by P. S. Power
The Young Ancients: Second Cycle. Book-Three
Kindred
P.S. Power
Orange Cat Publishing
Copyright 2016
Chapter one
It was very possible, Dareg knew, that he was just a tiny bit bored at the moment. It wasn’t the fault of anyone else. Just himself, for letting it happen like a doof. A big part of the reason for it was that, since the genetic level changes had been made to him by the Wizard Timon, Dare had thrown himself into nearly constant work on one thing or another, and now, after what felt like a year already, he was trying to just sit and meditate.
That wasn’t even a joke, as to the time it seemed had passed for him. At first it had been odd, and strange to even think of it that way, but it was clear now that he truly wasn’t living in the same time frame as everyone else. That meant, to him, that he’d been a virtual hermit for a long, lonely, while now. To everyone else it had been… Whole days, he thought. Honestly, it was hard to keep track, anymore.
Hence trying something new, to keep himself busy.
The goal was to just sit, for two hours, and not do anything at all, except breathe, very slowly. Like a normal person might, in reality. The kind of thing that would seem regular enough to most people, and to him would feel like an ordeal of epic proportions at the moment.
His body was still racing as he sat in the middle of the floor of his pod house, focusing on the passage of air through his nose. Dare tried to brush the hair out of his eyes, but there was nothing there, his head having only the smallest amount of stubble on it now. Thick and black still, like it had always been, but very short. It had been eaten down to nothing not long before. He recalled that clearly, though it honestly felt to him like it had been well over a year already since that had taken place.
Dare felt his mind flow off in a different direction then, thinking about that part of things. How his hair, once longer than his collar, had been eaten away not a week before, to make air for him, after he’d fought one of the Adversaries. Off in space. Rushing toward the sun which had eventually killed the other man. Not him however, thanks to the special magics that he’d been wearing. That all tried to come back to him, forcing him to relive it, but he didn’t bother allowing that to happen. It felt distant from him now. Like it really had happened a long time before.
That was nearly everything now, however. The changes were still hitting him intensely, though he didn’t feel half as hungry now, at least. Dare knew that the time distortion he was living in had to be mastered however. It had been five whole days since he’d been changed by Timon Baker, his wizard uncle, so that fighting the enemy would be possible for him. That it truly felt like it had been a full year was, of course, an exaggeration.
It actually felt like it had been about eleven months.
“Which is why you need to stop yammering and get to work. Meditate, and then build things. Then, in the morning, get off and go to practice in Printer. Slowly the whole time. Stop acting like this is hard.” It was however. So difficult that the concept of even attempting to pretend he was normal still made him feel slightly ill. There was an underlying dread to doing it all, that ate at him, even as he tried to calm down and focus.
Again, that was just boredom speaking, and he really didn’t have time for that kind of thing anymore. Not given that he was going to be up constantly for the rest of his life. Awake, and alert. Ready to bring the fight to the enemy like a true warrior. If he didn’t let himself become so distracted they just walked up to him, slowly, and exploded. At the moment that might actually work, he knew. He saw everything, and had time to think, but that just meant he spent most of his time distracted and running off in several different directions at once.
Closing his eyes, Dare wiped the grin from his face, and truly brought his mind to bear on the task at hand. First concentrating on his breathing, which he forced to slow to a point that it felt like he was only doing it once every five minutes or so. Constantly drawing air in, and allowing it to escape without sound. Then, carefully, he slowed that even more. Not counting, but also knowing that his inner sense of what two hours would be wouldn’t work as a way to time things now. His mind cleared however, since one of the changes made to him allowed for very intense focus. Faster mental processing as well, which kind of countered that idea, so he felt more or less normal, inside his own head, most of the time.
That was the hardest part. He didn’t feel faster than he used to. He simply was, and it was too easy to forget it. If anything, it seemed that the world around him had started to run more slowly suddenly. Like an object dropping through oil. So daily practice getting along was the new rule that he’d set himself.
When he opened his eyes, after what honestly seemed to have been most of a day spent focusing, if not two, there was a nice surprise. His handheld, which had been set to display a countdown of his endeavor showed that he’d kept it up for an hour and forty-three minutes already.
“Close enough.” This time, as he spoke, Dare forced himself to do it incredibly slowly. At a speed that anyone listening would, hopefully, not even think he was rushed at all.
Then, for the first time since he’d been altered, Dareg Canton tried to build something new. To make real magic happen and not just copy things with minor changes being made to others work. At first there had been a bit of worry that his flighty mind would make that too difficult for him, but after the first set of lights, his own complicated version of them, was finished, he just nodded, glanced at the timer, and tested one of the shiny tiles.
It was about half the size of his palm, looked to be on tan, opaque glass, and had glowing sigils in several places. That was to show a person where to touch the thing in order to control the various aspects of it. One, in startling pink, for brightness. Another which looked like a circle in a nice sky blue, that let you imagine the shape you wanted the light to take. It worked like it was supposed to.
