“What was he making?” Peter asked, reaching back to the oven to pull open the door. Cinnamon burst into the room as he pulled a large pan of sweet rolls out quickly and set them on the counter behind me.
“A gift for me,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s why I couldn’t get mad at them, but what do I need or want? They both need and want for everything! Priorities, people! Then Braedon tells Jimmy this real tearjerker of a story and when you add the fact that these people are aliens—I mean, truly alien people to us; they don’t even think like us—all I could do was patch everything up and say ‘don’t do that again.’ I’m hoping that since they can at least see Jimmy’s aura that they’ll have an easier time with him.”
“Who’s Braedon?” Peter asked as he drizzled white icing from a mixing bowl across the sweet rolls with practiced ease.
“The clan head that the smith belonged to,” I answered. “Ilan yi Braedon. The entire clan was sharing his pain as much as possible, but…” I shook my head warily. “There are only two things worse to the Fae: Iron poisoning and what the Rat Bastard did. Nothing tops that. They still did it, though. And he crawled out of his hole afterward, just to get a look at Jimmy and me. He could barely move, he was in so much pain, but we came to see him, so damn it, he was gonna make it happen.”
“You dealt with them that closely and you didn’t peek at the present?” he asked, dropping the bowl into a sink of steaming water. “Birthdays and Christmas are going to be easy shopping for you then.”
“Don’t go there,” I said, starting to laugh at the absurdity.
“Come on,” he said, picking up the platter of rolls and the plate of omelets. “Was that going on in the back gardens?”
“No, different issue. Similar problem, though,” I said as we passed into the dining room. We heard Jimmy talking, which I thought was a little odd. I figured there would be several small conversations going on.
“…Braedon was like this teary-eyed two-year-old,” he said. “He gave us a beautiful and passionate speech about why they would go through such massive pain and loss, but we’re both standing there going, ‘You’re idiots’.” He shoveled a forkful of scrambled eggs in his mouth as we came out onto the balcony.
“You didn’t… say that, did you?” Richard asked Jimmy cautiously.
“No-oo-oo,” I answered for him, taking a plate from the buffet table just outside the doorway. “They are far too fragile for anything like that right now. Maybe when my children’s children are running the realm.”
“So what did you tell them?” Peter asked.
“That what Daybreak wanted from them was that they keep their families fed, healthy, and happy,” Jimmy said. “Which, now that I think about it, probably oversteps my bounds since you haven’t told me what you expect out of them. Or me, either for that matter.”
“Good morning all,” Kieran said as he appeared directly onto the balcony. Salutations echoed across the balcony.
“Good morning, Free Lord,” I said, hiding my grin in my plate.
“Free Lord?” Kieran asked, his face a mask of confusion as he took a plate from the buffet and helped himself. Shrank slipped off his shoulder in a lazy roll and took to wing at waist height, stretching out his arms and legs at strange angles.
“Lord Daybreak’s Fae often refer to me as ‘the Free Lord’s Pixie’ or ‘the Regent’,” Shrank squealed to Kieran as he bobbed up to shoulder level.
“And what makes me ‘the Free Lord’?” Kieran asked, lowering the title into a false bass. He leaned against the balcony railing casually and started eating.
“The fact that you are capable of committing a geas yet have no realm to rely on makes you a free lord, Lord Kieran,” Shrank said. “We had not thought it possible. Neither did we think it possible that a man could hold a Faery realm and your brother did that. I had actually assumed that the geas would have dissolved already.”
Kieran shrugged as he chewed. “We can do that anytime you’d like. I had assumed it would continue to be useful.”
“While I thank you for that consideration, Lord,” the pixie squealed quite seriously in the Fae common tongue and not English. He hovered steadily in front of Kieran in a very formal stance. “I have never thought the possibility under your seal.” Shrank pushed a slight wave of emotional energy through the link of the geas as he spoke that turned into a torrent as he finished. It was a focused burst but Daybreak still read it plainly as well as Kieran’s reaction.
