Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2)

by Power, P. S.

  The Young Ancients: Second Cycle. Book Two

  Light Bringer

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2015

  Chapter one

  It was hard to stand up, but Dareg knew he had to do it. Regardless of what else happened that day, he couldn't fail in this. No matter how much pain ripped through him at the moment. There were some goals that you had to achieve in order to survive.

  Getting out of bed was simply a must.

  It had been nearly a full month since the attack, and even having been near death there was no excuse for being as lazy as he'd been. In that whole time he'd mainly rested. That, and ate as much food as he could get down. It honestly had required him to go outside a few times a day, in order to get stuff to eat from Tam-Unit, his best friend, but it was worth the effort. Doing it that way meant he was able to spend most of the time in his little house, alone. The pea pod shaped black and white thing that the Wizard Taman had given him not too long before.

  Instead of being cared for by people he hardly knew.

  Today was different though, since he'd been spending the last weeks getting ready for it. Consuming calories and trying to put on weight. The fight, the intense, and incredibly hard to recall thing that he and the others had been through, had stripped almost everything from him. That had been thanks to the healing amulet he'd been wearing, and using, the whole time that he'd been being murdered. It had saved him. That much he could recall. A bit more than that, too. Not everyone that had been there for the fight really could, or so he'd heard. The Wizards were sort of managing it, and him, but that was all.

  No one else, including the mechanical people that had been in the room, fighting, could actually recall it having taken place. They knew that something major had, since they weren't stupid and had damage, but it was simply hard to do.

  Most of it was gone from his own head, or hidden inside in some strange fashion, but thankfully he'd written it all down before it could escape his head. Like a dream.

  They had an enemy, and they were nearly impossible to beat.

  Which was why he, some kid from Canton, had to risk his life to get better that day, instead of healing over half a year, like a real person would. That had been the best guess as to how long it was going to take him to recover. Tor Baker, the wizard, was probably in the same boat that way. If Dareg had used himself almost to death, Tor, his father, had been pushed fifty percent closer than that. The man had to have been in bed the whole time, barely able to move. Thankfully the idea of feeding him constantly wouldn't be lost on the others.

  That was all happening on the other side of the space port, at Sam Builder's palace. It meant that the facts were a bit sketchy there for Dareg, but it pretty much had to be that way.

  Dare had managed to get out of the scene of the fight in the first hours, which had, he knew, made almost everyone think he was angry, or scared, and didn't trust them anymore. It wasn't that, or even their fault. The real answer was that his new family was made up of sane people, who for some reason actually cared if he lived or died. What he was planning to try, in a few moments, would most likely kill him.

  Only that wasn't true. If it was, if that was the main possible outcome, Dareg would have waited. No, he really had a ninety percent chance of living through it. That was, he knew why he was stalling. After all, if it worked, he had to go and get going, for real. Given that he didn't even have a real plan for that yet, it was probably going to be hard to pull off. If he got lucky, he'd die, and then it wouldn't be his problem any longer. After all, it wasn't fair to dump even part of the protection of the whole world, of all the worlds, on his narrow shoulders.

  Before he could lose his nerve, or find a cutter to take his own head off with like a coward, Dare pulled out the small healing amulet he had. It was the same one that Sara had given him. Sara Debri. The Ancient of the Martian Circle. It sounded impressive, and nearly impossible, since claiming to have even met her was almost certainly a lie for someone like him. That shouldn't have ever happened, and if it had, would have no doubt been the kind of thing that took place in passing. Possibly as he swept the floor, and she walked past with a contingent of guardsmen. Not ending with the woman handing him expensive gifts of magic.

  "Right, stop stalling, and do it. Even if you're a coward there have to be limits..." With those words, he tapped the glowing green sigil. It was the shape of a man. The person had the proportions of a commoner, but everyone had said that it was Tor.

  From before he changed, and grew into the giant he was now.

  The tile, which was a milky colored piece of focus stone, didn't do anything itself. There was no buzzing, or light show to let him know it was operating. Instead he was informed that the thing was working by the agony that ripped through him. Things that he had thought mainly healed were suddenly on fire within.

  His groin, for instance, which had been half crushed by Bill, the faithless squire, shifted in his pants.

  Dare was distracted from that as his right arm snapped, breaking again to set the bone correctly. Making first a loud noise, that sent a shock through his entire body, then several softer ones. That had partially healed, but clearly in the wrong way.

  On the good side he also started to regrow several of his missing teeth. It would let him chew a bit more easily, instead of drinking half his meals from then on. Not that he wouldn't have to keep up his regime of Austran protein drinks for the time being. He had a bucket of the chalky stuff next to him, ready to be consumed. Using a basic tin cup with a nice sturdy handle on it, Dare dipped out a portion, and started to sip, between the waves of horrible pain.

  It was intense, of course. That didn't matter. Nothing did, except getting ready to face the... Whatever it was that might be coming for them. The Adversaries.

