Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2) (11 page)

He shrugged. It wasn't a thing
that he'd ever considered before, but it sounded like something that he needed
to take care of. The husband did things like that, while the wife took care of
the domestic portion of things. For a princess that probably meant she was
going to hire the servants for them.

Both sets of things would take
funds. Maybe even more than the fifty gold a month he had coming in. That was a
vast sum, but if he needed to buy her palaces, plural, and hire liveried folk
to run them, it was likely going to take a lot more. How he was supposed to get
that done, he had no hint, but it didn't have to take place in the next day, so
he had time, as long as he didn't sit back and wait for the future to simply
crush the life from him.

Not that it wouldn't, eventually.
That was the fate of everyone though, so he smiled at the image of Petra and
tried not to give away what he was thinking.

"Here, Mars, and the Martian
Circle? I bet we can get land cheap on Mars, if we hurry." It wouldn't be
livable for several hundred years, after all. Though they had all that magic
laying around, so it should be possible to do something like what they had
going on at Harmony. A large underground city or two, to hold the workers while
they waited for things to happen on the surface.

It was a thing to mention to
Karina at any rate. If she didn't like it, well, then it wouldn't be happening.
She was the Ancient of that place, after all. There could be reasons for that.
Like, he suspected, very few people actually wanting to risk moving that far
from home. To him it felt like an
adventure
, but others might have very
different thoughts on the matter.

There was a low, nearly throaty
chuckle from the device he held. His hand was dry, but a bit cool feeling, even
though the temperature in the pod house stayed pleasant all the time. That
portion of things was just him. Hopefully it would pass.

"That's true. Actually I
should get some space there, too. In a few hundred years it might be worth
something."

That told him a lot. For
instance, Petra Lairdgren was, most likely, immortal now. It was hard to see
her face as being other than made up, or disguised, but he got that she might
not be. Now that a clue was dropped. That would probably mean that Gerent was
that way as well. That hadn't been the case a month before, he didn't think.
They were both around before the Ancients knew they could come back. So had
Sara Debri, but she was different than the others, somehow.

Nodding, he just went with the
idea that he was right, for the time being.

"I should probably do that.
If it's allowed. I still don't know if anyone wants me around really.
Not..." The words got a sharp, concerned look from his aunt. "Not
that I'm saying they hate me, but I'm still the new person, so I can
see
everyone waiting to pass judgment that way. You don't just give everything to
an unknown. Most wouldn't."

Rather than reasure him, the
woman suddenly smiled, nodding.

"Gerent had that issue for a
long time. You have a family now, and they
will
stick by you. That's a
thing you do need to earn, to be worthy of, but the Bakers will start with you
in the hundred percent position. So, you have what you need, you just have to
keep it. So far I don't see you doing anything to lose their good will. Or
mine. If you care about that?" She looked into the the handheld, her face
looking a bit younger than it had. Less boxy.

She was still her however, just a
bit different around the edges.

"Hey, did you get your
strength and speed increased? I know that Sara is faster than most people. By a
lot."

She nodded at him, her eyes going
wider by a fraction of an inch.

"I did, actually. So did
Gerent. We both tried to push that part, in case it's needed. Stronger, faster,
and harder to hurt. More intelligent as well. Why, are you thinking of doing
the same thing?"

"Honestly, I hadn't been,
not really knowing it was possible, but we all probably should, if it works.
That, and skill... I can't see what else we can do that way. Magic doesn't work
against the... Those bad things. Alice has some physical armor that might help,
but we all need to get some and wear it all the time, which will be fun I
bet."

He started to think about that.
What was really needed. His brain spun for a bit, since the biggest real threat
was not knowing who might be coming for them. They could look like anyone.
Really,
he
fit the right mold for that kind of thing, from what they
knew.

Kevin Straughan had been adopted
decades before, coming from nowhere. Bill Humboldt, who hadn't even come with a
last name, that being provided by Dare, never mentioned a family at all. Just a
location he was from. Those were the only examples they had on the topic, and
here he was, walking into the circles of power, without even an old adopted
family to point at.

Sure, he knew that
he
wasn't some kind of creature of darkness, but
Bill
hadn't seemed like
that either.

So far no one else seemed to have
considered that in particular, but finding the people, the real threats, before
they attacked, was important. How that could be done, he didn't know. Magic
came to mind. It might not work, but he could ask. Also, Bill
had
let
some things drop over time. He was too aggressive for a commoner, for instance.
If that was indicative of all of them, it was possible that being around one of
them would be recognizable from things like that.

Also his physical skills were too
advanced for his position in life. The short man had tried to hide it, but it
came through in practice. Again,
Dare
fit that as well. It was part of
why he hadn't really noticed it at the time. Rather, he had, but the assumption
had been that the farmer was just
that
good, brave and strong.

The big problem there is that
almost everything that had been noticed wasn't going to help him a lot in
judging the merchant class, or nobles. Still, there might be more that could be
uncovered. Traits that those two had shown that were the same, that, even if
they weren't definitive, could possibly give them some kind of sign.

Petra looked up and away, then
back at him.

"We need to get going. We
should be at your location in half an hour. Are you good with going in with
Gerent and me? We can pick you up. We should talk anyway. Someplace where we
won't be easily heard." There was a small, but real locking of eyes then.

"Um. Sure. Unless this is a
sex thing? I doubt I'm up for that.
Or
fighting. Talking I should be
able to manage. I'm still at my little pod house, you know where that is? I can
meet you there?"

