Chapter 3: The Builder's Bargain
The first thing I noticed when consciousness fully returned wasn't the warmth of the furs or the scent of wood smoke hanging in the air. It was Ragnar's eyes.
Blue as winter ice and just as unforgiving, they watched me with the patience of a hunter waiting for prey to make that final, revealing mistake. He sat on a wooden stool beside the sleeping alcove, my fever-dream blueprint spread across his knees like a map to buried treasure.
"You sleep loudly," he said without preamble, his voice carrying that casual tone men used when they already knew the answer to the question they were about to ask. "Lots of talk about things that don't exist. Steel that flows like water. Towers that scrape the sky. Ships that sail through air."
I kept my expression carefully neutral despite the hammering of my heart. Three days of fever-induced rambling could have revealed anything. The fact that I was sitting here alive suggested I hadn't said anything too damning, but clearly I'd said enough to intrigue him.
"Fever dreams," I replied, testing my voice. It came out steadier than I felt. "I remember fragments. Nightmares, mostly."
"Nightmares." Ragnar's smile held no warmth. "Strange nightmares that leave behind drawings of machines that could feed a hundred families."
He held up the blueprint—my blueprint, manifested from nothing while my conscious mind slept. The technical drawings were impossibly precise by Viking standards, showing a water-powered mill from multiple angles with measurements and specifications that would have impressed the engineering department back in Seattle.
Back in my real life. The life that was gone forever.
"Where I come from," I said carefully, "we preserve knowledge differently than you do here. What you call drawings, we call... teaching tools."
"Teaching tools." Ragnar rolled the word around in his mouth like he was tasting wine. "And where exactly do you come from, stranger? You speak our tongue like a native, but your clothes, your scars, even the way you hold your hands—everything about you says foreigner."
This was the moment I'd been dreading. The interrogation. I'd had three days of fever to craft a cover story, but lying to someone as sharp as Ragnar Lothbrok felt like trying to hide storm clouds behind my fingers.
"The eastern lands," I said, falling back on the vague geography that had served travelers and storytellers for centuries. "Beyond the Rus territories, where the rivers run toward the sunrise."
"Ah." Ragnar leaned back, but his eyes never left my face. "And what brings an eastern... teacher... to our humble shores in the middle of winter?"
"I was traveling with a trading expedition. Learning." The lies came easier now, built on a framework of half-truths. "My family are builders and smiths. They sent me to see how other peoples work metal and stone."
"Builders and smiths." Ragnar's tone suggested he found this explanation both believable and insufficient. "Must be wealthy builders, to send their son wandering the world in winter."
"Wealthy enough." I met his gaze steadily. "Though considerably poorer now that the ship and its cargo rest on the bottom of your sea."
For a long moment we stared at each other across the space between his stool and my sleeping furs. I could practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he weighed my story against his own observations.
Finally, he laughed. Not the cruel laughter of a man catching prey in a trap, but the genuine amusement of someone appreciating a well-played game.
"You know what I think?" he said, rising and moving toward the central fire where something savory bubbled in an iron pot. "I think you're telling me the truth. Just not all of it."
He ladled what looked like stew into a wooden bowl and brought it back to me. The smell made my stomach clench with hunger—when had I last eaten real food?
"But that's acceptable," he continued, settling back onto his stool. "A man who spills all his secrets to strangers won't keep them long. Here. Eat. You look half-dead still."
The stew was better than it had any right to be—chunks of meat and root vegetables in a rich broth flavored with herbs I couldn't identify. As I ate, Ragnar continued his gentle interrogation.
"These eastern building techniques of yours. Are they why your family sent you traveling?"
"Partly." I paused between spoonfuls, thinking carefully. "Knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied. What I learn here, I take back. What I teach here... well, that depends on whether anyone wants to learn."
"Oh, someone wants to learn." Ragnar's smile turned predatory. "Tell me, eastern builder—do they make ships in your homeland?"
"Ships, yes. Though perhaps not the kind you're familiar with."
