by P. S. Power
That was, armor appeared all over her body, as she made a low moaning sound. It was a dark brown color, and flowed over her skin like a liquid.
Then, many voices spoke as one. It was an eerie, but kind of interesting effect.
“We saw and learned your tricks already. We are everywhere. In every time. You cannot defeat us.”
Then, barely seeming to move, the woman started to fight again, forcing first Tor, and then Dareg back. The only interesting portion of things was that, as soon as she managed to get him out of the way, the woman would, carefully it seemed, undo her multiple reality fighting trick, and move to chase Tor, then redo the many people state again. It happened three times in about a second or two. It was very hard to tell, since time was being distorted so much, thanks to what everyone there was doing.
Even he was trying to stand as far to the side of consensual time as possible, in order to fight at anywhere near the pace of the lady before them.
“Tor… Run. She’s after you. Go.” He had a plan, but doubted that the man was going to get it in time, even as he tried to send the plan to him. Pushing it outward, with as much clarity as possible. Tor didn’t just need to run, but had to kind of jog away. Just fast enough to force the attacker to go for him. Then, when she let her trick go, and moved to be on the man, Dareg would attack.
It was risky, if she caught on, since his weapon was around his neck and the only way he was going to get to it was to get naked for a bit, leaving him vulnerable. To that end he jumped back and tried to run backwards as Tor worked out the plan and did the same. Still firing at the woman. She was being hit, but slipped side to side so well that most of the stone being made out of thin air managed to miss her.
As soon as she turned, ducking to the floor and sprinting on all fours at the man she clearly wanted dead, Dareg dropped his armor, letting the dust of it fall to the ground, tore his weapon amulet from his neck, being careful to leave the shield, and triggered his armor again, with it in his right hand. It formed inside the armor, but could be used from there.
It hit him then that it could have also worked from around his neck, with only a bit of extra focus, if he’d just bothered to think of it first. He didn’t dwell on it, but knew he was going to feel stupid later. His concentration went to the back of the smaller armored form’s head. Her helmet was a different shape, but left a gap at the bottom there, so he tried to slam into the space hundreds of times, one after the other. Then, as the woman fell down, toppling forward toward Tor, she did something that he couldn’t really track, and was gone. It was remotely similar to what a jump shield did, he thought. At least the room was left empty, except for a lot of mess, as well as several patrons and the Tellerand server, huddling under some tables across the room.
“Lovely. Is anyone injured? Tor?”
The man gasped a bit, and was bleeding in half a dozen places when the armor came off. He started to heal then, which got several pained sounds from him, and some snapping noises. That would be where things had been broken and were repairing themselves.
Looking down and doing the same thing, Dareg noticed that he was actually slightly worse off than Tor was, for some reason. There were holes in his skin that had to have been placed there through the armor, when the blades hit him. They didn’t go in far, thankfully, but there were ten spots of blood that were healing already.
There were broken bones as well, which he knew weren’t from the fight. It had happened while he’d moved away from the woman, since it had taken place in distorted time. That was one of the side effects of that kind of thing, which he’d totally forgotten about in the heat of battle. He didn’t make a noise as the pain flared however, since he had time to steel himself to it that Tor wasn’t getting. Reality, no matter what else, was just slower for him now.
Dragging and time consuming.
His stomach growled at him, since fight or not, he needed to eat soon.
Looking around, waiting for the next attack, Dare noticed that one of the people, hidden under a table some twenty feet away, seemed to have taken to the Austran habit of getting everything on their handheld. In fact he was still doing that as Dareg moved toward the man. Putting clothing back on as he did, now that the wounds were healing enough that they wouldn’t just be soaked with blood instantly.
“Hello! Could we get a copy of that? I don’t know what you got there…” Because big parts of it were gone from his mind, when he tried to think about them. Others were pretty hazy already.
The strong face, half covered by a piece of pale focus stone, popped out a bit further, coming into focus for him. It was familiar, but not so much so that it clicked with him instantly. Blinking a bit Dare finally nodded, the memory of where they’d met coming back to him, since it hadn’t been that long before. A few years. For him. About a month or two for everyone else.
The man, who was about Dare’s own age, if a bit younger, by perhaps a year or two, making him a boy, stood up. He was shorter than Dareg, and not as thin, but had a sturdy build under his black outfit.
“Well met. I think I got most of it? Not the first second or two, but I was watching Uncle Tor, since I’m not exactly supposed to be here. I was practicing landings at the port in Noram, just taking my ship off and landing, since my parents are in town there.”
Dare nodded, since that sounded like a good thing to do, if you had a space ship.
“That makes sense. I won’t tell on you or anything. We’ve met? I’m Dareg Canton. Your cousin? Countier Clemance Thomson isn’t it?” He thought that was right, though he might have been Dumas. That was the smaller one of the two boys however.
The boy winced, but nodded.
“Yes. Thank you. I probably won’t be able to get out of being punished for this, but the thought is a kind one. I used the new transport device to get here. It’s interesting, but lacks something, compared to flying. I think it’s too quick. Then, being here, I thought to have a meal. Leading me to be at the right place for this?”
