King Henry Short Pack One (The King Henry Tapes)

by Richard Raley

  “Secret,” Price said, mulling the word, “not a secret. Just personal, which is a lot fucking worse, ain’t it?”

  They passed clothes shops, jewelry stores, and shoe stores. Three or four kiosks with mall junk. Remote control helicopters always looked fun, but have you ever tried to fly one yourself? Tyson broke three of them before he got the hang of it.

  Price shook his head at a bit of aerial acrobatics on the part of the salesman. “Might try making something like that one day. Geo-anima and aero-anima I’d think. Shit, could make a hawk or a pterodactyl for all the shape would matter . . . would just have to be lightweight.”

  Tyson thought this over. It seemed like a revelation. This rude . . . bastard . . . was the most valuable type of mancer on the planet. “You really are an Artificer?”

  “What else would I be with this coat?”

  “I just . . . making something with the Mancy like that . . . it seems so . . . awesome. I don’t see why you gave it up.”

  Not even a baring of teeth this time, a full on snarl equal to any beast. “Didn’t give it up, doing it on my own terms. Fucking Guild’s backwards. I’m forwards.” Silence again, eventually broken by Price. “So . . . the Asylum.”

  “I don’t mind the nickname in private, but I try to call it the Institution in public. You get strange looks otherwise.”

  “Cuz the short white guy and the huge black guy ain’t getting weird looks already . . .”

  I guess that’s a fair point. “What about the Asylum?”

  “Ceinwyn recruit you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Guessing she didn’t walk through your door to get the Mancy across to you . . .”

  Wow . . . that would be something to see. “No. We talked about it.”

  “How boring for Ceinwyn.”

  “She seemed to enjoy it at the time.”

  “She dislikes talking, man, haven’t you paid attention to her at all? It’s too slow for her.”

  “But she loves reactions.”

  “Yeah . . . because while we’re figuring our reaction she can walk down the choice-path and have us make about twenty different versions by the time we get around to it.”

  “Interesting observation.”

  “That’s me . . . fucking observant as hell.”

  At first the cursing had thrown Tyson, even though he’d expected it. It was strange how quickly you got used to it from Price. Well, he can’t help himself, can he? “What class rank did you graduate with?”

  Price did actually smile this time. “Second.”

  “I . . . really?”

  “Could have had first if I wanted it, but gave it up for a girl. And to make sure the guy under me tasted third place for the first time in his rich boy life. What about you?”

  “Third,” Tyson said ruefully.

  “Not bad. You aren’t High Five, right?”

  The gap between First Tier and Second Tier wasn’t nearly the size of the gap between Second and Third, or on the same planet as Ultra and Intra . . . but there was still a gap. “No, electromancer.”

  “See, third place is damned good for you, fighting against an unfair fucking system like the Asylum’s class rankings. High Five gets a bump just because; bullshit, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Had that naked chick who ran through the woods as your Ultra teacher, eh?”

  “Miss Clarke,” Tyson provided and also corrected, “only during lightning storms.”

  “Yeah . . . only part of it that kept my ass from trying to sneak a peek.”

  “I . . .”

  “Heard she offers to take you Stormcallers with her on the runs, ever take her up on the offer?” Price leered.

  “No . . .”

  Silence . . . then, like a trap springing into Tyson’s face, Price said, “Probably a good thing. Would have killed some people running around with that huge black cock as hard as a spear over the nudity, right?”

  Miss Dale . . . why are you doing this to me?

  *

  They ended up in a store that sold . . . Tyson couldn’t think of any word for it but junk. But apparently junk that people kept buying. Joke books, naughty mugs, lava lamps, plasma balls, cheap jewelry, custom chess sets, pipes, and . . . swords. Because . . . why not?

  Price had stopped at a sword with an extremely complicated, demon-headed double hilt. “Now that son-of-a-bitch is unpractical.”

  “It’s Frostmourne,” Tyson said.

  “What?”

  “Frostmourne, that’s the name of the sword.”

  Price looked unsure if he was being joked with or not.

