by P. S. Power
Of course, that meant the Queen of Noram kind of thought that May had come to be married to him that day. Which she wouldn’t hear of, since they at least had to hold it in the Noram Capital.
“After I have this magical work done on me, however? I do want to look my best for it.”
Chapter eleven
Something occurred to him about the time that dinner had passed. No one, including May, was taking the coming wedding plans as a serious thing. Yet. That was an interesting, complex and layered set of data. A matter that Willum wouldn’t have truly understood, if he wasn’t getting the ideas from various people directly.
For instance, May was considering the idea as superior to being single at her age, which was a bit old to not have a husband for her people. Most married at about a hundred or so. She was four times that old. Not unmarriable or anything, but advanced enough in years for it to make sense that she might find a mate soon. Her major concern was that she kept expecting Will to turn on her and insist on degrading things, to teach her who was the one in charge. It made sense to her that she’d be beaten at the very least. Perhaps taken to a different reality for that, so no one would ever know of it, if she were tortured to death.
Her plan was to be pleasant and hope that no one there insist she be treated too poorly to survive.
Timon got a lot of what everyone else was thinking, but simply didn’t care that much. He was in on the plan of teaching Willum after all. If his nephew wanted a woman or two that was fine. As long as he didn’t fall in love. That would potentially cause problems later. The man wasn’t actually worried on that score, since he knew that, at present, his nephew wouldn’t be able to do that kind of thing. Love was, in his current state, beyond his grasp. At least as a natural emotion.
Queen Constance was all for another wedding, but didn’t know if she approved of May yet, in particular. The woman spoke English, but not Standard, meaning that the Queen was using her own sputtering and incomplete skill in that tongue to attempt communication. It wasn’t really working all that well. On the other hand, Constance was almost certain that May was a commoner, if pale. She was just too short not to be. Even if she’d been told that wasn’t real.
So, some part of her kind of thought that Willum Baker could do better than that. Which was interesting, since he was from so deep in the forest that he should have seemed no more than a bumpkin to the refined noblewoman at best.
Taman was honestly interesting however, since part of her was worried that Will might be taking things seriously, when she had other plans for him. Things that would be starting soon, now that Timon was back for a while and had set the groundwork.
The problem was that she didn’t know how to present things properly. After a bit she simply smiled, then spoke in English, looking directly at May.
“We’ve arranged lessons for Will in a different reality. Combat related things. He needs to leave in a few days for that. It will take at least a year. Possibly more than that, depending on his ability to learn and adapt.”
She waited, expecting strong responses, but didn’t get any at all. Even Queen Constance seemed a little annoyed but no more than that.
“Karina’s wedding is in a few weeks. Should we send him away now?”
Taman shrugged, but Tim spoke.
“He can come back for that. We aren’t exiling him. For one thing he’ll need to spend at least a bit of his time carrying messages around. It will be intense for him for a while, but less so than the last weeks, I’m willing to wager.”
Will had no clue what was planned for him. It would probably be so difficult that no one wanted to tell him about what was coming. That was a good plan, actually. Not that he was going to get out of doing things just because of that.
Next to him, May nodded.
“Duty must come first. What role must I play in this?”
Willum didn’t think there was a role for the woman, but Taman smiled and then shrugged.
“You should come with him to the wedding? Princess Karina is the Ancient of Mars. The caretaker, but not direct ruler, of a planet? She’s marrying Prince Dareg. He’s a Prince of Harmony, which is the Moon, more or less. So it’s a large matter for us here. Dareg is also Will’s cousin. So he’s obligated to show up for it, if he can.”
That seemed to be acceptable to May as her part in things. She started to discuss what should be worn for it, which meant Queen Constance had a lot to talk about for a while. Right until Taman smiled, started laughing and waved at the woman.
“You should go and become immortal. For my part… I think that I need to get to bed soon. What are you doing, Willum?”
He had no clue, to be honest. After all, he’d come back no more than mere hours before. He had food, even a place to stay if he needed one. After the last few thousand years, he didn’t truly need to meditate in particular at the moment. If he did, doing it inside the void would make sense that way. May was there, vacationing with him, which gave him an idea at least.
“I was thinking that May and I might go and visit some others? I missed the tour, having to learn the new skill set. People might not understand that part of things. I don’t, really. Hopefully they don’t beat me too hard.”
Taman snorted then.
“Not to be mean, but they barely noticed that you weren’t along with them, Will. After all, you’d only met most of them a few times. You had things set in motion well enough that it all worked more or less smoothly. You should make contact with everyone, but I don’t think there will be too much screaming about your absence.”
That was good to hear. After all, part of him had been worried that it wouldn’t work without him and then everyone would hate him forever. It wasn’t rational, but if that hadn’t happened, he was glad to hear it.
Timon looked at him and nodded.
“Three days? I hate to cut the fun short, but I promised your new combat instruction team that you’d be around in short order.”
