Polished

by P. S. Power

  “Not that it wouldn’t be welcome but I’m nearly certain that I’d have an unfortunate accident if I got in my brother’s way there. Not that he isn’t a good candidate for marriage, Line Walker Lydia. You’re both of similar age even, being about a thousand years old now. I could carry a letter in for you? We’d have to get both of you treatments to look older, I think. I was thinking of doing that myself, soon. After my own training as a line walker, if I make it.”

  Tiera took a breath and looked at Ruel, who was firmly looking out the window, not making eye contact with anyone. Turning red. Not in anger, just embarrassment.

  “We should marry, I think, Ruel. Would you be willing to, do you think? I’ll understand if you can’t or don’t wish to. People teasing about it doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea.”

  The man spun in place, going wide eyed. He covered for that by smiling, about ten seconds later.

  “That would be wonderful, of course. I… Yes. Let’s do that? Here I was holding off, figuring that you’d simply say no, if I dared to ask.”

  Richard didn’t let himself nod at the words, since that would be rude. Still, he could understand the feeling from the man. After all, men begged for marriage. Women simply said yes or no. Which was backwards, since it was clearly the women that wanted to be married and who benefited from it the most. At least it had been that way in his world, for most of his life. That he might not be correct about it there, in Noram, was just common sense. Different places, other realities, would have varied rules that way.

  Tor, sitting back, clapped a bit, happily this time, instead of merely marking a point.

  “We’ll have to let ma know about this first thing, or she’ll have our hides. Would it be appropriate to… No, it’s too late to call anyone now. We should go back to the Capital house and get some sleep. Then work on that in the morning. Your projects as well, Mr. Drake. If that’s acceptable?”

  It was, so he bowed, and Clemance took them back down, ending right in front of the large, very nice and well lit palace, that Tor apparently kept as his secondary home. That idea, keeping multiple palaces just in case he had to move around was so different than anything Richard had ever managed in his own life. He’d been a multi-millionaire, more than once and still had never managed an honest to goodness castle, much less the far more decorative type of thing that Tor had.

  Then, his choice had always been for small apartments or houses, even when he’d had the funds for more. He’d sold everything off when it had become clear that the end point of his life was going to be spent at Shady Lane, instead of in a home that he owned. Hiring a nurse to come in had been an option, but also a thing that he hadn’t really needed, in the end. That kind of thing only really worked if you had loved ones around to visit with you, day to day.

  Other wise it was just a waste of cash.

  Technically he had stashes of money in different places. A few of them physical in nature, not just banks or something like that. In the walls of houses if they hadn’t been found yet, as well as holes in the ground in different locations. Going back to those was a risk though, which so far hadn’t been needed, given his new, more legit, life. He had enough coming in to pay for the little single bedroom place he had off base, three towns away from work, in Montana. Fifty miles from where he worked, making him harder to find in the middle of the night.

  If anyone needed him, they could call, like a normal job.

  The rent was affordable and his cat was allowed, in the lease. Those were the best points of the place, which was a bit poor looking, otherwise. The building had light blue siding but frankly needed a good pressure washing if it was going to regain the splendor of a medium-priced neighborhood ever again. The lawn work was poor as well. There were small patches of trimmed grass, but that was all. No flowers or bushes. Then, Richard had never been that big on having that sort of thing. Greenery was nice, without him needing it to be present all the time for him to be pleased with his life.

  When they got in, he was shown to a room almost immediately. The woman who took him there did enough pointing and waving that it was pretty certain the fairly short, rather shy seeming woman wasn’t up on speaking his language. Then, she was dressed in a uniform that probably meant she was a maid, rather than anything higher in her world. Not that it looked right for that. There was just a simple dress in a nice gray color. A thing that seemed plain, but tidy and clean.

  The room itself was incredible on a level that he’d never noticed in his own world. Done in polished wood and what seemed to be gold leaf, with a crystal chandelier and a four-poster bed, it was the single nicest place he’d ever slept in. Which left him feeling uncomfortable enough that he was up as soon as light came through the curtains on the windows. It took about twenty minutes for him to shave, brush his teeth and shower, then use the magical talisman he had for clothing to decorate himself for the day. That was done in a deep blue, looking like a suit, along with a black tie and shining, but comfortable shoes. It was an outfit that he’d actually owned once, about fifty years before, so wasn’t all that hard to make come into being.

  Then, a bit carefully, he left the room, walking to the right, down the grand staircase. The thing was vast, being large enough for seven people to walk down at once, side by side. It had what seemed to be short pile carpet on it, done in rust and gold. This time, unlike the walls of the room he’d been given for the night the gold was just a color, instead of a metallic gleam designed to tempt him into scraping it from the walls.

  It was early enough in the day, being just a bit past dawn, so it was a bit unusual to find people in the front of the place, speaking in English. They were being conversational about it and seemed happy enough. It wasn’t everyone was present, who might have been, but the glowing girl, Gillian Sprouse, was there at the moment. Not giving off any light of note, just seeming like a white woman. One who wasn’t all that old, but who seemed cute enough. Average, perhaps, without seeming to be trying too hard.

