The Builder tya-1

by P. S. Power

  Tor shook himself. Duh! He kept forgetting basic things. Maybe he should carry a rock around with him, so he could hit himself in the head when he forgot stuff? That would remind him. Digging in his pocket he handed each of them one of the equalizing fields and suggested they trigger them.

  Rolph's dad sighed suddenly when he did it.

  “Personal cooling fields?” He closed his eyes in pleasure.

  “Not just that, they'll keep you at this temperature. Walk into a snow storm and they should keep you this warm. Go sit in the kitchen and you'll still be at this temperature. Go sit in a fire and… Well, I don't know. Probably want to avoid that though. I didn't build the devices to handle that, but then what kind of a moron goes and sits in a fire, right?” Tor turned to Connie and raised his eyebrows. He would have raised just one, but he'd never gotten the knack of it. His older brother and sister could both do it, so it wasn't likely that he just wasn't built for it. Just a trick he'd never learned.

  “Now, what's Galasia and how did I save it? Also, Tor-shields? Argh… That's bad. Horrible name really. It makes it sound like someone's tying me to their arm and hiding behind me.” Tor pantomimed the move, ducking his head behind the imaginary Tor-shield on his arm.

  Rolph laughed.

  “The city you built that filter for? Galasia. And everything that you've made is the Tor-whatever. Tor-heating and cooling, Tor-flying rigs, now the Tor-whatever these things are. Really good by the way. When did you come up with them? I thought I was up on everything you've built?”

  “Last night. I just skipped sleeping. I wanted to come up with something special for your mom, since she went out of her way to be so nice about having me. Plus, really, it's a little warm here. I don't know if any of you've noticed?” Everyone laughed and Connie clutched the heat equalizer and smiled warmly.

  Rolph's dad looked at her and laughed. “Oops, Tor, now you've done it. I know that look, it's love… oh, sigh. And here we were doing so well for these last twenty years.” The large head shook, but the man grinned the whole time.

  Tor smiled back, getting the teasing for what it was this time, just a friendly game.

  “Oh, that reminds me, I don't really know your name. “Rolph's dad” doesn't seem like it's going to cut it here for some reason. For one thing, everyone here calls him Alphonse or Alphie, so no one else would even know who I meant…”

  The man gave him a funny look and then smiled.

  “Seriously Alphonse? I know that I ordered it when you went to school, but it's been over a year, hasn't it?”

  “Over two years…” Connie put in, looking at Rolph proudly.

  The man looked at his son and smiled even larger.

  “I'm impressed. That can't have been easy, especially with someone as close as your best friend. Well, I guess time has come to let the truth out. First though, Torrence, I need you to know that Alphonse, Rolph here, didn't have a choice. I ordered him to lie about who he is, for his own protection and safety. I think you'll get the reason for it. So if you feel hurt by it, or betrayed, know to blame me, alright? You understand?”

  Tor crossed his arms, not defiantly, but trying to steel himself. How had Rolph been lying to him? Was he really not his friend or something. It seemed a little elaborate for a game. Something else? Was he not studying accounting at all maybe? That made some sense. Giants like this had to be good at combat. Rolph even had Kolb as a personal instructor, which was a big deal. Too good to waste on numbers unless they were royals. High ones too. There were a few full Dukes and Barons at the school that didn't rate Kolb.

  Everything clicked into place. Kind of.

  Tor looked up and narrowed his eyes at the giant man, then looked at Rolph, then his mother.

  “I… see. I guess it was there all along, but I was just too stupid to see it. You're all royals aren't you?”

  Ursala's eyes went wide and she stared at him hard. No one spoke for a second as she rose and walked over to Tor, a smile on her fleshy face and tears in her eyes. Suddenly she wrapped him up in a hug.

  “You were willing to marry me just because I need help? Not because of my family? Not just to get a title?” She sobbed out the word family, a choked sound. “That is so… Noble. No, more than that. I know too many nobles to call it that. Even honorable doesn't cover it.”

  Rolph clapped him on the back, even though Ursala didn't let go for a while.

