Chapter 2: Fever Dreams and Metal Songs
Lagertha had seen many kinds of sickness in her thirty-two years. Battle wounds that festered green and black. Marsh fever that burned men hollow from within. The wasting disease that consumed the very young and very old during harsh winters.
But she had never seen anything quite like this.
The stranger had been unconscious for three days now, his body fighting a fever that should have killed him twice over. She'd tended him with every herb and remedy she knew—willow bark tea for the heat, honey-soaked cloth for his cracked lips, warm stones wrapped in wool to keep the cold from stealing back into his bones.
What disturbed her wasn't the fever itself. It was the way he talked in his sleep.
"Load-bearing coefficients must account for wind shear," he'd mutter in perfectly clear Norse, though the words made no sense. "Steel reinforcement at six-inch intervals. Concrete pour needs proper curing time."
The words were Norse, but they spoke of things that didn't exist. Steel was the stuff of legends—metal so pure and strong that only the gods possessed it. And what was concrete? The term felt familiar somehow, like something from a half-remembered story, but she couldn't place it.
Worse were the moments when he spoke in the other tongue. A language that sounded nothing like any she'd heard from traders or travelers. The syllables were harsh, clipped, full of sounds that seemed to catch in the throat. When the fever peaked on the second night, he'd screamed something in that language that made her skin crawl: "Sarah! The building's coming down! Get to the stair—"
Then he'd switched back to Norse, but Norse that spoke of impossible things. Wagons that moved without horses. Ships that flew through air. Towers that scraped the sky itself.
Fever dreams. They had to be fever dreams.
But on the third morning, when she brought him water in her good iron cup—the one Ragnar had traded three silver arm rings for in Hedeby—something impossible happened.
The moment the stranger's fingers closed around the metal, the cup grew hot. Not warm, as it might from sitting near the fire. Hot enough that she dropped it with a gasp, watching precious water splash across the timber floor.
"Sorcery," Gyda whispered from the corner where she'd been spinning wool.
Lagertha hushed her daughter with a sharp look, but her own heart hammered against her ribs. She'd heard stories of men touched by the gods, blessed or cursed with power over the elements. But she'd never believed them.
Until now.
She sent Gyda to fetch her father, then knelt beside the stranger and tried to make sense of what she'd witnessed. His breathing was steady, fever finally breaking, but his sleep remained restless. And when she looked closely at the iron cup, she saw something that made her mouth go dry.
The metal where his fingers had touched was different. Smoother. As if the very grain of the iron had rearranged itself under his skin.
"What happened?" Ragnar's voice from the doorway made her jump.
"See for yourself." She told him about the cup, the impossible heat, the way the metal had changed.
Ragnar listened with the expression he wore when planning raids—calculating, measuring possibilities against risks. When she finished, he picked up one of his bronze arm rings and approached the sleeping stranger.
"Carefully," Lagertha warned.
Ragnar pressed the bronze against the man's palm and waited. Nothing happened for several heartbeats. Then the metal began to warm, growing hot enough that Ragnar had to pull it away to keep from burning his fingers.
"Only metal," he murmured, testing a piece of wood against the stranger's skin. The timber remained cool. "It's only metal that responds."
They stared at each other across the stranger's unconscious form. In Lagertha's mind, possibilities warred with practical concerns. A man who could heat metal with his touch might forge weapons no enemy could match. Or he might burn down their hall while they slept.
"Should we—" Gyda began, but Ragnar silenced her with a raised hand.
Heavy footsteps on the threshold announced Rollo's arrival. Ragnar's brother filled the doorway like a storm cloud, his dark mood evident in every line of his massive frame. He took one look at the unconscious stranger and his face twisted with disgust.
"Still breathing?" Rollo's voice carried the rough edge of a man who'd been drinking since dawn. "I told you we should have let the sea keep him."
"He was nearly dead when we found him," Lagertha said evenly. "Hospitality demands—"
"Hospitality?" Rollo stepped into the room, and Lagertha noticed her children instinctively edging away from their uncle. "This thing isn't a guest, sister. Look at him. Strange clothes, stranger scars, sleeping three days like the dead. He's cursed. Or worse."
Ragnar's jaw tightened. "Watch your tongue, brother."
"Watch my tongue? You found this creature on our beach speaking of things that don't exist, and now you harbor him under your roof." Rollo's hand drifted to the sword at his hip. "How long before his curse spreads to your children?"
"He's not cursed." The words came out harder than Lagertha had intended. "He's sick. And injured. And under the protection of this house."
Rollo's laugh held no humor. "Protection. From his sorcery or our stupidity?" His sword whispered from its sheath, steel gleaming in the firelight. "I'll end this before it begins."
He raised the blade above the unconscious stranger's chest. Lagertha tensed, ready to throw herself between them if necessary. But before she could move, something impossible happened.
The sword in Rollo's hand twisted.
Not metaphorically. Literally twisted, the blade spinning sideways in his grip as if pulled by invisible hands. The sudden change in balance made Rollo stumble, his killing blow becoming an awkward lunge at empty air.
The sword clattered to the floor. They all stared at it—a perfectly good blade, now bent at an impossible angle halfway down its length.
"Tyr's beard," Ragnar whispered.
Rollo stared at his ruined weapon with the expression of a man watching his world collapse. "How—what—" He spun toward the stranger, who remained unconscious, breathing peacefully as if nothing had happened.
"Your sword simply..." Lagertha struggled for words. "Turned."
"Swords don't turn themselves!" Rollo's voice cracked with something between rage and fear. "Not unless—" He couldn't finish the sentence, but they all knew what he'd been about to say. Not unless touched by the gods.