Now I felt like crap. For no good reason, either, other than I snooped into a private and intimate moment unintentionally. Shrank, either intentionally or not, initiated a communion with his Lord. Kieran accepted. Peter or Ethan probably noticed something, but nobody else saw anything.
“May I ask a question?” David asked from the far end of the table. The first I’d heard from him today, actually. We all turned to find him with sudden stage fright as eight faces with eight pairs of eyes staring at him. A chuckle ran through us as Mike said, “Of course, David, ask. They’re wonderfully obtuse when they don’t want to answer something.” This created another brief wave of laughs but it confused me. I thought I told people it was none of their business.
“Shrank said ‘capable of committing a geas’, but I thought a geas was nothing but a long-term compulsion,” David said. “Any wizard can create a compulsion spell and if he’s strong enough or recharges it periodically can create a long-term one. Does that mean any wizard is a potential Fae Lord?” Shrank fell off the balcony railing in fits of laughter. Kieran leaned casually back to check on him, raising an eyebrow of amused concern as he watched the pixie fall a few dozen feet.
“Something tells me it’s not quite that simple,” Mike said leaning back in his chair with his hands laced behind his head.
Shrank flew back up and onto the railing, stifling his laughs and wiping the tears from his eyes, but when he saw David, he fell again, forward this time and hit the floor.
“The answer to your question, David, is yes, but no,” Kieran said. “Yes, a geas is a compulsion spell and, yes, many wizards and magicians are strong enough to place one, but not on the Fae. A compulsion, perhaps, but not a geas, and certainly not one strong enough to override any existing geas. The nature of the Faery creates an almost symbiotic link between both parties that the human wizard’s mind just can’t cope with. The feedback from the linkages snaps instantly.”
“But you and your brother both survived the experience,” David pointed out.
“We haven’t ascertained how Seth managed that particular feat just yet, especially on such a massive scale,” Kieran said, waving his fork around us at the Palace on the last. “That is not something I could manage.”
“Don’t look so glum,” Peter said with a chuckle. “I couldn’t do it either.”
“Yes, you can,” Kieran and I said at the same time, causing him to look back and forth between us confused.
“I mean, you could lay a geas on a Wylde Fae,” I said. “You can’t have Gilán. It’s mine, but you can lay a geas. And you could possibly lay a geas on one of mine but you couldn’t break mine and I could override yours.” Kieran nodded in agreement, biting into a sweet roll.
“How do you figure that?” Peter asked, leaning into the table on his elbows.
I rolled my eyes. I know, not nice, but really? How dense can you be? “You saw Kieran putting his geas on Shrank, right?” I asked him and got a nod. “You didn’t see the actual magic wrap around him, though, right? I did. It was right after that when I realized I was seeing Kieran’s aura, too. Well, look at Shrank now? Can’t you see the bindings on him? Look closely now. Shrank, hold still for a second.”
Peter stared hard at the pixie as Shrank hovered over a small dish of blueberries on the buffet. “Well, I can see it, but I don’t claim to understand it,” Peter said.
“That’s a language issue,” I said, dismissing it as a problem. “Easy to fix.”
“What about Jimmy’s? Can you see how his is different
?” Kieran asked Peter, which actually surprised me because I hadn’t written the spell on Jimmy as a geas, but as a compulsion. Claiming him to throw off the blood spell created the linkages that mimicked the Fae geas. It was Jimmy’s turn to get eight pairs of eyes on him, but if he was the slightest uncomfortable with it, he didn’t show it. Shrank was the first to lose interest.
“I don’t see anything but Gilán’s First,” he squealed and flew happily away to the buffet table, still eyeing the blueberries. Everyone else drew away almost as quickly with remarks of not seeing anything at all. Peter and I were the last two.
“They don’t look similar at all, really,” Peter mumbled, glancing over at me quickly. “The bindings at the middle are a little alike, but overall, Jimmy’s look more… dense, thick. Less verbose, maybe?”
That description was apt, I thought. Then there was the matter of the two additional rings that Shrank didn’t have, giving Jimmy five instead of three, and those two outer rings weren’t golden but blue. When I turned to ask Peter about those rings, I found myself unable to imagine how to communicate that thought for a second. The Twice-Dead God’s weird Babel worm had loosed his spell again. Frustrating.
