"What is it?" I asked.

  "These…these are spices, aren't they?"

  "Yeah, what's the big deal?"

  She looked at me indignantly, "do you have any idea how expensive some of these things are?"

  I scratched the back of my head, "no, I guess not. In my old world those were a couple of bucks at the Kroger. Er. That is, they were pretty cheap." I wondered what kind of currency they used here and how a dollar would translate to it. "It's true that in the old days spices were hard to come by, but where I come from even the most impoverished could afford basics like salt and pepper"

  The princess shook her head, eyes closed, "Nevermind, I'm certain tis a long tale. Once we can walk about openly, I shall take you to the merchant's quarter."

  "Well let's not get too hasty, I'm gonna want to keep some for myself. At least let me mix some dry rub."

  She tilted her head, "dry rub?"

  "Trust me," I said, grinning, "it's an important ingredient in Texas cookin' - you'll thank me later." I made no secret that I considered myself to be pretty damn good at grilling, barbequeing, smoking, pretty much any way you could think of cooking meat. I admit to only one man being better at making brisket than I, and that was my friend Jose.

  For some reason her cheeks flushed and her eyes drifted off into the distance.

  "Yeah, is that all right?"

  She seemed to regain her senses, "of course, yes, I'd love to try it! Oh, what's this bag of beans over here?"

  "Coffee."

  "Cof-fee," she sounded.

  I nodded, "yeah it's a hot drink from my world, not sure where the beans grow in this one if they even grow here at all. But you roast them, grind them, and brew them with hot water. I have no way to grind them, though."

  The princess grew silent, looked pensive for a few moments, then said, "may I try something?"

  I shrugged, at which point she opened up the bag of coffee - for a moment she was enraptured by it, ah, the aroma must have come out like those undulating streams of steam you sometimes see in cartoons coming off of pies and nabbed her by the nose.

  Then she brought the coffee beans over to the dining room table, scooped up some beans with one of the tea cups, and then began to incant a spell of some sort; by this point I'd gotten a good idea of what that looked like. To my surprise, the beans in the tea cup glowed green and then started to float mid-air, and then they started to swirl about.

  My eyes widened, as I started to realize what was going on. The beans were breaking apart at a rapid pace. Once the granules were about the size I wanted I started, with my hand out. The princess looked back at me, nodded, and dropped the grounds into a saucer. I ran my fingers through the results; yes, perfect!

  Jumping for joy I said "that was incredible!"

  Her cheeks reddened a little and she said, "tis only a weak nature spell, grain grind. It's usually used for making flour out of wheat but I thought that maybe it might work," she sheepishly twirled her hair.

  "That was clever," I said, thumbs up, "one shouldn't be constrained by the intended purpose of a thing. So um, can you boil water too?"

  She nodded, "I can create water, and also set the temperature."

  "Does that involve combining it with fire magic, or something?"

  "No, I personally can't use fire magic; my big brother can, though, and so can my sister Sylfie."

  "So how does that part work?"

  She furrowed her brow, concentrating, "well if I focus on it real hard like this," a globule of water appeared before her, wibbling and wobbling, and after a moment it started to give off steam, "I can heat it up like this, or make it cold," the steam vanished.

  "Huh, so can you make ice then?"

  "Yes, to an extent. Any ice produced this way is brittle and ill suited for offense or defense. To do things like freeze a room full of enemies or make a wall of ice you'd need an ice specialist."

  "What's the difference?"

  "A specialist in ice magic manipulates cold energy directly and can freeze existing water, whereas I need to bring it about myself in order to act upon it - for now, at least."

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  It seemed to me like water magic allowed the user to directly set the speed at which the water atoms were moving; either by hitting the brakes on em, or sending em into overdrive. Whereas ice magic involved a completely different mechanism.

  "Is the same true of fire mages or whatever you call them, can they heat up water if they need to?"

  "Fire is fire whether created by a wizard or by nature, Sir Victor," she said, with that lecture finger again.

  "I think I understand," I said, crossing my arms and nodding, "energy is energy, whether created by sorcery or science," I paraphrased, quoting the best damn cartoon of the 90s.

  The princess nodded, "water isn't a type of magical energy. When I create water I convert the mana in my body into water, and when one uses an ice or fire spell that selfsame mana is converted directly into ice or fire. But water is also water, and any fires caused by the use of fire magic can be extinguished with water," she scratched her cheek, nervously, "unless it ignited kitchen grease or the like."

  I cradled my chin. I followed so far, but…"Hey wait," I said, realizing something, I pointed to the bathroom, "doesn't the bath tub over there use fire and water magic together?"