  After half an hour, a nearly unheard of time for the healing amulets to need in order to repair simple damage, all the discomfort was gone. His teeth were whole, and while he was exhausted again, his breathing was unstressed and clear. That part had taken him by surprise really. The beating he'd taken had actually caused him to become ill. Probably because his immune system just didn't have anything left to fight with really. It hadn't been bad, but the rattling in his lungs hadn't really aided him either.

  Now he was fine, so stood up, and thought about what he really needed to do.

  "More food, and a shower." Sniffing at his arm pit, he grimaced. "Not in that order."

  It took longer than it should have, given that he only had to walk about ten feet to get to the bathing chamber. That wasn't about weakness however, since he was feeling almost decent that way now. Having not been able to do more than hobble for a month, he could tell the major difference being healthy again was making. It was that he had to shave first, since he hadn't for a while. He had a full, if short, beard, but it looked strange on him in the magical mirror when he stared at his reflection. Untidy, and like he simply didn't care.

  That wasn't the fashion for such things, though on a whim he just trimmed his neck, and then shaved it smooth, leaving the full black beard. Then he played with the rest, trimming and combing it. Stalling, instead of getting clean, and on to his real task. Which was...

  Baffling to him.

  "Run, hide or fight." Those were the options, but he didn't know who, or what, to fight, or how to get ready for it, and probably couldn't run far enough, even having a jump ship around his neck. Hiding was a good option, but you sort of needed to know what you were doing that from, really. At least if you wanted to end up in the right place.

  It left him frozen for a few seconds
.

  "Shower first. You reek. Thankfully no one has been visiting you, or they'd have been driven away by the smell." It wasn't that bad, to be fair about it. He did need to be cleaner though, so turned off his clothing device with a thought, and started the water running with another, his hand touching the wall of the tiny dwelling.

  It wasn't hard to wash, but scrubbing was the order of the day, after so long without. He did it several times, from head to toe, trying to figure out what his part in things was supposed to really be. After all, he could fight a little, he guessed, but there were people better at it. So getting trained up in that might not hurt as far as skills gained. It also might not help. In the last battle he'd managed to stay alive because Tor had pulled him into an alternate kind of time. That wasn't a thing that most people could just do, however. Tor Baker was special that way. It had been in his notes. Dare had fought with Bill, the faithless squire, personally. A person that he'd thought might be a friend. One that had acted like it, using him the whole time. Probably just to gain access to the others that Dareg had been meeting. The King and Queen, for instance.

  That he'd lived had been more due to what his father had done, than any skill of his own. Even that bit of magic had nearly ended him. Both of them. It had been the death of several others. Commander Derring, Erid the High Servant, and Sir Kolbrin. His fighting tutor. Two of them had been immortal, for all that hadn't helped them in the end. Kolb had even lived for thousands of years, and was, or had been, probably the best human fighter left on any world.

  The second best had told him that, so it wasn't faint praise.

  So, while fighting was possible, and he needed to be better at it, that trick that Tor had managed was even more important. Not just for him, but for everyone else. Thinking of that settled his plans for him. He had to learn how to do both those things, and... Well, his job, too.

  Building up the world's space ports.

  He dressed in clothing that wasn't fine at all, just being a simple brown outfit that fitted him loosely when the amulet turned on. A heavy work tunic, and trousers to match. Brown, but stout looking boots came with it, picking him up about an inch when he activated the thing. Dare was still slightly damp, but brushed his long black hair back and used the clothing amulet to make a brown string tie for it, placing it back in a tail. Then he looked at the remains of the protein drink bucket, dreading what he needed to do with it, and picked the wooden thing up, tilting it carefully, taking large, careful gulps of the chalky flavored stuff, until it was gone.

  Then, feeling tired, but whole for the first time in over a month, he took it outside. Then stopped to seal the door to his home with a lot of focused concentration, making the entrance vanish into a smooth black and white striped wall, before moving to the Tam-Unit. His only real friend.

  A blue box that gently gleamed in the sun, and had a screen with the face of a lovely young woman.

  "Hey, I'm back. I brought that bucket?" Instead of getting a refill, he put the thing in the trash receptacle on her right side. The big blue box flickered to life, the window on the front showing a girl that looked a good bit like the Wizard Taman. Exactly like her really, except smiling. Most of the time the Wizard didn't seem to do that. Not when he was around.

  "You seem better. A lot. How did that work? You used a healing amulet? Dangerous, given your condition..."

  He moved around, so he was looking her in the eyes, even if that probably wasn't needed for her to notice him. She wasn't a person, and saw things very differently than he did. Than any human could, no doubt. Inside her range, she was very precise, and knew things that almost no one else might. That was only about twenty or thirty feet from her however, and past that she was pretty much blind. Tam-Unit was one being however, with about sixty bodies in different places. She'd mentioned that Timon had gotten her set up in Austra, and that Afrak's space port had twenty of her as well, now.

