by Garon Whited
She sniffled a bit, regaining control. Seating herself on the raised lip, she gestured into the low fire burning there and it brightened immediately.
“There is only so much one can do with raw stone,” she said, wiping her face with one hand. “I feel you should be proud of what you have done.”
“Before you launch a long story about what happened, is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”
“Only if you insist.”
“I insist.”
“Then, if I might make use of your powers for that purpose? I did not anticipate needing cushions, nor food and drink. Would it be more to your liking to fetch things for me, or to bear me back to Mochara, where such things are more readily available?”
“I leave that decision entirely in your hands,” I told her. “You choose what you want, and I will make it so.”
“Then, by all means, lets us see if Bronze is willing to bear me to Mochara. There, you may guest in my house while I tell you what has become of yours.”
I looked at Bronze. She gave me that look that says I’d be a fool to even think I had to ask. I helped Tort onto Bronze’s back, sidesaddle, despite the lack of saddle. She hung her staff in midair. I thought that was a neat trick. I leaped up behind her and put my arms around her to get a grip on Bronze’s mane. We walked out through the main door and Bronze nudged it shut with the flat of her forehead, after allowing the staff to follow us out. We went around and down and around some more until we had to corner in the square, just inside the city’s main gate. We passed between the stone towers flanking the massive pivot-gate in the lake wall. A quick run around the perimeter of the mountain and over the bridge, and we were headed south, hooves thundering and ringing on one of the roads beside the canal. The wind blew past us like a storm, dislodging Tort’s hood and whipping loose long, brown hair from her braid.
I ignored it, but Tort didn’t. A moment later, the wind whipped around us instead of over us; I saw the shield she erected. It reminded me of a Dymaxion car—sort of a teardrop shape.
Bronze seemed to go even faster. Aerodynamics help. And that staff just kept floating right along with us, as though tethered.
“Good work,” I observed, and realized the shield included something to dampen the sound of Bronze’s hooves on the ground. Very good work.
“It is an honor to be of service, my angel.”
“So, give me the short version of what happened, will you?”
“We—I say ‘we,’ but it was really T’yl—brought you back from the Edge of the World after the battle. Other magicians sealed the breach, but he knew you would have to be rescued immediately, before they thought to take you. You were badly injured and missing several pieces.” She smiled, slightly. “They did not want to let me see.”
“But you did, anyway,” I guessed. She smiled.
“Their solution was to submerge you in blood,” she replied. “Most of it was from butchered animals, but many of your subjects chose to bleed for you, as well. They could not forbid me,” she added, proudly.
“I wish you hadn’t had to,” I began.
“You saved the world!” she flared. “If you had not held the breach, that which lives in the outer darkness would have gained entry!”
“Maybe so, but I wish you hadn’t had to bleed,” I clarified. “I wish I had been in better shape, or at least that I had woken up when you did bleed for me.”
“Well, it did heal your physical wounds. I watched your arm grow back, as well as pieces of your chest and some of your head.”
I blinked at her and said nothing for several seconds.
“I assume I was pretty chewed up?”
“And clawed up. And a stinger had gone completely through—”
“I get it, I get it,” I interrupted. I didn’t want to know. “Let’s just move on, shall we?”
“Of course,” she agreed. “When you did not immediately regain consciousness, T’yl, Raeth, and Bouger met to discuss what to do with you.”
“What about Tamara?” I asked. Tort’s lip curled.
“Her useless goddess refused to help. Or so she said,” Tort told me. She sounded bitter, maybe even contemptuous. That was a story I wanted to hear, but later.
“I’m not arguing,” I said. “After what I learned about her in Zirafel, I have my own suspicions about the overheated bitch. But go on.”
“It was decided to hide you. T’yl guessed that, to preserve your mortal life, your immortal life would need intense magical power, so he wrapped you in a Sphere of Ascension,” she said. I mentally noted yet another name for the thing. “He hid you away, deep inside the mountain. After that, he departed with a large box, big enough to hold a body, every week. He journeyed to the four corners of the world and everywhere in between, just to distract and confuse those who might seek you.”
“I really should thank him, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes. But he has passed on.”
“Just to be clear… he’s passed on. That means he’s dead? Or that he’s physically relocated himself to another plane of existence? It makes a difference, you see.”
“He died recently.”
“Ah. My timing is sometimes awful.”
“Actually,” she said, uncomfortably, “you may have played no small part in his sudden demise.”
“Oh?” I frowned, trying to think what I might have done. “I don’t know how. What did I do?”
“You recall the magicians who once attempted to steal the secret of immortality from you?”
“Naturally.”
“The typical method of extending one’s life is to push the burden of years off onto someone else.”
“I recall,” I told her. And I did. Forcing someone to endure premature old age is not a kindness.
“T’yl found a better way. His spell made use of some principles found in your life-linking spell for accelerating healing. In his, he linked his life to that of other creatures so that their lives helped to maintain his own. Much as the previous method caused the subjects to take on the years of the magician, his spell did the same, but with any living animal of sufficient size. It was not perfect, of course, and had side effects on the subjects, but with enough of them linked together, it would not matter.”