So was Jimmy a special case?
“Oh, before I forget,” I said loud enough for everyone to hear and completely changing the subject. “As Ethan discovered, we have young, naked guests in the lake out back. She helped you with the jet of water, ya’ know?” I got a little of my smile back at that memory.
“I figured that’s how he got me that far!” Ethan cried, half-standing at the table to see over the railing. He might have seen one more treetop from this angle. “She did it, too? Cool! They may need a strong river.”
“Who’s in the back gardens?” Shrank asked, hovering over the railing.
“The nymphs and their families,” I said. “I took the nymphs to see the freshwater ocean. That’s when I realized she was pregnant and they’d need a real home soon so we found one along the river. Jimmy went to get her parents while I got his so they could spread the good news and that’s when the second problem of the day reared its ugly head. Her mother was extremely worried and afraid of the ramifications of having a Changed child, not for herself or the Changed child, but for her other children and their children.”
“That you might prune that entire branch of their family tree,” Peter said grimly. I nodded, taking a bite out of one of Peter’s sweet rolls.
“Mmm, this is good,” I mumbled, saluting Peter with most of the still-warm and dripping roll. Swallowing, I continued, “I’ve already got the Dea brothers spreading the word that there aren’t any ramifications from me for having Changed children. I was about to leave them to start building their homes when Deason pointed out we were too far away for the sprites to make it back to the Claiming, so I’m letting them stay in the garden until Wednesday.”
“Can I go see them, Seth?” Ian asked. He’d been so quiet I’d forgotten he was here.
Glancing at Mike for permission first, I said, “I don’t have a problem with you meeting them, Ian, as long as either Jimmy or Shrank introduces you first. Just don’t get in their way and make sure the nymphs know you’re there before you get in the water. They’re making new clothes for the Claiming, but I’m sure they’d love some help gathering food and keeping the toddler and the nymphs occupied.”
“Can I, Mike? Can I?” Ian asked his brother. He knew how to work Mike, too, as he literally buzzed in his chair with excitement and his eyes grew to the size of saucers.
“Do you remember our agreement?” Mike asked, reaching over affectionately and scruffing his hair lightly.
Ian ducked his head too slowly with a teenager’s whiny, “Yes.”
“Then after breakfast providing they have the time, it’s fine with me,” Mike said. “Keep the key close.”
“Speaking of, I have to go to the Cahill’s today to hand out keys,” I said. “Ya’ want me to see if Marty wants to go out with you?”
“Yes, please,” Ian said excitedly. The words flew out of his mind like a missile, Hah! He’s got a moat, but I’ve got nymphs in my backyard! I almost laughed out loud.
“What else do we have to do today, Mike?” Kieran asked, sitting down across from me. “Interviews start at one, I remember.”
“Yes, sir,” Mike said, pulling his mystery date book from somewhere. He didn’t hide it or slip it into some magical hole, but he always seemed to have it in a pocket I hadn’t noticed or his briefcase, which I hadn’t seen him carrying. I could see magic so I wasn’t sure what he did exactly. “Everything else on the itinerary today was travel so eliminating that has cleared the day considerably. We basically need to finish shopping and handle some minor logistics with David and Richard.”
“We should check in with Harris and Messner at some point today,” Peter said.
“Harris, anyway. Messner’s probably still onsite now trying to get those people moved,” Richard offered, leaning back in his chair and watching Jimmy go back to the buffet table. “If he’s not then he’s sleeping.”
“Or dodging bullets,” I said offhandedly. “There had to be somebody coming back with trucks or buses for all those men and they didn’t have a compulsion forced onto them.”
“No telling what kind of fallout happened, either,” Peter added. “A dead brigadier general is bound to create problems.”
“But luckily, not our problems,” Richard said, standing. “Where’s the shopping list? I need to add some groceries to it. Somebody’s eating for three.” He was grinning and pointing at Jimmy as he passed behind him. Mike grinned back as he pulled the list free from his date book and handed it over the table to Richard, who changed a few items and started it moving around the table. It stalled when it got to Jimmy.
