by P. S. Power
The Young Ancients, Second Cycle: Book one
Lineage
P. S. Power
Orange Cat Publishing
Copyright 2015
Chapter one
The short trip through the air hadn't been all that bad, as far as such things went. Dareg considered that while he rolled, poorly, on the hard road that was outside the tiny building. That at least was nearly smooth, being made of magical focus stone. Earth compressed into a thing that was, in a lot of ways, much like glass. It was a nice, fairly even, tan color. Impressively solid however, for all of that.
His elbow struck it hard before he could stand up, naturally. That happened in fights, or so he'd heard. You went down hard, and didn't have time to coddle your injuries. Not if you didn't want to be beaten even more for taking the time. Spinning, he heard something he really didn't expect from one of the large men that had attacked him.
"Sorry there, friend. We just can't take anyone as young as you are anymore. The rules changed, and it's not our doing. Families can get a trip, men and women over sixteen, and no one else. Orders of Queen Tiera. We had too many youngsters coming in alone. It made for problems." Then the door, which was also made of sturdy stone like material, clicked shut.
Locking him away from any chance of going off to live on the Moon, or even in space on one of the many stations up there. It wasn't that different from what he'd expected when he went in, so he just stood, pretended his right elbow wasn't killing him, and dusted himself off. The run down spaceport was covered with a fine tan patina, which was now all over him.
Then he faked a smile. There was no one there to see it, but that was all right. He didn't need to be strong for other people, just himself.
"That, did not go as well as I would have hoped." He spoke to no one, and was highly shocked when someone answered him. Especially since there really wasn't anyone else around as far as he could tell.
The spaceport was huge, as far as raw land use went. Nearly as big as Canton, where he'd come from originally. That was a real city though, and this place was more open. A wasteland made of glass with only one small building on the whole thing. No ships were in at the moment either. Somehow the whole place had been covered in bits of trash though. Odds and ends, piles of what he could only assume were human waste near the landing areas, and not much else. Except the burning sun. There was a lot of that reflecting back at him.
That beat down on him hard. He was probably going to burn to a crisp, if he wasn't careful. Not that there was lot of choice in the matter at the moment. There was nothing there, except a blue box which he assumed was an unused waste bin. Which meant he jumped for real when the woman spoke to him.
"Hello! Are you here to help set me up? It's about time! I've been here waiting for weeks. That's hardly fair." The voice seem to come from behind him, so he spun, ready to fight. True, it belonged to a woman, that he could tell without thinking about it.
That didn't mean she wouldn't have three strong buddies with her, to beat and rob him. The joke would be on them though if they tried. He didn't have anything to take. Not even a crust of bread. That didn't mean they couldn't go for him first, before he could explain that part to them. Most people were fairly reasonable, if they got a chance to be, but it helped if he could talk to them first, and explain things.
As he looked around though, he noticed that there simply was no one around. Like he'd thought to begin with. It was just the little focus stone cottage that he'd been asked to leave rather firmly, apparently with more force than the men inside had actually intended for him, and a little blue box along side of it. That was all.
The box thing spoke again, clearly being the source of the words. That probably meant someone was inside of it, playing a trick. That, or it was built of magic. Either one was possible, but he really wasn't going to trust that at the moment. The clean look of the thing probably meant it was that second one however, now that he examined it. It was shiny and new feeling, in what was otherwise a sort of run down area. Focus stone looked nice enough, but you still had to sweep and clean it if you wanted it to really shine. It was kind of clear that no one had been trying to even pick this place up.
"I don't think I have you in my database... Not exactly. Your genetic profile definitely shows you as being related to someone that is, however. Which I'm going to take as being close enough, if everyone is just going to ignore me like they have been. Did they send you to help me? It's about time someone noticed. I've been sitting here for weeks, as I said, doing nothing. That's hard on the ego, you know? I'm meant to help people, not just to sit and mope. If I don't get to do things, I get cranky." She sounded almost pleased to be talking, if a box was a girl really. Smiling, he decided not to be judgmental about that. Who was he to say that a box couldn't be a person?
Dareg decided to go with that, not wanting to get in a second fight that day. There was no real percentage in it for him, for one thing. Plus, who got into it with boxes? That would make him seem insane.
"Sorry, ma'am? I really don't know what you mean." That was honest enough. It was important to tell the truth as much as possible now. Especially that close to the Capital. People had special truth magics now, or so the stories went. All the City Guards had them, he'd heard. They didn't patrol out that far, but lying could be caught, and punished, so it was best to save that kind of thing for when you needed it.
The box made a small, slightly annoyed, sound.
"Oh? I'm sure... Say, could you step over here for a bit? I need to get a better reading, and my scan only works to about twenty feet out. For a good reading I need you a lot closer than that. So step this way, my pretty. I can't work with anyone that isn't in the database. Not without permission. It's against the rules. Not that I'm unwilling to break those if no one is going to give me a hand. I'm designed to work with a human controller, so you'd better be the one. What did you say your name was again?"
