouts. Breathing the cool air, I stretched deeply before setting to work.
Wyck carefully moved the knife, cutting a tiny sliver off of the lump of wood he held. Slice, breathe, slice, breathe.
Eyeing it closely, he reckoned he'd cut a little too deeply that last time. It was a small mistake, but it wouldn't ruin the carving. He could make up for it.
How long had it been since he'd had the time to whittle? It seemed years, but it couldn't have been more than a few moonturns. Things had been hard since those buggering hornfoots had raided, killing and stealing half their people.
Taegj had kept them together, as much good it had done them. Why not go join Ellir's group? As far as clan mothers went, she was one of the better ones. She said she was one of Raymund Redbeard's clan, back when the King-Beyond-The-Wall gathered the largest raiding force in centuries.
Cut, breathe, a gentle slice dropping a curl of wood to the snow.
She was old, old enough for that, and she'd been open about her disdain for the man. Seemed to Wyck that anyone who could get the clans to work together was plenty legendary. Why else would there be so many songs about him?
Half the men he knew claimed the blood of Redbeard, or Bael the Bard, or Gorne. Wyck knew his father, and his father's father, and that was enough for him. What did blood matter? Might as well act like a Kneeler king, prancing about obsessing about blood and gold.
The wooden lump was taking good form now, a rough oblong. Wyck looked it over, judging it. Good enough, he'd made up for his earlier mistake.
He'd been on the edge of leaving for Antler Point for weeks now. He was a decent hunter, a decent fighter, and they'd have taken him. It was the way of things. Things fall apart, you leave for another clan. He'd heard about some that stuck together till the bitter end, but those were always the ones lead by the worst chiefs. Taegj wasn't as bad as some he'd known, and that was the only reason he'd stuck around as long as he had.
Then she came. Wyck hadn't known how to take the short woman at first. He remembered the call Grenwin had put out, worried that a raid was coming and that the quiet woman watching them was a distraction. You could never tell with those who didn't announce themselves.
Slice, breathe, slice. The shavings would make good kindling later, and he'd be sure to collect them.
She'd come forward then, walking as though striding across the world. Taegj did a good effort putting on his airs as chief, but Wyck knew it was forced. He'd seen chiefs who walked like kings, those it came naturally to.
The short woman put those men to shame. He'd never before seen anything like it. Like all the Kings and Queens-beyond-the-wall come again, walking through the snow as though the land was hers. It had put them all on edge, worrying about an attack that never came.
Instead, she'd spoken openly, asked for guest rights in her own way, and that was that. Wyck remembered the way she looked at him, like… Like she saw the man he could be. A better man, he thought, one who stood tall under the weight of the world. It wasn't a comfortable feeling.
Then Grenwin had taken her to speak with Taegj and that was that, for all of a few minutes. Gren had come back out calling for everyone to start readying to move.
He'd done his part, and more. Whatever it was that spooked Taegj enough to finally convince him to move was something Wyck wanted to be as far from as possible. He'd have taken his pack and left if not for the memory of the woman's eyes. He wasn't that man he thought she saw, but he'd stayed because he felt it might be a step towards being that.
The wights had come, then, and everything blurred together. She'd opened a door to a white room, a place that was comfortably warm, and called it safety. She'd closed the door on them, even as they saw the pale shapes in the treeline and the wights rushing closer.
Taegj had been angrier than he'd ever seen, and no amount of punching the wall opened the door again. They were alive, though, trapped as they may be. It seemed like hours had passed before the door had opened again, and the woman stood in the snow, soaked head to foot without a hint of a shiver.
A woods witch, they'd decided while huddling in the white room. A woods witch that didn't mind the cold, and one that'd saved them from being taken by the Others.
She'd traded Wyck a set of pipes and asked a few questions, more intricate and well-crafted than anything he'd seen before. He thought she'd taken it from someone, but she had only laughed and said she'd made it herself.
Herrick had been crowing about her, Bran the Builder come again. Wyck hadn't believed him, but then she'd done something Wyck had never expected to see. She'd laid out piles of tools, then offered them freely. They were wood, yes, but when she'd split a log with one of those axes as easily as anything he'd seen before, he knew they must be more.
He examined the knife he was using to whittle. A short blade, only a few inches, with the woodgrain plainly visible. The edge hadn't dulled yet, days later. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had given anything of this quality freely, nor any tales of the like.
The slavers had come days later, more than twice their number. Wyck hadn't been ready to die, but even death was better than being made a slave. The fight had been fast and brutal, and he'd been struck in the head by one of those clubs.
The next he'd known, the woman was kneeling over him. She'd been covered in blood, eyes wide and unfocused. He remembered the way red had stained her wings when she'd turned away from him, and it seemed wrong to him. Like blood on pure snow.
None of theirs had died. He'd seen Taegj take three bolts to the belly, but afterward the man had laughed it off and said the dove had saved him.
