Ambassador tya-4 Page 8

  When they got to the first place Tor felt like groaning and running away. If he’d been alone, he simply would have. It was Trice's parents place.

  Wonderful.

  Tor looked at Rolph and sighed, but his big friend just looked baffled. Was he claiming this wasn't pay back for Tor making him apologize to Maria? He'd seen Trice's mom after the Queen’s day attack, but the last time he'd seen both Eric and Mercy, Tor had kind of been being a petty jerk, demanding back gifts because his feelings had been hurt by Trice. It was just stuff he'd made too, not anything valuable. His argument had ended when the war with Austra began, but he hadn't made amends at all. His palms sweat and heart started racing before they reached the door. Karina still cradled his arm and the case of gifts floated along behind them, like it was supposed to.

  The door man was new, probably hired just for the holiday. Her parents were wealthy enough, but didn't live in the Capital all the time. Their house here was great though. It was real. Nice, but not some fake palace in miniature like most of the royals had here. Really, if he'd been picking what to make his own home look like, it would have been this. Only in a light purple. His house, his rules, and purple was his favorite color. The palace thing he had was nice too though, if over done.

  Even he could tell that it would look horrible in any color but cream and gold. Making it all purple would be hideous.

  Tor hit the sigil on the truth amulet, just tapping his chest on the outside of his clothing, nowhere near the amulet around his neck. It was the intent that did it, not the action. He knew what he meant, and it was enough. Anyone could do it if they bothered to focus a little. They smiled when they saw the glow, but looked slightly troubled.

  Ah. They had no reason to know what it meant. It could be a weapon, shield, or just an amusement. He bowed low and then went to all fours lowering until his head touched the floor. It was hard to get the words to come out, because of his great embarrassment, but the words were all true. He'd been a jerk and took his pain out on innocent people. Tor couldn't ask for their forgiveness, because he hadn't earned it yet, but it had to be out there that he was sorry for it. Then he listed off how he'd been petty about mere things, and was wrong to have demanded it back at all. It was a gift and that meant it wasn’t his to ask for.

  Rolph explained the glow and what it meant, which got a murmur of appreciation from Eric. Taking him by the shoulders and hands they pulled him up and into a hug with back thumping from the Duke.

  “Don't let that trouble you, it's forgotten already. Things were tense after all.” He reassured the much smaller man. Karina nodded at him, apparently getting the idea that letting current anger make you act like a beast didn't help in the long run. The whole thing was embarrassing, but at least Rolph shouldn't feel alone now. He'd taken his turn too. If with a lot less crying and hitting. Then he hadn't told the Duke that he loved him either…

  Looking up he saw Trice standing near the back of the room, her face blank and body tense. If she expected him to beg for her forgiveness on the floor she was going to have a wait. A very long wait indeed. He'd forgiven her mainly, and hadn't always treated her as well as he should when he was upset, but that didn't mean he wasn't mad at all. Maybe he'd like her better if they were touching? Walking to her slowly Tor grinned and hugged her. She melted into his arms and didn't move for a while.

  “Something for you. “visiting gift”.” Tor had it in the box for her just in case they met up. He held up the plain white disk with its single white light coming out of it making a blip the size and shape of a pea. It was on a heavy silver chain that had cost several golds. Chain was hard to make. The gold ones had cost even more.

  “Thank you, it's lovely!” She said and had him help her put it on. An oversight on his part, she couldn't do that with one hand herself. Crap. He'd have to fix it on the next one.

  “Does it do anything?” This came from Karina, who, if she was worked up about him touching her cousin really wasn't letting it show.

  Tor looked at Trice and nodded.

  “Glittery hook. Part one. Give it a try?”

  She hit the amulet, and her left arm was back. It was lumpy and didn't fit smoothly, and was too white. At first. It morphed as she looked at it, the feedback from her mind shaping it to what should be there, without conscious effort on her part. The lumps of protruding bone under flesh shifting and seeming to melt, the arm being more delicate than he'd thought. A minute later you couldn't tell she didn't just have her own two arms. Without hesitation she touched it with her other hand.

