Appropriate Force

by O. J. Lowe

  The love he felt for Unisco wasn’t quite there any longer, but he hadn’t started divorce proceedings with them yet. That part of his life wasn’t entirely over but he could sense it coming to an end. He got the feeling that they sensed it as well. The dangerous assignments never came their way, Wade had noticed as much as well. He was fine with that. Better something sedate than that would end in sorrow.

  Sharon lay with her head in his lap, eyes half closed but still watching the bout out the corner of her eyes. He rested a hand on her head, toyed with her hair and she let out a little moan of satisfaction. She slowly bent back her neck, smiled at him, shifted in closer to him. She was content, he could tell. Another few moments and she might as well start purring like a cat. That would be adorable. They’d stayed up for the bout, the last one of the season in Canterage. Nick had heard things about this David Wilsin fellow, had wanted to see what he was like as a caller. After all, they were all going to the Quin-C together if all went to plan.

  Sometimes you had to check out potential rivals. It was just clever sportsmanship. It wasn’t about what you did. It was about who you did it with. Time spent together was better than time pulled apart. Even if it was just a night in front of the viewing screen, curled up next to each other. A few years ago, he wasn’t sure if this was what he’d have wanted out of his life. He might have thought it boring, the idea of settling down with someone. The Nicholas Roper of today would say to the Nicholas Roper of then that he clearly hadn’t found the right woman. You got older and your needs changed. What you needed now wasn’t necessarily the same thing that you used to want.

  “You want to say something to me,” she said, sleep fogging her voice. “I can tell. I always know when you’re holding something back, not telling me the full truth.”

  He might have laughed at that. You really don’t, Sharon. Believe me on that. He didn’t say it out loud. It would have brought about more questions, maybe the prompt for her to start looking deeper into how he brought home his credits. She still thought he went to the surrounding towns within the Belderhampton jurisdiction and fought for the meagre credits on offer in the smaller tournaments there to supplement his accounts.

  The truth always remained the same, he and Wade went out there to do what needed to be done. Nothing more. Nothing less. They both had their eyes on other things though, Wade ran a sanctuary up in the mountains north of the city with his cousin, Nick had been there a few times and found himself quietly impressed by what he’d seen. He didn’t know how either of them had gotten permission to build there, not without having to promise the kingdom in exchange for it. Maybe they’d have to supply one dragon egg a year to the closest city or something like that. He couldn’t have seen Wade agreeing to that. It would have betrayed his principles, he didn’t do that. Ever.

  Sharon wasn’t wrong though. He did want to say something to her. Had for months now, ever since that night with Hobb. He’d known then what he’d known now. Once he said the words, there was no going back. It’d be full ahead with a future he’d never thought would come. The wait had been torture. The payments had cleared, he’d kept the package from the carnival in his office underneath his blasters. That was how secret he’d kept it, concealed beneath a cache of illegal weapons. He was proud of his own ingenuity in that respect. If she ever found them, the blasters would draw most of the attention.

  He looked at her. Smiled as he brought out the box, slid it open to reveal the ring. Pure white-gold, three diamonds surrounded by a pair of sapphires. She liked sapphires. Always said the colour reminded her of growing up in Serran. He’d seen the ring and he’d known there and then that he’d end up buying it, that he wouldn’t rest until he’d put it on her finger.

  “Sharon?” he asked, seeing the shock pass across her face as the realisation dawned, her mouth sliding open in disbelief. Shock gave way to joy, she was already nodding even as the words left his mouth. “Marry me?”

  The End.

  The Gifted.

  You might be wondering about how this tale came into existence. Originally, it was a part of the final chapter of Appropriate Force, but was removed during the editing process. Yet here it remains in full. Enjoy.

  The travelling folk had left Belderhampton the morning after their big event. They never stayed past their welcome, the city might be their spiritual home in Canterage, but absence made a heart grow fonder. Had they stayed in any place for too long, no matter how bright and colourful and exciting they might have made their presence seem at the start, it would have turned to violence and bitterness in the end. They were no strangers to resentment. It was those feelings that had turned them into nomads after all. The road was their home and they’d become its closest companions. It wasn’t uncommon that their odyssey could keep them travelling for weeks on end, they didn’t know where they would go, only that they would know when they got there. The morning after the carnival, they’d packed up everything as fast as they could and moved on in their convoy of hoverwagons. The wagons were slow-moving and cumbersome compared to smaller speeders, but they carried everything they needed, well over a dozen tonnes of metal and wood that made up their legacy. There had been a message from Unisco delivered to the head of the mechanics guild warning them that the ire they felt towards a man who had beaten down two of their number the previous night was misplaced and that they should not seek retribution. They had been manipulated and played like a cheap tamborlute, they should not hold a grudge but rather move on with their lives for revenge would be an unhealthy thing for them to get involved in. The individual responsible had been caught and would be punished to the full extent Unisco could muster. It might not be what they’d be satisfied with, but it would have to do.