He smiled, knowing when he was being led by the nose. Still, there was nothing else to do there, so he moved in, catching his own likeness in the flat black expanse on the top of the machine. It was angled, so he looked a bit funny, but not bad. Just like he always did. Short, pale, and with jet black hair. A lot lighter in color than most, but not so much that anyone thought he was an albino. It was a good enough image that he kind of understood why all those men and women had asked him to bed with them. Some had even offering coin for it. That had been hard to resist, but he was too young for that to be legal, or had been until a few days before. Now he was fourteen. An adult. A law abiding one, other than a few minor crimes that he hadn't gone around telling people about.
Seeing himself didn't last too long, since the face of a woman appeared then. A really pretty one, that seemed to be behind the glass window. She had black hair, and was light colored as far as skin went, nearly matching him. At first he didn't understand what he was seeing, and jumped back a bit. Not that he was scared really, but it was a little startling, so he didn't feel bad about it. Instead he just laughed.
"You got me there. So, are you in the box, or is this like the communications devices I've heard of? The ones that show pictures of distant places. Those were mentioned in school, but I've never seen one myself."
There was a smile from the screen, and a wink from the good looking woman, who didn't seem all that much older than him. Not to look at. Sixteen or so, at a guess. Small too, like a commoner. Though he'd never heard of one that was that good looking.
"Neither really. Or both? I'm not a real person, as I think you've guessed. Just a magical device that can kind of think. I can answer questions, and once I get set up, I can make some things
for people. That's kind of limited really, since we don't want to damage the economy here, but I can help out with clothing, shoes, basic toiletries, and a limited menu of food. My job, eventually, is to make certain people coming to the space bases around the world always have enough to get by. So, your name?" That last part was a tiny bit sharper than the rest of it. Not that it wasn't pleasant, but it was just a little like the way his old schoolmarm had asked for his homework each day. As if he might not have done it, just because his mother was dead, and he had to live off of scraps that his neighbors provided. He'd always had it though.
Even when he'd had to write on bark that he'd collected, with bits of coal from the fire.
"Dareg. Dareg Canton, ma'am." It was, perhaps, a bit rich to lay claim having two names, but it was also fair. He was from Canton, and that was a normal enough way to get a name. Otherwise he'd be Dareg Merchant, which sounded really phony, if anyone were to pay attention.
There was a humming sound then. Like a girl passing the time, and after about ten seconds more words came.
"Well. I do not have you in my database, Dareg Canton. That means I need to check on this. Can I get you to wait for a few minutes? I don't really know how long this will take, but it's kind of clear that if I can't get you to do the work for me, I'm going to be stuck for a while. This place is kind of a mess right now. Plus, the men here are strange. Lazy, too. You'd think that if the new magical unit didn't work right for them that they would have called it in and found out why. I know I would. Okay, so I couldn't turn on until someone in the database came by, and you did kind of trick me into it, but how hard is it to push a tab on a handheld? Think about it. When you came by and didn't work right, I moved right into going off to check on why. It's the smart thing to do." The figure on the screen smiled at him, and held up a hand, so she could snap her fingers. "I know! Why don't you start picking up? You can just put things into the hopper, on the left side of me here? Hmm? That sounds like fun, doesn't it? Something to do, and useful, at the same time! Then I can use that material to make stuff. Do the dry things first. After I have something to work with I can make you some gloves, and maybe a bucket? Who doesn't love a nice bucket?"
That got him to glare at the blue box, or really at the girl on the screen.
"I guess. What do I get out of it though?" It was probably a mean question to ask, but there was a lot of work to be done in the world, and most people didn't really want to pay you anything for it. More than once in his travels over the last months he'd done work at the hint of getting a place to stay for the night, or even a meal, only to have that dry up just as soon as he was done. Now he asked first.
The box chuckled. It didn't seem unkind, but who knew with magical devices like that?
"I can, if I have the materials, and we're allowed to actually set up, make you food, provide water, and a few other things? I know it isn't gold, but I'm from Harmony, so, you understand. We don't use that kind of thing there. Would that be enough to get things started? It can be a real job, if things work out. I don't know that they will, but you did trigger things so I turned on, and that has to be a good sign. At least a good enough one for me to contact some people, if nothing else. I can put in a good word?"
He nodded, which got a gentle and friendly smile from the window image. It was a risk, he knew. She hadn't said that he would get anything, and had kind of told him that it wasn't up to her. So he might end up working in the hot sun for hours, burning to a crisp, for nothing.
Then, what else did he have to do really?
"Fine. I get trash, and put it in your side? Anything, or does it need to be something special?"
The box tilted her head a bit, and then shrugged inside her window. Her clothing looked to be a nice bright blue that shone a little.
