by P. S. Power
"Are you saying that I'm a liar?" The man's face turned red, then started to pale. It was the start of combat rage, most likely. Tor honesty didn't care. He was tired of being pushed around and looked down on, and this, even if it wasn't a big deal, even if just having the giant stand there behind him would have made a difference in how things came out, it was just too much suddenly. He'd had enough and couldn't let it go. Sense and logic be damned.
"Not particularly. Oh, you'd lie to do your duty, or maybe to hide from the fact that you're a bigot, which can't be a pleasant thing to know about yourself, but that wasn't my point. I'll know if you lie, that's all."
The situation presented a problem for the man then, since he didn't get a choice about going, since his Commander in the Secret Army had given it to him as a mission, but if Tor said he couldn't go, he had no sensible reason to.
"I'm going, and you can't tell me otherwise." The feeling that came with it was basically a long string of negative things about Tor.
"Sure I can. Baron Havar, you have a right not to like me. You can call me all the names you want inside your head, and think that the world would be better off without me. I won't let you get in my way in this however. Go talk to Kolb and tell him what I said, and that I have a reason for it. Also, thank him for the thought. I doubt he really understands what a miserable excuse for a human being you actually are inside. I'd also appreciate it if you stayed away from my sister. She isn't some 'common doxy' at all, and you can't see that most of the time. If you harm her, I will take measures... Which you are totally unable to believe in. I'm just a little target for you... Never mind, just leave. I don't have time to waste with people like you today."
To his full credit, given how he felt and what he was thinking, Havar left, storming out instead of saying anything. No one else spoke of it, but Sara glared a bit and finally gave him a sidelong smirk that would have looked more at home on Trice.
Tor tried to get himself under control. He hadn't been shouting, but he certainly wasn't being smart either.
"Is it a good idea to goad a nobleman like that?"
It was Sam that answered, his face dark and brooding.
"Maybe not, but it was like with those guards in the Capital. The man hates us. Tor and me. Because we aren't nobles. Or... hate is wrong. He hates Tor, and didn't think of me much at all, but he clearly doesn't think good things of the orphans either. I figured on a fight though. This will come back on us. Noblemen don't let things lie often, do they? Like on as they can't." The words were rougher than normal, carrying a slightly thicker accent than Tor had heard from the boy before.
He shook his head though, so that the boy would feel a bit better about it all.
"Probably just me. Let's go and see to this, if we can. I don't know, but I might have to kill some people to make this stick. If so, try not to get in my way. I haven't lost my mind, they just won't listen otherwise." He was about to ask them all to stay, in case it got bad, but they all started leaving then, out the front door.
Where Havar stood, fists clenched.
"I don't like you. I know I should, but I don't and I can't make myself. You're wrong. You're in the wrong place, and have power that can't belong to you... Wait." He took a deep breath and growled a bit, which was pretty intimidating. The man scared other giants, so it was meant to have an effect on the four of them, if a subconscious one. "It's... You aren't who you're supposed to be... I can't explain it. You should be getting me a drink, or at best be the bedroom toy of some noble woman, not someone with the ear of the King who can do... all this." A big fist gestured at the house and the purple floating Fast Carriage behind them.
"Can't you see?" There was an almost plaintive note to it, and Tor nodded.
"I'm afraid I really can. I just don't know how to fix it for you. Right now, I have work to do though, so, if you'll excuse us?" Tor managed to sound halfway civil at least and nodded his head a bit, which meant that the big fist hitting his shield had to have looked like it smacked him in the head. The others moved away rapidly and Tor shook his head.
Then he rolled his eyes at the man.
"Calm down Havar. This doesn't have to turn into anything violent. I just refuse to be cowed by your kind anymore. Hate me if you will, but I'm not going to take abuse and act like it's all my fault anymore." Not even if his secret heart was trying to force him to his knees to beg forgiveness. He wasn't being nice in this, but he wasn't wrong, either.
The Baron was gone though and just fighting, uselessly. Tor didn't strike back, but he turned the man's shield off and focused as hard as he could on him. After a few minutes he managed to actually do something useful, which caused the man to drop to the ground, asleep. He had a new weapon that could do the same thing, meant to stop a person in a combat rage without hurting them. It was almost instant and he had one on him even. This worked though and meant that he didn't have to give that card away yet.
Trying to sound chipper, he ushered the others onto the craft and hurriedly climbed in himself. It was all just a waste of time, dealing with these people, wasn't it? They weren't going to change their ways just because of words, and even deeds only had so much influence on them. What else could he do though?
They flew in silence for a long time, at least most of the way to the Station. Finally Ali moved to the front passenger's seat and patted his arm gently.
"Are you out of the rage now? I don't want to take my shield off to check." She sounded very diffident, but Tor laughed.
"What? I wasn't in one. Havar, now he was, but I was fine the whole time. Just trying to figure out how to fix this situation. I can't make them listen to me, can I?"
Sam shrugged.
