by Garon Whited
“Well, it’s your first engagement, so I suppose I can let it go. In the future, it’s usually a good idea to capture anyone that looks like he’s got some level of rank. They may know things. Got that?”
“Got it, Sire. I’ll let ’em know.”
“Good. How are we on defenses?”
“We’re manning the inner courtyard; we can hold that. The city? Sorry, Sire, but you’ve got a big-ass city.”
“I noticed. We really need more people. Okay, keep a lookout for anyone sneaking up or sneaking away; you may have a few stragglers that haven’t been found and dealt with. Do we have the manpower for that?”
“I’d think so, Sire. I’ll get on it.”
“Go.” He went. “Seldar. Where are the wounded?”
“We have them in some of the higher houses, with guards. We thought it prudent to keep them from the upper courtyard lest something deadly emerge, Lord of Deadly Things.”
“And now I have,” I joked with him. “Let’s go.”
The first few buildings along the downward road were probably intended as houses; they had running water and toilets, anyway, so they made good hospitals. A dozen men and two women lay on pallets on the floor. Mostly stab and slash wounds, with a few blunt traumas and breakages. I double-checked the healing spells on everyone, then held class for anyone interested in the finer points of flesh-welding.
“To work with a surface wound is one thing. To work on deeper wounds, we really need a complex of two or three spells. One to see what you’re doing, a second spell to manipulate things you don’t want to cut your way in to touch, and a third that actually does the flesh-welding.
“It does work on bone,” I pointed out, “but it’s tricky when you can’t actually see or touch what you’re trying to do. If you don’t know a spell to look through flesh, learn one! In the meantime, if you absolutely have to, you can make an incision, like so, but always cut along the lines of the flesh. That will make it easier to seal it again once you’ve mended the bones a bit.
“Also, have a care about where you fasten the flesh together. I’ve seen some awful scars from bungled jobs; make sure you’re attaching the severed ends of the same muscle back together, rather than one muscle to another!
“Very important, remember that the arteries and veins have to be kept intact. If you cut one, you have seconds to weld it back together, which is why having an assistant is always a good idea.
“Now, note here that bones are not solid all through. You have to weld them together carefully, because they form a sort of tube…”
Once class was over, I dismissed the healthy and sat down next to Beltar. Someone had done a good job getting the arrows out of him and sealing the holes. The stab wounds were similarly treated. And, since I had just finished putting his leg back together, he would get to keep it.
“Just as a point of curiosity,” I said, settling comfortably next to him, “how did you get so mangled?” As we spoke, I continued with the after-work on him, threading a fine-meshed net through his system to catch infections. I was pretty sure he would be okay… after a while.
“Some of the galgar were retreating toward the mountains, Sire.”
“Right. And?”
“They were getting away, Sire.”
“Go on.”
“Some of your enemies were escaping, Sire,” he clarified.
“Ah. And what did you do?”
“Sir Seldar was kind enough to let me ride double with him when we returned,” Beltar said. “He was dismounted, tending to wounded in the battle for the city bridge. When the galgar on the west bridge broke and ran, I pursued them and attacked. They turned to battle, and the delay allowed others to catch them,” he finished. I nodded, finishing my antibiotic working and checking his healing spell.
“How many did you kill?” I asked.
“Uh… none, Sire.” He added, “The horse kicked at least three.”
“None? Why none?”
“I have no sword, Sire. The horse was my only weapon,” he said. I think I stared at him. He blushed and added, “I stabbed one with an arrow.” He tapped a former wound in his arm.
It took me a minute to realize what he was saying. Apparently, he pulled an arrow out of his arm and used it like a dagger. When I fully grasped it, I still couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I’m going to partner you with a guy I know named Paddew,” I told him, finally. “I think you two have a lot in common.”
“As you wish, Sire.”
“You get some rest. I’ll talk to you later.”
“As you wish, Sire.”
I moved over to the girls, sat down in between them, and looked at them both.
“Well, do you still want to be knights?”
They nodded in unison, as though puppets on the same string.
“Good. We’ll start work on your sword style. Are you trained as wizards?”
“Just the things we’ve learned here,” said… one of them. I may need to get them some sort of ID tags.
“All right. I may have an idea. Wait a moment.”
I stepped into my headspace. The place was looking much better. My butler-ish persona was still sorting, but it was all on shelves, now, rather than stacked in piles everywhere. I considered it to be excellent progress.
I nodded to him and he nodded back, still sorting.
What I wanted was something like him, but with a few small changes. What I needed was a teacher, one who knew a lot about fencing, or, even better, about the weapon styles of the female dama. Someone who could train people to use light, fast weapons; we have enough people who already understand the basics on big, hacking ones.
Somewhere in my head is all the technical information of how to fight in a style that de-emphasized brute strength. I mentioned this to the butler and he pulled four volumes down, placed them on the desk.
Right. Got that. Now I need someone to teach someone to use that knowledge. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.
I knocked on the trapdoor to the basement. Something knocked back, a heavy, thudding boom.