Declaring her as Queen-beyond-the-wall had been surprising at first, but Wyck thought he'd never seen anyone the title fit more. In the days after, they'd built a defense the like only the southern clans could afford. Then, in the span of hours, she'd led them to build a true lodge. A lodge, for a clan of less than twenty!
Herrick had been right; she was another Builder.
He looked up from his whittling at a peculiar cracking noise coming from the tree line. The woman was standing out at the edge of camp, staring fixedly outward.
Wyck flinched as one of the wide pines twisted, roots cracking as the trunk lifted out of the ground as though lifted by an invisible giant. It floated closer to the woman, and he stared jaw agape as it seemed to come apart into dozens of pieces. Planks, rods, and more besides. The bark fell away in tiny pieces that were caught on something, then gathered up into a ball the size of his head.
The pieces of the tree rendered themselves down further, dividing and dividing again until it seemed a tree-shaped collection of kindling.
Swallowing his fear, Wyck stood and approached the woman, who gave him a small nod.
He worked his mouth, swallowing saliva to wet his suddenly dry throat.
"What… What's happening?" He asked.
The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Practicing. The One Power is surprisingly intuitive, but I need to work on fine control over raw strength."
Magic, then. That didn't put him at ease any. He'd heard of wargs, who could wear the skins of animals, and some woods witches claimed to see the future. This, though, this was beyond anything he knew.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
She apologized? Why? Wyck didn't know what to say to that.
"I should probably be more open about this stuff, huh." She continued, and Wyck listened. "Symon doesn't seem to think that magic exists, and I suppose I would have agreed with him before I learned I could work saidar. Really, I'm hoping I stumble across the means to make one place the same as another. Then, distance won't matter anymore."
Wyck tried to wrap his mind around the concept. "Why wouldn't distance matter?"
"It's called Travelling. If I can figure it out, I can open doorways between two far off places."
He thought about it, then the realization slammed into him. "You could get us below the wall with that!"
She nodded, smiling. "If I can figure it out. I don't want to take us down right away even once I do. It's complicated."
Wyck nodded back, "Most things are." Life had been easier since she came, but certainly more complicated. Why should leaving these frozen lands be any different?
He bid his leave and retreated back to his whittling. Wyck was confident that she wasn't going to harm them. She could have done so at any time, but so far, she'd only been helpful. He wanted to see where it all could lead.
For the first time in years, he felt hope for the future.
Symon read words he'd read a hundred, nay, a thousand times before. He turned the page, rereading Maester Denzin's Watch over the Wall. He'd been fortunate enough to have been able to write his own copy during his time in Castle Black, and more fortunate that he had been able to bring a few of his books with him on that faithful expedition.
Why the Rangers had needed a Builder still escaped him. The First Ranger had only said that he would find out in time. Of course, the ambush that had taken his foot had put an end to that.
Symon had been surprised to find himself being nursed to health by a wildling woods witch. She'd taken care of him for months until the fevers had finally broken, despite the sure fact that the Rangers would slaughter her and the small village if they discovered him. Aye, they'd take him back to the Wall, and if he was fortunate they'd not call him an oathbreaker and deserter.
They'd never come, to his consternation and mounting relief. Still, he moved on as soon as he could, heading north with his books on his back and crutch underarm. The further into the Haunted Forest he headed, the less likely it was that the Rangers would find him. It was a cold and hard journey, but Symon was a proud son of Dorne and bore the hardship as best he could.
Somehow, he'd found himself in this small village of First Fork. They'd been willing to toss him out until he showed he was willing to work medicine and teach their young. Even this far north, even among these ignorant wildlings, the men of the Citadel still held some sway.
Two years he'd been here, by his reckoning, and seen not a hide nor hair of any other crows. He enjoyed the freedom he had here, no worry to appease a cruel lord or any need to toss seawater on the wall. The worst he'd had to deal with was needling by Taegj and the others, but it'd never come to blows.
His musing was interrupted by a knock on the door. Ah, it had to be Maia. She was the only one who bothered knocking.
"Come," he called while closing the book and rewrapping it.
The door opened and the young woman entered. She was short, and he'd initially thought her a dwarf but for the lack of any of the other disfigurements associated with the condition. Still, she stood in a way that seemed to fill the room. Symon doubted she even knew she was doing it.
Oddly, she was wearing a long blue dress instead of the customary parka and trousers. Where had she gotten it?
"What shall we discuss today, hm?" He began as the young woman sat.
She fixed him with a look. "I've an ability that acts as a form of time compression when engaging in a project. That's how we put up the new lodge as quickly as we did."
He nodded, having grown used to how casually she broke the conventions that he'd assumed ruled the universe. He'd worried at first, but his time with the wildlings had taught him a form of fatalistic utilitarianism. What she did, she did, and there was no use worrying over it.