"Probably not. That doesn't really matter though. Get their Major to tell them to stop, or else, and they'll do it. Or else. They're in the Army, they don't get to have opinions that change the rules. They aren't the lord of that place, you are and if they don't like it, they can be beaten, thrown out, or killed for it, by their own rules. At least if anyone will speak for the children. I don't know how to make that stick. It's always the problem with those of us that don't have people." He sounded very sad, and Sara patted his shoulder, which got him to look very scared. Tor got it, since the kid broadcasted it pretty solidly. He thought Tor was going to beat him, or at least yell, over the contact. Sam wasn't noble born, and Tor had just taken a giant to task for his thoughts, and left him unconscious in the street.
It sort of made sense, except for the part where Sara was her own person and not his to order around or be jealous over at all.
They were over the place in about twenty odd minutes, and lines of people stood in front of his hut. Or the storage building or whatever it was used for now. It was a good building, if plain compared to a lot of the others, made without an eye to decoration at all. The craft was settled, nearly two dozen men, and six women, standing there dressed in black. The single person in front was Major Godfrey, looking stern and holding what seemed to be a punishment lash.
That heartened Tor a lot, since he seemed to have a plan in mind to change some thoughts, and was just waiting on them to get there to start in on people. It warmed the center of his being to see. They all climbed out and he marched over to the man and bowed, the others right behind him, looking mean, he was sure. If small.
Fierce though.
"Major, thank you for assembling these individuals. First, before we begin, I want to make something very clear. I own Wildlands Station, hold full land rights to the entirety of the Wildlands in my own person and am providing, along with my wife and business colleague Sam Builder, for the care and outfitting of the apprentices stationed here. As their Master, I stand for them, in absence of a parent to do so. No one can deny any of this."
From the sudden frown on the faces of most of the people in line and the rather happy smile on Godfrey's lips, he had a pretty solid argument it seemed.
"I'm exercising that right now. Major Godfrey, in that light, I believe you have the duty of seeing to that?"<
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Then Tor just moved back and waited. It could all have gone horribly wrong, but Godfrey, for all he was decently tall, was like Sara, Tor thought. A line that was, more or less, untouched by Cordes and Green's initial tampering all those thousands of years ago. What he thought of as merchant class. Not all of them would fit in that category, but more than the nobles did. Maybe half?
"Thank you, Counselor Baker." He whipped his own hand, the leather straps, long things that seemed tanned to make them hard and sharp making a dull thud.
"There has been a misunderstanding here, based on the idea that our orphans were fair game for anything that people wanted to do. As we have just learned, this isn't the case. I'm not of a mind to be overly merciful, but I know that most of you that openly reported here didn't see the harm in what you were doing. For some it was coming from traditions different than what's recognized in the military of Noram, for others it was that trading a bit of extra food or a blanket seemed a kindness, and a return favor was to be expected, to preserve their pride. None of you, standing here, are true monsters that meant harm. To that end I give you an option. Ten lashes from my hand, right here and now, with no record made of it at all, or a black mark with notation in your records." He hit his hand again and smiled, an evil and hard thing that would have made Tor want to shake if it were aimed at him personally.
"The correct answer, in case any of you are slow, is to take the beating today, and not make the same error again. In two weeks you won't feel the lash except as a warning. Your record will be there for years, hurting your advancement and chances for clean release when time comes. The choice is yours."
It seemed almost too kind to Tor, but surprisingly to him, they all just started taking their tunics off for the beating. It took a long time and Godfrey drew blood on each of them, leaving some to cry out in pain, the lash much louder against their skin than against the palm of a hand.
No one complained or called him names though.
When they were finished the Major turned to him and bowed, then did the same with Ali and Sam. He gave a half salute to Sara though, which was the polite greeting for someone that was recently out of the service, Tor thought. The men and women all stood with their shirts still off waiting to be released.
The Major spoke loud enough for them all to hear, but faced Tor, Ali and Sam directly, looking a bit grim.
"These are the good ones though. They came forward, clearly not thinking they did great harm. None of these will do it again, I give you my word. There are others though ,and that's a problem. By not coming forward they mark themselves as knowing what they did in full right. I shall seek to find them, but I can't guarantee that no child will resist a bit of candy or whatnot for something they don't think of as more than a bit of work." The rust colored short hair didn't move in the breeze at all, but it was Sam that answered, stepping toward him.
"There will always be someone doing that, but now it's known to be wrong here. We'll try to increase the food at meals and make certain the children are better cared for. I didn't know they'd feel the lack of anything enough to sell themselves. For half of them it's probably just habit. It might take a while to get the coin in place, but it will be seen to."
Tor had the first bit though, which he pointed out, giving three hundred for the shopkeeper Serta and another hundred to the major, in case things came up. Then the man marched the bloody and disgraced soldiers away.
"In all, that went much more smoothly than I thought it would." Tor muttered, only to find a few people nodding. A few kids had been watching the whole thing. One of them was Mardy, from the day before.
Her first words were different than Tor thought they would be really. He figured she might be glad, that someone was standing for her and her fellows, or maybe mad at him, for taking away a source of income in a situation that was a bit lean for them otherwise that way. She didn't mention anything like that.
