Knight Esquire ya-2

by P. S. Power

  Chuckling the elderly man bowed back, just as low. Tor winced when he saw the move. No old man should ever feel like he had to bow that low to someone like him. Gardner or not.

  “Count Ross. The second Count Ross, so Scotty’s adopted father. I don’t want you getting confused or anything and think I’m secretly much larger than I look.” The man smiled and stood a little stiffly, Tor held his own bow as a sign of respect for a few seconds longer than that, then stood up straight. He had to fight off the urge to grovel a little, because he’d spent three or four days treating the man like the head gardener. Still, Tor’s upbringing had saved him a little. He was polite to people like gardeners, since that was an important and useful job after all. His father would have whipped him sore as a child if he wasn’t. At least that was always the threat. His parents had never gone in for beating the kids much when it came down to it.

  The old man, wrinkled and slightly stooped, hands still rough and hard looking glanced at the Princess and winked.

  “Don’t let the boy fool you girl… We were a half day from losing everything when he and his friends swept in. Even then it was a hard battle, which shows just how desperate it really was.” He told the tale as if it were an epic battle, instead of a fight against a fire.

  The man spoke of the smoke coming in waves, choking the city sometimes, so that no one could breath hardly at all, smelling like burning wood and heat, even when the fire was miles away. How children cried and women readied their families to run as well as they could and the old men and women selected knives and sharpened them, so that they could kill themselves before the fire caught them. No one wanted to burn to death, better the sharp touch of the knife to the side of the throat or wrist than that.

  Then like angles or gods they came, flying through the air to save them all.

  “You’ve seen people fly, maybe even done it yourself, being a Princess, but you have to remember that most of us hadn’t seen it at all before. Just one or two people at a time at most. It was like the heavens themselves had opened up and started raining down warriors. Except for one. One of them wasn’t a warrior at all, but looked like a little boy instead. The Wizard Tor.” An old finger weathered and rough pointed at him.

  People had started to gather around to listen. The old man really could tell a story. If he hadn’t been there himself Tor would have felt a thrill of the epic battle against the forces of nature and how bit by bit, desperately, they started to win the battle for the city, but not yet the war.

  Then to Tor’s embarrassment Count Ross told how he’d lost his temper and almost gotten into a fight with the giant Countier first. Scottland Ross. Tor blushed a brilliant red, but couldn’t argue with the rebuke that would be coming for his actions. He’d been wrong, and acted poorly. All he could do now was acknowledge his error and strive to fix it. Before the man could finish the story Tor stopped him. This wouldn’t be fun, but it had to be done. Tor spoke words of apology for his poor behavior. More, he probably needed to find the Countier soon and apologize to him in person for his lapse. When he’d finished the old man bowed low to him again. Then he finished telling how Tor had simply pointed at a far off field and made it explode, shaking the very foundations of the city itself from nearly ten miles away. Causing a cloud of dust and smoke to rise like a mountain into the air.

  “And then… The Wizard Tor… let it go. And now he apologizes for his lapse with humility and honor, even when that apology might better be left to others and no one in the world would expect such. I for one feel humbled.”

  For some reason everyone listening suddenly bowed towards him, as if not being a jerk was something special. He was already blushing as brightly as he could, so doing more wasn’t possible. That bowing saved most of their lives when the bomb went off.

  It wasn’t that the explosion was so large, it just wasn’t. A mere pop and a scattering of smoke. What saved them was that, surrounded as he was by low bowing giants, Tor could see that the smoke from it didn’t look right. It wasn’t black and oily, or white and soft. It was silvery, a glittering thing that he almost took to be a party favor of some kind at first, except for when he saw who stood nearest it. Burks Lairdgren, and he was fighting a familiar looking man with strange eyes. Black and staring.

  Burks yelled loudly.

  “Nanos! Death dust, don’t let it touch you, be careful, it’s a trap of some kind, the Larvals always have a plan within a plan…” He fought as he spoke, his voice loud but not hurried sounding, both men fought hard, but it was clear that Burks was the superior fighter. Vastly so in fact. Better than anyone Tor had ever seen at least.