"That's quite interesting." It was an understatement; he could see all manner of uses for such an ability. "Thank you for sharing."
She frowned, "Well, I'm telling you because it works on education as well. I'd like to trade knowledge for knowledge. One hour of compressed time translates to six months of work, assuming eight hours of labor per day."
Symon leaned back, scratching his rough beard. "Truly?" He'd spent twelve years at the Citadel, and he'd added three links to his chain each year on average. He'd had longer hours a day than a mere eight, working from before sunrise to long after nightfall, so the comparison was a little off. Regardless, call it four months in an hour… Yes, if he'd had such an ability, he'd only have spent a cumulative thirty-six hours there. Two and a half days.
"That is… Staggering." Symon smoothed his beard between his fingers, slightly annoyed at the roughness of the hair.
Maia nodded while smiling widely. "Yes! It really is! So, teach me everything you know, and I'll teach you as much as I can with what we have available."
He nodded; it was their current arrangement anyway. The prospect of this compression of time was intriguing, and he'd have accepted just to experience it firsthand regardless.
They talked, and talked, and talked. Symon's throat never grew tired nor parched, regardless of how long it seemed they spoke. He talked on Seven Kingdoms, the major and minor houses, political alliances as last he knew, history as best he recalled. In return, she told him of wonders beyond sight, new methods of examining the world around them, something she called the scientific method, of tiny creatures that promoted or caused disease and illness and how her tiny machines combatted them.
Time stretched, but he always seemed to be in the moment. The past fell together in his memory, the feeling of only minutes passing where he had been so certain it had been days or weeks. Then, suddenly as it began, it ended. A distinction to the world around them that he had difficulty quantifying, yet it signaled a return to normalcy.
"Fascinating." He said, after a long moment. What else could he say about it? Looking back on the experience, it did only feel as though an hour had passed, yet the contents stretched for far longer.
"I think I'll probably try to teach people what I can. Back where I come from, twelve years of education was the minimum. I think, after eight hours a day for three days, I could reach that. Six days would double that, but there's a great deal of independent study that takes place after those minimum years."
She'd said something like that earlier, though the concept of mandatory education for everyone still seemed unbelievable. The smallfolk, educated? She'd said there hadn't been as much a distinction between the nobility and the underclasses, but it seemed a recipe for disaster. Worse, educating wildlings? Hypocrite he may be, he wasn't opposed to spreading basic knowledge, but true education? Madness. Then, of course, the short woman had already put into action things that he'd have called mad if he'd not witnessed it personally.
The grand glasshouse in her private manse spoke to that, for all that it was half empty.
"I wish you the best of luck, if that's what you decide to do."
She nodded, "Thanks. If you have time, I have another project I'd like your help with."
"I find myself a great surfeit of time nowadays. What is it?"
"I need to build a workshop of decent size with a waterwheel connected. Do you know how to build a forge?"
He blinked, "Aye, and I know a bit of smithing besides. Why would you need a water wheel for a forge?"
Spreading her hands in a gesture he didn't recognize, "We can translate the rotational energy of the waterwheel into a mechanism that drives a hammer. There's other uses I'd use it for, but right now I want to get into metalworking."
It seemed an interesting prospect. A water-driven hammer? Yes, and possibly bellows as well. Would things she forged have similar enhancements as the wooden tools? Could she forge something near the durability and strength of Valyrian steel, without the sacrifice?
"Very well, I will lend my aid. It seems a useful project." His tone betrayed his excitement.
They set to work on the design, having to rely on scrawling the plans in the dirt. Helpfully, she seemed to have the ability to mentally manipulate such plans without forgetting them, something that only a few of his fellow Maesters had bothered cultivating. That was a rare skill indeed outside the Citadel.
Some of the features she was insistent on seemed nonsensical. Why must the prime axle of the water wheel be connected to such a complex series of gears? She called it a gearbox, which seemed obvious enough to Symon, though he failed to see how it would allow for the regulation and moderation of the shaft's rotation.
The again, his own ability to work within the mind's eye wasn't quite suited to such mechanical tasks. It could very well be that a physical demonstration would clear up the fogginess behind the complex mechanism. The Timekeeper at the Citadel had been a novelty, and he regretted not studying its construction further.
It was an enjoyable enough diversion; Gods knew he hadn't had many opportunities to put his learning to use in a very long while.
I left Symon's hut, blueprints in hand, as it were. Making my way to the site I'd chosen to build on, I embraced saidar. Using threads of earth and fire, I excavated the earth, leveling the site out as best I could reckon.
Trees were retrieved from the forest with weaves of air, then rendered down into the materials I needed.
The One Power made for a rather effective substitute of tools of all sorts, and shaping wood was quite simple. Thick trunks were made into foundational pillars, driven into the ground, and the earth around them hardened to a stonelike consistency. The floor took shape quickly, followed by the walls and roof after. A waterwheel was assembled, then the axles and gears that would carry the rotational energy and allow it to be used.
