It was a boy’s trip to the city. I thought about inviting Rose, but that would mean more work for Dad. She probably had chores to do anyhow. Kids worked a lot in the village, so she couldn’t spontaneously take a day off.
After making our preparations, we went outside. Dad got the horses ready without the carriage.
“Where’s the carriage?” I asked.
“We don’t need it today,” Dad said. “We don’t need to shop. It’ll be fastest with just the horses. We’ll arrive twice as quickly.”
Made sense to me. This was my first time riding a horse, and I was a little nervous about it.
“All right, get on up.” Dad lifted me up on to the saddle. It was a lot harder than expected. My butt was for sure gonna be sore after this.
Dad hopped on the steed behind me. He tugged the reigns and the horses moved.
“Th-this is p-pretty bumpy!”
“You’ll get used to it,” Dad said. “Just hang in there. Hold on tight. We’re off to the races!”
I gripped the front of the saddle, and pushed myself into a more comfortable position. The horses were way too fast. Were they always this speedy? This was nothing like human running. It felt like we weren’t running so much as gliding over the ground. There was still plenty of shaking and vibrating though. My rear already ached.
The beginning was the easiest part. My butt started tingling after about ten minutes or so. Then, the pain spread to my bones. I tried to stretch out my back to compensate.
“Lower yourself down,” Dad commanded.
I had no choice. If I stretched too high, I could easily fall off the horse given the speed and turbulence. Dad hugged me closely from behind, so I could only assume we were moving at a fraction of the maximum speed. Yet we were moving fast enough to make my butt ache. What would things look like at full speed? I was pretty sure that would just rip my body in two.
Somehow, I bore it for about an hour. Dad kept our pace steady, and compared our one-hour time on horse to the several hours it would have taken on foot or by carriage. My butt had gone numb by the time we reached Istria. I felt utterly wiped out. I wished we had taken the carriage.
“I don’t like horses,” I told Dad.
“You will have to ride them to get by as an adult, son,” Dad said. “You can’t keep riding with me all the time.”
Into my mind popped the image of an adult man riding a horse with his father. What an unpleasant sight. I guess I would have to practice riding from now on.
In any case, we made it to Istria.
I’ll stop the grievances here. I didn’t want to complain when Dad had gone out of his way to take me there.
We passed through the various streets to Graste’s shop. We arrived, tethered the horses, and went in.
“Welc—oh, is that really you, Gawain? Just father and son today?”
“Just so,” Dad said. “Do you have a moment? We wanted to ask you about something.”
“Do I look busy? I’m so free that I’m a hair’s width from closing shop.”
It was only noon. That seemed too soon to call from my perspective. Maybe he was joking?
“So, what is it?” Graste asked.
“Didn’t you tell me once about a type of stone that makes lightning? Do you remember that?”
“Oh, yeah. I remember. It’s called thundercite. What about it?”
“We happen to be in the market for some,” Dad said. “Where can we find some?”
Huh? I didn’t discuss that with Dad! I had only asked him if such a thing existed. He was thinking two steps ahead of me. I felt bad that he’d spend more money for my sake, but he took the initiative without even asking me.
“You want to find thundercite? That’s not gonna be easy.”
“Is it rare?”
“Nah, you see it everywhere. There’s plenty to mine, if you have a permit. It’s a beast to transport, though. Thundercite’s always shooting out lightning, y’see, so you can’t touch it. That makes it a dangerous nuisance for the most part, so most people leave it alone. Some folks thought of setting it up where they could take people to see it. That’s risky business—not to mention, all it does is crackle and sparkle. It doesn’t hold people’s attention long.”
Dad glanced at me to ask me how I wanted to proceed. From what Graste had said so far, thundercite sounded too good to be true if it really produced electricity unprompted. It made me feel like this really was a fantasy world.
I wasn’t interested in thundercite itself. I just wanted to see what happened when I sent mana into it. How to proceed? I had an idea, but it wasn’t a particularly good one.
The way I saw it, if something as convenient as thundercite existed on Earth, it would have all kinds of uses. Electricity hadn’t been discovered here, so naturally no one knew how to apply it. People in this world probably thought that it was something that either looked cool or served as a lantern. I think my plan would work. We would need to solve the transport problem first.
It was time to ask the next logical question, then. “Mr. Graste, have you ever heard of a tree that oozes a white liquid?” I asked. “It also has a distinct smell.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’d go ask an herbologist about that.”
I guess there were no rubber trees here. That or they were still undiscovered. It made sense that this world wouldn’t necessarily have the same species as we did on Earth. I put my rubber idea aside for now.
“Okay, then what about mocha—I mean—mica? It’s a mineral that looks like a crystal. It’s composed of thin layers that look like you could peel apart. It’s pretty and transparent. Do you know it?”
I was referring to the mica group of silicate minerals. They had insulating properties and were widely used back on Earth. At this world’s development level, they probably didn’t have anything more advanced than glass. The worst-case scenario would be that we wrap the thundercite in huge fabrics to carry it. That was still potentially dangerous. It all depended on how much electricity the ore generated.
Someone more scientifically knowledgeable than me might be able to brainstorm other options, but that was all I knew. The extent of my learning came from science class and things I picked up here and there. If I could access the Internet or some textbooks, this would be easier to solve.