by P. S. Power
Explaining why her nephew had avoided that position.
It wasn’t horrible, if a little more friendly than seemed correct at the table.
“It’s the same time down there, more or less. I was thinking we’d leave in about an hour? We should make the walk into Pine Creek and make sure that Carl has the coin for yesterday’s bread? That went over well, by the way. We had these huge sandwiches for lunch.”
“Right! I’d totally forgotten that. I need to take him some gold. Let me get that out of my things?” She got up, and no one followed her.
In her stuff, still all right there, were a hundred gold coins and about as many in silver. They were all about an ounce each, and had different designs on them. Still, metal was metal. Holding them all for a few seconds, she had to force herself to put most of them back, slipping a few of each into her side pocket.
On the way back, she got some food as well. It felt like she was eating constantly there, but it wasn’t true, really. It was needed though, since the day might well end up being stressful for her. She did her best not to think about it.
As she ate a plate of donuts, being what she’d picked for breakfast, she couldn’t help but notice that Phillip was suddenly a lot more popular than he had been before. Part of that was his new face, but his body was also being stared at by most of the women that passed. Even more than Willum or the other men had going on. He was more muscular, though it was in a tight way, instead of like a body builder.
It wasn’t until Will noticed her noticing that she got it however.
“Pheromones, I think? Not too strong, or he’d be mobbed right now.”
Across from them, at the end of the table, Timon nodded.
“Yes. I tried for some subtlety this time. He was a bit worried that you were going to leave him, Avery, so I added that. Not getting that you’re immune to them. Oops?” The man searched her with his eyes, taking in a lot, no doubt.
“That isn’t the plan for now. I need to finish these, then wash up? After that, we should go? I have the coin for Carl, in the village.”
It didn’t take long to get everyone underway. They all walked, moving at a healthy meandering pace, instead of a forced march. She had Phillip with her, with Bridget, Will and Alan right behind her. Interestingly it was her school friend that seemed to be grabbing the attention of the tiny red-haired ball of energy.
“So, Alan… What do you do? Back home, I mean?” The piping voice was confident sounding.
“I go to school? Also, I have a part time job with the Alede embassy. Working with Kait’s mother, actually. Val. It sounds pretty good, but I mainly sweep up, put things on the shelves and racks. It’s also a clothing store.”
There was an odd sound then, with the girl doing something to Alan. It got him to squeak a bit. Turning, she saw that he was being poked in the stomach by a tiny finger. Clearly, that tickled, from his reaction.
“Oh? Is her mom as hot as she is?”
After the giggling from the boy stopped, he nodded.
“Yeah. They all are. Really, you know, they have to have a lot of sex, so…”
She got it, it seemed.
“Sweet deal then. You basically get paid to bone? Neat. I should get a job there. It’s ridiculously hard for me to find anyone back home. I mean, you kill a few thousand people and everyone thinks you’re this deranged murderer, you know?”
Everyone looked at her for a second, the world going silent around them.
Finally, Avery broke the silence.
“Are you sure it isn’t how energetic you are? I mean, the constant bouncing around…”
That got people to make noise again at least.
Alan snorted.
“I’m almost positive we could find a use for that trait, if we tried hard enough.”
“Hmm? Well, she is looking for a new boyfriend…”
That was mainly teasing, of course. Alan was a nice enough boy, but unlike Phillip, he probably couldn’t arrange to visit with Bridget enough to actually date. Except that he did know several line walkers. There were three of them right there, after all. Four if he managed to get in with Kait as well. That was about a fifth of all of them in existence, that she knew of.
There was also Brian, she realized. He was something different though, but close enough to add in.
“You should consider that, you two. You’re both pretty great people, after all.”
She meant it. They both really were.
Chapter sixteen
Soam, which was essentially all of South America, was incredible to look at. The whole place was, as far as she could tell, a giant forest with large stone cities inside of it. There were pyramids, but also stone houses and large landing zones. One of those at least.
They did come in through the transport hut, so that might have made a difference as to what they were seeing. When she turned around there was a giant palace behind her, on the edge of the greenery, where it met the glasslike flat plain. That was in a hundred different colors, mainly in tan, green and yellow. They merged and flowed together, which was impressive to see.
Standing there, dressed in skirts, with no shirts on, were several men and women. They were all small, being close to her own size, or shorter. They tended toward square faces, as well as sagging breasts on the older women. Their skin was tan and hair black, on all of them. The only exception was a single girl, who looked about Avery’s age.
She was dark haired and brown eyed, but pale and pretty enough to be distinctive almost anywhere she went. In Avery’s world she probably would have been pushed into acting. Modeling was possible too, except she was very short. No more than five feet, at a guess.
For her part, she looked at all of them, her gaze coming back to Phillip several times. Finally, she ended up on Will.
“These are the new friends you mentioned? I do love meeting new people.” She sounded warm, and was speaking in Standard, at first. Then, without hesitation, she moved in and started passing out hugs. Sara was first, but a lot of the IPB people collected that kind of thing from her.
