The Builder tya-1

by P. S. Power

Not having an answer to her words Tor decided to work on the problem of holding water stable in space. Actually, holding it in place wasn't that hard at all, it was filling it and then draining it later that would be the problem. He needed to find some water to try it out with. The spring house should work well enough, especially if he didn't let the floor get all wet. Dad hated that, he knew, because damp could lead to rot and disease. Plus, it got everything all wet, which looked sloppy.

  His mind reeled as it occurred to him that he could drive low level moisture out of an area by collecting it all in a specific zone away from a given space. Two plates could do it again, like a pump, only more general in action. One to tell the water to move, one to give it a location near which to collect. Duh. He could work that up in a day or two. That would cover the woman from the dinner party's house at least. He could even filter the field, so it wouldn't steal water from living things. That was more complex, but it only had to cover plants and animals, which felt similar as far as the information that made them up, well, compared to dead wood or rocks at least. Yeah, he could do it.

  Patricia took his hand and squeezed it a little.

  “Earth to Tor. Earth to Tor…” Her laughter brought him back to the moment. He shook briefly, a single start of motion and then smiled.

  He'd forgotten where he was for a second. Well, their fault for mentioning fields and devices they wanted. What did they think he was going to do, sit and pay attention to what kind of flowers everyone thought smelled best? As a rule he was voting with Trice on everything. After all, while any of them could call things off, it was Patricia that would most likely wake up one day and remember whatever plan she really had and make it end. He sighed a little.

  Tor got it now of course, just as he was getting her help to put off Sorvee house, she was using him as a shield against Count Overland. Right. It made sense. Well, he was her friend, so of course he'd help her for as long as she needed.

  When he looked around everyone was staring at him. Ah, right, marriage planning.

  “Sorry, I was thinking about fields and devices. I think I can do the sculptures in water you want. I mean, I can make forms that will hold the water in the air. I don't know if I can actually do art or anything, so I hope you're all happy with incredibly stylized as far as that goes…”

  Patricia laughed again.

  “The question was; who do you want as your best man? That and your groomsmen?”

  Tor froze. He was familiar with the concept of best man and groomsmen, but he didn't know what he was supposed to say. Rolph, if he would do it of course, for best man, since he was his best friend, only, would he be allowed? Being Prince of the realm and all could stop that fast. He suggested it and it was simply written down, as if it could actually happen. Tovey for groomsman? Then his oldest brother Teral?

  It took massive work on his part, but he managed to keep his attention on the conversation for another hour, when everyone figured that they'd decided about what they could for now. That, of course just made sense. The idea of coming up with plans for something over a year away, a thing that wouldn't even happen… suddenly seemed impossible to him. It made him feel a little sad too, since it would be wonderful to be married to Trice. He took Patricia's arm and walked her out anyway, just in case the mad women that their mothers had become decided that there was even more to be done for some reason.

  It was a relief to get away from the whole situation, until they walked towards the main street and heard the commotion out front. At first it sounded like a fight, but Tor couldn't believe that. No one in his family, in his entire village, would be arguing or fighting in front of the nobles, would they? If they had an issue, they'd wait or at least take it off into the woods a ways, so no one would hear it. He started to jog along, still holding Patricia's left hand as he did, hoping whatever it was wouldn't be too embarrassing. Maybe someone was just having problems with the flight controls or something? Or it could be a situation having nothing to do with him or his people at all.

  It wasn't that. Of course it wouldn't be something simple.

  In the middle of the street, with most of his family standing back and watching from a good distance, about fifty feet away, Timon, small fists flying fast, was in the process of beating up Rolph. Trying to at least.

  The Prince had obviously either had on before the attack began, or had triggered, his shield, so the boy wasn't hurting him at all. From around his little brother a cascade of blue-white sparks poured off into the air. Tor triggered his own shield and Trice did the same almost instantly, making that effect go away.

  “Um…” Tor spoke in a normal sounding voice, at least he tried to. “What's going on?”

