Portals of Infinity: Reprisal

by John Van Stry

  I shook my head, "Probably figures he's going to trade her off eventually, like he did his previous wife."

  I went back out in to the main room and looked around at things. The bar could easily be turned into an altar, especially considering Fel's history. But I was pretty sure that I couldn't consecrate it. I should be able to bless the grounds and put in the wards, I'd seen it done enough times that I remembered the ceremony and the blessings involved, and I was technically a member of the clergy, but it wouldn't be easy. That kind of work was draining on your spiritual energy, and I didn't have anywhere near as much as the priests and priestesses did.

  "I want you two, to continue to live here for now," I pulled out a few coppers and gave them to Stu, he looked impressed. "This should tide you over for a while. Tomorrow I'm going to start working on changing this place, for now, just enjoy a night off."

  "What about the ale?" Liz asked.

  "Leave it; I'll deal with it tomorrow. Let me know if you have any problems."

  They both nodded and I got Laria and left.

  "Now what?" she asked.

  "I need to hire a carpenter. Suggestions?"

  She nodded and led me to one. It didn't take long to hire him to come out tomorrow morning. After that was done, I got her to take me to her father's wool works. I wasn't interested in the wool so much, though I was impressed at the size of the operation. They made a lot of heavy blankets and cloaks, which in the winter here I was sure were rather valuable. Mainly I wanted to check the dye works and see what kinds of chemicals might be available.

  The idea of using something explosive to collapse the cave was still one I wanted to pursue. I just didn't know how.

  The next morning I got out of bed relatively early. Not that Laria helped any. If it wasn't for the work on converting the tavern, and having told the carpenter to meet me there, I think I would have been content to spend the day in bed with her. Young women can be very enticing after all.

  When we got there, things looked pretty much like they had the night before, though Stu was looking like he'd been rode rather hard and put away wet.

  Liz just seemed rather pleased with herself.

  I told the carpenter what I wanted, which was for the bar to be separated from the wall, and the whole thing raised up eight inches on a platform that ran five feet out all around it for the clergy to stand on. I also wanted all the tables and chairs removed, and a series of pews built, or at least benches, for the congregation to sit in. I was surprised by how many rows he said he could put in, the building was big enough to pack in quite a few.

  After that was done, I wanted both of the storerooms turned into living quarters as well. He told me he'd have it all but the benches done in two weeks. The hard and time-consuming part would be building the long benches; he didn't have enough wood to build more than a third of them right now, and it would probably take a month or two to get them all done.

  After that was done, I set about blessing all of the grounds, the place was long enough that I'd need six wards, and I wasn't exactly sure of what to use for that. They had to be the same, almost exactly so, and needed to be made of something that would last. I knew how to lay them, and even how to bless and set them. I was pretty happy now that I'd paid attention when I'd helped with the other temples.

  But first I had to get everything blessed and consecrated. I used up most of the water in the flask doing that, and I was surprised at the amount of energy that it took. By the time I was done, I was feeling pretty drained. It was getting late by then, it had taken me about ten hours to cover all of the building and the surrounding outside grounds. I couldn't do as big a section at a time as the priests or priestesses could, I just didn't have that level of power.

  "I don't think I'll ever tease Nara again," I groaned as Laria gave me a backrub much later as we lay in her bed.

  "Who's that?" she asked curious.

  "The high priestess of Fel's temple. I've watched her do that kind of work before, and I always used to tease her about being tired afterwards. I had no idea it took so much out of you!"

  "Why did you have to do it, anyway?"

  "The ground has to be sanctified, before the wards can be set. Then the wards have to be blessed and put in place. Once that's all done, it's holy ground. After that, the altar can be consecrated, and blessed. Then it's a church."

  "Sounds like a lot of work."

  "Without a priestess or a priest, it is," I sighed, her fingers felt good on the tired muscles of my back.

  "Can you do the thing with the altar?" she asked.

  I gave my head a small shake. "No, we're going to need an actual priestess or priest here for that. But if I have everything else done, they should be able to do that, once they get here."

  "Ah, when will that be?"

  I would have face palmed if I hadn't been facedown on the bed. I hadn't thought about that. I should have asked Fel to send someone here the other night.

  "I have no idea," I sighed. "I didn't think about it, until you just mentioned it."

  "What are you going to do about the giants? My mother tells me father says the others are all getting worried."

  "Well, we have three more days until they show up again. I guess tomorrow I should check with how things are going with setting up some runners and training up our new militia."

  "I don't think you'll be happy with what you find," Laria told me, working farther down my back.

  "Oh?"

  "The others aren't all that convinced, and getting the help of the other villagers isn't going well either."

  I sighed, "Don't these people have any kind of survival instinct?" I complained.

  Laria laughed and started in on massaging my butt, "They have a finely honed sense of when to run away, and let someone else take the fall."

  I purred as she worked my glutes, she was very good with her hands, "Well, I guess tomorrow I'll go yell at them, and maybe make a few object lessons."

  "Oh, I'm sure they'll just love that!" she giggled.

  I rolled over onto my back and smiled up at her, "If they love it, I'm not doing it right. Now come here you," I purred.

