The Builder tya-1

by P. S. Power

  “Alright Torrence Green Baker,” The man sounding a bit too much like his mother when she got frustrated with him for comfort. “What have you been up to? Missed everything yesterday… At least tell me you were with a girl or doing something interesting and not out getting drunk or playing in town. I expect better from you than that, you aren't some first year anymore and need to set a good example for the younger…”

  The slightly seedy looking man, flat, almost drab hair falling around his shoulders, two days beard growth and a slightly sour body odor coming off of his dark brown instructor's jacket stopped when Tor held up the wooden piece, smiling. Staring, the advisor's eyes went wide. They'd talked about the project a few times in the weeks before, and it wasn't like Tor would have any other big makes on schedule. Well, not that Frank knew about at least.

  “The drying field for clothing?” The man said. He didn't sound overly impressed.

  “The working dryer, yes.” It was hard to keep his voice humble, a little smugness crept in at the edges which got raised eyebrows from the older man. No gray in the beard yet, and one of the younger advisors, probably given Tor as a punishment.

  For some reason people thought of him as distracted. Or at least non-attentive. It wasn't really true, he just focused on the job at hand, like he'd been taught. It wasn't his fault that life kept trying to interfere with the more important things, like work, was it?

  Without saying anything at all the man reached out and pulled Tor by the arm into the courtyard, a small groan coming from the instructor as they walked, the early morning chill having yet to pass from the day. When they got to the courtyard Frank took the template piece from Tor gently, filled a wash tub with water from the hand pump, doing all the work himself, then quickly picked up Tor and set him inside, clothes and all, pushing him down until he sat in it.

  “Gah!” Near frozen water hit his head as the larger man pumped it over him, again and again.

  “Now, if this works and is fully safe, you'll be dry in a few minutes, yes? If it doesn't, then you deserve this for ditching classes… Be glad I got to you first, the weapons instructors were all talking about how to best beat you when you got in today. Maybe they'll take pity on you when they hear about this? Then again, probably not. For the teacher's pet you seriously vex the head instructor of that department, you know that? Now, out!” The words were accompanied by hitting, mock slaps to the shoulders really. It was meant to “shame” him if anyone else was watching, so he ducked his head and pretended to cry a little. No one would take it seriously if they saw it. It was just an odd convention of the school. An act to show humility and respect to the instructors if you messed up. Since they were within their rights to really beat him for something like this, the game was appreciated.

  Looking at the plate the larger man shrugged and noticed the paint on the surface and that it was the cheap kind. Instead of berating Tor for being poor he just wiped at his right hand, more than a little damp from Tor flogging duty, on his trouser leg. Then he tapped the top and waited, a skeptical look on his face.

  It went away after about ten seconds when the water nearly exploded out of the younger man's clothing, half of the water catching the older man in the legs. Ten seconds after that there was another, much smaller burst of water from what had hit him, as it came out of his own clothes. Tor jumped back so that he wouldn't get wet again. That water was cold.

  Maybe he could come up with a water heater that didn't cost a hundred golds? Not that it would have done him any good right then, even if he had such a wonder, but it would be nice when bath time came. Only the wealthy could afford the bath house in town and even that was heated with burning wood, if he had the story right from Rolph. Tor had to wash up with cold water most days. He did it, so he wouldn't stink, but it wasn't easy to make himself do in the winter.

  When the field was turned off the advisor grinned.

  “On your first try too! Let me borrow this for testing? If it plays out I should have it back to you within a few days. Consider your punishment completed. For now…” He waved his hands at the water spigot. “I'll leave you to deal with Kolb. I doubt that dry clothes will impress him overly. Now, get with your other instructors and have them come see me after lessons. They'll want to see this.”

  For all that he sounded a little rough about it, the other man, bleary as he was, seemed fairly pleased, a bit happier at least. Good. Tor didn't need a week of extra lessons in the evenings or worse, daily duckings like this. He still shivered a little, even dry as he was.

  He ran to his first class of the day hoping the activity would warm him. Naturally it was meditations, so Tor passed the message from Frank along quietly and in a somber tone, almost expressionless really. Dorris, the elderly instructor for that class just smiled a little at him and had him take a seat on the floor with a gentle wave of her hand.

  Meditation was easy enough, all he had to do for the lessons was clear his mind for the first section, then focus on a different object each day for the hour after that. That part was always something novel, a rock or a piece of wood, sometimes a single, if large, stick of incense. Today she'd put out a cup of water near the front of the room. It felt funny to focus on, the field of information from it was odd, but he didn't let his mind turn, even as it slipped away from the water, his attention feeling like it moved through and around it too easily to gain purchase. Interesting.

  His mind found the focus after a while and he locked on, holding it for the rest of the time pretty well. Not perfectly yet, but that's why you practiced, to get better at things. It was a good session, since that kind of focus was at the heart of building magical systems it had direct value to him too. Dorris raised her eyebrows as he left, never having said a word to him. Come to think of it, she hadn't spoken more than a hundred words in his presence since they'd met two years before. He gave her a half bow before leaving, hoping she didn't feel too put out by his having missed her lesson the day before. He'd definitely been applying what she taught at least.