  “It's soft… and warm! Mom feel!” She held it out and then turned it palm up and wiggled the fingers.

  “I can move it! I can't feel it, but it's an arm! It 's a real arm. You made me a real arm?” Tears started down her face, then Mercy's, Eric had a huge smile, being way too manly for tears in public.

  “Wait!” Tor got everyone to stop with a single word. That was rare. Of course this was magic, and that was his thing. When he gave a warning there people actually listened. Sometimes.

  “It should work and feel right, but there's no sense of touch yet. I can pass the sensations to the brain, but I haven't learned how to pick them up. Not just yet. So it's going to take visual feedback to make it work right for now. Kind of a hassle, really you should practice touching yourself before you touch anyone else with it, get used to what it takes to control it.” He nodded to her seriously, but everyone else laughed.

  It was that funny that he couldn't make it feel yet? Or that lame. Well… He'd hoped to have it perfect for her by now, but this at least gave her something while she waited for him to figure out the rest of it. The joke went right past him until Trice ran over and kissed him hard.

  “I'll do that, make sure to practice touching myself, before I do anyone else with it.” Her voice held her normal teasing quality.

  Oh. Sex jokes. Well, it was still a good point. Keeping his face serious he looked at her skeptically.

  “Um, what did you think I meant? You could tear something off with that thing you know…”

  The smile came slowly even as he fought it. Then the laughter was louder.

  They sat around and traded stories, got told off for trying to talk business by Rolph, who pointed out that Tor taking a break for two weeks was the first time in ten years that the entire Counsel of Counts and the entire royal family agreed on anything. Eric and Mercy relented then, their looks suddenly worried, as if Tor might be ill or something.

  When they left Trice wanted to come, so she got a clothing amulet and changed to match, her colored stripes being deep gray for some reason. No one else was dressed like they were, so they looked a bit odd to Tor, but no one in the city seemed to think it a bad thing. In fact people waved when they saw them, sometimes whistling or calling out until they waved back.

  Not everyone, but the nobles all did, even stopping their shopping and errands to show their children and talk to them. What they were saying he couldn't tell, but the kids did things like clap and jump up and down. He finally got it when one young, but extremely tall, royal lady with a little boy next to her point and told her son who they were dressed like.

  “Look! It's the ancients! That little one there is the Green man, the one that invented magic, remember the story daddy told you?”

  The boy clapped and ran at Tor, giving him a big hug around the legs.

  “Magic!” The little boy might have been three, but that was hard to tell, he bounced and clapped so happily that Tor gave him a little glow amulet on a hemp string that let him change the color of the air around him. The kid seemed pleased and it got applause from Rolph. The mother just looked at him wide eyed for a moment and then bowed deeply.

  “Thank you sir.” She said, her voice humble for some reason. The little boy bowed too.

  “Tank you, Gween man.” He said changing the colors on his amulet as the mother went wide eyed. She bowed again several times then. It was a bit awkward, but she gave Tor a hug too.

  Kari
na smiled prettily, happy for the moment and leaned into him, Trice did too on the other side and whispered into his left ear as they moved down the street a little.

  “Did you just hand a little kid a piece of magic that would probably market for several hundred golds?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him.

  “That kid's going to be fifty and telling everyone about the time he met the real Green man on the street!”

  That got a laugh from Rolph who moved up next to his cousin and touched her new arm gently. Trice stared down at it and smiled, not getting his point. The Prince shrugged.

  “All I can say on the matter Trice is that Tor isn't the Green man. You know that, Count Lairdgren is. What he'll end up being I don't know, but he's all him.”

  The Ducherina flexed her new hand and looked at it closely for a second.

  “Yeah. I guess I can see that.”

  The carriage was ridiculously cramped and the only thing that made it bearable was that Trice and Karina took turns sitting in his lap. Sure, they were both bigger than he was, so he couldn't see anything, but that just meant he kept getting hit in the face with their breasts, since both sat with an arm around him, leaning onto Rolph as they did each time. He wasn't as enthused about it, but they were his relatives. Tor could get that.