Then, without hesitation, the woman, who looked like The Mistress of Souls, switched to English.
“Hello! I’m Taman Baker. I think that Willum and Dareg have a tour in mind for you all?”
Timon smiled then.
“I’ll stay back here, if that’s all right? I wanted to discuss some things with a few people. Avery, Leslie, Phillip and Mark, I think?”
The expression on his face was the kind of thing that asked permission, instead of demanding attention. Avery nodded.
“Kait and Patricia as well?” That was said just to throw people off. They only had to hide it from two of them. Leslie and Mark. They might have orders to fight, after all, if they were about to be killed. That part was going to need to be done carefully. Ann loved them. It was part of the deal that she’d made with Mark. She might very well have given them orders that were meant to keep them safe.
Dareg put his ship back up, which was impressive in the daylight. Possibly more so than it had been the night before. Everyone headed that way, except for Trice, Kait, Mark and Leslie. When the ship took off, a few minutes later, Patricia looked around.
“Are Tim and Taman in on this then? Taking down your leadership, Kait?”
It was a bit strange of her to ask, given that one of the people was her own husband. Phillip looked around at Avery, since he didn’t know what was going on either. Leslie did as well.
Avery nodded.
“Right. We’re working on that. They tried to kill Kaitlyn once, and murder about a dozen Alede kids each year, for political reasons. That needs to be stopped. So we’re taking down the Alede Governing Body. I was going to go in alone, but you can do it too, Phil. Now that you’re a line walker. We need to make sure you’re as immune as possible to their powers though, first. It’s why we need Kaitlyn here, so that we can test this out on you. If that works, then…” She wasn’t great at lying, as a rule.
It wasn’t some
kind of block about being truthful to a fault or anything, simply that it took creativity to do it really well. That and conviction. She could fake that last one, and sort of make it work with the creative side of things. That took focus and work however. Honestly, it was a thing that she needed to work on a lot more, now that she’d thought of it. Even on vacation.
Tim nodded.
“Exactly. Avery mentioned that you two would be a good starting point for helping out with that kind of thing? Something about a Greater Demon?”
That was actually a good point.
“Right. Anything we can add to you that way should make Ann happy. She keeps telling you both to improve yourselves, anyway. I was thinking we’d get you powers like what Phillip has now. Possibly not the overdone looks.” She grinned and looked at her incredibly handsome boyfriend.
Mark held up his hand, like they were in class.
“Oh, me, me, I want the incredibly overdone good looks! Pick me!”
Taman nodded then.
“We need Timon to do that part then. I could do it, but frankly, I refuse. There’s nothing wrong with how you look right now. Do too much of that and you stand out, which is fine for getting women, but makes it hard if you need to avoid being seen.”
There was a small head shake from Kait then.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t hurt for him to hit a solid nine or so, out of ten, would it? I don’t know if that translates well. Um… More like you, Timon, than Tor? Great looking, but not like you roll out of bed with fresh makeup on each morning?”
Taman grinned then, seeming happy about the idea.
“Yes. I could do that for you, if you wish, Mark? Then we can get you a makeup amulet in case you need to do more than that.”
There was a bit of back and forth on the idea, while Taman led them all into the giant and very pretty, palace. The outside was done nicely, but the inside was even more so. It all looked real, with the occasional ding to the wooden furnishings and a few small marks on what appeared to be brass railings. It was all fake, however. Avery could feel the lack of it in the air. Even, as she paid closer attention, to how it was mainly a clever warping of space that did it all.
They were led to a small room. It had a sofa and several good-sized chairs in it. Phillip was waved at first.
Timon gestured toward himself, which was different than what she would have done, and pulled over a place for the boy to sit.
“First I need to see the affects that we have to fight against? Kaitlyn?”
She moved in front of Phillip, and put her hand out, touching his chest. It didn’t look like anything, until he convulsed. Behind him, Tim grunted a bit, standing with his eyes closed.
“Okay. Got it then. So, I need to block that, while not just muting his ability to feel things. That trick bypasses it, so… It’s actually more like a shield that we need. That shouldn’t take long to come up with. Let’s see…”
Then, as if something were happening, everyone else got to sit down, while Timon, the wizard, worked. She was ready for a long wait, but ten minutes later the man stepped back.
“Let’s try that again? Start with the same amount of energy, then we can pick that up a good bit? Provided it works.”
The second attempt didn’t get much of a reaction from Phillip at all. In fact, he just sat there, as energy was obviously being thrown at him. Finally, it was enough that Mark had to cross his legs, feeling uncomfortable.
Smiling, Kaitlyn looked at the boy in the chair. Then let her hand move toward his crotch. That time she got a reaction. Also, a yelp.
“Right! That still works.” He sounded a little uncomfortable, but no one else really seemed to mind that much.
There was a thoughtful noise from Tim then, as he waved at the still seated boy.
“Can you copy that part of things, Tam? Really, can you copy all of it? I was thinking we’d set up the same baseline, and work from there. That took me about five hours, the first time.” He glanced at the rest of them and managed to seem charming. “That means the rest of you should go and do something fun for a while. Come back then?”
