Sons (Book 2)

by Scott V. Duff

  “I’ll probably need my own closet,” Jimmy said as he shifted to his own bathroom to shower. I moved Peter and me to my bathroom and tugged my shirt off.

  “Mongrel in Calcutta? Layin’ it on a bit thick, don’tcha’ think?” I asked as I walked further in. Peter stopped at the mirror that served as the doorway to my closet. Opening the way for him, I went to wash the doggy smell off me.

  “Well,” his voice echoed several times before it got to me, adding an ethereal quality to it, “I did run across way too many people wearing patchouli oil today and I do tend to equate that with ‘unwashed.’ Hurry up.”

  With a little push of speed I was in and out of the shower inside of ten seconds and walking through the mirror into my closet. I felt a little guilty about the pool earlier and dressed myself in a silky, blue robe as I stepped through. Peter stood three aisles down looking at a case critically. I took the undershirt that showed Daybreak’s power so beautifully, wrapping me in it through the robe. May not have to use it now, but tonight was a certainty.

  “Better?” I asked Peter, running a slightly flushed arm under his nose. He cut his eyes over at me without moving his head and started vigorously shaking a small bottle in his left hand. Then he sniffed.

  “Yes, much,” he said, a little dreamily. “Damn you smell good.” Then he inhaled deeply from a small white bottle he’d shaken, making his head snap back sharply and yelping.

  “What is that?” I asked laughing at him.

  “It’s a faery glamour blocker,” Peter admitted sheepishly and a little defensively, an odd combination. “After this morning, I wasn’t taking any chances in here with you and pheromones. Now what do you think this is supposed to be?”

  I let him distract me with the odd looking costume in the display case. Like the undershirt I wore now, it was magical in purpose and design. And totally illogical in esthetics. It looked like a comic book supervillain’s costume, a really bad supervillain with completely lame superpowers that I was hiding behind a hideously garish costume so no one would notice how lame those were. Something like “Super Surrealistic Emu Man” or “Acute Angle Measure Man.” On a hunch, I pulled the top drawer open and looked inside.

  “Oh, yeah, this makes more sense,” I said. The drawer below the oddly shaped strips of fabric contained several fabric covers that fit over a stiff, multi-part—for lack of a better word—breastplate. This in turn held the colored fabrics in place while the magic fabric from the case glued it all together and would still light it up with Daybreak’s aura. It was really a fairly functional and very changeable outfit. Turning around, I spotted a mirror at the end of an aisle to our left and dressed my reflection with one of the various color combinations the outfit allowed.

  “See?” I said, pointing back at the mirror. “Definitely something that’ll take practice to wear and make look good, but it makes more sense now.”

  “Yeah,” Peter said slowly. “Let’s save that one for Mardi Gras or Halloween or maybe even Carnivale. Are you by chance color-blind?” He asked the question with perfect innocence while still seeming to dance out of reach of a swat on the back of the head. He forgot I was faster now. “Ow!”

  “So I can’t wear the green silks. Why not the blues then? They’re comfortable and they match y’all’s, almost.”

  “True,” Peter agreed, “But we’re only getting away with it out of disrespect for the Rat Bastard. You, on the other hand, have to show respect for everyone else and you have to seem more ‘Lordly’ now.”

  “You want to dip me in epoxy so I can roll around in the diamond well?” I asked facetiously. I think he actually considered it.

  “Nothing says ‘I’m better than you’ than a suit of diamonds,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s got to be worse than sand in your bathing suit, though.” He headed back toward the more normal clothing. “Dillon could spend a few weeks rummaging through here. I guess you really shouldn’t be too flashy.”

  Following Peter, I walked further down the aisle while he shuffled through shirts. There were shifts in colors as I moved deeper and it was when three color blends occurred that I found one I liked, a daybreak—trite already, I know—in blue, red, and white, sort of.

