Ancient Kings (The Young Ancients) (20 page)

As it turned out, that wasn't too big a deal, since Tiera was still at school, not having been drafted for anything else yet. After a second Tor felt horrible and looked at the floor.

"I was supposed to stay with her, because of her grief. Not run off and hide in my head like this." He didn't explain who he meant, but Ali didn't need to have more information than that.

"Sherri has been visiting with her daily, and she has Karen. I admit that it isn't the same exactly, but you
are
trying to help save a lot of people. I'm sure that she'll understand. You'll just have to make up for it now." She certainly sounded happy enough, holding his hand as he worked the case into the back of his Fast Carriage. It was in the front and he had to turn it into a rather ugly rectangle, instead of its normal teardrop shape, but there was more room inside than he'd thought there would be when he finished.

"Now I need a shower. Want to come with me?" The words were automatic, but his wife nodded, and didn't let go of his hand.

It took longer than it would have if he were alone, since they did more than just wash, but it was worth it. He did feel a bit uneasy, not really knowing if she might be related or not, but he let that go. Not everyone in the world could be that closely related. It was actually impossible. It was just that there was a dense cluster around the royal family...

Which had to mean something.

Cordes thought so, it was clear, but he didn't share what he was thinking and Tor didn't try to force the matter. After all, if the Ancient King of Noram didn't want to share something in regards to what were, after all, his own descendants, that was his business. Even Tor got that the two things might be mixed together. Why manipulate the genetics of the royal family of Noram? To make one of them immortal, so that a copy of the original Cordes could be put inside them?

"Varley's baby." The words just popped out, and Ali looked at him funny, but Cordes actually broke his silence.

'
My thought as well
.'

Well, it was something to check on, but he didn't really have a lot of chance to do that. The little girl was mainly being raised by her nanny, and not brought around for the whole world to visit with yet. He didn't really know anything anyway. Who'd be evil enough to infect a tiny baby with the Rhetistic set of Cordes like that?

Blue would, and
had
. Plus whoever had done it to him. It was only that Burks had done something similar, as creepy as it was, that caused that part of things to be buried at all. Without having a dual Rhetistic set-up going, Tor would have just grown up being Cordes and never have developed his own personality at all.

That would have to wait though. For the moment he just shook his head and smiled.

"Sorry, had a thought. I should send a present soon." It was a lie, but a good enough reason to visit and check things out first hand.

They shifted to finery and Tiera, helpfully enough, was already in her room, getting ready along with Karen and Sherri when they got there to check on the situation. They all looked wonderfully cute, even if two of them did look a little funny, with their fighter's haircuts. He didn't mention it, since,
fighters
. Plus, they looked good, just a bit different.

Tor bowed in the doorway when Tiera opened the door and moved to the side.

"You all look wonderful. Are you traveling with us? We're planning a stop in Two Bends first but don't know how many seats we'll need." If any. Timon might have been picking people up. He just wanted to check and make certain, since it was on the way.

Tiera gave them each a hug and looked a bit sad for a few seconds, then rallied. It was clearly an effort for her. Tor couldn't even imagine the pain she must have felt. When he checked her field though, she was still curiously blank and very angry. That was nearly the only thing coming out of her.

She smiled though, and did it so naturally it looked real.

"I was supposed to do that pick-up, but we might need the extra seats. We'll be ready in a few minutes, I think."

It took longer than that, but not a lot and less than an hour later they had everyone from the family that was going to the dinner settled into the two craft. They could have all gone in one, but didn't have to this way. Douglas and Lauralie were to ride with his sister, Karen, Todd and oddly enough, Taler. He almost never came to anything dealing with nobles, but it seemed his wife wanted him out of the house for an evening. Tess was to be in with them. The rest of the kids were considered too young to be taken to such things, which apparently was not going over with them well at all. There was no crying about it, but there was a bit of pouting on Taman's part.

