by Garon Whited
I made it through the front door and about three feet into the residential space before a fiery missile intercepted me in direct, central impact. I was glad I had a chance to sit in a carriage and recuperate. She’s small, but she’s feisty.
“Provus!” she screamed, gleefully. She tried to set my midsection on fire with her hair as she hugged me like a lava octopus.
“Tymara!” I squeaked back, mimicking her tone. “How’s my fiery little girl?”
“Bright as a sunrise!” she declared. She was much more talkative than usual.
“So you are. Happy birthday!”
“It’s been great! There were knights dancing for me!”
“I think you mean ‘marching,’ but close enough.”
“They marched around in armor and saluted and stuff! With swords!”
“They do that.”
“They were pretty!”
“I think you mean ‘handsome,’ but yes, they are pretty to watch. Also, look what I’ve brought you.” I handed her the chess set, carefully. It was rather heavy. She could hold the package, but it was a strain. I put it down on a stone bench and let her tear into it.
“A game?” she guessed, holding up two of the pieces.
“It is. Not just any game, either. It’s a game of kings—and princes, and princesses—and this one is made specially for you.”
“It is?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“It is. Here, let me show you.”
I spent the rest of the day teaching her the rudiments of chess, interrupted periodically by her birthday visitors. She spent the day overjoyed to have a power-based toy. She never did liquefy anything, but I was glad the board had a high melting point. Considering some of the annoyed looks she shot at people interrupting us, I was also glad she was wearing her containment hairband. They were glad, too, or should have been.
At one point, Tianna came in, stood behind me, and leaned on my shoulder to watch. She was quite pleased when Tymara demonstrated how to charge up the pieces.
“Your idea?” Tianna asked.
“All mine.”
“I’m going to have to learn to play this, aren’t I?”
“The pieces will teach you, if you want. They’ll also play against Tymara on their own, but not very well.”
Tianna ruffled my hair.
“You’re such a thoughtful monster.”
Tymara looked up with a frown. She cocked her head, obviously thinking.
“He’s not a monster,” she finally said.
“Oh, yes I am,” I told her. “But I’m your monster, so it’s okay.”
“Momma?” Tymara asked, puzzled and not entirely sure she liked the idea.
“He’s not wrong. He’s a lot of things.”
“I am,” I agreed. “But whatever else I am, I’m always your provus. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, reluctantly, clearly not pleased at the monster comment. “Can I make the lady kill the little soldier?”
“What’s the lady called?”
“The Queen. Like Lissette? She’s a warrior-queen?”
“Oh, yes. She definitely is that.”
“Why does she get to move around so much while the King has to only move one square?”
“You know those knights waiting outside?” I asked.
“You mean the real ones? Outside the door?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“They mean well,” I told her. “They try to protect me, but they get in my way. That’s why kings don’t get to move around a lot.”
“Oh. Queen, take the little soldier. Uh, Queen, take the pawn.” The figurine advanced on the cowering little fellow and pretended to skewer him. He died theatrically before his fellows carried him off the board, much to Tymara’s delight. So much for crying over dead pieces. I forget how vicious children can be.
“The Mother would like a word, when you have a moment,” Tianna whispered, still watching over my shoulder.
“The Lord of Shadow will happily discuss anything she likes.”
“She specifically wants a word with you.”
“Is it about our family?”
“No. Well, I don’t think so.”
“Then it ain’t my job no more.”
“But—”
“King castles,” I said, and we watched the pieces shuffle around. “Your move, Tymara.”
One of the visitors was unexpected, at least to me. Heydyl—Squire Heydyl of the Order of Shadow—paid a call on his grand-niece. I didn’t think that sort of thing was allowed outside formal visits, but what do I know? It’s not like I understand anything about religion.
Tymara didn’t leap up and slam into him the way she does with me, and I considered it a good thing. He hasn’t stood his vigil for his armor, yet. She grabbed him and dragged him over to play chess almost before he could salute me.
I liked what I saw. Heydyl was considerably larger than I expected, broad-shouldered and well-muscled. I guessed he had to shave regularly, but wasn’t ready to grow a beard, yet. Maybe I should ask if Beltar and Seldar are using the grow-your-own-giant spells on the Order of Shadow, these days. I think they are. The lad is as tall as I am and, judging by appearances, outweighs me by thirty pounds.
What I liked best of all was the way he let Tymara drag him to the chessboard, park him on a bench, and start teaching him chess. Best of all, he paid attention. So many teenagers don’t want to deal with children. A lot of adults don’t, either. Heydyl listened to her as she tried to explain how the pieces moved and how to play. He learned the basics almost as quickly as she did despite her slapdash approach to explaining the game.
I can beat them both, but I’ve played chess longer than they’ve been alive. When it was time for me to go, they played chess with each other.
Outside, I stopped to chat with Tianna again.
“Before you start,” I began, “I know the Mother of Flame wants to talk to me privately. I get it. But this world is dangerous for me and you know it.”