He nodded, and waved the boy over.
“I don’t know what we need to do here. Report this, I guess? Can I see that played back? Tor? We have that on record…”
His father knew more about what was going on than he did as far as the process of what was needed, at least. They had guards there, and Queen Tiera was contacted directly. She was busy, but that level of attack seemed to get attention from a lot of people. Clemance groaned a bit as half of the people that were there recognized him immediately. Douglas Baker even walked over and slapped the kid on the shoulder, then did the same to Dare.
“I didn’t think either of you would be here! A bit late at night to be off in town playing, isn’t it?” The man looked to be about nineteen, and was his grandfather. Really, he was that to Clemance as well, which gave them a kind of solidarity.
Dareg lied, since it felt like the right thing to do.
“Mars is on different time than it is here. Clemance is working with me on a project for that, now that I’ve proved to Austra that I’m not a liar. I need someone on Earth to look into things with the ports occasionally. Mainly the garden projects. I figured that if I got him to do it, then it wouldn’t cost as much. We were going to get with Tiera and see if she wanted him to do the same here, but this kind of…”
Clemance looked down, as if feeling guilty, and Douglas winked at him, as if to make certain they knew he wasn’t buying it for a second. The thing there was that the work did need to be done. They had some crews on it, but that didn’t mean someone didn’t need to be around to report back to him on what was taking place. Especially in the winter, when he was off at school.
Instead of making their life harder, Douglas pulled a pipe, tapped it on his hand several times and held it between his teeth. It seemed incredibly out of place, since he was dressed like a wealthy merchant, in green and gold, but too young seeming for a pipe to look like more than a prop.
“Well, normally this is a harmless enough place to head to. It isn’t like you wer
e both at the wine shop, or the whorehouse. Still, you should call your father, Clemance. Let him know what’s going on here.”
It wasn’t three in the morning in the Capital, which probably meant it was all right to do that, so Dareg got his handheld out and found the right name. It wasn’t the Count for him however, but the Countess. His Aunt. She really did look a lot like Debbie Smalls. Enough that he nearly stared for a moment.
“Dareg? Is everything all right?” Her voice was concerned, but she examined the world around her carefully, drinking in information. She couldn’t really see much however, since he’d known that was going to happen.
“An Adversary attack on Harmony. I was visiting. Tor and I were involved in it. I’m heading off to Jupiter tomorrow, or the next day. The trip is for Dorgal Sorvee’s birthday as well as a scientific mission? I was thinking that you and Count Thomson should come? As my guests.”
She smiled then and looked down, as if flirting with him, which was gross. Not just because she was his aunt either. She really did look like Debbie Smalls, so he was potentially getting that relationship from two sides.
“We’ve already been invited. Collette Sorvee asked us. Good to know that won’t be amiss with you as well. I just wish that the boys could come, even if there won’t be a lot for them to do.” She seemed wistful about the idea for a moment, then tightened her eyes, wincing, much like Clemance had done a bit before. Due, no doubt, to the idea that she didn’t want to pressure him into doing things like she was doing.
Dareg smiled.
“Hah. See, I already signed Clemance up to act as my new port man. Going around and seeing that the gardeners are doing their jobs? It’s why he was up here with me when the attack happened. Not with us, but he did manage to get the whole thing on his handheld, which is a stroke of luck. He cleverly stood back for that, in case you’re going to worry. Doing the smart thing. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. Plus, I hear he works cheap? That is what you said, wasn’t it Clemance?”
The woman in his hand seemed shocked, but the boy managed to look bland about it all. He sounded that way too.
“Not that cheap. But using the new transport system I can get everyplace in about an hour a week. We just need to get one for Thomson, so I can work from there. How we do that, I don’t know.”
Dareg nodded then, deciding to just make it all real enough.
“I can send you with a few of them to put in different places. Warden has one… Really, most of the big cities probably should. Can you do that, too? I’ll get you the amulets and set up Mars and the Martian Circle for that myself. Erath has the incoming fleet… We should get someone from here to do the Moon for us… Maybe Claremont? I haven’t seen her for a while, but she does a good job with the port here.”
That sounded right to him, and the Countess apparently thinking that it all sounded reasonable enough. Which it wasn’t. He was putting up hundreds of transportation nodes, for instance. That could lead to problems if he wasn’t careful about it.
His cousin nodded, very seriously, and the woman in his hand smiled up at Dare.
“We’ll see you in a day then? I hear we’re supposed to meet on Mars for that? That sounds exciting, doesn’t it?”
It did sound that way.
“Can I keep Clemance for a bit? We’ll head out that way, and he can pick up the transport pods. It will be a few hours, since he was a witness here, not that it’s a big thing. No one was actually harmed, for once.” He left out that part about just how good the woman had been however.
If it had been her, the new attacker, in the room with them the first time, instead of Bill and Kevin, they all would have died. Only better tricks of their own had changed things this time. If there had been two of her, or if Tor had been alone, then she still might well have won.
The Countess, looking polite, went a bit firmer then.
