17

“Fire in the Night,” San muttered. The fire flared a moment, causing Azios to look up at him. San smiled back. “Just a bit of precaution.”

Azios nodded, still holding Cassa and giving her some kimchi. She ate it eagerly.

Night began to fall and San sat before the fire, adding fuel and trying to keep the temperature at a constant level. The last thing he wanted was to burn the mixture. He had on his headlamp and constantly checked the simmering imbar. If it worked like making a beet beer, then the sugars should break up from the starchy mass of the imbar. He just needed to boil it enough and then figure out how much sugar was within the five gallon cauldron.

In his experimental brewing phase he had seen how beet sugar had been made. It took a bit of effort, some straining and a lot of heating and simmering off the excess water to create a syrup like mix that then would be further dried out to make sugar crystals.

San wasn’t attempting to make dry sugar, all he needed was a pot full of sugar wash that could be turned into alcohol. Although he did wish that he had brought a hydrometer with him. With that he could tell how much sugar was in the wash. Without it, he guessed he would figure out the results after it was done fermenting or if the yeast stalled out.

It was why he used the distiller’s yeast. The yeast was good when it came to consuming a lot of sugar and converting it into alcohol. He had used it enough times that he figured he could determine the alcohol percentage and how much sugar had been converted to alcohol.

Pavano and Azios had claimed imbar beer was horrible. This from a people who probably drank more than twice the amount people from his world did. San didn’t know the figures, but back in the day it was common for everyone to be drinking something with a bit of alcohol in it. Small beer and other things just so that they didn’t have to drink the water. There were no health departments that made sure that the water people were drinking wasn’t contaminated and people used rivers and streams for waste disposal.

The boiling of the imbar allowed San a bit of relaxation. He thought back on the last few days and didn’t know to feel about it. There were the Nox mercenaries, Sagaris trying to kill them, then his freak out at Orbaris’ home, the Memory Thief, the battos, and now the white furred singer.

He reflected back on his conversation with Pavano when they left Orbaris. How could people survive in this world, if what he had experienced was the norm? How could anyone live here if everyday was constantly looking over one’s shoulder to see if anything was creeping up on them. San wished he had a drink, a bottle of anything to get his mind off of things.

He had spent nearly two months on an alcoholic binge after his family died. A case of his latest whiskey, vodka, and gin had went down his throat within less than two weeks. The main take away from those months of heavy drinking was that it didn’t ease the pain. It only delayed it. He could get black out drunk, he could be momentarily happy as the alcohol dulled his senses, but eventually the sorrow and pain would return. When he sobered enough to remember where he was and the state of his life again, it would hit with all the force as it first did.

Two months drunk, followed by four months of sobbing and unable to do anything besides contemplating how to rejoin his family.

San looked to the boiling cauldron and felt a shiver across his body. He had been so close. He had wanted to end it all and in those days leading up to his attempted suicide, they had been the clearest and happiest days of his life. He had come to a decision and he had been happy.

Azios was yawning as he held a sleeping Cassa. The little girl had been clinging to her uncle since she came back.

“Go to sleep,” San told him.

He nodded wearily and carried the young girl into the tent without a word. He was sleeping within it also, as the barn got dreadfully cold by morning. San watched as he zipped up the tent.

If he had pulled the trigger, if he had died on that plateau. Then Endaha and her entire family would be dead. Azios would be dead. Terrinath would be dead. Perhaps Sagaris’ entire caravan, although he still felt some blame and sorrow for those that Sagaris had probably killed. The trappers who had no idea that they had been carrying illicit gold ore.

He had done some good in this world, he believed. This world was a hard place; disease, monsters, and human nature sought to snuff out everything. But there were good places. Orbaris, regardless of his family’s disdain of foreigners, they were still good people. They loved one another and worked hard to make their lives good. Azios, even with his questionable beliefs, truly did love Cassa and Endaha. There was also Pavano, who did not owe him anything and San had no idea why he still stayed with him. The old man could have got to his ranger friend and would never return, but San believed that he would return.

San saw that the imbar was beginning to boil. He waited another half hour before he grabbed a bucket and a wooden spoon. He mashed the imbar down as much as he could then removed the thick mixture of strands and plant matter.

In one Sanitized bucket he pulled as much imbar as he could out, leaving behind a thick cloudy soup like product. He mashed down the imbar in the large bucket, extracting as much liquid from it and then dumping that back into the cauldron.

When done he had a third full cauldron of thick liquid. San used some cloth and gloves to pull the cauldron off the fire and eased himself out of the barn.

The storm was blowing from the west and San was in the leeward side of the barn. Snow drifts were beginning to form as the snow continued to fall in thick flakes. He set down the cauldron, the iron pot hissing as it touched the freezing ground. San marched over to the nearest snow drift and using a bucket filled it.

