by Pam Uphoff
She leaned into his shoulder, and he stopped and put his arms around her.
“Sorry. I thought I got past this last night.”
“Oh, Spikey. It’s a kind of grief. It’s probably going to be ambushing you for a couple of years.” He tightened his hold on her. “I’ve been watching those kids. They hang around you, follow you, talk about you. Fight over who gets to sit next to you. You’re their fantastic magical famous aunt . . . and now they know you’re their mother. Theirs.
“Even with the socially unacceptable biofather, they seem to think they’re coming out way ahead.” He shrugged. “Oh, Ryol did some emoting, but she got over it awfully fast.”
Rael snorted. “I know. She called me. I was shocked that Ox actually called you.”
“Heh. Did you notice Urfa checking him out? I’ll bet he steals him from Izzo. So you just need to have a good enough relationship with Raod that they live close to you when they move to Paris.”
Rael’s eyebrows rose. “I’d forgotten about that. Before all this blew up, yes, a permanent position with Internal Relations has been offered. I was telling Raod she should live in my house and get familiar with the city before they bought a house or apartment.”
“Ah, good plan. The closer together you all live, the easier the sharing of children. Hmm, your house would be packed. Need me to come finish the back rooms in the basement?”
Rael shook her head, smiling. “Actually they’re about to lose their nanny—she says that once the youngest child is in school, it’s time for her to move on to the next job. And Raod really can cook. She said she’d do it all herself. She said she missed it. But they don’t want to sell their house, so it’ll probably be a bit of a financial strain to maintain two homes.”
He looked down at her and bit his lip. “Umm . . . Did you know I paid double the standard lump sum child support for twenty-five kids? Bet I can really piss off your sister by offering the same to her. Or you.”
Rael frowned. “How rich are you, actually? I mean, I know you own a whole World but that’s not the same as having spendable money.”
“Umm, very? Between gold mining and whatever my Dad has put in my account . . . heh, you weren’t there when I talked with Orde and Urfa about the Wolf Company.”
“The one that’s handling all the monetary exchanges here? Is your father the Wolf of the company name?”
“Yes. He’s the sole owner, and probably the richest man on Comet Fall.” Xen shrugged. “And anytime I’m feeling independent, I can go gold mining. We pretty much fall into the category of ‘money is a useful tool’ but we vaguely remember way back when it was a hard scramble to get the minimum needed for things that had to be purchased.”
Rael nodded, quick thoughts flashing behind mental shields. “There are some really good private prep schools in Paris. Very expensive.”
Xen grinned at her. “So why don’t I send you what the other mothers got, and you can pay to put the kids in one—or two—of these pricey prep schools?”
That finally got a giggle. “And one-up my sister.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Girls and Boys
Xen eyed his eleven other Oner daughters. Ytry had accepted his request for a split session. Because girls learn differently, quite apart from nineteen students all at once would be difficult. Dangerous, in fact.
“Excellent. Your mental shields are solid and steady. So, let’s think about energy shields. The basic shield is just a single mirror, but it needs to stand out about an arms-length from you and reach from the floor to over your head.”
He raised an illusion as he spoke, a shiny bullet shape that hid him completely.
“Reflecting outward, of course. And reflecting electromagnetic energy, not thoughts. So,” he banished the illusion. “Let’s start with a small shield and work on the twist that makes it reflect energy on a small part of the spectrum.”
He gathered light, in a tiny bit of the spectrum and concentrated it. Held up the bright red light. “Imagine a mirror that reflects red light.”
They aren’t less strong than the other kids, but they can only mine heat for power. I wonder if I can borrow a beach for physical shield lessons? Or a day trip to Embassy? I sympathize with the teachers, wanting to not make targets of them.
And making sure they stay Oners.
I think I need to stick to teaching . . . more subtle magic. Charms and spell construction. Things that will be of value to them here.
