Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black)
Read Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) Online
Authors: E. William Brown
Fimbulwinter
A Daniel Black Novel
By E. William Brown
Copyright 2014 E. William Brown
Amazon Kindle Edition
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Contents
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Chapter 1
I probably would have said no, if I hadn’t just had the most epically bad
week of my life.
It started out well enough. My team had been working round the clock on
our current software project, and on Monday we finally delivered the first
release candidate to QA. Granted it was just a project management app for the
company’s oilfield operations, but it was still a good feeling to know we were
closing in on the finish line.
Like a lot of software projects the original estimates had been wildly
overoptimistic, and what was originally supposed to be a ten-month project
was now in its fifteenth month. But another few weeks of bug fixing would see
it finally finished, and we all agreed it was going to be nice not to have our
managers riding us to work sixty-hour weeks anymore.
On Tuesday management announced that they were pulling the plug on the
project. It was too far over budget, and apparently the executives didn’t
believe us about being almost done. So the last year and a half of my work got
flushed down the drain because some pointy-headed boss wanted to cover his
ass. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.
On Wednesday they announced that the whole team was being laid off.
The company had decided to outsource future development to some outfit in
India that was already happily making impossible promises about future costs
and delivery dates. Most likely they’d just bill lots of hours and deliver crappy
code for as long as the company was dumb enough to keep paying. But
whatever happened, it wasn’t my problem anymore.
I had a month of severance pay coming, which was one nice thing about
being a senior developer instead of one of the junior guys. But the layoff was
effective immediately, and security was on hand to oversee the whole team as
we packed up our cubicles and turned over our company laptops before being
escorted out of the building. Wouldn’t want some disgruntled employee doing
something nasty to the network, after all. It was barely afternoon when I found
myself unexpectedly on the road home, wondering what I was going to tell
Amanda.
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I needn’t have bothered. I opened the door of my little suburban home to
find my wife of three years bent over the couch being enthusiastically serviced
by some guy I didn’t know. Needless to say, there ensued a great deal of
shouting.
You might think that a woman would be ashamed to be caught cheating
like that, but Amanda’s rationalization skills proved equal to the occasion.
While stud-boy made his retreat she loudly proclaimed that her actions were
all my fault because I worked too much, didn’t spend enough money on her and
generally failed to deliver happiness to her on a silver platter.
I actually had to leave the room so I wouldn’t punch the bitch. But that
turned out to be a bad idea, since it gave her a minute to call the police and
give them some sob story about a domestic disturbance. In our enlightened
state the police take such calls very seriously - the current policy is that the
male on the scene is automatically arrested regardless of circumstances, just in
case he turns out to be a spouse abuser or something. So the last I saw of
Amanda was her smug expression as they hauled me off for a night in jail.
Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Who ends up in an overnight holding cell these
days? Violent drunks, vandals who were probably gang members, some pimp
who was beating a hooker in public, a random assortment of drugged up kids
and insane street people. Great company. It’s a good thing the cops take your
valuables before they lock you up, or I’d have been mugged for sure. As it was
I managed to emerge the next day with nothing but a couple of bruises and an
expanded vocabulary.
But I couldn’t go home, because the restraining order was served before I
even got out of the building.
Surprised? I certainly was. I always thought you needed some sort of
finding of imminent danger to get one of those things. But no, apparently my
being arrested on a domestic disturbance call is enough to get the judge to
rubber-stamp the application. Good thing I’d had my wallet on me when I was
arrested, or I’d have really been in trouble.
I managed to find a lawyer and get an appointment for the following day,
since things were obviously going to get messy at this point. But the news
wasn’t getting any better. He told me Amanda would almost certainly get the
house, which I’d almost finished paying for, along with half our assets and five
or six years of spousal support. Oh, and add in another twenty or thirty grand
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for legal expenses. Good thing we didn’t have kids.
I was halfway back to the motel from that meeting when some asshole in a
pickup truck blew through a red light and broadsided me.
So Friday night found me lying in a hospital bed with a broken arm, two
broken ribs, a concussion and more bruises than a professional boxer after a
tough match. They were probably going to let me go in the morning, but my car
was totaled and so was my phone. I was desperately trying to think of someone
whose phone number I could remember, and who might not actually believe the
stories Amanda was apparently spreading about what a violent douchebag I
was, when things suddenly got even more surreal.
“Well, you certainly don’t look like much. I suppose I’ll have to throw in
some instant healing if we can make a deal. Will you bargain with me, Daniel
Black?”
The voice was female, cool and controlled with an undercurrent of
sarcastic black humor. I looked up, and felt my jaw drop.
