Strange Land (The Young Ancients Book 15) Read online

  "It's been a few days... Things have been too busy for much comfort."

  "Right. I'll get something going. Call it five minutes? Do you want to eat in here, or in a dining room?"

  She shrugged, knowing that there was no reason not to set up a room for that kind of thing. They had the time they needed.

  "I'll get the room, to the right of this one out the door there. No need not to have things be nice."

  "Got it."

  She was just getting the table set, which took no more than setting her hand on the focus stone table she'd called into being, and summoning some plates, white with gold edges, and real looking silver, along with white linen napkins. It looked nice enough, if a bit casual, compared to the room she'd called into being. It was nice enough to have servants in, and individual courses. You didn't do that at small intimate meals though, unless the point was to impress someone with your wealth. If she were trying to get Timon to work for her family, she might have had six men in uniform to wait on their every want. At least if he'd just come fresh from the back country, unused to anything nice or refined.

  That wasn't the case here, naturally.

  Timon was an odd combination of things now. Young enough that she kept expecting him to whine or complain about having to go into hiding to try and protect Lars and his family, as well as himself. Noble enough that she kind of wondered why he hadn't just ordered the rest of them to fix things. Now. Oh, that couldn't be done any more smoothly than it was going to be, but it was the way she always thought of nobles as being.

  Even Alphonse, who was sweet in his own way, was more than a bit demanding most of the time. If it was him there with her she'd have known, without asking, that they'd be doing whatever it was he felt like. Day or night. Timon was asking what she wanted though. Not just to get her into bed either, she didn't think. No, it was almost like he was the one trying to woo her into working with his family. The meal that came was floating on a tray, one that she realized was actually a magical chest made to look like a silver serving dish, and contained enough food for six people. Even a half dozen giants. There was a good mix of things too, and it looked incredible. Candied whole fruits, that were more decoration than luncheon, and fine cuts of beef. A whole roast chicken that seemed to be herb encrusted, and a dozen side dishes of various kinds. It smelled wonderful.

  Without moving the amulet around, like a normal person would have to do, Tim just waved at the table, which had the float chest move into place smoothly. Almost as if he were controlling it with his mind.

  Tim didn't comment on it, even though it was clearly special, just indicating with the set of his shoulders that she should sit at the two person table. That put them directly across from each other. Close enough they could touch. If they wanted.

  For some reason her friend shuddered, even as he settled into place.

  "Something wrong?" Sara made her voice be both calm, and very polite. It was hard to know what you did wrong with different people at times. She glanced down at her front, to make sure it wasn't her clothing. She was still in her boring ship wear, all tan, but there was no dirt or filth on her front. It was possible that she needed to bathe. She didn't notice any particular scent, but it had been days, and you got used to your own stink, after long enough.

  The good looking young man wasn't dressed much more nicely than she was. He was in black, but it was almost military in style. Noram military. Heavy and durable cloth, black boots that weren't polished, indicating field wear, and enough beard growth that it showed he hadn't shaved in the last few days himself. It made sense, though they had enough material and free time to take care of that kind of thing now. His black hair made his face look older than his years.

  His dark eyes met hers though, and instead of putting her at ease, he sighed.

  "Just a bad memory of another meal, years ago. I need to set it aside." Then he pulled out a poison detector and used it, over all the food.

  She did the same, feeling a bit put off by the move. He'd gotten the food, and was the only one that had access to it yet. That probably meant he was doing something else. Responding to factors that weren't actually in the room. That or he suspected that she'd taken him away to try and kill him.

  "No. That's silly. It's just that some things..." He shook his head, then tried to go on. "The worst thing that ever happened to me, started at a cozy meal, with a lady. She looked nothing like you, by the way. That makes things easier for me. You'd think that I'd be over it by now, but-"

  Sara swallowed. This wasn't something that she really knew about. She'd gotten some hints, and Trice had mentioned that something very bad had happened that involved him, but no one had told her exactly what it was that had happened. It also wasn't her business. Not now.

  If she were really going to be given a place as an Ancient, then she wasn't a spy for King Richard anymore, was she? That was hard to wrap her mind around. Where should her loyalties be now? With the man that had made her what she was now, or her friends, who were as powerful, but in different ways?

  To cover, she served them both. It was a bit too close, given that they weren't lovers, but he'd picked the food, so that probably meant he was willing to eat it all. For his part he just watched her, and finally managed a small smile. It was, she had to admit, pretty well done. From admitting a possible weakness, he'd recovered and gone straight into sexy.

  "Thank you. So, hair after this?"

  She nodded, then changed her mind, having just been thinking about grooming and hygiene, "Let's get a bath first. Then that? Then..."

  He just looked away, and nodded, a little slowly.

  "And then?"

  They ate then, with her alternating a desire to stuff her face with food, and trying to be polite and well mannered. After a while, feeling nearly full, Sara answered that part.

  "Then... We should do whatever you want. I came very close to being a Doretta with you. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but-" She made eye contact, and looked away a bit, flirting with him. Really, it was the first time she'd ever done that, given everything.

