The Builder (The Young Ancients)

by Power, P. S.

  “Wait... You want me to make it so a man can fly?”

  The weapons instructor just nodded as if it wasn't a totally crazy idea. People didn't fly, did they? Could they?

  “It can be done; the Austrans do it all the time. In fact their ability to move people by air is pretty much the only thing that lets them really challenge us in direct conflict. They fly over and drop chemical explosives on us from great heights. Our shields and weapons are as good or better on the ground, but as often as not they simply won't close with us for that reason. I won't tell you how to get it done, but if you could have that for me in say... a month?” The man winked at him. It was a happy thing that said... Not a lot more than that. The weapons instructor just wasn't sane.

  Tor had suspected it for a long time now, this just proved it.

  At first he just shook his head. The idea was ridiculous. Just crazy. Except... well, he'd seen a man fly hadn't he? The Count could do it. So could the Austrans apparently. If they could, then why couldn't he build a device for it?

  A field that told the smallest portions of a person which direction to move... Well, that could be done. It was a huge field for that type of thing. Vast, which meant it would have to be strong, massively so, but basically, telling the little things to move is all a cutter did. Organize them all in a single direction, say up, harder than the downward force, and the person or object should float. Then move the field, tilting it in the direction you wanted to go to move around...

  Finally Kolb shook him and asked him if he was alright. Tor nodded and walked away, not bothering saying anything. He only had a month after all. In a lot of ways this would be way harder than just shielding from things, especially if he wanted to keep it low in energy use, which was pretty much inherent in the idea. If it took too much personal energy the whole thing just wouldn't work. You'd get a few feet in the air and then freeze to death or die of exhaustion.

  First he had to test the basic idea itself.

  Back in his room he carefully built a small field into a wooden block that simply told it to go up in the air. Tor felt a sense of excitement when he hit the tiny sigil he'd put on the bottom. It floated up, to the ceiling of course and didn't come back down. It wasn't strong enough to make him rise, so he could hold it on the table while deactivating it. Good, it would have been embarrassing trying to explain to Rolph why a block of wood the size of his foot was stuck to their ceiling.

  So part one worked. The second part, steering, was harder. Mainly because his initial idea of how to do it was flawed. The idea had made sense, directing the field with his mind, but it proved to be monstrously hard to put into practice. Even spending the rest of the month designing that part, there wouldn't be enough time to get the work done. It had to be rethought which made him sigh. It would have been so cool to direct his flight just by thinking about it like the Count could.

  By using a second device, he could tilt the field in any direction at a distance, so that much worked, but he didn't have a clue as to how to pick how high it went or how to control it for a soft set down. It worried at his mind for weeks, as the deadline approached. Tor knew he was living in some kind of odd fugue state by the time he finally understood that all he needed was a simple control over how much upward directed force there was.

  Duh.

  It was an organizing field.

  All he had to do was disorganize it slowly to come down and reorganize to rise. Tor wondered if it would do actual brain damage to beat himself in the head with a brick or if that might make him smarter? It was so basic that he should have seen the idea in seconds, not weeks.

  The work itself nearly killed him, of course.

  Dehydration.

  The hours and days of work he was used to didn't harden him to four days without water or food apparently. Oh well. He managed to get the work done before he collapsed, and that, really, was what mattered right? Getting the job done in time?

  When he woke up Trice sat next to his bed, looking more than a little pissed. Well worried at first, then angry when he focused on her. She crossed her arms and glared for a long time before she spoke.

  “Dying over a school project has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I've heard some really lame headed things. From now on eat and drink at least if you're going to try moronic things like this... whatever it is. Got it? If not, I will personally be coming around to kick your ass next time instead of feed you broth and sooth your head with a damp cloth. Is that understood?” Her tone was severe, as if she actually meant it instead of her normal playful teasing.

  Well... if he collapsed Tor couldn't do the work she and Sara wanted, he supposed. That was probably what this was all about, her protecting an asset. Still, nice of her to come around and visit him. No one else had, he noticed.

  She wouldn't let him do anything except sleep for the next day. Not even get up to try out the new device as annoying as that was. The odds of it working right were small and if there were massive problems he needed to know about them so he could attempt a fix before the month was out. How she got him out of classes he didn't know. No one came to bother him about it at least, not that anyone would. He really had to be better about that, Tor knew. Attending classes was kind of why he'd come to school in the first place and they still had a lot to teach him.

  Like how to not push himself into exhaustion while still getting his work done maybe? That would be a lesson he didn't want to miss.

  Trice didn't sleep in his room, so he could have gone out to test the device at night, but that seemed almost suicidally stupid. Crashing into the ground or a tree because he couldn't see it? Brilliant plan. Trice would kick his behind then. What was left of it anyway. Everyone else would probably help her do it too, stomping the little red smear he left on the dirt under their hard boots. He'd wait for the next day and go slow, so that he could see his death coming at him properly when he messed up.

