The Slime Farmer

In one hand were the decorative wall-sconces that had once been used to string up several tapestries in the house.

The sconces were aged crystal lamps which had stopped working due to the Emblem fading away with time. Leraine"s family had been using them as wall mounts for framed embroidery or pressed flowers.

It was the same use he was putting them to.

He lifted the crystal lamp that was in his other hand. It was because of the wall-sconces that he"d bought it, thinking that crystals were the primary lamp fuel in Ascharon. The night market told him otherwise. The majority of lamps used oil.

Leraine"s family must have been grand in their heyday, to use crystal lamps to light up the house.

He should look into getting permanent illumination for the house, he mused. It was not a priority. But perhaps in the reading area and the slime room.

He entered his bedroom, set the sconces on the wash-table, and lifted the lamp to consider his room.

The average Ontrean warrior-priest would mount the glaive over the bed headboard. But that was a privilege given to those who had officially pa.s.sed the Sacred Trials.

Even if Defi technically pa.s.sed, the Tablet of the Exalted would not carry his name as proof.

The common soldier would mount the blade somewhere visible, evidence of elevated status and entry into the king"s forces. The central hall would be the best, for easy access, but Defi did not want to tempt the children.

The wall at the foot of the bed was too far away. If the room was breached, he could not reach it in time.

Beside the bedroom door then, was a good place. The bedroom"s windows were high on the other wall. Though numerous, they were narrow and barred, only meant to let in light. The door was the greatest visible threat.

He took the sconces and put the lamp down.

The wooden skirt that hung down from the ceiling, old wood polished by time, left over from more generous times, was perfect. Defi installed the wall-sconces to hang below the skirt, at a height slightly below the level of his chest. Then unscrewed the upper parts, the main lamp where the crystals were supposed to be placed, leaving the curving lines of the undercarriage.

He placed the lamp heads on the wash-table, to be returned to the storage-room later.

He unwrapped the glaive that had been lying on his bed. The blade gleamed in the bluish-white crystal light, an oily patterned sheen he had not seen inside the shop.

He tapped his finger against the blade, felt it hum in the Current.

Ascharon knew how to make weapons that took power, he realized. And here he thought their primary forces were the battle emblems he"d seen deployed in conflicts twice now and the summoners of mystic beasts.

Was this what the blacksmith apprentice Charol meant by "special" metal? He had only seen that the smith"s skill was evident in a good quality weapon.

He hadn"t been paying attention.

The glaive wasn"t as well-made as the swords and spears given to the Church guardians, but for a common soldier it was enough to hand down to the next generation.

It was a good blade.

He lifted the weapon to the newly installed wall-sconces, then stepped back to study the arrangement.

It looked decent.

He went to the bed, then leaped to the wall and grabbed the glaive, going through a few basic stances smoothly. He nodded and placed the weapon back on its mounts.

There was a weapon in his room.

A part of him calmed, felt a little more at home in the house. The uneasy shadow in his mind that had been hovering since strangers had broken into the house dispersed a little.

He took the lamp, the discarded parts of the wall-sconces, and left the room.

It was time to feed the slimes.

*

The wall of the slime room, damaged in the intrusion last week, was now repaired. Karles and his workers were quick, and in a day the only mark that said there had been a problem was the newer-looking wood on half of the room"s outer wall. Karles had even installed metal window grates to complement the wooden shutters.

Defi started setting out the slime food. The room was crowded with baskets of zaziphos and starcherry that his four new students gathered in return for lessons. Near the baskets were barrels of crab sh.e.l.ls and carp bones.

He removed the slimes from the feeding baskets and placed them in individual basket-cages.

It took the slimes at least half a day to digest one feeding.

Apart from Turq, each of the surviving ten slimes in the house consumed 10 kilogar of feed a day. It was necessary to maintain a useful amount of slime extract.

Defi mixed the food into the feeding baskets. Of the feed items, zaziphos was the most numerous. He"d been using it to pad out most of the mixtures.

The ratios were all the same as when he started, though the allocation for Zav had 100% zaziphos because the savras sellers had not come to the Lowpool yet.

Zav"s partner Ziv, he had buried under the pines nearest the river. Coming from a watery land, it seemed the appropriate place for the slime. Despite their acquaintance being brief, the savras extract Ziv helped make was a success that may bring promising profit.

Defi finished filling the feeding baskets with five kilogar of feed each. Before he put the slimes in, he extracted the usual litr of liquid from each of them.

In all, extraction and feeding and cleaning up took the better part of two hours. He was more efficient now than when he first began.

He put Turq into its own feeding basket. "I don"t suppose you can split by digesting common ingredients alone?"

Unlikely, really.

But it would give him an additional slime that could replace Zivenof.

Defi let out an audible sigh.

Since savras extract was a recent experiment, there was not much of it. He still needed the apothecary"s a.n.a.lysis before he could think of expanding. Replacing Ziv was not a priority at the moment.

What he should be doing was developing the farm and acquiring sustainable sources of slime food.

He headed out for his nightly routine of nouris.h.i.+ng of the land and the hybrid Herbs.

The lamp swung from his hand.

Nearing the western garden plot, something stopped him, a sudden swirl in the Current. He tensed and immediately sunk Current into the land below him, spreading his senses through the earth.

There was no one around other than him, not within twenty mar of the boundaries of the homestead.

His brows furrowed.

He stood there, slowing the beating of his heart from the sudden fright.

He had not wanted to admit to himself, the intrusion into the house had rattled him more than he allowed himself to show. If this were Ontrea, he would have been moved to another residence and all the people who lived nearby questioned by the agents of Rimet to ensure that such a breach would not happen again.

This was Ascharon however, and the intrusion was not a threat directly aimed at him or the land of Rimet.

He knew that with the disappearance of the "survey team" beyond his western border, he was safer than if he lived in a fortress. But instincts ingrained in him for eighteen years were not an easy thing to calm.

A part of him was insisting to leave and find a place other than this small town. The same part that berated him when he walked the streets without a sword at his side, that thrilled at the thought of war in another land, that was relieved when he acquired a weapon, that narrowed its eyes at every person who approached him. The part of him that was honed by expectations of the lord of Rimet.

This was Ascharon, he reminded himself, once more. This was Ascharon, and he was not here to become a warrior-priest. That path was closed to him.

Those who directed the intrusion had nothing to do with him, Defi repeated to himself. The intruders found nothing in the house to interest them. In their eyes, Defi was far in their past.

There was no one after him. No one but Ymirin, if she had not crossed back through the Gate. If she was still in Ascharon, whoever spread those rumors had mired her in the concerns of n.o.bility. She"d be too busy to actively direct her search.

He"d mounted a glaive on his wall. He"d find the Emblem configuration that would protect both the house and land. There will be no one that could enter his place without permission.

Rea.s.sured, he reached out with the Current once more.

That"s when he noticed the anomaly in the direction of the Herb plots.

The hybrid Shyleaf Herb was ready for harvest.