“Okay. And?”
“He used a herd of dazhu to store all those years he had lived beyond his mortal span.”
“Oh,” I said, in a very small voice. “He died quite recently, you say?”
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” I said. She shrugged and squeezed me a little harder.
“He was very old,” she said. “His researches were of only ways to extend his life. Many magicians who reach advanced years become obsessed with such things. It is not so much a tragedy as you might think. He was… no longer the man I once knew. If his last chance at immortality has worked, he will not likely be a man at all.”
“I suspect there’s more than one long story involved, here.”
“Yes…”
“I take it you have something similar to preserve your youthful beauty?” I asked. She blushed.
“In a manner of speaking,” she admitted. “T’yl taught me spells for such things early on in my training. I have improved upon the method, I think.”
“Do tell.”
“My spells divert my aging, sharing it among many subjects. While I have lived through eighty-seven years, my body has aged only a fraction of that. As a result, many dazhu colts have grown to adulthood more quickly than expected, since they were the subjects of my spells.”
“So, for every year that went by…?”
“I split it, diverting the effects to many other creatures. For every year, I aged, at most, a twentieth of that.”
“And if those spells were to fail?”
“I am not turning back the clock, my angel. My body truly is as you see it.”
“Nice!” I said. “And very clever. That’s my Tort. Hey, one of the youngsters called you ‘La
dy Tort’. Are you a noblewoman, now?”
“I was given the title of Court Magician of Karvalen by Raeth, shortly after T’yl decided he was too old to be bothered with the day-to-day rubbish of a kingdom.”
“Ah. Good to know.”
“But, to return to my story?”
“Of course. Go on.”
“After you were safely vanished, the mountain began to change. It altered its form on a daily basis, causing no end of difficulty. After a time, ghosts began to appear, wandering the halls and screaming. Those things alone were sufficient to drive everyone out. We moved south, to the coast, where we built a fishing village and began to farm. Fortunately, the people of the plains are a very understanding group.” She grinned, and I saw the face of the little girl I knew.
“At least,” she added, “they are understanding when it has been made clear to a shaman that the last of the Lords of Night says to be tolerant.” I smiled a little, myself, recalling my conversation with a shaman and the following conversation with Raeth. Nice to see I got something right.
“I trust everyone else has been tolerant of them?”
“You did make that quite clear to Raeth,” she agreed. “He demanded that all dealings with the people of the plains should be fair, if not generous. Anyone found taking advantage of them or cheating them found himself on the wrong end of Raeth’s displeasure.”
“I don’t think I’d like to see that.”
“I didn’t.”
“Fair enough,” I said, wondering momentarily just how awful it would have to be to… no, never mind.
“With their help, we established farms, hauled lumber and stone from the mountains, built fishing boats, and so on. It is quite a sizable town, now. It even has a temple to the fire-goddess.”
“Is Tamara there?”
“Yes,” Tort said, hesitantly.
“You say that without conviction,” I noted.
“Yes. She resides in Mochara, but she is old and not fully herself.”
“Oh?”
Tort was silent.
“Do go on,” I prompted.
“I would rather allow you to see for yourself, my angel.”
“Hmm,” I hmmed. “All right. I think we’re nearly there, anyway.” We were traveling alongside tilled earth, and there were lights and structures ahead.
“Indeed we are.”
Mochara was a walled town, set atop the low cliffs at the southern coast. A lot of the town was spread out along the top of those cliffs. Farms surrounded the place, more heavily to the east; the canal ran along the east side, forming a sort of moat at the foot of the town wall. The wall was some sort of limestone and brick, only about ten feet high, and probably not meant to do more than keep infantry from simply walking into the place. There were a number of lesser gates, really just very heavy doors, and the three on the canal side were probably just drawbridges that blocked a doorway; those three were much taller than the wall itself, thus to bridge the canal when lowered. The gate facing us was really a pair of wooden double doors, looked quite solid, and was closed.
It wasn’t all that large a place. At a guess, it had about four thousand souls. If pressed, it could probably pack in twice that on a weekend basis. I wondered how many of them were from families I brought through the Eastrange.
Bronze slowed gradually, in deference to our lack of a saddle, and finally stopped a dozen yards from the main gate. The sound of our approach alerted the guards, however, so lanterns atop the wall lit up and focused on us before we came to a complete halt.
“Who goes in the night?” came the challenge.
That was a wonderful straight line. It was hard to resist, but I refrained from an answer that would probably get me pegged as a smartass.
“The Lady Tort,” Tort replied.
“What is the word?”
“Song.”
“And the color?”
“Silver.”
“Open the gate!”
“You have passwords at the gate?” I asked her, quietly.
“Naturally. Raeth was very insistent about such things, and the city’s guards hold themselves as an honored tradition.” She shrugged. “Many of them are merely jumped-up busybodies, but most retain what Raeth wanted: a sense of justice.”
“I knew I had the right man for the job.”
“Indeed, my angel.”