He walked among the kids, the techniques of reflecting energy projecting softly past his own mental shields, as he helped each of them feel what this sort of shield felt like.
And of course, with lessons in Paris . . .
Rael was traveling with the President the first two days, but he stayed at her house and weeded the garden, worked over the basement . . . added a bathroom, enclosed the laundry equipment, installed windows in the two possible bedrooms, with corridors so the outside of the windows were above ground, attached to the back of the garage.
Flooring . . . He eyed the bare room. What does Rael need? Or her sister’s family if they stay here? Rael’s got a little screen upstairs that she claims to rarely watch.
All the kids I know want huge screens, gaming systems, good speakers for music . . .
Or I could wait for Rael to get back, because she’ll probably have something to say about what I’ve done so far . . .
And then next week, I have the training session with the boys.
Then I suppose I’ll have to go back to work.
Chapter Thirty-four
Third Camp
Unvu threw his hands in the air. “Children! Mere fourteen-year-olds! Being trained in advanced Magic techniques! And now this!”
“Calm down.” The old man pushed himself out of his comfortable chair and stretched.
"Calm down? We wanted Wolfson to evaluate the children. Maybe give them some extra meditation exercises. And now . . . fireballs! Massive telekinesis! Telepathy over ten kilometers!"
The Prophet Emre sighed. "Did you expect Wolfgang Oldham's grandchildren to be ordinary? I didn’t. Especially not the two that are also my great grandchildren."
Diuc nodded sharply. "They will give us back our supremacy over the Multiverse."
Emre shook his gray head.
Unvu tried, and failed, to suppress the thought that if the Prophet had gone ahead and died like he was supposed to, Unvu would be running the One, not babysitting terrifying children.
Now Emre looked like a Oner in his early second century. "Stop it. There is no need to rule anything. It will be nice to be able to open our own gates and corridors. But it won't get any cheaper. Private dimensional companies will probably charge an arm and a leg. And no doubt the government bureaucracy will come up with regulations and permits and piles of paperwork."
He glanced at his desk. "Dammit.”
Unvu glowered. “But right now we have a problem.”
“Just . . . send those seven kids back to Wolf’s boy and ask him to instill some control." The old Prophet waved them off.
Diuc and Unvu bowed themselves out.
They exchanged glances, as their shields tightened even further. Unvu kept his voice quiet. "Of course, for the One to be supreme, Wolfson will have to die."
Diuc smiled thinly. “My pleasure.”
Unvu smiled back and didn’t think at all about anyone else who needed to be gotten out of the way.
***
“So, the One is hugely impressed with your progress.”
Arno eyed Unvu. The Priest was looking almost manic.
:: So who scared him? :: He mentally poked Jay.
:: They’ve twice gotten us locals together for testing. Three days ago Gior and Voyr got into a cat fight over some boy they both know. They started throwing fireballs. ::
:: At each other? ::
:: Yeah. Bounced off shields, of course. Or What and I snuffed all the fires. ::
:: Damn, I missed all the fun! :: Yrno, of course.
The Pr
iest kept talking. “Just coming up on your fifteenth birthdays, and you seven have already shown strong magical talent, and dimensional abilities, with one of you already able to make corridors. Well, at the suggestion of Captain Wolfson, we gave you time to do a little more maturing, and consolidate what you have already learned.
“Wolfson has worked a little more with the other children, but they seem to do well on a more standard program. Highly accelerated, but still . . .” Unvu cleared his throat and got back on track.
“So, having had two months off, we’re sending you back to Embassy for another week of training.”
:: Before we really burn something down. :: Arno glanced at Ryol, to see if she was listening in. The way she was glowering at Gior and Voyr, he suspected they were having a chat of their own.