  Count Thomson stepped forward chuckling a little. “Well, we were all practicing flying for a while, and decided to take a break and get some water. If I have this right Weasel here came across Rolph and Sara… in a rather compromising state and your brother is now defending her honor.” Smiling a little, with his back slightly to the scene so that the boy wouldn't think he was being mocked the Count continued. His tone gave lie to the expression on his face, which Tor understood to be for the other kids, so they wouldn't get too scared.

  “Your brother, he's in a full combat rage Tor… But he's what? Ten? That's young for it. Most don't hit until after puberty, usually around fifteen, if they ever do. This could, make things… difficult for him. Children don't have the best control after all to begin with and the rage makes it harder all the way around if it takes. Harsher mood swings than normal and all that. It isn't good.”

  Sara stood back nervously, holding her arms folded over her chest and looking at the ground instead of the scene in front of her. The look on her face… Trice walked over to her and held her arms out, which the girl accepted, taking the comfort implied with a soft sob. Tor didn't get it. Why would Sara be that upset?

  Sure, his brother was being a bit of a doofus, but Rolph was handling it calmly and just taking whatever the younger boy was dishing out, without rancor or even amusement, holding his face still and serious, but clearly not angry. If it had been some other noble instead of Rolph, or even one of his older brothers instead of the nine year old, Tor would have worried himself. The politics could be delicate after all.

  But Rolph wasn't hurting Timon at all and the boy, small as he was, didn't have enough power to do anything really harmful to the bigger man, even if Rolph weren't wearing a shield. The flailing little arms windmilled almost uselessly. He was probably a good fighter for his age in Two Bends, Tor amended, trying not to be unfair to his little brother, but it wasn't military style unarmed combat by any means.

  Why would Sara be that worried though?

  Tor worked his way over and stood next to Trice, hoping someone would fill him in or at least drop a hint that he could possible catch. Finally Sara muttered something in Trice's ear.

  “I'm like Doretta.” It was a sob again, but Tor at least thought he could put things together finally.

  Sara was… actually concerned that she'd been unkind to his nine year old brother, by getting caught making out with Rolph, who was, more or less, her boyfriend? Tor froze for a few seconds as he processed it all. Those rules must be a lot more strict than he'd imagined. It wasn't unheard of for a youngster to have a puppy crush on an older person and of course, you were supposed to be polite about it, if it happened, but Sara's reaction was way greater than anyone in Two Bends would have expected from her, to say the least. She was almost in tears over what she perceived as her being at fault here.

  Tor patted her on the back and smiled, then shook his head a little at her.

  “No. We're on Two Bends' rules right now. If this were the Capital, or even school, then it would be different. Right now Weasel here is just overreacting for some reason. Way overreacting in fact. This isn't normal at all is it? Timon isn't the kind to go around getting into fights, even if he catches the girl he likes having sex with someone else. Not that that's ever happened before, but still… He s
hould be embarrassed, or maybe in shock, or baffled, not trying to take on a full grown man eight times bigger than he is in the middle of the street.” Tor looked over at Count Thomson who shrugged. It really did seem odd.

  Sara blanched.

  “No! It wasn't anything like that, Rolph just put his arm around me. It wasn't even, you know, anything romantic. If he'd done the same thing with your sister Terlee you probably wouldn't have done more than raised an eyebrow, you know? Not even by the rules here I don't think. Still…” She at least stopped sobbing a little bit.

  Tor nodded slowly, “so totally not your fault then. Even by “the rules” you mentioned. So your newfound title of Doretta has to be revoked I'm afraid…”

  The older people came out and stood by Douglas, watching the scene worriedly, but obviously recognizing the signs well enough that no one tried to grab the younger boy or anything stupid like that. Tor had learned that doing so almost always made it worse, the person in combat rage fighting harder and harder until exhausted. A person could fight themselves to death that way. It was why the Royal Guard generally just let people fight if they could in those cases, rather than intervening. It was safer for everyone involved as strange as it sounded.

