by Greg Curtis
“What time do you call this, Boy?! It's not even cock's crow!”
Of course, Baen realised as he heard his great uncle yelling at him from the next room; just because a seer had no working gift, it didn't mean he was harmless. Or any less annoying.
“I call this time to get up!” He called back. “But you can stay in bed. I'll leave some porridge in the pot.” And how, he wondered, had his great uncle even heard him get up? The man must have hearing like a bat!
“Cold porridge! What sort of way is that to treat a guest?!”
Baen resisted the urge to tell him it was better than he deserved. Instead he reminded him not to go out in the rain and concentrated on getting dressed and preparing for his day. Then he headed downstairs to the kitchen and put on the oats. It wasn't a bad meal he thought. And if everything went wrong today, at least they could later say that the condemned man had eaten a hearty breakfast.
After that he was off and walking along the tree filled streets. He only prayed that no one ever found out that it was his aunt who had been responsible for Cedar Heights new look. He doubted anyone would see the humour in it. Fifty yards along the road he looked up and unsurprisingly saw a dozen men in heavy leather, loaded down with weapons despite the complete ban in place on such things entering the city. They were following the silver road above the trees to his home. Someone had grown smart.
But not smart enough. They had the newest weapons. The exploding balls and the flame weapons. And they knew to follow the road in the sky. But they hadn't thought to look for people among the trees. And they weren't wearing cold iron, probably because they hadn't worked out how to sneak it into the city. Baen didn't waste any time. Standing behind a tree he put each of them to sleep one by one.
They fell down almost instantly and with scarcely a sound. And when their companions realised what was happening they didn't know where to look. There had been no gunshot to tell them where he was. So they scattered through the trees, hunting him, and never got a chance to attack. Most of them never even saw him.
Baen had no idea who'd sent them. But it didn't matter whether they were the Duke's men or just those of one of the other noble houses who had somehow sneaked into the city. These weren't the city guards or rangers. They therefore had no business either being armed or heading towards his home. That done he blew his whistle, knowing it would signal the guards to come looking. And they all knew how to find his home, and to listen for his whistle.
That done he followed the path underneath the silver road all the way to the Mission, looking for more threats. He didn’t see any more. But he knew he was going to have to walk the entire length of the wedding procession a few times. This was going to be a long day.
As he approached the Mission he saw Nyri. She had been hiding and he guessed she was trying to sneak up on him and surprise him. But today he'd made sure nothing was going to be hidden from him. Still, he let her think she'd succeeded.
“Already on patrol?” Nyri asked as she sprang out from where she was hiding.
“Of course,” replied Baen, managing to look surprised. And the first dozen or so soldiers are already sleeping soundly near my home. You?”
“The same. Estor and Metea gave us a lot of names and we've found half a dozen or so of them in the city. They're all now enjoying the comfort of the Mission basement.”
“I didn't know the Mission had a basement.”
“We had to build one,” she told him. “You know we could be a lot more effective if we knew what your plan was.”
“My plan relies on nobody ever knowing what my plan is,” he told her for surely the hundredth time. But it was difficult to explain that to people. They were dealing with people who could remember the future. The greatest danger they posed was that they would remember a future ahead when someone told them what had happened this day and therefore be prepared for it. It was almost insane trying to wrap your head around his plan. But then there hadn't been a lot of sanity in the world lately anyway.
“Misdirection and secrecy, I know.”
“Deception,” he corrected her. “One so good that even a hundred years from now nobody will know what was done.”
“You know,” she stepped closer so that she could study his facial expressions more closely, “some days I'm not certain just how crazy you are!”
“Just crazy enough,” he told her. “I hope.”
“Anyway, I'm going to walk the route of the procession. You should keep doing your checks of the rangers. Who knows how many of them are actually working for Metea and Barnly.” It was, after all, the most logical place for them to infiltrate. “And for the Lady's sake, be careful!”
“And you. Your poor family's already been told of your death twice. I don't think they can take a lot more.”
“Them?” He stepped up until he could almost touch her, then put his arms around her waist. “Or you?”
Then he kissed her. A long slow kiss that told her in no uncertain terms just how he felt. She returned the kiss with enthusiasm. Until a wire sparked somewhere in her head and a switch was turned on. At that point she stepped back a little and slapped him.
“What do you think –?”
Baen pulled her back in and kissed her some more. If this was going to be his last day in the living world, he intended to enjoy it. And this time when he finally stopped, she didn't slap him. He was good at noticing things like that.
“Damn!” He whispered in her ear. Then he kissed it since it was right in front of him and looked so perfect. “That was nice!”
“Praise the spirits! Did you learn nothing of manners?!” She complained, presumably for decency's sake. She made no attempt to get away.
“Oh hush,” he chided her gently. “You liked it too!”
“Yes,” she admitted softly, her cheeks bright pink.