  Well, if you had thousands of years to get good at something it would hardly be surprising that you might be a bit better than average. Tor focused on the smoke, the “death dust”. So… this was made of those tiny machines he’d heard about? Tor hadn’t built shields to withstand that kind of thing. Dust could be stopped, but this stuff was tiny to his mind when he reached out to it. Like air itself. Even if he had, most of the people around him didn’t have a shield on. Could he do anything about it? It was, oddly enough, slowly moving towards the people, even though the breeze should have carried it away at about a thirty-five degree angle.

  Crap.

  So, could he stop it? If he had an air choke, he could, Tor thought. But all he’d brought was his shield, which uselessly enough, Connie had right now and his temperature equalizer. Well, he also had his poison detector in his pocket and one that looked like it around his neck, but both were sort of not needed at the moment. People started to run away, but for some reason Burks called for them not too. It was a trap. It turned out that the ancient was right. More of the little death dust bombs started going off, six in all. Surrounding them.

  The people nearest them started to go down. They just… died.

  Other people started fighting, a man with black eyes for each bomb somehow. Not different men with strange eyes, the same man. Exactly. Like twins, only more of them and even closer to each other in looks somehow. With the exception of Burks, each of the others on their side that fought was being beaten easily. One of those, he saw, was familiar. Short hair in a white blond bob, fuzzy now, rather than curly locks. She wore a very light pink dress that was almost white and had a knife in her hand, being hit over and over again as she tried to hold her ground. Blood already pouring from her nose and face.

  Trice.

  Rolph and the gate guard were barely holding against their man even though they made him looked like a dwarf between them. A woman in a Royal Guard outfit fought too. Right, Wensa. She went where the Prince did. For a half second it made Tor wonder if she’d worked the whorehouse too, in order to stay close to Rolph. It wouldn’t have shocked him if she had. She’d do anything to get her job done after all.

  The death dust moved away from the blast and sought the people of the crowd, closing on them. What could he do? Other than die of course. He couldn’t even run away…

  Still the air?

  He knew the field needed, but this was a huge space… It probably wasn’t possible to do anything strong enough, fast enough. Not without time. Or… enough focus. Could he do it?

  No.

  It couldn’t be done, not in time. Not without risking death due to pattern failure. Just trying could rip his own body apart on the basic level.

  Would he do it anyway?

  That, he knew, was the real question. Dead was dead, but he had to try. He sat cross legged on the ground suddenly and built the field, climbing as deep as possible as he could into his mind, then going deeper. So deep that reality stopped being for him.

  For each moment he failed, people died. Tor couldn’t think about that, he could only think of the air not moving. The dust in it not shifting or floating.

  Still.

  Be still.

  He knew it worked finally, after what felt like forever, but had to be less than a minute. The sounds of fighting lingered, but he held his focus tight and didn’t waiver. People ne
eded to run now. He couldn’t tell them too. Tor couldn’t even open his eyes. Doing that meant letting go of his desperate grasp on the clouds of death.

  He felt himself hit, but didn’t move, couldn’t let himself even try to. Then, for a while, he was hit over and over again. He thought. Tor couldn’t feel it really, the blows that struck at him he just kept going and sought to move deeper, past the black and images in his mind, past the bottom and the emptiness on the other side. Holding only the field he needed to keep people alive. Everything stopped then. It was, he thought, a place between. No, it wasn’t a thought.

  It just was.

  He didn’t move out of it for a long time.

  Tor didn’t know if he could really. This death dust, if he let it go, would anything else be able to stop it? It seemed a deadly thing. Better to hold as long as he could and let everyone else run away, if they could stop the attackers. That was all he could do.

  Not that he thought that either really. It was just what was. Tor knew it, but didn’t consider it at all.

