Kindred (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 3) Page 11

  Dare could see that. If it was real, then living forever in that fashion would be a hard thing to imagine, but always ended horribly. On the other hand, if it wasn’t real, then dying over it wasn’t a great plan.

  “I agree. So, if I show up, then I need to kill myself?” That got him to grin a bit, though interestingly Tor shook his head.

  “No. Some of the travelers, the people that can go between realities but are on our side, are you. Me as well. Though very different in their looks. They all tend to be short, too. So, no, we can’t just kill anyone that shows up looking wrong, or too familiar.”

  That got him to stick his tongue out, thinking. It probably looked stupid, so he pulled it back in and glanced over at Tim.

  “So, how do you feel about all of this? I mean, I’m in on the side of staying alive, if at all possible. I might change my mind later, if I have to live for billions of years or longer, but for now? I kind of want to keep existing. Reality is where I keep all my things, after all, and dying will ruin my upcoming marriage.”

  Timon nodded, and spoke rapidly, but everything else still seemed to be slow to him.

  “That’s my own take, more or less. Honestly, I can’t see how a different version of me wouldn’t think the same thing. How did I attack?” He didn’t make a point of mentioning the other him more than that. They all knew that part.

  Dareg tilted his head a bit, and answered quickly.

  “With some kind of loud weapon that put out small rocks or lumps of something. Shields stopped it, but not everyone had those on, so… Luckily everyone lived. Except the attacker. I hit him once, but the man stood back up, even though I’d watched him die. The second time that worked better though. The new armor helped a lot, too. Once I got about ten feet or so away… Well, that’s hard to recall. We have pictures? Countess Ward…”

  Alyssa got her handheld out, and screwed her face up cutely, then tapped on it for a bit. The scene started to play out in her hand, and was passed over to Timon, who watched the whole thing three times in a row.

  “All right. This is… We need to get more of your new armor out, clearly. That worked well. The weapons did too. Did you notice how the Royal Guard used magical weapons at first? Crossbows as well. The bolts were all dodged. See?”

  Dareg hadn’t known that it had happened, but it was really all there, as he closed with the little Timon. At the time he’d figured that he’d been the only one actually fighting, but that wasn’t true. Even alongside of him, several others had moved in and done their best. True, he was there first, but at least seven others that had been eating had tried to move on the attacker.

  Which was good to know. If they’d had better weapons and shields, then the attacker would have lost anyway.

  “I’ll get on that part. You can do the shields? The new fleets… It’s a lot. I’ll get on that now. We need some…” He stopped and sighed, gustily. “Honestly I was thinking that we need some kind of army to fight for us, but that won’t work, will it? The one thing that keeps happening so far is that when the attacks happen, they’re almost random. We need to actually find the Adversaries and go for them, instead of waiting for them to come at us all the time.” He had a plan for that, but it wasn’t really his work that was needed.

  It was the Wizard Taman’s task.

  Tor made a miserable face, and then looked away at the far wall, his deep voice nearly silent.

  “It… Really isn’t your job. I’ll handle this. We will. You should… Just go to school. Live your life, and have fun. This is our responsibility.”

  Alyssa nodded, very seriously, as if that simply made sense, and Timon coughed, then slowly shook his head.

  “Because that’s going to work? Not that I don’t like the sentiment, Tor. You should try to protect your child. Heck, I should be trying to protect him as my nephew, and will if I can… But so far he’s soaking in this even more deeply than the rest of us. I don’t know why, but the one common thing we know about these attacks is that the ones where anyone survives have Dareg Canton at them. Pulling him from things to protect him… Well, it’s a great plan. We just may not be able to make it work.”

  It wasn’t a real point anyway. Dareg could see that one.

  “For now I’ll just keep doing what I have been. I don’t suppose the new ships are ready yet? I started my own grow operation on some of those, but it will be at least twenty-nine more days for those to be ready. I can get the transport network up, and… More armor and weapons. That, plus a new city on Mars.” It was a vast amount of things to do, he realized. More than what he probably could get done, in a reasonable amount of time.