  Wensa and the male guard who didn't give a name both sat watching out the slits of windows on the other side. They got a whole side to themselves in case something happened and they had to move quickly. That they were better at doing that than he was, Tor didn't doubt. Pretty much everyone was. He was better at hiding though, he bet. He could wedge into little places these giants wouldn't even think to look in. Perfectly equal.

  Yep.

  When they finally got to Debri house, over half an hour later. Sara's mom's place, which did indeed look like a miniature palace, and kind of funny for it, Tor felt the dread rise again and knew what was coming, so he just hopped out and went to. The last time he'd been there he hadn't just been a jerk, it was worse than that. Way worse. At this rate, he told them, he was going to end up spending his whole vacation on his knees apologizing to people.

  He held up his hand and stuck out his tongue as the laughter started.

  “I know, even I'm not so dense as to not get the joke there. Sigh. Even innocent comments get warped by you people don't they?”

  Heather Debri didn't make him grovel long, at least not alone. He hadn't said more than “I owe an apology for my actions” before she joined him on the floor, head next to his.

  “As do I.”

  His list, threatening to kill them all and destroy part of the city, then destroy her family’s business, probably bankrupting them, kind of beat her having not paid him yet. Yes, the payment was late, six months or so, but he wasn't hurting for money. They weren't either, they even had the coin she informed him, but it was sitting aside in a secure vault somewhere else in the Capital.

  “No big thing.” He had enough gold. Too much probably. If he had it that meant someone else wasn't using it. They needed to make more jobs. He started to ask about the idea, the woman looking suddenly interested. After all, investment in growth led to more income and that meant they could afford to hire more people. Plus it wasn’t her gold, but if they could be a part of the whole effort, Debri House could still turn a profit. Tor suggested the focus stone idea Johanson had.

  “Nope!” Rolph clapped his hand over Tor's mouth the instant he started to mention it. The move didn't trigger the shield at all. It was interesting to touch people again after all that time without, giving him a new perspective on things. One of them was that, as huge as the Prince was, he could move both quickly and with near total control. Tor normally felt like someone had tied fish to his feet.

  The other thing was that more than anyone, Rolph was worried about him working too hard. Tor didn't work that hard though. No one could really. There were only twenty-four hours in a day and you had to sleep part of the time. Every few weeks at least. It was self-limiting that way.

  The cool blond that walked in looked lovely, her skin golden and the cream dress she had on covered only part of one shoulder and barley hit her thighs. Still, she looked a little warm. Reaching out Tor realized she didn't have an equalizer on. Neither did Heather. From their sweat it wasn't cool in the room, so was it a comment on him? Well, he could have been a better friend he knew. Hence the knocking his head against the floor.

  Head dropping in shame he swallowed. They'd rather suffer this heat than wear an amulet he'd given them? He felt like he should grovel more but Sara started yelling. Loud. It was a happy sound though.

  “Trice! Your arm… how? Oh my god, is it.. does it..” Sara was on Trice like a magnet meeting it's pair. She touched the arm, screamed happily and started kissing it as Trice wiggled the fingers.

  “Don't worry, it's magic, not flesh, but it feels real doesn't it? I can't feel with it yet, but Tor says that's coming. He made it for me. I should have known when he said he was making a “shiny hook” it would be something like this, shouldn't I?” Tears came into her eyes again.

  Heather Debri froze, staring at the arm for at least a full minute while the girls celebrated. Then, slowly, she walked over to Trice and put her hand out as if to touch it. Trice reached out and took her hand, making the forty odd year old woman gasp. At first Tor feared her hand was being crushed, but that wasn't it at all.

  “Patricia… Do you realize how much it would cost to purchase something like this?” Her voice sounding awed.

  Trice smiled and shrugged, “More than I have on me?”

  “More than the value of Noram probably.” Heather shook her head and regarded Tor with wide eyes.

