by P. S. Power
On the flight back they didn't push as fast, so Tor remembered a few things. Like the fact he hadn't bothered to eat or drink any fluids for nearly a day. Almost two days. That would start to show soon. Even if food was scarce, he needed something to drink. And a shower. But water, check on Ali and then food and bathing. He had to keep his priorities straight, didn't he? So far he kind of feared that he was sucking horribly as a husband. Tor had barley even told her he loved her in the last week. That should happen at least daily, shouldn't it? It was hard, because, well, it was a lie.
They'd married for a reason, and it was a good one, but that didn't make him love her. She was good and sweet, and doing her best to hold up her end of things, so it was up to him to do his part too. That was all. He did like her at any rate, which was a good enough start. A lot of married people just kind of tolerated each other.
The drinking water was easily enough arranged, and he got a shower at the same time. It was clean filtered water, cold and rushing out of a four inch pump line hard enough to nearly knock him down when he stepped under it, and outside where people could see, but no one seemed to mind when he started drinking from it and there was a pump to carry the waste water away from the drain below. Someone had been pretty cleaver about the arrangement really. Using soap from his gear he showered under it, his amulets all off, then shaved hunkered down next to the water. It was inconvenient, and cold, but it worked and he didn't have to borrow anyone’s house. When he fixed his clothing he felt clean and ready for the rest of the day, even if he did look like a first year school student.
Ali, thank goodness was fine, and smiled brightly when she saw him enter.
“Honey! This man,” she gestured to an older fellow sitting on the end of a bed in a nearly empty room, he wore gray clothing in three shades, a button up jacket with vest under it in a darker color and nice looking black shoes. It wasn't high born clothing, but it looked like the man made enough to live on.
“Is Doctor Kincaid. Charles Kincaid I think it was? Anyway, he'd like to buy a healing device from us. I didn't know the price, but he decided it was worth waiting for.” She smiled up at him cutely, since she still sat on the next bed and hadn't gotten up.
Walking to the box that held the gear Tor sorted through and found that they had about forty or fifty of the things left. The man was a doctor, so it might actually be useful to him, right?
“Well…” Tor knew better than to give the thing away for free. Everyone from the King down to servants had warned him against doing that unless he was personal friends with someone. They like it at first, but over time it would wear on their spirits and invite people to take advantage of him.
“Alright, the cost. Half of what you make in the first year you have it.” That was about the same deal he offered everyone and so far most people found it worked well enough.
Smiling, but looking a bit troubled the doctor shook his head after a few seconds.
“I doubt that I make as much in a year as you might think. This is probably worth ten times that. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than willing to send you the gold, this is worth it, if only for my patient’s well being, I just don't want to mislead you.”
The man felt honest enough, mostly. It was a bit of a low thing to do, reading his field instead of trusting the man on his own merit, but Tor couldn't just trust everyone anymore, could he? Still, he seemed an all right guy in the end. Tor shrugged.
“I'm not asking you to send me gold. Instead treat half your patients for free. I don't even care if they're the poor ones that would ordinarily pay in chickens and goats. I'm also not going to loom over your shoulder checking your work. You're honest enough. Is it a deal?” Tor had to fight not to stick out his hand to shake and was mildly surprised when the doctor did.
“Deal. I give my word that I’ll treat half my patients for free for the next year.” He cleared his throat. “Of course I already treat half my patients for free…”
Laughing Tor told him that still counted, obviously, and pulled his wife away greedily. Kissing her gently once out of sight he held her for a while.
“Really I just came to tell you I love you. Now I can get out of your hair.”
“I love you too! You're so good to me. When we got married I figured that you'd park me out in the country or with your parents and go live your own life, but instead you've actually taken time to be with me. I can see now why everyone loves you so much. Really at first I thought it was just your looks and the magic, but it isn't. It's your heart and soul.”
Tor blushed and kissed her again to cover it. Get close enough to a person and they can't see what you’re doing and really, if there was closer than kissing, at least that he could do in public like this, he couldn't think of it at the moment. After about twenty minutes of cuddling someone, a young boy that seemed to be alone, came in with a broken arm. No tears, but he was pale and in shock. Ali used a device to fix it, and the kid howled while it happened, but as soon as the bone clicked back together the yelling stopped.
“Thank you.” He said and touched Alissa face gently, an odd move for someone so young, then he hopped of the table and ran out, his oversized leather half boots slapping against the floor. He'd been wearing dirty cloths, heavy canvas tan pants and a dun colored shirt that had seen better days as well. A lot of people were just making do, so Tor hadn't thought much of it really.
“He's one of the orphans I think. I…” Whatever she was going to say didn't come, Tor waited patiently, since a lot of things took time to work to the surface. Rushing them didn't help. It was better to wait and see what people had to say. Even if it did make him a little impatient.
Finally she blurted the words out all together, a long stream of them.
“I can't have children. Dad, he had us all sterilized. The girls. None of us can have kids. It was so… he wouldn't get us pregnant and have to explain it away.” She didn't start crying, she just looked down and waited.