  How did this happen? Back at school, when it had happened to the Count, Tor had just kind of assumed that with royals, when they got worked up, it was what they did. Spill a drink on them or tell a bad joke and they went crazy and killed you.

  Since then though he'd been around a lot of them and really, the vast majority of the time they were all fine. Even the more aggressive ones didn't generally go around flying into a combat rage. Wensa had said something in that strange room, the cold one that drank all the heat from his bones. It had been so hard to think at the time that he barely remembered what was said there now. Almost like it had been a dream, or a nightmare, that had never happened at all.

  “Trice… Back, after that little incident with Tovey at school, Wensa said something in the safe room… about this kind of thing happening more often now? Is that right? I can't… I think that the mind magics of that room make it too hard to remember for me…”

  Her eyes went blank for a moment as Tor watched her, some kind of memory trance? He'd seen that look before, just not on his fiancee, so he got the general idea. Was that a special school thing then? Tor realized he'd never actually asked much about what they learned there. It wasn't his business of course and they obviously tried to keep it at least somewhat secret. Probably to protect the students. They'd be harder to kill or steal if you didn't know the weaknesses in their education, right? After nearly two minutes the girl nodded.

  “Yeah, she said that it was obviously some kind of attack and that it had been happening a lot more lately. I know that I've seen it more in the last half year than the rest of my life put together. A lot more. Wensa and Kolb both seemed to think it was strange. Maybe we should talk to them about it?”

  Tor nodded, hoping that Trice meant talk to Kolb, who was just an intimidating giant that might beat him at any moment, and not Wensa, who'd actually tried to kill him once already. In front of them Weasel suddenly went still, freezing in place for a second and then blinking rapidly, rubbing at his face like it might be numb.

  “Go'sory! Ye'sbe aight? Wa… wa'dahened?” The boy seemed really confused and a lot dumber than usual.

  Not, Tor knew, that his brother was dumb, just young. None of his family was less than clever. He walked forward slowly, leaving his shield on and spoke the home dialect, not bothering to repeat things this time. He was just talking to his brother after all, not the rest of them.

  “It's alright Tim. Sorry… Weasel.” He touched the boy's shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “You went into a combat rage… like the nobles do. It seems to run in our family too, but normally doesn't hit people until later, when they're older. It's happened to me even, if you can believe it, so it's not a huge failing of yours or anything like that. Rolph isn't hurt, he had a shield on luckily, and used it. But from now on you have to be really careful not to let anything make you mad, because you might kill someone over something small. Sara feels really bad by the way and thinks that she's insulted you, even though all that happened was Rolph acting in a friendly way towards her. You should probably apologize to them both when you collect yourself a bit, alright? That's what the nobles do too, if they do what you did. They bow and make sure that everyone knows that they have control of themselves again. It'll be hard to think for a bit, but that's just a side effect of the whole thing…”

  The boy shook and looked more than a little pitiful, but he took a deep breath and walked over to Rolph, looking up at his face. Breath coming hard. Tor wondered for a second if the attack was going to continue then, but his brother just stood for a second before speaking.

  “I am sorry. Please… forgive my…” The small boy spun to Tor suddenly switching out of standard.

  “How do you say “trespass” in royal talk?”

  Tor told him and the boy repeated the words. Really, he seemed to be catching on to the difference in speech a lot faster than Tor had himself. Maybe he had a gift for languages? Or maybe he was just smarter than Tor. Possible, since he was nothing special that way himself.

  Rolph bowed to him, and accepted the apology immediately, which got a laugh from all the other kids, which Tor understood. A giant bowing to a little kid looked funny. The adults didn't laugh though, and Rolph kept his face serious and showed courtesy that would have been rare given everything even if Tim had been the Prince and Rolph some back-village kid. Oddly enough most of the grown-ups looked more than a little scared. The Morgans kept looking around as if expecting attack and Count Thomson just nodded to himself as if in deep thought. He kept glancing at Trice though.