  The next session, novel building, went very well, the instructor an older gentleman that Tor only knew as Instructor Fines slapped him on the back and told him that it sounded like he'd done superbly. Frank had already talked to him apparently, which made sense. Who else would you get to judge a new field than the resident expert in such things?

  In fact all the instructors seemed happy enough, until lunch time. Then everything changed without warning.

  As he sat at the table with Rolph, a giant shadow came over the room blocking the light from the window and the little bit of warmth that came with it. Tor froze, hoping that it wasn't Count Thomson coming to demand the requested clothes drying sets yet. He spun to explain… and stopped cold, words dying on his lips.

  Standing in there wasn't a mere Count, or even just some bully looking to take him down a peg.

  It was Kolb.

  Worse, the man didn't even look unhappy or enraged.

  He… smiled.

  It was an evil kind of thing, his bald head and scarred face made it look feral and mean, the kind of look that generally meant you weren't long for the world if you had the misfortune to see such a thing. It didn't help that the man was huge, nearly as tall as Rolph, so over six-six and holding a lean ranginess to his muscle that told anyone smart enough to notice that the man was powerful physically in a way that few people ever were. He cleared his throat softly.

  “Ah, there you are! Worried you'd run off and joined the army or something… If you'd be so good as to meet me in the practice yard when you finish your meal? No hurry, I won't be ready for another ten minutes or so.”

  Soft as the voice was, as friendly as it sounded, a chill ran down his spine when he heard it. Kolb didn't whisper politely. He barked. He commanded and men, if they knew what was good for them, obeyed. Things that Tor didn't know he had inside him clenched and fluttered in fear as the large man walked away.

  He turned to Rolph and swallowed, letting his very real fear show.


  “He's going to kill me, isn't he?”

  Rolph just nodded, looking more than a little scared himself.

  “You know, I think he just might… Good luck?”

  Tor got up and took his pale blond wood food platter to the return counter, a hole in the wall where some first years took the trays for washing, Rolph following him.

  “Thanks,” he said over his shoulder to his friend, who still sat at the roughhewn student's table. “I think I'll need it.”

  Chapter two

  Tor knew, intellectually at least, that the head weapons instructor wouldn't really kill him just for missing lessons for one day. After all, if he did that no one would work with him anymore, they'd all run away in fear. That didn't mean that Tor wouldn't wish for death by the end of whatever was coming. That, he knew from personal experience, was more than likely.

  It had happened before. Oh, not him missing class, except for one time when he'd been out with a bug for three days, food poisoning, Tor never really got sick. Kolb had been fairly nice about the whole thing, just adding in some extra lessons when he got back, so that he could keep up with everyone else. But there had been a few little things, not learning something fast enough, or not having the needed strength to really take out one of the larger students from the combat section in practice on command.

  Then there was normally a lot more training, painful to the extreme.

  But this was different.

  For the first time Tor had done something that was actually wrong. Missing lessons without permission wasn't really a big deal in his other classes. After all, kids did that, going off to get drunk or have sex instead of studying and learning like they should. Some of the rich kids hardly attended classes at all, sometimes not showing up for days on end. But the military and combat studies section was different, at least for the upper level students, which for some reason Tor had been included into. The instructors tended to treat absence as an attempt to leave the military without permission or something. In the army that could lead to imprisonment or even death.

  Tor knew he could argue that this wasn't the military and that he'd even been put in the section by mistake. He simply wasn't a combat student. Tor would never be, no matter how hard he tried. Even Kolb clearly knew that, having him work with wooden weapons instead of magical ones for the last few years, even when everyone else got to move ahead. He made Tor run daily, telling him over and over again that in a real fight, against real enemies, it would probably be his only hope for survival. He just lacked the size and strength for anything else and really no amount of training or practice would give it to him. So run away.

  But all of that wouldn't get him out of what was coming. Not unless he tried to run away right then, instead of approaching the practice field like he'd been ordered to. OK, requested to, but that was just to make him sweat more, being asked politely like that. It worked too. Kolb wasn't just a master of fighting unarmed or with weapons apparently. He could use words too. Well enough to make Dorgal Sorvee look like a chump.

  The large instructor stood in the empty square, his shirt off in the cool breeze already, hitting at a pell, a wooden log set in the ground, that was larger around than Tor could reach with both arms by a good bit. It only stood about eight feet high, but still looked massive. The ground shook as powerful blows followed each other nearly too fast to be kept track of. The reverberation went through him, shaking bone each time.

  Tor swallowed and looked around, trying to see the trap, or punishment that was planned for him. He really hoped it wasn't being beaten with that sword. That would actually kill him, most likely. Even a dull blade hitting him half that hard would do the trick.

