by P. S. Power
"That I had kicked out? Denno called them back home, that's a totally different thing! Do they think I lost them their jobs? We had to find that murderer and it could have been one of them. How was I supposed to know that Daria Serge had contact with the brother of a local baker and tried to turn him into a..." There was really no good word for it. Turn him against his land? Get him to work for her? To steal magic or whatever the insane girl had wanted?
Ali murmured something then, her face more than a little.
"Lily killed Yardley. They call her Daria here, but she was never called that back then. Not on the streets. She was just Lily. Lilith DeGray. I told the woman that ran that museum, but she didn't seem impressed. It was almost like they were happy with the tale they had, and didn't want to know the truth."
Brown patted her leg, a little familiarly. Ali all but moved into him then, pleased by the contact. Tor just rolled his eyes and smiled. It was bound to happen that his wife would like the Ancient, he was the culmination of both a well designed pattern and thousands of years of practice.
Something occurred to him then and Tor stopped, his brow furrowed suddenly as he looked at his wife. She pulled back, clearly thinking he was angry about her touching Brown, but that wasn't it, not at all.
"Wait... She called herself Lily 'Dagree' didn't she? One word? The way you said it sounded like "Da Gray" I heard it differently before, at the Palace, which was it?" It was important enough that everyone in the back of Denno's vehicle stared at her except Sherri, who didn't get it at all.
Ali stammered, holding her arms over her large breasts, and looked scared suddenly.
"Da-Gray. Why? Is that important?"
Tor had to take several deep breaths. After a minute he tried to explain, his voice still slightly panicked sounding.
"Possibly. Her father loved our mother, when she spurned his affections he tried to kill her. That was Glost Serge, the old Prime Minister that had grabbed power here somehow. I've never heard of a mother though, and she called herself Lilith DeGray. Maybe it's just me being too used to home speech, but that seems to be saying 'the Gray' really clearly to me, when pronounced the way you did Ali. I..." He didn't know, it was a stretch really, but he could check, if there was anything of the girls left that carried her field pattern on it. He couldn't remember her well enough to do it that way from memory, not years later.
Tor explained and looked at Denno, who nodded firmly.
"I take your meaning Tor. I always hated that girl, but I never heard of a mother either. Glost indicated that he hired a woman for the task of having her, but didn't go into it. I know that sounds strange, but people to that here from time to time if they don't have a partner, and he was a difficult man at the best of times."
Sherri patted his leg, to get Tor's attention.
"At that place, the museum? They... Um, I don't know if it's what you want, the whole thing was too grisly, so Ali and I didn't go into the room, but they said they have her head frozen there. Would that have her pattern on it?"
There was no chance to say yes, since Denno ordered the vehicle to turn around and drive there directly. It wasn't that far away, but it seemed to take forever. The place wasn't huge and was directly next to several tall buildings, having the same flat, dull gray color that a lot of the place did, with a sign in bright red that glowed.
Even with the near panic he stopped dead when he saw it.
"Seriously? The Karina Cordes Museum? I thought that Austra hated Noram. No one has ever said why really."
Denno didn't stop moving, just walking in, even though there was a place to pay. The girl watching it didn't try to stop them either. Tor stopped though and ran to her, digging out a coin. It was a gold, but what was at hand. He passed it to her, explaining as he moved away.
"One Noram gold coin. If that doesn't cover us, please let me know? This is an emergency..." Then he ran to catch up with the rest of them.
They went first to the basement, and then a very silver and mint green space, where Denno started to crack open a display case.
"We'll need a skin sample. You, get me a scalpel." The Ancient pointed to a man in a white coat who seemed very shocked indeed, but did what the Revered One said without question. It was a nice trick.
Tor stopped him, since he was close enough to read the field. It was a little distorted being so cold, much more so than any ice he'd ever encountered, but after a few minutes he was able to pick up the traces.
