Nightlord: Orb (80 page)

“Yes, Daughter.”

“Where was I?  Oh.  Tort had a plan.  Her objective was to remove the possessing spirit from your body without harming your own spirit.  Since it was so similar to some aspects of yourself,
you
had to be removed, first.  Then anything done to whatever remained within your flesh would be harmless to you; anything done to your flesh could then be healed and you could be returned to your body.

“Firebrand was the key.”

Literally.

“Who is telling this, you or I, child of fire?”

Look who’s talking,
Firebrand shot back. 
But okay, you talk.

“Thank you for your kind permission,” Amber replied, with a bit of snap.  “The Dragonsword could, with help, pierce the layers of your spirit-self, the constructs of your mind, to seek the central core of your identity—your spirit.  This could only gain us entrance, however, not draw you forth.  For that, we needed something with a closer spiritual connection to you than Firebrand.”

“Bronze.”

“Exactly.  With Firebrand to pierce your innermost sanctuary and Bronze to bear you back from it, removing you from your body could be done—assuming you were willing to go.  Tort always assured us you would, but she never said why she thought so.”

“Because if Bronze shows up and wants me to go for a ride through the Underworld, I’ll go.”

“That is a rather sweeping statement.”

“It’s inadequate.”

Amber and Mary both looked at me.  The silence became awkward.

“I see,” Amber said, finally.

“I’m sure you don’t, but thank you for trying.  Continue, please.”

“As you say,” Amber agreed, looking uncomfortable.  “The problem of making this happen was not a trivial one.  There was no way to conceal the intrusion.  Several magical barriers would have to be penetrated to give Firebrand the opportunity, to say nothing of allowing Bronze to connect with you so closely as to be a conduit.  Tort, however, was trusted—possibly the only person truly trusted by the Demon King.  She knew the nature of the defenses and many of the details.  She gave this information to T’yl, who then worked to build countermeasures for each of them.

“Once each layer of the defenses was accounted for and its counteragent crafted, the question of the reaction became paramount.  The thing would want to know what happened—who assaulted it, what they had hoped to achieve, and so on.  Again, Tort was vital, as was T’yl.

“For the last two years of the reign of the Demon King, T’yl claimed to be studying the finer points of scrying, as well as enchanting a powerful magical artifact.  He is proficient, certainly, but hardly a specialist.  Tort told the creature otherwise, laying the groundwork for what would come.  When the attack penetrated the defenses, the thing would be well-prepared to believe one of T’yl’s magic mirrors would be of use.

“In reality, T’yl had been studying demonic influences and methods of containing them—”

“Hold it,” I broke in.  “I was under the impression
Tort
did the heavy work on the magic mirror.”

“I do not believe so,” Amber mused, looking puzzled.  “She was far too involved in the day-to-day affairs of the King.  Had she done so, it would surely have aroused suspicion.  T’yl would have had to handle anything of that nature.”

“He lied to me?”

“About what?  And why?”

“Nevermind.  Carry on and I’ll make note of it for later.”

“Very well.  Once the process began, Tort would be constantly at the side of the thing.  Firebrand would pierce the defenses; Bronze would act as conduit.  T’yl and Tianna would place you, temporarily, in a body emptied of its occupant—a holding action only, until Tort could persuade the thing to travel to Karvalen, hopefully via a gate to minimize the time involved.  Once there, Tort would activate the magic mirror.

“I do not understand how it works, but the mirror was to somehow trap the thing within its own reflection.  It did so, but something went wrong—I am not certain what.  Perhaps it had something to do with other conspiracies, some of the rebels, or merely assassins.  When the King departed Carrillon, he was at his most poorly-protected in a long while.  Perhaps some faction tried their own spells?  I cannot say; I am no wizard.

“Tort found it needful to act.  Instead of closing over the dark thing and keeping it captive, the mirror remained a mirror.  She could have pretended to be loyal, still, and assisted the dark thing in returning to the flesh; instead, she chose to break cover and put herself at risk.  She held the thing within the mirror until the mirror could turn into a containment sphere.  After that, you took it through a gate, and my knowledge of what transpired ends.”

I considered what I knew of events, compared them to Amber’s story, and decided T’yl was going to answer some searching questions.  Now, though, I had to consider the possibility he might be hiding, knowing I was going to quiz him shortly.  Why the deception?  Why not just tell me everything?

