by P. S. Power
So far.
Sara handed over the amulets and then urged Trice to hurry. The flying rigs hand piece artistically had some of his blood on it and so did her work clothes. Once she got the stuff on Tor stopped her for a second.
“Right, so Trice, you get away, we’ll buy you some time, half an hour or so. Go to the Wards to hide out, let them see all the blood. One of the girls will have disappeared from the house, so we’ll know who the stabber was, yeah? But no one will know it was you by name, just the general description. Do something drastic like cut and color your hair to try…Ugh. Um, to uh, try and hide. That should look right. One second.” A wave of pain made him grunt and his breath stick in his throat for a bit.
“Right… So, in a few days… a package will come, with Collette Coltress. Stuff for you to destroy or sell or maybe give away. Trash me in front of them, but then you… tell them you’re going to pretend to be my friend and come here, no, Capital, people know you here… Then you try to kill me again. Get help from Wards. Meet you there in a month, no, make it two. I’ve got work to do yet here. Need to heal.”
That, he hoped was clear. Ursala told Trice to fly away as fast as she could, dark or not. Oh. He’d forgotten that part. It was incredibly dangerous to fly in the dark, though good for a getaway. No one could see you to follow.
“Stay up in the air till daylight. Be careful.” He muttered, just before everything went dark.
When Tor came too he had bandages wrapped around his middle and pillows propped under his head. It was his little area of the single room, but the dividing screens had been removed. Kolb and Godfrey rushed over and started trying to question him at once. Ursala had been sitting next to him, but moved out of the way. She looked appropriately white and shaky and Sara, bless her, was fake crying over on the other side of the room.
It actually sounded pretty good, but her real tears came almost silently and this sounded a lot more like what Trice did. It made him wonder if Trice really had been hamming it up all those times? Probably. Who cried like that for real? It was a bit like people that practically screamed and roared each time they sneezed. It kind of had to be phony.
There were seven other people in the room. One the military doctor, or so he was told. The rest were four of Kolb’s men and two of his female instructors. He recognized one of them as his friend, Petra, who looked nearly panicked, he gave her a weak wave to try and reassure her. For some reason she started crying, just a little, real tears streaming down her smooth brown face, and not loud at all. He must look a real mess to make someone cry like that. Well, that should help sell the story at least. Still… It was just a couple of stab wounds. They sucked, but it wasn’t anything truly major and she was, if nothing else, a warrior. She’d seen wounds, even if only in practice, so she’d deal with it soon enough, he figured. Tor felt bad about leaving her in the dark, but it was needed for now.
Tor gasped out the cover story completely, including how it was just the regular whore he had in late each night after the Prince’s women fell asleep. He acted a bit defensive about it. After all, if the Prince could have sex regularly, why couldn’t he, right? Tor owned a whorehouse, it seemed only fitting that he be familiar with the services offered there. He stiffened his jaw as if expecting to be judged. Well, that would probably be coming, but his good name wasn’t going to be worth much soon anyway, so why bother trying to protect it now?
Kolb seemed a little shocked at what he said, but everyone else seemed to just accept it. A few even nodding in agreement with him. Tor would of been more upset by that, but half the men in the room had already used the ladies services too he realized, including Godfrey and Kolb most likely. Right, there was a reason the ladies had been invited originally, wasn’t there? After he went over the same story twice and Ursala and Sara put in their versions of the tale, Sara’s complete with tears and just enough different from Ursala’s to sound real, Tor asked if the room could be cleared.
Then he told Godfrey and Kolb the real tale as Sara sat even closer to the door crying loudly. It was brilliant he realized, giving them almost perfect cover. No one could be listening otherwise, he didn’t think. He whispered anyway, just in case. Who knew what magics Ward had in place?
“So, I need to heal up here for a few days, then go to the Capital to “recover” in a month and a half or so. Trice should lead the killers there. I probably shouldn’t stay at the palace… Maybe Tovey… I mean Count Thomson, would be willing to put me up for a bit? Ursala, would you send off a letter tomorrow and ask? Um, for me and you I think. We need Sara here, since she has a real job to do and I don’t want Rolph near assassins at all if we can help it. Not you either Ursa, normally, but if anyone deserves a crack at these people personally it’s you. Wait… would you ask if we can bring a guard too, given everything? There are a few people here that have nearly as good a claim on these monsters as you do.”
If Tovey said no, then he’d see what else he could arrange. The Coltress family might house them if need be for instance. He could bribe the Baron with apple raisin hand pies. The palace wouldn’t work at all. Trying to kill him there would be insane and no one would even bother setting anything up. Except Smythe, but Tor didn’t really think the man was in with the Wards. Speaking of which, he really needed to get to the build on the shield to cover the palace. Well, he could go out and see what he could learn about blast forces the next day. If he could move at all.
If not he could stay in and make devices all day. The military would like that at least. He had to get what he could done now, because soon, Tor feared, he was going to be busy.