  § §

  "Fel," I said and nodded, "Thanks for seeing me, I forgot to ask you to send someone up to consecrate the altar."

  "I know," Fel smiled, "I had Narasamman send a pair off yesterday with a couple of acolytes. They should be there in a week."

  I nodded, "Thanks, I'm almost out of holy water, and I still haven't set the wards."

  "Just refill the flask, William."

  I looked at him surprised, "That's all I have to do?"

  "It's a holy item, an artifact now actually. If you fill it with water, it purifies it and blesses it."

  "Wow, I had no idea."

  "Course not. But that's not why I'm here tonight."

  "No?" I said wondering what he had for me now.

  "Oh, nothing like that, just doing you one of those 'favors' you're always trying to get me to do for you." Fel said smirking.

  "Oh?"

  "You know, you should wake up now," Fel said.

  And I was suddenly wide-awake. There was smoke in the room, not a lot of it, but enough. It was also stuffy, and the air felt wrong, heavy. I could feel my heart beating fast and I was breathing faster than normal, almost laboring to breathe. I shook Laria, but she didn't move.

  I rolled off the bed onto the floor, where the air seemed better, and pulled her down there with me, then crawled to the door. I put my hand on it; it felt cool, so I opened it and looked out in to the main room.

  There was a heavy haze in the room, and I could see the fireplace was glowing, perhaps a little brighter than normal, giving off more smoke. Apparently the damper was closed, or the chimney was blocked. In either case, the fire was venting into the house, filling it up with carbon monoxide and consuming all of the oxygen.

  I took a deep breath, and picking up Laria, I stood up and ran to the door and unbarring it, I opened it and ran outside. Looking
around I didn't see anybody, but smoke started to billow out of the open door.

  I cast a healing spell on Laria and shook her awake.

  "What, what's wrong?" she said and then shivered.

  "The chimney backed up, the house filled with smoke."

  "My parents! My brothers! My sister!" she said.

  I swore, "Wait here," and I ran back inside and kicked in the door to her parents' room, and grabbing Karia, I dragged her outside, then went back and got Rodd. I got both of her brothers next, and after that her sister. By then both her mother and father were sitting up and coughing. I healed both of them and then all of her siblings. As far as I could tell, there wasn't a lot wrong with them.

  I went back inside then and opened a few windows, and grabbed everyone's cloaks.

  "Samuel, I thought I told you to check the damper before bed!" Rodd was saying to one of the boys.

  "I did father! I swear it!"

  I looked up at the chimney on the roof, and didn't see any smoke. I frowned at that, even if fully closed most dampers leaked. Going back inside, I check the damper, and it was open a few inches, which was normal for nighttime after you'd banked the coals.

  Walking back outside I walked around the house, looking for any disturbances.

  "What are you doing?" Rodd asked, following me.

  "The damper was set, something is clogging the chimney." I moved over to the lowest spot on the roof. There were two marks in the frozen slush on the ground.

  "Someone put a ladder here," I said and taking a few steps back, I ran forward and jumped up onto the roof.

  "Frozen devils, how'd you do that?" Rodd said shocked.

  "Clean living," I grumbled and carefully made my way across the slippery roof to the chimney. Sure enough, somebody had balled up a heavy cloth and stuffed it down the opening. I grabbed it and pulled it out, it was soaking wet at the top, probably to keep it from burning up right away. When I pulled it all out, the bottom, which was now dry, suddenly lit on fire, and the entire chimney lit off with a loud 'POOF' and a flame shot up a good ten feet in the air.

  "Quick boys!" Rodd yelled, "Check the fireplace in house, and make sure the house isn't burning."

  I ran down the roof and jumped into one of the remaining snow banks and rolled around for a minute. When the hot gasses in the chimney had lit off, it set the fur on my arms on fire, and I think my head hair got singed too. Once I was sure I was out, I stood up and cast a cantrip to clean myself and walked over to Laria who was watching me wide eyed.

  "Are you okay, Hon?" she asked me.

  "I am now," I said and gave her a hug and a kiss.

  "Someone plugged our chimney? Why would they do that?"

  I shrugged, "Carbon monoxide poisoning, we would have all died in our sleep, and no one would have known better. Whoever came in first could have closed the damper and just blamed it on bad luck."

  "What's carb on mon ox ide?" Laria asked looking at me.

  "The fire sucks all the good air out of the room, and you suffocate."

  "Oh, that!" She nodded, "Everyone knows about that. Every couple of years, people who don't clean their chimney's either suffocate, or the chimney catches on fire and burns their house down. Sometimes with them still in it."

  I nodded, "Exactly."

  "But why would someone want to do that to us?"

  "I suspect they were trying to do that to me," I sighed.

  Her eyes got wide and she put a hand to her mouth. "Oh!"

  I nodded, "I think tomorrow we're going to move into the church."

  "Why?"

  "Because I don't want to endanger your family, that's why," I said and gave her a kiss. "Let's go inside, I'm freezing out here."

