Sons (Book 2)

by Scott V. Duff

  “Hey, Seth, figured it was you,” Marty said, pushing through the guards and flopping down on the bed beside me. “You finally find some gofers?”

  “Sort of. Marty, would you mind finishing the protocol?” I asked him. “I didn’t make the call.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking confused. “Who did?”

  “I did. I am First of Gilán,” Jimmy said. I snickered. I knew where this was going.

  Marty glanced at me sideways, a little confused by the answer, then asked, “Is that your name or your title?”

  “Both,” Jimmy said, also looking confused.

  “Where have I heard that before?” Marty muttered and again glanced at me.

  I grinned as Marty kept going, moving through the protocol now with government precision, uncaring since we knew the goal was met from the beginning, but step-wise it was correct. Before Marty’s guards left, I asked one to pass a message to John telling him to expect a number of odd fluctuations as I taught several people to move between my realm and here. This got Marty excited, which hopefully would translate into making this move along faster. The timing was good, too, at a little after eleven thirty here. Lunch time and as luck would have it since the kitchens were otherwise involved, boxed lunches were delivered.

  We decided to stay here since this wing was the quietest in the manor and even though I had a good enough position to grab everyone I wanted through the castle’s wards, that would have been extremely rude, acceptable in an emergency only. I would have to do this the hard way, sort of. Finding everyone in the wards was a minor challenge, but only minor since I was intimately aware of each of the targets. My parents were super easy since they were down the hall and just as easily convinced with the promise of free reign of the gardens for when therapy got too stressful—like that would ever be an issue with me.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cahill were similarly as easy as Enid was in the middle of a harangue to get him to stop for lunch anyway. I just provided him a convenient avenue of excuse to save face in front of the workmen and staff. Why “I’ve just had a heart attack” wasn’t enough for him, I didn’t understand, but I guess when you’re set in your ways… It wouldn’t be fair to say Enid nagged Felix, but that was how most of the men in the room chose to view it, though some understood it was necessary behavior. I offered to move us up the easy way, but Enid said he needed the exercise. Confusing logic there…

  Gordon, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult. He was at the center of the maelstrom and contrary to popular science, this storm did not have a quiet eye. I’ve actually only been to Felix’s and Gordon’s offices once each. Most of our dealings happened in the observatory for one reason or another. There were a lot of people poured into those two tiny rooms. Well, the rooms weren’t really tiny until you tried to fit that many people into them.

  And he’d delegated! There was a secretary in the front room that was keeping tight control of who got into the inner offices. Gordon had the interconnecting door open and Bishop was using Felix’s desk while Felix was recuperating, helping with the emissary meeting. I didn’t even try to figure out who wanted what and why, but there seemed to be certain people in charge of certain aspects of the project. Some I knew and some I didn’t, but I asked Gordon for this and I trusted him. This was more than I bargained for, but that’s been true for a few months now.

  While I was busy trying to figure a way to distract Bishop, I ran afoul of another problem I hadn’t foreseen. Should’ve, but didn’t. The secretary stopped me. I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me, and to make matters worse, the office had cleared of the few who did know me. It wasn’t an annoyance, more of an amusement, and easily and quickly resolved. A quick mental conversation with Jimmy followed by a phone call from Felix had the guy almost genuflecting his way into Gordon’s office in front of me. Bishop, unfortunately, was just passing through into Gordon’s when we came in and burst into laughter at the sight.

  Gordon excused himself for lunch and cleared his office, equally amused at his new and probably temporary secretary’s behavior. Gordon was a little suspicious of me being here alone but didn’t ask me about it yet, so rather than give either of them a chance to ask questions about why I was here, I grabbed at the first distracting question I could think of.

  “Any news from the States yet?” I asked, sitting down in the chair in front of Gordon’s desk.

  “No, did something happen?” Gordon asked, getting more suspicious. “Shouldn’t you be in the air right now?” He glanced up at the wall clock beside the door.