“All right, listen up,” I said, loudly. “I have a strong teaching sub-personality down there. I need that, along with both a ruthless drive to improve, as well as a tolerant and patient aspect, mixed together. The rest of you need to stay right where you are, especially the really angry parts—I have plans for you for later, so just hold on for a little bit.
“And, just to be clear, if anything gives me any grief, I will shine enough light down there to sunburn camels. Does everything understand that?”
There was some shuffling and snarling, a lot of shifting around, then a brisk knock-knock-knock.
I opened the trapdoor cautiously, ready to play King of the Hill and start knocking my personal Things back down the stairs. It was unnecessary, though. A tall, handsome fellow bowed up at me on the steps. He looked like a Musketeer, straight out of the court of Louis XIII, complete with plumed hat. I beckoned him up and closed the trapdoor behind him.
I didn’t like the other things I saw in the light that fell through the trapdoor. They were looking at me and obviously gauging both my determination and the height of the stairs. None of them looked friendly, and the one in the lead looked as though it were crouched to spring up the stairs. It was hard to tell; it was all chitinous and had numerous, multi-jointed limbs.
The bolt snicking home sounded very nice. The thud on the underside of the door did not. Then all was quiet.
“You needed someone to teach fencing and similar sword styles?” asked my avatar. He had a good voice, too. I noticed he didn’t have his weapon out. Either he trusted me to keep the Things below, below, or he didn’t care one way or the other.
“Yes,” I agreed, “but not to me.”
“I am uncertain how I will be able to help anyone else,” he observed.
“That’s the fun part. Hold on to those books, will you?” He picked up the volumes and held them in one arm, watching me curiously.
For my part,
I visualized/conjured a large, old mirror frame, one of the free-standing kind. Within it, I put a plate of glass, rather than a silvered mirror. I looked through the glass at the fencing teacher, then reached into the glass and pulled him out of it.
Now there were two of him.
I repeated the process and there were three.
“There we go,” I said. “Just what I wanted. Thanks.”
The original and the duplicates looked at each other for a moment. The original put the books down on the desk. The other two continued to hold theirs.
“I take it that you have finished with my services?” asked the original. The other two looked interested.
“Well, for now, yes. I suspect I’ll be teaching a lot of things to a lot of people, so I’ll still need you.”
“Of course.”
I slid the bolt back quietly and held up three fingers. He nodded and prepared himself. I counted down with my fingers—three, two, one—and opened the trapdoor. He drew his blade as I counted and dove into the opening as soon as I swung the trapdoor up. Something snarled and there was a lot of shouting, snarling, and screaming. I slammed the trapdoor and bolted it again; the door jumped as something hit it hard from below.
I sat on the trapdoor while it jounced a few times, hit repeatedly from below. Eventually, whatever it/they were decided I had a lid on the situation. Meanwhile, I was trying not to think of the things I glimpsed. My personal demons are worse—to me—than the Things from Beyond the World.
After a few moments more for gathering my nerve and my wits, I folded my legs and sat right where I was. I smiled at the duplicated avatars.
“You two—I’m going to magically strengthen you somewhat and take you into someone else’s headspace. There, I want you to work with them to teach them everything you know about fighting. Can you do that?”
“Of course.” They spoke in unison, and sounded identical. They even looked at each other with the same startled expression at exactly the same time. Perfect for a set of twins.
“Two important things. First, make sure you stay out of their personalities; they’re unique individuals, and I’d like them to stay that way. You’re just there to advise, not to control or even influence. Got that?”
“Yes, my lord.” That’s eerie. You’d think I’d be used to it.
“Second, they’re probably not very good at accessing their headspace. You may have to work with them in their sleep, in their dreams, so they have something to practice the next day. Does that sound doable?”
“I don’t see why not,” they said. I felt myself starting to get a little creeped out by my own creations. They seemed a little uncomfortable with each other, as well.
“Good. I’ll check in later to see if you’re having any problems. Meanwhile, brace yourselves; I’m about to add some reinforcement to your existence.”
I worked on them for a while, trying to make them stronger—things I do in my headspace are purely imaginary, after all. What I wanted was to make them “real enough” to survive a transplant into someone else’s headspace. Even after I worked on them, they weren’t complete personalities, just a few facets of mine. They were complete novices at anything besides their field, but they were excellent at what they did.
Back outside my headspace, Malana and Malena and I all joined hands. I gave them a lesson on constructing a mental study, with some emphasis on having a fencing strip instead of a magical laboratory. It went well; they were quick to learn. I suspect it helps that they simply did anything I said without question. I gave Jon headaches by constantly needing to know why I was doing something. It also helped that I cheated a bit; I’m powerfully psychic, and I projected strongly to help them get the idea.
When they each had a basic mental study, I brought my mental constructs across and introduced the girls to their fencing coaches. They were delighted. Well, he’s an awfully handsome guy.
Back in the physical world, I let go of their hands and we all opened our eyes. How long did that take? An hour? Maybe less. Working at the speed of thought for a mountain takes forever; working at the speed of thought for a person is much faster.