  Instead of telling him that he should just go home and play, or hold a party, Timon shook his head however.

  “About a week? The grow is going well on this batch, but it still takes time. Armor, weapons and your transport networks. Trice mentioned that you were going to put out several of them? She called earlier, before the meal.”

  Dareg nodded, since it was pretty much the plan.

  “Right. Okay, so, let me…” He walked away, not bothering to say goodbye. There was too much to do, and not a lot of time to get things done.

  On the good side, moving at a fast walk, he was back home, at his pod house, about two minutes later. It was just turning to midnight, which meant he had about six hours to work on things, before needing to get off to his training for the day. It was enough for him, now.

  The next week went along a specific, if strange pattern. He moved to Printer and back each day, and spent the rest of his time working. Not all of it was building. Not in the magical sense. Half of his time was actually making a rather large, and complicated, city on Mars, under the north polar ice cap. The amulet that he’d been given for that worked well, but only made a city about the size of Harmony on the Moon. So Dareg made ten of the things, and then connected them all, using large underground roads inside air tight tunnels, so that people could get around.

  Then he had to build a new set of workers, who were kind of like Tyler, though able to turn other magics on and off, as well as use a lot of the things that he built over the next days. It was mind numbing, and so hard he thought he might die during parts of it, but his new army of magical devices had a real city in place by the end of ten days.

  The transport systems were more work to get in place. Or would have been. The first thing he did wasn’t hard, which was just walking a chest to Aunt Patricia, who was in her magic shop when he got there.

  “Back room?” Dare waved at the chest, as if that was the reason, and she snickered, as if he were coming in to simply demand sex. Which wasn’t a horrible idea, though Dareg would have also settled for a hug about then. He’d worked for a week at that point, but it had felt like he’d been alone for months, to him. Nearly half a year. Possibly a lot longer than that.

  It was just how it seemed to him, and what he lived, but in that time it was like he’d been alone, except for his daily training with Petra and the others. No one had held him, or even patted him on the back in that entire time. It was oddly lonely, to be honest.

  Patricia followed him however, moving in slow motion, which he forced himself to match. It was hard to keep in mind, but had to be done, if he were going to communicate with anyone.

  The back area was actually fairly nice, having a large sitting area, and tapestries on the walls. Also a food unit, which Dareg used instantly, not even asking first. It was a bit complicated, but he made a pitcher of protein drink with extra fat in it. Really it was Tam-Unit’s recipe, but he was able to get the device to do that for him, even if it wasn’t really designed for it.

  His aunt raised an eyebrow, seeing what he made, but didn’t interrupt while he drank it all, using the heavy glass thing as a large mug. Luckily it had a handle on it. For a minute he didn’t speak however, just trying to breathe through his nose and swallow as the thick stuff went down his throat.

  Then he waved at the box that floated there, looking like a pirate’s chest fro
m an old story.

  “Your transport network. I built it for spies, but there are some drawbacks in doing that. Here…” He took a moment, and placed the pitcher in the unit which was built into the wall. It was nice looking, but just the same kind of thing that anyone could have collected from the shelves in the front of the place. Technically it shouldn’t have made the protein drink for him, not being on the menu, but he’d sort of forced it to do what he wanted.

  Inside the box there were a thousand tiles, which didn’t have any kind of sigil on them at all. They were just blank, and tan seeming things. On purpose.

  “They don’t look like much. If you hit the tile anyway…” He did it to demonstrate, which didn’t seem to make anything at all happen. His aunt looked troubled, as she stood next to him, until he waved her forward. “It’s there. Touch it?”

  Patricia put her hand out, and gasped when she reached the shield in front of her. At that point a single bit of glow registered in the air. It was just the door opening sigil. Like the one on the other box transports.

