Nightlord: Shadows

by Garon Whited

  I decided not to press on to the military base. If someone had hit Harrisburg, they definitely hit a target like a military base.

  Was the Statue of Liberty lying on the beach, half-buried? Could I go there and scream, “You blew it all to Hell!”? No, better not. Too melodramatic. Besides, the Statue of Liberty would have been crumpled by the bomb that got New York.

  Bronze and I turned around.

  Problem, Boss?

  “Not really. Yes. I don’t know.”

  You’re pissed off and sad all at once.

  “Yeah, I suppose I am. Does it show?”

  Only to me.

  Bronze snorted.

  …and to her, of course, Firebrand added, hastily.

  “This used to be my world,” I said, softly. “I used to live here. It was home.”

  And nobody took care of it?

  “And these assholes ruined it,” I corrected. “You bet I’m pissed about it.”

  And the sad part?

  “I’m going to miss it,” I said, sighing. “I liked it. I grew up in it. It was home.”

  I’m sorry, Boss.

  “You don’t sound sorry.”

  I was a dragon. Dragons don’t think of someplace as home. They hatch, they get taught to fly and stuff, and then they get kicked out of mom’s hunting grounds. It’s not really a happy home memory kind of thing.

  “Point taken.”

  The closest thing a dragon has to a happy home life is when mom plops down something to eat that hasn’t been killed, yet. Then you get to roast it or rip it apart yourself. Although, come to think of it, that is a rather pleasant memory…

  “I get it, I get it.”

  Bronze just paced along, headed back to the library and the arch. While Firebrand might say it felt sorry about how I felt, Bronze felt sorry with me.

  I suppose I knew what happened, or suspected it. You don’t have a world go to hell in a handbasket like this without a major catastrophe—man-made, in this case. There was a radioactive ruin where a city used to be. Until I saw that, I wasn’t sure what did it. A near-miss by a rogue planet might have triggered massive earthquakes and altered the climate forever, for example. It’s possible something along those lines precipitated the nuclear exchange.

  As a best case, perhaps we can say it was a limited exchange brought on by panic. Maybe even some minor nation decided to get up on its hind legs and be stupid—and lured someone else into doing the same. Or someone simply made a mistake and a misunderstanding bloomed into a giant flower.

  Still, someone pushed the Big Red Button.

  Sometimes, I think we’re all idiots, rushing headlong into oblivion, shouting about how unfair it is while refusing to steer anywhere else.

  Saturday, July 17th

  T’yl let me know about some attempts to penetrate the scryshield.

  “It’s been there for quite a while,” I pointed out. “People are bound to take an interest.” He seemed more than a trifle frustrated with my slowness.

  “Sire, if I may?” he asked. I nodded. “You’re thinking like a peasant.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re a King. You have a city. You’ve performed a feat of epic dimensions, shielding the whole thing from outside observation. Magicians, at least, recognize that as an epic achievement; the less-skilled are more likely to regard it as miraculous. Only a fool would attempt to penetrate it.

  “And yet,” he continued, “there are fools aplenty in the world. Of those who are both fools and capable of attempting to see through your shield, none would be so foolish after the first attempt.” He smiled, an evil expression that seemed quite at home on an elf-face. “I’ve seen that flaming eye. It is quite an impressive piece of work.”

  “I’ll pass along your congratulations to Peter Jackson.”

  “Who?”

  “A magician of my own world that specialized in illusions.”

  “Ah. Well, with that as deterrent, who do you think would continue to probe at your shield?”

  “Someone who was determined to see inside?”

  “Exact, if not precise,” T’yl agreed. “Eventually, someone will discover a way to circumvent the shield. We shall require another method, if you intend to preserve your privacy.”

  “Tort mentioned something about that. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And, if I may?”

  “What?”

  “With your permission, of course, I will see to adding another shield; this one, however, will be smaller, only around the palace, or the peak of the mountain.”

  “Oh. Probably a good idea.”

  “And, if you have not already tasked the Mistress of Spies with it,” he added, “I should like to see if I can determine the source of these magical probes. I dislike being spied upon.”

  “I haven’t, and I’d like to know, too,” I agreed. “Sure, have at it.”

  For my part, I sat in my mental study, picked up my notes on the scryshield, and thought.

  Once I started enchanting magic mirrors for communications devices, I started to wonder about scrying sensors. What I think I’ve worked out is a redirect. If someone tries to put a scrying sensor somewhere inside the scryshield, I ought to be able to drag that sensor as it forms to a point I designate. From the other end, it should look as though it worked normally.

  The only problem is that always appears in the same wrong place. Appearing in the same wrong place every time is a weakness in the system. The caster will discover his spell is being hijacked, which means he will then start to work on a way to counter it.

  To avoid this, I’ve been thinking of a four-tiered defense.

  First, another scryshield. Since I have one already in place, adding another layer to it isn’t that hard. It’s like building a new bridge when the river already has one over it. Building the new bridge next to the old bridge is a lot easier.

