Free Nightlord: Sunset by Garon Whited Page A

means, but the lines were there for an airplane wing, a helicopter, and a clip-fed machine gun—complete with brass casings, percussion centerfire primer, and pre-seated lead.
    I wondered how the world would have changed if Sasha had let these books loose, back when.
    But the things that were new knowledge to me were the works on magic!  There were diagrams and words, symbols and foci.  He apparently hadn’t believed in anything as esoteric as codes; all of the “spells” were simply instructions and explanations, listed in order.  Any idiot with literacy and the proper mind-set could have followed these.
    It was mildly frightening, at least until I got to other sections of his notes.  The ability to bend one’s brain and actually manipulate magical forces is fairly rare.  But the spells themselves were so simple!  It brings me back to the blind man metaphor.  A telescope is simple on paper—but a man born blind will never invent it.  The whole science of astronomy would not exist except for the sense of sight.  So it is with magic; the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind is the only one who can see stars—and the blind don’t believe him.
    Eventually, though, you know I had to try a spell.  Just to see.
    I’ve always loved snow.  Preferably lots of snow.  There’s something to be said for a world locked in white silence, peaceful and serene.  So I decided to make it snow.  Well… try to.  I copied out the notes in longhand so I could read them easily, then walked into the back yard for the first time, whistling as I went.
    Wow.
    The back yard was a Japanese gardener’s stony dream.  Big rocks, small rocks, pebbles, sand… everywhere.  From drunken monoliths to precisely-aligned lines of rocks, the place was a rock garden.  The space to the right of the door I’d come through was a swimming pool—a shallow one, more of a wading pool and overgrown hot tub—with lots of places to lounge and those fun folding chairs that go with it.  I felt I knew why there wasn’t a full-depth pool around.  The rock garden had a few small reflecting pools, and one powered fountain—with a goldfish!—and the output flowed down the face of several jumbled-together stones.
    I found a nice quiet spot and followed the directions, drawing lines in the sand.  That’s all I’m going to say about the process right now.
    When I was done, I knew I’d done something .  I was tired and shaking and hungry again.  So I folded up my notes and went inside to eat.  I felt weak and I was definitely trembling, as though I had just run a race and given my all to win it.  I wondered, offhand, how much effect I could expect.  I mean—June!  Sure, it wouldn’t snow, but what sort of temperature and precipitation could I reasonably hope for?
    I ate heartily—I can assemble a sandwich, boil soup, and so on; I don’t starve in a kitchen—and rested until I felt better.  I wondered just how much of that replete feeling I would have tonight as leftovers from the smorgasbord.  I suspected it wouldn’t be much.  Normally, a whole person, death and all, could support a dayblood like myself for a year or so of living strictly as a human being.  The snacking, the little bites from everyone, could pack a dayblood so full he bulged and it wouldn’t last for more than a week.  It’s that dying spark, like Sasha said, that has the power to truly satisfy—and cause that overwhelming rush.
    Sasha came home while I was—Hmmm.  I just realized that I consider this place to be home.  Not “Sasha’s house.”  Not “that great bloody mansion.”  Home.  I’ll have to think about that.
    Anyway, Sasha came home while I was eating, so I shared with her, feeding her little bits of my own abbreviated meal while she cooked a real one.  As the steak began to sizzle, I asked about the blood she kept on hand and she reminded me of the cattle on her property.  We can survive on any blood, but the more vital the creature