  She, like everyone else in the room, was dressed in brown heavy clothing, indicating that the others, who he mainly didn't recognize, even if they had to be some of the patients liberated from The Depot, all had magical clothing. Smiling, he waved at the door, noticing that Brian Yi was already awake for the day as well. At least he seemed well rested.

  In front of several of them were cups of tea and coffee.

  Yi smiled at him, making it seem real, which was hard for the man to manage all the time. That meant he was making a real effort to seem friendly. Everyone else there was being polite and quiet enough to seem like they weren’t ready to stab anyone. Given that the whole thing had to be stressful for them, that showed that they probably weren’t worried with first modes any longer.

  That and the fact that they mainly looked better overall, kind of gave that part away. The day before several of them had been incredibly thin. A few had been thick bodied enough that it was clear the creepy hospital hadn’t been starving them at all. Today they seemed attractive and strong, as a rule. They didn’t all look like kids, either. The average person in the room seemed to be at least thirty.

  Gillian was about eighteen still and while she wasn’t currently glowing, she didn’t seem to have been redesigned to be a top end beauty, either. In short, she still looked like herself.

  Brian waved at him.

  “You all met Richard yesterday? He masterminded the escape for us. He’s also in charge of our half of the program here, in Noram. Dean here was just mentioning that he’d like to work on that with us.” That man was fit seeming, with a low bodyfat ratio and a touch of gray at the temples. With a bit of imagination, Richard filled in that he was the man who had physically covered his mouth, to prevent himself from making noise at the wrong time.

  It had worked, which meant he might be worth investigating for more important things as well. Having someone that worked there full time wouldn’t hurt anything, really.

  “You’d need to learn Standard, which is what they speak he
re. Also, a bit about magic, so you can describe things to people coming in. How the process works and what can be done that way. Maybe even come up with suggestions as to what people might like to try. We only show up once a week here, but Tor Baker already okayed some of you staying on here. We also have places offered for all of you on Harmony and Mars, if you want to be adventurous. They all mean working, of course.” That hadn’t been the only option on the table the night before. It was just the only one that he was going to bring up unless some of them were so emotionally crippled that they were truly useless. People needed to do something with their lives. Even if it was breaking the law.

  Dean lit up a bit at the news.

  “I can do that, I think. At least I did all right in school, learning French. What exactly would I be doing here?”

  Richard didn’t know, having only heard about the offer seconds before. Rather than let that show, he just waved to the left, where the rooms that people worked in were normally kept. The place could change, though that hadn’t, so far.

  “You’d be in charge of making certain that everyone on both sides know what’s going on. That way we’re never showing up without anyone here to do the practice work, and those students aren’t always living here for half a week, waiting for us to get our act together. Then, when we get here, you’ll be the one to give the speech about what can be done and help people find the best fit that way. When not doing that, you’ll probably be traveling to the mage school in Vagus to check with Tor about what’s needed. They have magic for that here. It’s like public teleportation, so not that hard. We can sign you up for that?”

  Dean, even if he was in a strange land, far from home, simply nodded.

  “That sounds great! I should start now. Learning the language?” He half stood, only to be waved down almost instantly.

  “Yes, but we should wait for a bit. It’s early still. Plus, I don’t have a teacher lined up for you yet and we might have others that need to get in on lessons. You can all go back home, as well, if you want. The people here just figured that you might not want to. What kind of jobs have you worked, in the past? I used to be a cat burglar, myself, so don’t feel bad about whatever it was you did back in the day.” That was a bit too honest of him, he didn’t doubt.

  One of the women, who seemed to be about thirty or so, and who looked thin, but not frail, smiled at him.

  “I ran a small grocery store, about twenty years ago. It was in a small town, before the change hit me. That… doesn’t seem to fit here, does it?” She seemed happy enough about the whole situation. They all did, so it fit the room.

  There was a voice from the doorway, who, it turned out, was Dareg Canton when Richard looked over that way.

  “That’s actually a thing that might fit in well here. We need shop keepers on Mars at the very least. Unlike Harmony, which is on the Moon, we have more jobs than we have people still. That’s because we have fifteen full sized cities, each able to hold millions of people, and a population of about a quarter million. About half of those people are from the new fleet.” He stopped then, as if lost as to how to explain something.

  Richard nodded along though.

  “That part is incredibly neat. There’s a giant fleet of people from Earth here from thousands of years ago, and some aliens that had been in deep space and decided to come back here. Those are the Ysidril, who are incredibly peaceful and kind, over all. Way better than crummy Human beings. Like Erath? You all met him yesterday, didn’t you?”

  Gillian looked at him and nodded. Happily enough, she seemed pleased by the topic.

  “We did. The man in charge here. There was something like that mentioned at the time. That he was an alien? That’s different, isn’t it? We should go and meet his people, if we can. Before I go back.”

  Dean looked at her, his face suddenly troubled.

  “Go back? But… Your parents, those things they did to you…”

  The woman nodded at the fit seeming man.