"Crap." It wasn't enough to express what he wanted to say. It was Lily, Daria Serge, without a doubt. One of her eyes, the right one, was actually Petra Wards. The field was based on that at any rate. That happened when Tor had healed Lily once, so that she wouldn't be blind on that side. Now he had to wonder if that had been a trick the whole time. That wasn't why he was feeling a sense of dread though. He'd known they killed the girl.
The original idea had been his, in part.
"Well, this is her and she is, very clearly, related to Lara Gray. Also Glost Serge. She feels like you do almost Tiera. Very similar in many ways. You feel like dad though a bit." Tor pointed at the container though and started shaking a little. "She also has the Ancient pattern. Before she died, Daria Serge had been immortal."
It sounded insane to say it that way, but for the first time since Tor had known the man, Denno Brown swore. Because that wasn't a good thing at all, was it?
Chapter twenty-one
Without explaining what he was doing Tor started to take off, running for the front door, only to have his little brother, who was, he noticed, actually an inch taller than Tor now, snag his arm to stop him. One good thing about working with Tim though, was how rarely you had to explain what you were doing. He'd already figured it out.
"If you try to fly away from here the defense system will attack. We need to go out the way we came. We should get in touch with the Palace and tell them to be watchful. Remember, we have no real clue what Gray has planned, or if she'll do anything directly at all. So far all of her attempts to do harm have used others to do the actual work. We need to make sure that Princess Abbey and mother are being watched. Is there anyone else?"
Tor thought and then looked at Denno. It made a certain amount of sense really, didn't it?
Then he reached for his communications device and found that it wasn't there. It was, in fact, sitting in the room Ali and he were sharing at Denno's. In a chest. He had the new one however and after a moment started to search for Kolb's name in it. It felt like the action took forever to perform. When the device finally picked up, the voice that came across it wasn't anyone he knew at all.
"Hey, this is one of those new talking things. Is anyone there? Did I break it?" The voice was clearly making conversation with someone else, but Tiera snagged the thing from his hand.
"Mitchell! Get Sir Kolbrin. This is Tiera, there's a real emergency. A real, real one. We need him now."
"What? Tiera? Where are you?"
His sister rolled her eyes and made a frustrated sound that had to carry a ways.
"I'm in Austra right now. I wasn't kidding, this is life or death." She sounded hard and grim.
Mitchell, whoever he was, clearly didn't think that was a real thing. In fact, from the laughing that came from more than one person, none of the listeners did. Which really made sense. After all, who contacted Instructors at a school for anything all that pressing? Not fourteen year old girls in the main.
Getting the device back as his sister turned an angry beet red, Tor tried to think of even one thing that would have gotten him to think that something like this was anything but a prank when he was the age of the people that, if he was guessing right, were by the weapons table in the fighters practice yard. Really late at night too. Not even one thing came to mind.
"Hello. I really do need to speak to Sir Kolbrin. Could you get him for me please?" It probably wouldn't work at all, but the boy heard the change of voice and, not recognizing it, stopped chuckling. "Um, yeah. Sure. He's not here though. H
e went to talk to the Headmaster about something. He said he'd be back in about an hour, that was... When was it?" Someone else muttered something then. He couldn't tell what was said, but he recognized that voice. Judith Kerry.
"What time is it there? Judy? This is Tor, can you come to the unit?"
There was a bit of laughing, but this time it sounded more amazed than anything, and after a few seconds the very tall girl spoke, her voice sounding pretty distinctive.
"Hello. What's the situation?"
Again he didn't know what to say really, but Timon leaned in.
"We need to warn the Palace that there's a potential threat, and need Kolb specifically since this is a family matter for him. This is really big. On the heels of the attack, even if we were making jokes, no one would be able to fault any of you for responding with a full alert. Since that's what's needed, please do so."
It was eerie, but Tim had managed to sound almost exactly like Tor. Except for the inflection. There had been almost none of that at all.