“That sounds fine. Do remind Clem that he’s going to be in trouble however? He was told not to leave the port facility. It’s kind of you to try and protect him like this, but a bit transparent. You left holes all over your story. I expect better from you, in the future.”
Dareg rolled his eyes, but smiled at the same time.
“All right. Don’t beat him too hard, please. I really do expect him to do that work for me. He’ll need to be able to walk, in order to get that done.”
That got a laugh, and then a pleasant goodbye before the handheld went dark.
Clemance looked scared, and a bit miserable, for some reason. Dareg didn’t really get it. After all, the worst his parents could do was beat him for a while, or perhaps starve him. Those things weren’t fun, but they weren’t going to kill him or anything. Past that, death, it seemed silly to worry.
Chapter nine
Clemance got himself back home, since the transport pods were easy to use for things like that, and odds were he wasn’t actually a front line target for the Adversaries. That meant having a good shield would be enough for him, most likely. Not that Dare was going to leave things at that. If he was going to be forced to have family members, then he needed to make sure they had the good armor and weapons. The ones that would protect them against beings that could move past other magics. It was the kind of obligation that seemed to go along with that kind of thing.
Dareg wasn’t certain what his part of things really were supposed to be. That was a major issue in his life at the moment, he knew. There was a certain aspect of the whole family thing that he wasn’t certain about at all. He was expected to be part of things, but honestly didn’t know how much effort was actually required for his part of it.
Tor finally left, which meant Dareg was allowed to wander back to his own place for a while. So he worked, making new things and copies, since it was going to be a bit before he could see to fighting lessons or visiting his new people.
It felt weird to him, after all that time, to consider it all. His mother was alive, and possibly not even really evil. She’d left him, but hadn’t gone so far away that she hadn’t been aware of what was going on with him. That wasn’t good enough, but he could see why she’d been forced to do it. In her world, keeping him, the son of Torrance Baker, the wizard, was asking for him to be forced into service, to destroy all of reality.
On the good side that way, it was very possible that he would have been far more normal if that had happened. Dare was, he could see, pretty powerful now. It wasn’t anything he’d earned however. Most of it was simply given to him, by Timon. Without those changes he would have been strong and fast, compared to a normal person, but eventually dead at the hands of the enemy. He might still be, in the end.
That last lady, even though she was only about his own size, which was huge for Afrak, he realized again, had been good. Simply better than he was in a fight. Without armor or time tricks… Well, the whole thing might have gone very differently. He was faster than she was, he thought, on a physical level. It nearly hadn’t mattered however. A fight against her, or someone like her, if magic wasn’t working… Might well end with his death.
Tor and him might have won that way, two to one, but she might have also killed his father in the first move, which would have changed so much. Shaking his head, Dare had to focus on his breathing, in an attempt to let go of the fear that wanted to crawl up inside of him.
After what felt like several hours of meditation, but was actually about five minutes, it was possible for him to actually work, and make up some copies of things. More of the girls, which would just add to the amount of bodies, not create new mentalities, as well as armor, weapons and an attempt at a complex shield that would protect people that didn’t know how to fight, or when to run away.
That one took time, meaning that he missed the morning lessons in Printer. That didn’t stop him from going in for the end of the lessons however, a nice black floating chest behind him. It was large, but had gifts for people, so he might not be beaten all the way to death for his poor attendance. Then again, he expected to be punished.
/> Probably with extra lessons, having to fight everyone available, and maybe just being stripped bare and thrashed in public, to humble him. Given that he didn’t have a great reason for being gone all that time, it was probably fair enough, even if he didn’t really want to be beaten while begging in particular.
The red box let him out into the weapons square directly, no one having bothered to move the thing yet. It was, more or less, out of the way, and had probably just seemed to fit in, after the first day or two. Most of the faces in the yard, dancing with blades and sticks on the stones, were unfamiliar to him. Still, several of them noticed him walking out of the box, and came at him anyway. Slowly. Petra Ward, his Aunt, actually grinned a bit, but walked over empty handed. Behind her were David Derring and Baron Havar. The large noble had a stout looking club in his hand, and wasn’t smiling at all.
“Canton. I noticed your absence over the last weeks. I hope the girl was at least pretty?”
It hadn’t occurred to him that the man wouldn’t know all about what had happened with him. It was also possible that the man did know, he realized, and just didn’t care. A single murder wouldn’t have thrown him off all that much, after all. He was a noble of Noram, and probably figured that killing a commoner was just within Dareg’s rights as a Prince.
“Sorry about that. I killed a man, in a combat rage, and had to make certain it wasn’t going to happen again. Plus, I kind of thought I was a fugitive for a bit. So there was a bit of hiding involved. It’s not a great excuse. There were some girls however. Would you like to meet them? I have them in the box.” He glanced back, and David looked at him like he was insane.
“I hope not. It’s a good sized travel case, but it could be hard to breathe in here, even if they’re small.”
He nodded, since that was just the truth. It would have been miserable, even if you had air holes. Hoping that he wasn’t about to be beaten from behind with no warning, he turned, and popped the top on the case trying to hold a friendly expression. He got one of each of the new things out, and started up one of each of the girls.