  “Peter? What do you think of this?” I called up the aisle and pulled the suit off the rack. It was surprisingly heavy for the silk it appeared to be made of. We met at the mirror between us. With a tiny push and a twist of energy, I dressed my reflection in the black slacks and shoes. The shirt and jacket were a little longer than I normally wore them. At the waist and cuffs was a bright white line that faded almost instantly to red that fed into a gradient with Gilán-blue across my shoulders. The shirt kept the colors laterally across me but the jacket encircled the center of the line at my navel, creating a disk. A small flare of pale yellow met at that point with a bright, almost metallic red, feeding another gradient across the red band to Gilán-blue. The sleeves of the jacket were as loose as the shirt, and both the pants and the jacket had pockets.

  “I think that will do nicely,” Peter said, so I walked through the reflective surface, switching the suit for the robe, and walked out facing Peter. “Is that made of lycra or something?”

  Pausing to look down, I said, “I don’t think so. Why? Doesn’t it fit right?” I turned several directions looking in the multiple mirrors for tightness and pulling at the jacket and shirt in several places. I thought it looked good.

  “No, no, you look great in it,” Peter said hurriedly, smirking as he turned for the door.

  “You can slow down, Peter,” I said, smoothing out the jacket and admiring my reflection. “Jimmy’s barely out of the shower. We’ve only been here about six minutes.”

  “Oh,” Peter muttered, stopping at the head of the aisle. “I guess we can give him a few minutes, then.”

  “Relax, he won’t be long,” I said as I walked past him after losing interest in the mirrors rather quickly. “Come on. I have to pick a couple of diamonds for the Queens.”

  “Why?” he asked scoffing. “I thought it was their place to give the gifts in this situation.”

  “I don’t think gifts are required in either direction, but they’ll want a way to contact me since I’m not in Faery with them. The diamonds are the only way I can think of that’ll do that.”

  “Won’t the Queens be able to come through the veil using the diamonds?” Peter asked with serious concern in his voice.

  “No,” I answered mildly as I shifted us to the well. The giant diamond floated on the stream of water that couldn’t possibly support its weight and magically held the image of Gilán on its surfaces. “It’s not a veil in the same sense as the veil to Faery or any other realm, really. I mean, it is and it isn’t. There’s something else up there that’s pretty damn strong.”

  Waving my hand over the pool, I sifted the pile of gems, looking for a larger sample. The Queens’ should be more impressed by the size. The cut, quality, clarity and all that other mumbo-jumbo wasn’t a worry. I just wasn’t finding anything that matched what I wanted. Thinking about it a moment, I decided they needed to be fairly similar if not exactly identical. At least one face should be roughly four inches wide and somewhat circular or maybe oval. Even with such general thoughts as a description, a fairly specific image flashed into my mind.

  I had an odd sensation as my magic took the brief flash and prepared to make it real. The foundation Stone hummed in a low, gravely threat and seized Daybreak before the wild magic could complete. This was happening amazingly fast. Above the marbled-façade of the Stone, the Pact glowed and fed a stream of images down through the Stone and to Daybreak. Then the Faery Liege stamped the images into the faces of the diamonds one by one. Then I pushed our desire and will to Gilán and the world-diamond pulsed with power. A lot of it.

  My thoughts moved downward. There, at the bottom of the pile, sat two identical stones. Pulling them to the top of the pile took a few seconds; it’s a deep well. I reached down into the shallow water once they were clos
e enough and inspected them carefully. They were heavy, brilliant blue, somewhat oval, perfectly clear. The top and bottom faces were oval, measuring six by ten inches across. The whole thing was about eight by twelve by two inches. They were impossible stones. And each one was completely full. Daybreak hung an image significant in some way to each of the Queens on every available nook and cranny the diamond allowed.

  Of course, that makes it sound like I wasn’t in control of Daybreak or the Stone. I was. I controlled the flow of information, what everything would look like, where each idea and emotion existed along with each image. I discarded certain images, even exempting entire periods of time. This must, without any doubt, be a pleasantly disturbing gift to each of them. The Queens were the only ones who could see the images on their respective diamonds, unless they chose to let someone else in. Just like the keys, these were locked to the Queens. And the scenes were disturbing because I had no right to have those pictures.