  Tyson let his geek out and dropped a lore bomb, “Frostmourne, the runeblade wielded by the Lich King Arthas in World of Warcraft. It’s a video game . . . old now, but some people still play it.”

  Price looked liked he’d been smacked in the balls with a geek manual. “You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”

  “I . . . I’m too busy for one.”

  “Yeah,” Price lamented, “that’s what I tell myself too. Still . . . always one night stands with bar skanks, right?”

  “Uh . . . yeah,” Tyson said, “Right . . . bar skanks.”

  “What’s your job that’s keeping you away from the pussy?”

  Is he self aware? Tyson asked himself. Does he realize how rude he is? Does he just not care? Or is he just oblivious? Aloud, he said, “I run a company specializing in computer security consulting for other businesses around the Central Valley.”

  Price picked up a chess piece of a dragon wrapped around a castle, studied it, then sat it down. “So . . . how’s the Mancy make that different?”

  “Not much. I can mess with computer code with anima blasts if I want, but it’s quicker just to type it.”

  “Unless you’re on the thief side of things. You wouldn’t even need to get through the defenses . . . you could just change the inside of the safe . . .”

  “Well . . . I’m not on the thief side of things.”

  “Yeah . . . not much fun that way though, is it?”

  “I enjoy it.”

  Another chess piece, this one a half-naked warrior woman. Price spent more time with it. “Long hours?”

  “Always on the clock.”

  “Ah . . . just like me, I guess.”

  Tyson squinted. “I suppose I could agree if I knew what you were doing.”

  “Not complicated. I’m an Artificer . . . I do Artificer stuff.”

  “Outside the Guild?”

  “Outside the Guild,” Price agreed. He finally set down the warrior woman. “Ceinwyn’s my backer. We’re fighting the good fight.”

  “To do what?”

  “To fix the world.”

  Tyson blinked a few times. “Excuse me?”

  “Nowgame is to run a shop, do some experimenting, work outside the Guild bylaws. Endgame is to find a way to cure Anima Madness with an artifact.”

  Tyson blinked yet a few more times. The statement was almost . . . pompous. One person, beating the Guild . . . and curing Anima Madness at the same time. Two people with Ceinwyn Dale on his team, I suppose. Tyson had yet another thought, three people if I agree to help like Miss Dale wants. She had pull in the mancer world. The Last True Dale. Head of Recruiting. A name to be taken seriously, with money and history behind it. King Henry Price . . . not so much.

  He graduated second in his class. This cursing, foul, rude, violent, rebellious, but yet . . . weirdly funny man . . . graduated second . . . because he wanted second and not first. Because he enjoyed giving one classmate the award and taking it from another more than he cared about being at the top. He doesn’t care how the world sees him . . . but he’s going to try to fix it anyway . . .

  “My uncle died of Anima Madness,” Tyson admitted, “I never knew him . . . but . . . I’ve always wondered.”

  “Yeah, sucks ass,” was all Price said about the subject.

  Tyson studied him for a bit. Price flipped through a dirty joke book, chuckling
to himself occasionally. The world’s savior? Tyson was pretty sure the world was doomed if so . . . but . . . if not for Price then because Miss Dale asked for his help . . . “I have some ideas about artifact designs I’ve never heard the Guild producing if you ever want to hear them.”

  The dirty joke book disappeared. “Like?”

  “Actually making a Merlin Staff?”

  “That little fable they tell us about the lightning bolts in Single? Nice to know you’re not thinking small.”

  “Or . . . a taser ring.”

  “A taser ring?”

  “Quick defense. Non-lethal. No need for lightning bolts. It’s really hard not to kill people with them . . .”

  “What a pity it must be to have that problem,” Price grumbled. He thought it over for awhile. “Yeah . . . it’s something to think about. If you’re really interested in artificing and Ceinwyn backs you, I suppose the least you could do to help is give a second look over my conversion formulas.”

  “Have you made one yet? An artifact?