“No, I don’t know it,” she countered. “You are the Demon King and the Lord of Shadow. There will always be people who want something from you, even if it is only your death.” She placed a hand on my arm. “I know. There are still those who would see my daughter flayed and thrown into the sea, and me along with her. Yet we remain. Can you really say, wherever you may go, there is somewhere truly safe?”
“Okay, no, I can’t. Still, whenever I’m here, everyone wants something, as you said. It’s a question of what they want. Tymara wants me to tickle her and play. You want me to sit with you and talk. Amber does, too. Beltar wants me to address the faithful, but he knows better than to ask. Lissette… I don’t know what she wants from me, if anything.”
“She wants the husband she was promised, but she also knows she cannot have him,” Tianna informed me. I did a double-take.
“She what?”
“She still wants her husband.” Tianna shrugged. “We have mirrors. Sometimes, she lights a lamp for me. We talk.”
“I… I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Is a response necessary?”
“I guess not.”
“You were trying to make a point,” she prompted.
“Yes. Yes, I was. Let me try and remember.”
“Take your time.”
“What I was trying to say, I think, was everyone here places demands on me. When I show up, it creates trouble and disruption and rumors and I don’t know what else. That’s why I’m almost never here. I would love to spend more time with you, Tymara, Heydyl, and others. But if I spend too much time here, it attracts the attention of gods and men and monsters. It’s reasonably safe to pop in and vanish again, if I do it quickly, but to stay for any length of time is asking for trouble—dangerous, deadly trouble, not only for me, but for you.”
“I fail to see how.”
“My favorite example is a bunch of crazy magicians who want to be nightlords.”
“They would not dare to set fo
ot on the Temple grounds.”
“Or what? Be burned to death? If they’re chasing immortality and power, they’ll take risks. And if they think I’ll give them what they want, they might risk trying to take you as a hostage. Remember what happened with the Church of Light?”
“I recall,” she admitted, grimacing. She touched her throat where someone once cut it.
“So I can’t stay, I can’t get involved. Or, rather, I don’t dare.”
“Are you sure?” Tianna asked. “Are you sure you’re mostly concerned about our welfare, instead of concerned about how you’ll have to…”
“Be a king, a god, or a monster? That’s part of it,” I admitted. “If it was safe for me to be those things—no, that’s not it. If it was safe for the people around me while I’m being those things, I would be, if it meant spending time with my family.”
Tianna nodded and squeezed my arm.
“All right. I won’t press you on it. Come back when you can.”
“I always do. I even come when called.” I hesitated a moment before adding, “Remind Lissette of that, would you?”
“I will.”
“Thank you. Oh!” I added, suddenly remembering. “Has Spar—has the Mother been giving out signs and omens about founding a new Empire on the ruins of Zirafel?”
“Not to my knowledge. Why?”
“Bunch of religious nuts claim fiery signs in the heavens guided them to Zirafel. Probably some other deity.”
“I presume so. I shall ask, just to be sure.”
“Thanks.” I kissed her forehead. “You take care of my favorite granddaughter and great-granddaughter.”
“I shall.”
Apocalyptica, Tuesday, September 15th, Year 11
I enjoyed my day with Tianna and Tymara. With three knights on door-duty, people got in to see Tianna and Tymara, but nobody bothered me for favors. It’s not good to pester the Demon King while he’s visiting his descendants, but some people don’t seem to understand just how not-good it can get. Either that, or they’re willing to take the risk. Having bouncers at the door kept such nonsense to a minimum.
In a considerably better mood, I returned to Apocalyptica and found myself slammed into nighttime on the shift. Damn that time differential! At least it was a day-to-night transformation. Those are sharply, intensely unpleasant, but they’re like ripping a bandage off. One big ouch and it’s over.
I uncurled and stood up, stretched. After I ran a cleaning spell over myself, I realized just how much better I felt. I grew accustomed to the weak and queasy feeling of being jump-started and forgot about it. Those rapid sunrise changes take a lot out of me.
“Professor?”
“Yes, Diogenes?”
“Are you well?”
“I am now. Why do you ask?”
“My sensors are not able to evaluate your state during the night.”
“Because I’m dead?”
“Because you register only imperfectly.”
“It probably has something to do with my not-thereness in mirrors and cameras. Do I need to make a vampire evaluator unit for you?”
“Only if you are unreasonably paranoid, Professor.”
“That’s a straight line if I ever heard one, but I’m not going there.”
“As you wish. Do you wish to test the Mark Two Solar Tap?”
“Is it installed already?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Sure! I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to centrally-coordinated robot production. Let me get to the media room and fire up a scrying sensor.”
We ran through the checks on the mundane fusion plant components and, unsurprisingly, everything was in order. I did a close inspection of the gate installation and its enchantments.
“That’s a lot of heat transfer equipment.”
“I expect a significant thermal input.”
“Very true. If this doesn’t work, we can try adding yet another spell to the system. This one will increase the rate of heat transfer in other components.”
