Early the next morning, Frodo had covered his desk with a variety of test materials.
From raw timber to mammoth fat, from malachite ore to baked clay, from braided grass to roasted meat... everything he could scavenge from the stockpiles was present.
"You look too excited," Orin noted, squatting near the fire pit. He picked up a piece of dried fish from a plate and popped it into his mouth.
"Of course I am. We just recruited a prodigy, and her intuitive understanding of the earth is staggering," Frodo replied without looking away from the desk. "Also, do not think I didn’t see you steal one of my test subjects."
"There are plenty of fish left," Orin said, wiping his mouth. "Is Nia’s obsession really that useful to us?"
"It is of the greatest usefulness. Whether it is decomposing compounds or leaching minerals, her mind will bring an improvement to our manufacturing," Frodo said. "Right now, Bael and the builders are limited by the strength of the wood and stone they use. The wooden levers crack, and the flint axes shatter under pressure. But if Nia can isolate pure elements from the rocks our production capabilities will leap forward. Items like copper armor and torsion-engines will enter mass production."
"Is that so?" Orin skipped back to the desk. "She didn’t seem to think she was useful last night."
"Because she hasn’t been taught how to weaponize her obsession yet. She has been told her whole life that thinking differently is a curse," Frodo explained. "When I finish teaching her chemistry and metallurgy, she will not think of herself as cursed any longer."
Orin kept silent. He reached out and popped another piece of fish into his mouth.
When Nia finished her broth and entered the alcove, her aptitude test began.
Frodo observed how Nia tackled one material after another. When handed a chunk of malachite ore, she didn’t just smash it with a hammer.
She crushed it, mixed it with pine-sap and hot ash, and separated the rocky impurities from the copper flakes.
Woven baskets were degraded back into preserved grass fibers using boiling water.
However, when handed the roasted meat and berries, she stared at them, unable to break them down into anything else.
Halfway through the pile of test objects, she stopped, dropping her scraper. Her hands were blistered, and she was panting. "I am sorry, Lord... I have exhausted my strength."
Frodo looked at Orin, who nodded. "The stamina of a refugee is low. But it is the first time I have seen someone work with such unbroken focus."
"Sit down," Frodo commanded, waving Nia over to the fire pit. "You are young, and you have survived a death march. Being able to separate the copper flakes is already a feat."
Frodo pushed a flat piece of bone across the table toward her. It was carved with his seal. "Since you have decided to stay in the Mammoth Mountain, I am offering you a place in my tribe." Find the original chapter at g.com.
Nia gasped. "A sleeping alcove? And meat from the cache? Lord... but my skills haven’t even been tested. I couldn’t do anything with the meat or the berries."
"This has nothing to do with what you cannot do," Frodo shook his head. "As long as you are a member of the Circle of the Wise, you will never starve or freeze again."
"Even if my obsession is only good for destroying things?" she asked.
"You can interpret it like that," Frodo spread out his hands. "But I believe every mind has a use; it is a matter of aiming it in the right direction. Destroying the old forms is how we build the new ones. So you do not have to worry about being useless here."
He paused. "However, there is a condition. To ensure you do not blow yourself up when we start working with volatile powders, you have to train your mind every day. After the evening meals, Orin teaches the symbols in the main cavern. You will attend his lectures. Although you understand the earth instinctively, you still have to study basic mathematics and the laws of matter."
"Yes, Lord Frodo," Nia nodded.
"You have a younger brother, correct?" Frodo asked. "When you attend the lessons, bring Renn along with you. He is at the perfect age to begin his education."
Nia pressed her hands to her chest and bowed. "As you command."
After Nia left to check on Renn, Frodo looked at the separated materials covering his desk.
"What is the final result?" Orin asked, peering at the piles of powder.
"Awe-inspiring," Frodo said, picking up the preserved grass fibers that had once been a woven basket. "For example, this... when the river tribes weave these baskets, they seal them with a mixture of mud and clay, letting the structure become rigid. Once baked, it is difficult to separate the mud from the grass without snapping the fibers. It is considered an irreversible process by any craftsman, but..."
Frodo pinched the grass in his palm. "She used the exact temperature of water and ash to dissolve the clay binding without damaging a single blade of grass. She brought the material back to its original appearance."
"Well, I cannot say I understand the difficulty," Orin said. "But putting it that way, is her skill just restoring a crafted item back into its raw pieces?"
"It is not like that," Frodo pointed to the pile of copper flakes. "If she merely restored things, she would have left the malachite as a rock. But she broke the rock down into pure copper powder and dirt."
"So in the end, what exactly is her skill?" Orin asked.
"For the time being, she relies on instinct. I would say her ability to separate matter manifests according to her knowledge and experience."
Frodo had no doubt that what Nia needed most right now was knowledge...
***
Three days later, when the second convoy of sleds carrying the refugees from the Eastern Gorge arrived at the lower valley, the Black Frost sickness had broken out on the trail again.
This time, the situation was more severe, with half of the column coughing up black blood. After questioning the patients, Frodo learned that the black blisters had appeared on the first day of the march.
This meant they had been infected earlier, and the incubation period of the pathogen was accelerating.
Frodo also received a second piece of birch bark, sent via sled-runner from Jax in the east.
When Frodo read the charcoal markings, his brow wrinkled.
When the disease had spread through the neutral trading camp, the High Shamans of the gorge declared it was a blood-curse sent by Kael’s warlocks.
They told the neutral tribes that they possessed a ’Sacred Ash’—a supposed gift from Kael’s spirits—that could repel the sickness.
Consequently, even the healthy traders in the gorge had started bowing to Kael’s totems.
Because the situation was deteriorating into a fanatical cult, Jax had chosen to stop the recruitment of the remaining refugees.
If Frodo calculated correctly, the first column of refugees, who were cured, wouldn’t be able to send word back to the gorge for several days.
With a week spent traveling, it would be too late for the thousands of traders who were already infected.
Moreover, the proclamation of the High Shamans reeked of a coordinated conspiracy to subjugate the neutral tribes under Kael’s control without shedding a drop of blood.
Frodo made a decision.
He would send an armed team to escort Vash, along with sleds loaded with the wormwood and pine-needle cure, back to the Eastern Gorge.
If he did nothing, more than half of the trading camp would die, and those who survived would become devoted slaves to Kael’s shamans...