by P. S. Power
The prison was small when he woke, feeling around he found the wall almost in reach and the others after barley moving. He felt a ledge as he sat on the ground, the black space too dark to see in at all. Patting his chest he kind of expected his amulets to all be gone, but they were there, so using the glow of the various little sigils, he found the hand light and tapped it, which brightened the space considerably. It was just a supply closet not a real cell at all. Unfinished wooden shelves held clothes and rags for cleaning, soaps of various kinds and brushes, as well as rack for broom and mops, even a shovel, though Tor didn't know why that would be needed indoors. He found the sigil that would let him walk through a solid object, it glowed deep red and just has a line with a single arrow passing through it. Starting to hit it Tor stopped and tried the brass knob instead on a whim first. It was unlocked. So… not a prisoner at all?
It was also morning, meaning he'd been out for a good while. Ten hours or so at a guess.
The light through the large window gave it away. It was even the same room that Burks had pulled him into. God… Connie! He'd told Burks about the meeting… Tor ran, not knowing at all where he was going or who to talk to at all.
“Um, help? Help? Someone? Royal Guards? Emergency… It's… It's urgent!” That last word had four liveried people running into the room with weapons drawn. Embarrassed and not knowing what could be happening Tor explained everything. Before he'd finished the part about waking up in a broom closet, one of the guards yelled.
“Secure the building! Secure the building! Arrest Count Lairdgren and Master Tor! Secure the family!”
Arrest him? Well, that wasn't going to end well if they tried. He'd had bad experiences with going peacefully before, so no one was taking his weapons or shield now and if they thought they were…
The man in purple and black just shrugged.
“Sorry Tor, but he can look like you…”
Oh, right. That. Well, if they had to arrest the other him, that was fine then.
He did point out he was the short one, just in case it came up, which made the guard in front of him nod. They knew that already, but still, it could be hard to tell without both there for comparison.
It was tense for a while, Connie came rushing in with the rest of the royal family, all sputtering and sleepy, asking why he was being arrested and if he was why hadn't someone tried yet? Karina hugged him and had Ali on her arm, so no one had been harmed at least. Starting from the beginning he covered everything, Denno, Burks wanting him to be silent on the matter, the whole bit. Even the meeting with the Queen that he didn't show up at, where he planned to tell her all this.
“Oh? I'd hoped for more, silly of me I guess… At least you had a good reason for standing me up. I was about to be cross with you over it.” She pouted a little, which got her a slightly annoyed glance from Tor.
“Alright.” Tor walked forward and kissed her hard. She blinked at him still puffy and face lined with marks from her pillow.
“There. Now focus please, my grandfather is… I don't know what he's doing, to be honest. Is Denno gone?”
They both were, and so was one of Tor’s fast magical carriages. With a ten hour head start they could be anywhere by now. Almost anywhere on the planet, literally.
“Why?” Tor said far more calmly than he felt.
Everyone looked at him, but Rolph shrugged and spoke quickly, “Well, my guess is that he had a plan and you were about to ruin it. Now that plan could have been anything, but I'm guessing it wasn't about world conquest or Count Lairdgren would have just told us about it and presented his reasons. If they were good enough to make it worth doing, we'd probably back him. He's the Green man after all. If they weren't good enough, he probably wouldn't bother with it himself.”
Richard nodded, and Karina snorted loudly, giving them all a morose look.
“It can't be too bad, he ran away, but he didn't kill Tor, or even hurt him, just put him to sleep for a while. Best guess is he isn't even working against us, he just isn't ready for our input or help. It's his family, so maybe he just doesn't want outsiders involved?”
They could speculate all day, fret and worry, but until they had a real plan, Tor decided to go back to being a regular school student. Burks could find him there if he wanted him. It should even be safe enough, after all, Burks hadn't hurt anyone, not really. Tor was going to have a real discussion with the man, but no one else needed to worry, most likely.