A weave of earth, fire, and water was used to carve a channel deep enough to drive the wheel out of the river. A dam of piled dirt kept the river from flooding it prematurely while I finished up. More supports were put up, the mechanical system assembled, and finally the waterwheel was attached.
The control system was more or less a series of levers that would operate the gearbox transmission, and a few test pulls indicated everything was working reasonably well.
Of course, wood was a sub-par material to mount anything that needed to rotate. Instead, I assembled bearings of polished and hardened stone to hold everything, lubricated with tallow rendered from animal fat.
Using a thread of air to push the wheel for a test rotation, everything seemed to be functioning as I'd intended. The workings of the axles were quieter than expected, and even that small noise was dulled once the wooden safety shielding was put up. I didn't want anyone accidentally getting caught up in them, especially if the system was running at its highest speed.
The structure took the form of a decently sized roofed box with a wheel on one side and a long-roofed overhang on another. Under that overhang, I drew stone up from beneath the soil with thick cables of earth and air, then shaped it into a forge as Symon had described. An anvil was formed, hardened to a toughness I'd have to test fully.
Excess wood was formed into furnishings, a few barrels, buckets, racks for tools and cabinets for storage. Wood and hide were assembled into a set of bellows, while wood and stone became a trip hammer. Everything was hooked up to the axles and gearboxes in short order, and it seemed a test was called for.
I made another inspection of the system, ensuring everything was unpowered before removing the dam and letting water flow into the channel. A pull of a lever and the wheel was dropped slightly into the flowing water and began to spin easily.
I may have overestimated the effectiveness of the bearings given how quickly it picked up speed. The primary levers controlling the speed of the axles worked properly. The machinery all seemed to be functioning properly, the bellows blowing air into the heating chamber loudly while the hammer, surprisingly, clanked rhythmically.
Turning everything off, I turned about to leave and collect more materials for the interior furnishings, noticing the murmuring group for the first time.
"Hello, friends!" I called to them, stepping out to present the building to them. "I'd like to give you our new blacksmithy!"
Huh, everyone still in the village had gathered to watch. Suddenly, the group of fifteen adults and three children seemed disappointingly small. I'd had more people in my college courses. Feelings of shame and doubt fell over me, as though I was playing at a role that I had no right to.
They came forward, walking around the building. Herrick and Wyck were examining the woodwork, tracing the barely visible seams where wood had melded together. Symon and his apprentice Wynt walked around the smithy, the older man critically examining the place while explaining the purpose of things to the lad.
Grenwin stepped up, patting my shoulder. "What's wrong? This is a great gift. You should have heard Symon crowing about teaching us to work metal earlier! I've never seen him so enthusiastic."
I shrugged, looking up and meeting her eyes.
"How much of this queen business matters? Is it just an empty role? We have so few people here. I want to help as many as possible, gather everyone together so we can make for the lands below the wall without leaving anyone who wants to come with behind. How do I do that, Grenwin?"
She gave me a long look, then turned to watch the people poking about the new building. "It matters to us. We choose to follow you for…" She drifted off, turning and waving towards the large lodge. "We put that up in less than a day, with seven people. Seven! Now you've built this in as much time by yourself. When the slavers came, I thought you'd stay behind with Symon and the children, and I wasn't the only one. Instead, you fought alongside us, saved Ygdis from being taken, and healed our wounds!"
I frowned, listening as she continued.
"I follow you because you've done more for us in less than a moonturn than anyone else has managed. Every King or Queen-Beyond-the-Wall has led with strength above all. Legendary raids but nothing that lasts. Redbeard killed a Stark, but what do the rest of us get from that? A good story, some songs? At least Mance is said to want to take us below the Wall to stay there, but he's been sitting in the Frostfangs for years. You think he's built anything there? A town? A city? No, it's just a great camp. This lodge of ours will last generations! When you lead us below the Wall, we'll build something for ourselves there. Yours is a different kind of strength. Hope, or a promise of a better tomorrow, whatever you want to call it. That's why I follow, and that's why plenty of the others do, too."
I was quiet for a moment, considering her earnest expression and sincere words. Sighing deeply, "You're right. Thank you."
She nodded seriously. "Now, if you want to gather people, we'll have to speak to the other clans. There are, hm, four and ten along the river? More to the south, and there may still be tribes of forest giants to the west. Hornfoot territory out that way too, but they're as like to put a spear through you as trade. You speak anything other than common?"
Fourteen clans along the river? Wait, giants? "Giants? Sorry, what?"
She blinked, "Yeah, giants. Twice as tall as a man and almost as smart. Got a thick pelt, too, and the plains giants up north keep mammoths."
Grenwin laughed then, "Ha! About time I get to put that look on your face!"