  We walked through the open doorway and back inside. There was grit and dust everywhere, I even saw a few puddles of water on the floor

  "What happened?" I asked Rodd

  "When the chimney ignited, it blew ash and coals all over the place! Thankfully my boys doused them before they could catch on anything."

  I could see Karia looking at the mess and shaking her head, "It will take days to clean this up," she sighed.

  "We can worry about that in the morning," Rodd said and taking his wife led her off to their room. "Bar the door boys, make sure you got all the coals before you go to bed and clean up the water. We'll clean the rest in the morning."

  "Yes father!" they both said and got to work.

  "Let's get back to bed," I said to Laria yawning. "I suspect we'll have a long day tomorrow ourselves."

  Seven

  Hidden Vale

  8 Months

  I ended up using a bunch of small glasses that looked a lot like shot glasses, which I found in the empty storeroom, for the wards. Blessing them took about an hour, then digging holes, setting them and covering them, and blessing them again took another couple of hours.

  I was able to buy a bunch of rather large flat paving stones to set over each of them, rather heavy ones too, which would hopefully discourage any adventures there. Assuming of course, that anyone here knew what wards were and how they worked, hopefully no one did. When I finally finished with getting all of that done, it was getting late again, but my efforts had been rewarded: the entire building was now holy ground and I could feel it when I went inside.

  The carpenter had done a good job of fashioning the altar and would start on the raised platform for it tomorrow. When I told him I'd be moving in, he'd changed his schedule and had spent the later half of the day with his helpers turning the one empty storage room into living quarters, it wasn't fancy, but it was livable. Tomorrow he'd start on the platform, after that he'd remodel the second storeroom and then move onto the benches.

  Most of the tables and chairs had already been removed, with a few of the nicer ones set in the back rooms. Once the storerooms and the first set of benches were complete, I'd have him redo the back room that Stu and Liz were still living in. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with those two, though apparently Stu's attentions were now focused on Liz these days. I guess he'd gotten over Anita already.

  "Well, let's go see what kind of food Karl's tavern offers," I said to Laria when I started to get hungry.

  "They say its okay," she said. "Just not as good as my mother's."

  I nodded, "Well I want to talk with him, and whichever other of the leaders I can tonight to find out just where things stand on the tasks I assigned them."

  Laria laughed, "I seem to recall you mentioning something about that last night."

  "Yeah, I'm running a little late. But until the folks from the temple show up, there isn't much more I can do with the church, so now I have time to deal with this mess."

  We left the building then and headed over to Karl's tavern, which was the next one around the square. It was actually rather large, more than twice the size of Gunis's former tavern. It was also a lot nicer, and I could see as we walked inside that he had more than one tapped keg, there were even people drinking mead and wine, as well as eating dinner.

  I noticed that one of the females waiting tables disappeared as soon as she saw me, coming back a minute later with Karl in tow. By then Laria and I had found an open table that wasn't too close to the other occupied ones.

  "Champion, what can I do for you?" he asked looking a little worried.

  "It's William, you're not in trouble, we're here for some food and drink and I'll even pay," I said smiling. "Though I would like to find out how things are going with our little militia as long as you're here."

  Karl's expression fell when I said that.

  "That bad?" I asked.

  He nodded slowly, "Very few want to help, they're all either afraid, or just don't care."

  "Not a lot of civic pride here, is there?" I asked.

  "When we're under attack, they'll fight, those that don't run that is," he nodded. "But getting them to help otherwise? No, they're not much for thinking ahead."

  "I'd hoped the offers of food and such would draw them in."
>
  "Food isn't much of a problem around here right now, free ale however," Karl said with a smirk.

  "Well, I guess tomorrow I'll have to go around and talk to a few people. We really need those runners, or some way of being alerted when the giants come out, so we can deal with them quickly."

  Karl turned to the waitress and told her to bring food for me and Laria, and three ales, then dragged up a chair and sat with us as she left.

  "Actually," he said lowering his voice, "the best thing would be for you to get some of those Hilander troops sent here. The sooner you could do that, the better things would be for all of us."

  "Really?" I said surprised, "I thought you were opposed to that idea."

  Karl shook his head, "I may be slow, but I'm not stupid. Every time the bandits come through here, I lose half my stock, and sometimes I even lose a waitress or two! And now there's these giants! Even if you do run them off, what's next? Gunis just doesn't like the idea that he'll finally have to answer to someone else."

  I nodded, "He is a problem, isn't he?"

  "Since you took his place, he's really mad at you." Karl nodded.

  "Whose idea was it to steal the flask?" I asked curious.

  The waitress returned at that moment with three mugs and set them down. Karl waited until she'd walked away before answering.

  "His. I don't know how he found out about it, probably some farmer trading up here from the valley mentioned it; they come up here quite a bit in the spring and the fall."

  "But I don't understand how he planned for this to work. No matter what happened, it meant that Hiland was going to end up coming here."

  Karl looked a little lost for a moment, his eyes darting from one side to the other, and he lowered his head closer to the table. He continued in a voice that was barely more than a whisper, "Gunis figured that after you killed the giants, we could kill you, and that would be it. He figured the eight of us could take you on in an ambush."