  “Sure . . . tell ya what . . . this ain’t the place for talking designs where anyone could hear us,” Price pulled out a business card, “I’m going to take off. Stop by my shop and we can talk about . . . taser rings. We’ll leave a Merlin Staff for later.”

  Tyson read the business card. King Henry’s Hidden Treasures. What a name . . . “Sure. Nice meeting you King Henry.”

  Price bared his teeth one last time. “Yeah, sure it was a fucking revelation. See ya later, T-Bone.”

  For a few seconds Tyson’s entire body couldn’t move as he processed the word. T-Bone?!?

  *

  Miss Dale was where she’d said she would be.

  Victoria’s Secret.

  Not a store that Tyson had much familiarity with. When his girlfriends over the years talked about dress up and role-playing it usually meant cosplay outfits . . . not pushup bras or v-strings.

  Luckily for him, Miss Dale was in the section for normal pajamas, though Tyson still earned a concerned stare or three from the other women in the store. “Why here?” he complained. “Why not GameStop?”

  “King Henry wouldn’t be caught in here if his life depended on it.”

  “I’m unsure of that . . . from what I can tell he’d probably view it as a place to pick up a one night stand.”

  “It reminds him too much of his mother,” Miss Dale said.

  “Um . . . that’s too much information.”

  “She’s dead. The last day he spent with her was in a mall,” she explained while looking at something pinkish. At least it had noticeable legs and sleeves on it. “He doesn’t like malls now.”

  “Then why have the meeting between us here?”

  She put the pinkish thing back. “To make him nervous enough to not run you over like he’s very able to do. So . . . how did it go?”

  “He’s . . .”

  “Foul?”

  “Yes, very much yes . . . but like you said, he knows the Mancy from what I can tell. He said you two want to fix the world.”

  “That’s the plan.” Something pale yellow and slightly golden.

  “And where do I fit in?” Since you obviously have a spot for me.

  “You . . . you Tyson Bonnie watch King Henry for me, help him where you can with the Mancy, and be a friend if possible.”

  Tyson snorted. “Seems like a long shot.”

  “You might be surprised about the variety of friends King Henry can make if he bothers to try.”

  “A known face at best for now, I think.”

  “This is very important, Tyson. For me, for you, for every mancer alive and unborn.”

  “I know, Miss Dale. Don’t worry; at the least, I’ll keep him out of too much trouble.”

  She smiled with a line of lips that cut the air. “I don’t know about those impossible goals . . . instead, just focus on keeping him alive for me.”

  THE END

  Second Take

  The Heinrich Welf novelette, “Second Take” takes place the first day of second year for Ultra Class ’09. It not only gives readers a look into Welf’s mind, but also gives justifications for why he acts the why he acts (while still making sure he’s a douchebag…just a justified douchebag). It is also the first introduction of the Vicky Welf character.

  The bus felt like a coffin.

  But Heinrich von Welf had long been at home with the dead.

  No windows. No escape for the next eleven months except a short stay of execution around Christmas. Unlike all the others on the bus, Heinrich found himself finally relaxing. His parents were far behind him, the Asylum was fast approaching. Home. Jason, Hope, Jessica, and Quinn. Mr. Gullick and Mr. Root. The Graveyard Club, basketball and baseball and fencing. Valentine Ward . . .

  The Foul Mouth, he added but ignored the frustration and regret that bubbled up inside him.

  Even if the bus had been made of nothing but glass, even if there had been a thousand Foul Mouths waiting for him, Heinrich wouldn’t have tried to escape. Eleven months of prison for most felt like eleven months of freedom for him. No watching eyes, no frowns, no disapproving stares.

  A call from home maybe. Or a letter urging him to improve his already stellar grades. But no frowning disappointment at his lack of perfection every day. At the Asylum, even with the Foul Mouth, Heinrich von Welf could usually relax. As long as his class rank kept firmly in first place—a position it hadn’t moved from since Price’s accidental manipulation with the December Evaluations—it didn’t matter who Heinrich’s friends were or if he practiced free throws instead of equations.