People moved then and a short fifteen minutes later found them back at Denno's house and Tim's craft being emptied of produce. That could be delivered to The King's Table, he let the people in tan know. One nodded, and Tor found he didn't really care at the moment, so it would probably work. Then they started back to the port. It took forever, or at least felt like it.
They crawled to the water, and then moved fast once in it, but still only a tiny fraction of what was possible. Going faster wouldn't work though, not in the ocean. It would start to throw them into the air and if they went too high, they'd be attacked. Tor knew this because Timon spoke about it as they moved, hitting the air just as soon as it was safe and then making a straight line for the Palace in Noram.
Near the time that happened, just shortly after, Kolb's voice came from the communications device and Denno grabbed it up, his voice working fast, but the language he used wasn't that familiar to Tor at all. Kolb got it and answered in the same way. After several exchanges the line broke again and Brown sat back, looking a bit more relaxed suddenly.
"Kolb's on it. He's already had the two you mentioned being watched. No odd or suspicious activity from either of them however. Blue Four reported in earlier, and said they had a line on Gray that was very firm, in Tellerand. That doesn't mean she isn't plotting something, but the lady herself won't be waiting for us when we land."
Tiera scoffed. It was just jarring enough that Tor noticed it and made eye contact.
"That bitch wouldn't do anything herself. If she's off in Tellerand for real, that means that we're in greater danger than not. I don't think she'd go after the King though, do you? She's immortal and can just wait for him to die, if he bugs her." That was spoken to Tor, but she looked at Denno who seemed to think she had the right of it, from his expression. "What language was that? It seems a little like Noram Standard, but... I don't know... not much."
"English. Most of us speak it, and it makes a good code now, since only a few dozen in the world can anymore. Your point is valid though. Gray wouldn't go after King Richard at all. She wouldn't blame a man for the death of her daughter, not if a woman was involved. It's a weird trick of her mind. She doesn't value men much at all, so they can't be easily blamed for anything serious. No, you all saw the sign on the museum. It was Princess Karina that ordered her misbegotten lunatic killed, enough are saying it that there has to be truth to it, correct?" He clearly didn't think that it would be.
Since she really had, Gray might just have the right of it.
Timon didn't turn around, focused intently on flying, but he spoke anyway.
"She tried to kill me. Worked up a message that said I should look into the estate where the Larval were hiding. I turned the information in, instead of going myself, or I would have died. It seemed to be in retaliation for my combat aura knocking her down when she attacked me on the docks of Afrak. Just verbally, don't get me wrong. Then she sent Mark Morgan, one of my pilots, with a note for me. Even he thought it was sketchy."
Denno shrugged and then stretched a bit, his lithe frame not taking up a lot of space even with his arms over his head.
"That doesn't mean she blamed you for the event. Lara isn't a nice or pleasant woman all the time, but she's very consistent in some ways. Really, I can't imagine her yelling at you. Her tone with you at the conference in Vagus was shocking. Day to day I'd say she's no worse than Laurie, from the time I've spent around her. Very similar in fact, which makes sense. Biology isn't the only factor in life, but it's a major one. Perhaps there was a deeper meaning? For instance, could she have been trying to remove you from Afrak, so that you wouldn't see something? Or someone? Another member of our family for instance?"
It made sense to Tor, but he also didn't care really. His job was to bake now. Yes, protect his friends and family too, but this was a hideous sounding thing over all. His grandmother was possibly trying to harm his... cousin?
Tor was almost willing to bet that Gray didn't realize that was the case at all. She might still go after the girl for the death of her daughter, but family was important, wasn't it?
"Den, Lara... how is she in regards to family in general? I know that Green has Rhetistics for that. I had them too and still kind of feel the weight of it, but you don't seem to. Not like that at least. You're nice to us, but Austra isn't very family oriented, is it?"
The man didn't speak for a bit, then shrugged like Burks often did.
"Not like you mean, but she's protective of her children and grandchildren. Truly, I can't see you being harmed by her Timon. Not even in a sidelong fashion like that. The worst she might do is yell or try to change your genetics if you gave her too many problems. That's far more her style all around."
