Kindred (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 3) Page 19

  That, or they just hated doors in general. Which was probably fair enough, if they were actually locked to keep you out. His just opened, if you bothered to turn the handle. It was probably dangerous, but when the place had been built, locks hadn’t really been needed. Given everything they still probably weren’t, unless this was the world’s dumbest assassin in the world. A smart one would have tried the handle first. Samantha and Eva would just walk in if they wanted him.

  Honestly, he couldn’t imagine who on Mars would do that kind of thing. Hess might, but then there would be calling out to go along with things. No one else really came to mind at all.

  Opening the door, Dare felt a bit shocked when he saw who was there. In fact the face nearly didn’t come into focus for him. Several things hit him though, nearly at the same time.

  Not only that his mother, who was supposed to be dead, was standing there, but that she was strong enough to make that kind of noise on the door. At first he thought that it might be the Forten woman that looked like his mother, Meredith, but before he could think of anything, she smiled, pushed him inside, and shut the door behind her.

  “There you are! I’ve been trying to find you for a while now. Months. You left Canton, and I lost track you after that, until I saw the news feed. I… Was in Austra.” She didn’t explain how she was alive, which told Dare a whole lot about what was going on.

  “So, you had some kind of spy at the cemetery?” Otherwise she wouldn’t have known that he’d figured out that she’d been alive the whole time.

  His mother, who was sweet, kind, and also one of the Adversaries, hugged him then, nodded into his chest. It was strange, since he was several inches taller than she was now. It had been years. Ones that he spent alone, which got him to stand back, contemplating trying to kill her right then.

  Dareg moved slowly, watching her face closely. Ready to fight, and even kill, the woman. The one that he’d never really known at all.

  Her words were soft, and nearly friendly seeming.

  “It was an observation camera. Honestly, it’s just on a pole, near the front of the place. There was one at the house as well, so that I could keep an eye on you. I was always there, even when I couldn’t be. It was a bit obvious that I couldn’t have survived being under that stone for so long. I knew that I had to come to you, when you and those others dug up the grave.” She shook her head a bit, but it was a subtle thing, as if to tell him that she just couldn’t believe what he’d done.

  “You actually went to your father, and made him believe you? I’d always thought that you didn’t believe my story. That was clever however. A shame as to how things have turned out there. He’s a good man, the Wizard Tor. He is in most worlds, or so I hear. Not all, of course, but that’s the same for all of us.” She watched him closely, as if he were supposed to not understand what she meant.

  He just stared at her, and took a deep breath.

  It had to seem like a gasp to her. Dareg just couldn’t care enough to moderate his speed that much. Slowing so that he could speak was important however.

  “The Adversaries. You’re one of them. Why? That can’t really make sense to you. Destroying everything? Why have a child if you plan to do that?”

  She stopped, not moving for a while, and then she sucked in her own lungful of air.

  “We don’t all get a choice, Dareg. If I didn’t do my best for the masters, then everyone I love would be made to suffer. Everything will end… But we still have to live, while we can. I never lied to you though, Dare. I loved you. I still do. I just couldn’t let my parents, my sister, be tortured and murdered in the worst way imaginable. When my cover was blown, I had to fake my death. I used some tricks, powers, that the masters gave me to survive, and that signaled that there was a problem, so they came looking for me. I left, because otherwise they would have taken you too. Probably as a spy, but they might have just harmed you, beyond all imagining, to force me to stay true to their plan.”

  It was a better story than he’d expected, though it was clear that she wasn’t mentioning some things.

  Moving back a little bit more, he nodded at her, his face calm. He hoped. It was hard to know, but he relaxed it as best he could.

  “They made changes to you? You’re stronger than most, right? Faster? You can warp time and space? I saw you slow time down, in the house. When it fell on us? I didn’t realize it until later.”

  She nodded, smiling tightly.

  “Exactly. We can call on others in worlds near us as well. If called on, we all have to go and fight. It’s happened to me, twice now. Once while I worked in my shop, in Austra. It’s not bad there, over all. I was a bit upset when I heard what they were saying about you and Tor on the news there. It surprised me, when you killed that reporter however. I’d blame poor parenting, but even my coworkers thought that it seemed fair, if a bit harsh. What were you thinking?” She switched a bit then, still seeming kind, but moving into her scolding face.

  As if he’d been caught sneaking a second cookie from the jar. It got him to smile, since it hadn’t scared him even as a small child.

  “It was on the image that was captured, wasn’t it? I was in a combat rage. That… I can control it pretty well, but apparently there are limits and that man moved right past them. I didn’t actually have much of a choice at the time. Anyway, did you come to try and kill me? I don’t think it will be as simple as you might think. So far your people haven’t done that well against me.” He waited, expecting her to say no. Then to attack with sudden violence, but she just shook her head.

  “No one knows that I’m your mother, so no, I wasn’t sent after you. I doubt the masters would be that foolish, even if it was known. They’d probably get some other version of you to do it. That’s the normal way of things. I can’t stay long, but I managed to get a trip to the space port, with a claim that I wanted to visit Harmony. Then I used the new jump pod, and came here instead. Those are brilliant, aren’t they? No one really knows where they came from. In Austra they’re claiming that the new Revered One made them. Is that so?”