:: Great. Like things weren’t frosty enough at school already. Now I’m missing another week. And the teachers are pissed. ::
Or What snorted. :: Yeah. My mother has managed to dodge public notoriety, so no one knows what I am. That was brilliant, by-the-way, that “Wolfson’s Withione Bastard Monster, get the insult right.” I laughed my ass off about it. ::
Jay nodded. :: It’s a good line for all of us to follow. And we need to push the idea about how now us Oners will be able to do our own corridors and gates. ::
Unvu was still nattering along. “. . . learn more dimensional techniques and control.”
Arno tried to keep a straight face. :: Yeah and what some of us need to learn is to control their tempers. ::
Glares from Gior and Voyr. Ryol just looked attentively at One Unvu.
She’s been working to subdue the outbursts about “the situation” for so long the nasty sister emoting has almost disappeared. Either that or, like grandmother said, cyclic. Menses. Ick. And they don’t let the girls turn off their periods for two years. Ick.
I just hope that when she turns it off, she stops on the nice part of the cycle!
“So, the cars are here. Let’s go.”
***
The school was starting to look like home. Well . . . a familiar vacation spot.
The only difference was Master Xen’s reception.
Ryol hung back and circled away as he stared down at Gior and Voyr.
“A fight with fireballs. Neither of you have a clue what you were risking, do you?”
Silence. Gior swallowed.
“Come with me. The rest of you settle in. When I get back we’ll pop down to the beach for a bit of practice and watch the sun set.”
He walked away, Gior and Voyr trotting to keep up with his longer stride.
Ryol sidled over to Lala. “What’s he going to do?”
“I don’t know. He was really upset after he talked to Unvu on the comm.”
“Yikes.” Ryol grabbed her suitcase and hauled it down to her usual room. Changed into beach clothes. It’s too late to swim, the sun’s going to set soon.
They were back in less than an hour, both girls pale and shaky as Master Xen herded them back in.
Diuc scowled at Master Xen. “And what did you just do?”
“They observed while I checked the vital signs on a couple of very bad burn cases that came in yesterday. I believe Gior and Voyr have a better idea now of what they were trying to do to each other. And how lucky they are to not be occupying beds in a burn unit themselves.”
Voyr managed to get even paler, slapped a hand over her mouth and bolted for the bathroom under the stairs. Gior smiled shakily, edging the same direction, turning and running for it.
Ryol thought about a couple of horror movies that had featured bad burns, and shuddered. I do not ever want to see the real thing!
“So, any of the rest of you need a large dose of shock treatment?”
Arno gulped and shook his head.
“Right. Grab the ice chests and let’s hit the beach. Diuc? Would you wait here and bring the girls out when they’re feeling a little better?”
The Priest, or whatever she was, gave a chilly nod.
Arno spotted the ice chests, big things, and hefted one end. Put it back down and looked for a bubble. Caught it, opened it, and slipped it over the chest. Slap attached it to his shoulder.
“Show off,” Yrno grumbled, as he reached carefully for another. Grinned as it didn’t pop, and whipped it over the second chest. Yelped in dismay as it drifted off.
Xen gestured and it floated back and let Yrno grab it and attach it to his own shoulder.
“Good. The rest of you go collect driftwood and we’ll have a fire and cook out on the beach Hopefully not setting Gior and Voyr off again.” He shook his head. “Let’s go.”
It was warm on the beach, the sun low. Gior and Voyr showed up . . . gulped and helped drag driftwood into a huge pile.
The sun set, and the full moon rose, gold reflections off the water turning into silver.
“Right. Everyone line up.” Master Xen faced them in the dim moon light. “You all have three power genes, that pull power from different sources. The wizard gene, the mage gene, and the One gene all pull from different but overlapping frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. The Witch gene pulls from gravity.
“All of you have used either the Mage or the Oner gene to collect light and heat. Now I’m going to teach you to pull from just the ambient heat around you. No nice warm sunshine. So,” He spread his arms and hands. “Feel that warm air? Imagine that heat soaking into your skin, filling you with power. Excellent Ryol.” A nod and shoulder squeeze for Lala. He looked down at Gior and Voyr. “Don’t be afraid of the power. Be afraid of your tempers, of losing control.”