She'd handed over some water pumps to him anyway, that she'd made copies of, to prove that she was working on things. She still had to make them one at a time, but they were done without a template at all. It was a big enough deal that she got hugs from everyone and Laurie relented enough to let her come along, as long as Tor promised to keep an eye on her. The trick there was that he was probably
supposed
to say no.

"Sounds like a plan. We'll try to have you all in to visit soon though. A week or so?" He waited for his mother to scream, or at least grouse about it, or the other kids to say it wasn't fair, but Terry just patted his littlest sister on the head.

"It's a good reward. No one can doubt you earned it Tam." That got a general chorus of agreement, even from the other kids that weren't going. Tenant just smiled as if he were the one going and seemed pleased about the whole thing.

They were all good kids, when it came down to it. It took longer to load up than it should have, since the servants walked out to see them off standing in a line along the main road. They all wore uniforms, but they were different. Conrow had on a suit for instance, and most wore simpler tan outfits. The women in dresses. It was strange and off-putting to Tor, who wasn't used to seeing things like that at all, especially in Two Bends. It was so far beyond putting on airs that it made him wince and hope none of the neighbors could see them. Or at least that they'd blame it on something like...

What? The servants just really liking the Bakers? That would be the best case scenario there. It would have been better if they'd done it nearer the new house, back away from the road where it wouldn't be seen.
Or
he was being too sensitive to what other people thought.

People mattered, but not their little thoughts. Just the big ones. The important things. Like who they loved, or their honor. What they thought about their neighbors or who they gossiped about wasn't something he wanted to spend his time worrying over.

It took about twenty minutes to get to the Capital, since he took his time, not wanting to lose his sister in the darkening sky. They were still a little early, but it was his house, so it made sense for the family to be there. They weren't the only ones, since there was a familiar young lady standing near the front door. Olivia from the school.

Blinking Tor remembered that he had invited her, hadn't he?

"Did you fly down?" It wasn't as fast, but he'd made the trip more than once. If you left early it was possible to make it in about ten hours, as long as you didn't make too many stops. Less if she had a new rig. It certainly beat going by wagon.

"Hello! Yes, I'm waiting to make an entrance. It looks bad to get places too early. Unfortunately that means standing around for a while. You live a bit away from all the people I know to visit in the city. Not that I'm complaining. Not many get invited to your parties. Well, not the private ones like this. The big ones..." She laughed and ducked her head a little. "Now I seem like a clown. Babbling on like this."

She looked at the rest of the crowd and curtsied.

"Hello everyone." Her gaze lingered on Taler, who wasn't huge, but was taller than Tor by two inches and was a bit more muscular. He also had a great black beard going, neatly trimmed and everything, and medium length hair. He was good looking, but everyone in the family was.

"Hmmm. Normally that would be true, but I think you'll have to come in with us, otherwise it'll seem as if we don't like you. You understand, we can't have you pacing in the yard for an hour. That won't do at all. You'll just have to be one of us for the night. Sorry about that." It sounded almost charming, Tor thought, and everyone else seemed to think it was a fine enough thing to say. No one scowled at him or tried to covertly hit him with an elbow at any rate. Not even Karen.

Olivia acted like she was blushing, but didn't change color, she just covered her mouth with a hand. It was a thing that noble women did when they were being flirtatious.

They all got inside after just a little bustle at the door, only to have Collette scurry into the room without hesitation, smiling the whole time. She didn't get to speak though, since before she had a chance to do anything, Brown came out of the side room where the communications device was stored.

"In here. Tor, Tiera. You too please Laurie, if it's alright? I hate to interrupt your festivities. This is rather important however. The rest of us are in here." He gestured to the door and moved to the side, waiting for them all to move. There was something different about the man though. Darker than he normally was. Subdued and a bit sad.

Making a point to go first, Tor activated his shield without moving to tap the amulet. It took a moment's focus, but he didn't know what was going to lie through the door and couldn't ask, even though Collette was clearly uneasy. Whatever it was that caused that had to be big, didn't it?

She didn't scare easily.