  It was daunting to think about. She was right there, with him, but also in sixty different places, all at the same time. It was like magic. That thought got him to smile a little.

  "A risk, but it paid off. As long as being alive is the right choice. I'm not really certain on that score yet." He sounded a bit glum. Given that three of his friends had died, that made sense to him.

  None of them were really close to him, having just met a week before they passed, more or less, but it was still hard for him. Worse for everyone else, he bet.

  What he needed to do, really, if he was going to set anything up, was find out where people were. The ones he needed.

  Patting his side pocket he realized that he didn't have his communications device on him. That had been tucked safely inside the floating chest that was in his house. With his gold. That was, he figured, why no one had been in touch with him. The floating chest was sound and light proof, after all. At least he thought that was the case. It could have been that no one had tried to call his handheld, but he doubted that. They would have checked on him, and a few had even come by to do that. Early on. Timon had, and Terry, though he barely remembered that, having fallen asleep both times. They were both gone now, he bet, since their visits had stopped after a week or so.

  It meant going all the way back inside, and digging for the device in the gold box that was near the window on the right hand side of the thing, near the small brown chair he never used.

  Then, sighing, he also got his jump ship out, and re-secured his tiny castle, walking slowly toward the landing areas after that. It wasn't physically hard as much as he didn't feel like doing anything. Hopefully that would shake itself off with more food, because there was no real choice in the matter. No matter what, he had to get things going. The fate of the world might depend on it.

  Which was about as scary a thought as Dare could have managed at the moment, he decided. That the world surviving might be down to him, even if only in a tiny portion, was daunting.

  It didn't take long, about six minutes, for him to set up, and climb into his large black vessel. The amulet itself was tiny, being about the size of a gold coin, but magic often worked that way. You activated it, and things happened that didn't seem possible to a reasonable mind. Settling into the captain's chair, he looked out the large shield window, then rose about fifty feet in the air, using the small control unit, which fit his hand perfectly. Right now it looked like a stone that floated in the air. Turning it very slowly, the ship spun in place. There were two other ships there, but neither of them seemed to be doing anything, so he looked up, saw it was clear, and left.

  That meant going up about two thousand feet, and heading to the west, about ten miles, before heading straight up. Into space itself. As that happened he glanced at the port, which was mainly made of tan focus stone. Earth and soil compressed by magic into what was essentially glass. More building had been taking place, which was nice to see, given that he hadn't been around to order that kind of thing. Neither had Erid. Whoever was on that had clearly put the labor in however, since most of the magical palaces they'd been using had been replaced already, with decently large looking focus stone construction.

  They were all tan, except that the roof tops had been painted somehow, so they were in purple and gold. The king's colors. Given that he was in charge of Noram, and a great person, Dare approved of that. Especially if it meant he didn't have to pay for the land taxes. The space port was exempt from that, but the buildings were just outside the boundary of what that actually was, officially. At least he thought that was the case. It could be that King Richard didn't care, as long as the place was used to get the ships and people in, and not as a way to put coin in someone else's pockets.

  He kept climbing, the ship moving quickly, but not even close to full speed. Dareg wasn't up to doing that at the moment. Not that it felt like anything to do, but the three extra ounces of pulling his right hand would have to do in order to get that to happen just didn't seem worth the three minutes he might have saved. So five minutes later he was able to take the craft into a
fairly high orbit. That placed it well below the satellite layer. There were thousands of the things floating in space, he'd heard, but they were so small he'd yet to hit one. That he knew about. The whole ship was built of shield material, so he might not notice it if he had. No one had come, or called, to scream at him over it, so he figured that if nothing else he'd done it and gotten away with the destruction of the things. Space was pretty big, so it was probably just that no such collision had taken place yet.

  Circling the world like that, looking at the big blue oceans, and the green and brown landscape, as well as the clouds, and occasional flashes of lightning, he yawned. Not that the view wasn't impressive. It truly was. New enough to still engage him, even. He was just sleepy. Stretching, he pulled his communications device from his right hand tunic pocket, and stared at it for a long time. So long that his mind wandered and he realized after a while that he was dreaming of having roast chicken, instead of doing anything useful.

  Without stopping to consider it, he brought up Queen Tiera's name and touched the glowing sigil, to connect with her. Nothing happened. That was the first time he'd seen that one, at least with her, so considered worrying. Just as he was about to tap the thing off and try someone else, her face appeared. Looking pale and lovely, like always, but also... Annoyed.

  "Yes?" She barked the word and didn't even glance at the screen, clearly busy reading something off to the side. "This had better not be about the transport, or I swear I'm going to scream at you. Just so you know. I'm trying to find some way to get you there. I promise."

  Dareg tilted his head, trying to care about what she was saying, and failing. Still, you didn't have to have the emotions to fake being a nice person really. That was something that Tiera seemed to be missing at the moment.

  "Heading where?"

  Again, she didn't look at him, or seem to recognize his voice. Given it was kind of sullen, he understood that.