  It didn’t take her long to work the idea out. She climbed inside, and vanished, touching something at the back of the hut sized thing, then came back. There was only one place for her to go at the moment, which was just outside of his pod house, at the Capital port facility. When she got back, she took a deep breath and hugged him.

  “Brilliant. We will still be showing up out of thin air, but…”

  That got him to hold up what looked like a handheld, which he showed her, tapping the thing a few times.

  “You can turn them off, or on, from anyplace. Including making the individual tiles just not be able to work any longer. Here, by doing this? Which… Just dropped the one behind my pod house to the ground. The field is still on it, but no one that isn’t a decently skilled wizard can turn it back on now. Once lost, it’s lost however, so you only have nine-hundred and ninety-nine left now. If you use them right that shouldn’t be needed. Destroying them. If it is, then you have the option.”

  There was a hiss then, and a nod.

  “Good. All right. Now, how have you been? Busy, it seems?” The words sounded right to him, but it also took her forever to say it at the same time. It made it hard to look at people as they spoke, so he glanced away.

  “Not bad. I have the first Mars city up. You can get there using the box out front here. It’s safe, if you want to visit. Heat, light, gravity, air… The big underground palace is Karina’s and mine, but there are some great places left, if anyone wants to move in. You should visit. It’s a bit nicer than Harmony.” It really was, since the whole thing looked to have been carved by a master.

  That was down to Alyssa’s amulet however, not him. It was very pretty however. Possibly the finest place in all existence. Patricia laughed at him a bit, as if he were merely bragging.

  “I’ll do that? Now, what do you have planned for the day?”

  The answer was work, but Dareg blinked, and let himself smile.

  “You know, I think I’ll try and do some visiting. I have things for people. Not just you. I guess I should bother Queen Tiera first?”

  That would require going back for things that were being stored in the cases outside his pod house, but that didn’t take him very long. It was actually harder to get Tiera to answer her handheld, and when she did, she snapped at him. It sounded very annoyed, and more than a little bit like she wanted to hurt someone.

  “What? What do you want?” It was clear that she recognized him and everything. She was just upset.

  “I have a present for you? A private transportation network. Do I just drop that at your place? Or…”

  There was a nod then, and her voice changed a bit.

  “Fine. Come here. Down the main walkway. To the left. There are signs.”

  Then the handheld went black.

  That was it. No pleasant smile, or even telling him not to bother her with things like trinkets or his annoying self, just darkness and the communication ending.

  He had three cases following him as he walked, floating either with a sense of quiet peace, or slight menace. No one seemed to care about that, just making certain they didn’t get between Dareg and his things, since the cases would keep moving as long as he did.

  He was watched as he moved, but people seemed to be attempting to be sly, or at least not noisy, about it. Probably due to the fact that none of them were from Austra. Not that he had anything against them, as a people. It was simply that they did love to stick handhelds and cameras in people’s faces, as often as they could. Dareg had proof of that, since one of them, who was a familiar looking fellow, proceeded to do exactly that.

  “Prince Dareg! No one has seen you for a bit. The rumor is that you’ve gone into hiding, after absconding with half of Tor’s remaining gold and riches. Is that what’s in the cases? How do you answer those claims?”

  The answer of course was going to be with violence.

  At least that was the first impulse that he had. It was close too, since he had one of his new weapons out, and was preparing to use it. The thing that stopped him from killing the man wasn’t the law, or even common sense. No, it was the fact that the shield he had on offered protection against the physical weapon the he had on him. He wasn’t carrying anything else, of course. So far no one had thought to give him a lot of powerful death weapons for some reason. Probably due to the idea that it wouldn’t work against the people in space, or their new enemies.

  Leaving only innocent people to take his wrath out on.

  So instead he nodded, and then stopped in the middle of the hallway they were standing in. The light was like the sun, constantly, coming from giant green emeralds that were in the ceiling, about twenty feet overhead. Mars was better that way now, having ceilings in the hallways that were about sixty feet up in the air, giving a sense of greater space.