“Absolutely not.” The voices came as one from both Rich and Connie, both seeming suddenly united in their decision.
It was understandable. Something odd had happened and they'd been lied to, so now they didn't want to risk their children. Tor could even get behind it, he told them, but then he mentioned that he, at least, would have to go back. His classes…
The King crossed his arms firmly over the soft looking sleeping shift he wore.
“Don't matter at all. Tor, it's very kind of you to attend school to be close to your new wife and we all understand that, but Lairdgren owns the school. Now I doubt that being here would be any safer, but we certainly can't risk putting you all back there either. Perhaps,” He looked at all of them and nodded firmly.
“Yes, a vacation. For the rest of the term. We'll send you all… Hmmm, well, somewhere that no one would think to look for you, not even Burks. I don't have a clue where that would be, but we'll figure out something.”
Tor shook his head sadly.
“Seriously, I'm never finishing school, am I?” For some reason it came out sounding sad and soft and no one laughed, which had been the intent.
They were ordered, an actual royal decree, if not one written down, to go get something to eat and leave the planning to them. The guards stayed with them and escorted them all to the dining room, where bowls of oatmeal, toast and boiled eggs were quickly delivered. It was all fine, but the situation seemed wrong. They were being sent on a sudden vacation? He got that meant going into hiding, but where and why? Burks wouldn't harm them, would he?
How would you know? Tor asked himself, considering some hard facts. Think about it, he'd planned to lie, that's why he made a trick truth device. What did he have to lie about? Whatever it was, it wasn't meant to fool Tor, not with the piece of crap he used the night before. So who? The King and Queen? Was it just an amusement or precaution for the future? Was it for the Count at all, or had he made it for someone else? That he made it was fact. Tor had felt him all over it. It hadn't even been borrowed from his original field, but was a novel build. That meant time had been involved and planning.
Sloppy, careless, planning.
Eating the oatmeal without seasoning Tor noticed that everyone else seemed excited, not scared. Not annoyed, which was closer to what Tor really felt himself. Except Karina who watched him closely the whole time. Finally, waving a piece of toast at him she asked if he was feeling all right.
“What? Fine, considering I woke up in a closet. I just… We just found out that someone is trying to take over the world and he's escaped with the help of the top advisor to the kingdom. Why am I the only one worried here?”
Rolph took a drink of tea and considered the whole thing for a second.
“Probably because someone is always trying to take over the world. Sure, Brown's got more experience than most by far, but… well, as a group, the Ancients kind of already have control of the world. If they back him, then he has it, and nothing we do would make a difference. If they don't, then they'll take care of it and he'll lose.”
It sounded calm and confident, but was it really that simple, what if Denno and his side won? What would happen then?
Varley munched her own toast and swallowed politely before speaking.
“Then honestly? We'll probably all be dead. Can't leave spare royalty lying around, it gives people ideas. That's really what happened with the first Cordes, wasn't it? He reigned for nearly a thousand years, but finally someone overthrew him. It wasn't twenty years until his grandson sat the throne. Th
ough, if I have it right, the Green man had a hand in making that happen.”
“Nearly a thousand years?”
Varley looked at Karina who agreed and told the tale, history being one of her fields of particular study.
“Yes. He was an Ancient too, but not like the others we've met, a different kind, big like we are and with combat rage, though he controlled it pretty well. Like you Tor, if the legends are right. Decent enough leader, though it started to get to him I think, he started passing nonsense laws about sex, making it illegal except in marriage and that kind of thing. Really crazy. That's what did him in, all his nobles rose against him and took him out of power. Killed him too. Kind of gruesome, they weren't really sure what could really end him, so they did everything, hung, stabbed, poisoned, cut his head off, burned the body and then put the ashes over four different moving bodies of water. Really goes to show that you need to be careful of what laws you pass, doesn't it?”