When he got to the door he nearly didn't go in. The room was filled with Ancients. All of them, as far as Tor could tell. More than had attended the summit. Everyone. Except Gray.

Even Tim was already there, sitting next to Orange. It was enough people that they'd had to make the space larger, nearly double what it normally was.

Burks stood when he saw them all and waved them in.

"Good. We can begin then. Is anybody missing that might be able to come?"

From the back of the room there was a gruff laugh, coming from a fellow that he didn't know at all, who looked old, about sixty or so and was bald on the top of his gray ringed head.

 "Nah. The others are either all dead, or won't be bothered. Nearly didn't come myself, except I wanted a ride in the boy's fancy airplane." He held up a weathered hand and laughed again. "And yes, Timon explained that it wasn't a plane at all. Been a while since I traveled that fast."

It was Brown that called them to order, without ever doing more than ushering Laurie and Tiera to a seat. He left Tor to find his own, but then moved to the center of the room, his back to half the people. That meant he had to spin to take them all in.

"I know this is unusual, but I've presented the evidence to all of you that might understand it. The crux of what I've shown is that Lara Gray, against all convention and treaty, has unilaterally created, and released, a virus that may well destroy humanity on this planet. We need to decide what to do about it."

There were two things that Tor noticed inside five minutes of listening to the assembled Ancients in the room. The first thing was that they were
all
brilliant. They understood a vast amount of things that he didn't even have context for. Blue, the oldest one, started speaking about her take on what was going on, and it made no sense to Tor at all. Until he read her field. The one thing she clearly knew was that Lara Gray had done the work on the virus herself. It was driven into how she'd manipulated the material she used. It was better than a fingerprint, that was clear.

Of course why the woman would be thinking about that he didn't know.

The second thing he realized was that there was a good reason most of these people avoid each other. They had too many old slights and grudges, some of them pretty bad, to just let things go or to be comfortable with everyone assembled. It was literally all Black could do to not simply attack Kolb for instance, even though they were on opposite sides of the room. Orange was ready for it and was planning to jump in on Kolb's side, since anything she could do to take her brother Black down a peg was alright with her. Tor hadn't realized how many hard feelings everyone had.

The older looking man that had spoken about his ride there, Aaban, hated Red with a passion, over something that was so old that he'd pretty much forgotten it until he looked at her, which caused it all to flood back, along with a near rage, though it didn't show on the outside at all.

Several of the new people were like that, very calm externally. One he didn't even notice at first, not until Burks waved toward the older woman sitting comfortably to one side. She wasn't old, not by any means, but looked about forty in a room of people that could mainly have passed for first year school students, or at least people who'd just graduated. The trouble was, this woman, who was so calm her field was basically transparent, looked familiar.

Younger though, but that wasn't enough to hide who she was at all.

"Doris, you have a good grasp of genetics. At least as good as Lara, what do you think?"

There was no hesitation, but she didn't say much, just letting the words flow out it seemed.

"The imprint on the molecular structure is precisely what she uses. It could be faked however. Half of us in this room could do that. Perhaps more than half. It would be a mistake to underestimate our new brothers and sisters for instance. I have no doubt that any of them might have learned far more than any would suspect. You all remember being young, don't you? When the world was interesting and new? It would be acting too early to pass a judgment without questioning her." It sounded like common sense to Tor. The voice was also really familiar, though he hadn't heard it a lot.

His old meditation Instructor from school. It got him to look around the rest of the room closely, but as far as he could tell they weren't people he was supposed to know, except his Uncle Dan.

Timon cleared his throat, which got most of the people in the room to turn to face him.

"I sent two warriors after Gray a few months ago. I don't believe it was linked to this virus, since the first cases of it were presenting before that, I believe. It's also spread too widely for one source to be spreading it, unless that was me or one of my pilots." He waited then, and Tor expected a bit of outrage, since trying to kill their grandmother was a big deal, but the only one that said anything was Tiera.

"Why?"