“Sadly I can't stay. You know I would. So be very careful,” he added once again. And with that he let her go and carried on. He didn't want to go. But he didn't have time to stay and explore things further no matter how much he wanted to. Not this day.
Five minutes later he was standing on Main Street and staring at the huge stage that had been constructed for the event and the grandeur of the City Hall behind it. The wedding was supposed to take place there where all the important people could watch. It still would, in its own way. It was just that the wedding had already happened and the bride and groom were now riding away somewhere south on their wheelers, assuming that they hadn't already arrived at his family's new estate. And one of those wheelers was his. Baen wasn't completely sure if he was going to get the metal beast back. Dariya had been pretty angry with him, and he suspected she might keep it as compensation. Or simply to punish him! Claim it was a wedding present! Still, he could always buy another one if he needed to.
His first stop as he walked down the street and past the large numbers of guards and wardens already standing watch along it, was the stage. Because it was the obvious place to attack. It was the one place where the Duke knew the happy couple would be seen even if they weren't actually there. And while he undoubtedly had men out scouring the city looking for his home – maybe Baen had already encountered some of them – this was the place where he could stop people seeing the wedding.
Baen understood now how the man's mind worked. He had one focus only – becoming King. He had to either stop this wedding or prevent people from seeing it. If he could do that then maybe Barnly could fabricate a story around how it never had happened. It would give him a chance to change things. Kill the groom, marry the bride, and pretend that that was what had always been intended. Then he would no doubt kill her. It was vile, but the Duke simply could not see past that throne.
Baen had no doubt the Duke was somewhere in the city – probably trying to work out what was wrong with his gift. His memories from this day going forward would surely be confused and fragmentary. They wouldn't start to come right for perhaps three or more weeks. And by then if all went well, he would finally be in g
aol in the Hallows, beginning the rest of his life and trying to work out what had happened. His gift would not help him. Because the only memories he would have of the future after that would be ones of the final years of his life spent locked up.
He would never realise that the innocent rain that was falling on him and the rest of the city was actually Estor's potion. That every time he went out in the rain, his memories of the future were being washed away little by little. And that that was why his gift was failing. Everything would be a confused blur – and he would have no idea why.
Presumably he would put that down to having changed his personal future. Any other seers would think likewise. Because even if they knew the potion existed it would never occur to any of them that the rain was loaded with it. That it even could be. Because he never planned on revealing that secret to anyone.
Another man, a smarter man would have called off the attack when he realised that his gift wasn't working as it should. But Baen knew the Duke wouldn't do that. Like all seers the Duke had an absolute belief that what he remembered of the future was the truth – until he changed it. He also wanted that Throne and he knew that this was his last chance to take it. So he would keep going. He thought he knew what would happen today, and he would have planned accordingly.
His problem was that he didn't know. He only knew the lie that Baen had prepared for him. And he would think it was the truth. So even now the Duke's men would be out scouring the city, looking for the scene of the wedding. Searching the rooftops as they hunted for where they thought it would happen. Desperately hunting Dariya too. Never realising that they actually had to search the past.
Immediately he approached the stage Baen felt the magic streaming from it, and realised it wasn't his. He could sense magic coiled like a spring, waiting to be unleashed, and he guessed that the Duke's plan was almost a mirror of his own. To weave together an illusion of a marriage between himself and Dariya that would fool the crowd. It was the obvious thing to do. After all he already knew that this stage would never be used for the actual ceremony. So he was just going to replace one illusion with another. He'd probably had his people casting the spell from the moment the stage had started being built.
Baen though had no intention of letting the Duke get away with it. Though, he'd never tried to stop him or his people from casting their illusion – for two reasons. The first was because the Duke might have foreseen that and taken steps. Better to let them waste their hopes on the spell and let them think it was going to work. The second was more strategic. The longer he let their enchantment sit there before he destroyed it, the less time they would have to recast it. And his spell was far more complex than Baen's enchantment of forgotten light. After all they were trying to create a complete illusion. Baen was just letting the past shine.
But it was time for the Duke's enchantment to go away.
He didn't bother trying to destroy the spells though. That would have taken too long, and there might always have been a chance that he could have failed. Instead he returned to the most basic nature of enchantments – that they had to be cast on something, and brought down a couple of small fireballs on the stage itself. No stage, no enchantments. It was as simple as that.
Soon the stage was burning brightly and his magical sight was showing him the enchantments that had been woven into its physical structure, coming apart. It made him smile. All that work! It must have taken the Duke and his friends days, if not a week or more of casting in secret. And now it was wasted. And the Duke would never know.
Because half an hour later when the stage was reduced to a pile of blackened timbers and there wasn't an enchantment left in it, he enchanted a small spell of forgotten light on the ground and it looked to all the world as if the stage was still there.