"Show me."
The request was simple, but I heard the command underneath it. This wasn't curiosity—this was a test. And my answer would determine whether I spent the next few months as a guest or a corpse.
"I'd need to see your ships first," I said finally. "To understand what improvements might be possible with local materials and methods."
Ragnar's eyes lit up like a man who'd just discovered gold in his fishing nets. "Floki! Get in here!"
A moment later, a wild-haired figure appeared in the doorway. Tall and lean, with the kind of manic energy that suggested he'd been awake for three days straight. His clothes were stained with pine tar and wood shavings, and his hands moved constantly—drumming against his thighs, tracing patterns in the air, never quite still.
"This is our shipwright," Ragnar said. "Floki builds the fastest boats on the northern seas. Perhaps he'd like to hear about eastern shipbuilding."
Floki approached slowly, studying me with eyes that seemed to see more than was comfortable. When he spoke, his voice carried the sing-song cadence of a man used to talking to himself.
"Eastern ships. Yes, yes, I've heard stories. Ships with square sails and deep bellies, built for rivers and coasts. Good for cargo, bad for speed." He tilted his head like a raven examining roadkill. "What could an eastern builder teach about real ships? Ships built for the sea's fury?"
The challenge in his voice was unmistakable. This wasn't just professional skepticism—this was territorial defense. I was an outsider claiming knowledge in his domain, and he wasn't about to accept my credentials without proof.
"Perhaps nothing," I admitted. "But I'd be curious to see how western ships handle ocean swells. In my experience, the relationship between keel design and stability in rough water is often... misunderstood."
Floki's eyes narrowed. "Misunderstood? You think we don't understand our own ships?"
"I think different waters teach different lessons." I kept my voice respectful but confident. "What works in rivers might need adjustment for open ocean. Just as what works in calm seas might fail in storms."
"Ha!" Floki clapped his hands together with sharp delight. "Listen to him, Ragnar. He speaks like he's sailed every water from here to the edge of the world."
"Have you?" Ragnar asked quietly. "Sailed far waters?"
The question hung in the air like smoke. How much could I claim without arousing suspicion? How little could I reveal while still proving my worth?
"Far enough to know that water is water," I said finally. "But every shore teaches something new."
It wasn't really an answer, but both men seemed to accept it. Floki's eyes had taken on the gleam of a craftsman presented with a new tool he wanted to test.
"Well then, eastern builder," he said, rocking back on his heels. "Tomorrow we'll see if your knowledge floats or sinks."
"Tomorrow," Ragnar agreed. "But first—" He pulled a broken spear from beside the fire, its iron tip split nearly in half by what looked like impact damage. "My best smith says this can't be fixed. The crack goes too deep, he claims. What does eastern wisdom say?"
I took the spear and examined it carefully, letting my enhanced senses analyze the metal's structure. The iron was low-quality by modern standards—lots of impurities, inconsistent carbon content, stress fractures throughout. But the specific crack that had defeated their smith was actually quite repairable, if you understood metallurgy.
More importantly, I could fix it with my powers. The question was whether I dared demonstrate them so openly.
"It can be fixed," I said finally. "But not here. Not without a proper forge."
"The smithy is just across the yard," Lagertha said from the doorway. I hadn't heard her approach, but she stood there with her arms crossed, watching our little drama with the expression of a woman who'd heard too many men make too many promises.
"If you can fix what Orm the Smith cannot," she continued, "then perhaps your eastern knowledge is worth the food we've spent on you."
The challenge was explicit now. Prove my worth or find myself back on the beach where they'd found me.
"Very well." I stood, testing my legs. Still shaky, but functional. "Let's see what can be done."
The smithy was a substantial building—stone foundation, timber frame, with a forge that spoke of serious metalwork. Bellows that could generate real heat, an anvil that had seen decades of use, tools that were well-maintained if not sophisticated.
Orm the Smith was a thick-bodied man with forearms like tree trunks and the perpetual squint of someone who'd spent too many years staring into forge-fire. He looked at me with the professional skepticism of a master craftsman confronting a would-be apprentice.
