Windfire
by Kevin Wiley
"You can do what?" I asked the porcelain skinned pixie. " I can direct the
windfire!" She restated proudly. Translation spells were notorious unreliable, since they
translates the descriptive meanings, as the speaker thinks of them, to the equivalent
descriptive words in the listeners language. Sounds reasonable right, but how would a
word like car translate based on, a) what you consider it, and b) a mystical listeners language.
Since people tend to think their personal vehicle has a personality of its own (Ever catch
yourself begging it to do something? "Please start!", "Don't stall!", "Just make it to the
next gas station, please!"-- any of those sound familiar.); the translation spell would use
that personality as part of it's description in the language of the listener, Don't think of
your car as an infernal machine, trust me, that doesn't translate well. So, I'm pretty sure,
that I'm not hearing what the pixie is saying in this case. Figuring out what she meant was
part of my job, I've had this job for most of the three years, since the dimension gate open on
Earth, re-introducing magic to humanity (the aliens insisted it was here all along, that we
just hadn't noticed). It had to be the toughest part of my job.
Oh, excuse me, I haven't introduced myself. I'm George Leyman, and I'm an
investigator for the Department of Defense. My job is to determine which magics can be
considered weapons grade, and then find appropriate defenses to them. How did I get this
job you ask? Well, when a dimensional portal opens up in the backwoods of Vermont, and
someone sees a dragon walk out. You label them, crazy, and ignore them. Pity the one that open three years ago,
was on the fifty yard line of the Superbowl, at the kick off. The poor Wizard thought he
was under attack, when he saw that line of barbarians (his word, not mine) charging him.
Fortunately, none of the Cowboys were killed by the fireball, but it did end a few careers.
Anyway, that was much harder to ignore. Especially, since the wizard was captured, and
that lead to some other complications. It seems he had some friends that came looking for
him and well, if a saucer did crash in Roswell, space aliens must be a lot more
understanding then extra-dimensional ones. After a year, we did manage to resolve the
conflicts, but there was no going back to the old way of doing things.
Therefore, new job opportunities became available. I was paper-pusher at the
Pentagon, when someone found out, from a wizard. That names display the abilities of a
being (He meant True-Names, the translation spell called it "real names"), so the military
searched their employee records for people with magic related names. Leyman, refers to
someone that can tap the leyline magic, or so I was told. The fact I didn't have any magical
abilities didn't stop them from transferring me into to the new investigative division, but
the pays good and it's not that dangerous, so I'm not complaining.
Getting back to the problem at hand, what did this pixie actually do? "You direct
the windfire?" I was thinking of something like a flame thrower using wind to propel the
flames. The pixie was shaking her head. "No, it's the sky fire that only comes if the winds
are right, Windfire." "and I said?", I was trying to find out where the distinctions were, so I
could ask better questions. The pixie, like most magical creatures, knew the short comings
of translation spells, so was patient with my questions. "You direct the burning winds?" she replied.
"And that's something different from Windfire, how are they different?" I was becoming
curious since she seem insulted by the thought of directing burning winds. "The Burning
Winds spell hurts more people, but not as badly. It can be used anytime" she explained,
"Windfire does more damage but to fewer things and can only be direct by a few beings,
and then only when the weather is right." I think I'm beginning to understand so the next
question should verify it "Is it raining when the Windfire can be directed?" "Usually, but
not always, it's always windy though." she answered. One more question might do it."And there's thunder, when it's
available?" " Most of the time, yes." that answer, pretty much clinched it. I only had to
have her direct the Windfire now, while I video taped it to finish the interview, unfortunately
there was no storm at the moment. "O.K., Windfire (her name really did describe her abilities)
first chance we get, I'd like to see you direct the windfire, so I could record it." "I'll direct
it, but you won't be able to learn it, it's not a spell to be written down it's an ability only a
few have.", the translation spell had obviously glitched again, but this one didn't seem important, "Are you ready to try and write it down, now?" she asked. I had the camcorder
with me, of course, but there was no thunderstorm. Maybe, I'd guessed wrong. "Yes, I can
be ready, but are the winds right?" I said as I readied the camcorder. She watched this
with interest, understanding new magic was something she wanted to do, too. which was
why she had agreed to this interview. I'd had to explain the "magic" of her choice after she
was finished. or introduce her to someone who would (which was more likely). "yes the
winds are all right. Would that boulder be OK, for a target?" "Sure, I'm read...
I was picking myself up off the ground before I finished the sentence. The boulder
was shattered, and smoking where the trails of glass marked the lightning's passage. I had
guessed right, and back at with the R&D boys, I even found out most of what I hadn't
understood. Temperatures of lightning bolts can match portions of the Sun, so calling it
fire is fairly accurate. Lightning, it turns of can strike up to 10 miles away from the storm,
that's generating it naturally, directing it seems to extend that a bit. The end result is that
only the winds of the thunderstorm were in the sunny area of the strike, hence Windfire.
The most unexpected part was the strength of the bolt. The current best guess is that it
was really several bolts combined into one. My report stated it was weapons grade magic
(big surprise!) and that what defenses there were to it, were already on military vehicles
but might need upgrading.
My next interview is with a bog creature. I hope "glow mist" really is just swamp
gas, like the Air Force is claiming!
copyright 1999, by Kevin Wiley
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