They chuckled and so did Tor, not wanting to bring everyone else down. The real fact of the matter was that he kind of felt like there was no purpose to all this. Go on a vacation? Why? To rest up for the inevitable Larval army? Suddenly he felt like just going to sleep and waiting for it all to be over. It would be too lazy to actually try, but it would be worth doing if even one more thing went wrong in his life. As it was he had work to do and no idea when he had to be ready by, or what exactly he had to be ready for.
Would he have to fight Burks? It seemed like a painful idea for him. The man was family, more demonstrably than anyone else in the world, they were close. How could he do that? He couldn't even catch the guy if he ran away, not on foot. That would have to be worked on. What if he had to face the other Ancients? It was impossible of course. All he could think of to do was cheat and have so many back-up plans that eventually something worked on them. He also had to take out the Larval before they became a real threat.
The idea sent a chill down his spine. Tor wasn't afraid of them, no more than was healthy at least. No, the problem was that stopping them really meant killing them. They'd had to chop off the arms and legs of the seven that he'd defeated in a dual just to keep them from killing everyone. After they'd lost. That was only seven. What would he do about seven hundred?
Worse, he'd probably have to face the Austran fast craft too and he didn't know how much more speed he could get out of a carriage. Maybe double? That still left them with about six craft faster than what he had by far and about ten or so that would be about thirty percent faster. He could have good shields for it, so at least there was that. It might make a difference in a fight. It really wasn't fair at all.
Because some Ancient was possibly working with Denno, Tor couldn't trust any of them. Well, not without reading them clearly. From what Burks had said, if anything he'd told Tor had been true, it seemed that the other Ancients didn't have the same blocks regarding magic as Brown. That meant, probably, that they'd be aware of it as a real threat. They could even have ways to thwart him in place, things he didn't even understand. How could he beat that?
Really, he couldn't.
But he could try to get things ready for everything he could think of. Whatever the others could come up with too. Tor started realizing the white china dishes were being taken away suddenly and everyone else had kept talking, even as he drifted off somewhere. Kind of rude of him, he knew. Oops.
A fresh cup of brown and bitter sludge had been placed in front of him, so he checked it for poison with a detector on one of the consolidated amulets and then drank it quickly. It was used for hangovers and battle rage side effects, but Tor didn't think he'd qualify for either right now. Maybe it was just in case? A preventative or because no one knew how the sleep device worked and they wanted to be safe?
Varley kept staring at him, her desire to ask what he was thinking so loud that he nearly heard it with his ears. What was he going to do?
“I don't know.” Everyone else looked at him then, but Varley nodded getting that it was really an answer to her question. He elaborated for the others, since Rolph and Ali looked concerned. Karina looked slightly amused, which meant she was feeling a little better. At least all the current mess was helping someone.
“I feel… I feel like I have to fix all this. That Denno and Burks are my family and that if they're messing up, it's up to me to make it right. At the same time, I barely know either of them and, you know, Burks is basically who I'll become in a lot of ways… So if he’d doing something bad, does that mean I will sometime too?” Tor shrugged, a sullen thing that got concerned looks from everyone and a kick under the table from Karina, one hard enough to make his shield trigger. Right, she was the gloomy one her, no good stealing her position.
“So, if I feel like I need to fix all this and make it right, barely knowing them… what is he feeling? I mean, really, what would I do if one of my own brothers was trying to take over the world or one of you? I just can't imagine it though. I guess I'd try to make sure you just couldn't and talk you out of it. I don't think I could kill you or anything. So, uh, please don't go crazy and try to destroy us all or anything?”
Karina was still effecting all black, and her black hair was still lanky and flat, which made a passable disguise, but wasn't that good overall. Tor stared for a bit, until she stared back at him grinning.
“Hey! Why look at me? You think at this table I'm the one most likely to go side slip and try to make a massive power grab? Hardly fair at all. I mean, if you want to see who the most likely person to do that here is, I suggest you look at the guy with the super weapons and all that.” Then she made a little humming noise under her breath, a playful little sound meant to distract from her implied insult.