Given that he’d made a thousand of the things in just about twenty-five minutes, Dare had to feel a bit of relief. That was faster than he used to do them, by a lot, but he’d done it, meaning that his ability to make magic, or at least copies of it, wasn’t damaged by what had happened to his mind. To test things out, and force his brain to accept the new regime, he made ten more sets of things, getting slightly faster with each one.
Then he had to move them all outside, into the night. One of his floating cases ended up being about the size of his little pod house, in height. Taking a bit of time, he made it looked really nice however. It was a deep brown color, and seemed to be made of fine hardwood, with carefully rounded decorative edging. There was a clasp on the front to keep it closed, even if the magical thing didn’t actually need it. That part was just for style. It just floated there, above the Earth, by about three feet. Like it was supposed to. The thing was only about half full however. Which of course seemed to be a waste of space to him, now that he thought about it.
Dare grinned.
“Fine, so that’s half the night down. For my next trick, I think I’ll do something new.”
There were ideas for him to work on. That part of things had really ramped up in the last two or three days. Thinking about what they needed to have in a fight against the Adversaries, several new things had come to him that might just work. They, the enemy, could, at least when they distorted time and space while they fought, get around magical fields fairly nicely. What they couldn’t do was get around physical objects. Not so far anyway. So real armor, the old fashioned kind, was the first thing that had occurred to him.
Alice, his friend, or at least a woman that he’d met who wasn’t that hard to g
et along with, had been wearing some around that she was pretty certain would really help out, if you happened to have it on when a fight broke out. The problem there was that the stuff, while fine to fight in, was too bulky and stiff to be used for anything else. Living in it would be a pain and a half. So his plan was to recreate it, in a slightly different format. One that, if he did it right, would make it a thing that everyone could carry around with them, without difficulty.
The idea was a lot harder for him to make happen than it should have been. Mainly because he had to work out things that no one else ever had, as far as he knew. Parts of it were familiar however. The food and air devices commonly took things like dirt, rocks, water or even human waste, and could turn those base substances into things like bread, cheese, or frozen cream. Which meant it was possible to turn one thing into another, and that there was even a basic template for the idea that he could rip off.
Starting from that point, he was able to work out how to make the basic idea function for him. It was going to be a bit hard on the clothing that a person started with, but he built in layers of protection for that. Not for the outfits. If you were wearing regular clothing when you turned the field on, that had to be gotten out of the way, since the armor needed to ride very close to the skin with no real gaps. The device would, however, simply turn off a clothing amulet, if you had that kind of thing on.
The big part was that it wouldn’t eat up your hair, skin or other parts that you might want to keep. Only things outside of yourself. With a few exceptions.
The armor would also fit anyone wearing it, perfectly. Even if you lost a limb while fighting, and then turned it on, it would match you exactly. Covering the stump and stopping the bleeding. It needed to be able to respond to a threat however, before that kind of thing took place. For that, Dareg rather ruthlessly stole the pattern from the existing shields that they had. If you felt scared enough to turn one of those on automatically, then you were going to be wearing his new armor as well. The trick there was to allow that to build itself through the old shields. Yes, it was all based on feelings, but that would have to be good enough. If a person were in a combat rage then it wouldn’t turn on, unless they thought of doing things that way at the time. At least Dare figured it might work that way.
If that happened, a regular shield would actually activate first.
Things meant to keep almost everything outside of themselves. Which meant moving the tiniest of particles in, while signaling the field constantly that everything was all right and that it was just clean air coming in, so that it wouldn’t be blocked out. Or burned up, like a nano attack would be.
It took most of the night and into the morning to get it all done, mainly thanks to that last part. He would have been better off just making the new fields to work with those old shields turned off, but if he tried to do that, then they’d lose all the benefits of that magic. Which even if it wasn’t useful in a fight with the Adversaries directly, was really kind of handy in most other situations. In space it would keep air around you and protect you from the sun, for instance.
His new stuff would let you die, suffocating, if you didn’t have that kind of thing provided for otherwise. Breathing was far too much fun to not do however, so he did what was needed to keep that part of things going constantly. Without having to do all the work on his own.
It took him a while, but again, what it felt like to him, a brutal time that seemed like three or four weeks, locked in a state of pure and unbroken focus, was actually about four hours. It even left him time to put together a weapon to use that might work before he had to leave for the day.
Then, after making enough copies to outfit not just a few friends, but a small army, he got outside, and as slowly as he could get himself too, meandered over to his pal, Tam-Unit. To anyone watching it probably seemed a bit like he was rushing her. Running at close to full speed. With an act of will, he slowed even more than that, trying to actually make himself interact in normal time.
She looked like a pretty blue box that stood about five feet high at the top edge, and had a viewing screen inside that started out black, but blinked on, showing a rather attractive dark haired girl behind a window. She was in a blue top today, which was different than normal, getting him to smile.