I closed my open mouth fast enough to make my teeth click. "I just… Where I'm from, there aren't any giants, and mammoths have been dead for ten thousand years. Uhm, I don't think I speak any other languages that you might recognize." I only knew a smattering of Japanese and German, and barely any Russian. Well, if English was Common, maybe I run into something else I recognized. Another possibility occurred to me for the first time, that I wasn't actually thinking or speaking in English anymore and it had all been replaced with this Common speech.
She nodded, "Well, you'll have to learn. Most I've run into have spoken Common, but almost every tribe and clan further west and north has its own tongue. The Thenn say they still speak First Man, but so do the giants, and they barely sound anything alike. How about singing? Most groups will welcome those who bring new songs."
"I can sing, I think. I know I haven't really in the evenings, but I can. I hadn't thought about it."
"Good, you should get used to singing." She ran a hand through her kinked dark hair. "Taegj's already gone to visit Swiftwick, he'll be back in a couple of days, like as not. You and I should head up to Ellir's clan and speak with her. She's a reasonable enough clan mother. Cares about her people, like you."
I nodded, "We could leave tomorrow morning." Grimacing, "If I could just work out Travelling, we wouldn't even have a long journey." Building a structure with the Power was much easier than trying to bend space and create a safe artificial wormhole, for all that I supposedly had a Talent for the latter.
"What? We just walk. That's how we travel."
Shaking my head, "No, I meant with, ah, the One Power? Have I told you about that yet? It's how I built this workshop."
"No," she drawled out, "You haven't mentioned it."
"Sorry. It's magic?"
"…Was that a question or…?"
I shrugged. "It's magic, but I don't like calling it magic. I mean, magic isn't supposed to exist, but here it is."
Grenwin nodded slowly, "And that's how the trees tore out of the ground and then became that?" She waved at the workshop.
"Yeah, I did that using the Power. Turns out I have a knack for working with wood and stone. What mean by Travelling is sort of making a doorway between two places, like the portal to my, ah, safe room." I didn't know how to explain the concept of a pocket reality, so I supposed that sufficed.
She grunted, "That'd be fucking useful. So how does it work?"
I explained the basic mechanisms behind channeling saidar, how threads of the five Powers can be woven into weaves that do things. I demonstrated one of the shaping weaves, taking several pieces of scrap wood and forming them into a six-centimeter-tall extremely detailed sculpture of Grenwin.
She was examining the little statue as I finished my spiel about Travelling.
"So, how do I make two places the same? That's what I've been working on, but I can't seem to figure it out. What does similarity even mean, you know? It's frustrating that I can't get it."
She carefully put the sculpture away into a pouch at her waist. "Dunno. Maybe it's not that you're supposed to make two places the same? What about something that's good enough to work? There's snow everywhere up here, there's air, and so it seems that most places are already pretty much the same if you looked at them the right way. You said you have to start somewhere you know?"
I nodded, "Yeah, exactly. I've been wandering around here long enough to really get to know the place, so that shouldn't be the problem."
Grenwin was silent for a while, before finally speaking. "Sometimes with Rockjaw, it would feel like we were of the same mind. He'd react before I could order him to."
I gave her a quizzical look, before remembering our conversation after the Others had come. "Your bear?"
There was a far-off look in her eye as she nodded. "I raised him from a cub, as was tradition. The best riders had their mounts trained enough that the bears knew what to do, and I was one of the best."
"I believe you," I said, not understanding the change in topic.
"I'm saying that even if two things are different, they can be the same sometimes. Ice-wives and bears aren't your Travelling, but if woman and bear can be the same, why can't two patches of snow and air?"
I blinked, wrapping my head around it. That… might work. I don't do things by half measures, and I'd been aiming to make two places the same in every way. She was saying that they could be the same, while still being distinct. I think that's what she meant, anyway.
Saidar still thrummed through me, feeling like a vast and gentle river of power. With the new concept in mind, one I'd foolishly not even considered before, I wove threads of all five Powers together. I didn't want to make the spot two meters ahead of me and the spot out in the clearing beyond the berm exactly the same, because they were already very similar. Snow, air, temperature. The only difference was distance and elevation, and these two places may as well already be the same when viewed from the right perspective.
My heart leaped into my throat as a thin vertical line of light formed in the air, three meters tall, before seeming to rotate open into a rectangle two meters wide. Through the portal, a Gateway, the view from the clearing beyond the berm was plainly visible.
I clapped, smiling broadly and pointed. "You were right! Thank you!" I hugged her tightly, almost overwhelmed by the sheer possibilities this breakthrough afforded. "We can go anywhere."
She gave me a pat on the back, and I appreciated that she was careful to avoid my wings. I released her and stepped back.
Grenwin looked around the gateway, walking around it and coming back to the front. "This goes over there?" She walked through the front, then came around to wave at me from the spot below the berm. I waved back, then followed her through.