  The training square was large, about a hundred feet on each side, ringed in a low stone wall, too high for him to see over, but not for a lot of the combat giants. Maybe six foot? Inside, away from the main gate, to the left, the ground was paved with very flat, very hard black stone. The rest was dirt, packed hard from years of being stomped and trampled underfoot. A hill stood, higher than the wall on the back left corner, dipping down into a small pond, the thick mud of which was hard to stand on when someone was hitting you, or, as he knew from only occasional personal experience, just as hard to stand on if you actually connected with someone else. He'd sat in it every single time he'd had to work there, usually making the other students laugh.

  The remaining section was just flat, dry dirt, his favorite place to work in the square. A lovely soft tan color that didn't show overly on the browns, as long as you didn't have to roll around in it for too long.

  Tor plodded over slowly, head hanging a little. Dread filled him, but there was nothing for it. As long as the instructor didn't actually kill or maim him, no one would say much about any punishment given and while Tor could quit at any time, there wouldn't be a second chance like this in life. Finishing his schooling here could make him, but half trained? Who knew? He'd either open his own bakery somewhere or try for the sea and just pray something worked out.

  Bald head glistening in the bright daylight, beads of perspiration dripping off of his back and shoulders, Kolb spun suddenly and pointed the dull metal practice blade at Tor's throat.

  “Ah, good, you made it! I was worried you might be too busy…” The look he gave him didn't hold the expected derision, just a matter of fact expression that made Tor wince. It would have been easier to just be yelled at. This “reasonable” man in front of him couldn't be a good sign.

  “Now, your advisor, Gear, told me why you didn't make it yesterday. In the future I expect to be notified in advance if you can't make it due to other work, understood? My time's too valuable to be standing around wondering where you are. In general everyone's time is too valuable to waste like that, even yours. Keep that in mind, eh?”

  The blade swung back around to the pillar behind the man, making it shake, a tremor that could be felt through the thick leather soles of Tor's brown shoes.

  “Don't worry, I'm not going to make you work the pells all day as a punishment, though the thought had occurred to me. First Instructor Kara suggested a several hours long beating, and she actually likes you, so you can imagine what the others wanted to do. I want you to watch something instead. Pay attention here, alright?”

  Five more blows hit the post, the form perfect, driven by the thick and lean arm of the man in front of him. After the last one he turned.

  “Each of those blows would hold a good chance of killing an un-shielded or unarmored man. Even with a dull weapon like this. If someone comes at you in a similar fashion, baring you wearing a full shield, you need to do what in order to survive?”

  “Run away.” It came out sounding almost bored, he knew, which was about the worst thing that could happen. Yes, Tor had to say it a half dozen times a day, but angering the man right now was not a good survival strategy. His stomach tightened and he swallowed, which must have showed on his face. The blade swung at him without warning, causing him to back pedal as fast as he could, ready to run in truth if the attack continued. That had happened before, with five students, led, now that he thought about it, by Petra, the tall girl that kept waving to him the day before, chasing him for nearly an hour along the road to the nearest town. Kolb stopped after a single swing this time and gave him a serious look.

  “Exactly. Not trying to bore you here, but do pay attention. I don't want to have to repeat myself later. Fail in this lesson and you'll probably die later. Now look here…”

  The sword was put on a low table and a piece of metal no longer than a regular fighting knife, but flat and not sharp at all, was held in the large hand instead. The big thumb was placed over a triggering sigil and held. Looking at Tor with a soft smile, the giant man casually, without perceptible effort, swung the metal at the pell, making an angled sweep that, if it had been a human would have bisected the neck and shoulder.

  For a second nothing happened at all.

  Then with a crash nearly a hundred, maybe two hundred, pounds of wood
slid off the pell and hit the ground, making Tor jump back out of the way. The wood was smooth, shiny even, on the top of the log, now nearly three foot shorter and angled at the top.

  “A simple cutter, about a four foot sweep on it. You've made cutters before, right? Same basic idea here, only bigger than generally needed for a tool, except in stone working or cutting logs for timber. Now here's the task I have for you. On top of your regular studies and practice, you have two weeks to make a shield that will protect you from both of these weapons. It must be able to withstand twenty minutes of sword, and the same amount of time from this cutter. Failure means death, most likely at least, so I suggest you take the project seriously.”

  A large hand was held out as if to forestall speech.

  “Yes, we already have shields, so you know that the basic idea can work. But, you aren't allowed to just make a copy of one. I expect novel work, since you've shown yourself capable of that now… Understood?”

  Tor did.

  The man really did mean to kill him. He'd never even set eyes on a working shield before, and now he had to make one, from scratch, inside two weeks? That kind of work could take years to get right. He was so dead. He may as well run off, or at least send a letter to his parents explaining why he died.

  Kolb just laughed as he stood shaking.

  “You look cold. Go ahead and run to Lenders and back to warm up, then we'll work stones and unarmed for a while. Don't worry, you have some time to work on your new shield.” The voice held a warm and jovial quality that Tor didn't really associate with the man at all. It wasn't something he could trust then. New things generally weren't, as had been recently pointed out, they needed to be tested first.