  “Yep, that's Tor. He's always like that too. It's why he's my best friend. In part. But he's still not a nobleman, and as a Counserina first you're required to marry someone within three steps from you in station. It would be a hard sell with Tor… right now at least.” He turned to Tor and held out his right hand. “Don't get me wrong, any of you. Any woman should be proud to have him, and if they were smart they'd snap him up right now and ride his coat tails up the ranks, but a few more years of reputation building wouldn't hurt first if we want to marry him off to top levels… Maybe less though. He did save Galasia, that has to count, right?”

  The giant man looked at his son and nodded firmly.

  “Indeed. That was a fine piece of work.”

  Tor struggled with the concepts. A Counserina was like a Ducherina, but for a Count's daughter? A second or third daughter that probably wouldn't inherit anything of note. Except this one was a first, so she'd maybe inherit? It wasn't anything he'd needed to know growing up. The King and Queen, Richard and Constance. Their son Alphonse and two daughters…

  Oh.

  Well. That made sense then.

  Tor shrugged and his stomach fell. Right. He really was just too dense to live. That was all. Well if they wanted to insist on bowing and scraping now they were a little late. That ship had kind of sailed, hadn't it? Except for with their youngest maybe. Varley was it? Princess Valarie? Heh.

  “Well. I guess if the Queen is Connie then that makes you what… Rick?” He said. He meant it to sound flip, knowing it was a stupid thing to say. The King winced.

  “God no. Rich or Richard. I used to be called Ricky as a child and it always bothered me. Rhymes a little too well with “icky”. Privilege of being King, I get to pick my own nicknames. At least the ones people call me to my face. The other ones are more fluid I hear.” The man gave him a slightly pained grin.

  Nodding, feeling like the world had fallen out from under him he walked to the bench and sat down. It was pretty soft and felt nice. Solid. Clean. He took a deep breath.

  “Right, well, my petty concerns aside, and Rolph, you and I will be discussing this later. Possibly you and I too Rich…” He pointed at his eyes with two fingers and then the King, several times, it was a joking thing, though very country, which got a chuckle, but left him wondering why they hadn't had his head chopped off yet. “Right now Ursala's problem has to come first. Well, that and, if I'm not needed here, my meeting at Debri house. Rolph was supposed to get me there, but given this…”

  Connie waved her hand at them.

  “Oh, don't miss a meeting over this. She's not having the baby today. Planning session this evening though Alphonse. Bring Torrence, it will be comforting to know that Ursala has a defender in the room I think… Patricia too. Maybe they can figure something out that us old people will miss. Say seven? We can turn it into a dinner party.” Connie, the Queen, seemed excited about the idea for some reason.

  Smiling, Tor offered his hand to the King like he would to Tom, the mayor of Two Bends if they'd just met, and he'd been ten years older. To his surprise the man reached down and took the hand solemnly, shaking it gently. “Nice to meet you Rich. Connie.” He turned and bowed slightly to the Queen then to Ursala, like he would any “proper” woman in Two Bends.

  “Don't worry too much. With all of us working on this, we'll come up with something.” He told her, looking straight into her eyes.

  Rolph smiled and clapped him on the shoulder, then walked him out to a small building where a glossy brown carriage pulled by four horses waited for them. As they walked his large friend noticed o
ut loud how well the new amulet worked. He nodded, trying to hold himself together until they were alone. Tor wasn't mad. Not really. After all Rolph had been ordered to not say anything by the King, what else could he do but comply? That the man was also his father made the whole thing worse for his friend, not better. If his da said to lie about who he was, then that's what he'd had to do.

  No, he was freaked.

  In the carriage once they started to move, he hyperventilated.

  “Rolph! I know you couldn't say anything before, but… I was just sassing the King to his face! “Hey Rich, let's get together and talk about what a jerk you are later”. What the hell? I'm surprised he didn't have me put to death or at least kicked out after that! They're royals! They eat little people like me for breakfast to warm up for their real work destroying more important people. Hell Rolph, if I tried to talk to my own father like that I'd be beaten! How could you let me do that? Couldn't you have, I don't know, knocked me out and carried me off or something?”