You know how the actresses they cast to play badass babes in action
movies never quite pull it off? How no matter how hard they try, most of them
tend to look like pretty girls playing at being tough?
My visitor could’ve showed them how it’s done.
She was a tall, statuesque woman of Mediterranean complexion and
unearthly beauty, with dark hair and eyes like pools of living shadow. She
carried herself with the casual confidence of someone who knows they’re the
most dangerous thing in the building, an impression that was further enhanced
by the fact that her outfit seemed to consist entirely of black leather and
knives.
I would’ve wondered how she got them past hospital security if not for
the fact that she was translucent, about 6 inches tall, and floating in the air
above my bed.
For a split second I wondered if I was losing it. But no, people crazy
enough to have detailed hallucinations aren’t normally lucid enough to wonder
about their own sanity. Besides, assuming things are real is generally a lot
safer than assuming they aren’t.
I closed my mouth, and took a deep breath.
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“That would be nice. What are we bargaining about?”
She sighed. “Those idiot Aesir have finally started Ragnarok on a world a
few octaves down from this one, and my last living worshipper is in trouble. I
need someone to rescue the silly girl so she can grow up and make some
converts, and my divinations tell me you’re the best option I can reach in time.
Will you bargain with me? I need a yes or no on that one, please. Rules of
magic.”
“Um, sure. Yes. But why me? I’m not exactly a mighty-thewed warrior
here.”
“I despise warriors,” she sniffed. “Give me a wizard or a clever rogue
any day of the week. That’s why I’m looking here. There’s a quirk of the
relationship between worlds that will allow me to grant you sorcerous powers
during the journey if you agree, without any great cost to myself. So that’s my
first offer to you. Healing for your injuries, and as much magical power as you
can seize for yourself, in return for protecting my worshipper Cerise for as
long as she remains my only worshipper.”
This was so unreal. But as far as I could tell it was actually happening. I
tried to think. What do you ask for when a mysterious woman offers to pay you
for a mission to a fantasy world?
“What kind of magic are we talking about?” I asked cautiously. “And who
are you, anyway?”
“I am Hecate. But don’t be too quick to judge me by my reputation. The
victors write the histories, and what do you think the people of Afghanistan or
Ukraine will say about America in a hundred years? I’m a nightmare to my
enemies, but my own people have no cause to fear me.”
“As for the magic… damn, you have no magic at all on this world? But a
million speculations, so at least there’s something to work with. Right? A
‘sorcery’ is an instinctive command of any one thing that you can conceptualize
as an element. When I drag you through the interspace the energies there will
fill you and be channeled by your thoughts, giving you whatever sorcery you
focus on. Depending on how quick your wits are you should have time to grab
three or four elements at a much higher level than human sorcerers normally
get.”
“Now quickly, I need an answer. Cerise and her coven-mate are under
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attack, and we’re running out of time.”
I hesitated. “Maybe. You said Ragnarok. How do we survive the end of
the world?”
“Hah! It’s the end of the Aesir, not the world. Flee the northlands and find
a hiding place in the south, retreat to the faerie realms, leave the world, hell
you could join Loki’s army if you want. A world in chaos is full of opportunity
for a man with power. But if you need another carrot, we can shorten the term
of your agreement. Protect Cerise for a year and a day, and we will bargain
again if she still needs your help. Do we have an agreement?”
I looked around at the hospital room, and thought about what I had to look
forward to in the life I was living now. Then I thought about a world full of
people in danger, and two witches I didn’t know who were probably about to
be eaten by orcs or something.
“What the hell. I’ll do it.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Excellent! Thank you, Daniel. Do your work
well, and I may have other offers for you in the future. Now, let’s get this show
on the road before it’s too late. Just focus on the elements you want, one at a
time. No one has ever done this for someone from a world like yours, so I’m
counting on you to munchkin the hell out of it. But you’re dropping right into
combat, so don’t forget to take something you can fight with!”
I opened my mouth to ask for more details on that, but the room dissolved
around me before I could speak. Then I was tumbling through a roaring
technicolor maelstrom, and a shock like lightning jolted through me.
“Focus!” Hecate’s voice sounded urgently in my ear. “Now! You have to
give the power an outlet, or it’ll tear you apart.”
Fear is a great motivator. I gathered my wits and tried to concentrate. An
element. I needed an element. An easy one to start with. Earth.
Cold, solid stone and warm, fertile earth. The essence of endurance, but it
could be shaped in so many ways. Understanding blossomed from nowhere,
along with a power unlike anything I’d felt before. It was instinctive, as easy