  "With magical tools, it's more difficult to heat water using only water magic since the caster must force his will upon the water in order to change the temperature. Therefore devices without a will of their own, like that one, generally have to combine disciplines; which makes them very expensive and hard to make."

  That made sense, "so what about the, er, commode? And the dirty bathwater?"

  "In the case of Tor Anaura specifically, we have waste-eating oozes for that. There's a rancher outside of the city that raises them for us. They're pretty content to eat sewage, but there are species of slime that are dangerous to people. They cover their prey and begin to dissol-"

  "Okay, enough detail about that, I did just eat breakfast," I said, waving abruptly, got it, so they had some kind of monster or other that, I guess, that worked kind of like The Blob from that classic horror movie. "There is something important I wanted to ask you, if I may."

  "What is it?"

  "You had mentioned wind and earth magic before, what exactly can you do with those?"

  "With regards to earth magic," she started counting on her fingers, "There's raise pillar, which allows me to create a stone column five feet wide and five feet high or raise four to six smaller ones; it's not very useful in combat because it's a bit slow.

  I mostly use it to reach tall bookshelves. It is also harder to use if there's no exposed ground to speak of nearby because I would have to create the stone out of mana.

  Then there's terra-levigo which is a great deal easier to use: it's a sort of utility spell used for making travel easier. It doesn't affect earth so much as it changes how an object interacts with the ground - I can use it on several pairs of boots, or one carriage and it's pretty useful that way."

  That last one interested me, "I see, I see…so what exactly changes when you cast it on a carriage?"

  The princess thought for a moment and said, "it's like it rolls easier. Even across grass or mud, there's no extra drag."

  So that's how it was, "forgive me your highness, but I'm going to start saying some very inscrutable things," it was time for me to put on my college graduate hat, "all right," I wrote down the following formula: F = μ * N, and tried my best to explain its meaning; I took physics courses but I wasn't a professor so give me a break!

  "I think," I said, pointing to μ, "that your terra-levigo is acting upon this, mu, which represents the coefficient of roll resistance. I need a few more examples to test my theory, but I suspect…that the simplest of magics are the ones that interfere the least with the laws of physics. If all that terra-levigo is doing is changing this number here, then the mana expenditure is much lower and the ease of casting is greater."

  The princess nodded, she seemed to follow even if she didn't completely get it, so I continued, "when you create water, you're then able to make it hot or cold - so something that scientists in your world hasn't likely discovered yet is that water is made up of molecules.

  When something gets hotter, the molecules move faster. Since you aren't using fire magic to heat the water up, I suspect that all you're doing is manipulating the molecules directly; that, or it's as simple as changing the temperature value. But well, the physics of it aren't the neat part."

  "Huh? Neat part?"

  "I told you before, right, how my car operates on an internal combustion engine powered by gasoline, and how I only had a limited supply," she nodded and so I continued, "well, one component of fuel efficiency is resistance from the road. The coefficient of a dirt road would be between .02 and .03, whereas the coefficient of a good American highway would ideally be around .01.

  I suspect that your spell sets the effective coefficient to the best possible conditions, reckonin' by the way you described the effects. To make a long story short-"

  "Too late!"

  "May I request that you cast this on my car next time we go for a drive?"

  "Naturally! If I can help you in any way I'd be full glad of the opportunity!!"

  "Thanks," I said, then paused, before beginning again, "road drag is only one part of it, but I can squeeze one mile to the gallon out of that I think. Vehicle design plays a role too. So years back my grandpa started modifying the Cadillac, and as soon as I was old enough to hold a wrench I was right there with him helping him out.

  Let's see we swapped out the carburetor, put in an aftermarket electronic ignition, dual exhaust with tuned headers and a free flowing muffler, replaced the tires with aftermarket radial tires, installed heavy duty shocks and springs, and put in a 4-speed automatic transmission with overdrive. I'm probably forgetting a few things but, before I got summoned here I was getting 16 miles per gallon on average, or I guess the median, which ain't bad for a thirsty old gal."

  The princess' expression was vacant, eyes wide, I wondered how much of that she actually got. I was probably going too hard. I asked, "are you okay there?"

  She snapped back to her senses, "ahh, yes, I'm sorry. That was a great deal of new information. So um where are you going with this?"

  Now the piece of resistance or what ever the eff the French say, "the biggest and baddest enemy of gas efficiency is the wind. You see, when a car moves it must also move through the air, which has mass and makes the engine work harder.

  That is why newer cars don't look like mine, they're rounder in order to reduce wind resistance. So my question is..."

  I interlocked my fingers, steepling them like a pack of X's lined up.

  "What exactly can you do with wind magic?"