Kingdom of Stars (The Young Ancients: Timon Book Three)

by Power, P. S.

  It wasn't lost on Timon that he held his own ground otherwise though. That was rare, since most people confronted with a person in combat rage tried to get away as soon as possible. As soon as Bethany moved out, helped by the man, he closed the door and moved into the front passenger seat, as if he had no fear at all. Then, he was big and Timon wasn't a great fighter, was he?

  "We're coming now. Perhaps it would be best to set up outside? I'd recommend you offer to fight him bare handed, Baron. It won't be a fair fight, but if you insist he have a real chance, you'll likely die this day."

  "I think not." He sounded pretty certain at least.

  Timon nodded, working it out. It was, for whatever reason, a trap. He wasn't thinking clearly, but he could see the set up and really, being right on top of the other one, it was most likely related. That would mean what? It was difficult to put it all together, his head feeling slow and funny. Almost like a regular person or something.

  Focusing he managed to kick himself into a higher mental state, his brain running faster, and hopefully clearly enough to make sense. It might not be part of the Ancient plot, directly. Or it might be. The man was a Noram noble, but that didn't mean people with thousands of years of experience couldn't influence him into taking action like this. If that was the case however, he had to have a real chance of killing Timon, didn't he? Either very high levels of fighting skill, or weapons that Tim wasn't ready to meet. That or it was all about getting him to kill the man, for some reason. Or beat him and not leave him dead? That was a mistake though, and a thing that wasn't going to happen.

  No, this would be to the death, but he had to assume the man had come ready for a real fight, with a very well armed person. Some kind of technology that he wasn't used to might do it.

  Nodding again, to himself, Timon waited, trying to make sure that they'd all be outside when he got there. That would work best, regardless of what was going to happen. He was still in a combat rage at least and the man had challenged him, and goaded him into the fight, so it was fair to kill him. Legal even.

  "Hang on. We'll meet you out front in... seven minutes? Or I will at least. No need to drag Karl into this. He doesn't even know me." His mouth felt full of mush and his words were slurring a bit. It was a side effect of the state he was in. He'd be stronger, and faster too, as well as casting aura out all over the place. Technically he wasn't certain if he had a shield or not, but wearing one would work for that part of things. He let the other people talk for a while, rage settling into his bones, making his breath come quickly, as his eyes went from their normal brown color with clean whites to bloodshot and itching.

  Then he heard what he was waiting for. The grown man mocking him for being late.

  "Is he too afraid to show his face, even in a rage?"

  Timon motioned to Karl, who stepped out, without asking if he were certain it was a good idea. After all, the definition of rage was that a person was angry and unreasonable, wasn't it?

  The second the door was secured, Timon rose into the air, to about five hundred feet so he wouldn't hit any trees as he flew and was at the castle about fifteen seconds later. He hadn't gone fast, since his silver craft was so close to the ground. Not that fast, just enough for the people on the ground to look up at him as he assessed the situation. Countess Printer was near a man that looked to be in his fifties or so, but was big and strong looking. Muscular as well as tall.

  It was hard to see how much, so Timon moved a little closer, still in the craft, which was all that saved him when the man pulled a tiny black box from his rather nice tunic and pointed it at him. At first nothing happened, but a half minute later there was a roaring, and then...

  Everything went black as his shield kicked in and the ship suddenly moved. He couldn't work out what had happened, but the others all had vanished. That wasn't really the case, of course, it was just that something had covered his craft, totally. From the sky.

  "Heh. Stupid. I'm the Lord of the Sky." It was a joke that Trice had made once. Still, he was trapped pretty well, and couldn't fly in any direction at all. He was pushed against the ground, with something over him, it seemed.

  So he moved down. The earth wasn't soft there, with a lot of rocks, but the fast craft moved anyway, forcing the dirt out of the way. Slowly. It took a minute for him to move down far enough, or at least he hoped it was. Then he had to move to the side.

  Which didn't work. Going deep and trying again, three more times, got results however. It took a long time, nearly fifteen minutes, but he got out of the ground finally, to find that Baron Talley, if that's who he really was, simply saw it happening and tried to use the same trick again. The all black mass was sort of shapeless, like a cloud of shadow. Timon got it then. A nano cloud. A very dense one made of a billion, or a billion-billion, little devices. Maybe at least. It made sense, but that didn't dictate what the thing had to be really.

  Not knowing what else to do and not having a whole lot of time to come up with a plan, Tim ran into the man, who died almost instantly. Or at least that should have been what happened. He flew apart under the force of the Fast Craft striking him, turning into a gray cloud, and then reforming, almost instantly, about ten feet away. The little box was destroyed at least, which let the other nanos escape.

  Because, that's almost what the Baron had to be made out of, wasn't it? That or a compound that Timon had never encountered at all. Ramming him probably wouldn't work then.

  Fighting him wouldn't at all.

  What he needed was an air choke. Which of course he didn't have. He'd been meaning to make a batch of those, since they were handy at stopping fire, and tiny things in the air, but he'd sort of put that off, not having enough time to get everything done and thinking that clothing would be more useful in the long run.

