by P. S. Power
Vague threats that would probably involve bending all the silver up or something if anything happened at all. Well, it was the best he could think up, as poor as it was. Maybe call the Council of Counts names?
“No… we did get side tracked, but not on anything that trivial. You were supposed to be given good accommodations and left in comfort to await debriefing. I…” The voice trailed as voices laughed in the background.
One of them said, quite clearly enough for everyone to hear, even on far side of the device, “Sounds like Tor was already de-briefed!” A few chuckles followed.
Ah. A short blast of irritation ran through him then. Then a stronger one. He really didn't feel like being mocked at the moment. He'd had enough of that. Hour’s worth. While being beaten.
It was enough.
“Seriously? After all this, you want to mock me and laugh at what I’ve had to put up with? What we all had to endure?” The voice that came out of his own mouth sounded different. Low. Dangerous. The tittering on the other end of the device stopped dead.
“Ah, I didn't know you could hear me this far from the device….” The voice said, an older male it sounded like. Old enough to know better then.
Tor let his voice go light and pleasant as Trice and Sara moved in on him. He shook with rage, but didn't let it be heard in his voice.
“That's alright… say, what's your name?”
“Um, Count Holstead.”
“Holstead, Holstead… someone help me out here, that's up in the cold section of Noram, on the west side? I'm so shaky about things like that geography….” Tor waited until Smythe helpfully said it was. Actually he gave very precise sounding direction, just in case Tor wanted to visit.
“Oh? Good. Well, fine then, I'll remember that. If someone could get the names of the others that were laughing too?” It wasn't a threat, not really, after all, as far as he knew Holstead had never even done business with him at all. What was he going to do anyway? Refuse to sell them anything? Over a bad joke? He felt like it, sure, but that would just be punishing a bunch of innocent people for the words of one. Hardly fair.
No one spoke for a long while after that. Finally the King said that he'd be there in ten minutes. It took more like a half hour, because royals were slow sometimes. They had to arrange guards and who sat where, that kind of thing. In the transport with the King was a slightly unusual group. Maria Ward, Rolph and Ursala. There were some other people too, probably Counts, including Holly Printer and somehow, wedged into the back, Count Ford.
If the others were big, Ford was ridiculous about it. To make matters worse he wasn't even thin like a lot of royals, but held vast muscle that rippled as he moved. He was serious faced and had probably come to call Tor on his insolence, which he deserved no doubt, but couldn't seem to care about at the moment. They had Royal Guards with them, which made everyone stiffen, but they didn't attack, not yet at any rate.
He spoke clearly, but in a low tone.
“Hold fast. The Royal Guard are a tough group, but they can't match our armor or weapons right now. If it comes to a fight right now, they lose.” It was just the truth. If this were a fist fight, any two of them could probably take out most of the people with them, sure.
But it wasn't and none of the Royal Guard had high quality shields or weapons at all. Sensible, since those would probably be ones he'd made himself. He did see a couple of the ones that had come down to Ward for the investigation though. They'd obviously got the others out during the attack, with Sorlee. Good idea. They probably couldn’t have taken the Larval anyway and running made sense if you couldn’t win any other way. So they let Tor fight and buy them time, and did the part they could that would make a difference.
Brilliant really.
Tor felt like he could barely stand, then it got worse, so he sat on the ground which was better, because when he fell over into the powdery dust it didn't hurt. Not that it would have with the shield on. After a while he noticed it, a buzzing kind of thing. Different pitches started to come through and finally with a lot of effort, he pried his eyes open to see what was going on.
People he didn't know were over him, speaking in some foreign tongue. He was so thirsty that he couldn't stand it, so he tried to get up and run away, in case they were bad people. The big people could be, his ma had told him that. If he saw any he was supposed to run home.
He stumbled as someone cheated and tilted the earth under him so he couldn't move right. That didn't make sense did it? No one tackled him, but they followed him as he ran. No matter how fast he went, they just walked along with him, saying something. They looked funny, too huge. Was he a child again? But these weren't his parents or friends from the village. He had a cutter, right, or no, it was a… pushing thing in his underpants. That made him laugh. He said underpants in his head. That was dirty.
So thirsty. Where was the water? He saw some and went to take a drink, but couldn't. Someone told him why, a giant girl, the shield had to go off? Right… He hit his chest and started drinking from the bucket, just sticking his head in. It made him sick, which hurt when he threw up, but he drank more water after that anyway. Some man came and told him something, and he said maybe, even though he didn't understand, not wanting to be rude, and drank more water, but then he fell asleep and couldn't get up.
A bit later Tor woke and felt groggy but not so much he couldn't stay awake. He needed more water. They'd nearly killed him with the lack, especially after the massive healing the day before taking up all that water to fix things. He looked around, but couldn't remember where the water was. Well, at home. But he didn't have a home now, did he? Several large men came over when he got up.
“Better Tor? People are wondering about the guards…” It was Rolph. His friend.