Chapter eighteen
There was something about being stabbed that Tor hadn’t considered at all. It hurt. It wasn’t just the immediate pain, but the lingering follow-on that really got to him. That it would hurt even after the fact was something that anyone would have known. He’d known it. It was just, as he lie on his side in the partial dark of his screened off area, the bed deforming under him, that he hadn’t realized how much it would hurt.
His leg had been horrible when he broke it, but after the initial pain it was more of a dull ache. Constant and never ending, but muted. This was still sharp and biting, even after the doctor had sewn him up. The wound still wept a little, even hours later, and sleep, while it did come, eventually, was weaker than the discomfort. He woke up with a start each time he moved more than a fraction of an inch. Instead Tor opted to make large batched of copies, driving himself much deeper than normal and trying for a batch of one hundred flying units instead of just fifty. He didn’t even really care that much if they worked at all, he just wanted to escape from the pain.
That worked, as long as he kept going at least.
After ten full batches, not even knowing if they’d work, he made himself try a simple-ish novel build. He got food and water while he worked, he thought, but other than that he didn’t notice much for a blissful two days. The build itself was just an attempt to block out sound from a dome about ten feet in diameter.
When he finished he made ten copies of it, just because he wanted to keep himself distracted from the pain. It was probably just that he was a wimp, but hey, if he kept working, who’d complain? Finally he had to come back to the surface and test it though, which showed that the wounds still hurt, if not as badly as they had at first.
Hitting the sigil on one of the copies, all the little sounds from outside the half dome vanished. He hadn’t even realized there was noise before that. Little things like a rustling of cloth and a repetitive clicking from near where the table was set up. Tor nodded, bead work? Well, the little sounds were gone, at least directionally. Now to try the other side of it.
Taking a deep breath Tor tried for loud, but it hurt, causing him to groan in pain instead, a low moan that should have gotten attention from the others, he thought. No one came at least.
“Hey, anyone hear me?” He asked as loudly as he could manage. “Anyone? Um, free gold if someone answers? Um, you’re all over-tal
l. Eating eels is gross? Anyone at all?”
Nothing.
He dropped the field and tried again.
“Um anyone there?” He said, a fraction of as loudly as before, because yelling hurt and even loud talking was a little much for the moment.
Sara and Ursala both ran over, at least one of them knocking something heavy over in their haste, probably a focus stone chair from the sound. Well, the field seemed to work then.
“Tor!” Sara yelled as she swung around the screen. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, um, sorry, not trying to scare anyone, I’m testing a new field… Um, hey, Ursala, could you go out by the table and start yelling? I mean really loud? And Sara, if you’d come over here, just sit by the bed please? You don’t even have to sit…” Tor didn’t want the cute blond nearest him to think he was trying to take advantage of her. Not because he wouldn’t, Tor decided, just because right now that would hurt too much to really consider.
The Countess started yelling loud, mainly nonsense words, but loud ones. She could really belt out the noise Tor noticed. Smiling up at Sara he activated the little medallion. Silence. Sara’s eyes went wide and then she grinned.
“That is so neat! Can you hear me?” She asked in a normal tone of voice.
Tor winked, a bit of pain shooting through his side under the loose black silk shirt he didn’t remember putting on at all. Someone changed his clothing while he worked? Well, that was potentially embarrassing. He tried to work out a way, a person that would make that feel normal. Nope. Just awkward all the way around. God, he just hoped he hadn’t soiled himself. Tor really didn’t want to ask, since he had to live with these people for at least a bit longer.
“I can hear you, I think what we need to do now is check and see if Ursa can hear us. If not, then it works.”
Once they got her to stop yelling Sara took a turn, standing next to the bed. It worked perfectly according to the Countess. Then she walked in and out of the field.
“This is so interesting! The sound just stops totally on the other side of the field. Nothing else happens, just, no sound. I can see you both fine, no distortion or anything.” After a few seconds she raised a single eyebrow and gave him a sexy look that conveyed something else he couldn’t name at the same time.
“I get it… This is so you can hold secret… meetings without being heard? As long as the price isn’t too high, I bet a lot of royals will want one. Have private discussions that are actually private… Do other things without worrying about being indiscreet. Hmmm. Too bad you’re still in pain or we could test it out. I’ve been known to get a little loud at times.”
Sara laughed, so Tor smiled. Even chuckling hurt too much.
“It should sell, but why did you make it? I mean I can see uses for it, but it’s not exactly a shield or even a room cooler.” Sara looked at him curiously.
“Oh, no, it is a shield. A part of one at least. I’m just trying to build this one piece by piece. Create all the needed parts separately, then merge them into one at the end. I’ll… Let you know when I’m done. It shouldn’t take too long, but…” He smiled at the blonds and then winked again.
“I don’t want to wake up being beaten in the head, so this way I can stay closer to the surface while I heal up. Eat occasionally and sleep like a regular person. Maybe get a shower and some of that sex I hear so much about.”
It was a joke, of course, he really hurt too much for more than a peck on the cheek, but at least the girls both responded as if he’d said the right thing. Maybe he was getting better at this kind of playful banter?