“What became of Tort’s body?” I asked.  “Did she enter the mirror physically?  Or was it her spirit?  Or what?”

“I do not know,” Amber admitted, softly.  “The only person who would know is T’yl.  And Tort, of course.”

“Neither of whom is around,” I noted.  I rubbed my temples and worked at keeping my patience.  “I’m going to Karvalen, Amber.  I’m going there, looking for Tort and for T’yl, and I will get to the bottom of this.”

“What about the kingdom?”

“I understand Lissette is running the place?”

“Yes.”

“If she needs my help, she has it.  Otherwise, I plan to stay out of it.”

“Really?”

“I’m a lousy king.  It sounds like she’s a good queen.  I’m quite happy to go home to my mountain and mind my own business.”

“I’ll let Tianna know you’re coming.”

“Thank you.  Meanwhile, is there anything I can do for you here?”

“Mochara is doing surprisingly well.  Your predecessor had little to do with it.  I suspect because of my presence, and the closer presence, therefore, of the Mother.”

“Fair enough.”

“May I ask what you have endured in these past months?  I would like to know what happened after you fled through the gate.”

“That’s going to take a while.”

“I have a room where the light of sunrise will not touch you,” Amber offered.  I glanced at Mary.  She shrugged.

“All right.  First, this is what happened, from my point of view, when Firebrand opened the way out of the basement…”

“Basement?”

“Okay, let’s start with my mental architecture and geography.  This is going to take a while.”

Thursday, January 29
th

I talked for hours.  I talked the moon down from the heavens and the sun into the sky.  Even hitting the broad outline of my time on Earth—well, one Earth—took a while.  Many of the things I saw and heard and did had to be explained. Amber had no cultural context for a package-delivery drone, an automated cab, or even professional mobsters.

We did take a break for the dawn service.  Amber conducted her religious ritual for the congregation while Mary and I took cover in a cold cellar.  I cleaned us both with a spell, taking the opportunity to walk Mary through the spell operation again.  She’s ready to start casting cleaning spells while I spot for her.

Later, after the incendiaries—I mean, “ceremonies”—concluded, Amber sent for breakfast and invited us to continue with the story.  We went through lunch, as well, explaining more details about that Earth.  We could have eaten second breakfast and brunch, as well, but I didn’t want to strain her hospitality.

“It sounds complicated,” Amber decided, “but interesting.  You say you may find other worlds, similar, but safer?”

“Maybe.  I haven’t had a chance to go looking.  I’ll work on it after this thing with Tort and T’yl.”

“If it is a place where I may go, I would like to see another world.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Thank you.  Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I have a question,” Mary piped up.

“Of course.  What can I tell you?” Amber asked, interested.

“What’s the deal with the shoulder straps?”

“Shoulder straps?”

“I noticed some people wearing these shoulder-to-hip things.  They have embroidery about here,” she indicated a place over her left breast.  “It looks like insignia or something.  Are they military, or what?”  Mary noticed my expression.  “Hey, I like to know who the police and military are, okay?  If I’m going to commit a crime, I need to know who to run from.”

“She has a point,” I agreed.

“The insignia are not exclusively military,” Amber told us, “but they do indicate someone who works for the Crown or Throne.”

“There’s a difference?” I asked.

“An agent of the Crown is in direct service to the King and Queen.  That person speaks to their Majesties.  An agent of the Throne is in direct service to the King and Queen, but reports to an agent of the Crown.  Such people owe no allegiance to any lesser lord.  The ribbons indicate this—various colors indicate ranks, such as black for an agent of the Crown, then other colors indicate how far down the wearer is from one who actually speaks with the King or Queen.  I’m not clear on the ranking system; I have little to do with their affairs.”

“What about the badges?” Mary asked.

“They indicate the type of service.  A mason will have a hammer and square; a carpenter a hammer and saw.  Fishermen have the net and hook.  The color of the border around the badge will indicate whether they are an apprentice, journeyman, crafter, or master.”

“So, how do I tell who has the authority to arrest me?” Mary wanted to know.

“If they’re wearing armor and sword, they have the authority,” Amber assured her.

“That’s important to know.”

“Especially for interdimensional jewel thieves,” I added.