  “Huh,” I said, trying to be disarming. “You’d have thought killing a brigadier general and capturing over four hundred active duty US troops on US soil while seriously damaging a blood cult all operating together in an attempt to destroy me and my family would have made the news or sumpin’.”

  When I looked up, I saw the reaction I wanted: both jaws dropped and eyes widened in shock. “I guess Harris and Messner are doing a pretty good job of cover-up then.”

  “Is everyone okay?” Gordon asked slowly.

  “I’m sure the General’s wife wouldn’t agree, but yes,” I said. “There were only two fatalities that I know of in the military but only one got away in the blood cult. We left a little after midnight, I think, so if anything happened after that, I don’t know about it. That was, what, about six hours ago? Considering that was the third attack on me yesterday, I was a mite testy. And tired.”

  “You call Harris and I’ll call Darius,” Bishop said as he stood, heading for Felix’s office. “Let’s find out what we can.”

  “Actually, I need to borrow Gordon for a bit first,” I interrupted as Gordon reached for his phone. “He’s the last one and everyone else is waiting. Won’t take too long. I’ve just got something to show y’all and you can come back and harass Harris to your heart’s content.”

  “’Y’all’?” Bishop asked. It wasn’t a difficult contraction to understand so I wasn’t exactly sure what he was asking.

  “My parents, his parents, and his brother,” I said, smiling with blissful ignorance, kind of like those shaved-headed guys in the airport with the flowers. “Something I found in the Palace, a token of sorts. It’s quite pretty.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Bishop asked me.

  I shrugged and said, “Maybe for the same reason you think you’re going to win that bet?”

  Gordon burst into laughter as Bishop’s face flushed in embarrassment. Wrapping us both in portals, I jumped us both to my room, putting Gordon on the bed sitting down so he didn’t fall in the transition. Felix, sitting on the other side of the bed, turned to watch his elder son enjoying my joke at Bishop’s expense, not knowing why. Gordon went through several attempts to say what he found so funny before he finally got it out.

  “He knows about the bet,” Gordon said, wiping the tears from his very red face. “Caught us off guard on it, too. Who told?” Both Felix and Marty swore it wasn’t them and I wasn’t going to say that Bishop was trying to figure out a way to get close enough to pin the bell on me without me knowing it. I didn’t know what a ‘quid’ was, but Bishop bet Gordon a thousand of them that he could put a bell on me before the emissaries arrived.

  “Okay, the reason we’re here today is that I found a better way than using that door to get in and out of my realm,” I said, pointing to the portal. “It’s very easy to use and has a number of benefits, not the least of which is that they’re pretty.” Moving to the footboard and leaning over it, I poured the diamonds out of the pouch and out onto the brown bedspread. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as I wanted.

  Trust a mother to come to the rescue. Mine sat lightly on the bed and slipped a white handkerchief in low between the blue diamonds and the warm comforter, showing the brilliance of the stones wonderfully.

  “Seth, they’re beautiful! They’re diamonds?” my mother asked, watching Enid spread them across the cloth evenly.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered, grinning and trying to downplay it. Al
l I did was pick ‘em up, really. “Learning more every day now. The Palace decided to show me more about my realm by showing me my realm yesterday morning. All of it, all at once, in several different ways and it’s a lot to process. The simplest to understand is more or less in the form of a map and below this map are these, sitting in a pool of clear water. You think these are beautiful? You should see their daddy!”

  “Have you chosen a name yet?” Dad asked.

  “That was part of what I learned that morning, yes,” I said. “’Gilán’ is the simplest in human speech and will translate equally in sounds phonetically in Fae Common, too. There is a longer and multiple-voiced name that is actually a little hard to hear, if that makes any sense.”

  “No, I think I know what you mean by that,” Dad said. He had a strange enough look on his face that I believed him, because it was truly a weird idea to me—an incomprehensible sound?

