by Garon Whited
How about you drop them unconscious?
“There’s another reason not to kill them out of hand. They’ll be missed, and we have three hours to go. I don’t want a whole SWAT team showing up while I’m doing a sunrise! Now hush, I’m preparing for departure.”
While the officers had their discussion, I gathered power and funneled it into some preparatory spells. I do have a sequence of emergency spells in my amulet, now, for sudden and unforeseen day-shifts, but I haven’t yet installed all the lesser, specialized little things to make it more comfortable.
I’m not sure it’ll ever be comfortable. I don’t think it’ll even get down to the level of discomfort in a typical sunrise. Every little bit helps, though. So I pre-heated my body up from room temperature, manually started my heart, suppressed my upcoming nausea in advance, and took a short walk around the barn with Firebrand, scratching ideograms for “fire” in various spots. The burned remains of the barn would be less mysterious in daylight. There’s something about smoking ruins that makes people want to shrug it off as pointless. We were careful to avoid the spell lines drawn on the inside, though. Those would go away when the barn did.
I lay down to avoid falling down. I closed my visors in case the keep’s barn doors were open. Outside, there was shouting. Someone hammered on the barn door.
I hate this part. I hope nobody’s in barn at the other end.
Tauta, 27th Day of Milaskir
I lay there in the keep’s barn, breathing slow and deep of the high-oxygen air around my head. I waited for the worst of it to finish. I cracked my visors and the cleaning spell made breathing less unpleasant. My blood was already circulating, so there was no sudden thud! of a sunrise kick-start. All in all, it was about as painless as it was possible to be. Which, of course, meant I felt as though I was starting to recover from a hangover, the flu, and a mild case of death.
Bronze melted a bit of fender and switched to her horse body. She nudged me with her nose. Did I need any CPR? I assured her I did not.
For several minutes, I simply lay there and let the magic do its thing. I could probably stand without help, but I thought I’d like to walk and talk at the same time. Maybe, if I rest here long enough, I can climb the stairs to my workroom and pretend I’m busy.
“Sir?”
My first thought was not a polite one. I didn’t say it out loud.
“Yes?” I asked, instead.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m very tired.”
The guard in question came into my line of sight, cautiously.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yes. Is Leisel available?”
“Last I heard, she was interrogating the female prisoner.”
“How about Velina?”
“I can fetch her.”
“Do that. And either Illaria or Renata, please.” I closed my eyes and rested, feeling my spells working over my abused biology. I tried moving a little and everything hurt. Who poured sand in my joints? Well, that’s kind of par for the course. At least it wasn’t any worse than usual.
I hope I never regard this as “usual.” I suppose I could practice it, shifting back and forth from day to night. If I had Diogenes to help, I could ride a supersonic plane, taking sunrises and sunsets more quickly than normal rather than instantly. Or we could put me in orbit and have a sunrise and sunset in every ninety minutes. I might build up a tolerance, or at least a better library of spells to deal with the sudden transformation.
I don’t really want to. No, I said that wrong. I really don’t want to. At least I’ve perfected a process well enough so I don’t throw up, collapse, or go into cardiac arrest. Larger goals are important, but sometimes you have to accept the little victories.
“Sir…?”
“Oh. Velina. Hello.” She looked a long way down at me, slightly puzzled, slightly worried.
“Can I help you?”
“No, I think I’d like to lie here and contemplate the architecture for a bit.”
“If you say so, sir.”
“You could open the big box on wheels, though, and have the crates unloaded. Renata or Illaria can show you how to operate the weapons.”
“Weapons?”
“The big box on wheels is full of them. See to it Renata and Illaria brief everyone on their operation and use, please. Then—you know the archery drill I started?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get everyone practicing the drill, but use the new things.”
“Yes, sir.”
I lay there beside the truck while people streamed in, unloading and carrying away crates. Before long, I heard twanging and an occasional expression of surprise. Crossbows are easier to aim than a bow, once you get the hang of it. They’re also—on the average—more powerful. A professional longbowman is clearly more dangerous, but anybody can pick up a crossbow and use it. I expected quite a number of converts due to the instant lethality of the things.
In the meantime, I lay there under the trailer and practiced meditation. Until I had something I definitely needed to do, lying still and recovering was perfectly acceptable. I didn’t do well on the meditation, but practice isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being better. I think my preferred method of meditation is still Tai Chi, or something like it. This lying still with nothing to do is for the dead.
“Sir?”
I took a deep breath, let it go.
“Yes?”
“Do you want me to bring lunch?”
I opened my eyes. Tessera loomed over me, looking uncertain.
“What are we having?”
“I have no idea. It’s in the funny not-leather bags.”
“Not leather?”
“It’s not cloth. It’s smooth. It’s more like leather, but it’s not as tough.”
“So, not-leather. Got it. Sure, bring me one.”
She hurried off and returned immediately. We moved me to a wall, sat me up, and had lunch together. I had the beef stew, she had the spaghetti and both our spice packets. I ate slowly and carefully, avoiding spillage, tongue-biting, and nausea. Never stress a tender stomach. On the plus side, it’s good for me to eat after a sunrise jump-start. But, much as with a hangover, it’s difficult to do so.