  Their desire to get out of Belderhampton had been hastened by the destruction and death that had followed the explosion three nights ago. Their reputation as a place of peace and sanctuary had been ruined. The carnival might never be the same again. Already an emergency parley had been called by the elders for discussions over whether they would ever set out to do it again the same time next year. They’d never forget the reason that they did it. On the surface, it was to give something back to a city that had welcomed them when no other had. It was their way of showing their gratitude, to give them something in their power that no other city in the kingdom could have. Their fathers and their grandfathers might have made their way to Belderhampton, but the sons and daughters were the ones to carry that legacy of friendship. Below that show of unity, it boiled down to credits. It always did. Maintaining their wagons was expensive, the carnival renewed their coffers for the year, their greatest source of income comfortably. Altruism was a noble goal but only a fool would see it as the only aim. If nobody was willing to come over fears of their safety, then the cost was not worth it. Would people continue to, considering what had happened the previous night? That was the question to be debated. Never mind the past events which had seen nobody hurt, other than those who had made the unhappy choice to set out and cause trouble, for which they’d suffered indignity to add to injury. One black mark and the illusion of safety had been forever snuffed out.

  The wagon in the lead saw him first, the solitary man in the road up ahead, stood watching them with cool indifference. He did not move, he did not flinch, just stood with his hands in his pockets. Because of the weights carried aboard the speeders, gaining any sort of height in their flight was beyond them. Barely a foot above the surface of the ground, they would plough right on into him if he did not move. If there was a concern in his being, he did not show it. He stood out, his suit electric blue against the dark grey of the road, a hat perched across his head at a jaunty angle.

  The convoy stopped for nobody, yet the man did not appear to be aware of that. He simply stood, an impassive smile playing across his cragged face. He felt older than his face portrayed, it had been a hard four years and half and he’d found himself at this point, even if it was the middle of nowhere. Always he’d find himself where he need
ed to be. The Kjarn saw to that. He knew he needed to be here, he had a pretty good idea why. He’d sensed the disturbance a few nights earlier, had crossed kingdoms to be here. Others might have felt resentment and bitterness at being cast from their responsibilities, he just had accepted it with a grace that they couldn’t imagine. That was why he was the Master and they were not. He’d devoted his life to be a servant of the Kjarn, he couldn’t judge which orders he should or shouldn’t obey. It didn’t demand. It requested that you grant aid and you were all too happy to oblige.

  They weren’t going to stop. He knew that much. He could sense the certainty in the lead pilot, could sense the feeling of superiority that flooded through him. Smugness and security in the size and power of his vehicle. Indifference that the victim wasn’t one of their own. Could even hear the excuses he might have made had anyone called him on it. Didn’t see him. Sorry. Oh well. Not even excuses. Excuses were the lowest form of regret. They were the parlance of children who couldn’t accept their mistakes.

  He sent the single word to the lead pilot’s head, not an easy skill to master and certainly not one with unlimited potency. An actual telepathic conversation with someone was beyond him, especially someone not as inclined spiritually as he was. All he could do was convey the depths of his emotion. He’d practiced with select words, the important ones he might need. Stop. Run. Friend. Beware. They were the most important ones he’d found in all his experiences. Even when there was a language barrier, those feelings worked as a universal translation. You heard it, you reacted to it. It was the deepest level of urgency one human could offer to another.

  It was a slow process, as well you might expect with vehicles so large, but he was a patient man. He waited until the last of them had come to a halt, folded his arms, looked at his wrist for the time. Already behind schedule. This couldn’t take long. He had to be back to the Fang Mountains before he was missed too much. The main problem when you were the head of a secret order long thought to be extinct was that people came to rely on you so much. He’d tried to make them as autonomous as possible. That was yielding mixed results so far. Not as well as he’d liked it to be going. Not as poorly as it could have been. Time was his biggest foe. A sense of urgency pushed at him, yet the perils of rushing it all were something that he could not ignore.

  They were coming out now, the travelling folk. Ruud Baxter had a mass of respect for them as a populace, they’d conquered hardships that most couldn’t even comprehend, and they’d not just survived, they’d thrived. They’d taken those bad times and made them good. They answered to nobody other than themselves. That was the greatest type of freedom. Freedom to be who they wanted to be, heading towards a destination of their own making with nobody telling them who they had to be or what they had to do. Currently they didn’t look happy that he’d halted them, a mass of ugly expressions breaking out amidst mutterings. The women stayed back, shielded the children behind them, he wasn’t fooled by that as a sign of deference, the women were often the most brutal fighters of all the travellers. Instead, the most physically imposing of the men stepped forward as one.

  Their muscles didn’t bother him. If they wanted to resort to violence, which he sensed was an urge within some of them, they’d really come to a bad end in that respect. He had come to abhor violence in recent years, yet he had often found within the course of his life that there would always be those whose respect you never earned unless you were physically better than them. He didn’t like it but changing human nature was beyond him. If he had to, he would do whatever he needed to. If he had to crack a few skulls to do it, he wouldn’t lose sleep over it. He would not strike first. That much he had already vowed to himself.