  “That’s why I need to go back, Dean. Even if they kill me, I have to let the world know what they did to me. To all of us kids. My parents and their friends.” She glanced at Dareg, then over at Yi. Her eyes lingered there for the longest time.

  Then her words came out, in a near whisper.

  “If I’m allowed to leave, I mean?”

  Richard grinned then, catching her eye.

  “Oh, I think we can help you with that then, if you want to take the risk. We can even get you back in here, for when that’s done. Still, we should set up what kind of work you want to do, first thing. All of you. The others, too. Then, if everyone is staying, we should work out those language lessons.”

  He felt nearly smug about things, given that Gillian wasn’t going to make him beg too much for her help. Right until Tor walked into the room, almost marching, he was moving so fast.

  “Indeed! We should have breakfast first. Then we have lessons for you, Richard? Learning to teleport? I have some magical devices that might aid with parts of that. I got them from my youngest sister, Taman. She is coming in after that, for language lessons with you. I took the liberty of asking after that for you with her. I’d noted that you have been feeling the lack of our language keenly, for some time. She claims to have a new trick that might speed things along, if you can survive the first portion of things with me, here today.” Then, for some reason, the man laughed. It wasn’t a gentle sounding thing at all.

  Chapter six

  Tor, it turned out, was both a monster when it came to training and clearly a bit unhinged when it came to anything related to other world people. After all, it was clear the man was pulling out the stops because Rich wasn’t from there. Even if that made him seem a bit insane in the moment.

  The giant first handed Richard a glassy black rock, then informed him that he had to focus on it totally, or it would hurt him. Badly. His face wore a strained smile while that took place. The kind of thing that military drill instructors used when getting men to do things they already knew the kids were going to fail at.

  Sometimes that was what learning required, of course. You had to fail a certain amount of times before information would click in your head.

  Then the man teared up when Rich gasped due to the discomfort. Not that it was actually so bad he couldn’t take it. That part was a bit odd. The pain was bad enough not to want to bother with, but Rich had been an old man for nearly twenty years. Actually, it had been closer to forty, but only in the last twenty had it really hit him that he was simply old.

  His body had failed him nearly that whole time, causing daily pain that was nearly as bad as what he was facing at the moment. That, living with that kind of thing for decades, had hardened him in a way. None of it had been fun at the time and what he was doing at the moment wasn’t either. That didn't mean Richard Drake wasn’t a stronger person for having had his life experiences.

  Which meant he was able to keep going and try to concentrate on the bloody thing in his hand without dropping it like a hot poker.

  The rock did its job though, after a while. He either had to drop the thing, or focus harder on it, because the pain grew more intense if he didn’t. When he finally got the hang of it, nearly three pretty darned uncomfortable hours later, the pain faded away a bit. Then, in waves, it got worse again. Due at times to his thoughts trying to float away. That was on him of course. He had a task that was expected of him and needed to do better.

  At other times it felt like the thing was just getting pickier with him. Ramping up the pain to force him to do a better job than he’d managed so far.

  Making Rich work harder, as he sat in a comfortable chair in the side room that the life changing work was normally done in. There was no rest allowed to him, either. Not for the first six hours or so. When it arrived, finally, a bit of respite from the focus that had consumed his world, it came in the form of Tor pulling the stone from his fingers and quickly setting the thing down on a low table. An option that Richard hadn’t really thought a
bout the entire time. His mind had been too busy after a while to consider just throwing the stupid rock down to the ground. The idea got him to smile, though his face felt blank as that happened for some reason. As if he were disconnected from reality, more than a bit.

  Tor seemed pleased with the work, at any rate.

  “That’s an excellent start! You need to get up and move around for a while. I’ll get something for you to eat. Then we need to do it again. Taman figures that it will take a full day’s work, twenty-four hours, with this kind of thing before the new meditative skills sink in permanently. We don’t want you to lose what you’ve gained in the last hours.”

  Coughing a bit, dryly, Richard let himself grin.

  “I gained something from that? Other than the skill of thinking about a rock constantly, I mean. I do have that one down pretty well now.” Richard didn’t sound snarky when he spoke, even if he’d intended to be that way. The thing had hurt. Badly enough that part of him wanted to blame Tor for the discomfort.

  The tall man, seeming a bit flat-affected compared to earlier, just rubbed at his face for a bit, then nodded, slowly.

  “Concentration and focus on a level that most never achieve or bother to try for. This is… Well, I was allowed to reach a similar level over the course of two years of meditation practice in school. It was a thing that I was considered fairly gifted at, to give you an idea of what you just did here today. This way is faster, but is essentially torturing you into greater efforts. We have limited time for you to learn, however. Otherwise I’d simply have you attend lessons here without this portion of things.” The man seemed sad, under the flatness of his expression. It was probably real enough, since there was no real reason to fake that kind of thing at the moment.

  That could have been a cultural thing, though. A lot of the people from Noram had seemed concerned about things that frankly weren’t major issues at all as far as Richard was concerned. Small things like random words being taken the wrong way in potential were enough to have a person bowing in apology at times, for instance. Almost as if they thought a real war might take place just because someone had their feelings bruised a little.