Surprisingly, the gateway closed behind me as soon as I was on the other side. It caught me by surprise as the weave seemed to compress upon itself before falling to pieces.
Grenwin grinned, "Well! You do keep finding ways of making things faster, don't you?"
I nodded. "Guess so. There are some limitations, I need to know a general area of where to go, and making the gateways is a bit more strenuous than I'd expected. Oh, and the edges will cut through anything, and I have no idea what would happen to someone who went through the back side of one. Nothing good, I'd expect."
She listened, nodding in consideration. "It would be bad to try and talk to a clan only to cut through some of their people getting there. Oh, this would let us take back everyone who wants to join without making them travel by foot! It can take moonturns to walk all the way to the Wall, but this Travelling take us there in a few strides. Aye, we could raid anywhere and return faster than anyone ever has!"
"No, I'll not use this for raiding. Trade, talking to distant leaders, but we don't need to raid for what we need."
She grunted, "Fine."
"Alright, we'll make for Ellir's group tomorrow. I'll need your help to narrow down where it is, but we could be back within the day." I did have some ideas on how to figure out where to go. By opening a gateway high in the air, I could use it as a vantage point to locate where I needed to go. It would be best if I had some sort of telescope… Ah, the variable fighter had a robust sensor package designed for combat at tens of thousands of kilometers! I could open a gateway in front of it, then use the sensors to get a good look at the area, then adjust accordingly to scout.
"Aye, tomorrow." She seemed conflicted for a moment, "I'll let you alone. Thank you for sharing this with me."
"Of course!" I gave her a broad smile, "I appreciate your perspective. I get too focused on the little details sometimes."
She nodded, then strode back towards the village.
I needed to reassess my priorities. I had my workshop, as much as I still needed to furnish the interior, and I could start working on building the tools to build more advanced technologies. On the other hand, Grenwin and Symon could do with nicer homes, and if we were going to be expanding, we would need space for everyone.
Oh, and a bathhouse. Not a traditional roman style one, considering the temperatures out here make that difficult, but probably something closer to a sauna. Sweat-bathing, essentially. One of the smaller buildings near the roots of the tree was dedicated to that, but it was drafty and didn't keep the heat well.
Alright, so one new sweathouse, a home for Symon and Grenwin each, and an expansion to the lodge for more people. It was still surprising to consider that all of that could be done today with Herrick and my team.
I collected them and set about to building the sweathouse and the lodge expansion. It took very little time, and it was excellent practice using saidar besides. The sweathouse was large and had several individual saunas within, and the lodge expansion added enough space for several dozen people to rest.
Grenwin didn't have any great care for what she wanted, so I ended up giving her a three-room affair. Eventually we'll have plumbing for proper bathrooms and we'd have to renovate everything, but it sufficed for now.
Symon, on the other hand, had a great deal of opinions on what he wanted in a home. Under his direction, we built a peculiar hybrid of an almost Spanish style. The exterior walls were stone and hardened sand and had many small round details and inlays. The interior had a small arched visiting hall and several adjoining rooms in a similar style. One room was a dedicated study, with shelves carved into the wall and broad shuttered windows to let in light. I made him a desk and chair as he requested, as well as some other simple furniture. The roof was still a steeply sloped affair, meant to keep the snow from piling up, and it clashed slightly with the rest of the structure. He didn't mind one bit, looking around the new home with an almost wistful expression and wasting no time in moving in.
Later that evening after we'd gathered in the lodge for our supper, I helped prepare a hearty stew for everyone while others took turns singing and playing music. I was beginning to really enjoy these calm evenings, winding down after the day with song and dance.
While I ate, I happened to overhear a few people talking about me. If it wasn't for the odd intensification of my senses that channeling brought with it, I would have completely missed it.
"Phaw! She's no red witch, that's fer sure. Remember the last? She ain't anything like that."
"Yeh, maybe she isn't trying to burn anyone, but you saw what she did! Woods witch my arse, and she's no warg, either. She's dangerous, mark me!"
The third voice I recognized. It was Herrick, though I didn't know the other two well enough to identify them.
The man snorted, "We're all dangerous, don't be a buggering fool. What's it matter if we die to a knife, an arrow, or something she does? All Maia's done, she's done with us."
"And if she's just using us? None of us have seen anything like that! You saw that tree, Wyck! You said she said she'd done that, took it and shredded it like it was nothing. What does that?"
"Yeah, but she also said she was gonna get us below the Wall! She could do that to a tree, she could do that to anyone trying to stop us. I ain't gonna call her a liar, if you want to, do it to her face." Wyck replied testily.
"Fuck you, I'm no coward. Watch me."
A moment later a tall man stood, then strode over to me. Ah, it was Lorni. I hadn't spoken to him all that much.
He loomed over me, though I sat.