“Oh, that's horrible! Well, that's not a problem for us, we can adopt. But we should wait until we're out of school at least.” Taking a breath Tor finished the whole thing, so that Ali wouldn't go around thinking it was all her fault they couldn't have kids.
“Besides, I probably won't be able to have children for a couple hundred years, if what Count Lairdgren said is true. Really I have no reason to doubt him yet. Well, other than that the whole story is clearly insane.”
Mouth going into and “o” shape she turned and smiled sadly.
“I'm going to get all old and die and you'll still be like this, won't you?”
Taking her into a hug he murmured the answer back to her softly.
“Well, in a couple of years I should be able to make myself look a little older, so at least it won't look like you robbed the cradled the whole time. Until then, yes. Just like this baring major hair disasters and disguises…” Which he could do, couldn't he? Make himself look older using magic? It was a complex field, at least as complex as the clothing one, but it would be doable.
Another thing he needed to figure out fast, before trying to break Denno Brown out of the Austran palace. A good disguise could be helpful. There was suddenly so much to do again. Relaxing Tor held his wife for about five minutes and didn't let go until someone else came for healing. As she moved off to help the older woman and her daughter Tor ran through what was really needed. Water, food, shelter and then the things for Austra, while keeping up with his marriage duties and schoolwork.
Chuckling softly under his breath he sighed and left to see to his own food, then figure out what to do for the rest of it.
Following his nose led him to one of the houses he'd made, one of the new ones, that had been converted into nothing more inside than a dining facility with kitchen and restroom. Whoever did the work didn't bother with wasteful decorations or fancy designs. The inside looked like stone, the outside looked like the same kind of stone and the roof looked like slate. Probably because having a cobble stone roof on a peaked slant would j
ust look wrong. Several men and women were running things inside, and doing it with a quiet efficiency that spoke of professionalism. That and a grim feeling that was understandable, but didn't seem like the best plan. Being grim led to giving up and that never worked well in the long run. So… better to fake being happy in the moment, Tor guessed. Or at least confidence. It wasn't one of his best things yet, pretending or even feeling, confident at all, but that could be learned. He hoped.
A sad and stern older woman, wearing a worn blue skirt and gray button front shirt, the style here it seemed, both with rips in them pointed a ladle at him.
“Grab a bowl boy. Fish stew is all we have, but we've plenty. That and water to drink and you best be thankful for that. Flood like this the water outside will kill you to drink it. Took magic to get this for us. Countess begged help from the Wizard Tor. Give him this though, he got her quick enough. At first I thought she might have just been saying that to keep spirits up. Here.” Without ceremony a black focus stone bowl was filled to near the brim, a metal spoon popped in it and a cup handed to him. Then he was moved over to a table to eat. No one said anything else to him, but a few of the women stared at him for some reason, their eyes watching, but faces blank and drawn.
He didn't shrug and tried to smile back at them a little when he caught them looking, they obviously didn't recognize him and were just being careful he decided. That made sense. People, men in particular, could try to take advantage of women if they weren't, so it was probably that. They'd relax once they got a chance to get to know him.
Fish stew wasn't his favorite kind of food, but it was filling and didn't make him feel ill or anything, it wasn't poisoned or unclean, he knew that thanks to the testing he'd done via the device around his neck. No one seemed to realize what had been done there, since regular people generally didn’t need to worry about being poisoned, but the food was wholesome enough.
Listening to what other people were saying while he ate, Tor rapidly got what the major concerns were. The first was simple enough. No one knew how much of the collected vegetable harvest had been lost. Most of the food here was saved in jars of glass for the winter, so when they spoke of the food being lost, they actually meant lost, buried in the mud and scattered, not just spoiled. They weren't worried too much about not having food, that would come from the ocean if they did the work, no matter how cold it got. It was just nice and healthier to have fruit and vegetables put by as well.
The other concern was simply shelter. Nearly three thousand families had lost everything to the flood waters and wouldn't have time to rebuild, winter being right on top of them like it was for the region. Right. Well, that could be fixed, if people worked together. A combination of magical houses and focus stone construction. Those last would need temperature plates or at least fire places. Both? Yes. Tor sighed softly as he finished the gray broth in front of him, because there was only one group of people that could do that kind of focus stone work fast. The people that had kicked him out of his home.
Maybe he could request the ones that weren't jerks? Actually, in a way that would probably work, he needed the ones that made focus stone materials after all, not the guards or elite military stationed there. Then all he'd need was to grovel and apologize to a few hundred people for beating them up and it would all be good.
He returned the bowl to a table in front of a kitchen window, a pleasant looking girl inside took it and smiled at him.
“Want to help wash up? Everyone should take a turn…” She dimpled at him, her face a little round and warm enough looking, a light smattering of freckles over her nose and her hair holding soft curls and tied up in the back. A blond color that could easily be confused with brown or even light gray in the right light.
It was a good point, “I'll… not trying to dodge out, but maybe later if I get a chance? I have to see to some things first. In a few hours?”