"Can I be a Wizard too? I didn't know that peasants could do that. I thought that the great Tor would stand ten foot high and have a great gold beard." She giggled at the idea, but Tor nodded, looking at her and then the other kids.
"It takes work and a bit of talent, but yes, if you show the basic skill, and work hard, you can learn to be Builders, which is the proper name for a Wizard."
The girl in her gray cotton outfit that, Tor realized was military in style looked doubtful.
"Even orphans? Doesn't it take lots of silver and gold to do that proper?"
Sam stepped forward and looked at the kids, some of whom were no more than a few years younger than he was.
"Even then. There are scholarships, if you have the skill and are willing to try hard. If you can pass some tests people will pay for you to have that kind of education. It isn't a joke though and is harder than anything anyone ever told you of. Magic only looks easy from the outside. It's worth it though. I'll come back on my next break and show any of you that want to learn how to pass those tests how to do it. Then, when you leave here, you can go to a good building school, like Lairdgren."
The kids laughed at him a bit, but a few seemed to think he might not be lying to them. On the whole they were a jaded bunch, but that was probably what their world had taught them. At least now, thanks to Sam and Ali, they had a chance. If they could make themselves take it.
After that they got to actually go home.
For the first time in days Tor felt like he wasn't about to lose everything at a moment's notice. The world really wasn't different than it had been, he just knew more about it now. That didn't fix anything though, and he'd been serious earlier. He was going to fight against things as hard as he could now. Even if that meant failing over and again. It was hard to change what you were after all. He could try though.
The respite lasted a whole three hours, two of which were spent making sure his new Fast Carriage build was coming together and pushing it into growth. It hadn't started to do that on its own yet, but the new field hadn't faded too much, even if he was half a day late getting to it.
Then he got a bit to eat and was debating going to bed at five in the evening, when a pounding started on his front door. Tor got a shield on and answered it with an explosive weapon in his right hand, ready to fight, thinking perhaps Havar had come back. It was a loud boom of a knock after all.
It wasn't that though, just Tiera.
A clearly livid, red faced sister, who looked ready to kill him.
"Why did you beat up Havar? Sir Kolbrin sent him to help you and he came, and you left him in the street, like trash!" There were no fists flying behind the words at least. For a while Tor let her rant, considering the idea of not explaining it all, but he realized that she really needed to know it all, eventually.
Thinking hard he tried not to be mentally lazy, keeping that bit of advice in mind, but couldn't find a good reason to hold the information back from her, even if it made him look a bit bad in this situation.
"Come in and I'll tell you all of it that I know." There was an exhausted sense to him, he knew, and his sister, blessedly, shut up.
She was still clearly angry, but she let him talk, which was a new thing.
"It started thousands of years ago..."
Sometime while he spoke, trying to lay it all out in order, Sara and Ali came in, and when he looked away from his younger sister, the story over, they all had wide eyes.
Sara got what it meant first though.
"Which is why they're all like that? I always thought they just learned to be like that as children... Not really thinking of the rest of us at people. But it's born into them?"
That got a conversation going, that lasted for hours, until he grew too tired to keep going. There was no escape though, since his little sister still sat, looking miserable now, instead of like she was going to hit him. Tired or not, you didn't leave someone in pain like that. Not with the losses she'd had recently.
"So... Havar doesn't like me? I thought we were friends." There was a plaintive tone to the words. A hu
rt thing that almost made Tor want to simply lie to her about it all. To protect her. It was probably what Green and Rich had felt about him too, wasn't it?
"Well, sort of. He hates me, personally, but you're kind of his pet. The only thing there is that, deep inside he isn't thinking of you as a girl he likes, even if it's a bit inappropriate, or even just one he tolerates because you might be fun in bed later. He literally thinks of you as a pet. Like a cat or dog. Yes, one he wants to have sex with, but not as a real person. I agree that I didn't have a right to tell him to leave you alone. That came from my own anger, but you might not want to count him a real friend, given all of what you know now. Or, if you do, at least insist he try to see you for who you really are. that will be hard for him though. I don't know if he even can really."
She didn't say anything, just stomping away instead. He knew he was supposed to follow her, but he couldn't. Not then. It was just too hard, and he needed to sleep.
Which he did alone, at least for hours. At first he thought that Ali was making a statement about his poor behavior of the day before, but then he recalled that she actually had school the next day, which explained why she was gone when he woke up in the dark. Sara was there, but in a different room, all alone. She was entitled as a guest, and they had the space, but it was a little odd. Hadn't she come to see him?
It was early when he got up, well before darkness had fled the world, so he sat in the front space and worked, legs crossed under him on the ugly sofa. It was comfortable, if a bad color. At least he had that much left of the world, didn't he? His work. For the time being, until he had to give it up, to keep the world from destroying itself. Or... Well, if he was behind it, that wouldn't be the world's fault really. Just his.
Tor kept working for about six hours, until Sara came down the stairs, her travel bag over her shoulder. She froze when she saw him, he knew, feeling her do it. There was a moment of panic, having been caught sneaking out, as it were. She was intending to fly back to the Capital that day. Without saying goodbye.