It was so hard to think though. Rolph was here in Two Bends and he was a little kid still? It was a dream wasn't it? He had a magic thing that let him fly in his dreams, so he hit the stone on the back of his left hand and went up, high in the air. Other people started flying after him. It was funny, because he was standing up and not even flapping his arms. He tried it and felt sick, because his stomach tossed and turned. There was a big river so he landed there, trying to get water. But a woman came, she had golden hair and looked pretty, but was mean and said he couldn't have any water, because it was too dirty to drink and that no one wanted him too. He didn't like her. Hitting his other hand he rose a tiny way into the air, which was easier to do and floated around. Other people did it too, some big men in purple and black clothes tried to hurt him again, grabbing at him, so he ran away.
“Run away!” He called out loudly, easily going faster than the slow big people. They didn't know it, but his magic was better than theirs. He'd made it that way before and didn't tell in case… In case this happened. In case big people tried to hurt him. Again.
He was smart. Except he fell down somehow, tripped by the ground on a low hill when he ran into a large rock, and hit hard. Things snapped and crackled again. It hurt. He slept in a darkness greater than he could remember then.
When he came to he felt better. Normal really, Ursala was kneeling beside him and giving him water, fresh water from somewhere, not a bucket. Tor was still on the ground, lying in the dirt kind of made that apparent, so no one had bothered to move him inside. He drank slowly and carefully, but he had to keep doing it, over and over again. Too much had been removed. When he couldn't take any more for the time being he sat up.
“Hey.” Tor said weakly, looking around from a lower place than normal. He wasn't a child, just lying down.
“I… think the healing takes a lot of water and other resources and I was hurt pretty badly before, and didn't have anything for over a day, then with the sun and heat, the beatings. Not a good thing, you know? I just ran out of everything all at once.” It seemed no one was listening, but Rolph nodded and walked over to him.
“Makes sense. Sorry about all this. Um, what about the hundred men you have locked up? People are still worr
ied there.”
Tor shrugged.
“It's only a magic shield made opaque, since I'm not important enough to treat as a real person, how about they figure it out for themselves? That seems just, doesn't it? If my job, my very being, is so useless and unimportant I can be humiliated and nearly killed, mistreated and abused, I'm sure they won't have any problem fixing things for themselves from now on. All they have to do it remind the door where it was. Kind of surprised no one has gotten out yet. I didn't make it insanely hard or anything, it's really simple. Little kids would be out already. Maybe they're mentally handicapped? Only a person like that would be out already too, most likely. Is there more water?”
There was and it was cool. Bless Ursala, she'd brought one of his old mugs with cooling and heating devices built in. He had to drink four more before he felt able to stand. It was dark, but time wise that was all he had. Dark something O'clock.
They probably had until morning to figure it out before the guards would die. Maybe longer, they wouldn't get that hot. The houses weren't designed to work like ovens. They got warm, but it wasn't death temperature. Rolph didn't like that answer, so he went to tell his dad, who told Smythe. That would probably get Smythe to try and kill him. So Tor tried to hit his shield.
Nothing happened. counting what was around his neck he realized it had been taken. So had his weapon. Well, he'd been acting crazy. He didn't remember it all, but enough to guess it involved a lot of falling down and acting stupid. Great, more things to be embarrassed about.
Tor got up and walked back to his trunk, wondering for the first time in his life if magic was just more trouble than it was worth? Every time he made something to help people, or even try to protect himself, it seemed to backfire on him eventually. Plus, everyone seemed to pretend to be his friend or at least that he was OK, until something like this happens and then they suddenly acted like it was it's fine to treat him like garbage. No one even bothered to pay attention to what he was really doing most of the time, as long as it served them somehow.
Like right now.
“You've all, the nobles at least, grown up using magic. You can't figure out how to simply turn a device off?” Tor stared, a bit baffled. Wasn't it just obvious? “Really? Come on people! It's just a magic device… I didn't change it into something else for goodness sake. It’s a house not a prison.”
The King looked upset, probably with him, but if so, screw him. Holly was looking down at the ground, kicking at it. The other Counts all looked either angry or like they'd rather have been sleeping, which sounded like a good idea at the moment. A really good one in fact.
Opening up the first trunk he came to, a real one, not a field made to look real, Tor rearmed and shielded. It wasn't as good of a weapon, but he had the ones built into his shorts, as funny as that was. Just, from now on he wasn't letting anyone take him prisoner and if they tried he was fighting. To the death if it came to that. He looked at the King and didn't break eye contact.
“I mean it too. If you want me to do something, ask and I'll do it. Stand down and go live in the desert alone? Fine. Take a cutter to my neck and behead myself. Sure. But if anyone, King, Count or city guard tries to take me prisoner, I'll fight as hard as I can, until I can't any more. Because really, this stuff is getting old. I get treated like this and then you people come along and act like I'm the bad guy? Smythe tries to kill me over and again, I get snubbed and pushed around by Royal Guards almost as if it were a game to them and now the city guard personally turns me into their enemy? Fine…”
Tor stomped over to one of the Counts he didn't recognize and stopped in front of him, hands on hips. He was an older man, not as big as some, about six-six. He had on a black military style uniform, but no insignia at all. Most of the Counts had taken to wearing them, a kind of protective coloring, to make them less of a target than brightly colored flashy clothing would. The man held his ground but didn't look as confident as Counts normally did, as if he expected Tor to assault him or something. So did everyone else, but not even the Royal Guard tried to intervene.