He wasn’t joking when he spoke of the magical being as a friend. Actually, Dare was kind of certain he had a puppy crush on her. She was nearly perfect wife material after all. Great looking, always cheerful, and wonderful at making things like food and drinks. She even made sure that things around her stayed tidy. The only thing she lacked was a body. If she ever got one of those, she’d be perfect for him. Not that she wasn’t great how she was.
“Tam-Unit!” He made a point of seeming happy, since she was worth the effort. Also going slow, so that she could tell he was speaking to her and not just squeaking or moaning at her incoherently. Trying his hardest to seem normal, in both word and body.
“Dare! Do you need something to eat? To drink?”
“Both would be great, actually. Then I need to get out and do my daily running and get off to Printer, for weapons practice. The last time… Didn’t go that well.” He’d already spoken to her, at length about the alterations made to him. After all, she was the one providing all his food. The amount he was eating was incredible compared to before. On the great side, the port facility they were at was staying very clean now. He’d been covering nearly the whole thing several times a day, to get half rotten fruit cores and bits of waste to put into her side, which she turned into nutritious food for him.
It was more than a fair trade off.
Then, he’d also finished several buildings in that time. Made of focus stone, instead of magic, but he’d figured out how to form the thick walls with pipes inside of them for sewage and water, so they were all ready to live in now. Those had gone around the outer rim of the facility, which was busier than ever before, thanks to Space fleet bringing in not just one ship a day, but at least ten, headed off to different destinations constantly.
Tam didn’t ask him what he wanted to eat, like normal, passing a large pitcher of water that seemed to be made of rather fine and clear glass, not even bothering with a cup for him to use. He drank about half of it, but spilled a bit down his front at the same time. Then came a different beverage, which was very thick, and dense seeming. As he drank it, she explained her reasoning to him.
“You need the calories, but can only hold so much internal bulk at one time. This should do the trick. How does it taste?”
It really wasn’t great, so he was honest about that part.
“A little waxy? Pretty coating on the tongue. Sweet, under that. I can’t get much else off of it. I can drink it though. Thanks.” After all, it was probably close to a marvel, really.
The girl on the screen frowned, which at first he thought might be about her being insulted that he didn’t love the flavor. Instead, when she eventually spoke, which felt like an hour later to him, the glass of thick liquid being consumed and placed back in her side already and the water finished as well, she seemed pensive, rather than upset.
“I can try to add something to cut the coating of your mouth. What, I’m not certain yet. It might take some research. It’s all right though? For the time being?”
He nodded, feeling full from it and the water, though not bloated, thankfully. That would be horrible to have happen right before a run. Or a fight.
“Definitely. I’ll get another one before I leave for the morning? Really, I need to figure out how to take some of that with me as I travel around. That, or steal one of you for the task.” It was tempting and not the first time that he’d considered that idea. In fact, he’d already decided that if he had to move soon, which was the plan, that at least one of the blue boxes was traveling with him. It would be selfish, and theft, but it was going to be his plan anyway. At least if he could make it happen without being hung for it.
She grinned at him, which seemed to take a while to happen,
but was probably close to instant, compared to most people. She wasn’t constrained by the same physical limitations as a flesh person. It was just one of the many ways Uni was superior to normal people.
“I can do that part! There are some Austran tricks for that, which I picked up on Harmony. I’ll have that ready for you when you get back from your run.”
Reaching out, he patted the side of the very smooth blue box, and then took off directly. It felt quick to him, but not much better than the last run he’d made to the wall of the Noram Capital city and back again. It was a three-mile trip, each way, so he did it twice, the soft light from the glowing river that ringed the port guiding him. It had been changed by someone to be a nice silver color.
That probably meant it had been Tim Baker’s doing, since very few others would have made water glow in that particular color like that. Dare kind of preferred copper that way, himself, but didn’t bother with it at the moment. He was working too hard for that kind of thing, and got in just as the night started to turn to day.
That meant he was a bit late getting to classes, or would be, but he’d skipped the last few anyway, which was less than perfect of him. He needed to practice, but when he’d tried it, everyone had moved so slowly that he literally had lost track of what he was supposed to be doing. Not just once or twice, but constantly. He’d been fighting with Baron Havar, and gotten so bored that he’d just wandered away. Finally, Dareg had just left, not even trying to explain to anyone what was going on. It had to have seemed like he was horribly agitated to everyone there at the time, his body language shifting and twitching constantly. Then, he had been, even outside of the changes.
Not an hour before that, in real time, it had been uncovered that his mother, who he’d watched die, drowning in a storm, right next to him, was in fact alive. At least her body wasn’t in its grave. To him that was rather telling. A shroud wrapped log being in her place, which wasn’t some kind of simple accident. It was kind of clear as to what it meant. Part of him was glad of that, naturally, since he truly loved her. She was his mother, after all.