  It was a weird thing for them not to be reporting, but made sense, if people there thought he was only a fraud, and to be persecuted all the time. In that case it only made sense that one of the older wizards had done it. Timon certainly could have, after all. So could Tor, or likely most of the others. It was only that he’d figured it out first.

  “Those are mine. I made them. Things have changed a bit, since we last met. So… I don’t know, I should take you prisoner? I’m not certain that I can, without killing you. The others have all died so far. I don’t just fight media people.” His voice felt dead, and his mother actually looked shocked.

  “Oh? I’d heard that some of us have perished, but… No one knew why. Even the commander they sent in died. He should have been able to destroy anyone. Like a nuclear bomb?” She shook her head, and then turned her palms up, shrugging at the same time. It was a strange thing that he remembered her doing now that he saw it happen again. It wasn’t that common of a thing really, so it kind of stood out, if you were paying attention.

  Then she turned a bit, looking toward the door, which opened up suddenly. A bit of stray time tried to fly away from her as Eva came in, smiling.

  “Oh! I didn’t know you had a guest. I can come back?” The girl didn’t even bother to look embarrassed. It was the one he thought of as the main Eva, having the glowing and slowly moving star on her left cheek in blue still.

  The words were enough to get Merry to calm down a bit, and then smile at him, like she knew something.

  “Is this a friend of yours, Dareg? She’s lovely.”

  He rolled his eyes a bit and then snorted.

  “Mother, this is Eva. My daughter. Before you ask, I made her, out of magic? Not like me. She’s a new kind of person, made of energy. Eva, this is my dead mother, Merry Merchant. One of the Adversaries, but so far she’s claiming that she doesn’t want to be with them, so we might not want to kill her yet.
Be ready though. Obviously, if she manages to take me out, I expect you to make sure she can’t leave. Understood?”

  Eva smiled, and nodded at him, then moved in to hug Merry.

  “Grandmother? How wonderful to meet you! We can have food brought in? Or, really I can get that here. Something to drink?” She moved off to the far wall, the food unit there activating before she got within a few feet. It didn’t make any noise but several lights turned on, which showed them all that the thing was ready to make food for them.

  “Do you have any Sluice? It’s an Austran drink, but reminds me of the sodas that I used to have when I was a child.”

  A glass of pink liquid that was mainly clear, with softly popping bubbles was pulled out a moment later, and brought over to the woman. There were small cubes of ice in it, which made more noises as Eva carried the thing across the room, still seeming happy to meet a new person.

  Taking it carefully, the woman took a sip and then closed her eyes.

  “All right, that’s the best I’ve ever had. I should move here. I might be able to sell that to the higher ups. You need people to run shops here, don’t you? I was going to claim that for the Moon, but there’s actually no space left there now. This place seems nicely open that way. Plus, I hear I have family connections here? One of them is you, which isn’t a good thing. Not if you can make things like the transport pods. The others will have to want to use you, given that. If they can.”

  Eva looked at the woman, and then nodded, slowly.

  “Because they can move things in time and space, and possibly between realities? That could allow the beings from the end of time to move back to an earlier time which…” She stopped, her, and Dareg’s information running out about there.

  Maddeningly his mother took a sip of her sugary smelling drink, which was kind of gross to his way of thinking, and drained half the glass. Then, almost cutely, she hiccupped.

  “Bubbly drinks always make me do that. Sorry. Now, Eva… That was very close to correct. If they ever get through, then they can destroy entire portions of reality. What we were taught was that they just had to make it back along their own timeline. Before you ask, no, that wouldn’t work for just anyone. It has to be the last one in that line. Thankfully it isn’t all that simple to actually make happen, or we’d all be dead, but the answer is yes. The Jump ships, those new pods, even your new handhelds… All of those have parts of what might be needed to destroy everything. So people are going to be interested in you, Dareg. It isn’t a good thing either.”

  He nodded.

  “It would be scary, but the situation hasn’t really changed, so I frankly can’t be bothered with that kind of thing. Now I simply know more about what to do. In theory, anyway. We’re… Going to need to talk to some other people. Quickly. You might not live through that, given everything. Sorry about that part, but we don’t have a lot of time to play around. Not if you have to get back soon, so that things aren’t found out. If you’re telling the truth at all. Not that I think you’re a liar, but if you’re being forced to do things, you might work against what you always told me was the right thing to do.”

  His mother, seeming exactly like he always recalled her being, smiled at him. Even while he doubted her good will.

  “I understand. You’re correct of course. Not that I’ve been forced to come here, but I can’t possibly prove that. Well, we won’t get things done sooner by waiting, will we?”

  Then, as if invited to, or wanting to be ironic, she sat down to wait for the others to come. Whoever they were going to be.

  Chapter seven

  It took a lot longer for the various bodies to get there than he would have figured on.

