by Garon Whited
The third one, if it came down to it, was much less pleasant. Fighting a battle in a city is a nightmare for the invaders. I just didn’t see how they intended to attack the place and take it. The ships couldn’t carry enough men.
What was I missing?
The more I looked at it, the less I liked it. The ships could be carrying boatloads of wizards—fine. But they had to know they were headed for a city where almost every man, woman, and child knew at least a little magic. Were they under a communications blackout, to avoid giving away any secrets? It was barely possible they might not know the entire ground force was routed and wouldn’t be there to support them, but it seemed unlikely. Did they have some new, secret-weapon spell? I don’t know how they could conjure a city-crushing spell without burning out a magician, to say nothing of a wizard. No matter how I looked at it, I still didn’t see how they could win this.
On the other hand, “winning” can be defined in a number of ways. If they only want to inflict a lot of damage and go home, fine—they might count it as a win. If they want to test our defenses for future invasions, walking away with any intelligence on the subject would be a win. There could be any number of conditions they regard as success. So, what did they want to achieve, specifically? I had no idea.
I really didn’t like that. Whenever an enemy does something incomprehensible, it’s usually because it makes sense to them. If it doesn’t make sense to me, then the other guys know something I don’t, and that’s a Very Bad Thing.
Okay. If they know something I don’t, I need to know something they don’t.
How do I stop a naval invasion? Let’s see… obviously, the ships and troops will be shielded from direct magical effects. I can’t magically start a fire, rip out a board, or stop a heart on any of the ships. They’ll also attempt to stop any indirect effects, like a ball of fire launched at them, as well as any other projectiles. On the other hand, if I can launch something at them they don’t recognize as dangerous, or something they can’t perceive, they may not have shields capable of stopping it.
Could I take down their shields? For one ship, maybe. I can generate a magical disruption wave to dispel magical effects and break spells. But with a shipload of wizards backing it, they can reinforce the structure of their spells. I might not take it down. It would keep the wizards on board busy while I did it, but the other ships would still keep on coming.
So, can I generate a force locally I can transfer distantly? Really distantly, since I’m stuck in Karvalen.
What forces will destroy ships? They’re made of wood… what binds wood together? Cellulose? Lignin? If I knew for sure what those actually were, I might be able to do something with it.
How about the people? What’s a good, generalized, kill-everybody-on-the-boat effect? Radiation? Yes, but it’s not quick, and quick is important when they’re climbing the walls. Lasers? Again, yes, but people have seen me do that trick. Well, no one still alive, I think, but I’m going to run into serious targeting problems from a mountaintop. I can’t get a line of sight on the fleet; Mochara itself will be in the way.
Could I stun everybody with some sort of sonic attack? Maybe. Again, range is the problem, along with having all my allies in my line of fire. I could build another chlorine monster and send it after a ship, or even simply create a cloud of chlorine and let it roll along with the wind. If I was there, of course.
I hate being left out.
I decided to set things up to get a good look at the battle. I had four mirrors taken to my sand table room. I didn’t need a detailed world map anymore, especially since the southern half of it was obviously not going to register. All that work for nothing. Well, it could have been worse. At least I could repurpose the thing as a display. The mirrors could give me some alternate viewpoints and allow me to communicate with different people.
A quick check from altitude showed the ships still making dead slow progress. Telescopic zoom told me there were a lot of passengers lying around on deck—resting wizards? Probably. I resolved to keep an eye on things tonight.
Seldar rang my mirror and told me the troops were assembled in my gate room—what they think of as my gate room, the upper one. Technically, they were in the gate room and out into the hall. There was an awful lot of black armor with red or grey sashes. There were also a number of people in more mundane armor—volunteers to help defend Mochara from the usurper’s troops.
I’m never going to understand how I can inspire people like that. Maybe Seldar found me a good PR person. Or Beltar. He’s the head priest at the Temple of Shadow. A church is, after all, a public relations firm for a deity, or whatever they think of as a deity.
I’m glad he hasn’t been on my back to make a divine visitation. Amber was right; they aren’t pushy. Who would have thought it? Religious fanatics who don’t shove it in your face. They’re weird. A good weird, but weird. I keep expecting them to be, I don’t know, more evangelical? More missionary? More loud and obnoxious? They keep not doing it, and I don’t know what to make of them.
I entered the gate room, thinking about power and movement and how to make this work. Tianna was at the head of the line with her boyfriend.
“Nothar?”
“Yes, Sire?”
“You’re going?”
“Yes, Sire.”
I looked at Tianna.
“He says he doesn’t trust all those sailors,” she informed me. She slid a hand into the crook of Nothar’s arm and he placed his own over it.
“I have a number of comments I might make, all of them inappropriate,” I replied. “Remind your mother of her father’s love.”
“I will.”
“Nothar? Are you going for the battle or to protect her?”
“I’ve no great desire to do battle, Sire, but I go where my heart dictates—and, I hope, where I may do the most good.” He glanced at Tianna and I saw the flicker of a smile.
“I hope so, too. We’re going to talk later.”
“As you say, Sire.”