“The production bottleneck already requires you to enchant gates and mounting brackets, Professor.”
“It’s a drawback to magic. It’s hard to automate. If this one and our mark three version both fail, we’ll fall back to standard fusion plants and raise the priority on thorium refining—to hell with the resource cost. Wait. Is there a world we know of where we can just buy thorium?”
“Thorium, while a cleaner nuclear fuel, is still considered a restricted material in all worlds where it is commercially produced. The background and security checks will be significant.”
“That’s a negative. No buying radioisotopes. Got it. Fine. If we have to, we’ll do it ourselves. You need the power.” I examined the projected diagrams in the surrounding screens. “I see we’re using the magnetic containment. Didn’t you mention a force field?”
“You have not yet tested the interaction effects of a force field and a wormhole,” Diogenes reminded me.
“Good thinking.”
“I thought so.”
“The setup looks good to me.” I put the psychic viewpoint near the gate itself so I could watch it if it failed. “Whenever you’re ready, Diogenes.”
“Activating electromagical transformer. Power optimum. Crystals reaching capacity. Pinpoint gate ready. Targeting locked. In three… two… one…”
The facility didn’t vanish. The gate instantly heated up to a glow, but the heat diffusion setup kept it from melting long enough to establish a magnetic channel. For over a minute, I watched the temperature readout climb, level off, and slowly drop a few degrees.
“How are we looking? I see a tiny stream of plasma coming through.”
“I am still calibrating the flow.”
“Is it going to go critical on us?”
“I think not. Now that we have an established flow, increasing or decreasing it places the criticality of the plant under our control.”
“Very good. How long do you want to run it in the test reactor before we install one in the real fusion plant setup?”
“At least twenty-four hours, if I may. The full system, including the solar targeting and tracking units, should run through a complete rotation of the Earth.”
“You got it. Do you have a new gate ring and bracket for me? I’ll work on them now while I’m waiting for Mary to get back.”
“No, Professor. Now that we have a successful test, I have begun fabrication. I do have a copy of a cargo truck available for use on Manor, however. The local production model is inadequate for the use you have specified, so I have increased the engine power using non-anachronistic technologies and included a trailer.”
“You gave it a bigger engine?”
“As well as a more durable drivetrain, yes, Professor.”
“You’re brilliant, Diogenes.”
“I conjecture my processor scintillates under laser light, but I lack the proper optics in the central processor chamber to observe the phenomenon.”
“Did you park the truck in the new Manor cargo-shift room?”
“Yes, Professor. Do you also wish to include a load of construction supplies?”
“Yes. No. Not on the truck. I’ll take it up to Applewood Hall—I’ll pick up the car and take it there on the trailer—then send someone back to pick up materiel.”
“Noted. I will keep the Liverpool end adequately stocked.”
“Thank you. Don’t overdo it. We don’t want people to get suspicious. We’re getting shipments ‘from America,’ remember.”
“I remember.”
“Of course you do. Any word from Mary?”
“Not since you departed for Karvalen.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Of course, Professor. Would you also like to see the plans for the space elevator?”
“Yes, but later. Where are we putting it?”
“Kenya.”
“Kenya? In Africa?”
“Yes.”
“Why so far away? Or, rat
her, why Kenya?”
“It is an equatorial location. It also has the features of altitude and relative tectonic stability. There are extinct volcanos, but the region is not placed near major fault lines. Minor tremors are taken into account in the design.”
“Fair points,” I admitted. “Isn’t it a bit of a logistical problem, putting the building site halfway around the world?”
“It is approximately eight thousand and seven hundred miles. The circumference of the Earth is twenty-four thousand, nine hundred miles.”
“I stand corrected. Change it ‘nearly a third of the way around the world,’ please.”
“Correction noted. Yes, it does present some logistical challenges. For ease of construction, may I suggest sending a heliostat with a portable cargo shifter? I can then transship the necessary equipment to begin a local infrastructure, as well as use a micro-gate as a local communications link.”
“Well… all right. Since the local cargo shifters don’t have an inter-universal enchantment, it’ll be less power-expensive to operate, but will it be cheap enough?”
“I have run the numbers. Yes. Much of the initial power budget will come from solar panels. Records show the Tana River was used for power production, as well as geothermal plants at Olkaria. The functionality of these sites is almost certainly nil, but it is possible they may be reclaimed.”
“You know best,” I agreed. “We’ll do it your way. Also, we’ll probably need to lay some power and communications cables across the Atlantic, eventually. We knew we were going to go global one day, so we may as well lay down some infrastructure.”
“I have already begun production of lobsterbots and seafloor cabling.”
“Lobsterbots?”
“Catalog world 6-2-2-3-1-8-0 utilizes them as remote-piloted seafloor operations units for cables, pipelines, and undersea habitat maintenance. I upgraded their internal cybernetics and programming before producing them for our uses.”
“Good. I like the idea of being able to divert power from any source to any demand.”