  The other children on the bus would have called his life at the Asylum prison-like as well, but . . . when fourteen years of your life was nothing but heading down the middle of the road and only the middle of the road . . . choosing to be near the left or right curb was freedom.

  A coffin: no windows, no breeze, no gas motor, just the buzz of an electric engine and the recycled air of a metal canister. They could have floated through space at warp speed for all the students inside could tell.

  Every seat being filled only added to the claustrophobia.

  A majority of Intras, a small sliver of Ultras, and of those only two others from Heinrich’s class. Estefan Ramirez and Pocket Landry weren’t close friends, but still they sat next to each other near the front of the bus, chatting amiably about something. Girls or sports knowing them.

  Among the Intras, the Quads looked bored to still be in school, the Tri’s anxious to arrive, the Bi’s smugly confident, and the Singles terrified.

  Sitting there, waiting for the bus to stop and the doors to open, Heinrich felt the rush of superiority that only a sophomore can. Not the lowest, not the most ignorant. For the first time. Generally, Heinrich was never the lowest or the most ignorant, so this casting off of innocence for wisdom doubly suited him.

  Heinrich had known about the Asylum since he was five. He visited the campus a few times even, with his father visiting uncle Wolfgang or with Mother when she reported to the Learning Council. He was a First Tier Ultra and a Welf; the Asylum had belonged to him from birth. Even knowing this . . . the first bus ride had been a journey into the unknown, but one Heinrich eagerly anticipated for years.

  Heinrich stretched out his long frame, enjoying the extra space his favorite seat at the back always provided. There had been no Jason to clear the way this time, only a Welf’s smile and nod and a few of the Intra Quads motioning the three Singles who had poached the seat to move already.

  One of the perks of being an Ultra.

  Intras couldn’t understand. They thought it was snobbery. Perks, few perks, small insignificant perks like riding the spot of the bus with an extra foot of space. Yet being an Ultra, and a Welf, was mostly responsibility; it was a heavy duty to the Mancy, to all the mancers in the world.

  Being the best, being an example for all those not as blessed. Heinrich also stayed at the back of the bus so he could watch over his fellow students, so he could k
eep an eye out for trouble and step up to stop a fight or say a calming word. Keeping the peace.

  The third reason he claimed the back seat was so his sister wouldn’t have some idiot boy slobbering all over her. It was bad enough that a few of those closest to them kept turning around to snatch a peek at her. Heinrich met their eyes each time, letting the predators know he saw them coming from miles away.

  Victoria was as good-heartedly oblivious about it as always. People assumed quite a bit about his family, and much of it was wrong, but when it came to his family still thinking of itself as a collection of nineteenth century aristocrats . . . they weren’t far off. Heinrich as the firstborn male had been taught logic, reasoning, law, civics, Latin, mathematics, science, had been encouraged to ride horses and to hunt—neither of which he enjoyed but both of which he could fake enjoying—and had accompanied both his father and mother on family business to as far as Europe before he had even entered puberty.

  Victoria, on the contrary, had been taught singing, dancing, use of the piano and the flute, painting, embroidery, and had learned French, Spanish, and Italian. Her most strenuous academic exercise had probably been penmanship. She was not stupid, rather had a smart mind, but was in many ways still a child despite being only a year younger than Heinrich at fourteen.

  Innocent little sister . . .

  They looked alike when it came to coloring. Blond hair and blue eyes. But where Heinrich’s blond was pale and his blue eyes looked as gray as stone, Victoria’s were both bright. They had the same long face, which on Heinrich looked regal but on Victoria made her a handsome woman, not pretty or beautiful. Personality . . . she beats me badly there, I’ll surrender that point without a contest.

  Innocent and friendly and so likeable, always saying the right thing.

  Heinrich never seemed to say the right thing.

  Especially with the Foul Mouth.

  Heinrich stared harder than ever at a Tri boy who had turned around in his seat. The boy eventually noticed and slouched downward out of sight. This year is going to exhaust me . . .

  “Are any of your friends on the bus with us?” Victoria asked, turning to give him a mischievous smile.