  “I'm… not certain I'm just saying that either. You couldn't afford to purchase a work like this. I don't think anyone in the world could. I wouldn't have thought it was possible at all. Not even the King could get something like this for gold. Probably not even for a landed title.” The woman kissed it herself and closed her eyes.

  That got Tor to shrug.

  “Right, well, you know, that just means that if someone needs one, and I have time to make it for them, they get it for free. I should eventually have devices for all the limbs, so if someone needs one, you can just send them to me for it? Or, you know, I can send some over to you and you can just distribute them to your shops and retail outlets to be given away to people that need them? If that's not…” Tor didn't know what it wasn't, but suddenly everyone in the room was bowing towards him. He bowed quickly, baffled. Heather walked over and gave him a hug, which made Tor a little uneasy. She was a bit older, but kind of hot. Also his friends mother.

  “We can do that, Master Tor. Simply let us know what you'd have us do.”

  Then, of course, changing the topic without warning, Sara wanted to join their merry band of “visitors” and grabbed a rack of wine bottles for the purpose, but they couldn't fit everyone in the back of the golden wood and enameled cream of the royal carriage. Not without sitting on top of Royal Guards and Wensa rather politely informed them that wouldn't work. They needed the guards to be ready, not half smothered in young bodies as fun as that sounded. The other guy smiled and shook his head a little.

  “Drawback of the job.” He intoned, his voice deep, matching his size. The guy wasn't the biggest man Tor had ever seen, but had to weigh over three hundred pounds, all muscle. Wrapped around a core of death.

  Which right now was chuckling at them a little.

  Duh. Sometimes he was a moron. Tor sorted his amulets and found the carriage, a tiny disk of focus stone, white like the rest, with a glowing horse on it. Holding it at arm’s length with his left hand a simple tap got the thing to appear.

  It was purple on the lower half and deep blue on top, but otherwise it looked a lot like a regular carriage. A box on wheels, except as he touched the amulets sigil, which was held in the very nose of the vehicle, the whole thing stretched back, becoming longer, adding seats inside. Then he made the top transparent, l
eaving a solid shield in place, but making it look like a box open to the air. There were no wheels, because it didn't need them, it just floated about a foot from the ground.

  Opening the door he waved everyone inside. Wensa didn't want to however, not trusting something new that she hadn't practiced in for years.

  “We can't be trapped inside if something happens, we may react incorrectly or make an error that costs our charges lives.”

  Tor nodded, he could understand that. New things were always a risk, even the ones he made. Touching the amulet again he made a second layer at the back, with an uncovered but comfortable seat. Raising them well above the street, the shape much more like the top seat some carriages would have for guards, something that Wensa had practiced with most of her life no doubt. Then he put in steps going up the side. It was all in purple now. That proved to be good enough for the woman, who wasn't just trying to be a pain it seemed.

  Climbing in the driver’s seat, directly in the middle of the front, Tor placed his hand on the controls. It worked like a Not-flyer really, except the purple rounded hand piece he grabbed hovered in the air on its own. It felt like smooth glass in his palm, finger wrapping around it easily. It could go about as fast as a military Not-flyer, most likely at least. Possibly faster actually, he hadn't tried the new “magic carriage”, but it had some extra features he wasn't telling anyone about yet. For now he went slow, not much faster than the carriage from before. Rolph called out to the driver to take that back to the palace, which was a bit of wisdom Tor lacked.

  The man would have sat there waiting for them if no other instructions came. He may try to get food and water, but drivers had been known to wait days without leaving in a situation like that. It was something Tor needed to internalize instantly he knew. Protect your people, even from themselves. Check.

  Driving the new magic carriage was pretty simply, as long as he didn't go too fast or get lazy and stop looking for people walking out into the street. Half the time it was like they didn't even see the rather large craft until they nearly walked into it. It was this level of attention to the outside world and the much better visibility he had compared to a real carriage that allowed him to see the girl walking towards the new craft before she noticed them. She didn't look very happy, a little miserable really, if Tor could judge such things from a distance, but she'd still hurt his friend, so she must pay.