As we were finishing the crackers and cobbler, Tessera cleared her throat.
“Sir?”
I grunted a response. My mouth was full.
“May I ask about the new weapons?”
I nodded, hoping she would take her time about asking. The cheese spread was thick and tended to stick in my teeth. With a tongue like mine, getting it out was no problem, but with teeth like mine, it’s still something to be done with care.
“I get how they work. They’re like a bow, but sideways. I don’t see how they’re going to be useful.”
I held up a finger and worked my mouth a bit before answering. She understood and spooned up the rest of her cobbler while I dealt with dental issues.
“Thing is,” I began, swallowed, and restarted. “Thing is, a bow takes a lot of time to master. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“We have more of these things than we have warriors. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“These are easy. Hitting a man-sized target at a hundred yards is about fifty-fifty after an afternoon of practice. And when a hundred of these let go, then another hundred, then another hundred, over and over and over, how’s that going to look from the other side?”
Tessera frowned, clearly not able to picture it. She had no experience with units composed of archers, much less volley fire. They don’t have armies here. They have organized mobs. Well, I was planning to change that.
“Tell you what, we’ll demonstrate. Go get everyone in the village who isn’t on duty somewhere.”
“All the guards?”
“No, everyone. Call for volunteers. We’ll try this with civilians mixed in with the warriors. The weapons are simple enough. Then you find the three bravest warriors, people you
can trust, and get four of the largest shields we have.”
“Yes, sir!”
She trotted off and I finished everything left. I wanted to rest some more, but I was feeling well enough to walk around. I could probably fake being a functional human being as long as no one tested it.
Bronze knelt next to me, providing a knee, neck, and mane for easy handholds on my way to vertical. Her mane didn’t let go when I tried to pull away. I was going to sit on her back and she would do the walking.
“I am?”
I was. I gave in because she has more sense than I do.
The demonstration involved columns of five—two warriors in each column, the rest volunteer civilians. We unscrewed the arrowheads from the quarrels for this, since I didn’t want anyone dying. It reminded me to send a message to the smithies in… damn, the iron-mine and foundry village. Terauda, that was it. We couldn’t duplicate the carbon-fiber shafts or razor-sharp heads, but they could produce a narrow, sharp point—a bodkin point, rather than a broadhead. While they made arrowheads, others could make short, sturdy shafts and still others could work on fletching. We needed a production line, so I had to grab someone, draw and explain, and send her off to find Leisel or Velina to make it happen.
With ammunition production handled, or at least started, I beckoned Tessera over. She approached, carrying what I think of as an infantry shield. It was about five feet tall and maybe three feet wide. The locals used them in the front ranks when defending a position. Most people used a round shield when it came down to hand-to-hand fighting.
“This is the largest I could find,” she offered.
“It’ll do. Your three friends have theirs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Helmets?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Get over there by the targets. At the sound of the horn, run across the field and between the columns of people. Don’t hit anyone. Your goal is simply to cross the distance without getting killed.”
“Uh… yes, sir. Killed?”
“Do your best.”
“Yes, sir.”
She gathered up her three friends and they waited for the target shooting to stop. I nodded to… Oh, I know her name. She was one of my bodyguards at the warmeet where I killed Tobar. Sharna! She shouted orders to the warriors and the warriors helped sort out the civilians, forming columns while the new targets carried their shields across the field.
The warrior on wand duty zapped a scrying sensor. I looked up and around. It must have been the only one. I didn’t see any others. Maybe they were getting expensive to replace. I hoped so.
After a bit, when Sharna reported readiness, I gave her the signal. She blew a horn and everything happened at once. The first rank fired their crossbows at the approaching shields. The front rank fell back, working the action on their crossbows, while the next rank fired. The process continued, each column falling back by one pace with each shot, until the first person was up again—and who then fired again. It kept going.
Tessera and her group started at a dead run, but the hail of bolts brought them to a dead stop, crouching behind their shields to avoid being bludgeoned to death. They evaluated the situation and slowly advanced, still hiding, and not yet realizing their goal was moving away almost as fast as they approached.
We ran out of bolts before they were halfway across the field. Sharna blew her horn again and people spread out, recovering quarrels. I signaled Tessera to approach. She stopped by my left stirrup and looked up at me.
“Thoughts?” I asked.
“If those things had points, we wouldn’t be able to lift our shields.”
“And if they nail the shield to your arm, you won’t be able to drop it, either,” I pointed out. Tessera shivered.
“I don’t like them.”
“Individually, they’re not too bad,” I assured her. “But in an army—not a bunch of warriors out to fight someone, but an army—they can be devastating.”
“So I’ve learned. Can I try one?”
“Of course. But you’re not a crossbow user.”
“I’m not? Why not?”
Sharna, standing nearby, snapped a sharp word at her. Tessera hastily added, “Why not, sir, if I may ask?”
“Because when the enemy reaches the crossbowmen—and they will, someday, somehow, because not every situation calls for crossbowmen—someone has to be standing there, ready to defend them while they retreat or draw melee weapons.” I grinned at her. “Assuming you’re not charging their flank in a counterattack.”
