by P. S. Power
Tor sighed.
“There seems to be a mistake that all you Ancients keep making about me, you keep acting like I'm Green, but I'm not, I'm Tor. There's more different about me than you'll ever live to see.” Tor punched the man in the jaw, his shield making his hand hard, like steel, and that made the other man's head swing around after a sickening crack.
Tor nearly threw up, but kept the fact off his face and out of his voice. He could cry about how evil he was later, right now these men needed to respect him as being in charge. Lacking the thousand years it would probably take to do it properly, fear would have to suffice. The taller Ancient spit out a tooth.
Tor forced a grin and reminded himself he could regrow a tooth. It was the only thing that kept him from sobbing.
“Now, gentlemen, I'm going to ask you some questions, if you don't answer honestly, I'll kill you. I don't want to, since your both family of mine and all, or so you keep claiming, but I will. Or more to the point, I'll have the Royal Guard do it. If I give the order, you die, even as I stand here crying about it. Now, are you ready to answer?” He waited since Burks still seemed groggy.
“What the hell?” The Green man said softly. “Tor? Wha' Why're we tied up?”
The other man spoke then, his words mush, his mouth already swelling up and from the way his jaw set it was probably dislocated now.
“Seems the Green boy isn't as soft as we all figured. Hah! And I always took you for a bit of a wuss Burks. Sorry about that.”
Tor nodded and then hit the man on the other side of the mouth, not as hard this time, because he honestly couldn't bring himself to. As it was he winced when he did it, but hit hard enough to make the man’s head twist the other way.
“Tor. Not Green, not boy and not Burks. Say it again and I'll end you right here. My patience is long gone and I have no reason not to kill you and bury you out in a snow bank to wait for spring.”
“Tor…” Burks said, his voice sounding annoyed. “Let us go, we didn't come to fight, just check on you all. I understand that you may be angry with me at the moment, but Black didn't have anything to do with that, and I didn't hurt you. I know you're a good person and don't want to hurt anyone, so if you could remove the ropes and possibly let us have something to wear?” His voice had gone reasonable fast, as if it were just an ordinary conversation, just a little mix-up.
Dorgal moved forward and looked at the scene.
“Excuse me… why are their two Tor’s? I think I might have missed something here.”
Rolph walked over and set a hand on Dorg's shoulder gently.
“The tied up one is Count Lairdgren, he's an Ancient and Tor is too, except that Tor’s only nineteen. This other man is one too it seems, but I don't know from what land.”
Tor did, “Tellerand. Probably why he keeps trying to act superior to everyone else and is ignoring the real danger around him. Tellerand is built in his image and none of the Ancients seem able to see their own flaws. I know I can't see mine, so it may be a pattern thing. He's blind to any reality but his own most likely.” It was just said to mess with the man a bit, mainly for continuing to call him boy each time he spoke. It was true enough, but annoying. He had a name after all.
Burks cleared his throat, “Correct, Black is from Tellerand and I'm the Ancient of Noram, so if you could be a good man and just loosen these bonds a little?”
Sighing Tor looked at the guards.
“They have two minutes to start talking and telling us the truth or we need to kill them. I'll try to do it myself, but if I fail, they still can't be allowed to go free.” He looked at Wensa, since he knew her best, and more, she knew him.
Nodding she pulled one of the multi sigil weapons, Tor hadn't realized that any of the Royal Guards had them, which made sense, because the one in her hand had a small nick in it near the base. It was Tor's personal weapon from his room. She held it up.
“What's this fifth one do again?” She pointed at the sigil casually.
It was an imploder. Basically it was the opposite of an explosive weapon, but would kill a flesh being instantly. Without even making a mess of the room. Tor explained it carefully so that the men would understand what they faced.
“About a minute left for you to start talking please.” He said, his voice unhurried.
The thing about using a Royal Guard as a threat like this was that sitting Count and Ancient or not, Wensa wouldn't bluff, there'd be no blinking or hesitation either. Black didn't seem impressed.
“You’re going to set a whore on us? Funny how intimidated I am.”
Wensa didn't move, her eyes cold the whole time. Well, it was up to them. All they had to do was talk after all, and tell the truth.
Burks cleared his throat again.
“Well, what do you want to know?” His voice was still calm and reasonable.
That was a good sign, but it didn't get them off the hook totally. Walking around the chair that held his grandfather Tor looked directly into his face.
“Let's start why you betrayed me and Noram and then what you and your Ancient cronies have planned?” Sure, it was a little selfish to ask about his own issues first, but no one bothered to call him on it.
Burks tilted his head.
“Betrayed? I put you to sleep and hid you in a closet. OK, not nice, but it wasn't some huge betrayal either. That's just being over sensitive. Seriously Tor, what kind of betrayal is that?”
“How about treason to start with? You prevented me from telling the King about a threat to the kingdom so that you could help that threat escape. It sounds like a good place to begin. Do you deny that you did it?” Tor didn't sound angry, even to his own ears. No one moved at all though for about half a minute, then the count spoke softly.
“I don't deny it, but it wasn't like that-” He stopped suddenly.