“A good deal of this list is in storerooms downstairs already,” he said as he read.
“We assumed so,” Mike said, smiling a touch of condescendingly. “But we didn’t want to monopolize Daybreak’s time running such menial tasks as fetching reams of paper. That is what we’re hired to do, after all.”
Jimmy started to say something, changed his mind, then said, “Good point, but, Seth, we’re going to have to staff the Palace soon anyway. Why not start here? Something small and start building on it.”
I chuckled at the thought of it. “There are too many questions to answer first. Where are they to live? Get food? How do I pay them?”
Shrank landed on the table in front of me on a tower of green, sparkling pixie dust. “Pay them, Lord Daybreak? Why would you pay them?” His aura showed an almost surreal confusion.
“For doing work for me,” I answered. “There isn’t any kind of a monetary system set up right now, not even a crude barter. If they don’t find it on the ground, they ain’t got it.”
“True, Lord, but again, why would you pay them?” Shrank asked. “Do you pay your right hand for placing something into your left? Or your left foot for following the rest of your leg when you walk? That is equivalent to what you are saying. I am confused, sir.”
“That is part and parcel to the Faery mindset,” Kieran said, pushing his plate forward on the table. “And if you think about monetary systems in general, what you’ve basically got here is a self-sustaining, hierarchical commune with one man in charge of everything. Internally, money is unnecessary since everyone’s needs are taken care of.”
“So no independent trade between villages,” I suggested. “No use for over-abundance in certain fruit yields. No real farming. None of that?”
“Well, my previous realm had money, but theirs only did around the Games,” Shrank said, lifting off the table. I guess he thought I understood what he was saying.
“And it’s just a start, Seth,” Peter said. “Even cast in stone, it’s not like you can’t remake the stone.” A short laugh rounded through the balcony.
“All I did was water the seed,” I muttered.
“An apt analogy, perhaps,” Kieran said. “It’s not a bad idea, thoug
h. You will have to do it at some point.”
“All right,” I gave in. “I suppose I can ask for volunteers.”
“No!” Kieran, Shrank, and Ethan all cried out loudly, then burst out laughing at each other.
“Your entire Faery population will be at the front gate,” Kieran said cheerfully. “Shrank, Ethan, and I will find some candidates while you and Jimmy deliver and setup keys for the Cahills. Everyone else who’s willing can go shopping.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, getting a little frustrated about it. “But, Shrank, would you see if you can turn their… awe factor down a few thousand degrees?” He looked to Kieran for clarification.
“I’ll try to explain on the way, Shrank,” Kieran said grinning.
“All right, then, Jimmy,” I said, standing up. “Let’s introduce you to the Cahill’s and see what Marty’s up to today. Oh, David, I’m sorry, I forgot about you. You should come, too.”
David ran off to get dressed while I went back to my room to get more diamonds for keys and Jimmy took Mike and Ian to meet the sprites and nymphs in the gardens. I just couldn’t handle the Fae anymore right then, maybe a snotty elf, but not a fawning fairy. I was still helping with the breakfast dishes when David and Jimmy came back. Richard ran us off and Peter didn’t object, so I moved us to the Castle’s door.
It was probably too much to hope that today would be devoid of killing, but I did anyway as we re-entered to world of man again. Maybe just a light maiming…
Chapter 17
Walking through, I pushed into the Castle’s wards and found John busy, busy, busy. Work crews were building stadium seating in several places in the hills just outside the castle. Two different sizes, man and elf, spaced out rather oddly from this perspective, but that was probably due to incomplete data. I did wonder what they were making the elves’ benches with. Steel nails and screws could be a problem.
Explaining the process we had setup with the Cahills, Jimmy made the call downstairs and got someone neither of us knew. Now we had a true test of our security protocol, so I notified John of what to expect and sat back and watched. It only took two minutes, give or take, for two stout men to show up in the hallway of our wing with Marty a few feet behind them. I wasn’t too happy with the time or that Marty was the identifier, but honestly it wasn’t bad.
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