Tor shrugged.
“A point, but I was thinking about disguises, not anything else. I… Well, I have a device for that, but I've never gotten to use it.”
Everyone else reacted, though in different ways. Ali sat up and looked baffled. She was charming and very friendly, to everyone, but her intelligence wasn't the highest ever. She largely made up for it by keeping silent though. It worked for her and she tried hard, which really should be enough. Tor was in charge of the rest, at least until she got up to speed.
Rolph however acted like he already knew that such a device existed. Maybe he did, or suspected it at least. In all the world, he was probably the single person that really knew him best. Karina shook her head at him and… laughed.
“Only you Tor! No one else I know would have brand new and powerful magics sitting around and not take them out to play with them. You know what your problem is? You're spoiled.” A spread of hands, each larger than Tor’s by forty percent at least was used to deflect from the responsibility for his current rotten state.
“I'm spoiled? I…” It was his turn to sound baffled and concerned.
Had he been running around taking liberties and being demanding and not even realized it? Or grown so soft and used to luxury that everyone saw him as weak and useless? Before he could go on to long she continued.
“Yeah. It's the magic. You're so good at it and so much faster than everyone else that you don't even value it. Not really. You make stuff and treat it like it was some costume jewelry a little kid made for mother or as if it was just a hobby. I'm not saying you should be greedy, give it away by all means, I couldn't afford your stuff otherwise, but don't treat it so casually.” Then she took a deep breath and actually looked slightly scared for a second.
“Also… and please don't get mad at me for saying this Tor, but… You, personally, are not responsible for Noram. At this table, almost everyone else is more responsible for that than you are, I could even argue Alissa as being your equal there and not have to stretch much! In the chain of who needs to be working hardest to fix this, you’re like… way down the line. Like two or three hundred people down really… You come into play first as a Knight, and there are thousands of those really.”
Rolph sat straighter and nodded, looking at Tor hard.
; “Damn straight. I'll grant you going off to save some distant relative, that was noble and a good example for the rest of us, but this latest stuff? No. Now it's time for you to step back a bit and support us in doing our jobs, which right now is supporting the King and Queen. Maybe even Count Lairdgren if he hasn't gone all evil on us. I doubt he has, but if not, getting in his way will probably just mess things up. Half of this going off is just because dad and mom don't know what's required right now.” He threw a glance to Karina that looked grateful, as if he hadn't wanted to be the one to bring it up.
So, he was a jerk?
He'd been taking on too much and acting above his station? Tor kind of wanted to get mad about it, tell them that what he'd been doing was important, and that of course he was the one responsible for everything, but it wasn't true. Not at all.
Really, what was he in all this? Some school boy that made some things? A friend of a few important people? The tiniest and worst noble ever? None of that really said, “hey, let's put him in charge” did it? It was true then, wasn't it? He was over bearing, pushy and self important.
He buried his head in his hands and put his elbows on the table, the black velvet of the tunic pulling across his shoulders a bit.
“Your right. Gah. I'm a moron. Sorry, I've been overstepping for a long time, acting like I was important when I'm not. Can you all forgive me? I've been insufferable… I-” Tor jumped as a small hand found his back. Ali.
“That's not what they said. No one said you weren't important, they said that you weren't responsible for Noram. The world too. No more than anyone else. You keep doing a lot of good things, stuff that really helps people, but you aren't getting to enjoy your own life at all. I know part of that's my fault. I shouldn't have made you stay married to me. I should have let you go once… he was dead and couldn't hurt me anymore.” Alissa's voice had gone quiet, soft and a little sad at the end so he reached out and took her hand gently.
“Made me stay married? I seem to recall fighting for the privilege rather hard at the time sweet. Don't think for a second I regret that. Besides, this is my life. It's confusing and terrifying and most of the time I feel overwhelmed, but that's just what I get. I'll make do.”