"Evening, Lorni." I greeted him, taking another bite of stew.
He stared down at me with a conflicted expression. He seemed to have worked himself up into quite the mood.
"The fuck are you?" He asked heatedly, "You're no woods witch, so what do you want with us?"
The small crowd seemed to hush, the room falling quiet.
I cocked my head, "Well, I'm a woman, as you can see. As for what I want… Well, I want to gather the Free Folk and build us something better south of the Wall. Why kneel to kings and lords when we can do better?"
There was some muttering about the kneelers and what I felt was some positive sentiments towards doing better than them from the group.
Lorni blinked warily, "You ain't gonna try and burn anyone?"
I shook my head, "Fuck no. That sounds awful! What's that supposed to do for anyone?"
Wyck called out from across the group, "Last witch that tried got a spear through her gut!" A cheer followed that statement.
Lorni shrugged, "Fine. If you try, I'll skewer you myself."
"Fair enough?"
He nodded and ambled away to sit somewhere else. The group chatter rose again.
In hindsight, I probably should have expected something like this to happen. I hadn't exactly been forthcoming with information, and people were always afraid of unknowns.
An idea occurred to me. Maybe it wasn't too wise, but I had to do something to avoid this sort of thing from spiraling out of control.
Setting aside my bowl, I stood and made my way to the front of the room. I turned to look over everyone, and the general murmur and music faded.
I took a breath. "Before I sing tonight, I'd like to say something." Pausing for a moment to collect my thoughts, I continued. "I know that I'm probably pretty scary. I can do things that nobody else can, and even I don't know how much more I can do. Lorni, anyone else with concerns, you aren't wrong to have them." Nodding to him, I smiled.
Confused murmurs met that. Grenwin looked worried, for some reason, and she wasn't the only one.
"In the coming days, you will see more inexplicable and terrifying things from me. For those that want to know, I'll do my best to explain the why and how. No blood magic, no sacrifices! Even if it's something I can't easily explain, I'll tell you so outright!"
"My promise to you is that I'll never intentionally bring harm to you or yours. You've accepted me as a leader, and I have a responsibility to see to your health and wellbeing. You all want to know what I want from the world? What I want with you?"
I waved an arm over the group. "I want to make as many people happy and healthy as possible. For people to live freely and do what fulfills them. I look at you and I don't see the savages you've told me others see you as. I see people who've learned to survive, nay, thrive in one of the harshest places I can think of. I see people with great potential!"
I drew my belt knife, holding the edge to my palm. I really hope this gesture was appreciated, otherwise I'd look a fool and have to deal with the pain until the nanites heal me.
"My oath!" I swept the knife across my hand, drawing a great deal of blood. I held the wounded hand up, letting the blood drip to the ground. "I will take the Free Folk, any who wish to come with us, below the wall! We will build something for ourselves there! We will not kneel to the lords or petty kings, we will be free to take our future into our own hands!"
A great cheer erupted, and I felt vindicated. All the worry and confusion in the group had turned to excitement.
"By my blood, I'll do everything I can to make this happen!" I waited a moment for them to quiet again, "I can't do this alone. I'm just one woman. I need your help. If you have any questions, please ask. If you have ideas or worries, bring them to me and I'll do what I can. Together, we can do great things."
They started stomping rhythmically, and even Lorni looked excited. I should have done this sooner, before pulling out actual magic. Now, what should I sing? Well, in this case was a thief, but I kept what I stole.
"Alright, I've said my piece. Now, my song! It's called Two Kings Came Hunting!"
Gesturing to someone holding a stringed instrument, something like a banjo with a long arm, they passed it over. A moment of familiarizing myself with the instrument, I started a quick tune.
Listen one listen all, and I'll sing you a song
that will set your heart a thumping.
Fill your mouths with some ale and I'll tell you the tale
of two kings that came a hunting.
Two kings came hunting,
when they lost their way
and stumbled to my glade.
Take us home young man!
No I don't think that I can.
You see well, not unless I'm paid!
I can't believe what I heard!
I do believe that is absurd!
Well I believe I should be reimbursed!
We're the kings! They demanded.
Well I won't go empty handed,
unless my pockets full of coins and bout burst!
Laughter met me, and the group clapped along to the tune. The atmosphere of the room had warmed up to its previous cheery levels.
Two kings came hunting, when they lost their way
and stumbled to my glade.
He's a vagabond, a bandit!
I'm traveler, understand it.
I know the roads and I'm your only hope.
Pay me finely for as your guide,
and your grace I'll save your lives.
Or else you'll have to find your way alone.
Off with you we will not pay it!
Well your grace I'll have to take it.
You're in my woods and these sir are my rules.
Gold and silver in the sack,
is that a ring, yes I'll take that.
Now be gone from my sight you royal fools!
Cheers and jeers for the two kings, and more laughter.
Two kings came hunting, when they lost their way
and stumbled to my glade.