She giggled, like a girl,
covering her mouth.

"All right. We'll take it
easy on you, this time. See you in about... Call it half an hour? Forty
minutes? I need to make an outfit for this. You should, too. Something novel.
Dressy, and a bit ostentatious for this one. They threw together a ball, so go
big and bright."

The device went dead, leaving him
sitting there in a drab gray outfit.

There was an odd statement in
that. The way everyone kept just tapping off without saying anything like they
did. Like their lives were just so busy that they couldn't take a few moments
to say goodbye. That, or Dare had to suppose, they didn't want to risk losing
whoever they were talking too, so just tried to keep the conversation
perpetually open. As if that would prevent others from dying and going away, if
only they did it well enough. Young or not, he knew first hand that what you
wished for had very little to do with how the world worked, day to day.

It was a trick to come up with
something new to wear, and he had a time limit. For a few moments he nearly
just gave up, feeling too tired to be bothered. Everyone would get that, if he
showed up wearing any old thing, he was certain. Then again, being slightly
creative wasn't exactly hard physical labor. With that in mind he sat in his
chair, which was firm under his behind, and then closed his eyes.

The basic pattern for men was
pretty set. He
could
go in a robe, but that would be way out of what
most people would ever expect. Really, it wasn't a horrible idea, but Dareg
decided to hold that one back for some grand ball or something like that. It
meant he was going to have a suit of some sort then. He'd seen a variety of
cuts and styles, but again, for men there was a very narrow range of things
allowed.

"All right. So, start from
there. Basic jacket, and shirt, nice trousers and shining black shoes... Then
get clever."

His starting point was a tailored
seeming gray thing, that was nice enough for noble circles, or had at least
worked in the past. Trying to be creative he made his lapels a bit more narrow,
then caused them to glow in a deep copper color. Inside that, just on the trim,
he formed small faces that would move forward occasionally. They weren't real
people, but had a nice aspect to them. It ran on a repeated pattern, the
expressions moving and changing over time. About a minute, and then it would
start over again.

Only on the edges however. You'd
need to be very close to him to see it as more than a random pattern of motion.

The rest of the outfit was made a
rust red, the color deepened a bit when he opened his eyes. Eventually he ended
with a color that was most of the way to black. The shoes were left at the
starting black color however, and he recalled the people, all men, who he'd
seen that looked more or less real as far as what they had on. All of them had
little scrapes and scratches on their polished boots and footwear. He added
some along the sides. Then there was the rest of it, which needed some small
wrinkles, and a bit of fluff in places. Real clothing, even if well cared for,
had that. Along with seams, where things were stitched together.

The shirt was the last portion of
things, and after a moment, he decided to go with a deep copper color, that was
darker than the trim of the rest of it. That was it. Well, his hair band was
made to look like metal, in a matching color. After that, there was little
enough to do. Unless he wanted to add wings or a mask. That would be
interesting but even he knew that would be a bit too much for a dinner at the
palace where family members were going to be.

It wasn't Masking Day, after all.

Not even close, he didn't think.
Dare had to count that one up, but the minor festival wasn't going to come for
at least a month, and he really doubted that anyone would invite him for a
party for it. No one ever had
before
, at least. When he was a kid he'd
been too young for that sort of thing, since it was mainly about drinking. Now
that he was an adult, it was possible, but he kind of thought it was a lower
class kind of event.

He'd managed to take long enough
that when he stumbled outside, Petra and Gerent were slowly landing in the zone
nearest to his pod house. It was dark, and the jump ship had been made very
small, but it was in a bright and shining green color, that meant it was them.
His
ship was almost always black. It was strange, but people tended to pick a color
and stick with it, even though the ships could change whenever the pilot
wanted.

Dareg didn't have to walk far,
just about five hundred feet, to stand at the edge of the focus stone pad.
There were lights around it still, but this little area was just in plain
white. The most boring of the magical colors. Still, even in the light, they
shone a bit like gems. Like a festive decoration, instead of the plain tan that
the whole place had been back before he'd gotten there.

The craft looked to be big enough
for about ten people,
if
they sat close. Inside, he could see that there
were more than two bodies. Two of them were in the back, with Gerent having
piloted. At least he was in the front position, so he had the best view out the
shield glass window. When the giant of a man, easily over eight feet tall,
touched the console in front of him, a door popped open on the left hand side
of the thing.

That was enough sign for Dare,
but the fellow, who was in a nice green outfit that looked like shiny metal,
waved for him to come in.

That took a bit of jogging, which
didn't leave him breathless, surprisingly. He would have figured that covering
a hundred feet at faster than a slow walk would have left him gasping, but he
was all right that way. It was a step up, the glowing green having three of
them to allow him to climb into the craft. As soon as he did, before he could
look around, the door sealed up behind him.

"Hello, Prince Dareg. We
brought some others with us. It was a bit last minute." Gerent looked into
the back, where Petra was sitting at a table, next to Countess Printer, Count
Ward and his wife, Maria.

That meant bowing, so he went
low, but stood up instantly, before anyone else could do it back. They were all
kind of trapped in place, and he really doubted that Marvin Ward was going to
be able to actually stand if he tried.

"We should probably do away
with the niceties right now?" Dare winked at them all, trying to be
charming though he didn't really feel that way. "Otherwise I'd collect all
those hugs that everyone wants to give me, of course." He tried to seem
bland about it, but it seemed too playful.