  "But there were things in the way. It happens. I'd really like to spend time with you. We can do whatever you like. I'm not upset about the past. We're friends."

  "And there are no debts between friends?" She knew that one from being around Tor for so long. It was an odd tradition, but Timon followed the same kind of thing.

  "Exactly. Not that I won't sleep with you, if you want to. That's another area that I've had some problems with. Things are better now, but the torture... Well, you know how that goes."

  "Not personally. I don't really know what happened to you. Something about Countess Alan? Before she died?"

  He nodded while looking away, but his face went more focused, rather than less.

  "It was brutal, and involved sex, as well as a rack. Some Austran pain medication as well, that's supposed to be the worst thing a person can experience. I can't recommend it for recreational use."

  Then he took a bite of chicken, using a knife and fork to take it off the bone. When he spoke again, his voice was more matter of fact.

  "So, Countess Alan, and a Larval, managed to link pain and sex in my mind pretty well. They were trying to get in touch with Tor using my communications device. They wanted me to scream, when he picked up. He never did, of course. I told them that he wouldn't, but they didn't seem to believe me."

  Her throat tried to close down, and her eyes filled with tears. It wasn't what was said that caused that reaction though. It was what wasn't.

  How would that have felt, being made to hurt, so that someone else would come to try and rescue you? Being so smart that you knew, no matter what else happened, that your own brother would leave you there, because what he had to do was more important than your suffering? Tor had been in hiding then, since an army of assassins was after him. To protect everyone he hadn't answered any communications at all. Sara had tried daily, through the whole thing. That it was Timon that had suffered for it...
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br />   Well, it was harsher than she liked to think about.

  He went on though, after eating for a bit.

  "So... I killed Countess Alan in the end, and Count Lairdgren took out the Larval Assassin. That surprised me. I didn't think that he would have come for me. Or even sent people to do it. That could start a war. It made more sense for him to let me die."

  Sara looked at him, and realized something that she'd never really thought about before.

  "I... Um... I knew him. Pretty well. The Old Count? We used to visit for hours, even before I went to school. He was grooming me to be a spy for him. Not that he ever said that, but he got me used to telling him about my life, starting from when I was a child. Later, when I was sent to his school, to learn to be a spy, I figured it all out. I thought."

  She was about to explain it all, when Timon interrupted.

  "He wasn't trying to turn you though, just use you to keep check on Tor... And Patricia. Especially her, right? He'd pretend it was all about Alphonse, or Tor being bullied by some of the boys, but he always brought it back around to your best friend, didn't he?"

  Stopping to think about it all, she had to agree.

  "I'd actually thought it was about Tor. Not that it wasn't about more than one thing. We were close, he and I. Never lovers, but I wanted to be. That's probably why I love Tor so much. It wasn't really him that I wanted back then, when I first noticed him. They looked similar, after all. Tor was sweeter though, I think."

  They'd been identical, actually. Count Lairdgren, when he'd been around her, had always looked about thirty years old. Tor had been much younger, but there was a similarity there that had gone far beyond merely being related by blood, for all of that. On a very real level they'd been the same person. Now Torrance Baker had changed himself, so it was hard to know what he'd become in the end, but a very real portion of the love Sara felt for him had started with an attraction to Burks.

  Who'd barely noticed her as more than an asset, she was sure. After all, why would a man that old notice a little puppy like she'd been back then?

  For some reason Timon started grinning. It got wider the more she explained about what had happened there.

  "What? For once Tor isn't the one that everyone loved without question? I'm filled with both shock, and a sense of relief. Not that I had any great love for Lairdgren really. I always found him cold. More than a bit distant too. Still, he did show up for me when I needed help, so that has to count. We were family, in the end. I guess."

  Sara rolled her eyes at that one. The whole thing was much too pitiful for a person like Tim Baker to indulge in. Like a count complaining that the neighboring County had just a tiny bit more land.

  "That's not the way it is, you have to know that. About Tor, I mean. A lot of people don't care for him all that much. Some even say pretty mean things about him really. Especially in the rebellion back home. You'd think he'd created all of his magic just to spit in their faces, to hear some of them speak. Even ones that are only alive because of the things that he and his family have done for them. They all love you though." Sara brushed at the side of her head, which felt a bit like something was trying to crawl on it.

  When she pulled her hand away, there was a small brown and slightly red smear on it.

  "Bugs? I must have been carrying it, but... How?" She wiped her palm on the leg of her tan trousers, absently.

  "They get everywhere. We even have mice and rats on Harmony. Given how hard that must be to manage, I personally think that it's Princess Abbey's doing. She loves animals and thinks that we should have more of them all the time. My bet is that it's part of a ploy to have cats and then dogs introduced. Like that old nursery song? The old woman who had to clear her house of flies?"

  Maybe, but it was strange that anything would have been on her like that, after all she'd been through. There were at least six different times in the last days where it should have died. Eaten by her shield to make air for her to breathe well before it took her hair off.