Tor tried to use his brain, order to do that from Green or not, but couldn't come up with an answer to a very basic question though.
"If that's her way, why is she trying to kill everyone? Is it so that the clones can take over? I mean, we're all immune to her plague, aren't we? The Ancients, not you Sherri, or you either Ali, but that's my point, is she trying to take out everyone that isn't... I don't know, like her?" He shook his head. That didn't make sense, did it?
Why would she bother?
Denno stared at him, wide eyed.
"You... know about the clones?"
Tor started to say no, but rather ruthlessly and more than a little rudely, Cordes grabbed control. This time though, instead of changing demeanor totally, Tor felt as if he was staying about the same.
"The project to repopulate the Earth if something happens that we can't handle and almost everyone dies. Lara and some of the others have been starting to activate it, haven't they? I don't know what's really coming from space, but they don't think that our people can survive it. They've been trying to figure out how to pass large Rhetistical patterns, so that they can keep on living, if their physical bodies cease. Wait out the attack, or what have you, and then have the buried machines bring you back when the bio-markers are normal again. Only they won't tell you why will they? Green either. They'd need Lara, but the little slaves are going to be kept out of the loop, because, in the end, you didn't do what they wanted really. You were subservient, to a point, but the longer you survived, the more you could learn to fight it. It doesn't speak of a lot of faith in what we can do, does it?" Then, the Ancient King dropped control and apologized.
Tor let it go this time. He wouldn't have guessed any of that himself. If Doris hadn't let something about it drop he wouldn't have gotten anything about it at all.
"That's my thought on it. That the command lines aren't that pleased with us and want to use the pattern, but not bring us back. It's why Burks had you and Laurie created, even working out a way to get it done inside the treaty. Claiming it was magic, at least in part, and not true cloning. We don't know what's coming, but I'm not certain it matters. Remember at the conference, how Lara kept trying to suggest we lower the population drastically? We know that the Earth is stable as far as human po
pulation right now. There's no logic to making it smaller, except that it might make it easier to take over. I just can't see why. Most of those that want power already have it. It's why Burks and I have been pressed into the jobs we have. No one else wants them. At least no one has suggested we step aside and let them do it, which we both would." That seemed so clear that he didn't even explain it. Tor understood it even outside the genes and Rhetistics. He didn't want the job either.
"Well, it might just be a test. We should ask someone and see what they have to say about it. Not Doris though. She can beat my ability to sense her intentions. You can't by the way. The one time we tried that with you, and you lied, Burks used a fake Truth device. The rest of the time you didn't, but just so you know that. I don't want you to be embarrassed at some point." Tor smiled at the man, and then tried to think it all out, knowing that they all wanted to do something similar. It was hours later that they landed in front of the main gate of the Palace, and Tor contacted them. It was dark out but not so much everyone would be asleep. If they were safe inside, Tor wouldn't want them to drop the shield of course.
But it wasn't up. He could feel that clearly. That and Kevin the Royal Guard was laying next to another person, a woman, on the ground. Tor ran to them, but didn't know what to do. Denno did though and touched their necks.
"Their hearts beat. They seem to be sleeping. We need to... really, this is probably an attack. If you aren't Immortal you need to run. Take these guards someplace safe. I can't kill. The Rhetistics, but I won't send you children in alone. We should..."
Timon waved Ali to the controls.
"You can fly this?"
"Yes." She didn't elaborate, even as he ran around and grabbed Kevin and stuffed him in the back, holding him easily. Not as much so as Tiera did with the woman, but neither needed his help. Tor checked his gear and made certain he had his communications devices.
Where they were going he didn't know, but he also didn't want to yet. If they were tortured he couldn't tell anyone where they were that way. After all, if Karina was a target and that wasn't just them chasing ghosts in the woods at night, then Ali was nearly as good of one. She'd been there for the planning after all. The whole time.