Willum nodded then.
“I’m sure May will understand. That’s enough time for you to realize that I won’t beat you too much, isn’t it?” It was why she was really there, after all.
Interestingly, the small lady smiled at him, making her face come alive.
“That will be sufficient, yes, Master. I have to admit that this hasn’t been too bad so far. Though, I’m not certain why you accepted me as payment, if you aren’t going to use me?” She seemed honestly curious.
The idea wasn’t lost on him at all.
Still, he lied about it, holding the inner workings of his mind still. That way he wasn’t going to let anything else out into the world too easily. Letting people know that he’d done it to protect someone he didn't know at all could be dangerous. Anyone could be used against a person like that, so he couldn’t afford to be one of them, even if he was.
“Mainly so that I didn’t have to keep working with Leif. Nothing against him, but I have other things to do. At that point I didn’t have anyone to collect debts for me. Really, the goal with you is to set it up so that you’ll manage part of that, in the world you live in. Working with Judith and Lisa, to make sure they know where to send things.” She was from a different reality than that, but she nodded then. Happily.
“Ah! So I am to marry you? That sounds sensible. I can manage things there. Household and business matters. We should affirm that now, so that it will carry weight. What is the method of that here? For my people, simply stating that you are married is enough. Or if the king or ruler states that you are, regardless of your will. Your father can do that as well. Luckily, the king never saw need for that in regards to me, leaving me available for this. I understand now. He probably had portent that this would be happening.”
Taman nodded, oddly enough.
“All right… We really can’t have him distracted that much. Not now. How about this, we train him first, and then, if you want him in a few years you can marry? In the meantime, you can just manage his coin for him in that other world, cl
aiming whatever you need to make that work? Or is that too sensible and boring?” She smiled about it, as if she were being mean, even if that wasn’t her actual feeling on the matter.
Willum was able to get enough information about it all to make sense however. May wasn’t really trying for anything in particular, at the moment. She just knew that the rules were different than what she was used to and didn’t want to be beaten for getting anything wrong. Not that being a wife in her world meant that she would be free of that kind of threat. It was just a more stable position, which was an understandable thing to her. That was literally all.
Being a slave was more dangerous, since she could be killed, or sold, at any time. Like what Leif had done to her. A man who had been friendly with her for years, right up until the moment he’d turned on her.
Taman however was sitting there wondering if Will, her nephew who was only a year older than she was, might just be getting ready to mutiny, refusing to help with the project at all, if he didn’t get his way. After all, he’d brought the woman home with him and she was, clearly, a catch.
A princess from a different world, who was already immortal, and who was willing to set up a place for him, even if he were gone for years or decades at a time. That kind of thing wasn’t a small one, to her way of thinking. Then, Will realized, his incredibly good looking aunt was powerful, wealthy and in the end, lonely. So she was working on the assumption that he would feel the same way.
Which was silly of her, since that had been stripped from him by Timon already. Probably to prevent this kind of situation from getting out of hand.
Shrugging, he grinned at both of them, then glanced at the door.
“I’m not getting married yet. May will control the coin on that side of things, spending it how she sees fit. The important part isn’t about amassing a fortune, but making it seem like I have a solid base of operations. A place where people can drop letters and packages, so that Lisa and Zack don’t have to do it all.” He looked at the tiny dark haired lady and just sat for a bit, his face blank.
She sighed, but nodded.
“That’s my task then?”
“Right. Do it however you want. The trick will be in making certain that everyone knows they can use this service, since we’re not going to look inside the boxes or letters. Also that we’re open to trade. The person running that doesn’t have to be you, personally. Really, it probably shouldn’t be, so hiring a team is a great idea. You have Judith down in Australia already. You could start your own small empire if you want? That would be up to you.”
Timon smiled for some reason, which was actually hidden, since he was starting to focus, getting ready to do the work on Queen Constance. There was information leaking out, but it was muted and most of it was about controlling his own being, instead of what he was about to say.
“Three days. Then we have to leave.”
Waving at the Queen, the tall fellow smiled, his eyes fixed and glassy already.
Willum nodded.
“We’ll get things ready by then.” That was all, since he didn’t know what else to say on the matter.
After that, Taman went to bed, and Coatl showed May and himself to a room. It was kind of clear that the man was hoping for sex, but didn’t expect it at the moment. After all, his interest was in Willum, not the small girl with him. That he didn’t see May as possibly being older than fifteen was interesting. The woman smiled at the door of the space and glanced at them both.
“Are we entertaining your friend here? I can do that.” The feeling from her was a bit resigned, instead of angry or upset over the idea. Slaves did as they were told. There were worse things to be ordered to do than having sex with a slightly strange looking fellow.
Thinking about it, he forced a smile.