  Dare had gotten in touch with the only person that he knew for a fact would be there for him, when things went wrong. Alice Orange, the head of Space Fleet. It would have made more sense for him to call on Tor, but doing that after disowning the man just felt wrong to him. Like an insult being hurled at the fellow, for daring to do the right thing and trying to be there for the child that he’d never known about.

  The thing there was that Alice had to get with other people, and didn’t have access on the ship she was on, the Ranford, to the transport pods. So to easily get to Mars the woman had to actually go to Earth, then use one of the boxes. A lot of the others needed to travel to meet them as well, so it was hours later, which felt nearly like a full day to him, when the first person got there.

  The next issue was that the individuals that came weren’t all exactly people he knew, except for Tor, who brought the others in with him. It was a bit of a shock, but the introductions explained things, more or less.

  Being taller than the others Tor came in first, blocking several people from being seen. One of them was clearly a shorter, and thinner, version of Patricia Baker, though she was as light as Tor was, not the deep tan of the other woman. The face was very close to the same however, though the feeling coming off of her was so different that he touched the new lady with his thoughts, almost by reflex.

  It was kind of clear that inside she was closer to being Tor than the woman she looked like.

  Next to her was a small man, if he were going to think of a person that was merchant sized as being small now, at around five-nine or ten. That one looked like he was from Vagus, through the face. Then there was another man, who both seemed similar to Tor and the other people, being light in color, with dark hair, and being about the same size as the other shorter man.

  All of them were Tor. Obviously. As different as they looked, these people were from a different reality scheme, and had connections to each other. No one was trying to distort time like an Adversary, however. Then, at the moment his mother wasn’t either, and she’d admitted to being one of them.

  So it was possible that some of these others were in that group too. If so, then it would be a mistake to bring them along like they had been. Tor, however, wasn’t exactly a fool. Annoying at times, being that he thought that Dareg should be his son and all that, but even on that score the actual pressure hadn’t come from him.

  Behind this group was a very pale, almost pearl colored lady, who had white hair that shifted colors a little bit in the light. She was short, for a noble, but even though she looked different, he could pick out her facial features and match them to a person that he’d met before. Doris.

  One of the Ancients, unless this version was from a different world. Dare had been told that she had more than one shape however, so he nodded to her, then remembered his manners and bowed to everyone there. Going low. Tor failed to respond, but the other people more or less did it back.

  The woman that looked like Patricia spoke, saying hello. He got that, since the word was similar to standard, but was heavily accented.

  With a bit of effort, he worked out the rest of what was being said.

  “Hello! I’m Gwen. These others are Zack and Brian. We heard that one of the enemies has been captured? I take it this is her?” There was a wave at Merry, which helped make things clear for him, though he was really guessing as to what she meant.

  Dareg nodded, and smiled.

  “Yes. This is my mother, Merry Merchant. I’m Dareg Canton. I changed my name, because Merchant sounds too phony.” It was the real reason behind it, and the words came out very slowly, feeling like they took forever, to give the woman a chance to understand what he was saying. She looked at him strangely, but smiled a bit and nodded. Then looked at Doris, who repeated what he’d said.

  It was easy enough to get that part, for him at least. The languages weren’t that different, but it was clear that these others didn’t speak standard. Not the chatty one anyway. After a bit however, people discussing things back and forth, the lighter colored one, Zack, seemed to be able to adapt on his own. At least he seemed to nod in the right places when Dare was talking, as Doris translated for them all. Tor, for his part, was mainly speaking in English, which was what these others were using.

  Strangely, when it was finally her
turn to speak, Merry did the same.

  “I was just telling Dareg that I’m not really his enemy. I… Most of us really aren’t. We don’t have a choice in the matter. Even being here might have my family back home tortured horribly and killed. Things that would seem insanely barbaric to good people like you. I was chosen to come here and put in place for a reason, about fifteen years ago. Just before the large flood in Canton? I was…” She sighed and shook her head, then looked at Tor, her face bleak. “I was supposed to work my way into your life, but you were already married at the time, which made it harder to do. So I tried to seduce you, which… Well, that turned out being different than my masters intended.”

  Tor made a face and then nodded.

  “I’d wondered. You were a bit… Advanced, in trying to get my attention.”

  She grinned at him, then looked at the others, ending on the one that had said her name was Gwen.

  “It worked, didn’t it? After a fashion. So, I ended up pregnant, and then after having a roof fall on me, used my time distortion powers to prevent death, which caused the masters to come for me. They knew about you, Dareg, but agreed that a twelve-year-old boy that was related to Tor was of more use to them alive, so agreed to leave you alone for a while. I had to let you go. I had to. Doing anything else would have had you killed, as a distraction to me. The only way I could stop that was by making them think I didn’t care. I always did.”

  It was pretty clear that she actually meant that, which was miserable to hear. It would have been a lot simpler if she was just evil. The idea that she, and possible the others, might have been good people forced to be evil did not sit well with him. It would make killing them all that much harder to do. Now he had to hesitate and ask himself if the vile being trying to slaughter himself and his friends might not really want to do that at all.

  “All right. So, how do we use this? We need to get information from Merry, and if we can should try to free her family, so that they can’t be used against us. You have parents, and a sister?”