You'll pay for this! They threatened.
Here's an apple as a present.
For the horses cause they're far much more polite.
Off they galloped into the distance,
but despite all their persistence.
They were lost and soon the day had become night.
By the fire coneys roasting
heard a set of hooves approaching,
and I wondered to myself "who could that be?"
Should have paid the proper funding
Fore two horses came a running
riderless to spend the night back here with me!
Two kings came hunting, when they lost their way
and never were seen again.
Making a short bow, I passed the instrument back with a word of thanks. I returned to my seat near the fire, letting the happy mood of the room buoy me aloft.
Grenwin scooted closer, leaning over. "Good song. They deserved it! Ha!"
I nodded and favored her with a smile. "Sure did. You never can tell with kings. You'd think if they'd put aside the entitlement, they might have made it out of the woods!"
Those who were close enough to overhear laughed uproariously. I may have underestimated how much they disliked kings, or maybe they just liked a good song about royalty getting a comeuppance.
The rest of the evening passed in good cheer. I think I'd succeeded in assuaging some of their worries, but I wasn't blind to the fact that there'd be more. Hopefully, deeds would prove me true. Actions spoke louder than words, but in this case I was hoping the words would help make those actions less terrifying.
I wondered if it wasn't something like emotional fatigue. How many shocks can someone go through before new ones stop having the same effect? Hell, if I was hearing rightly, the last couple of weeks had been the most eventful that anyone could remember. The Others, slavers, magic tools and weapons, a magic shelter, good soaps, real defenses, a new lodge, a blacksmithy, and then the other new buildings we'd put up today.
Yeah, that was certainly more excitement than I'd ever personally dealt with before. From their perspective, it probably was more than they'd see in a lifetime.
Hopefully, they'll adjust. If not, and they decide they don't want me around… Well, that would hurt, but it's their decision to make and I would respect that.
As I was returning to my bed, I was surprised by a light from a passing constellation being grabbed. It was certainly the largest one yet, and I was dumbstruck as it settled into a close orbit.
It was knowledge. An insane amount of knowledge, and in contrast to the blueprints that the ecotech gave me, it was the understanding underpinning a society that had built a colony on mars. If the ecotech was decades ahead of what I'd known before waking up here, this knowledge was as far ahead again. Maybe. It was hard to reckon that sort of thing.
Either way, it was incredible. It all focused on engineering and physics. Atomic transmutation, directed plasma containment, terraforming, automated data analysis, orbital spaceflight, even energy weapons. All that and more. It seemed far more than one person was ever supposed to ever know. This was the equivalent of decades of education and even more practical experience.
Considering practicality, this was the missing link I'd needed. Industrialized societies were built on the back of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, and while this light wasn't all of that, it did contain fundamental understanding of the principals involved.
The atomic transmutation was particularly helpful. It was very much something that played well with the understanding of nanite sciences I'd received what felt like a year ago now. It brought the goal of universal constructors down into the realm of being manageable with time and effort, from the wishful thinking I'd had before.
With a start, I realized there was a set of lockers sitting against a wall in the entryway of the pocket reality. Inside was a pistol, a flashlight, a roll of duct-tape, and several boxes of pistol ammunition. There was, additionally, a small PDA. It was larger than a cell phone, blocky, and felt robust as all hell. The OS was user friendly, though it lacked any real information. When I put together a wireless network, it'd be able to connect, and it had a decently powerful radio system on top of that.
Wasting no time, I tossed them all into the recycler. If I needed to mass produce them, I could with some effort. The flashlights particularly would come in handy. They weren't quite perpetually powered, but a single charge could last decades with constant use. That kind of energy storage technology would fit well with renewable energy sources.
Beyond that, artificial lighting was in reach. While I lacked the equipment to produce purpose-built LEDs, I could easily use the diodes in series to illuminate large swathes of land.
The PDAs could be very useful as teaching tools, and they were more or less what I had been wanting to build one day. I'd just have to actually sit down and write everything in my head down.
I had the fabricator reproduce a PDA and a flashlight. The PDA I'd put to good use, seeing as I finally had somewhere to write down my thoughts and plans. The flashlight just seemed useful, and it freed me from having to channel if I needed light.
Unfortunately, they were still impractical without a way of recharging them. The plan for generating electricity would be sped up massively with this new information. I certainly hadn't been aware before that simply banging an iron bar would produce a magnet!
Simple solutions like that would be the key to the early development of higher technology. I didn't need to work from the ground up anymore, to rediscover the intermediate knowledge, thanks to this light.
I hesitated before getting into bed. With this, I could get a head start on quite a few projects! On the other hand, it likely wasn't worth giving up sleep for.
Eventually, my weariness decided for me. Channeling was strenuous, and I'd done more today than I ever had while practicing. Settling into my bed, I quickly fell into a deep sleep.