If I ever encounter a true, artificially intelligent computer, will I have to speed up to think at it? Assuming I can link with it at all, that is. Interesting question. If I live long enough, maybe I’ll find out.
“Now you know everything you need to know,” I told them. “You still aren’t skilled, though. It’s like reading about riding a horse without ever seeing one. You may know everything, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to sit in the saddle properly, or that you’re not going to be in pain after a hard day of riding. You’ll need to practice relentlessly. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” they chorused.
“We’ll see,” I said. “I’ll be watching.” They didn’t seem entirely pleased by that, but nodded their agreement.
Outside, a rider waited to deliver to me my sword and a sack of iron shots.
“We searched most thoroughly, but only found fifteen, all in the canal,” he told me. “There seem to be lots of pieces, though, Your Majesty. There are many bodies with dozens of iron fragments in them, and some thousands of iron pieces scattered about.”
“I suspected. I wasn’t sure there would be any left intact. What about the square things?”
“Awaiting you in the upper courtyard, Sire.”
I went up and examined everything. It was a clever effect, really, and actually pretty simple. The magic in the things simply stored power. In this case, momentum.
Take an iron ball about the size of a golf ball. Hit it with a hammer. Normally, it bounces, rings, possibly dents. In this case, nothing happens; the hammer comes to a sudden and shockless halt. All the energy of the blow vanishes, tucked away in the containment spell. Now get a trio of big guys with sledgehammers and let them go at it for a while. Still nothing; the ball just sits there.
Now break the spell and let all those hammerblows loose inside the ball, and all at the same time. It’s going to be bad for the ball and anybody near it.
The cubes were much the same, but with a slight tweak; the hammerblows were released, not inside the cube, but around it—everything within a few inches would get compressed by those forces.
The first would be really useful against soft targets, like me, but would only scratch Bronze.
The second type, however, would rip pieces off anything they hit, such as Bronze.
Yeah, someone was gunning for me and wasn’t kidding. As if I needed to be told that.
I could probably duplicate the elf-made magic with a spell. Building a spell structure capable of handling that kind of load, however, would exhaust most wizards—one spell a day, maybe less. A magician could probably do a dozen before calling it quits. It also depended, of course, on how powerful a force one wanted to contain. The spells would have to be powerful enough to store all that force within themselves. Maybe I could figure out a way to store all that energy in the material of the object, rather than in a purely magical force-containment…
Were these things easy for elves to make? Were they so skilled they could mass-produce the things? Or was this a stockpile built up over the past eighty-seven years? If so, what else was waiting in the arsenal? Did they have dozens of specialized weapons, or just these two? If they had more, were they keeping them in reserve, or would they have sent them along? If they only had the two types, should I expect to see them in even greater numbers around Vathula, or did they send all of them here?
The arrows were probably on the same order. A magical object designed to be launched at a deflection spell and to disrupt it, instead of being deflected, is not a simple piece of work. They only fired a dozen at me; they had more on hand, I’m sure. I’ll find out for certain when I interview the elf prisoners.
Speaking of which, I should probably go and formally take some prisoners.
I called my three over and looked around for Kelvin. I didn’t see him, so I asked about him.
“He is with the people headed south,” Torvil said. “He said someone should carry out the King’s implied command.”
“Hmm. Good for him. But for you… I’m about to go back inside. Close the door and guard it. Don’t let anything in that you want to keep alive.” I paused to look at each of them in turn. “And, most important, stay out. I’ll come out when I’m done, but no one else goes inside for any reason. Screaming stones, earthquake, stars falling from the sky, the sun turning to ice or the moon to blood—you still stay aboveground. Any questions?”
Kammen raised a hand immediately.
“Yes, Kammen?”
“Any of that likely, Sire?”
“Likely? No. Possible…” I trailed off, then shrugged. “Well. I’m off. Hopefully, I’ll see you all in the morning.” I gathered up the three pieces of Bronze they had recovered and went inside.
They shut the door behind me. It sounded as though someone hammered a spike or something under the door to wedge it. Smart.
First off, I checked the bodies. The ogres had been dead for too long; their blood wouldn’t even crawl over to me. I tried tasting them, but it was like biting into rotten meat. They were probably still—technically—biologically edible, speaking strictly from the standpoint that they were “meat,” but they were useless to me as vampire chow.
Everyone else in the mountain, though, was still alive.
For now.
I made a quick run to the metals room to give Bronze her recyclable body parts. I left them on the floor for her; she didn’t want me to watch what she did with them, so I didn’t.
The mountain was already thinning the containment at the doors. From the outside of a cell, I could see the seams between wall and door. The seams penetrated almost all the way into their cells. All that was left, from the inside, was a thin veneer of stone that concealed the door. The mountain easily removed that paint-thin layer almost as soon as I touched any door I wanted to open.
Everybody wanted to surrender. Everyone tried to surrender. They did not succeed.
The first room, the first large group, heard the grinding of the stone door and threw themselves on the floor, kneeling and knocking their foreheads on the stone. They begged for their lives, begged for mercy, promised obedience, swore their loyalty, offered their weapons.