"Really, almost anything would be all right. I'm kind of like the large food units that Timon Baker made that way. If we get to set things up, we should use trash first, but then we can do anything. Dirt, waste products, even water. Not that there's any of that around here yet. You really need to get a river set up. That would be your job, being the human. You have those nice opposable thumbs and ability to move around, which is special. Attractive, too. Who doesn't like thumbs? Well, we can work on that later. Let me see if anyone will listen to me..."
Then the screen went black again, which he took as a sign that filling up the hopper was in order. It took a while, since he had to make about fifty trips to find bits and pieces of things, and then take them back to her each time. A bucket really would have helped. Then he could have cleaned up, and done it all in four trips or so.
The device was packed full however, a little over an hour later, and the screen didn't do anything. Dareg grinned, a bit sourly, and shook his head.
"I should have known. At least this place got cleaned up a bit. It's a sty." Talking to himself was a bad habit, but he'd been alone for so long, so much of the time, after his mother died that it had become part of him now.
The box flickered back on, the woman behind the window coming on instantly. She was dressed in all black this time however, and she didn't smile until she made eye contact.
"Hi! I got a message from the device there? You're... Dareg Canton, right? Tor's son?"
That got him to freeze. After all, his mother had always said that was the case. That he was the child of the mighty, and very good looking, Wizard Tor. She'd always added the part about his appearance for some reason. It had been, he'd always assumed, part of the tale she told him, meant to keep him happy with his lot in life. It really hadn't worked, since he couldn't go around telling anyone about his important father. No one would ever believe it. He didn't.
There was no way that this box should know that however. Dare really didn't just go about making claims that he couldn't back up. The girl couldn't have heard about it either, if she was real, which was sort of what she seemed to be saying. The image was about the same, though her tunic was a deep blue now, and had been black before. The hair was done slightly differently as well.
"I... That... Isn't real, of course. My father was just some kind of traveling salesman, most likely. My mother claimed that she met the wizard in the big Cannor flood, about fifteen years ago. That was just so I wouldn't feel too bad about being a bastard. She was a good woman, but... Well, she went her own way in life. She always cared for me, I'm not saying otherwise. Right until the roof collapsed." Speaking about that event caused him to relive it, which wasn't fun for him in the slightest.
The storm that had come had been vast on a level that he'd never seen before. Their house had been built of focus stone, like most of the spaceport was, and that meant really strong. They'd thought it was enough to protect them, and honestly, it should have been. The winds made it crack though, and then, in a freak happening, had picked the house up and dropped it on them, where they huddled in the center of the room. Dareg had been trapped with his mother for two days, and nearly died from it. Drowning, in their own front room, as the water collected over them. Him, and his mother's corpse.
Shaking himself he regarded the window on the box again. The smile was gone from the woman now. Really, she looked a lot more like a girl. Not much older than him.
"So, I've heard that tale before, but you know, I don't know how you did."
The girl nodded then.
"The Tam-unit there got a reading of your genetic profile. It's... Kind of hard to explain in the moment. Think of it as a map, that tells how to build you? So your father and mother's maps are combined to make you, and if you know what you're doing you can read that and tell who the parents are. Basically she confirmed that Torrance Baker is your father however. I... Don't have any information on your mother. She isn't in the system here. Probably a Lentle relation. I can't confirm that however."
"Merilee Merchant." The words came unbidden, but the image seemed fine with that.
Dareg was a bit shocked by the news though. After all, he wouldn't have gone around claiming that he was related to an
yone, really. It just wasn't a thing he did. His mother had left him, and now he was alone. That was all.
"How good is that test? I mean even to guess what she said is a big thing, right? That's a pretty good trick."
There was a nod, and then another smile for him.
"It's certain. More than if he'd been standing there when you were born even. He was supposed to be infertile, but my guess is that he accidently used magic to overcome that. Well, I would guess it was on accident, or he would have been there for you. He didn't know about you."
Dareg shook his head then, "didn't he? How would you know that?"
"Because, nephew, if my brother had known about you, you'd be here now. Your mother too, probably. We can't change the past, unfortunately. So, I can have you picked up from there in... Probably six hours? Then you can come here. Tor is out on the Martian Circle with his wife, Ali, but you can stay with me, or my parents, if you'd rather? I'll get Gerent to come for you. Can you stay where you are? Is it safe?" She was speaking as if it were all set and settled. Trying to drive him into going with her plan by suggesting that things could be dangerous where he was.
Dare shook his head, understanding part of what was going on. She really wanted him to travel to her. To where she was, on the Moon. Which had been his goal, but now that someone wanted him to go there, he had to be a little suspicious.
"No. Thanks. I'm good. I just need to find some work. Really, I don't need to have it confirmed that I'm the bastard of a wizard. Not in particular. I was fine when I figured I was the bastard of some traveling man. I can't see why it would change anything." He started to turn, to walk back into the city, when the screen flickered, and split, showing two versions of the girl. The one on the left was the device, he thought. They were both lovely, and alluring, but he liked her better. She was a bit sassier. That one also had a big smile on her face, though the other side was frowning a bit.
Worried, rather than angry with him.