It was Patricia that stood up and led them all out of the space, moving at a quick walk.
“We’ll be back in five hours, more or less.”
The tall woman, looking well made up and lovely enough that it was really possible to see how much she was like Kaitlyn in the light that came through the large windows near the front door, didn’t say anything more, just getting outside going at a slow amble.
Once the door was closed, she looked at each of the others there. Kait smiled at her, as if they might be flirting. Phillip, for his part searched the woman closely, for some reason.
His voice was calm though, when the words came.
“So… Something is going on here, other than planning to gain troops to help in Kaitlyn’s plan. That’s real though, isn’t it? It seems right.”
Avery sucked in air, suddenly frightened. More than she had been when a sudden attack had come from the Larval Assassins. Jerking her head roughly, not able to even pretend to be truly calm, she spoke.
“It… We’re trying to get my mother and Mark free of their enslavement. That means killing them and bringing them back from death. They might have orders to fight or flee, if The Rotted thought of it before. We have to assume that she did, being a Greater Demon. So it had to be done as a trick. It’s dangerous. I couldn’t come up with a better way though.” She would have tried it, if anything had come to mind.
Saving them and hiding them away in a different land were all she really had. Even that hadn’t really been her idea, in the first place.
Trice, who she hoped would be a friend, at least some day, nodded. It wasn’t a small thing.
“Timon told me last night. We could lose them both, but it’s serious. We don’t know what a Greater Demon is. Avery seems to think it’s better to risk their lives though, than to leave them under the power of such a being.”
Kait took a few steps away, her face blank. She had glasses on, like she normally did. Ones with lenses that were like windows, meaning they weren’t real.
“Dangerous. All of them are. I know a few of them. Even to the point of calling them my friends, and I wouldn’t dare cross them like this. What’s to keep Ann from coming for you, Avery? You’re tough, being a Dragon. That isn’t really enough though, is it? That… It’s her thing, you know? She loves things and can’t let them go. If she feels this way about Leslie and Mark…” The concern felt real.
The light on the glassy stone was brilliant. Glinting enough that hundreds of colors danced in front of her eyes.
Avery shrugged her shoulders.
“She’s my mother. If I have to die to save her, then I do. There are duties that you can’t just get out of, or set aside. Mark sold his life in order to gain better treatment for her… Can I do less than that?” She didn’t know if anyone else there would get the idea.
It was the stranger, Patricia, who moved first, giving her a hug.
“We’ll do what we can to help you then. You can stay here? If that’s enough to protect them, then it will work for you as well, correct?”
That was probably true.
“Except that I have things to do. There’s a war there, and I might be needed to help fight it. I can’t hide, just because Ann might be angry with me. If I die… Well, we have Phillip to take my place, now. I might be able to buy my way out of it. I don’t have that much money. Not for that kind of deal. It could work.”
Things felt dismal for a moment, until Tarsus spoke up, in her mind.
This time the memory actually used words though. It was a thing she could actually hear, though clearly, no one else did.
“Silly Shifter… The Rotted has a bargain to love them. An absolute thing for her. Break the links, have your new friends make them as powerful as your Human lover and send them back. She won’t be able to enslave them again, and they will be too strong for any of my kind to easily take, to use against eithe
r of you. Her insanity is what will allow you to win. As long as you play this correctly.”
The voice was slightly different than the one she’d heard from him in real life. Higher pitched and softer, in a lot of ways. Younger, even though that wasn’t really possible. Not from a being as ancient as The Librarian.
She let herself light up then.
“Or… We can let them go back? I think that might work as well. Mark bargained with her to love them both. That was for a hundred years and a day, and meant she couldn’t harm them. The work being done should help, actually. They can just return and that should fix a whole lot of things? As long as they don’t die.”
Phillip gave her a funny look, as if doubting her, and Patricia Baker rolled her eyes. Kaitlyn however went wide eyed.
“Okay… That could really work. We need to do it fast though, once the line is broken. Otherwise she might go into a rage over the whole thing. She’ll probably feel them die, or at least the lines being broken. Given, well, she’s a Greater Demon, so she might actually work out what we’re doing here. They’re incredibly brilliant.”
Avery just had to agree with that part. Trice sighed then.
“Good? We have a plan for that? If so, we can focus on your endeavor, Kaitlyn?”
“Yeah. Are you in on that too, Phil? We could use the help.”
That, it seemed was a given, to his mind.
“I’m in. Always. We can use this as practice, anyway. There’s that war, that Timon mentioned to me? Will… The Adversaries?” He glanced over at Patricia.
The woman made a face.
“Yes. That’s getting serious. The Larval have to be part of that. People that… Really, the goal seems to be ending all reality. All of them, not just us here. We need all the help we can get with that. I don’t know about you, but not having ever been doesn’t work for me. Worse, they keep trying to kill me and my friends at random times. It barely makes sense, except they clearly just want an end to us all.”
That didn't make a lot of sense to Avery. Unless it was some kind of religious type of thing. She knew, firsthand how that kind of thing can go awry.