The Dark Half of the Sun (The Young Ancients: Timon) (33 page)

There was a moment, just the briefest hint of a second when Timon let his anger come out. It didn't show on his face, but Mark got wide eyed and started to turn away to run. Petra stared, and then held up her hand.

"Timon? You're casting an aura. It isn't that strong through my shield, but I don't think it was Mark's doing. I mean, I didn't go as well at least." There was no running on her part. No, she held her ground, watching him closely, but not seeming scared or even worried. He should have been upset about that, since it was almost certainly her saying that she didn't think he could be a threat to her, but that was probably just correct. Her next words shocked him, even through the haze of his mind. It was something that no one had ever really told him before.

"The rage can be controlled. Draw it back. Use your will to hold it at bay. You are the master of your own mind. Don't let it rule you..." She sounded very certain of that for some reason. Confident.

Timon did it, knowing she was right. It took about five minutes but he mastered the feeling and sighed, trying to force himself to relax. When he opened his eyes Mark stood there too.

"I'm sorry..." The man started to go to his knees to beg forgiveness, but Timon put a hand out to stop him, shaking his head firmly.

"No. Petra had that right, it wasn't you. It was Count Rodriguez. He doesn't know it yet, but we have business to address, he and I." That
would
happen, but Timon wasn't ready. The man would die for what he did, but if he went after a sitting Count he'd have to fight his army too. His heir as well most likely. No, that had to be done far more carefully and he needed to learn a lot first.

How to fight for one thing. How to kill. More than that, he needed a plan that wouldn't be easily defeated. As he thought all this the tall slightly dark woman stared at him, her brown eyes slightly wide, as if amazed by his anger over the whole thing. Did she not understand? She was his brother's
friend
. Tor wasn't there to help her or give her aid.
He
was. It wasn't enough yet, but he could change that.

It wasn't going to be fun either. For one thing he just needed to know more than he did about the whole thing. Thankfully she didn't start questioning him on the topic. She probably thought that he loved her for some reason, that or pitied her and saw her as weak. None of that was true. She was a warrior and one of the strongest people he'd ever heard of. If he were the one tortured he'd still be curled in a little ball, hiding somewhere. She was fine, at least externally.

He shook his head.

"Not an issue for now. I need to introduce Mark to Denno and then Lyn. Do you need anything from home? We can get you almost anything. Possibly anyone, if you know where they are and they want to come. It would be harder to get someone if they didn't want to..." That part was true enough. She didn't have anyone specific in mind it seemed, since she just shrugged.

"We could use some better food. I've been eating at the Royal Table most nights, because it's so hard to find anything decent here. Cooking it is a problem. I wish I could go home. Do you know if anything is moving that way?" She didn't mention why, which was wise, since Mark didn't know about all that yet.

"No. Not that I've been told. That doesn't mean much. I can't imagine I'm on the top of the list of people that need to know about it. I'll pin some people down and ask when I can." After that there wouldn't be a lot he could do yet. That needed to change. Being here with the woman that Rodriguez had tortured so horribly, humiliated and beaten, it sharpened his plans suddenly, even though it didn't make sense.

Really, why should he bother? It wasn't his fight. Was it?

Except that, when you got down to it, it was. If he didn't try to stop bad people, then who would? Most of the world would protect
themselves
and those they loved, but that wasn't enough. Someone had to try and do the rest. That would mean making some gold and working out how to do even more than that in other lands. Build trade of some kind. As it was he'd gone down to a few coin on hand. That would need to change.

For an instant it seemed like too much for him, a child after all wasn't exactly the person he'd have picked for... almost anything. That could be a strength. No one else would think he was much of a threat either.

"Anyway. Let's see about things?"

Denno didn't actually have a lot for him, other than another message for him to deliver to Gray. That got handed to Mark.

"New delivery system for our overseas branch. He has to hand off things inside Noram to me or Morgan right now, but feel free to send him anywhere else. Just make sure you have maps for him to follow. I don't think I'm going to be welcome back in Afrak. Mark will be by about once per week or so, say a few times per month. I have to get to work back home a bit. Can you see to his clearances and such?" He smiled at Mark and explained that he'd need papers and things like that on file, so no one would arrest him for being a spy. Denno laughed as if that were a joke, but didn't say it wasn't true.

They left within the hour for Afrak, which was tense and edgy enough that Mark finally offered to take the second craft in alone. Timon felt cowardly, but let him do it. He sat in the water off the coast, waiting for the man to be harangued and pushed to the limit of his good will, perhaps quitting after he came back, or at least refusing to ever go back to the strange land of dark women and his pale and evil grandmother.

Instead, after he moved alongside the craft, which hovered over the water by a few feet, he handed a letter over with a smile.

"The lady there seemed nice enough. Blue hair and strange eyes? She'd be a hit in Austra wouldn't she? I couldn't understand a word she said, but she gave me this, which is addressed to you."

The folded single piece of paper did indeed say Timon on the outside of it. Inside it said something that was so different than what he expected he had to read it a half dozen times.

"
Look at Count Wend
. I wonder what that means?" He said it out loud, and Mark just tilted his head finally holding out his hand to see the single short line for himself.

"Probably that the Afrak spies have found out something about the man that relates to a project you have. Intrigue no doubt. If you can trust them, it's probably worth looking into."

Then the fellow blushed and stopped talking.

