Goddess of the Moon (Young Ancients: Tiera) (19 page)

She
let her mind run out to him, thinking that, from what she'd heard, Remy could
look like anyone he wanted. It wasn't that though. This was her brother. After
a moment she pulled him in, not saying anything at all, at first.

"Tor!
Why are you here? Do you need someplace to hide? I can-" She hugged him, a
bit desperately, since she wasn't sure that Timon could really save him at all.
If they had to kill him, it might well fall to her. That was hard.

He
let a happy, if slightly tired, expression come to his lips.

"No.
Nothing like that. I needed to get a warning to someone. I tried for Timon, but
I couldn't find him. There's going to be a very large attack on Austra. More of
my creatures and mechanical ones that one of the Monroe's came up with. In
twelve days." There was a gap between what he said and when he breathed,
which seemed almost like a fake thing, or something forced. Possibly just
incredibly out of place. "Others too, but that one is the largest. Gray
sent some things I made to destroy a city here. Dragons?" He seemed
horribly upset by the idea at least.

Which
was a good sign, since she wasn't certain Cordes would have figured out to fake
that. Maybe though. It felt like her brother was speaking, as to the field he
was giving off.

"Callwood.
We stopped them. It was the Lairdgren Group, and a group of Austran kids. Terry
and Tim too. Trice, Ali, Kolb, Sheri, Havar. Kind of a group effort. Just so
you know, little children can beat up your dragons." She was teasing, but
her brother, who was possibly the best builder to ever live and had once been a
Knight of Noram, for
cause
, cried. Two fat tears of relief poured down
his cheeks.

"Thank
goodness. I tried to make them hard enough to seem real in a fight, but not so
much no one could beat them. Little kids though? That will make it seem like I
wasn't trying. How?"

Tiera
didn't explain, just going to her chest and gesturing for him to sit on her bed
which she got some things around for him to look at. She was showing off, and
knew that it was about like a little kid showing a professional painter the
little drawing they did in school, but her brother held the light colored wand
and closed his eyes.

"I
see. Good work. Very nice actually. Better than any weapons I've made, except
the dragons.
They
just have style, don't you think? Even then, this has
controls nearly as fine, and complex." He set that down and took up the
communications device, and let his face look a little sour. She swallowed, but
then shrugged.

"Hey,
I did that in one night, while underwater, hiding from people searching for me.
I
think it's pretty decent, given that. It was an exercise that Kolb
set, not a real attack or anything."

He
nodded. Tor didn't mean it, but he made his head move anyway. It was obvious
that was the case. "You see the flaws though? There's no selection on it,
so everyone can hear you. Use mental controls for that, like on that." He
pointed to her wand. "Also, you should be able to make it so that you can
send thoughts that way directly, and not need to speak at all. Still, it isn't
bad for having worked underwater, and in a single night. You're new to this
kind of thing still."

"Oh,
and I suppose
you
would have done better?" She felt like hitting
him suddenly, if not that hard, but he saved himself then, by tearing up a
little.

"No.
Certainly not on my second build ever. You're probably as good as I am already
Tiera. Close at least." He held up his right hand to stop her from
speaking. "Right, we both know that I'm just saying that, to make you feel
better and try harder, but... It isn't
that
far off." He stood and
moved to where she had a pile of tiles in a very regular ten by ten square on
her student's desk. Placing his hand on it, he stood for a long time, just
getting a sense of it.

Finally
he turned to her and gave her a hug.

"You
need to redo that one. I get the idea... but your spreading mechanism is too
vague and you'll end up losing field cohesion. The work itself... What is that?
It isn't a variation of anything I've made."

She
grimaced.

"Crap.
No, it's a variation of something Timon did, or is supposed to be. I only have
a few weeks to get it ready. It's a food making device. You put dirt in one
side, or rocks or whatever, and, if it works, whole foods will come out on the
other. Damn. Well, I've only lost three hours. Maybe I should put it all on
hold?"

Tor
shook his head.

"
Maybe
you should redo it all tonight, and not be a wimp? It's a setback, but you
aren't having to remake months of work or anything. I've heard about Tim's
build though. I didn't know it was his. I thought it might be Burks. Gray and
Cordes have been whining about that one for
months
though. It's why
they're resetting for more attacks, instead of just hiding, which was the
original plan. I found some things out, can you remember it all?" He
started talking, knowing she would, and ten minutes later he stopped and looked
at the door to her room.

"An
Ancient. Not one I know. I've gotten pretty good at telling them apart lately.
I don't have a lot else to do." As he said that, he pulled a weapon and
moved back and to the side, smoothly.

Like
a warrior.

It
was just Sheri though, holding two large food baskets. She squealed when she
realized Tor was there, and nearly tackled him, even with a Force Lance pointed
at her middle.

"Tor!
Oh!" There was kissing then and hugs, if more friendly than sexual. At
least Sheri had sworn to Tiera that she hadn't been sleeping with any of her
brothers. Yet. She had her eye set on both though, and considered them
boyfriends, sex being involved or not. They kept giving her really expensive presents
after all, and in
her
world that meant they were pretty much together
already.

Tor
did kiss her back though, and seemed to mean it, more or less. Until he took
her by the shoulders and moved her back a pace, looking at her with a slightly
confused expression.

"Sheri,
why are you an Ancient?"

She
stood up straight and bowed a bit.

"Timon
did it. There's only room for about twenty of us, I hear, and he's doing all of
it, so don't go making more. At least until we kill a whole bunch of clones
off."

"Ah."
That's all he said. As if, once mentioned, the idea that they'd just make more
immortals was common sense, or at least
expected
. "Is Ali around? I
don't want to bother her if she's working, but-"

Sheri
kissed him on the cheek again.