“You, who are you?” Tor asked in a tone probably better left unused with royalty in general. It was stupid of him, but he just didn't care right now.
“Um, Count Holstead…”
Oh. “The one that thinks humiliating me is a joke? A good time fun fest for all? Well, even ticked off I can tell it probably is funny, if you weren't the one embarrassed in public all day long like that, beaten and abused. So tell you what, let's just leave it all up to Holstead here…” Tor spun to take in everyone else.
The King looked stony, but he often did, it was his go to facial expression in any given emergency. Rolph buried his head in his hands and groaned.
“No… Tor. Let's go and get you cooled down, get some food and water, then sleep and do this in the morning? If you want then we can take turns beating the guards, or even Holstead here. I mean, I know that you felt humiliated and shamed by being left mainly naked all day, but no one else cared. Not the guards, not the people with you and not the passersby. Really, they probably thought you were being given special privileges and not being made to bake in clothes like the others were… We don't care if people are nude here. Hey, want me to strip and run around the city? No one would think it anything more than youthful exuberance and I might get a date out of it.” He tried to look calm, which didn’t work too well. Right, because he saw what Tor was about to do.
Rolph was smart like that.
“Tell me, Count Holstead, what would you do if this… No, wait, not what happened to me, no one cares about that… What would you do if what happened to Count Ward, or Counselor Smythe happened to you instead? How would you respond?”
The King saw the trap and sucked in a breath of air. Ursala got it too. After all, what most of the Counts would do involved making war on someone, possibly leading the other Counts to attack the King’s forces. And Smythe was still the military leader of the kingdom. If he wanted, he could bring down the whole thing by himself, most likely. The city guard had almost certainly started a war that day already.
Rolph walked to Tor slowly, but didn't try to touch him or anything stupid like that.
Holstead, for all that he had a poor sense of timing and a loud voice, didn't hesitate though. He walked to the other men and sank to his knees in front of them, laying his head on the ground.
“It was a mistake. I can only ask forgiveness for my part in it. Please, if you must blame someone for this, blame me and not those I serve…” He didn't rise and the two men didn't move to release him.
Soon the others moved over, with Ursala and Holly being the last. They moved grudgingly, but that was kind of natural. After all, Holly still probably blamed Ward for killing her husband even though he hadn't. She'd taken a vow to destroy him and now had to break it, that or destroy an innocent man that had been used by their enemies, and kill a lot of his people, all of whom were probably at least as innocent of the crime. It was a quandary no doubt. They did it though. Bent the knee, if not as deeply as the rest. The one thing didn't have to do with the other directly and war was always a losing game, for all they liked to threaten it so freely here.
Rolph didn't go to a knee, but did bow and finally the King did too. It was all very polite and touching. Smythe demanded an investigation into the matter, which was allowed, the King making it an actual order without pause. Ward just nodded stiffly and waved a hand at everyone else that had been out there as well. That…
That made the Counts and countesses wary and recalcitrant suddenly. Tor blinked for a moment, taking in the sea of angry faces.
Right. Never bow to a stable boy.
Rolph did it for them, regally, majestically even, as if he suddenly wore a crown on his head and full raiment’s, walking to each and bowing in turn, shaking hands when one was offered him and smoothing things over. Promising it hadn't been on purpose and apologizing as if that would make any real difference to the world. After a minute Ursala started doing the
same thing. Well, if she was going to be Queen some day, she might as well start following her future King’s lead now. Even if she wasn't, it made her look good.
The other royals didn't move, which Tor kind of thought was cowardly of them. The heir to the freaking throne of all Noram was bowing and humbling himself for them, but they were too good to step forward themselves and even mumble a few words to people that had been so wronged?
Sure, most of these guys brought people drinks or food, one or two may even be real stable boys, and though he wasn't sure, some of the few women might even have been dancing girls from the party, still wearing their white dresses, dirt stained and grubby from their ordeals. They might even be whores.
They'd also been taken from an attack, injured, still frightened and away from their home without notice, uncertain as to the future, and these royals wouldn't even go and give them a slap on the back? Say, “sorry about the mix up there, have some coins to tide you over…” or anything? They didn't even have to act like they meant it for most of these people. God. Gods. He would have added in the universe, but the universe didn't care.
Tor did though.
Tor got another drink of water from a cask of it, and then went to the trunk containing all his gold. Well he had enough to share anyway. No hardship for him. He went to the man who was farthest away in line, young and dirty looking, standing uneasily and scared suddenly, which made no sense, since the guy was his buddy now, right? They'd been through it together, and if his new friend needed anything he'd get it.
Tor popped the top of the case. The man, no older than he was, goggled a bit. Tor took out ten gold coins under the magic lights that had been set around and handed them to the man.