  This scryshield, the outermost layer, will be a simple blocker. Scrying attempts try to go in and bounce off. It takes the caster more power to punch through. This is just to deter casual attempts; the shield won’t expend itself to stop someone, just act as a hefty speed bump. Since it will give way rather than break, it’ll be hard to take down through the brute-force method, but will still make it much harder to experiment with the inner defenses.

  The second line is the Flaming Eye of Intimidation, the original scryshield. It can scare people off and block their vision for a cheap expenditure of power.

  The third line is the redirect. A scrying spell that gets through doesn’t manifest its sensor where they intended, but where I intend, instead. If they figure out a way—when they figure out a way—to filter out the Fiery Eye, they’ll only see what the redirect allows them to. Wherever they’re trying to look, they’ll just get rerouted. That’s not too power-intensive, either; it should be easy to maintain.

  The fourth thing is just clever, if I do say so myself.

  I take a computer crystal and copy the mountain’s layout into the thing. Then I start running a change on it, causing streets to move, buildings to change, caverns to alter, doors to vanish and reappear elsewhere, the works. It’s a slow process, as befits the speed of the mountain, but the changes are also constant and totally unrelated to the mountain’s actual alterations.

  When a scrying sensor gets routed to the crystal, it appears somewhere at random inside the crystal’s simulation, seeing only the mountain as simulated by the crystal.

  So, best case for a spellcaster, he gathers up four or five times the power needed for a typical scrying spell, punches through with his new and much more complicated spell to bypass the flaming eye, and—unknowingly—gets redirected to a computer crystal running a mountain simulation. He doesn’t like that view? Aww. So he does it again, gathering up all that power, casting his complicated spell again, and parks his sensor… somewhere else in the crystal. If he’s done it right, he may even park his new viewpoint just down the virtual hallway from his original scrying sensor, and, piece by piece, st
art exploring.

  But it’s still not going to do him any good. It’s really a very convincing simulation. It just lacks people. That should confuse him.

  I’m thinking it’ll take a scrying spy weeks, at least—maybe years—to even figure out that something is wrong. A lot of it should be dead-end research on trying to figure out how I’m hiding all the people!

  Or… can I put people simulations in there, too? They don’t have to do anything complicated, just wander around. That would add an extremely convincing depth to the simulation. Hmm.

  It’ll also take longer due to the outer shield; a wizard won’t want to do that kind of spell more than once a day, maybe twice. Even magicians will be annoyed to have to do it four or five times and still not see anyone.

  Best of all, I don’t have to detail a bunch of wizards to keep the things charged up and at full power. I have prisoners who have already been condemned to hard labor for life. Once the shields are at full strength, I’ll set them to charging up the gate again. But I can probably afford to have a couple of prisoners on shield duty instead of gate duty, full-time.

  Now, how do I connect a scrying spell to a crystal simulation?

  For my part, scrying with my sand table is easy and quick, but still rather frustrating. Given that I can look wherever I want, I still have to decide where that is. I can see anywhere that isn’t deliberately blocked, but I don’t have a search function, or a radar locator.

  I spent a lot of time looking over the borders of Byrne. Not just the southern border, but all of them. Up the Quaen river on the west, then across, following the Averill river upstream as I headed west-to-east along the northern border, then south, weaving back and forth along the foot of the Eastrange.

  Incidentally, Byrne still hasn’t sent anyone to talk to Vathula. I suspect Keria’s last magician may have gone to Byrne to report. Or, he might have skipped Byrne and just gone directly home. Or he may be in a dungeon, somewhere, summoning demonic hordes. I have no way to tell; Byrne’s palace is also defended with the standard barrier form of a scryshield.

  Judging by the troop dispositions, Byrne doesn’t seem too worried about ugly things coming down out of the mountains. Either that, or the villages and towns along the Eastrange are considered expendable. I bet the Prince doesn’t much care about them.

  Byrne’s not too worried about anyone coming over the Quaen river, either. It’s not all that wide that far north, but it’s pretty fast. A fleet of small ships could haul a sizable force across, but they’d drift a long way south, first, and have to be towed north again before they could cross another body of troops. It would be lengthy, awkward, obvious, and slow, in addition to scattering the landing forces.

  In the extreme northeast of Rethven, the Averill, where it comes out of the Eastrange, is a big sucker of a waterfall. It drops maybe ninety or a hundred feet, but it’s wide, it’s foamy, it’s icy cold, and it dumps water like the flush of a Titan’s toilet. After that, it levels out pretty well into a canyon for many, many miles before it splits. The Averill continues west, but the Quaen branch turns south through some low mountains.

  I scrolled along, following the course of the Averill, and paused to watch some people fishing off the north bank of the river. Viksagi don’t use fishing poles, it seems; they throw weighted nets into the river and use horses to haul up their catch.

  I wondered if the viksagi would be interested in an invasion of the southlands. Specifically, into the lands Byrne currently controlled. It might be worthwhile to see how Byrne reacted. If they brought cannon to the swordfight, at least I’d know where they were. Even if they didn’t, diverting troops and supplies to deal with a northern invasion would help curb their southern expansion.

  That southern expansion bothered me.