"Oh, she tried to set it up so that the Larval would capture me after a run in we had. I didn't bother to tell many people, since she was careful in doing it, just giving me enough of a clue to find them. I suppose I could have taken it another way, but if I'd looked into the information first, I'd be dead right now. I decided to send her a message."

Burks nodded.

"I saw that myself. There was a crater nearly two hundred feet across where Lara's home used to be. She was missing. What that means I don't know. She might easily have perished in the blast. The attackers were gone as well however and Afrak isn't exactly ready for any kind of violence at all. Timon, have you had contact with your agents?"

"No. I told them to take over the place, if they could do it without harming anyone. I also told them that if they hurt even one person there, other than Gray, we were at war. It isn't much of a threat, I know, but I wanted to make certain they had the correct idea. I wasn't trying to harm anyone. Well, other than my grandmother. I didn't have high hopes, but I also didn't care if those two survived. They tortured a friend of mine." He glanced around the room, but ended up looking directly at Tor.

Who it could have been he didn't know, but the subject changed too fast for him to get the question out. It worried at his mind, as he tried to figure out who his little brother could know that would be tortured? Then it occurred to him for the first time that his brother actually had a bigger life than he did. He knew people in almost every land of the entire world and had dealings with most noble families, or at least their relatives, in a very direct and face to face fashion. He probably even knew more real people.

It was a bit odd, but for the first time in his life, Tor realized how very sheltered he really was. Protected from the dark things that everyone else had seen, often with clever management from those around him. How that had happened he didn't know. He'd never even thought about it really. But there had been signs, hadn't there? Little things that said the world was vastly different than what he saw on any given day. Even the people he knew weren't what he thought. Not totally. That fact had caused him to make a lot of mistakes over the years.

Looking around he noticed a man on the other side of the room, who looked a bit like Lyn did. It was a different race than most people in Noram, and he had a strange looking beard, but it was a nice brown color, to match the hair on his head.

The gaze was really direct and he laughed a little bit when Tor focused on him and shook his head, trying to clear it. Without bothering to address the room, he spoke in heavily accented Noram standard.

"It is an effect I have on some people. They notice things about themselves with me around. I have no particular control over the ability."

"Oh." Tor didn't bother to add more, just nodding that he understood. It was some kind of mental thing. Then he looked away, back at Brown who was starting to argue with Kolb about the best way to track Gray. Blue Two got involved about a minute later and after a bit people were yelling to be heard.

 He could have called out for silence, or tried to ask his own questions, but he didn't think it was really needed. Aaban finally did it for them anyway, sounding gruff and a lot less than totally convinced by the evidence given.

"I've no love for Gray at all, but it's already been pointed out that half of us hate her enough to set this up, and the other half might well have done it out of boredom. Killing her isn't going to be allowed without proof, and catching her will be nearly impossible, until she's ready to rear her head. Instead of worrying about her at all, those of you with continents should be trying to figure out what to do about this. You took the responsibility, so do your jobs and stop trying to push this off on the rest of us." He stood and carefully walked through the middle of the room, that looked to have a golden carpet on the floor and stopped just before he reached the door, turning back to look at them, staring most intently at Brown. That made some sense to Tor, since it was pretty much his meeting.

"You know my thoughts on the matter, which are the same as almost everyone else. If she did it and it can be proved, we can't leave her alive. If she didn't, then you don't need to bother me with things like this. Now, do I get a passage home or do I need to start walking?"

Brown stood too and sighed.

"Very well. If you don't mind waiting a bit, I'm sure many of the others will want to join you. I can see that I acted too quickly for some of you. Perhaps I grow overly cautious with the passing of years. I'll make note of your choice however, if the need arises." He didn't sound pleased at all, but he was correct in the fact that most of the others wanted to leave right then as well. On the good side Black just wanted to get back to his people with some healing amulets, even as half the people traipsed out of the room.