He used Sanitize on the snow and dumped it into the cauldron. Within minutes he had the entire pot filled with steaming water. He allowed the cauldron to sit in the cold air as the temperature of the wash dropped.

There was always the chance that some foreign bacteria would enter the sugar wash, but San wasn’t too worried about it. The first beers he used to make involved dumping ten pound bags of store purchased ice into the wort. He had never got skunky beer from it. Although using a wort chiller would have been better, but there was a definite lack of copper tubing and pressurized cold water.

San sanitized a spoon and dipped it into the nearly full cauldron. He tasted the mixture and it was very sweet, coating his tongue and mouth. There was a bit of earthiness to it, but nothing terrible. San grabbed the cool handle and re-entered the barn.

A small amphora had been cleaned for this purpose. San sanitized the spoon again and picked up the distiller’s yeast he had going. It was in a wooden bowl and had been set aside while the yeast activated, now it was frothy and ready to use. He pitched the yeast into the cauldron, stirred it vigorously and waited a few moments. When he figured it had mixed enough; he used his increased strength to lift the cauldron up and poured it into the amphora.

He used some Sanitized cloth to wrap around the opening in the amphora, Hoping it would be enough to prevent bacteria from entering. He wasn’t entirely hopeful on that aspect. He was in an enclosed barn with more than three dozen grazers, two woollys, and their combined feces, along with potentially moldy hay and straw. A good airlock would have been nice.

San had to laugh at his entire set up. Using strange vegetables to make a sugar wash, using an iron cauldron to heat the imbar, when one of the big no-no’s in brewing was never use a pot that had been used to cook meat, and then using freshly fallen snow to bring the wash down to a pitching temperature.

Stainless steel, copper, and specialty malts and grains had been his world for the last six years. This reminded him more of his grandfather’s style of brewing. He had to smile at that. His grandfather would have probably figured out better ways to do what he was doing.

San sat down, looking at the amphora. He closed his eyes, imagining the yeast beginning to tear through the sugars in the wash. He could imagine them as animals suddenly released upon a buffet. They raced forward grabbing every sugar, getting fat, having babies, dying, and then the cycle began over again

“Fermentation,” San said, his hands upon the amphora. The clay container glowed blue in his vision for a second, San felt a draw of something from within himself. He tried to pull his hand off the amphora, but he couldn’t.

A lifetime seemed to pass where energy flowed from his body and into the amphora. He managed to pull his hand back and exhaustion suddenly overcame him.

San had barely enough energy to stoke the fire and fall into the pile of straw before darkness overtook him.

***

San opened his eyes to see Azios peering at him. Cassa stood by him, holding onto his tunic. She peered at him with her wide eyes, as if seeing him for the first time.

“You okay?” he asked.

San blinked and saw that the barn was filled with sunlight. He was warm and the sound of the howling wind wasn’t whistling through the holes in the barn.

“Uh… yeah,” San said, sitting up.

“Sun’s been up for a while now,” Azios said. “I thought.. I thought you might be sick or something.”

San cleared his throat. “I’m fine.” He yawned, cracking his neck. “The storm over?” he asked.

Azios nodded. “Are we going to clean the house?” he asked.

“I’ll clean the house and set it up. You stay here and watch over everyone,” San said.

Azios nodded again. “I-I won’t let her out of my sight,” he said, holding Cassa’s hand. “I won’t let her go.”

San tousled Azios’ hair and smiled. “Good, man,” he said before doing the same to Cassa. She didn’t flinch or run away as she had before, but stared at him with her large eyes.

The sun was out and the world was covered in a foot of clean crisp snow. San shivered in the cold and tugged his coat around himself. He looked to the farmhouse and then toward the forest. It appeared entirely calm and tame today, with the sun out and the snow reflecting the sunlight. The tall pines didn’t seem to be hiding any monsters or horrors stealing children, it just look like woods.

All the years Mary and he had hiked through national forests, there was never any real fear of monsters. He remembered them joking about running across Big Foot or the Goat Man or whatever, but those were just stories to entertain. Bears, mountain lions, or wolves were always seen as the real dangers. San wondered how those predators dealt with the more supernatural predators.

He shrugged and headed toward the forest. He had left the axe out there when he had returned with Cassa. Wolfram appeared out of the woods near where he had been felling trees. The black shape suddenly appearing as she turned visible. San loosened his grip on the axe; he kept forgetting that she could turn invisible when she wanted.

“You doing okay?” San asked her.

She blinked her yellow eyes and reached down to pick up something from the snow. San felt a shiver of fear as the wolf ram held a white furred arm in her mouth. It was frozen, but San could see the marks where Wolfram had gnawed at it.