  Finally he began to hear something strange, bizarre really, it called to him, got his attention and pried him away from what he was doing just enough for him to wonder what it might be. Singing. At first he wondered if it was his imagination, his mind having grown so bored that it was making up songs to entertain itself. Fair enough, except for the need to hold the nanos in place. Finally he opened his eyes to see Burks standing in front of him humming along with the singers.

  “Ah! I thought that might work! Novel stimulation can sometimes attract attention, even in the deepest states. Tor, the death dust has been dealt with; we managed to wash it out of the air then removed the earth to a safe location out of the city… A lot of people have died, but not nearly as many as might have. That was… not too bad, holding it all in place like that.”

  People were dead?

  Yeah, he knew that. Selfishly he just hoped it wasn’t his friends. Tor knew that some of them had been in danger though, so he tried to hold his own mind still, until he could find out what all had happened. People sang still. Two people actually. It was Mercy and Connie singing softly to him, their voices lovely, both looking over at him, so he nodded.

  “Who?”

  Tor couldn’t ask which of his friends he’d lost. Which people he’d loved that he’d never see again. It was important he knew, because both women cried openly as they sang. God…

  The Queen stopped singing, followed by Mercy a few seconds later, and sniffed loudly.

  “Oh Tor! Thank god you came back to us, we were all so worried, it’s been three days. Burks didn’t know if you’d ever let go of the field, until you died from it. When dumping snow on you didn’t work, everyone kind of thought you’d never come back.”

  “Who?” He asked again, his voice flat and without expression. From the looks on all their faces, Tor knew they got it. Finally The Queen spoke, her voice just above a whisper.

  “Laura. The cook. She heard the commotion and saw the fighting, so she led eight of the men and women from the kitchen in an assault on one of those…things. Most of them were injured, but it… destroyed her Tor. She didn’t even live long enough to…” There was a sob, but no description of what happened. Tor was kind of thankful for that. He’d liked Laura.

  “Duke Winchester fought with the one that attacked you, and held long enough for Burks and Varley to kill it. He died of his wounds yesterday. The Duke fought most bravely and didn’t yield, even when he was wounded unto death.” Connie stood straighter when she said it, her voice sounding proud.

  Tor nodded.

  “Varley?” His voice sounded soft and weak, but Burks spoke strongly enough.

  “She’s fine. She used her shield as a battering ram and her Tor-shoes to hit the Larval attacking you. It worked well. She’d seen the war minister, Smythe, do the same thing a few moments before and picked it up almost instantly. Smythe took out three of the assassins by himself that way. Said he learned the trick from you? A godsend really. I’ve seen three of the clones go through nearly fifty people on their own with nothing more than knives before, and those were all hardened warriors. Without Smythe and the Princesses we would have lost a lot more people.”

  That got a nod from Tor and it all started to hit him. People he knew were dead? Some of them died protecting him? Duke Winchester had saved him at the cost of his own life? God. Gods.

  Mercy’s breath shuddered.

  Her sister kept talking anyway.

  “Twenty-three people died in all Tor. I don’t know that you knew any of those, mostly staff and party goers from around the Capital. Your people are safe. You saved them. Saved us. Some are wounded. Alphonse was stabbed several times in the stomach; he’ll live, but is in great pain. Captain Wensa has two broken legs and a dislocated elbow. Trice… She’s alive at least.” The older Morgan sobbed just slightly and sounded incredibly sad when Connie said the words.

  Neither woman would tell him what that meant, but Burks didn’t bat an eyelash when asked.

  “The Larval took her left arm at the elbow Tor. He had a nano pack on him and she grabbed it as they fought, to keep him from deploying it. We had to cut it off to keep the machines from eating her alive. Karina actually did it, she had a cutter on her and figured out what was needed in time. It was a hard act and if she’d been even a second slower Trice would be dead right now. Bless the girl, I really never thought of Karina as being that swift, but I’m glad to say I was wrong about her.” He sounded sad when he spoke but Tor shrugged. Mercy winced when he did.