They flew to Vagus in separate crafts so that the other pilot could get the experience without worrying about killing anyone but himself. On the ground they managed to trade for the ten healing stones he wanted even though Dorgal and Lyn weren't around. At least he drew the picture of the sigil used and ten stones, which got them brought to him instantly, by an older man who was smiling the whole time, a nice set of clean white teeth in place, which given his great age had to be new. Things grown by the same kind of item. The trouble came when he tried to explain that he didn't have the goods to trade at that time. Drawing in the dirt with a stick couldn't exactly convey that easily. He was able to speak a few words and understand more, it just didn't cover trade agreements.

It was definitely clear that they expected him to take them and even that he wasn't bringing them back. That part didn't seem to distress anyone. Turning to Mark he shrugged.

"A ton of cured meat for each one of these. I'll see about getting that to your parents. We're going to have to stop in the Capital so that I can give you some amulets. You need a shield too. I don't have one right now..." Sighing he nodded, making a decision that he could only hope he had the ability to back up. "I'll have to make you one. It will take a day. Are you willing to stay with me for that long? I have two houses, so you can use the other one. Eventually it will be the office space, but for now it's free."

"Well, it wasn't like I had a lot of other things planned, so why not?" The words were so dry that Timon was nearly taken aback by the smile that came at the end of them.

That part, turning out shields, was decently hard for him, but Tor could make a hundred per hour he'd heard. That meant he could too, if he focused hard enough. A lot of the Lairdgren group was already closer to that than not too. He wasn't going to be that ambitious, but a group of ten was a place to try and start. He collected the materials and a large glass of water and made the copy from memory, without a template. That would have made it a lot easier, but he didn't have one at all. He struggled, but managed it. All ten in only six hours of work. That didn't sound great, compared to the others maybe... Tim got that, still it was a hundred percent better in number and had only taken about seventy percent of the time his previous best similar effort had.

That meant he even got to sleep away part of the morning. Not a lot of it, since he handed off both a house and a new shield to Mark and sent him on his way.

"Go set up your house. If you don't hear from me I want you to go and get with Denno Brown in a week and hit the other places as well. Don't be shy about trying to seek out the other lands too. You'll need a map. If I'm not around, get a list from Carlos at the Royal Table and come here for coin." Not that he had any just sitting around yet.

Timon needed a map too. Badly it seemed. Especially if they were going to be headed to Tellerand and the Antarctic. Really he needed to go with the man, but it just seemed like he wouldn't have time for it.

Not with everything else he had to do. There just wasn't a choice.

When Mark left for his parents estate and work center, Timon stopped in to see if anyone was at Tor's. It was early, which meant that the only people in the place that were awake turned out to be Collette and Glaren, both of who sat at the small dining room table, sipping coffee from focus stone cups, but poured it from an expensive silver pot. They had cream and sugar too, from the look of it. The younger blonde woman was dressed in her pink workman's clothing and Glaren was in a fine cream colored robe. When they turned around, hearing him on the stone floor it seemed, Collette waved and smiled.

Glaren closed her robe front nervously, even though what she wore underneath didn't seem inappropriate particularly. Fully clothed and not in something that should be a problem, even in front of a young boy. It wasn't the lack of clothing then, but the lack of
proper
clothing. Like he cared? She didn't work for him after all, he was just invading their home. Without knocking. Kind of rude, really.

"Hello. Just checking in. Anything new here?"

He was tempted to pour himself a cup of coffee, but Collette got him one without asking and handed it over, black. He took several large sips, his eyes closing. It was strange but it made him feel more awake already, even if that wasn't physically possible. A mental thing then?

"Thank you. I look that tired?" He grinned at the woman, who tilted her head fractionally and wiggled her right hand in the air.

"I've seen worse. Things are decently quiet here. We sent most of the staff on a holiday for a few days. Paid. Nothing that major, just a tour of the Wildlands, since the planting efforts there have been doing well. I'm going to go and see for myself soon. What are you up to?"

He drank more of the brew and then sighed.

"Off to Breen, if that situation is still going on. I got some healing devices from Vagus for them. After that... I have no clue."

Collette nodded at the name and then poured him more coffee, again without asking.

"Oh, some things came for you. The delivery people couldn't find you, so we've been keeping the chests for you here. Is that alright? It made sense, being family, and we have a locked room. Here, come with me..." It was on the first floor at the back, but a few minutes later, working together, they were able to pull out three chests. Each was different and they were all different sizes as well. The closest to him had a letter on top, written in scratched letters with some kind of wax on paper.

"From Dan Breen, Count Breen, in county Breen. Twenty thousand gold. It's two of the chests." Collette gestured at them absently, like she dealt with that kind of money regularly. "The other is the smaller one, from Duchess Keene."

That one had a letter inside the box and was far more eloquent. He read it out loud, so that it wouldn't be rude, keeping it all to himself.

"It says,
Here is the payment for your assistance. I did what you said and figured it at half the normal rate. I added an extra two hundred gold for the use of your man Morgan. He's proven invaluable to our efforts here. If you have time, please visit us soon, yours truly, Duchess Keene
." He stopped and stared at the paper, wondering if it was some kind of coded message. It didn't seem like it, but why would she need, or even want, to see him for, since she had Morgan already?

Still, he should make a point of checking on his pilot if only to make certain he wasn't being abused.

"I should have sent some of this back with Mark. I owe two hundred to his parents. Well, I'll just take that over directly. I don't suppose I can keep some of this here for a bit? I don't have a good place for it yet." It was a lot to ask, but it was a lot less likely to be taken from here, with people around, than it would be from his own place. He was gone most of the time and that didn't seem to be changing anything soon.

"Oh, sure. That isn't a problem. I'll even sell you some payment bags." She smiled as if it was a joke, but he really did need some and it was easier to get them from her. She chuckled when he got her the five pennies she demanded for a large black velvet bag and re-counted for him as he put two hundred and five gold in the sack.