  “Ellorn, are you free?” I called to the air, handing one of the heavy stones to Peter to examine.

  “Yes, Lord,” he answered, distantly, “but I’m afraid I can’t see you from where ever you are.”

  Following his voice, I found him on the promenade, not far from the barracks, speaking with a small group of sprites. Pulling him to me, I unlocked the side door on the left side of my room. It connected to Jimmy’s apartment directly and from there to the access hallway to the family wing. Still had to go through Jimmy’s apartment, but the Palace did not want to give direct access to anyone, for some reason. I suppose it really wasn’t unreasonable on some level.

  “Hey,” I said by way of greeting and sat down beside him on the edge of the well where he stood. This wasn’t his first time at the well but he had an extremely difficult time not staring at the Worldgem.

  “Lord, how may I serve?” Ellorn asked finally tearing himself away.

  “I will be giving these to the emissaries as gifts for the Queens of Faery later today,” I told the Major Domo of my Palace, indicating the two dinner plate-sized gemstones that Peter and I held. “I need cases suitable for transporting them from here to the Cahills’ and from there for Faery. Do we have anything or can we make anything?”

  “How quickly would you need them, Lord?” he asked cautiously.

  “Two, two and a half hours,” I guessed. “Absolute latest would be dusk at the Cahills’ so close to three. These actually have to be impressive cases. Not that the last two I asked for weren’t! They were both gorgeous, but these two have to be a little more enduring and, if possible, ‘speak’ to them. This is for the Queens and you can imagine how temperamental they are. But… they have to be extremely positive, as difficult as that is with them.”

  Ellorn laughed at that, just a small, nervous tinkle of a giggle. Gilán was likely the only place in the universe that he could safely laugh at a scornful comment about the Queens of elves and not be tortured for days and weeks.

  “Are they as heavy as they appear to be, Lord?” he asked.

  “Yes, quite,” Peter answered melodramatically drawing the words out and groaning as he hefted the diamond up to the light. He’d noticed the etching, finally, and was holding it up to the light from the front windows. When he caught the light the sigils etched in the center of the stones blazed into a rainbow of color declaring Daybreak and Gilán together and inseparable on the face of the gem. Peter barked out a rough laugh and said, “Beats the hell outta some nasty assed cages! Damn, Seth, these are fuckin’ fantastic!”

  “Will you want to display them before the emissaries take them to the Queens, Lord?” Ellorn asked.

  “It would probably be a good idea, yes,” I said after thinking about it a moment. “That way they can’t plug a ringer in, not that I couldn’t track the culprit down if they tried it, but let’s not take that chance.”

  “Does this have images on it?” Peter asked as he probed into the diamond’s surfaces. “I can’t get a sense of the structure here.”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s full. And I do mean full,” I said. “There are very personal scenes of their respective lives in the gems, locked behind their essence signatures. Had to search through quite a bit to find the good times, though.”

  “Are there any limitations that you wish for us to maintain, Lord Daybreak?” Ellorn asked.

  I felt Jimmy enter my room from the access hallway and head for the Road. “Jimmy’s on his way,” I said to Peter, then answered Ellorn. “No limitations that I can think of, except no one should get intentionally hurt for it.”

  “And you might want to consider that there will probably be a need for other gifts in the future,” Peter added. “You’ve already set the bar pretty high with the gift. You might need the package on the next to be more splendid just because of that.”

  Chuckling, I said, “I get the point but in this case I need them as impressive as possible. They will compare, true, but not one after another. They don’t think that way. Ellorn? Can you do this or shall I?”

  “Yes, Lord Daybreak, we of the Palace can create suitable carrying cases as you require,” the brownie squealed happily as Jimmy entered the alcove. “Can we have two facsimiles to work with while you are gone? The workshops are quite a distance from here.”

  “Certainly,” I answered and, reaching across the Palace to one of the forging areas in the outer reaches of the south wing, grabbed several pounds of modeling clay. When I brought it over, I cast its shape into the same shape as the dinner plate diamonds and sealed the outer edges against drying and cracking. They didn’t have to last more than a few hours so I didn’t worry about making them structurally sound in any way.