"At
your house, here. With Maris?"

"The
Ancient? She's alive? That's great. She vanished a few days ago. So did most of
the people that went to the battle. In Callwood? I've never been there."

"It's
not a bad place really. A bit scorched right now. Still, once they fix it up it
should be nice enough." Tiera got another hug in then, and her brother,
who'd been gone for months, just left.

Sheri
giggled.

"Ali
will be so happy! She worries about him constantly. I didn't know he could
visit like this. Would you like to eat?" It was a rapid change, but she
really did want to and following her brother to his wife's bed was probably a
poor idea. At least for her own sanity.

"Thanks.
This smells great. Beef strips?"

They
talked then about things that didn't matter much at all, and didn't have sex at
all, since Tiera actually had to run to her meditation class. Her friend
understood at least, and kissed her gently before she ran out the door.

"We
need to get together more often."

It
was true, so Tiera nodded at her.

"That,
is a really good point. Come to the fighting practice square in the mornings?
Get with Ali and the Lairdgren kids too. All of you need to show up, from now
on." She sounded very commanding, even to her own ears, but Sheri
pretended it was a joke.

"Oh,
are you going to turn us all into big bad warriors now?"

She
shook her head. "No. Kolb will. Clearly. I can barely fight my way out of
a mud pit. Come early. At four?"

That
was really early, but
she'd
be there.

She
figured that Sheri wouldn't, from the casual wave she tossed off over her
shoulder as they parted ways at the door to her room. Then she had to jog to
her class, to find it exactly like it always was. Quite and contemplative. She
was better now than she used to be at least, so it was simple enough. Relaxing
even. She cleared her mind first, and then when Doris signaled, she focused all
her skills on a rock that had moss growing on it. Slowly, but all in one piece.
The speed though, could be increased, couldn't it? Tor's healing amulet was a
bit like that, speeding the healing a person did. There was a sense of that
happening she might copy, with enough focus. She could feel the part of the
plant that would allow for that and nudged it just a little, then kept doing
that until it was time to leave.

It
didn't turn the rock into a plant covered thing at all, but when she looked at
it, there was a lot more green on it. When she'd started it was a small bit of
fuzz. Now it was four times as high at least. Doris looked at her examining it,
and smiled gently. Then she waved for her to go away.

It
was only nine, but she already knew she wasn't getting any sleep that night.
She thought things through, and realized what would have to happen. First, she
was going to have to get a ride into space, so she could safely get in touch
with Denno Brown. Only, she needed the new forces for that, didn't she? If they
were going to attack with dragons and machines, the people there would need
help. If it was a real attack and Tor hadn't been misled, so that they'd have
fake information. That meant...

Really,
she needed a good start on her build first, didn't she? It seemed weird, but
Orange needed to be able to feed everyone, and that meant Tiera had to do that
job for her.

For
a few moments she nearly froze, but then just threw herself into fixing the
earlier work, using speedy moss as the growth pattern, rather than rapidly
spreading pond weed. That took less time, so by eleven-thirty, with Karen just
coming back to their room, looking like her new, but real self, with three
rather anxious looking men in tow, she was able to get up.

"I'm
off for the night then. Hello! Goodbye!" She gave one of the men, who she
knew, a hug. Instructor Crane. He'd tried to extort sexual favors from her
once, but had chickened out at the last minute. It would have been interesting
to see if he was going to do that then too, but she really needed to get to
work. How she was getting into space, she didn't know. Or, well, she could fly,
just moving upward, using her shield.
That
wasn't the point though. The
Space Fleet vessels all had special communications units on them that let
people talk to Austra in secret.

She
wanted to use one of those. It was that, or go and visit the land herself, and
she didn't have a whole day to spend on that right at the moment.

Finally,
about mid-night, she found a way to do it. It was an abuse of power on her
part, but she found the older Austran man that had taken them to the Ranford
before. He was awake and going over a list of supplies that was to be taken up
to the Midlist.

"Which
was named because Admiral Orange felt that it was fitting, the ship being
exactly in the middle of the ones needing names. What may I do for you though,
miss?" He, of course, had no clue either who she was, or any reason to
believe that she needed to get into space at all that night. On the other hand
he really was about to leave anyway, and wasn't, he assured her, against having
a little company.

At
first she thought he meant that he wanted to have sex with her in trade for the
trip, which made her a bit upset. Then she simply agreed. After all, he had
what she wanted, and she needed to get in touch with Brown. It was too
important for her to let her Two Bends prudery get in the way of things.

The
man wasn't even half that crude though, simply meaning that they could talk on
the way up. She nearly cried at the gentleness of that, when she understood
what he meant.

"That
sounds wonderful! And here I was going to offer myself to you in exchange for
the trip. Not that I won't now, if you want, but if we could meet later for
that?"

The
man harrumphed. Then did it twice more.

"You're
young enough to be my granddaughter." He took them up slowly, then darted
into space, stopping to contact the Midlist, using a device she wasn't familiar
with at all, that seemed technological in nature. When he was done, the man
pretended to count on the fingers of his left hand. "Actually, you could be
my
great
granddaughter. If I even suggested doing that with you the
Fleet Admiral would send me back to Austra in a box."

Tiera
shook her head.

"No,
she wouldn't. I'm legal here and you aren't even really too old for me.
Marriage
might be out, but Alice wouldn't complain about that part. The net in Austra
might. At least one of my friends from there suggested something like that
once. Carlos? He's the head chef at the Royal Table." It was all true but
started a conversation about that place, which served, the man assured her, the
finest of foods.