  Just thinking of it made her skin crawl now though. Rather than scratch, which would be rude to do at the table, she picked at her food, already full, but knowing that Timon would need to eat a lot more than she would. He was still growing, and had gotten so tall that his bones showed under his skin in places they really shouldn't. Nearly gangly, like a lot of tall boys, especially the noble ones, got when they were about his age. It made them all look awkward. Like yearling horses.

  After a minute of silence, she realized that it had been her turn to speak for a while, and she'd just sat there, staring at him. A bit morosely too, given how she felt at the moment.

  "Things seldom turn out how we expect them to, do they?" That was a classic line, which would allow her to say something wise, even if it was without meaning in the moment.

  Timon ran with it nicely, which was actually better than she thought he would have. After all, for all he was incredibly brilliant, he simply hadn't had the classes in such things that her schooling had afforded her.

  "That's true. If you would have asked me five years ago what I'd be doing now, I probably would have guessed at something involving baking in the family shop, if not moving out to start my own. Possibly getting married to you. Now... Well, as you said, things seldom do turn out how we expect them to. There are things I would have changed, if given the choice."

  He held his cup pensively, looking into the top of it, as if trying to divine the future in the depths of the amber liquid. It seemed nearly sad, for a moment. Then, they both had things in life that could have gone better.

  "No torture at the hands of fools? Marrying me, instead of Trice?" She tried to smile, but failed. It was a bit too dark for her to really seem happy about. Really, once the words were out, she readied an apology, since making him feel uncomfortable was a poor plan.

  She still wanted to be an immortal, didn't she? So that she could have more time to try and get Tor to feel the way about her that she did him.

  It was a stupid reason to do what was being asked of her, she knew, but it was also a real part of things. No matter how it had started in her head, her heart was well and truly his now. It felt like it always would be. Shaking her head a bit, she started to speak, but Timon got to it first, a small smile on his lips.

  "I... I've killed people, Sara. Not just a few either. I could have done without all that pain, but... I'm not certain I didn't deserve it, in the end. True, the things I'm talking about came later, but, I'm pretty much a monster."

  Social rules said that she either had to ignore what he was saying, since death was never polite dinner speech, or deny his words and insist that he was a good man, incapable of what he was just speaking of. The thing there was that she could hardly credit it at all.

  Looking at him, tiredness weighing her mind down more than a bit, she was far too blunt.

  "Holding back the healing amulets that would have cured the Gray Plague in the rebel areas? I knew about that. I never really stopped to think about how that would impact you though. I..." It had to be awful, the weight of all those deaths around his neck like that. He'd done it though, hadn't he?

  It had also held back the worst of the fighting for nearly two years now. The rebels were too weak to really do more than plot and plan behind the scenes. King Richard should have gone and wiped them all out, of course, but doing that could lead to other problems. That's what he'd told her. Men and women on his own side would laud the action at first, but as soon as its meaning sunk in, that even having thoughts against him could mean death, others would almost have to turn their hands against the crown, simply to try and survive.

  Death would, as it often seemed to, beget death and ruin, if not handled properly.

  Sara didn't see it really, but Timon called her attention back to the topic at hand, speaking so softly she nearly missed it.

  "I also had to kill some innocent people. Guards that had taken a boy, that isn't really true, he was older then than I am now, by a year. They were just doing th
eir duty, but I had to..." There was no imploring look that she understand him, just a long drawn out silence that filled the room. All she could hear was her own breathing, not even his. Taking a sip of his wine, she waited, not knowing what might come. It could be anything from turning to a new topic, to a combat rage. She'd seen him do that before, after all.

  Looking up he gave her a wry grin. It was cute and a bit like the one that Tor always used. She wasn't going to mention that part though, since he clearly had some issues with his famous older brother. As if he weren't as famous or more now? Tor had done great things, true, but most of Earth was going to be eating that night because of Tim Baker. No one was confused as to where those food devices had come from. The shields they all used were his, too.

  His brother was known in certain places for throwing great parties, and being fun, if a bit flashy even for a noble, but Timon was the one that had saved them all. Personally. It wasn't a small point to consider, and as far as she could tell, even the most common people knew about it. In Noram and Tellerand at least. There they hadn't a clue who his brother was, past some stories of him praying once.

  Tim though was the one that had made either the miracles of the All High as his agent, or was tricking them for the devil, to draw them into sin.

  There was a world of difference between the two things.

  The boy in front of her shook his head a bit sadly and went on.

  "The guards were innocents, and I could have saved them, but I was distracted at the time. Tor had done something to me. Basically he'd given me a conscience. Made it so I felt guilt and remorse. It was the Cordes in his head that had suggested he do it, if I can believe the being himself. Tor did the work though. Then, Cordes also had him believing that we have a brother that we don't, so by that point, who knows how much control the thing had really held over him? Anyway, I made a mistake, and acted. Killing them all, and then hiding the bodies." He waved his hand, removing it from the cup that now sat on the table, barely touched.