“All right, everybody! Listen up. Gate travel is difficult, draining, and disorienting. When you go through, you’ll be going out through the door at the Temple of Shadow in Mochara. Do not stop moving. Get out of the way for the people behind you. Shove if you have to, trample if you must, but at all costs clear the space in front of the door and keep it clear until the gate closes. Anyone still going through the gate when it shuts is likely to be cut in two and killed instantly. These things are dangerous in many ways, all of them lethal.
“We’re going to form a column of three. When I say go, you start through the gate as fast as you can. When I say to stop, if you’re past this line,” I put a glowing line on the floor ten feet in front of the archway, “you hustle through that gate as though your life depended on it. If you are not past this line, you stop because your life will depend on it. We’ll see how many of you get through before I have to let it close, then we’ll evaluate how many we can move before morning. Any questions? Yes, you.”
“Sir Panlan, my lord. If it is draining, can we assist by contributing power to the spell?”
I keep forgetting they’re wizards, darn it. He had a really good idea.
“Yes, but first we have to spend some of the power in the spell before we can charge it up again,” I lied. I don’t like to look silly in front of a crowd. “This one was never intended for troop movements. I’ll build one with a larger power reserve for next time. Any other questions?”
“Sir Frosh, my lord. Could you elaborate on what happens if we don’t stop when you say so?”
“The gate spell will be about to close. You’ll run into a collapsing spell that will divide you into several pieces and scatter them between here and Mochara, as well toss some parts into the void beyond the world. I’m not sure what happens to your spirit, but if someone does get shredded, I’ll be sure to take note of it.”
I didn’t tell them I wasn’t sure. It’s what I think would happen and it’s important to sound certa
in in front of the troops. I learned that at Crag Keep.
“Anything else?”
No one seemed too interested in any other subject, so they formed a column—Torvil the Gleeful on the left, Sir Panlan the Serious in the middle, and Sir Ariander the Grim on the right, with lines of red and grey sashes behind them. I have a lot of questions about Ariander, from his obvious gata roots to his title as First Blade. Someday, maybe I’ll even get to ask them.
I found the doorway I wanted in the mirror. One of the things that made me pick the Temple of Shadow in Mochara was the arched outer doorway. The close match to my own archway helped.
The gate swirled, flushed away from us, and Mochara snapped into view. I was already shouting “Go!” even before it finished. People thundered forward, jogging, running, sprinting flat-out. I held the spell, watching the charge on the gems drain into it. As it approached the critical point, I started adding my own force to the spell, keeping it open and running; that was the cutoff point. I shouted for them to stop and there was a sudden pileup of people trying to backpedal. It took longer than expected to halt the line. Keeping the gate open for those last few seconds was more than I really cared for, considering I was shouldering most of the load myself by then.
The instant everyone was either through the gate or stopped, I shut down the gate. The view through it dissolved, tore into patches of nothing, and dissipated. Myself, I leaned on a handy wall and propped it up for a bit, trying to look tired instead of wrung out.
Maybe I need man-sized gates between Karvalen and Mochara. Smaller gates take less power. A door-sized thing instead of a me-riding-Bronze-sized thing would be open at least four times longer, maybe five or six times. Having one on either end would also help—power could be supplied from both ends. And a dedicated connection, like the Great Arch in Zirafel, would reduce power consumption even more…
Someone was talking to me. I blinked and wiped sweat from my forehead.
“My lord?”
“I’m fine. It’s hard to do this sort of thing when I’m feeling mostly mortal.” I straightened and adjusted my clothes. “How far did we get?”
“About a third, my lord. Perhaps a hundred of the volunteers.”
“Good. We should be able to finish this tonight, after sunset.”
“As you say, my lord.”
“And get someone to put a chalk mark on the floor twice as far back from the line I drew. This first try was tough. We need a little more cushion space. Maybe I should put a spell on it to make it more obvious…”
“Immediately, my lord.”
“Thank you…?”
“Varicon, my lord, First Shield of the Order of Shadow.”
“You know what? I’m going to rest from this particular labor. Please see to these matters.”
“I will see to it, my lord,” he replied, saluting.
I went off to ask Laisa for a sizable dinner and request someone wake me when it was ready. I really needed a nap. She clucked reprovingly and told me to take better care of myself. When she turned back to her cooking, little Caris shook her finger at me, as though scolding. I stuck my tongue out at her, just the first couple of inches. She stuck her tongue out at me—and giggled.
The simplest things can cause terrible memory flashbacks. I remembered Olivia clinging to my knee and looking up at me.
I went up to my chambers to try and nap. If I tried really hard, maybe I could put Johann out of my mind for an hour or two. There was no way I could shake the vision of Olivia, though.
If I dreamed, I don’t remember it. Firebrand says I did, but didn’t pay attention to the content. Firebrand was more concerned with keeping watch for unpleasant influences while I napped in the Ascension Sphere. I approved wholeheartedly with its priorities.
By the way, Boss, Fred came to visit.
“Fred? The Monster Under the Bed?”
That’s the guy. I told him you needed to rest.
“Everything okay?”