  Excited, he got up as daylight came, false dawn, and headed out to the weapons practice square. If he crashed and died he could at least let everyone else get a good night's sleep, right? He didn't try to figure out the odds of that happening. His chances of surviving probably weren't all that good...

  Wanting to kick himself he headed back to his room and got his shield. Would it work in the air? Probably. If he crashed the force should go into the ground, right? He hadn't designed it for that, but it was better than nothing, so much better he kind of wondered if anyone should fly without a shield at all, ever. He checked carefully to make sure that no one was watching, just in case it simply didn't work, or made him look funny or something. A vision of him hanging upside down screaming came to mind suddenly, which earned a nervous smile.

  That would probably happen, given his luck. At least if anyone was watching. On his right hand he had a single hemp string with the small coin sized copper control plate in the palm. It made a nice enough looking square decoration at least. Tor couldn't close his hand while flying or he'd drop from the sky, turning both fields off. At least if he ever thought the wrong thing. After a moment he decided to move it to the back of his hand for safety. That way he could use his other hand to control it without accidental death being quite so likely.

  In general, he decided, death should be avoided. It would make him look bad if nothing else. Plus leave a mess that someone else would have to clean up and that wouldn't be fair at all. Who just left corpses lying around like that? Not him, that was for certain. Talk about rude...

  Taking a few deep breaths he held his right hand low, palm even with the ground below him and reached over with his left hand, tapping the design on the back, a single line in a floppy “V” shape to represent a bird and waited. Nothing happened. He kind of expected to float a little. Had he missed hitting the sigil? That really shouldn't matter given the design, just hitting near it with strong intent should be enough. He taped it again and nothing happened. Then he realized that if it had been on, he'd just turned it off, so he hit it again. Still nothing.

/>   Then in frustration he lifted his right hand to look at it and found himself suddenly shooting up in the air. Fast. Initially he wanted to dash his hand down in response, but realized that would have him plummeting to the ground. Instead he slowly moved his hand back towards his waist. Thankful suddenly that he was wearing brown trousers, not that he needed the camouflage yet, but just in case. Then he stopped, just hanging in midair.

  His heart pounded hard, but after a few seconds he realized that learning to fly there, at several hundred feet, was a lot safer as far as not crashing into things than being near the ground was. As long as he didn't drop suddenly he'd be fine. Slowly, not sure how fast he would go, he pushed his right hand forward. The cool breeze became cold as he started to move, picking up speed as he went, until he felt like he almost couldn't breathe. The ground below didn't move that fast, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he was flying a lot quicker than he thought. After a minute he noticed he was over what had to be Lenders, so five miles in just over a minute? Seven miles? That was fast enough. Not as fast as he could have gone most likely, but much faster and he wouldn't have been able to get enough air to breath.

  Then he practiced turning, which took a more careful hand than just going straight by far, the controls spinning him wildly several times before he managed to stop. He reeled, feeling a little sick after a moment Tor tried moving first side to side and then backwards. That all worked wonderfully. The turning was a lot harder, the controls for that were more sensitive for some reason than the other directions. He had to work on it for about fifteen minutes just to keep from spinning randomly when he tried it. If he ever remade the field that part would need to be changed he decided.

  It felt a bit like floating in water, only without the resistance. It was a pleasant, airy feeling, once he got used to not having his feet on the ground. He flew back towards the school complex a little faster than he'd gone out, just to see how fast it would go. It took less time, but he couldn't tell how much, since he didn't own a pocket watch and wouldn't have taken it out if he had one, not while trying to fly like he was. If he dropped an expensive watch from here it would break and even if it didn't it would be lost forever in the evergreen trees below.

  With a little care he found the practice square, everything looked different from the air, which made sense, new perspectives and all, but was something he'd never thought about before. It was hard to be really patient, but Tor wanted to be extra careful going down. This flying thing had worked so far which meant dying now wouldn't just make him look bad. Worse, it would probably get him a bad mark from Kolb on what was essentially a solid build.

  Moving slowly would be important here he figured, as dashing into the ground couldn't be fun, shield or not. Starting about a hundred feet up in the air he left his hand in place almost and let himself drift down slowly. The whole trip downwards took about two minutes, but he landed safely, something that had worried him more than he'd admitted and turned off the whole thing easily with a casual tap.

  Good. He already had ten copies of this one. Not because he'd been sure it would work, just as backups, because he didn't want to lose all the work he'd done. It had taken way too long to act casually about this time.

  Flying was fun, he decided and could be useful for the military or people that wanted to travel, he guessed. The average person wouldn't have a lot of use for it probably, but hey, the idea wasn't to make leisure easier, but to pass his classes. Flying people had been the assignment, and he had it ready.

  Yay him.