  “The Fae will sing a good portion of it as well as a good portion of my name on Wednesday,” I said. “And if the Palace joins in? I may cry, let me just warn ya now.” I was grinning, but I meant it.

  “Pick out a stone and you can consider settings using as many as you’d like, but just pick one today. I have a smith recuperating from an injury and once we’ve got him nice and safely installed into home and hearth, we’ll see what he can do.” It’s funny to watch six people basically pick from a pile randomly, but basing it all on an intuitive internal feeling. There wasn’t much difference between any of the diamonds I’d chosen intentionally—I didn’t want anyone to feel slighted. I probably should have brought only six, fairly identical blanks, but that seemed too stiff and impersonal.

  As they chose, I stamped their essences onto the primary face of the key, along with the senses of the places that would be the most likely places for each person. It was easier this time with the practice of the other keys. I had the preliminaries done by the time everyone had chosen.

  “Okay,” I said while I returned the rest to the pouch. “If everyone will turn their concentration to the diamonds, you’ll notice that they feel a little different now, feel like ‘you’.” Slipping the pouch in my pocket, I looked around at everyone while they pushed their wills down into the keys for the first time, feeling the sensation for the first time. “You’ll also notice that there seems to be the sense of a few places in there as well, like the foyer of the castle here, the gate to the Palace, my Throne room, and likely a room or two you’ve not seen before, right?” My mother and Enid both gasped at seeing this for the first time, but everyone else nodded, accepting the visions they were seeing. For all the power both these women could control, this was still very much a man’s world and they lacked the experience that their husbands and sons had. Odd, considering the matriarchal Fae, and sad, but true nonetheless.

  “These scenes are where you’ll be able to shift back and forth to,” I said. “If you’re able to hold the sense of a place well enough, you can shift to that place instead, but recognize that there are dangers there that I cannot predict. It is just like opening a portal, really. These places in the gem are locked into place and safe to move to and from. I can add to them as needed, but it’s just like opening a portal, I have to know how to get there, too.” Everyone seemed to understand, even if Mother and Enid were so enamored with the vivid pictures they were seeing in the tiny stones they held in their palms.

  “It’s such a clear image, Seth,” Mother said. “How many ‘places’ will fit on one diamond?”

  “Don’t know yet, but if there’s a limit, there’s plenty of keys to chain together,” I said. “Now everyone doesn’t have the same places, but there are several in common so we’re going to learn and practice with those. If everyone would find the Throne room, please… Now once you’ve got that room set in your mind, push a pair of words through the key. The words are…” Gilán, Daybreak, I sent through the diamonds they held.

  Everyone made the shift to the Throne room, but Enid. She was flustered and stuttered over the Fae words. I glanced at her with what I hoped was a calming look.

  “This is easier than even a year with Felix, dear,” I said lightly. “You can do this. They’re just words.” Gilán, Daybreak, I sent the words to her again, putting as much of my memory of the Palace’s singing the phrase as I dared. I didn’t want to fry her mind, just incite her to move.

  And a second later, she did. I shifted over, too, with a smile on my face. Grabbing everyone, I moved us all back to my room in the castle and said, “Let’s do it again, without my prompting, just to make sure everyone’s got it.” Everyone shifted just fine this time.

  “Good,” I said, shifting with them this time. “Now, look for the room you haven’t seen before, the one the looks like a lobby. Mom and Dad, yours will have three doors in it, the Cahill’s has five. Everybody got that room?” Everyone nodded. “Jimmy, if you’d go with the Cahills, please, we’ll follow in just a moment. Let’s shift.”

  I felt the slight tugs at the Palace that told me the shifts occurred and I was standing in the lobby of my parents’ apartment suite with them, directly in front of their door. “This…” I said, sweeping my hand around the room and ending at their door, “is yours. There are two apartments on either side to do with as you see fit and your apartment here.” I pushed the door open, gesturing for them to enter, following them. The entryway was by far the most feminine of all the apartments so far—any room I’ve seen, really. The stonework here was lush peaches and reds, warmer colors.