Or demons.
Ragnar knelt and examined the twisted blade. The metal had been distorted with such force that it would never hold an edge again. But there were no tool marks, no signs of heat damage. It was as if the iron itself had simply decided to flow into a new shape.
"Brother." Ragnar's voice carried a warning. "I think our guest is more than he appears."
Rollo backed toward the door, his face pale beneath his beard. "More than he appears? He's a demon wearing a man's flesh! Mark my words, Ragnar—harbor this thing and it will destroy everything you've built."
He stormed out, leaving his ruined sword on the floor. The sound of his heavy footsteps faded across the yard, followed by the slam of the smithy door.
In the silence that followed, Gyda crept closer to examine the twisted blade. "How did he do that, Mother? He's asleep."
Lagertha had no answer. But as she watched the stranger's peaceful face, a new thought occurred to her. If he could do this while unconscious, what might he be capable of when awake?
That night, she woke to find him sitting upright in the furs, completely lucid but moving his hands through the air as if drawing invisible pictures. His eyes were open but unfocused, pupils dilated in a way that spoke of fever dreams or visions.
"Foundation depth must compensate for frost line," he murmured, his fingers tracing geometric patterns. "Mortared stone to prevent settling. Interior supports every twelve feet to handle snow load."
His movements were precise, deliberate. Like a master craftsman working with tools only he could see. And as she watched, something extraordinary happened.
Parchment materialized on the sleeping furs beside him. Not appeared—materialized. One moment there was nothing, the next moment a sheet of fine vellum lay unrolled across the wolf pelts. And even as she watched, lines appeared on its surface as if drawn by an invisible stylus.
The drawing that emerged was unlike anything she'd ever seen. Not the crude sketches her craftsmen made, but precise, detailed pictures that showed a structure from multiple angles. Measurements marked in neat script. Symbols and numbers that meant nothing to her but were clearly meant to guide construction.
It was a mill. She could see that much. But a mill unlike any she'd encountered—wheels and gears and channels drawn with mathematical precision. As if someone had captured the essence of flowing water and grinding grain and reduced it to lines on vellum.
The stranger's hand moved one final time, adding what looked like a title at the top of the page. Then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into the furs, unconscious once again.
Lagertha approached the parchment with the caution she'd use near a coiled serpent. The drawing was still there, solid and real. The ink—if ink it was—hadn't smudged or faded.
She couldn't read the strange symbols that covered the margins, but the pictures themselves spoke clearly enough. This was a design for something that could transform their little settlement. Water-powered grain processing that would feed three times their current population. Mechanical advantage that would let one man do the work of ten.
If it could be built.
If it would work.
If the man who'd created it wasn't touched by madness or demons.
Ragnar found her there at dawn, crouched beside the sleeping stranger with the impossible blueprint spread across her knees.
"Where did this come from?" His voice was carefully neutral, but she could see the hunger in his eyes as he studied the detailed drawings.
"From him." She gestured at the peaceful face surrounded by furs. "I watched it appear. Like... like the gods themselves were guiding his hand."
Ragnar took the parchment and held it up to the morning light streaming through the smoke hole. His expression grew more thoughtful with each detail he absorbed.
"This is no fever dream, wife. Look at these measurements. These calculations." He pointed to columns of numbers that meant nothing to her but clearly spoke to him. "Whoever made this understands things about water and stone and timber that our best craftsmen don't."
"But how? Where could he have learned such things?"
"I don't know. But I intend to find out." Ragnar rolled the blueprint carefully and set it aside. "When he wakes, we'll have answers. One way or another."
As if summoned by their words, the stranger's eyes opened. Not the glazed stare of fever, but clear gray-blue awareness that focused immediately on their faces.
"How long?" he asked in perfect Norse, though his voice was hoarse from days of illness.
"Three days," Lagertha replied, studying his face for signs of deception or madness. "You've been speaking of impossible things. And..." She hesitated, then decided on directness. "Making impossible things happen."
The stranger's gaze flicked to the rolled parchment in Ragnar's hands, then to the twisted sword still lying on the floor. His expression revealed nothing, but she caught a flash of something—recognition? calculation?—before his features smoothed into careful neutrality.
"I remember fragments," he said carefully. "Fever dreams. Nothing more."
But Lagertha had watched men lie for thirty-two years. She knew the difference between truth and performance. This man remembered everything. The question was why he chose to hide it.
Ragnar leaned forward, the blueprint held casually but prominently in his hands. "Tell me, stranger. In your distant homeland, do they build mills like this?"
The man's eyes fixed on the drawing, and for just a moment his careful mask slipped. Wonder and something like fear flickered across his features before he regained control.
"Perhaps," he said slowly. "If the materials and skilled workers were available."
It wasn't a denial. And from the smile that tugged at Ragnar's lips, she knew her husband had caught the subtle admission as well.
"Then perhaps," Ragnar replied, his voice warm with the tone he used when making bargains, "we should discuss what else they build in your distant homeland. When you're feeling stronger, of course."
The stranger met his gaze steadily, and Lagertha saw something pass between them. An understanding, maybe. Or a challenge.
"Of course," the stranger said. "I am in your debt for my life. The least I can do is share what knowledge I possess."
Knowledge. Not stories or memories, but knowledge. As if the impossible blueprint was just the beginning of what he carried in his head.
Lagertha exchanged a glance with her husband. Whatever this man was—sorcerer, madman, or gift from the gods—he was about to change their world.
Whether for better or worse remained to be seen.
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