“Oh! I see. Thank you, sir!”
“You take your squad and explain to everyone how it looked from your side.” I looked at Sharna. “You can dismiss the volunteers, now. Keep drilling warriors on the maneuver.”
“Some of the civilians want to,” she told me.
“I have no objection. Use your judgment.”
“Sir.”
Bronze carried me back to the tower. Evidence suggested I was done for the afternoon.
The climb to my workroom was too much for me to manage without showing effort. It felt like there were more stairs than I recalled, but I was hardly in any shape to count them. Besides, with the architectural spells on the tower, there might be.
I stopped at my bedroom floor and took a breather. I wondered again about my lungs. A given amount of body mass should require a certain amount of oxygen. There’s a reason big animals have big lungs. I’m three times the weight I should be, but as far as I can tell, my lungs aren’t any bigger. How does that work? If I was feeling better, I would use spells to look inside and see for myself. The only trouble is, I wouldn’t know what I was looking at. Dammit, Jim, I’m a physicist, not a doctor…
The bed smelled like Leisel. I like the way she smells. Skin and sweat, sometimes leather and steel. I wish I liked her more. No, I like her just fine. I wish I felt something more for her. She deserves someone who really cares, not simply a monster who thinks of her fondly. Maybe that’s why Renata was so resistant to the idea of being galvanais of House Lucard, even if it was just a title.
Dimly, I realized I wasn’t focusing on anything, and then I was asleep.
Dreaming is a non-linear process. It makes leaps and connections the conscious mind cannot. Like meditation, it allows parts of one’s self to swim to the surface, leap from the stream of consciousness and fall back, spreading fresh ripples. That’s why I’m trying to tell you things. Hello? Are you even listening? Is this brain even on?
I wonder at the thoughts I think, for I am dreaming. I know I am dreaming, and the strangeness of a dark place is broken only by the familiarity of a distant voice.
I’m not distant, you idiot! You’re my avatar or prophet and I’m shouting to be heard!
I hear it echo in the seven-doored chamber, all in darkness, and I wonder how this can be. Alone within myself, do I dream I am dreaming, or does the butterfly dream it is a man?
Will you quit it with the freewheeling psychobabble? Jeez, you’re more of a mess than I thought!
It’s true, I realize, for my thoughts and feelings are twisted strange, twining man and monster about each other until the helix is a cord all its own, spun on the wheel of fate by an unseen hand. Is it the hand of God or my own? Who plucks the fibers of destiny from the raw stuff of creation and spins them into fate?
Okay, listen. This dream-oracle crap is cheap, but I can’t keep it up forever. Try to focus! I’m not dead, there are no gods on this energy plane, and someone in your physical world is trying to become one. Do you think you can remember all that?
What dreams remain in the waking mind? What crumbs of insight feed the rational mind, starving for facts?
Oh, for the love of—I give up. Remember what I said! And wake up!
I sat bolt upright, heart pounding, sweat pouring off me, and with the crystalline knowledge my altar ego wasn’t completely dissolved. Gods? No gods. Someone becoming a god. He would know, wouldn’t he?
I collapsed back on the bed, trying
to remember, trying to capture everything. I heard it in a dream, so I told it to myself again now that I was awake. My altar ego isn’t dead. There are no gods for this world. Someone wants to become one. Three concise bullet points. How hard can it be? Nevertheless, I told myself all three, three times, then recited them in reverse order three more times before I allowed myself to ask the question.
Where the hell has my altar ego been? His sigil has been broken almost since it was stolen, and I haven’t heard anything out of him since we chucked an Orb into the void. Well, I’ve used The Voice, but I don’t know if that’s something I can just do. Has he been too weak to talk? Maybe. I did hook him up to divinity dynamos for a while, though. Why didn’t he talk to me then? Has he grown strong enough to communicate in dreams?
I had no answers, so I went to get some. I rolled out of bed and flopped on the floor before remembering I was supposed to take things easy for today. Damn. And I had stairs to climb to my workroom, too. I struggled upright, rested for a moment, and took the stairs one at a time.
Is this what it’s like to feel old?
Eventually, I reached my workroom and the heavy chair next to the sand table. I plopped myself into the chair and rested again. At least now I wouldn’t be physically exerting myself.
I’ve built a deiphone before, and I still have the central crystal from the sigil. The only trouble is, the original deiphone was… how to put this? It was a radio for speaking to god. God had to transmit, though, and put out enough signal—suitably focused by the temple architecture, or so I’m told—for the Mark One Deiphone to take the call. My altar ego, if he was still alive, was unable to communicate by any of the more mundane means and had to resort to giving me nightmares. Not talking to me directly, oh no. With our special resonance connection, if the best he could do was dreams, I doubted a holy radio would work.
On the other hand, if I run a wire directly up to his hospital bed and put a headset on him, all he has to do is whisper.
To that end, my current sand table would serve as a display, the crystal would be the primary focus for establishing a communications link, and my Ring of Spying would open up a direct line into the energy plane. No trying to shout across the inter-dimensional barriers! Tying it all together was the hard part, but I have the advantage of actually having a pretty good idea about what I’m doing. I built all these things in the first place!