“It’s taken me a long time to get there,” Mary pointed out.  “I don’t intend to get caught now.”

“Fair enough.  Shall we go?”

Amber kissed me good-bye; she and Mary traded nods.  It must be awkward to conduct social niceties when you’re made of fire.  Come to think of it, meeting your father’s girlfriend could be a little weird, too.  Either Amber handled it with exceptionally good grace or I’m incapable of noticing things that subtle.

Mary did some touch-ups on our disguise spells, adjusting our colors.  My hair lightened to brown and developed some streaks of grey. Bronze shifted to a dappled, dark-grey coat with a black mane.  It was a better-looking effect than I ever manage.  Mary’s really got the hang of it.  Years of makeup, maybe?  Or maybe she doesn’t suffer the partial color-blindness that comes from not having a matched set of X chromosomes.

“You’re disguising us so no one recognizes us, aren’t you?” I accused.  Mary didn’t answer, unless a smile counts as an answer.  “You’ve been planning this ever since you asked me to grow a beard,” I added.  The smile might have widened a bit.

“Come on,” she insisted, taking my arm.  “This is my first medieval city.  Let’s walk around a bit.”

“It’s not too impressive.”

“It’s got paved streets, a geometric layout, public fountains, what look like storm drains, and the place is mostly made of masonry.  If this isn’t impressive, I don’t know what you’re comparing it to.  Versailles?”

“You’ll see,” I told her.

We walked around and looked the place over.  I had to admit, she had a point.  I recalled the smell in Mochara nine years ago.  This was much better.  Drains make all the difference.  If things went as expected, the sewers drained underground and out to sea.  Do the sea-people have farms downstream to take advantage of that?

More personally, what does it say about me that I’m proud of my efforts at public sanitation?  Something good, I hope.

We passed by the Temple of Shadow early on in our walk.  It was across the street from the Temple of Flame.  Mary wanted to go in; I nixed the idea.

“Why not?” she asked.

“I have a distinct desire to not be inside a temple to me.”

“Oh, come on!” she urged.  “Don’t you want to see how they worship?  I bet you have a statue and everything.”

“I admit I’m curious, but I also dread the idea.  I’m not a god, don’t want to be a god, and, now that I’m not one, I refuse to have anything to do with it.”

“You sound… I don’t know.  Does it frighten you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”  We walked in silence for a bit, away from the Temple of Shadow.  “May I ask why?”

“You know I have this nasty streak of responsibility, right?”

“It’s a little trying at times, yes.”

“Can you imagine what sort of screw-ups I could manage if I became a deity?  I’m not talking about an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent god.  I’m talking about the gods of, say, Greek mythology.  Remember how they tended to ruin things for mortals, cause destruction and chaos, and all because they either didn’t anticipate or didn’t care about the repercussions?”

“Sounds to me like you’re good god material.”

“Good God,” I sighed.  “The point is, yes, I might be a
good
god, but with powers like that, you can’t settle for
good
.  And I know—or I’m afraid I know—how badly I hurt people by being a vampire wizard physicist king.  I want nothing to do with manifestations of my own divinity, thank you.  The world got along without a God of Vampires and will continue to do so.”

“If you say so.  But what if a God of Vampires is exactly what it needs?  Didn’t you have some sort of anti-vampire apocalypse, once?”

“So I’m told.”

“Well, if that was the rallying cry of the Church of Light—they were the ones who went bananas on the subject, right?”

“Again, so I’m told.”

“Then if you’d been around to be the God of Vampires and be all ‘Hey, don’t go indiscriminately biting people,’ the Church of Luminousness wouldn’t have had so much to scream about.  The vampires would have been doing their afterlife-conveying psychopompic job.”

“You make a strong argument I don’t want to hear.”

“Ah.”  She squeezed my arm.  “You really don’t like responsibility?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why do you keep trying to be?”

“Some people have an overdeveloped sense of vengeance, some an overdeveloped sense of guilt.”

“You have a hard time being a callous, uncaring, evil bloodsucker, aren’t you?”

“I’m not too concerned about failing to become one, if that’s what you mean.  I’m not trying to be anything aside from myself.”

“There may be hope for you, yet.”

We walked around town for a while, noting other prominent temples—Justice, the Grey Lady, the Lady of Mercy, Father Sky, the Lord of Law, the Twins of Need and Desire—and I realized there wasn’t a formal Temple of the Light.