  Given that hitting the loud mouth next to him wasn’t going to work, he popped open one of the cases, and pointed at the tiles. These had sigils on them, which handily enough looked like little huts.

  “This is Queen Tiera’s new transport system. Just for her and her friends. Like the ones that everyone can use?”

  The man stopped, and then shook his head. His greasy black hair not moving. It was probably some kind of hair treatment, and it left the slightly chubby man smelling a bit of chemicals, rather than personally produced oils.

  “Sorry? I… Don’t know about that?”

  Dareg nodded.

  “Right. I made a transportation system that everyone gets to use. They look like twelve-foot-tall red boxes. There’s one outside the magic shop here. Right now they’ll take you to the major ports, the main hallway here, and of course, the new city on Mars. The rules there are the same as they are here however, so if you want to visit, keep that in mind. The new fleets coming in will have them too, soon. Later today. I suggest you get in touch with some of them and set up a meeting? The official introduction will be in a few weeks, at King Dorgal’s birthday celebration, around Jupiter. You aren’t going to that, so you should jump the line, and get an interview now. Look up Hess, on your handheld?” Then, without waiting, as the media person stared at him, he opened the other cases.

  “New armor, which works with the shields that you have here, and weapons that won’t work at all, unless the person attacking you doesn’t have a working shield on. I made them all, so no. I don’t have Tor’s gold. Not that he wouldn’t have given it to me, if I asked. My stepmother let me use a city making amulet she created, which did wonders. I’m not kidding about any of this. Get on checking it out. That was Hess. Don’t act shocked when you see him. Or accuse him of anything. He’s a Ysidril, which means alien. If you do anything except make him feel comfortable, I will hunt you down, strip your shield and leave you in a place where no one will ever find you, understood?”

  For some reason the man seemed to think that Dare was joking with him.

  Thankfully there was a sign, right on the wall, in rather nice wri
ting, along with an arrow. It pointed to a door down the way, that claimed the Queen lived there. Dareg kept walking, still being followed by the nosey Austran man.

  “Albright… Why aren’t you calling Hess? Or at least going to see Mars?” He would have been, on hearing about those options.

  The man just snorted at him. It was very derisive sounding. Rude, to be honest. Enough that Dareg would have hit him, if they were in Noram.

  Instead he got to a door that promised to have the Queen behind it, or at least said her name, and used the small knocker on it, firmly, but not with any sense of banging. She was already in a poor mood. It could only get worse, with Dareg dragging along an unwelcome Austran with him as he was.

  When the door opened, it wasn’t a butler or house lady, just a rather tall and attractive Queen that did the work. One that would have looked about right for him to date, age wise, even if she had to be nearly thirty. Albright, staying back out of self-preservation, trained several floating cameras on her, over Dare’s shoulder.

  “Prince Dareg! Are you traveling with a reporter now? I know that I was a bit moody on the com, but I did think of something that you can do that will make me feel better? Even if you don’t want to help, you don’t really need to get our interaction on the record. Not if you’re bringing presents.”

  She waved at the large floating cases, which were all in a rather forbidding black color. Really they seemed pretty official, so Dareg passed the control amulets for them to her. Their hands touched when he did it, which was delicious, after being alone for so long. It didn’t hurt that she was pretty, but he kept the contact light, given they were being watched.

  Shrugging, he looked back at Albright, who probably had a first name too, not that he cared at the moment, and shook his head.

  “I told him to get in touch with Hess for an interview, or to go and be the first media man on Mars, but he seems more interested in claiming that I’m busily robbing Tor of all his wealth. I even showed him what was in the cases, but no, that wasn’t good enough. I’m kind of annoyed, to be honest. He refuses to leave me alone. I don’t know how long I can keep going with people lying about me like this… There has to be some way to make him move along, doesn’t there? I could call a guard or…” He didn’t know, and sadly Tiera shook her head, then glared at the man behind the boxes.