  A large hand found his shoulder and he chuckled gently.

  “Easy now. He gave you permission to be mad at him, remember? I'm sure Dad was just pleased that you didn't start cursing and hitting him. He won't go back on his word, not on something like this. He probably didn't even notice, honestly, after all, mom already said you were practically family and it was kind of funny, so he has to kind of put up with your idiosyncrasies right? And on top of that, you gave him a present first. Kind of softens the blow. No, the hard part's going to be acting like you meant it later. Can't go all servile on him now, or he'll think you're mocking him.” Rolph laughed and grinned, but then told him he was serious.

  Perfect.

  Because growing up in Two Bends totally prepared him for this. He didn't even know enough to guess his best friend was the freaking Prince. The idea made him uneasy. Not that Rolph was someone else too, that would be silly, of course he was. Even Tor was. No, it was that he'd missed it, even though there had been signs all around him the whole time.

  Shaking in place he had to drop into a trance to collect himself as they pulled up to the front gate of Debri house. He closed his eyes and relaxed, letting his mind pull deep into his head, then opened his eyes and, unlike what he did while working, poured his focus into everything going on around him and like he'd been taught in meditation class, simply accepted it all. No judgment, no bias. It is and the self observes, that's all.

  Rolph was still his friend, the same man he'd known for years and lived with closely. The King didn't hate him, or at least hadn't acted like it. If anything he seemed slightly amused by him. Connie even seemed to like him. Ursala had hugged him and thought his being willing to marry her was cute or something. Probably like a five year old telling her that he wanted to marry her when he grew up, but she didn't take it as an insult as far as he could tell. Things were fine. Really.

  He smiled at Rolph as they got out, knowing he'd seem a little strange, but also knowing that his friend would also get it. Rolph knew what he looked like in all his various trance states by now. Calmly he stepped from the carriage and waited to see what would happen.

  Sara ran out of the house calling to them, a smile on her face, but one that looked a little strained. Maybe she didn't always get along with her mother? If that was the case, Tor could sympathize. His own mother was a good person, but was a little hard on the boys in the family. On men in general. Bossy and holding them to a much higher standard, even though she denied it.

  “Rolph! Tor! In here. We have everything set up…”

  The outside of the house looked nice, not as big as the palace, but larger than the guest house he'd been staying in. The inside was at least as nice, if done with more wood tones and less stone. It was very tasteful, he thought. Two days before he would have thought it the nicest place in the whole world. Of course, he'd only seen the hallway so far. Following Sara, who wore a much skimpier dress than anyone at the guest house had so far, which hugged her backside a good bit more than was strictly proper, but was interesting to look at. They found themselves entering a room with a giant table, ringed with people. About half were men, the rest women. None of whom were anyone he recognized at all.

  Gah. A people ambush!

  Tor hated those. Worse, they were all looking at him and Rolph. Tor wondered if running away would be considered impolite? Probably.

  Sigh.

  Sara walked them to the front of the table, where a trim and good looking woman sat wearing dark clothes that looked too warm, a bit of perspiration on her forehead. Everyone in the room looked a little uncomfortable except for Rolph. Tor knew he did, but that was because he'd thought he was just meeting Sara's mom for lunch or something so they could meet and chat. This seemed a lot more serious than that. He had to fight the urge to trigger his shield amulet.

  The woman, who he knew from Sara was named Heather Debri, her mother, stood and bowed to Rolph, which made Sara's eyes go wide. Before she could say anything the woman, still looking down murmured softly.

  “Prince Alphonse. Thank you for coming. Please, be seated, if you will.” The woman spoke softly, but smoothly, a professional voice of a kind that Tor had rarely heard.

  Sara's eyes went wild suddenly, but she calmed down after a minute and turned to smile at Tor a little and shrugged. When Rolph sat the woman turned to Tor herself and gave a bow nearly as deep as the one she'd given the Prince.