“Waste not, want not,” San said watching as she began gnawing on it again. He watched her for a moment and then studied her trail through the snow. She might be able to become invisible, but she still left a clear trail in the fresh snow.

San made his decision and walked into the woods, one hand on his sword and the other holding the axe over his shoulder. Wolfram looked up from her breakfast as he passed her by, she dropped the arm and followed him as the used her trail to make it back to the clearing where he fought the monster.

Snow had covered the creature, but Wolfram and possibly other predators had gotten to the creature during the night. The limbs had been removed and the entire torso ravaged, blood and intestines liberally spread across the clearing. San grimaced at the too human red blood and meat.

The grotesque head of the creature stared at him, untouched, with dull blue eyes still holding a look of shock at its demise. San approached the head while Wolfram explored the remains for anything edible.

“What are you?” San asked, using the axe head to nudge the monster’s head. He sighed and with a little hesitation, brought the iron axe down upon the monster’s head. There was a loud crack that Wolfram startled from, but she eagerly ran up to San as another blow cleaved through bone and brain matter.

He used his dagger to explore the head of the monster. The brain was a purple mass, with some missing where the bullet had penetrated the skull of the creature. After a few moments he found what he was looking for, a small membrane that held the mana gems. San cut it out and slit open the membrane; half a dozen yellow gems falling into his gloved hand.

Wolfram approached and sniffed the gem, letting out a low growl and moving away from them. She sniffed the open skull of the monster and began clawing out the internal meat.

“Even you know you’re not supposed to eat them,” San said, raising a gem up and peering into it. It didn’t look any different than the other gems he had found. A little more cloudy, but still crystalline in its structure.

San dug into his pockets and pulled out the small plastic bag that held the other gems. He added the yellows and rose to his feet. The cold was beginning to bleed into his clothes and the bloody scene was becoming unnerving.

As he turned to leave, San saw a dismembered arm lying six feet from him. On the wrist was a glimmer of metal. San walked to the arm and saw that there was a thick gold bracelet around the wrist, the links were crude and the seemed to have been hammered into shape, not casted. They were thumb sized and oval shaped, the ends of each oval had a holed drilled into them and a leather cord held the links together.

San used his dagger to cut the leather cord and removed the bracelet. It was heavy and from what he could tell the gold was pure. He used the tip of the dagger to etch into the gold. In television shows, one would bite into the gold, but San wasn’t about to bite into something that had been worn by the monster. He Sanitized the bracelet and stuffed it into his pocket.

Wolfram nudged the arm and looked to San as if to ask if he wanted it.

“All yours,” San said.

San followed his tracks back to the farmhouse as he did he heard a shriek from the sky. He paused at the edge of the clearing to see Wolfram growling at massive bone white birds that had clustered not far from the corpse.

Bonewings, San thought. He could see where the name came from, the creatures had what looked like a bone plate covering their heads, which they used to ram into one another as they fought over the remains. Their wings were leathery and ivory in color, appearing as if they were made of bone. They were big creatures too, the size of a medium dog and with wings that spanned nearly eight feet. As the opened their beaks, San saw the rows of small sharp teeth.

It had been these creatures that had attacked Endaha; they had also killed some of the livestock and wrecked the harvest. San sighed as he realized he hadn’t brought the crossbow. He checked his revolver and decided against using it. He only had four more bullets.

More than a dozen bonewings appeared and Wolfram decided that it was better to retreat. She grabbed the arm and followed San as they headed back to the farmhouse.

***

“As clean as it’ll ever get,” San muttered sitting down on the wooden floor. He had removed his coat and the dim room was chilly. There were still obvious stains on the floor, but that would need to be sanded out and not scrubbed. San hadn’t found any wood working tools beside the axe and hatchets.

He groaned as he got to his feet, the act of scrubbing floors caused more aches and pains than felling trees or battling monsters.

A fire was burning in the firepit, but the heat didn’t spread much further than the kitchen area. San poured himself a cup of tea and sat down on a bench before the fire. The stink of death was replaced by some herbs that Azios had burned in the fire pit and also spread upon the floor with a fresh layer of straw. He had been making short trips to the barn and farmhouse, bringing back their belongings.

The upstairs room was a loss in terms of furniture and partitioned walls. The battos had destroyed everything as they were turning the place into their nest and San had just burned everything that was covered in resin. That had produced a foul greasy fire that still had an odor lingering around the farmstead.

The kitchen area was fine, a broken stool was all that had suffered from the battos moving in. The back room on the bottom floor was a store room and a small work area. There were tools for spinning and weaving, along with some leather working material. It seemed the battos hadn’t bothered with the room as the door had been closed and they were more interested in bringing live game back for their young.