  "Oops." The best option, for him, was to run, of course. Not the others there, the Countess, her guards, which were mainly female, and the others that were there, mainly nobles of some kind, he thought. Tim glanced at them quickly, as the craft kept moving back a bit, to see that they'd all retreated at least. That was a good plan, but not enough. Not even by half. Timon, not having a clue what to do next, rose into the air and opened the wall nearest him with a thought.

  It didn't slide away, it was just a perfectly round window suddenly. Leaning out he called down and made little waving gestures at the others.

  "Go! This is between me and the..." He didn't have a real word for it at all. Not that made any sense. Digging for something in his mind, he shrugged. "Me, and the golem here."

  That was enough for about half of them, as the large Baron pulled his right arm back and then moved it in a slapping motion, which caused it to stretch out of all reasonable proportion and hit the side of the vehicle. No noise came though, since it was a shield, and not really there, no matter what it looked like. It didn't even move at all, because the amount of force just wasn't that great. It was still a good trick, if one that wasn't doing what the golem needed it to.

  Timon figured that to be the case at least, since the thing immediately tried to reshape itself into a pale flesh toned spike and stab him through the window. It did nothing, since it was a shield, not glass. The creature or machine in front of him, whichever it was, reformed into the shape of a man and held very still for a long time, as if waiting for him to make the next move.

  That wasn't a good plan though. Really, the very best plan seemed to be running. Just flying off at speeds that would be hard to track for anyone in the world. He had no idea what it might take to subdue the thing in front of him, but given everything it was decently clear that the older looking man shaped thing really didn't want him to survive for some reason. It was a bit rude, really.

  Finally, after nearly ten minutes of the thing just standing there, glaring through the front shield window at him, and Timon looking back passively, there was a ripple over the man's face. He shifted so quickly that it was almost hard to pay attention to it. It baffled the eye too much, leaving a brief feelin
g of horror inside him. Part of that was who the man turned in to, naturally.

  It was a person that he'd only seen once before, a merchant sized man that had light brown hair, brown eyes and a pleasant if non-descript face. The man that had tried to use some kind of strange light device to poison him, not even two weeks before.

  Right now the man was smiling and looking around, breaking eye contact. Probably looking for a hostage, but everyone else had run off. There were probably servants and guards left inside the castle, but he didn't make the obvious plan and try to grab one of them. It was the smart move, because Tim wouldn't go to his death for some chamber maid. He wasn't Tor after all.

  "So, we seem to be stalled out here, don't we?" He spoke out loud, but the thing answered, staring at him again. No sound came through, but Timon could read his lips easily enough.

  "We do! Why don't you come out and we can finish this like men?" The look was a bit less pleasant then, being icy and hard, rather than angry at least.

  Timon forced himself to chuckle, just a little bit.

  "I don't think so. For one thing, neither of us is a man, are we? I'm a boy and you're a... What exactly are you anyway? A mechanized human? A nano cluster? A hive?" That last was the right term for it, or so Brown had taught him in passing. The Larval used communications hives, so he could get the idea, sort of, if it was the case.

  There was a head shake however.

  "Not at all. I'm made of a living mimetic liquid. Astute though, to realize that I'm not a man. I've been all over your life for years now, Timmy. I'm a bit shocked you don't recognize me... Ah, let me show you..." There was the start of a ripple, familiar female forms being hinted at one after the other. At first a line of fear started to run down Tim's spine, but then he got the idea, and shook his head.

  "Sorry." He mouthed the word without exaggeration at all. "I can feel your field pattern and it's not human at all. That trick won't work. If you show up as anyone in my life, as you're hinting you can, I'll know. You also haven't been, not anyone important at least." That part was bravado. After all, he didn't go around reading everyone he met, so it was possible. The being had fooled him for a short time by pretending to be a merchant and Tim hadn't figured out what was going on at all, which meant that it was possible.

  A real threat that wasn't going to just go away because he knew about it now.

  The creature nodded though and made himself look like Countess Alan, no doubt trying to terrify him.

  "Oh? Well, that makes things harder for me, doesn't it? I'd say it was too bad, but I kind of like our game so far. Do you know how boring normal people are for me now? Hiding amongst them like I have been is less than entertaining. I was designed to kill, and most barely represent a challenge to me at all in this age of man. There's a mere handful that can survive even this long, Timmy. I think I'll leave now, and come back later, when you're less guarded and prepared for me. I miscalculated, thinking that Gray's little present would disrupt you enough to throw you off. Instead it left you better guarded. Sloppy of me. I won't underestimate you again. Now that you've been warned..." There was a pause and a bow that followed, with the creature smiling at him with a very eerie face looking back, a lovely gown on a tall and slim body, rather than Countess Alan's.

  It was a Queen's. Naturally.

  "Now that you know about me, things will be ever so much more interesting. I hear from Countess Printer that the others are coming in a few hours? Sooner perhaps? Tell them that Remy said hello. Remy Seventeen." Then, without shifting again, the blue velvet dress blowing in the wind a bit, clearly being a thing made of magic, meaning that whatever Remy was made of could operate things made of it, the woman that looked like his Aunt Connie waved, in a way that she really might have herself, and simply moved around the side of the strange motley Castle at a quick walk.