That suited me perfectly.

Other changes since I was last in town… the sea-wall had two gates instead of one.  I blame the dock-things for the increased traffic that made it necessary.  They still had the double ramps—sort of an upright trapezoid on the beach—in front of each gate to get things up to the level of the low cliff.  They also added a crane system for hoisting and lowering things straight up the cliff and over the wall.

The harbor changed, too.  It was deeper, for larger ships, and had a pair of stone dock-things grown out from the shore.  Circling the harbor was an underwater wall, barely above the water at low tide.  This acted as a break against storms, but mainly restricted the movement of larger ships.  At high tide, smaller boats could go in or out right over the seawall; anything large had to sail in or out of the harbor through a moderately-narrow lane between two marker obelisks.

My pet rock is a helpful pet rock.

Wait a second.  Tides are governed by the gravitational—

No.  Just no.  I don’t know how it works.  Maybe the world wobbles back and forth, like a see-saw.  Maybe the moon really does cause the tides.  Maybe the Great Gargantuan Goliath is sleeping under the sea bed and the rise and fall of its chest with its breathing causes the water levels to rise and fall.

I should work on accepting the facts as I see them.  Once I have enough, maybe I can create a new theory to cover it all.  Something besides “this place is weird.”

We headed out through one of the northern gates.  Since we had a flesh-and-blood horse to bring along, I decided to rent a canal boat.  The trip was on the canal road the whole way, but it was still on the order of a three-day march.  A canal boat could let us rest in it while Bronze towed us.

Unless someone moved the mountain again.  It’s wandered off before.

The barges came in different sizes.  I settled for what they called a
daelet
, a small, flat-bottomed thing with roughly a four-ton capacity.  It was more than enough for our needs, since Bronze would pull the thing, not ride in it.  If she set foot in it, the boat would go straight to the bottom.  We persuaded Clomper to board the barge and gave Bronze the tow-rope.  She accelerated gently until the rope was tight as a wire and we had a bow wave threatening to spill into the barge.  I moved Clomper farther to the rear to raise the bow.

As we foamed our way up the canal, we had some time to kill.  Mary and I worked on more of the Rethven language, reviewing our memories of the conversation with Amber and comparing English to Rethven.  During periods when she studied on her own, I watched the countryside roll by and tried to enjoy the trip.  I was more than a little anxious, but what was I going to do besides twiddle my thumbs and worry?

I learned quite a bit about the place by looking.  The canal system was, indeed, a divided highway.  Luckily, we were going the correct direction in our lane—north in the western canal, south in the eastern, like British traffic.  Passing involved calling out to the people ahead so they could get out of the way.  This involved stopping, pushing their boat away from the inner median and its horse-travel lanes.  We then passed them, slowing slightly to avoid swamping the other boat.  There were several prepared campsites along the way, all of them in the median between the canals and protected by them from predators and other annoyances.

To the left, or west, there were farms.  After a several miles, those gave way to grasslands and ranching.  Farms continued on the eastern side of the canals all the way to Karvalen.  Was it because the canals were used as a fence for ranching on the western side, but the availability of water was too valuable to pass up completely?  I’m sure someone knows.

While watching the world go by, I also noticed something unusual about Bronze.  Her gaits are normally quite smooth, no matter how she chooses to travel—well, unless she’s pretending to be a robot horse; that’s a bit uncomfortable.  Now, though, her movements struck me as being exceptionally liquid and graceful.  I wondered about that.  She changes herself over time to adapt to whatever seems appropriate, from draft horse to racehorse and back, even to the point of creating a built-in saddle and stirrups.  (Which I find interesting, since that’s not a requirement.  It’s a convenience for me—and one I appreciate—but it shows me she can
choose
what to do.)

So, what was she doing?  Altering her internal structure to be more horse-like?  Instead of a golem bending the metal of its legs, was she creating cables for muscles, tubes for bones, mercury for joint lubricant?  She saw enough animal shows on video, she might have decided to do so.  How would such modifications affect her functionality?  Would having horse-like joints limit her to horse-like movements?  Would actual joints be easier—and faster—than bending animate metal?  Would a bent leg recover as quickly as before, or would it “heal” in stages, first as an animate chunk of metal, then re-form the internal structures?