  Tor thought about it all and wondered if his initial concept of how many of these things people would need was about right? So far he hadn't gotten any money for his work, except what Rolph had paid him. That was alright. There was more than enough to buy the materials he needed for now and Tor had even splurged on a little chest to keep his money in. It wasn't as big or as nice as the one his roommate had, but it was bigger and contained more gold and silver than he'd even imagined himself as having for real.

  Thinking about it he wondered if he should send some of it home? His older brother Teral had started a family the year before, and had a child on the way. They could use a little bit extra to get started. He pulled ten gold of the nearly fifty he had left and set it aside for them. How to get it to them was a problem, but he'd figure something out.

  Maybe Rolph could help? He knew how to do that kind of merchanty stuff, sending packages and all. It was in his blood.

  Chapter five

  The warmth of the afternoon surprised Tor a little. The day before hadn't been chilly, but he hadn't needed a short sleeved tunic either. Not that he owned one, extra clothing like that was a luxury that only the wealthy had. By noon he kind of felt like he might melt. On the good side, he was pretty sure that no one else would feel any better than he did with the sudden change, if that was a positive thing at all. Shared misery was better than if it was just him, right?

  That didn't feel correct, but he smiled anyway. What was, he knew, was. He couldn't control the temperature of the world after all. Rolph found him sitting in the room sweating in his undershirt, working on a new build design, and laughed for nearly a full minute before he could explain.

  “Seriously? Most of the school is cool and pleasant; using a device that you designed and made... we have one right there.” Walking to the wall he pressed the sigil to activate the field, and the room's temperature dropped almost instantly. “Just remember to turn it off every hour or so or you'll freeze to death. I hear that this summer they're planning to use one in the local ice house. I wanted to send one to my parents; you know how hot the summers are in the Capital city, right? But it turns out they already got one as a gift. Pretty neat, huh? Your work being all the way down there already?

  “Mom told me in her last letter that they got to see a flying demonstration too. Everyone came out for it. Oh! That reminds me, um, if you can get away, you're invited for the month break mid-summer. Everyone wants to meet you, so I kind of said you'd come already...”

  Tor shrugged. He should help out at home, but that wasn't actually needed. As it was they had enough hands to bake for the whole village twice over. Three times over, Tor adjusted, having gotten a letter telling him how Tamon, his littlest sister had started working in the shop now, being four. Apparently she had a real talent for it too. With her there that meant no one had to watch her, freeing two sets of hands for the shop. They probably argued over who got to actually work. He always had as a child. Better to work than just stand around after all. It was way more interesting.

  He agreed to go, not really thinking about it at the time, except that, if they were flying, he needed to come up with a device that would let them take their gear with them. That or learn to pack really light. Tor started drawing up the plans while Rolph spoke. At least his friend didn't get worked up about him doing that, working and talking at the same time. He just scribbled the ideas down now, so he'd remember it later.

  “Anyway, Trice and Sara are going too and Tovey but he really has to go for work purposes not socializing overly, but it will be cool for the rest of us. My parents have asked if you'd stay with us though, instead of with him. He offered, of course, it wasn't even a real question to him, but mom said you were almost family anyway and it would be rude to have you stay on the outskirts of the city like that... Not that you've met my parents yet, but I've mentioned you a couple of times in letters, since you know, we're best friends and all that.”

  Without looking down overly he wrote that he'd need five full sets of flying gear and at least five lifts to carry stuff. Girls had a lot of things, didn't they? And Counts too probably. With Tovey it was most likely practice weapons and junk like that. So ten lifts then. Right. He had a month or so, which shouldn't be a problem. It was only a redesign of the flight field...

  Of course, everything took longer than it should have. Sara's mother sent an emergency request for a water purification field device which set his plans back a bit. It was just a filter w
hich was a common enough piece of magic, little ones for personal drinking water and the like, but apparently they needed one that could cover the aquifer of a large city. That field was harder to build than the flying one was originally, because the area it had to cover was just that huge. This time he stocked water first and a bit of food, so the six days he was locked in his room weren't as dangerous at least.

  He lost weight and Kolb yelled at him for not exercising enough, but the city had clean water again wherever it was, even though a sewage line had broken into their underground water system. He made ten copies of it, so that in a few years, when the first one wore out, the city wouldn't have to come find him again. If they hadn't fixed it in twenty years, that was their problem. He made sure that Sara included that in her return note with the devices. He didn't want to be mean, but seriously, there were limits, right?

  The rest of the month was rushed then and he barely had time to get the lifts ready for luggage by the time they were supposed to leave. Apparently he'd also forgotten to mention to anyone else that they were flying instead of going by wagon, or given that they were traveling with a Count, a coach.

  It wasn't that big a deal, they'd all flown already and the Count actually went up daily. His personal ability to fly he assured Tor wasn't nearly as interesting or as comfortable as using a flying rig. After all, he had to be in full combat rage for it to work and only flew about five feet off the ground most of the time. Slowly. Plus it left him with a horrible headache.