  Byrne was doing a fine job of conquering the remains of Rethven. That, by itself, was a good thing. I was all for it. A unified kingdom could end a lot of the inter-city skirmishing and warfare, take a huge bite out of banditry, enhance trade, and generally make life better for everyone.

  It could also rule with an iron fist.

  I’ve got nothing against central government; I’m generally in favor of it. It’s a civilizing influence. It permits people to get on with their lives without worrying too much about being eaten by the neighbors. As long as we maintain some basic human rights and the dignity of the people, I think it’s a fine thing.

  Byrne, on the other hand, is willing to conscript troops, decimate the population as an act of control, and take hostages from enemy cities to enforce its will.

  This does not fill me with enthusiasm for rule by Prince Parrin.

  Maybe he intends to use whatever methods are required to achieve unity. Maybe he’s an idealist, seeking to reunite the kingdom by any means necessary, with the intent to rule as a just and benevolent king thereafter. The only problem is that, having done everything he had to do to get there, he won’t be able to stop. If your atrocities get you the crown, you have to keep using them to keep it. There will always be people who want you dead for the things you’ve done; there will always be people who want revenge.

  If Byrne gave any hint that it would be, or could be, a benevolent government, I’d stay out of it. Yes, even after their interference in my part-time life, even after a few awkward potshots at me, even after all of that. I think I could tell them to shut up and go play on their side of the Eastrange without me. They might even do it.

  Problem is, I don’t see any sign that Byrne is anything but a bunch of bullies trying to take what everyone else has for themselves.

  Sunday, July 18th

  Torvil, Kammen, and Seldar seem to be intact. They’ve been practicing diligently with each other and with the other knights; I try to practice with them for an hour or so every other day. This is for my benefit, of course. They get the majority of their work done at the daily sessions.

  After considerable consultation and examination, they’ve been declared fit.

  Hesitantly, I asked for volunteers from among the knights. I was immediately inundated with requests to try the latest toy. Knights, city guards, some militia—how word got out, I’m not sure, but people strained the capacity of my staff—

  (I have a staff. Apparently, Tort has been busy building an in-palace hierarchy of people to act as buffers for requests for the King’s attention. Good thing, too; otherwise, I’d never get anything done. It was also well done. I didn’t even notice until it became impossible not to. My Tort can be a subtle lady.)

  —with their requests. Squires volunteered. I decided on policy at that point. If the knight wanted his squire to start learning to use a weapon, the knight would start teaching him.

  Even with the pool restricted to grown men, it’s still a large sample. If anything is going to go wrong, we should see it in somebody. Maybe we can even do something about it.

  So we gave everyone thirty seconds in the Crystal Dojo. They lay down, they twitched in their sleep a bit, then they got up looking much more sober and serious. My guys went through it, too, on the argument that they should always be a little ahead of the curve. Royal Guard and all that. I chose not to argue, since they would also be the ones with the most exposure and therefore most likely to develop any side effects. If they were all right with a heavier regimen, everyone else should be fine, too.

  Afternoon practice sessions have changed. There is a lot more in the way of pauses to work out the exact movement, and a lot more slow, controlled maneuvers. They’re not just getting in there and fighting each other, then showing the loser how it happened. They’re… what? I don’t know. But it looks less like a general melee and more like a postgraduate class in killing.

  I have mixed feelings about this.

  One thing I’m undeniably pleased about is the coinage. We now have steel coin stamps; we’re producing actual coins, rather than just coin blanks. I dumped a lot of Fred’s money on the breakfast table and the council went through it, found designs they liked, and we now have a very nice
, simple, decimal money system. Someday, we’ll move away from hard currency, I’m sure, but that’s a long, long way off. For now, it’s copper, silver, and gold.

  I wonder about some of the money Fred let me borrow. Some of the designs are not from Rethven, or Zirafel, or even Kamshasa or Prydon or Telasco or any other nation of this world. When you see a coin design with what is clearly a space-ship on one side and a spiral galaxy on the other, it raises questions.

  Fred was very little help.

  “I dunno,” he admitted, when I asked him where the unfamiliar coins came from. “Just… under beds.”

  “But where are the beds?” I pressed.

  “It’s hard to describe,” he said. “Beds are beds. They’re just there. I dunno how to explain where beds are. They’re just there,” he repeated. He sounded baffled.

  “So, if I asked you to find a bed, could you do it?”

  “Always.” Positive. Confident. Certain.

  “But if I wanted to know where that bed was?”

  “Well… I could take you there, I guess, and you could look around.”

  “But could you point me in the right direction?”

  “You mean… out there?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “No.” He shuddered.

  “You sound nervous.”

  “I don’t like it out there.” Again, with that emphasis. “I like it in here.”

  “Can you even come out?”

  “Yes. I don’t want to.”

  “Fair enough, fair enough,” I soothed. “I’m just trying to find out more about how things work.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you for the loan, by the way.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Yep. Got a lot of good coin designs to copy and we’re using them now.”

  “Then I’m glad to help.”

  “By the way… you mentioned that you could take me to the underside of a bed?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Any bed?” I asked.

  “Pretty much. At least, I think so.”

  “How do you find them?”