“No. He’s here for me that way. We can all do things? Come in.” It wasn’t that he wanted that kind of thing at the moment, but building friendships was part of what he needed to practice. Doing weird things in the bed chamber would, hopefully, help with that, if he pretended to be comfortable enough with it.
The next days were spent doing a variety of things with both of the people that he shared a room with that night. May was attracted enough to him that it wasn’t a hardship for her, but she wasn’t allowing herself to develop feelings past that. Coatl was, but understood that the relationship wasn’t ever really going to be more than it was. Especially since Willum was being forced to leave soon.
Those words were spoken, several times, by his Uncle Timon. The youthful seeming man kept acting like the next step in his training was a dark and dire thing. It could have been, but there was a sense of playfulness that lingered under that. Like the man was just making fun of him, if gently.
Still, at almost three full days after his return, he placed May back in Hartley’s world. That was what everyone called the human line walker. By his last name. It was an oddly military style thing, but worked to show that he wasn’t the demon pretty well. When they got in, May surprised him, by kissing him on the mouth, holding to him tightly as they lingered in the back of her small restaurant.
Then she called out so everyone could hear her.
“I’ll run your business well, husband. When should I expect you in next?”
“To start with? Once a month or so.” He picked up what she was doing, calling him husband. That wasn’t for his benefit, or her own delusion.
No, she was trying to build a shield for herself. With her own people. She’d been traded away as a slave to this man. Then she left and came back calling him her spouse. If Leif or even her own brother turned on her, that would mean they had to be prepared to do battle with Willum. Harming her too greatly might also start a conflict, so most of the time they wouldn’t bother with it.
She was just shocked when Will played along with her, since that wasn’t his part at all in her world. She was lying, but that didn’t mean he needed to.
“You have the business here. For the time being we can’t guarantee exact dates for delivery, but I’ll go and make the rounds when I can, to all the worlds I know. If you have messages for me to take around, I’ll do it at that time. I don’t know what my new training will entail, or what my new master will wish of me. I might not be around much at first. Or I could be by every day or two, but only for a short time. Once we have the coin for it, we need to get you a house, so you aren’t living in a back room here.” She had a space, but it was tiny. He wasn’t certain, but it had probably been meant to be part of the storage for the shop, in the original design. Taman’s little pod house was larger and nicer, but they didn’t have room for that kind of thing inside the mall.
So he kissed her again, then, since there was a person in the front space and his cohort wanted to sell that they were truly together, he took her to her little bed and did things with her there, loudly enough, to sell the idea. She was pretty happy with that, even if it seemed strange and awkward to him.
Then, instead of checking in with Hartley or Lisa, he went back to Soam. Tim and Taman were both there, waiting for him, since there was a time schedule and everything. It was interesting, but both of them needed him to get them to their destination. At least if they were going that day. Also of note, they didn’t really understand that he could do that. They kind of expected a four or five-day long production while they found Hartley or human Troy to show them the way.
That poured off of both of them, as they waited, both in nice black outfits that matched, adorably enough.
For his part Will shook his head.
“I can find almost any world, if you know where I’m supposed to go. Um… What do they wear there? Clothing like that?” It looked like fine visiting clothing. The sort that rich people from Noram might wear. Not finery fitting a visit to a noble however.
Tim shook his head.
“Not really. Most have uniforms, but the blue trousers and tight shirt you had on when you came back with May is pretty normal. Even the military people there wear that kind of thin
g when off duty. Going in with that one will probably work. They speak English. The accent is a bit different than what I’ve heard from you so far, so you might need to hide that a bit. That or… You’ve met Troy Lopez?”
Speaking in English, he nodded, then recalled how that man had sounded. It was a lot like Eve Benson, really. Human Zack as well, who he’d actually spent several days with. The big difference there was the amount of energy put behind a lot of the words. That and the fact that both Troy and Eve used things far more creatively than Zack did.
So he smiled, trying to make it seem self-assured, to cover his remaining doubt. That was what Troy did all the time. Eve tried to cover the fact that she defaulted to not having anything except for anger inside of her as a rule.
It made a difference in how things seemed, externally.
“Sure! He’s really cool. Is this in the world that he’s from?” He knew that wasn’t the case, but Timon seemed to get that. The point was that he was able to make conversation that sounded right.
At least to their foreign ears. A native of that place would probably find a lot of the things he said and how he said them to be suspicious.
Still, Tim was pleased enough at his effort, for the moment.
“That’s it. Not that he’s from there, but that it will let you kind of work your way in. We aren’t trying to fool their base commander or their top people, but developing good habits won’t hurt you. What do you need to know in order to get to the right place?”
It turned out that it wasn’t that much. He changed his clothing, from the skirt he had on at the moment, to the same outfit that he’d worn to take May back to the world she was staying in. That happened while they walked, since it was almost automatic for him now. Altering his hair color, he nearly picked blonde with blue eyes, but Taman touched his arm.