Baen was pleased with himself when he saw the stage reappear. Not just because it was a very good enchantment. But because it showed up the weakness of seers perfectly. They believed in their memories. The Duke would believe that this was the same stage he had been looking at standing in front of the City Hall for days. He had watched it being built. He had planned accordingly. And he would have no understanding that what he would see today would only be a memory in light. He would never find out.
It was the last that was key to his plan. In the coming weeks, months and years while the Duke spent his time rotting in gaol somewhere, he would spend ages trying to work out how his plans had failed. But he would never know the truth. Instead he would rot there, trying to understand how all his cunning plans to change the future had ended with him in exactly the same gaol cell that he had tried to avoid.
With the stage prepared, Baen started retracing the procession route. It wasn't because of anything the Duke might have planned – he already knew that the happy couple would not be walking down Main Street and not be getting married on the stage that had been prepared for them. Instead it was the other noble houses Baen was worried about. They didn't know that Dariya and her intended wouldn't be walking this route. So far they didn't even know that the groom was Fae. They still believed he was Jeb Tar, a human, and would be desperately trying to stop the wedding before they got saddled with a new King.
Baen had to assume that they would also have access to magic as well as technology. Guns and spells. In fact he was sure of it. He'd begun to understand the noble mind lately and it was something he didn't like. They'd always had magic even as they pretended to scorn it as unworthy trickery. That way they could use it for themselves while at the same time stop others from doing so. They were pragmatic and selfish.
Sure enough he found three enchantments already embedded in the streets. Powerful and deadly explosive traps designed to kill the happy couple and anyone else nearby. But then they were determined that neither the Queen or her husband live and they didn't care who else died. Baen doubted that those who had set the traps had any dreams of becoming King and taking the throne for themselves. They just wanted to make sure there was no new King around to make their lives difficult. It was just a pity that they didn’t yet know that the Queen in waiting was marrying a Fae.
Baen quickly neutralised the enchantments, destroying the ground itself with a few good blasts of earth magic that first pulverised it and then turned it upside down, and moved on. None of the guards watching him, said anything. They just stood and watched quietly. But they had been told to expect him and not to interfere. They also had other people to watch. The morning sun was starting to rise in the sky, and though there were still hours to go, people were arriving. But then he'd expected that. This was the first Royal wedding in Grenland in decades, and the first in Cedar Heights ever. It was a once in a lifetime event for nearly everyone.
After he'd finished dealing with the path for the procession, Baen turned his attention to his own enchantments. He had set up illusions for the most part, there to create surprise and confusion at the right time. As they were scattered all around town he had to do a lot of walking. It took more than an hour to make sure they were all still in place and ready.
Even as he did that he heard the guards shouting several times and giving chase to people as they presumably spotted more unwelcome visitors among the gathering crowds. He ignored them though. The guards could handle them. After all they had the wardens to help them. They didn't need his help.
From then on it was just more of the same. He walked the route of the procession again and again, just to make sure no new enchantments had been placed while he'd been busy elsewhere. It was unlikely though. The guards were everywhere. They would have spotted anyone busy enchanting the street. He listened to the guards as they kept finding more unsavoury characters arriving and gave chase. And he mingled with the gathering crowd most of whom were excited about the wedding. None of them had any idea of what was coming. If they had known, they wouldn't have been there. They would have been as far away as possible. Possibly running.
Then twelve bells finally rang and as he stood at the top of Main Street, he knew it was time.
And the first part of his plan was his and his alone. He took a deep breath, stepped out a few paces into the street, and then released the first of his illusions, a coat of flames that made it seem as though he was on fire.
It was a good enchantment he thought. Simple but effective. So he wasn't at all surprised when he heard people all around him gasp and then take a few quick steps back. But to them a man covered in flames had just stepped out into the street. That wasn't something they saw every day.
After a few moments when the panic had died down, he began his walk down the street toward the stage, moving at a measured pace and doing his best to appear calm. But he wasn't calm. His hands were sweating and his heart was racing. People were lined up along both sides of the street staring at him. Some of them could be dangerous. He thought he was prepared, but there was no way to be truly ready for everything they might throw at him. The best defence he had was that none of these people had any real interest in him. They had other people to kill.
Baen walked at a calm, measured pace down the middle of the street, surrounded by flames, listening to the gasps and the chatter of the people all around him. But despite the spectacle they quickly decided he was merely some sort of entertainer and a few of them began applauding. The bards he guessed would be paying close attention as they prepared their tales for the retelling later. Hopefully when they finally did there would be no more stories of wizards in pointed hats and silk robes with wands in hand. This wizard would be described as wearing a wide brimmed hat to keep the rain off, and a huge black leather coat. He would look as if he’d just been riding. At least that would be one good thing to come out of this. The other was that no one would recognise him. They would be far too busy staring at the flames.