  Timon didn't leave the relative safety of his craft. That creature would probably just wait for him to follow and since he had no real way to fight, and anyone he met would be suspect from then on, it just wasn't a good idea.

  He decided to just sit and let sweat pool in his armpits instead. That and let fear spit, bitter and sharp, fill his mouth. This was so far from good that bad didn't cover it at all. A shape shifting killer that wanted him dead for some reason. One that was working with Gray.

  Those words meant so much more than they sounded like, didn't they?

  First, Gray was alive. He'd suspected that the whole time actually, since it didn't make sense for her to sacrifice her life just to kill Princess Karina. The girl had ordered her daughter dead, and made it happen, but Gray wouldn't be so emotional about it that she would have shown up to fight her alone like that. This was a third point of confirmation for him then, which probably meant she wasn't dead at all. It was too bad, really. Tim had tried to have her killed himself, and the woman was going to have to die, no matter what. Her plan was to kill most of the people in the world and leave clones of Ancients to run it all. It was worse than barbaric.

  Too bad she looked exactly like his mother. It would probably make killing her harder now. It wouldn't have before, but having empathy and guilt was a chore.

  Remy had given away a lot more than that however. He, or she, if that kind of thing applied at all, had become the Queen far too well, and claimed to have been in and out of his life for years. Since most of that had been in Two Bends, or out on the road making deliveries, there was a good chance that someone he knew was dead. It was the easiest way to do it after all, wasn't it? Just kill a person, make the body go away into a deep hole, and then take their place?

  It wasn't going to be easy to figure it out either. Not at a distance.

  Just about then a smooth black craft rose in the distance, which was telling about something different, if Remy had run to it on foot. He was fast. That had to be five or six miles away, and it had only been three minutes.

  Tim didn't know if that was the case though. He'd been in Austra enough to see how they did things, and knew about remote control devices. Military grade Tor shoes might have done it too, if he'd misjudged things a bit. The being had magical clothing for instance, which could mean a lot of different things. Including that he was working with Tor directly. Or at least the monster in his head.

  Then, not trusting anything in the world at all, which was the only sensible plan, Timon just sat and waited for something to change and hoped that he'd survive it.

  For the second time in his life, that didn't seem like it was what would be happening at all.

  Chapter three

  The inside of his craft was comfortable enough, it had a soft seat, because sitting for hours on end was hard if you didn't see to things like that, and it was made of magic, so it wasn't an extra expense or anything. The temperature was about perfect for him, which meant slightly cooler than most people enjoyed, being that he ran slightly hotter.

  So that, plus the nearly mind numbing fear kept him entertained for a long time as he waited. He had to use his healing amulet, so that he wouldn't have a combat rage headache, but as fights went, he'd been remarkably unharmed in the end. In fact, that day at least, the morning practice had been the most damaging part for him.

  It meant that he had a long time to think, as people slowly came back, clearly wondering why he wasn't getting out to talk to them. Countess Printer actually came back too, but he couldn't sense her through the shield of the craft. That part was important, he knew, because even though he'd told Remy that he could sense his presence, that might not be true at all. He didn't know. It was a reasonable guess, but that was all.

  After a bit he blinked and rolled his eyes as Holly stood out front of his now tiny vehicle looking worried. He had a communications device after all. Contacting her, he grinned as she pulled her own from her side pocket.

  "Sorry, things are a bit tense. I can't come out yet. That man, Baron Talley? He's some kind of form changer. I don't think he was the Baron at all." Which would probably mean the man was dead, if it were the case
.

  That would have led to a long discussion, but a large eight sided craft descended from the sky then. It was glowing a pumpkin orange, and settled over the ocean, instead of finding him. The line was open to Holly, so he waved to her and explained quickly what he was doing and broke the line, which just left her standing there, looking more than a little put out.

  He was being rude, he knew, but...

  Sighing he tapped the sigil for his grandfather, wondering if he was on board the orange vessel or not. Oddly enough it wasn't the man himself who answered, but a deep sounding voice that took a few seconds to place. Kolb. The weapons master from the Lairdgren school. Also Immortal and related to him in that same vague fashion that all the others claimed. It wasn't biological, but they were still as much family as most of them had.

  "Timon?" He sounded steely, which was a thing the man was very good at, over all. It was close to the only way that Tim had ever seen him at least, but they weren't exactly close.

  "Here. What do you know about Remy Seventeen?"

  There was a silence for a moment from the device, and then a single low word. It was echoed several times from the other space.

  "Fuck."

  At least one of those had come from Count Lairdgren himself, which wasn't like that man at all. He normally spoke in bland tones, without a lot of emphasis. It made sense that he'd know that kind of thing, being thousands of years old, but hearing it caused Tim to wince. If he was being pushed to atypical behavior like that, then the situation was probably worse than he'd thought.

  It was Kolb that answered though, his voice darker than it had been by about fifty percent.

  "You saw a Remy? Did they... have a message for us?"