The gate creaked and half of it swung inward. Bronze walked in and two men shoved the gate closed again. A third man drew a bar across the gates and into a socket in the wall. We stood in an open area just inside the gate. A pair of leashed dogs snarled at us, probably not liking the smell of Bronze or of me. Come to think of it, they probably knew Bronze. I was the problem—a dead stranger.
Guards still had lanterns on us. Several men in ring-and-scale armor stood around us, staring. I wasn’t sure if they were staring at me, Tort, or Bronze. Tort and Bronze are beautiful and worth staring at; I’m just some guy in fancy black armor. Tort slid off Bronze and I held her hand to make the landing easy. She stepped away, her staff landing beside her. She leaned on it and raised her other hand.
“Welcome to Mochara, my King,” Tort said, loud enough to carry, and went to one knee. Bronze took that as a cue to rear up and blow fire into the sky. I hung on via a deathgrip on her mane. The wire of her mane wrapped itself around my hands and wrists to help hold me on. I didn’t know she could do that.
When she settled again, the only sound was the creak of leather and the soft, metallic sounds of men removing their helmets, followed by every one of them going to their knees. The dogs whimpered.
“Tort?” I murmured.
“Yes, my angel?”
“You’ll pay for this.” She bit her lips to avoid laughing. She held her staff parallel to the ground and sat on it. It lifted her and began to float forward, crystal end first, illuminating the way. Bronze followed, leaving behind a rising murmur.
As she led us down the street, I whistled softly. Tort looked over her shoulder. I beckoned and she floated up next to me on her staff.
“Was that really necessary?” I asked.
“I believe it was, yes.”
“Do I want to know why?”
“I do not believe you do, but you will need to.”
“Politics in Mochara?”
“Yes.”
“You’re right, I don’t want to know. But fill me in, anyway.” I sighed. “I’m not awake two whole days and already I’m hip-deep in assassinations and politics.”
“Assassinations?” she asked, cocking her head.
“People have already tried to kill me since I woke up.”
“Much more quickly than I expected,” she mused. “I will look into this.”
“Oh, he’s dead,” I assured her, and made a slight burping sound. Tort smiled in cold surmise.
“I remain unsurprised, my angel. But I doubt you will want to deal in like fashion with the Princess of Mochara.”
“Possibly. Who is she? One of Hellas’ and Muldo’s descendants? They had a good political position.”
“No, their line ended with Esmun. It is your daughter that rules Mochara from the Temple of the Sun.”
We rode the rest of the way to Tort’s house in silence. I was busy thinking.
When I was considering the implications of being asleep (or comatose) for so long, it never occurred to me that my children might be alive. They didn’t spring to mind, I think, because they were never more than heartbeats in the darkness; I wasn’t there to see them born. I didn’t raise them. I planned for them, anticipated them, but, until that moment, hadn’t considered that they might still be around.
Which raised some serious questions. How do I feel about that? Do I want to try and get to know them? Or do I want to chicken out and just avoid them? I probably can’t avoid them, so… what do I say?
This was not in the manual on How To Be Undead. There should at least be warning labels.
Immortality problems.
The streets were m
ostly narrow, hard-packed earth with some gravel. The buildings were mostly wood, though some had stone walls for one storey with wooden second storeys. Rooftops were almost entirely tile and chimneys dotted the skyline; I was very pleased. I’d mentioned, once, that thatch was just asking for more rats then people, and that it was also the main reason towns burned down. Someone—probably Raeth—remembered.
I miss him.
The place was less than pleasing in other ways. Most windows were simply holes in the wall, covered by shutters. Off the main streets, Bronze needed to be careful; there might not be room for her to turn around. In some, there might not be room for her and a pedestrian to pass each other!
I noticed a considerable level of filth. No gutters, sadly, and no sewers. There was a cleaning service, though; two men with a wheelbarrow and a shovel moved down a side street, collecting… um… “waste.” Okay, let’s be accurate: people dumped chamber pots in the street. The only time this place wouldn’t smell foul was after a day of solid rain. Maybe a week.
We arrived at Tort’s house. Bronze dropped us off at the back door and walked into an oversized stable-for-one, started munching on charcoal. Tort didn’t seem to have a normal horse; the stable was just for Bronze. I petted Bronze while Tort waited at the door, then we went in, settled into the living room to talk.
Tort lives in a pleasant, rather sizable place on the southeast of town. The first two storeys are stone and brick construction while the third storey is really more of a loggia than a floor. That upper part has quite a nice view of both the ocean and the fields. Her house isn’t right up against the city wall, but it is taller than any of the houses around it, which helps the view. It’s easily the most expensive house in that area of the city. Then again, she’s also one of the only full-fledged magicians—ouch. Now the only magician—in town, so her services are always in demand.
In the course of some discussion, I did find out that my desire to found a school was still carried out. Over half the population could read well, and most of the rest knew their letters and numbers. Moreover, Tort taught masterclasses in magic once a week, both to raise the bar for local wizardry and to keep an eye out for the talent needed to be a magician.