Tor just waited patiently. After half a minute Burks blinked groggily.
“Oh. Sorry, normally when I try to explain things like this I get cut off after the initial admission that I did it, before I get to the reason why. I had to let Denno go, because without him we can't take out the Larval without killing a large amount of innocent Austrans. That and I really want to get to the bottom of who's behind this. Den's not a world conquest kind of person, truth be told. I tried reading him, but I think he caught on and stopped thinking about anything involved in the matter at all. It isn't mind reading… Which you know.” Burks looked back at Tor with that face that was supposed to be the same, but was too pretty by far. Inside his own mind he was ugly though. Tor wondered if the other man still felt the same way, even after thousands of years. It was supposed to be built in after all. Well, the guy had said that was the case, but Tor didn't really trust him right now. It was a problem with lying. Once people found out, everything else you ever said had to be taken with a grain of salt, measured and examined for trickery.
As far as Tor could tell he was telling the truth right now however. If it was a lie, it was more subtle and intricate than he could determine. Of course if he had three thousand years to work on things like that Tor could pull that off too, couldn't he? Maybe with less time than that.
Instead of pushing all that out into the open, he walked around to the other man, who really was looking swollen and uncomfortable. Tor pulled off his healing amulet and activated it, resting it on the man’s forehead.
He screamed. The wounds healed, but so did the ravages of time, which meant each cell repaired itself, and the man's appearance shifted down until he looked about like himself, but in his mid twenties. So his version of extreme longevity was different? That or something had happened to Black along the way that hadn't to Burks or Lara Gray. Tor waited for the knocked out tooth to grow back in and then took the amulet away.
“Alright, what's your place in this then? Why come here and try to attack me? More to the point, why try to do it without weapons? It doesn't make sense. You’re fast, but if it’s just an assassination, it makes sense to come prepared anyway, doesn’t it?�
� His voice was innocent sounding and the tied man grimaced.
“Screw you.” It wasn't exactly what Tor expected from the head of the most spiritual, and annoying, land on the planet. Maybe praying or sanctions, being told he'd rot in hell for ever when he died, or something from one of the other, more obscure faiths of that place. Instead he growled.
“I didn't attack you, you came at us! All I did was respond to the threat you bastard. We came for a polite visit to check on my friend’s grandson and end up with our asses kicked and tied naked to chairs to humiliate us! I'm not telling you anything you little American cocksucker! Go ahead and kill me, then you'll never know the secret, will you?” Tor had been reading the man the whole time and easily picked up that the secret was a lie. All religion was. Black might secretly lead Tellerand, but this man was no believer, and he'd personally created their belief systems, stealing liberally from things that had existed before the change.
It made Tor laugh. Everyone else looked at him funny, but he just smiled.
“Oh, well, I apologize for rushing at you like that, please understand, I had reason to think it might be an attack. I guess things like that can get out of hand. Again. Forgive me for that.”
Tor stepped back and spoke to everyone else about what he'd picked up, including the vague attempt to mislead them and that there was no secret and the gods of Tellerand were all false. It was really just too bad the guy had added in that whole thing where they insisted everyone else had to believe as they did. At least they were relatively peaceful people over all. It was pretty much their only saving grace, from what Tor had heard.
Not that Warren Black had much of that it seemed, grace. He spoke like a dock worker. An angry, constipated dock worker. Tor let that go, because it was just his accent, and for all he knew everyone in Tellerand sounded like that when they spoke Noram standard. It would be wrong to think things like that about an entire people, just for being a little different.
“So, what do you suggest we do now?” George the Royal Guard major said, hand ruffling his hair, short and nearly all white. It had been darker before, but whatever he used to color it had run out on the trip.
Rolph smiled lightly and walked towards the men.
“Throw them out naked? They might survive, but it should teach them not to go around stealing people that should be locked up, out of the palace.”
Tor shivered involuntarily. That would be cold. Even if they only did it for a joke. Instead he shook his head.
“No. We keep watch on them and take them back to the Capital in the morning. Like it or not, their my family, so I can’t just kill them if there’s a chance I don’t need to. If either of them tries to escape, break their arms and legs. I suggest smashing them with something heavy. Shatter the joints at knees and elbows?”
“No.” Wensa said coolly, her voice as wintry as the drifts outside the door.
At first Tor thought she didn't want to take them to the Capital, which could be fair if they were a large threat. Then he realized she had something else in mind.
“Break the joints first, it's faster and takes less work, but then the long bones in the arms and legs as well. A person can walk or even fight with a destroyed joint. They may only do it the once, but taking the long bones makes it impossible to suppose weight on the limb. As pointed out, as Ancients, we can’t know what their capable of.”
It was a good point, so he endorsed it, hoping neither man would bother trying to escape. He could heal them in the morning, but the screaming would probably wake him back up. He intended to get some sleep if he could and recommended to everyone not on the first watch that they do the same.
Before he went to sleep though Tor gave everyone one of the new anti-Ancient shield and defense devices. If they did get free, they wouldn't have an easy time hurting anyone here. He made sure they realized that.
It got Black to curse him again for a while, but Tor just laughed at him.