  She just looked down, which was odd.

  Tor's parents finally walked over and hugged the boy, but didn't take him away immediately. Instead Weasel walked over to Sara and bowed himself, getting another laugh from the kids, but a wide eyed look from the blond girl.

  “I am most sorry that I distressed you…” The words from the boy were halting and slow, as if he had to fight for each one, which given the reaction to the combat rage Tor had felt himself, made sense.

  “I was… “

  A shrug followed. How did you tell someone that you knew you'd been a jerk and a bit of a monster, when you were only nine? That the kid hadn't just run away or blamed anyone else was half amazing all on its own. Sara shocked Tor a little with what she did next, which was curtsy, a low bent legged thing that looked hard to pull off and more than a little silly without a skirt on. Cute though. Very proper too.

  “I apologize as well, for any action or word of mine that caused pain to you. I hope… that this incident won't create a rift between us or cause you to rethink your offer to begin marriage negotiations?” Her face was serious, so Tor didn't snort or start laughing, even though a few of the kids did. Most of them didn't seem to get what was being said and Terlee, wide eyed, just hid behind her hair. She seemed to get it though, and kept watching closely.

  Tor had to translate what his brother mumbled, but the answer seemed to serve everyone well enough.

  “He says that, as long as he doesn't die of embarrassment in the coming months, he'll make good on his word.”

  Everything with that situation had to be left up in the air, at least for the school kids, since they had to leave in the afternoon to get back in time. The Morgans, surprisingly to Tor, stayed in Two Bends with their old friend. Two of the tents were taken down and repacked, but those would be going back to the Capital in a few days, so they got left in the trunks for later.

  Douglas and Laurie walked over to Tor and Patricia just before they left and started passing out hugs. Tor's mom took his arm and gave him a serious look. When she spoke it was, oddly, in her flawless standard. That was so fewer people could overhear them? It was a little odd.

  “Things… will probably change for you now, but remember we're here for
you. Just remember that immortal or not, you can still be killed, and Countier is just another name for fool half the time. Don't let those things distract you from your studies, and come visit on break, if you can? For that matter, now that you can make it here and back in a few hours, we expect to see you every few weeks, alright?” She glanced at Trice and smiled. “That goes for both of you. All of you really. I know Timon would like to have your friend Sara come visit. I'll try to explain the age difference to him again. Don't be shocked if he shows up at the school with flowers for her though.”

  Tor chuckled, but next to him his fiancee got slightly wide eyed and nodded instead, very seriously. The cultural differences in relationship issues were so vast. Amazingly so really. Tor wondered what parts of all this he'd really been missing so far that everyone else around them would have just gotten without thinking? For that matter, how many people had he been going around offending and not even realizing it?

  Just as they began to leave, Terlee came out of the bakery with a basket, one of the nice covered ones that the family used on their rare outings. She bypassed everyone else and walked up to Count Thomson directly, her hair pulled back and spine rigid. As she handed it to him, she leaned in and whispered something. It wasn't Tor's business, but he was kind of curious. After all, Terlee talking to a near stranger like that was… bold. A huge step for her really. Tor wasn't a social butterfly by any means, but Terlee was shy even around her own family as often as not. Whatever this was, he felt an upwelling of pride for his sister. They spoke in hushed tones for nearly two minutes, both of them smiling by the end. Happy smiles at least, not forced looking, whatever that meant.

  Tovey packed the basket up in one of his pieces of luggage and they got into the air a few minutes later. They flew too fast for talking, but did take a break halfway to the school. Mainly so they could discuss plans and whatnot without anyone else around.

  Rolph started, smiling at Tor slightly.

  “So, you get the whole deal, that I'm just Rolph Merchant and not Prince Alphonse Cordes the brilliant and shiny toothed or whatever? At least at school? Some of the faculty know, but really, unless they mentioned it to you openly, just pretend nothing has changed that way. I can be the one all impressed rooming with a Countier and all.”