  Life would always give you choices and it was up to you what you did with them. If you wanted to remain pacifist, you could get beaten to a pulp and spend out the rest of your days in unbearable pain, when you came to a situation like this. If you wanted to remain pacifist but at the same time realised that it wasn’t a viable option, compromise was king. You had to look at the bigger picture. If it was worth that compromise, you made it. To do anything less was foolish.

  Would this be worth it? He didn’t know. Not entirely. Suspicion was one thing, certainty was another entirely. The Kjarn spoke to him, it didn’t always go into detail. That was enough to assuage any sort of guilt he might have had. The Kjarn didn’t do casual. It didn’t do trivialities. If it spoke like this, it was his duty to hear it and act on what little he had been given.

  Their leader was a weather-worn man with a drooping moustache and an untidy greying mullet, the golden band around his arm depicting status, studied him with a seething indifference. He reached out his arms in front of him, flexed his fingers against each other and Ruud heard the bones cracking under the strain. He could have been anything between an old-looking thirty-five and a youthful-looking seventy, a vitality around him which Ruud had seen in very few people across his years.

  “You are standing in our path,” he said simply. Not a threat. Not a question. Just a statement. “Why?”

  Maybe this could be resolved peacefully without the need for a fight. He was armed, the cylinder was at his belt, his only weapon ready to be brought out if it was needed. If it got that far, he would have failed miserably in this delicate task. They wouldn’t stand a chance against him should he bring his full power against them.

  “Because my own path has been a long one,” Ruud said. “After many miles, it has brought me to this point. I have come here from…” He almost said Serran, chose his words carefully to avoid it. Their past home might still invoke some negative feelings. Getting driven out of an entire kingdom could do that, a sensation that he wished to avoid. “… far away to speak with one of your number. I apologise for delaying you. If you permit me a few moments, then…”

  “You at the carnival? Been to Belderhampton recently?”

  He’d heard something about it. Nothing beyond oft-repeated rumours from people who may or may not have been there. Perhaps that itself was telling. Nobody knew anything for sure about what had gone on. Maybe Unisco. Back in the day, he’d known a thing or two about the running of that organisation. He’d been an agent after all. Learned a good number of dirty tricks that had set him in a good position for the trials ahead.

  “I wasn’t,” he said. “My apologies for any losses your people might have suffered in what happened.”

  The leader looked mollified by the comment. Sometimes a little courtesy went a long way if you stretched it. Especially if they’d become more used to being spat at than sympathies being offered.

  “Who?” he grunted. “Who do you need?”

  Ruud was about to tell the truth, that he honestly did not know, but wisdom prevailed, and he held his tongue. It wouldn’t set him in the greatest light, admitting his ignorance. The travelling folk didn’t do well with those who showed indecision or lacked the haste to act. They didn’t like having their time wasted most of all. They were notoriously tricky to negotiate with. Perhaps that wasn’t entirely true if he reconsidered the statement. They were easy to negotiate with. It was difficult to get a good deal out of them. They knew the value of everything and the cost of nothing.

  “He desires to talk to me. Privately!”

  A young woman broke forward from amidst the mutterings of her elders at her words, little more than out of her teens yet Ruud had seen eyes like that before. They were eyes older than their years, eyes that had seen horrors that nobody was ever meant to. It didn’t surprise him that she looked tired, like sleep had evaded her. She wore the bangles of a fortune teller, three of them on the right wrist and cast in silver with a bronze inlay. The travelling folk did like their little symbols of status. He could appreciate it. Saved a lot of confusion. He’d toyed with introducing something similar for his order, had shelved the idea for the future. Right now, their numbers were too few to warrant it.

  Later. Always later. Too often, the future was not considered until it was too late and ofte
n to its detriment.

  The leader glanced at her, back at Ruud and snorted out his nose, a sound of derision and dismay. “This I cannot permit. You speak with courtesy and grace, the hallmarks of a smooth-tongued scoundrel. The sort of man I cannot allow alone with my only daughter.”

  Ruud blinked. He wondered if laughing here would strengthen his position or weaken it. He chose to keep a straight face. Best not to chance it. “I’m afraid that you misunderstand my intentions, I wish to talk to her about her gift. She’s a lovely looking girl but I’m afraid that my heart belongs to another.” Not technically a lie. The Kjarn and the Vedo were the only things that his heart belonged to these days. There was no room in his life for anything or anyone beyond that. He’d even given up spirit calling, gone back to it only when the credits were needed. That felt more and more frequently these days. He’d almost burned through his winnings from the last Quin-C some years earlier. Credits well spent, he had to admit but that didn’t help him with the future.

  Another grunt. “No.”

  “Father,” she said. “I foresaw that this day would come. I saw that a man in blue would halt the unstoppable, I saw that he came with the storm at his back.” She gulped, he was sure he saw a hint of tear in her eye. From her, he got no resonance of sadness in her being, just detached calm. Manipulative little bitch. “And I saw death if he was denied. Permit me to talk to him if he is the one from my vision, if only for the sakes of everyone here.”