"I hate to just run off on ye like this, since you keep a marvelous home here." He looked at Tor and was being very close to polite, even if the room had gotten a bit tense. Then, Tor hadn't charged the man with a weapon ready to go this time. It probably made a difference. "I cannot run your magics and many of my people will have the same trouble. Is it possible to make this work without that? I'd hate to be the reason my entire land falls to ruin. We're taught strictures against such things that make it hard for any to acknowledge it. That won't stop us from receiving the benefits however." His accent was thick and his smile far quicker this time, making it seem like he was almost charming or something. There was a bit of anger under that however, and a lot of anxiety. More than showed by far.

It was Burks that answered him, sounding relaxed and not at all concerned that most of the people seemed intent in scurrying from the room at nearly a run. After a few moments the only Ancients left that were over three hundred were the ones with their own lands, though Tor was pretty certain that Kolb and Doris were just taking off to avoid having to talk to Tiera, who looked less than amused by their having been there for some reason. At least that's how he read the glaring. She knew about Kolb though, so it might have been something else.

"We have some people lined up, volunteers from Austra and Noram, ready to go and aid you and your people. We haven't had a chance to talk to Red yet, but it might be that some of her people will go as well. We can only ask them. It should be a start. I do wish you hadn't been so insistent that magic be forbidden and locked away from thought for all those years. How are you going to reconcile the healing method we have now?" There was a good bit of direct eye contact then and it held a bit of very subdued amusement. Tor understood that, since the man had outlawed magic for no particular reason it seemed. Cordes was feeding him a bit of information, without using words, which, if correct, showed the Black had done it before Green had developed magical technique at all. So it was pretty much just a thing for people to hate that shouldn't have existed, as far as the man had known.

It might just backfire on him now.

"Why, it's clearly a holy miracle. That it comes from the land of Noram just shows the long reach and power of God, doesn't it? It even comes from our brother, Tor the Pious. The priests speak of him regularly, and how he, among all of the others like ourselves, is most humble and willing to admit to the will and power of the almighty." There was no hint of irony or teasing in the words at all.

It probably had something to do with the fact that Tor had prayed with some of them once, before a meal. It had been a trick, meant to get them to harass his mother. It had worked too.

Instead of commenting on any of it he just nodded.

"I have about forty thousand healing devices in the back of my Fast Carriage. We need to get those distributed as fast as possible. I'll try for another batch in a few days, a much larger one, but I want them all back when this is over." The words got a strained glare from his mother, and even Tiera wrinkled her nose at him as the last of the ancients that he didn't know very well escaped. If they were smart they'd be trying to cage some food, if not a dinner invitation from Collette. Tor didn't know if there was enough food, or he would have asked them all to stay. They were family, after a fashion.

That meant they were at least entitled to some crumbs from the kitchen.

Before Tor could say anything as to why he wanted the things back, Laurie stood, hands going to her hips and her body leaning toward him, her face looking pale and angry at the same time.

"
Torrance
! It's not like you to worry over coin like this. I can't believe you'd be so crass as to-" She came to a dead stop as the youngest Blue, called Four, held up a single hand awkwardly.

"There is a greater wisdom here. If the world has too many such devices, the balance of life and death itself will be shifted, causing a sudden and eventually catastrophic growth in the number of people on the planet. Torrance Purple is correct in his request. That way the devices might be destroyed properly, to prevent later negative consequences." She looked over at him and smiled, which was a bit forced looking on her pale face. It was a bit square, but nice enough looking. Just a bit androgynous.

Then, all the Blues looked exactly the same, except for height.

He nodded.

"That's about what I was thinking. Though we might end up needing more people if we don't get a handle on this. Anyway, I'll get to that in a few days. I'm not trying to be lazy, but I'll need to sleep soon. Not until after the dinner party. Speaking of which, unless you need to run off right this moment to save your lands, you're all invited. I think it's about to start. This meeting didn't take even a fraction of the time I thought it would."

Timon stood and waved at him.

"Not for me. Mark and Morgan are standing by at my house, Tiera, would you help? It means missing the party and probably some sleep, but you won't get paid for it, so at least there's that."