“Come on, it's just a free trip to the Capital. I assure you everyone else involved in this, is more on your side than I am right now. You want the King and Queen in on this instead of it just being left to me. I promise you that. To them you're just a foreign dignitary come to visit. Probably won't even hit you.” Tor didn't figure Burks would be concerned overly, but Black wouldn't really know that Tor was just talking big. Even if Lairdgren told him so.
That guy lied after all.
With insane people tied up downstairs, Tor wasn't really going to sleep and Ali tossed and turned next to him, even if the bed was comfortable. Shifting on the cream and red satin sheets Tor cuddled her a little. She was warm and soft and it was better than just lying there doing nothing. By far. There were no windows in the room, but the lights were set to come on when the sun rose, a low thing at first, a rose color that was almost invisible, but it grew brighter over about twenty minutes and Tor got up.
The two Ancients were awake and four guards stood pointing weapons at them without moving, two more stood further back with force lances. Their weapons wouldn't kill, so if need be they could hit the whole room, their fellow guards and all. It was hard to take Royal Guards hostage, because their fellows would just kill them to get the attacker. The force lances were just a kindness because they'd had time to plan. No need to kill your buddy if you could help it, or Tor guessed that was the way it was at least.
“Making breakfast, anyone have a request?” Tor liked to ask if anyone was around. Even if no one did, it made everyone feel more like their opinion mattered.
“How about some pancakes? With bits of dried fruit, some maple syrup and eggs. Maybe sausages?” This came from Black, his voice more polite than before at least. The guards all stiffened slightly, but not one killed him.
Tor nodded, looking at the man, and spoke politely, as if the other fellow wasn’t tied to a chair naked.
“Um, I can do the pancakes and fruit, we have some eggs left, canned, but good enough if you don't mind scrambled. Sausage is out, but we have some thin cut beef steak, is that all right? We have maple syrup, but why anyone would want to have it on pancakes instead of honey I don't know.” Tor waited politely for an answer.
“Oh? Steak is fine. Didn't know it was an option. Thank you.” The man sounded oddly playful for some reason. It was as if he was joking or something.
Shrugging Tor went to make the food and worked for better than an hour on it, there were twenty-two for breakfast and it would take some time to do sixty to eighty pancakes like that. At least he could resize the griddle for it, since it wasn't real anyway. The black expanse was nearly seven foot long and two foot wide when he finished reshaping it, and made the batter, then got out the steaks. It was all griddle work, and the eggs were all going to be scrambled. If anyone didn't like them that way they were welcome to come and make their own. He was too busy and moving too quickly to even try and do over easy and just forget poached, not with the canned things they had. He used two pots set to the side to warm the honey, and maple syrup that he took from large jars in the pantry.
Fifteen minutes later the first plates could be loaded and everyone was making their way through to get a plate, real china that had been brought in by Dorgal. The silver was real too. It was a fast process, but as long as he didn't stop moving it worked well enough.
Finally everyone had food and was eating merrily enough as he loaded his own plate and took it to the table. Someone had brought Black and Green to the table, and let them have their hands free, but they only got forks to eat with. Rolph had given them clothing amulets for modesty's sake, but Black couldn't work it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even turn it on at all. The device was strong and the field was still there, it wasn't suppressed or anything even. Tor tapped it on and put the man in what was basically plain student browns, though he shifted the color to black for him, since it was his favorite if Tor had been told correctly.
It worked on him, so the inability to work the device wasn't some kind of magic canceling field at least. Good t
o know. Tor didn't buy it as a true inability though. It could just as easily be a ruse, so that they'd get careless and leave things unguarded around him.
They all ate quietly for a while, Burks looking at him a bit angrily, but Tor didn't acknowledge it, the treason wasn't his after all, the Ancient was responsible for his own actions, no one could argue he wasn't old enough to have learned that yet, could they? If his grandfather wanted to blame him for it, he could just go ahead and do it.
Black ate delicately, but finished the plate.
“Well, I've certainly eaten worse, even when not a prisoner. Thank you Tor.” Again the voice was warm and polite, he didn't even use a bunch of colorful curse words. Or call him boy.
So maybe the man was a bit better when he hadn’t just been beaten? Well, who wasn’t? Tor decided to try and give him the benefit of the doubt and not let their first meeting color everything too much. He probably hadn’t seemed at his best either, had he?
After the meal was over, both men where trussed up again, this time not to chairs though, since those wouldn't exist outside the house, being a part of it. That was the simple part, the hard part was deciding who all was going. Everyone wanted to, if just to get outside for a while, and everyone agreed that Tor should, but after that no one was in agreement. They could all go, they had the transports for it, but the Royal Guard actually didn't want to have a potential threat near all the royal family at once. Rolph thought that he should go and so did Ali, based on the idea that if her husband was going his wife should too. Tor was fine with that, but Karina thought she should be involved too, since Burks had stolen Denno, who was her best bet of getting at Daria.
Varley wanted to go, but knew she didn't have a real reason to at all.
The only one that didn't say anything, other than the prisoners, was Dorgal. He just sat back and waited. Finally Tor looked at him and asked if he had any thoughts on the matter.