  “Ah. Don’t worry Mercy, I’m not saying she deserved it. It’s just that the loss of an arm to save all those lives is a fair exchange. We’ll hire someone to be her left hand or, or I’ll do it myself if I have to. This doesn’t have to be a tragedy unless we make it into one.”

  Mercy cried, hard, but nodded at him. Burks though snorted.

  “Good. Now go tell her that. She’s a strong girl, but she’s being a bit of a wimp about this. It’s an arm, not her life. A nice clean separation too, so it doesn’t even look ugly. Young people always want to make everything about looks for some reason and forget the important things.”

  Tor stood. He needed the restroom and a bath first, but would get a cold shower, since that’s all the palace had and he was tucked back in a supply closet of all things. It wasn’t really a shower even, just a large sink, but he’d live. Space it seemed was at a premium and while the Queen acted like she expected him to be offended, he just shrugged. It wasn’t like he’d noticed it or anything, he assured her. It wasn’t even a really small room. Nearly ten by ten and he’d had it too himself, except for the people walking in and poking at him. The floor was polished bright and there were shelves of rags, brooms and mops, as well as brushes and other cleaning supplies all around him. He’d had worse accommodations, Tor thought, as he made his way towards the room that Trice had, shared with Wensa of all people.

  Neither of them spoke when he walked into the room, at first. After ten seconds of Tor looking at them Wensa snorted.

  “Well this is a first, every other time it’s been one of use wondering if you were alive, not the other way around. So I take it the electrical weapon used on you wasn’t lethal?”

  Tor shrugged.

  “That’s what it was? I barely felt it. How are you both feeling?” He asked this gently, but got two simultaneous and different answers.

  Wensa sensibly enough just said she’d heal, and didn’t complain about the pain at all. Trice half sobbed that she should have died instead of this.

  Tor crossed his arms and gave her a wry look.

  “Um, I love you Trice. You’re my good friend and I mean this from the bottom of my heart… Shut the heck up and stop being a whiner. So you lost an arm. Big deal. You save nearly two hundred people in the process. If I asked you, right now, if you’d give your other arm to save that many people, what would you say? Or even half that many people? Or just me? Or the King? Or Wensa here?”

&n
bsp; It took her a while, but she said that she’d make the trade. Wensa gave a wintry smile and nodded. “Of course you would. I was going to say something about that myself, but it looks like Tor here beat me too it. It was a good bargain. Even one life for that many would be beyond fair value.”

  Spreading his hands Tor shrugged.

  “See? If both Wensa and I agree on something, it must be fact. Now, when do you think you’re going to be ready to travel?” He asked abruptly, trying to keep her off guard. Stewing on her loss wouldn’t help her for the first bit. She’d have to deal with it eventually, but in the first days being distracted could only help. Or he was totally wrong and he’d just seem like an overbearing jerk that she could hate, which still gave her something else to focus on. Either would work, even if he felt like a heel being gruff when what he wanted to do was pet her and make soothing noises. Tell her that it would be all right. But it wouldn’t be. Not really. Still, she was alive and no one ever gained much by giving up, did they?

  Obviously a little drugged, or, once Tor really looked at her, he realized very much so, Trice took a few seconds to answer from her very nice looking soft bed. The stump of her left arm was wrapped in tan bandages and sat above the covers on the dark green blanket with a stark white sheet underneath. She reached up and touched her head with her other hand.

  “What?” She asked, sounding truly baffled.

  “When are you going to be ready to travel? Because you need to get trained up as a transport pilot, and that can be hard for people that already know how to fly using a rig. I’ll make you one with right handed controls, flying rig that is. The transport too, or better, I’ll make them so that they can be used with either hand. Honestly I should have done that already. But that’s after I make a new field to take care of this death dust stuff. I don’t want to be mean, but I’m seriously starting to dislike these Austrans, you know?” Tor moved to her right side, staring at her eyes. He felt uneasy about the missing limb, but mainly he felt bad. She was a hero though, and earned her wounds as much as anyone on a battlefield.