  Even from the front door, there was a clear view of the back gardens and through some acoustic magic the waterfall off the rear of the Palace ran off the side of the balcony. But it wasn’t roaring through the room, deafening everyone. Carpeting ran along the marble floors in simple and majestic style and I knew at a glance that my mother would like it. My father was a little harder to judge, well, used to be harder to judge. Now, his thoughts whispered to me in the breeze if I listened, but something about reading my parents like that made me uneasy.

  They were both so excited that I hated to cut it short. “I’m sorry, but Gordon and Felix are on a schedule, so I need to get back to them. Do y’all want to stay here?”

  “Could we?” Mother asked, looking scared.

  “Well, yeah, that’s the whole reason for the keys, to give you free access,” I said. “You can come and go as you please. If this is where you want to live, then do. Kieran and Shrank are lining up the Fae to take care of the Palace today so the supplies will be more readily available. There are spots on the front lake and back gardens in the keys and you can call me anytime through them, unless I’m asleep or involved in something that requires all of my attention.”

  “So I’m betting his Lordship’s digs are nicer,” Dad said as we moved into their new apartment.

  “Robert!” Mother cried, aghast.

  “What? I’m not saying this isn’t the Taj Mahal,” Dad said, grinning at her. “I’m just curious to know what the Taj Mahal Supreme is like.”

  “I’m not sure ‘nicer’ is the right word,” I said. “Bigger, more open. Mine is the top two floors at the front of the Palace. Most of it is open space with lots of plants. You’re more than welcome to come look, but it’s farther away from just about everything.”

  “We can peek at that later, dear,” Mother said, sliding an arm around my father’s waist. “Go see to the Cahills. We’ll be fine on our own for a while, I’m sure.”

  “If you have any troubles and can’t get me through the key, just yell off the balcony,” I said. “There are sprites in the garden now and they’ll call for Shrank or the Dea brothers. They can definitely get through to me without a key.”

  “Can you teach us how they do it?” Dad asked.

  “Through the geas? ‘Fraid not,” I said, but that, he grasped perfectly and nodded his understanding. “Enjoy yourselves. Bye.” I hugged them as one since they were so close, then shifted over to the Cahills.

  The lobby was empty and three of the five doors w
ere open, but I only heard voices from Gordon’s. The five of them clustered in there so I went that way in search of them. As I walked through, I looked around and once again thought the décor was rather masculine with more brown, gray, and blue and occasional bursts of red and an almost yellow-orange marble. The furnishings were spare but unlike Mike’s, were rather plush and cushy, more fitting to Gordon’s style I supposed.

  “Gordon! You’ve got to see the bathroom!” Marty yelled from deeper in the apartment, obviously from the Master Bath. “It’s got a swimming pool!”

  “We’ll get there!” Gordon hollered from another bedroom where he and his parents were looking around. They were just coming around to the Master bedroom as I was coming up the grand and sweeping staircase to the second floor. Jimmy wasn’t with them and when I looked for him, he was jogging through the back garden. Thinking there was probably a reason, I kept quiet for the moment.

  “Well, what do you think? Reasonable home away from home? Vacation spot?” I asked as I reached the top.

  “It makes the castle look like a shed,” Felix mumbled, almost like his feelings were hurt.

  “That’s not really a fair comparison, though,” I said, trying to find an angle to placate his bruised ego. “This place was built with Faery magic to rule an entire realm. Your castle was built by your forefathers with blood, sweat, and tears to house and protect their families. Size alone… hmm, actually, if you figure the square footage of the two buildings and divide by the size of the territory covered, you come up much higher than I do.” I smiled like I won the argument but I knew that was very left-handed reasoning. Felix cocked his head to the right, gawking at me. Then he roared in laughter. Gordon didn’t quite get the joke, not that I could blame him. It was a very Faery way of thinking.