"Ragnar says you can fix what can't be fixed," he said without preamble. "Show me."
I examined the spear tip more carefully under good light. The crack ran almost the full length of the blade, but it was a clean stress fracture—the kind that happened when good metal was pushed beyond its limits. With my enhanced understanding of metallurgy and my ability to manipulate metal at the molecular level, I could heal this crack completely.
But doing so would require using my powers openly, in front of witnesses who would remember every detail.
"Knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied," I'd told Ragnar. Time to find out if that philosophy extended to dangerous knowledge.
"The crack can be healed," I said, firing up the forge. "But the metal around it needs to be... encouraged... to remember its proper shape."
I heated the spear tip until it glowed orange-red, then placed it on the anvil. To any observer, what happened next would look like skilled smithwork—hammering out the damaged area, using heat and pressure to close the crack.
What they couldn't see was the way I used my Metallic Manipulation to guide the metal's flow at the molecular level, knitting the iron atoms back together in a seamless bond that was stronger than the original material. The effort left me dizzy and nauseous—my powers were still weak, unstable—but the result was undeniable.
Where there had been a ruined blade, now there was pristine iron without even a hairline scar to mark where the damage had been.
Orm stared at the spear tip like it had personally offended him. He turned it over in his hands, held it up to the light, even tested the edge against his thumbnail.
"Impossible," he muttered. "I've been working iron for thirty years. Metal doesn't heal like flesh."
"In the eastern lands," I said carefully, "we understand that metal has... memory. Sometimes it just needs to be reminded of what it was meant to be."
It was mystical nonsense, but it was the kind of mystical nonsense that might be accepted in a world where people still believed in magic. Better to be thought wise than suspected of sorcery.
Ragnar took the spear from Orm's slack hands and examined it himself. When he looked up at me, his expression held a mixture of hunger and calculation that made my skin crawl.
"Eastern knowledge," he said slowly. "Yes, I think we can find use for eastern knowledge."
Lagertha stepped closer, studying the repaired spear with the practical eye of a woman who understood the value of good tools. "If you can do this with damaged weapons, what else can you fix?"
"Many things." I fought down another wave of dizziness as the aftermath of using my powers hit me. "But not quickly, and not without proper materials and tools."
"Time we have," Ragnar said. "And materials can be acquired. The question is—what do you want in return?"
The question I'd been dreading. What did I want? Survival, obviously. A place in this strange world I'd been dropped into. But beyond that?
"What you build with them is your choice," the Void had said of my powers. Maybe it was time to start building something worthwhile.
"A place," I said finally. "Food, shelter, protection while I learn your ways. In return, I'll share what knowledge I can. Help with... projects... that could benefit everyone."
"Projects." Ragnar's smile was sharp as a blade. "I have a project in mind. Ships, as we discussed. Better ships. Ships that can sail farther and carry more than anything these northern seas have ever seen."
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the winter air seeping through the smithy walls. In the back of my mind, half-remembered history lessons whispered warnings about Vikings and their ships, about raids and conquests and the terror they'd brought to distant shores.
But I was no longer a modern man with modern sensibilities. I was a refugee in a brutal world, dependent on the goodwill of people who could kill me as easily as swatting a fly.
"Ships," I agreed. "I can help with ships."
Ragnar clasped my shoulder with a grip that could crack stone. "Then welcome to our household, eastern builder. I have a feeling you're going to change everything."
As we walked back toward the main hall, I caught sight of two children watching from the shadows near the grain store. Bjorn and Gyda, Ragnar and Lagertha's son and daughter. They looked at me with the open curiosity of youth, unmarked by their parents' careful calculations.
At least someone in this family saw me as a person rather than a tool.
"What you build with them is your choice," the Void had whispered. Looking at those children's faces, I found myself hoping I would choose wisely.
Because something told me the consequences of my choices were going to ripple far beyond this small Viking farm.
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