Nothing to complain about. He seemed cheerful enough. He just stopped by to say hello.
“Someday, when the world slows down a bit, I’m going to have to crawl under the bed and see how he’s doing.”
Good luck with that, Boss. The world doesn’t seem to care about your schedule.
“More’s the pity. Is it time for dinner?”
Dinner was lavish. Laisa knows how I eat, so a request for a big dinner was obviously a request for a banquet. Seldar and Beltar joined me, along with Varicon.
Tianna and Nothar were in Mochara. I missed my granddaughter already. That seemed odd, considering she was often down in Karvalen, doing religious stuff, or spending time with Nothar. Maybe it was because I knew I wouldn’t get to see her again until after the battle at Mochara.
I caught myself glaring at Seldar and immediately looked at my plate. He didn’t deserve to be the recipient of my anger. Just because he chained me here. Just because he punched me in the duty and knocked me onto my kingliness. Just because he was right and I was wrong. It did make me angry, though, that he had the gall to be right when I didn’t want him to be.
Yeah, I’ve got some repressed anger. It leaks onto the people around me and I know it. I try not to let it, but the nature of leaks… At least I know people who truly deserve it.
Soon, Johann. It really needs to be soon. If only I didn’t have so much to do first!
On the other hand, as angry as I might be at Seldar, I was also proud of him. I never had much to do with his upbringing, but I like to think the man he became is partly my doing. It would be nice to have something to point to and say, “This is something I helped with that didn’t turn out badly.”
After chomping my way through a couple of dazhu steaks, I had the upper hand on my hunger. I started the dinner-table conversation with Varicon.
“Varicon, you mentioned your title, earlier. I’m afraid I haven’t really grasped the organizational structure of the Order of Shadow. You’re the First Shield, you say?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“What does it mean to be the First Shield?”
Varicon glanced at Beltar. Beltar gave him a blank look and shrugged.
“My lord,” Varicon said, hesitantly, “is it not more appropriate to ask the prophate about these matters?” He pronounced it pro-FAY-tee; a term derived from Zirafel, again, and hard to translate. It seemed to encompass several concepts, mostly along the lines of wizard, seer, priest, and prophet. I got the impression it was more of a title than an actual description, but, considering Beltar, it might be a good description, too.
“Beltar?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“What’s the difference between a prophate and a deveas?”
“The deveas is the mortal master of a religion, my lord. As deveas, I speak as my god would direct. I do not always consult him, but a good subordinate does not concern his master with trivialities. Thus do I guide the Temple of Shadow. As prophate, I open myself to the will of the Lord of Shadow and hear the voice of god within me.”
“I see.”
“Of this I am certain, my lord.”
What can I say? Beltar believes in me. If he also believes he’s hearing the Voice of God, I’m okay with it—provided his hallucination is telling him things that go along with the local code of chivalry, anyway.
“Do you mind if I quiz Varicon?”
“Not at all, my lord.”
I turned my attention back to Varicon.
“What does it mean to be the First Shield?” I repeated.
“The Shields are one of the three divisions of the Order,” he replied.
Give him credit where it’s due. He tried to give the question to his superior, found he couldn’t, and went ahead without hesitation. I like that.
“The Blades and the Banners are the other two divisions,” he continued. “As the Blades are composed of individuals whose strengths lie in attack, the Shields are those whose strengths lie more with defense. A group of Blades will go forth to do battle
on the field; Shields will remain upon the walls to repel invaders.”
“And Banners?”
“Banners are the diplomats, messengers, and priests, my lord. They conduct the prayers of evening and morning, travel to spread the word of the Lord of Shadows, and study more deeply the ways of conduct, both honorable and right.”
I looked at Beltar. He smiled and said nothing.
“And the First Shield?”
“I lead the Shields,” Varicon stated, simply.
“I get that, but why you?”
“I do not know. The assembled Knights of the Shield selected me and the Lord of Shadow confirmed their choice.”
“Fair enough. So, I understand there are the Orders of the Shadow and the Crown. Are the Temple of Shadow knights all part of the Order of Shadow? How does that work?”
“The Order of Shadow of the Temple is a different organization, my lord. The Order of Shadow of the King is a more temporal power than an ecclesiastical one. The Demon King altered the structure of his knights, making the Order of the Sword open to any sufficiently skilled killer. Thus, the King has an Order of the Sword—killers—an Order of Shadow for true knights, and the Order of the Crown for the personal guard.”
“But the Orders of Shadow,” I persisted, “They’re allowed to have the same name? Doesn’t that confuse people?”
“Only among those who do not understand them, my lord. The Knights of Shadow are of the Temple and wear the grey sashes. The Order of Shadow is of the King and wear the red.”
“Oh. Well. That’s all right, then.” I tried not to let any of my sarcasm drip on the floor.
“It is my honor to be of service, my lord.”
We ate in silence for a while before Beltar spoke up.
“My lord?” he asked. I made a sound of acknowledgement; my mouth was full. He couldn’t have timed it better if he was a waiter asking if I needed a refill. They always ask just as you’ve taken a bite of something. It’s like they go to a special waiter school.