  “Mr. Baker? I can't tell you how happy and proud we are to have you here. It's an honor and a privilege to put a face to the name. Would you like a beverage, gentleman, before we begin? We have cold drinks ready. I'm afraid we haven't been able to put any of the cooling devices in here yet. Believe it or not, we don't have any extra available even now that we're nearing capacity on manufacturing. Sorry to make you both suffer this heat…”

  Tor reached into his pocket and pulled out the remaining four equilibrium units and looked down.

  “I… didn't know that there would be this many people. Here though, at least a couple people can be comfortable for now. Um, sorry everyone else.”

  Rolph explained the devices for him his tone serious and businesslike. Sara grabbed one and looked ready to fight anyone that tried to take it from her. It was cute and looked feisty. The good looking woman in front of him took one and sighed, closing her eyes for a second, then activated the other two and asked them to be passed around the table. It took a while since no one wanted to give them up once they had them.

  The older blond looked at him and smiled, then shook her head. She waited for everyone to get a chance to hold the new devices for a while before speaking.

  “This is, of course, amazing. We'd love to carry this and do the manufacturing as well, if you're interested? It's… Well, this is more than a little embarrassing, and hard to explain, but we don't actually have all the money we owe you so far from the sales made.” Her hand shot up as if to hold him back, or to stave off anger. “It's just that we've had to rush into some massive military contracts and we don't get paid for those until we deliver product. If we could have another six months, it shouldn't be a problem.” Her voice died off as Rolph stared at her.

  His look surprised Tor. It wasn't angry as much as ironic. He asked if Debri house made a habit of trying to withhold payments to people for sales already made. He hadn't heard of any complaints, he told the room, looking around coolly, but it would make him sad to learn that this was the case. The woman sputtered and looked panicked.

  “No! We hold to the highest standards, we really just don't have the funds. We were given vast orders by your father and really have no time to get the work done without huge expense. It's one of the largest projects we've ever handled and frankly, I don't think that anyone else in the kingdom could manage it right now at all. Who are you going to get, Sorvee? Lintel? They wouldn't pay out anything if they could help it and simply couldn't handle half of what we're doing on their best day, even if they threw in with Nox and all worked together. We just need a little more
time.”

  Tor fought a yawn. Not that this was boring, but he really needed to get some sleep as soon as possible. He looked around the table and saw that most of the people were still sweating a lot. Sara didn't, but the cute blond looked down at the table, her small dress hardly covering her at all. He didn't disapprove, different ways and all that, plus it was her body and not over dressing made a lot of sense for this climate.

  She seemed ashamed though, which he didn't get. Really, he'd thought she and Trice had just been giving all the devices away to their friends anyway. As long as he had enough money to keep him in materials, he didn't need a lot more. Not while he was at school at least. He'd even managed to send some money home each month for the last few, nearly thirty gold in all. If it turned out that they didn't have the money from sales because they had to make a bunch of stuff for the army, then that would just have to be what happened. Who was he to tell the military they couldn't have the shields they needed? Really, it was kind of an honor that they found what he made good enough to be of use at all. Tor shrugged and fought a yawn, nearly succeeding.

  “Alright.” He said quietly.

  Everyone kept talking for a few moments, except Sara who looked at him questioningly. She tilted her head. “What's alright?” Her voice was soft, almost shy, which got Rolph's attention quickly enough. But then he kind of liked Sara and had the whole time Tor had known the girl. It made everything she said more important no doubt. Women could do that to you if you weren't careful.

  “Alright, if you need time… then take it. If you could help make sure I have the materials I need to work and, I don't know if it's possible, but if a little bit could be sent to my family in Two Bends, that would be good? The rest can wait.” Rolph gave him a hard look for a second, then smiled. It was a slightly sinister smile as if he expected some kind of deeper plan to be involved. If so he'd be disappointed. Tor had nothing past that.

  The affect was more powerful than Tor would have thought, that single odd smile from Rolph. It made everyone at the table except Sara scramble for papers which they read over several times. A few of the men looked like they were accused of a crime or something. His blond friend just looked at her mother and shook her head gently.