The slope rolled long and gentle downhill that morning- eighty seven miles to home. Mazelton’s mind sang it like a nursery charm. Eighty seven miles to go. So close now. Actually, at this point, he was going to (briefly) get further away from home- he was now only a couple of days due east of New Scandie. If the mountains weren’t in the way. He looked west, directly into a short escarpment. He couldn’t even see the rest of the mountain over it. Yeah, going to have to go around. Mazelton was anxious, not suicidal.

It should have been easy to calm your heart as the long slope rolled down. The late summer sun was drowsy, with the cool creeping in. Fall came early around here, and, well, it wasn’t exactly early any more, was it? Polyclitus’ drive to cross the plains fast probably killed some people, but it meant that traveling through this stretch of the mountains was pretty, not horrible. No more having to look at your traveling companions and picking the emergency food supply.

Although it did feel uncomfortable to look at people, now. Mazelton was no stranger to murder or violence. He certainly never had any notions of “honorable combat.” Outside the dueling sands, but that was for blood and pride and status. Not the butchers work on a battlefield, or the subtle knife of an assassin. Even those two thing required effort. Battle was hard physical work. Assassination might be less taxing on the muscles, but the emotional and mental stress it put on someone was enormous. Violence, even from ambush, cost in effort and emotions. Now, he didn’t even have to see a person to kill them. Anyone he was aware of, lived by his grace.

How was he going to look at Danae? Or his kids. Every time he saw them, he would think “I can snuff out the light in you with a thought.” It was horribly persistent. He could feel Duane sitting next to him. He could feel Duane’s core, like picking out a single bright star in the sky.

Mazelton could see the aurochs and the people and the trees- his “heat sense” once only stretched a few meters. Now he didn’t know how far it could stretch. Half a kilometer? More? It got too overwhelming if he pushed it out very far. Sensory overload. It helped to pick a single thing to focus on… and to keep reminding himself “I must not blow out the light.” He tried to pick a tree far out ahead of the caravan, and keep his mind trained on it.

Anyone could kill anyone with a thought, right? It was trivial with a gun, and most everyone here had some sort of weapon. Punch someone the right way, they land the wrong way, bang, dead. Minorly more effort, sure, but it was the evil thought, the will to do violence that… Oh who the fuck do I think I am kidding!

Mazelton remembered the story of an old emperor. Swabian, in most stories, but he was certain the story was older than that. The Emperor had thirteen children by a wife and a concubine. He was as caring a father as he could be, as an emperor often leading armies on the front line. Which is to say, he didn’t see them much, but he doted on them when he did. Every precious night that he got to spend with his wife and concubine and children, he would kiss them before bed and remind himself “Remember, you are kissing a mortal. They may never awake. This is the last moment you will see them.” He projected himself into the grief and the horror of loss, so that if it came, he would be able to accept it and proceed with courage.

By all accounts, he was a good emperor. Mazelton tried to imagine it. He got mad and let a surge of power run through him and into the core of… he couldn't bear to think of Duane or Danae or Polyclitus or Lettie or… really any of the others who he cared about. His mind skittered away from the pain of it. Maybe this was an opportunity. Mazelton kept his eyes softly closed, breathing through the discomfort, and tried to project himself into pain.

Three minutes later, he gave up. According to the story, that emperor had been studying philosophy his whole life. And only a handful of his kids lived to see adulthood, and the one who eventually took the throne was a complete shit show. That’s why Mazelton reckoned the story was older than the Swabian Empires. Literally the only emperor that seemed to more or less fit was the founder of the Third Swabian Empire, and Mazelton was privately of the opinion that the man was even less capable of empathy than he was. The Third Swabian Empire deserved to be forgotten.

Not like he could forget that he could literally will people to death. He remembered joking with Lettie that she was trying to kill him with her mind. Well, now he really could. There was a sizable heat cost, and it did require focus, but… He could do it. That was a thing he could do. He worked hard for it. And now he had to live with success. Like becoming an expert swordsman by stitching the hilt to your hand.

An hour or so into the day’s travel, they crossed a smallish river. The ford was reasonably shallow, and generally wouldn’t have been worth noting, save that the water was shockingly cold. They were still very much in the mountains, cold rivers were the norm, but this was so bracingly, stabbing cold that it almost knocked the breath out of Mazelton when it splashed on him. He remembered suddenly She of the Clattering Wooden Rings. “Cold is the number one enemy! You gotta stay warm. That means you gotta stay dry, cause if you get wet, you get cold, then you get dead.”

Mazelton had kept warm. He wore his layers. He religiously used a ground sheet when he was forced away from his beloved cot. He wore his rain gear, even though it was heavy and didn’t breathe at all. He had made more heat stones than he was comfortable remembering. When it came to thermal regulation, he reckoned he might just be the best in the Caravan.

He couldn’t really articulate why, but that suddenly seemed very important. He had been helped a lot, but he listened and took advantage of that help. It didn’t go to waste. He gave back, helping others. Not for free, but not ripping people off either. He wasn’t a monster, he was the person who despised a strange woman… but listened. He believed her. And his trust was rewarded.

He wasn’t a monster. He was looking out for his fellow Dusties. He looked out for Nimu. He was looking out for his future wife and kids. Monster didn’t do that. He remembered the teamster that asked if he was an evil wizard, back when he was first starting his rounds, and how he furiously denied it. Hard to deny it now. He was a genuine article cannibal wizard with murder magic fueled by the cores of his enemies.

Mazelton was aware that he was swirling into a panic attack, but it was hard to pull out. He desperately hunted for something to distract him. “So, Duane, what’s your favorite bird?”

Mazelton managed to get through the morning without accidentally incinerating anyone, although his heart was beating a mile a minute. He was slowly persuading himself that pulling in energy, converting it to microwaves, then transmitting it via whatever strange means his black sun core employed into his target were all conscious actions and not something that could be done accidentally. He never accidentally dumped heat into people, and he had two cores implanted in his hands!

Intentionally, yes. He had done it intentionally. But never by accident! It was a strange thought to cling to, but he stubbornly clung to it anyway. He celebrated this emotional breakthrough by trying to carve a new duck. But he was too anxious to “achieve” something, so he screwed it up and had to toss it. Which started a new spiral of angst. He practically sobbed with relief when they found a bridge blocked by bandits.

It was just as they were getting ready to camp for the night. The road had been mostly sloping downhill all day, but they were traveling on the side of a wide stretch of mountain. To the south of their long road was a longer drop, down into the narrow river valley. North was mountains. And dead ahead, at the end of a tiring day, was a near vertical drop of a hundred meters, then forty meters later, an equally sharp rise back up to the level of the road. Across this natural gap was a long bridge.

In front of the long bridge were some gloriously rancid sorts. They had rolled big rocks across the road, and had set up crude wooden barricades to hide behind. Mazelton reckoned there must be sandbags or something behind the wood. Either that or they hadn’t been doing this long. “Bullets can go through wood, arrows and sling stones can go over wood,” was one of those lessons most people wanted to learn academically, not experientially. These did not look like big readers.

Mazelton could have kissed them. Not that any of them were his type. Here was a problem he could solve. Maybe even without violence. Like a very definitely not an evil cannibal wizard. Polyclitus strode forward to parley with the bandits. Right. Not his job. Damn.