  “These aren’t anywhere near as heavy, though,” I said as I held one out to Ellorn. Jimmy’s jaw dropped when he saw the blue disks sitting in Peter’s and my laps.

  “I would think not, sir,” Ellorn said, taking the clay disk from me with relative ease. “There is perhaps a sixty to one ratio?”

  “Make it a hundred just to be on the safe side,” Peter said. “Where do you want this in the mean time?”

  I moved mine, the gem for the Unseelie Queen to my desk in my office, then I shifted Seelie Queen’s from Peter’s lap to my desk as well, right beside the other one. Jimmy stopped gawking since the diamonds disappeared and now merely stared at the clay model that Ellorn held. I offered the brownie the second reproduction.

  “Jimmy, do you mind if they go through your apartment for a few hours to get through to here?” I asked him. “They’d just have to go through the access hall.” He nodded mutely, still staring at the models. “Ellorn, would you mind also once that’s done sending a few people down to straighten up my bathroom and closet? I’ve been a bit of a slob and we’re rather pressed for time.”

  The brownie’s eagerness hit new heights. “Yes, Lord Daybreak! Certainly!”

  “Very good, thank you, Ellorn,” I said and pushed awareness of my room into his mind so that he could find his way around. “I’ll give you as much warning ahead of time as I can before I come for the cases, okay?”

  “Yes, Lord,” Ellorn squealed happily and jumped off the ledge with his models, already contacting his subordinates through some sort of psychic web in the Palace.

  “Y’all ready?” I asked, standing.

  “Um, yeah. What the hell were those, anyway?” Jimmy asked looking back after Ellorn. He was opening the big door to my room from halfway down the Road as he sped toward it. “Nice suit, by the way.”

  I shifted us over to the Cahill’s foyer. There were quite a few people moving through the corridor when we appeared, but I’d chosen a quiet corner. “Remind me to search the grounds again before the next stage of this,” I said a little nervously as I watched forty people rush past us carrying various implements of catering services. “Where do we need to be?”

  “There you are!” John cried from the landing of the stairs. “We’ve been looking for you three. We’re almost ready to introduce you and start the reception. Come along now.�
�� John descended the stairs with a speed that belied his age and walked quickly out the front door. We almost had to run to keep up with him, at least until a quarter of the way up the hill. He slowed down some then; after all, the man was in his late sixties and he’d been moving hard all day.

  He led us to a small tent at the top of the hill, very near to where they’d setup the command tent for last week’s attack on MacNamara. The other side of this tent opened to a passage to a larger, open pavilion where nearly one hundred and twenty people sat or milled around waiting and talking jovially with one another. Felix and Gordon were at the far entrance, talking quiet with each other as they watched the crowd of people move and undulate as they waited. They both looked up at us when we came in.

  “Good! You’re on time,” Gordon said. I felt him rise up into the wards, so I followed him, curious to see what was going on. “Billy, Martin, are you ready?”

  I found Billy in the Butler’s pantry, sitting beside the buffet table. Marty, though, was sitting at a table in the pavilion, just a few yards away from us. Of course I wondered what was up, but I waited instead of asking. The wards buzzed slightly as both Billy and Marty signaled to Gordon that they understood him. I guess.

  “I stand relieved,” Gordon said and passed the controls of the wards to Martin very slowly. Marty then placed certain controls, specifically the outer gates to the grounds, on Billy, but kept a majority of them, especially those of the Castle itself even though it was currently dormant. Billy, in turn, began shutting those gates completely, locking us all into the property.

  The exchange made sense to me now. Gordon couldn’t have dropped the wards onto Martin hot or he’d risk frying his brother’s mind and with the collection of wizards and magicians here it would be incredibly risky to drop the wards for Marty to re-engage them. They had to swap control while the power was on and running hot. This couldn’t be done if the Castle was raised.

  “So, did you guys dress alike on purpose?” Gordon asked grinning at us.