Later that day Tor used a Not-flyer to get to the showers, since it was a personal goal of his to never reek any more than he had to. It turned out to be empty this time of day, just after breakfast, so he didn’t have to wait or feel too awkward about how he looked. It was hard to shower without pulling at the stitches, and he realized quickly that he’d have to forget washing his back. He also had to be really careful with his bar of fatty lye soap. It worked well, but getting it in a wound would be agony and stay that way, probably for days. As he rinsed under the hot water he shut his eyes and let the water hit his back for a while. He may not be able to scrub, but at least the warm water would wash away a little bit of the oil and dirt, he hoped. Tor heard someone else come in and turn on the shower across from him.
He opened his eyes and had to fight slamming them shut again when he saw who it was.
Petra. What he noticed first was how muscular she was. Not like a man, but like a powerfully built woman. She looked hard and had better abs than he did.
Looking down he realized that wasn’t really true. His abs weren’t bad at all, he was just pretty skinny and had some small wounds on his left side. Looking back at the slightly older girl she noticed him and smiled.
“Well, someone tried to kill you… but that’s pretty low… Underhand blow?” She pantomimed the motion, a stab from her own hip moving outward. It would make sense, given their height difference, but he shook his head. She’d heard his description already, but either didn’t understand or just wanted to talk about it.
“No, um, overhand. She was, um, kneeling in front of me at the time…”
Instead of acting shocked the large and powerfully built girl just soaped her arms, chest and then under her arms. The scent of her soap, something soft and floral wafted across the room on the moist air. After she rinsed she turned, soaped up the lower parts of her body and rinsed again.
Then she faced him and sunk to her knees slowly.
“So… Like this?” She made a move that, had she been closer to him, instead of ten feet away, would have lined up nearly perfectly with the wounds.
“About my size then?”
“Little smaller, about two inches I’d guess. But basically just like that. Only, well, closer. Um, obviously.” Tor had to fight not to duck his head in shame, just saying something like that, but made himself hold steady.
She went back to washing and started in on her short hair, which wasn’t in a military woman’s cut at all, but was even shorter, a true fighters cut. She faced away while she washed and Tor struggled to not stare at her behind. Her body was interesting. Muscular and a little blocky looking, compared to say, Sara, but still very worth looking at. He just didn’t want to make her feel uneasy. She may be a royal and used to communal bathing, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be ogled in particular while she did it.
“That sucks. Um, no pun intended there.” The girl grinned at him as the water fell around her shoulders. “Well, I promise that if I’m ever doing that with you, I won’t pull a knife.”
A lot of things ran through his head then, the first being to mock himself and talk about how inadequate he was, but frankly, he realized, she already knew that. As in could look across the room and see for herself. So if he wasn’t good enough she wouldn’t have said it that way. It wasn’t really an offer either, not exactly. Was she testing the waters? Ursala and Sara had kind of hinted at something like that before. Putting out a signal they called it. Or was it just an offhand comment? What was it he was supposed to do then? Ah, right, give one back that was slightly more explicit, but not outrageously so. Because going in too strong could kind of force the other person into a corner. You flirted, but didn’t make people do anything they didn’t want to.
“Right, definitely sticking with my friends from now on for such things. It made sense at the time, I mean, all the women seem so nice… But one of them wasn’t apparently. I need to get to know people better first.”
The woman her hand rubbing over her stomach, stopping just before she reached the thick brown hair below her flat stomach shrugged.
“Oh, well, we don’t really know each other all that well do we?” She said, actually sounding a little sad about it. Either good acting or a verbal cue.
He took a half deep breath. About what he could manage without too much pain. This was the hard part for him. That could mean “We don’t know each other well and you w
ere misinterpreting an innocent comment” or “reassure me here”.
“I don’t know… If I woke up to find you in my bed I wouldn’t assume you were there to kill me or anything like that, so I’d guess good enough friends.”
As soon as he said it he knew he’d gotten it wrong. He’d been trying for something along the lines of telling her that he trusted her, not that he wanted to have her perform sex acts on him. He didn’t take it back though, because she smiled warmly at him instead of acting offended.
“Well… Good! I guess when you’re feeling up to it you should go and ask Kolb if we can get together then? It’s a strange rule. Talk about putting a crimp in the social life. All the military guys seem to think Kolb will kill them if they even look at one of us funny or something. Does that even apply to you? I mean this is kind of your house and all, right?”
Did that apply to him? He didn’t think so, because they already knew each other. Shrugging he told her that, but then decided that he’d ask Kolb himself. After all, if everyone else had to shouldn’t he? Otherwise it would be like him getting special privileges.
Her look was a little coy and she actually finished faster than he did, since all his moves were slow. On her way out she called back to him, looking over her shoulder.
“It’s a date then. Don’t forget.”
Well, that went well. He’d really have to work on this stuff fast. Right now all he knew about that particular act was what Trice had said just before the stabbing. Don’t grab her head, and don’t get too thrusty. Check. Now what that all really meant, he had no clue.