San finished his tea and headed out of the farmhouse. A breeze was beginning to blow again and San could see the sky was thickening with clouds. Another storm was on its way.

***

“What the heck” San wondered as he peered into the sugar wash he had made the night before. The sunlight was starting to dim as the clouds rolled in, but there was enough for him to look into the cloudy liquid in the amphora. He took out his flashlight and saw a thick cake of yeast at the bottom of the amphora.

That should not be there. It would have been a few more days before the yeast had multiplied enough to even begin forming a cake. Yet he could see a fully mature yeast cake and none of the bubbles that showed it was still fermenting.

Was it the Fermentation Power?

San found a ladle and Sanitized it, then dipped it into the wash. He poured the cloudy white liquid into a cup and smelled it. There was no sweetness aroma of the liquid, it had been mostly sugar when he had pitched the yeast. He sniffed it again and caught the sharp tang of alcohol. He took a sip and grimaced.

There was definitely alcohol within it. San took another sip. There was a lot of alcohol within it.

San looked at the amphora. In his time of brewing he had some beverages that had fermented too fast, due to being in hotter than normal rooms or faulty temperature controls. The amphora had stayed within the barn, which wasn’t all that warm along with being too chilly to allow anything to ferment properly.

He never had fermented imbar, but the cloudy liquid didn’t have the off flavors that came with something fermenting too fast. In fact, San couldn’t taste any sweetness in the liquid, it was a bit dry with the distiller’s yeast not really offering much flavor profile to the finished product.

“What’s that?” Azios asked.

“Imbar wash,” San replied.

“It’s done?”

“Power,” San took another sip. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Azios took San’s cup and sipped from it.

“It’s good,” he said, draining the cup before San could stop him.

“Whoa, are you old enough to drink?” San asked.

“Old enough? If you can, everyone drinks wine. We haven’t had much in the last year, because Brother left, but when he was here, we were always well stocked.”

San nodded. Different world and all. Even the children drank alcohol, especially if the water situation wasn’t good.

“Can I have more?” Azios asked. “Normally imbar tastes like crap. This is good.”

“Probably the yeast,” San said.

“Yeast?”

“It’s what turns the sugars into alcohol.”

Azios shrugged. “Pa used to make some imbar alcohol, but he would just leave it out for a few days and then it would begin turning.”

“Wild yeast,” San said and nodded. If the wash hadn’t been sanitized properly, if it had been brewed with wild yeast, that would explain the horrible flavors everyone claimed, combined with the high sugar content that would require a high alcohol tolerant yeast strain to survive until it was fully fermented.

San peered at the amphora again. The yeast would need to be salvaged, but it might be too late. If the brew had completely fermented, that meant little to no sugar for the yeast to feed on. Which would lead to them all dying.

He got up and covered the amphora. Azios looked sad at that as he still held out the cup.

“Let’s make some more imbar wash,” San said.

***

“I’m sorry,” Endaha murmured as San set her down on his sleeping pad in the kitchen. Her eyes opened and she looked at him, weariness and exhaustion etched into her young face. “I’m sorry. I thought… I thought you were a monster.”

‘It’s okay,” San said, tucking the blankets around her.

“No. I…”

“It’s fine, ma’am. I wasn’t hurt and your child and Azios are safe.”

Tears formed and she hiccuped a soft sob. Her weak hands emerged from under the covers and gripped his hands.

“Thank you for helping us. The Blessed Mother watch over you.”

San nodded and patted her hand. She closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

“How is she?” Azios asked.

“Her fever’s broken,” San said. “I think she’ll be fine. She just needs rest, liquids, and more rest.”

Relief washed over Azios’ face as he sat down on a stool. He held a cup of tea and Cassa was holding onto his trouser leg.

“I don’t know what we would do if we lost her and the baby,” Azios said. “With Brother not here and with me being weak… we might have to become beggars or worse.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” San said. He dug around in his pocket and handed Azios a piece of the gold he had taken off the monster. Azios’ eyes widened at the lump. “Keep this hidden. If something ever happens, if you have to flee, then make sure you have it on you. With it you’ll not starve or be left homeless, at least for a while. Long enough for you to figure out what to do afterward.”

Azios nodded, looking at the gold oval. He bit into it and stared with awe as he saw the small indentation of his teeth in the metal.

San poured himself a cup of tea. The fire crackled pleasantly and the heat of the kitchen was just right. Cassa walked over to him and hugged his legs. San tousled her hair and then pulled her up to sit on his lap.

Azios kept playing with the gold and San sipped his tea. Cassa was soon nodding off as he held her.

San looked around and he felt content.