The girl laughed and shook her head at him.
“Well, at least your bothering to make an excuse, most everyone else just says no and wonders off. Still, if you really can get free, come back? It isn't hard, but it's deadly dull in here alone.” The voice was half playful, half resigned.
“I'll do my best.” He promised.
Tor could make the emergency houses himself… but wasn't going to. The first thing he needed was the other builders from school. There turned out to be eight of them in all, including him, five first years, who could all do at least basic copy work, since you had to prove that just to get in the door, one third year boy named Mark and a sturdy looking sixth year girl called Sandra that had to have the darkest skin of anyone he'd ever met who wasn't from Afrak. She was tall enough he figured her for a noble of some kind, but she didn't stand on it, and had come when needed.
She was the one to find first, being in charge of the builders, based on her age and the fact that no instructors from their section had come along. That twice as many math and economics students came as builders was embarrassing, but there was nothing to be done for it now. As a group builders tended to be a little soft and selfish. Brilliant, but that didn't mean self-sacrificing at all. The ones that had come were all special in that way. Just having shown up kind of meant they were better than the rest, to Tor at least. He'd had to go, but they did it just because it was the right thing to do.
It took an hour but Tor found the whole group of them using shovels to dig a latrine. He nearly laughed, but instead shook his head. They had restrooms, magic ones that would do the work for them and could be set up in seconds. Quietly he asked Sandra why she didn't just use one of those. Or really, set up a few dozen. She could get them from Ali after all.
“They're not mine? Plus that mean looking weapons instructor with the bald head told us to dig a latrine and pointed to shovels. I don't want to make him angry.” She panted a bit. Building was hard, but not very physical.
Tor could see that one then. If he didn’t know the man himself, he’d probably have done the same thing.
“Oh. Well, I can guarantee you that Kolb just wants sanitary facilities and would prefer to have the magic ones. We'll need more of them, I'll get some of those, and temperature plates, then we need to make copies. I'll be doing houses, with Sandra. I mean if you willing? It's just copy work, so no one should have a problem with it. No templates, but that won't be an issue, not for any of you, I can tell things like that now, it’s a magical skill I’m making up right now, the ability to know how good a builder is just by looking at them. Seriously though, just focus a little harder while working. Ten at a time at first and we should have this done in a few days.” Tor forced his voice to be confident and cheerful, because he knew that of the whole group, the only person other than him that had ever made a copy without a template was probably Lyn, the first year girl.
No one said anything, they just stared, except for her, she grinned.
“Beats digging ditches. Don't worry I can show you how to do it. He's right, it takes a bit more focus, but it isn't that hard. I've only done one at a time before though…”
Nodding Tor winked at her and grinned. A forced thing but real enough for an emergency situation.
“Again, just a little more focus is needed. Some of you can probably already do fifty or a hundred at a time, you just don't know it yet, but we need to start slow, since this is an emergency and quality counts. People’s lives are at stake here. Sandra, you're in charge, obviously, but would you be willing to work with me on this? Unless, I mean, you have a novel build that needs to be done to help out? I can do the houses on my own if that's the case.” It was all kinds of presumptuous he realized assuming she wouldn't have her own ideas.
She was a builder in truth and probably only months away from going out into the world on her own. The younger kids might have something too, he realized, so he quickly included them. Just because he hadn't been doing his own work at that age didn't mean they might not have an idea or two. Or fifty.
Sam the first year did, actually, an ambitious idea
for a first build too. Probably too ambitious, but Tor smiled. It was definitely worth giving a try.
“I want to try and make a mill.” He said softly, nervous and shy about it.
Tor envisioned a full scale operation, big enough to grind grain for a whole town, but the boy meant something that would set up on a table top, and use shields that would grind together to turn hard grains into flour. Tor smiled and nodded, it was a good idea. It used parts of things Tor had made, his own original work, pretty liberally, but a lot of builders did that, it made sense not to quibble about borrowing a trick here or there, didn't it? There were only a few hundred good builders in the kingdom after all.
Nodding he had the boy draw up a working plan for it, a full template, so others could easily copy it and start producing them before they left, using a bit of charcoal from a fire, scraping sigils for it on a piece of damp tree bark. It would take the boy days to do it, and it might fail, but it was worth doing. Besides, if the guy couldn't get it right, Tor realized he could probably do it in a few hours. He had most of what he needed in his head already. It was better if Sam did it though. That he was willing to try was huge.
Tor made houses with Sandra who struggled to do batches of ten of them every four hours or so, and she wanted to stop when she got bored after the third set. Sticking his tongue out at her he pointed to what he had done by then, which was nearly twelve hundred of them, all glowing with their little red house sigils on them.
“Sure, it's easier to make copies of your own work. Granted. But Sandra, you're a sixth year. You have to be an example for the younger kids. Besides, this is an emergency and you're a builder.” He said it like that meant something, chin coming up proudly. The girl misted up for a moment then let her head raise a bit, proudly, gave a single nod and went back to work. She got faster after that too. A good bit.