He touched them gently, hands to lightly brush their faces. They jumped at the zing. “You are my daughters. You are already powerful, and will become more powerful as you get older. If you cannot control yourself, you will not be able to control the power, and that will be disastrous for everyone around you.
“If I’d had any lesser burn victims, I’d have used them.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. But that is the kind of injury you would have inflicted on another person, had you lost your temper and thrown a fireball at someone who couldn’t shield. And most of your agemates are lucky to shield mentally. They haven’t even begun to shield physically, haven’t a clue how to shield from energy.”
“So mind your temper. Now, feel the warmth of the night, and pull it in.”
He stepped away, and nodded at Or What. “Good job.”
Yrno was glowing. “Let it seep away now. If it won’t float out into the air, send it into the sand.” A squeeze of his shoulder, a zing.
“Jay, looks good.” He hesitated, held out a hand.
Jay shook his head, and the hand was withdrawn.
“Arno? Not too much, please. Umm, use it to move some sand, we could use some heaps to sit around the fire, in a little while.”
Master Xen paced back to Gior and Voyr. “That’s better. If you are ever in a place with no light, you will still be powerful.”
“Ryol? Don’t compete with your brother for overdoing. Let it go.”
She let it evaporate back out of her skin. Looked at the man. She’d never touched her biofather. “Sometimes you are careful to not touch us.”
“Sometimes body language is a clear rejection. That first zing establishes a tiny connection. It will fade with time, or become stronger. If you prefer to not even start, you have that right.”
She blinked back tears. Shook her head. You are not my dad.
He nodded, and stepped back to look at all of them. “Right. Next up, gravity. Face east and sit down, we’ll start with a bit of meditation, while we study the Moon.”
***
Arno’s attention drifted a little as he meditated. There was the gravity trough from the Moon to the Earth, more like a rollercoaster, really, a high point up there, and then a straight slide down to Earth, getting steeper the closer to Earth. High point? He looked back at it. An inflection point where it changed to the Moon’s gravity dominating.
The lagrange
point. Of course. L1. He pulled back And there’s L4 and L5, like shallow dimples. He pulled back further, until he could see the Earth-Sun gravity trough . . . and somebody shoved a spike of pain through his head.
And a cold bottle into his hands. “Enough for you tonight, Arno. Relax.”
He took a long swig and looked up at the Moon. Nearly overhead? How long was I . . . stargazing, so to speak. Hours, apparently.
He finished off the bottle, listening to Master Xen coaching the others.
No matter how cold or dark a place we’re in, we’ll always have gravity.
Except in orbit? Except that’s a gravity effect, slinging us around the slanted side of the gravity well fast enough to not fall in.
Even in interstellar space there’s the gravity that holds the galaxy together.
Intergalactic . . . I’ll bet it’s getting pretty flat. But not zero. Never zero.
He pondered his natural interests. Chemistry, Physics . . . I’ve always loved the sciences, studied way ahead of my grade. And now this. I can actually see what I’m interested in. And there’s micro manufacturing . . . manipulating thing at a nearly atomic level. I’ll have to try that, see what I can do. See what I can see.
Master Xen was walking around, stirring all the other kids . . . “Gior? How about tossing a small, controlled fireball at that stack of wood?”
“What!”
“Small. Controlled. Walk up and light the fire.”
The unsteady walk might have been the effect of walking on loose sand. Or having sat for hours. But Gior did walk up to the stack of wood and toss a tiny fireball in. The dry wood caught quickly and spread.
“Grab drinks. Grab skewers. We’re having hotdogs for a late dinner, or midnight snack, if you’d rather think of it in those terms.” A quick flash of a grin. “And you’re excused from the morning run.”
So they stayed out on the beach for hours, just talking. About how their families were dealing with the sudden appearance of a biodad. The possibility that their child might be able to make corridors and gates.