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

The Young Ancients: Second Cycle.
Book Two

Light Bringer

P.S. Power

Orange Cat
Publishing

Copyright 2015

It was hard to stand up, but
Dareg knew he had to do it. Regardless of what else happened that day, he
couldn't fail in this. No matter how much pain ripped through him at the
moment. There were some goals that you had to achieve in order to survive.

Getting out of bed was simply a
must
.

It had been nearly a full month
since the attack, and even having been near death there was no excuse for being
as lazy as he'd been. In that whole time he'd mainly rested. That, and ate as
much food as he could get down. It honestly had required him to go outside a
few times a day, in order to get stuff to eat from Tam-Unit, his best friend,
but it was worth the effort. Doing it that way meant he was able to spend most
of the time in his little house, alone. The pea pod shaped black and white
thing that the Wizard Taman had given him not too long before.

Instead of being cared for by
people he hardly knew.

Today was different though, since
he'd been spending the last weeks getting ready for it. Consuming calories and
trying to put on weight. The fight, the intense, and incredibly hard to recall
thing
that he and the others had been through, had stripped almost everything from
him. That had been thanks to the healing amulet he'd been wearing, and using,
the whole time that he'd been being murdered. It had saved him.
That
much he could recall. A bit more than that, too. Not everyone that had been
there for the fight really could, or so he'd heard. The Wizards were sort of
managing it, and
him
, but that was all.

No one else, including the
mechanical people that had been in the room, fighting, could actually recall it
having taken place. They knew that
something
major had, since they
weren't stupid and had damage, but it was simply hard to do.

Most of it was gone from his own
head, or hidden inside in some strange fashion, but thankfully he'd written it
all down before it could escape his head. Like a dream.

They had an enemy, and they were
nearly impossible to beat.

Which was why he, some kid from
Canton, had to risk his life to get better that day, instead of healing over
half a year, like a real person would. That had been the best guess as to how
long it was going to take him to recover. Tor Baker, the wizard, was probably
in the same boat that way. If Dareg had used himself almost to death, Tor, his
father, had been pushed fifty percent closer than that. The man had to have
been in bed the whole time, barely able to move. Thankfully the idea of feeding
him constantly wouldn't be lost on the others.

That was all happening on the
other side of the space port, at Sam Builder's palace. It meant that the facts
were a bit sketchy there for Dareg, but it pretty much
had
to be that
way.

Dare had managed to get out of
the scene of the fight in the first hours, which had, he knew, made almost
everyone think he was angry, or scared, and didn't trust them anymore. It
wasn't
that, or even their fault. The real answer was that his new family was made up
of sane people, who for some reason actually cared if he lived or died. What he
was planning to try, in a few moments, would most likely kill him.

Only that wasn't true. If it was,
if that was the
main
possible outcome, Dareg would have waited. No, he
really had a ninety percent chance of living through it. That was, he knew
why
he was stalling. After all, if it worked, he had to go and get going, for real.
Given that he didn't even have a real plan for that yet, it was probably going
to be hard to pull off. If he got
lucky
, he'd die, and then it wouldn't
be his problem any longer. After all, it wasn't fair to dump even part of the
protection of the whole world, of
all
the worlds, on his narrow
shoulders.

Before he could lose his nerve,
or find a cutter to take his own head off with like a coward, Dare pulled out
the small healing amulet he had. It was the same one that Sara had given him.
Sara Debri. The Ancient of the Martian Circle. It sounded impressive, and
nearly impossible, since claiming to have even met her was almost certainly a
lie for someone like him. That shouldn't have ever happened, and if it
had
,
would have no doubt been the kind of thing that took place in passing. Possibly
as he swept the floor, and she walked past with a contingent of guardsmen. Not
ending with the woman handing him expensive gifts of magic.

"Right, stop stalling, and
do it. Even if you're a coward there
have
to be limits..." With those
words, he tapped the glowing green sigil. It was the shape of a man. The person
had the proportions of a commoner, but everyone had said that it was Tor.

From before he changed, and grew
into the giant he was now.

The tile, which was a milky
colored piece of focus stone, didn't do anything itself. There was no buzzing,
or light show to let him know it was operating. Instead he was informed that
the thing was working by the agony that ripped through him. Things that he had
thought mainly healed were suddenly on fire within.

His groin,
for instance, which had been half crushed by Bill, the faithless squire,
shifted in his pants.
Dare was distracted from that as his right arm snapped, breaking again to set
the bone correctly. Making first a loud noise, that sent a shock through his
entire body, then several softer ones. That
had
partially healed, but
clearly in the wrong way.

On the good side he also started
to regrow several of his missing teeth. It would let him chew a bit more
easily, instead of drinking half his meals from then on. Not that he wouldn't
have to keep up his regime of Austran protein drinks for the time being. He had
a bucket of the chalky stuff next to him, ready to be consumed. Using a basic
tin cup with a nice sturdy handle on it, Dare dipped out a portion, and started
to sip, between the waves of horrible pain.

It was intense, of course. That
didn't matter. Nothing did, except getting ready to face the... Whatever it was
that might be coming for them. The Adversaries.

After half an hour, a nearly
unheard of time for the healing amulets to need in order to repair simple
damage, all the discomfort was gone. His teeth were whole, and while he was
exhausted again, his breathing was unstressed and clear. That part had taken
him by surprise really. The beating he'd taken had actually caused him to
become ill. Probably because his immune system just didn't have anything left
to fight with really. It hadn't been bad, but the rattling in his lungs hadn't
really aided him either.

Now he was fine, so stood up, and
thought about what he really needed to do.

"More food, and a
shower." Sniffing at his arm pit, he grimaced. "Not in that
order."

It took longer than it should
have, given that he only had to walk about ten feet to get to the bathing chamber.
That wasn't about weakness however, since he was feeling almost decent that way
now. Having not been able to do more than hobble for a month, he could tell the
major difference being healthy again was making. It was that he had to shave
first, since he hadn't for a while. He had a full, if short, beard, but it
looked strange on him in the magical mirror when he stared at his reflection.
Untidy, and like he simply didn't care.

That wasn't the fashion for such
things, though on a whim he just trimmed his neck, and then shaved it smooth,
leaving the full black beard. Then he played with the rest, trimming and
combing it. Stalling, instead of getting clean, and on to his real task. Which
was...

Baffling to him.

"Run, hide or fight."
Those were the options, but he didn't know who, or what, to fight, or how to
get ready for it, and probably couldn't run far enough, even having a jump ship
around his neck. Hiding was a good option, but you sort of needed to know what
you were doing that from, really. At least if you wanted to end up in the right
place.

It left him frozen for a few
seconds.

"Shower first. You reek.
Thankfully no one has been visiting you, or they'd have been driven away by the
smell." It wasn't that bad, to be fair about it. He did need to be cleaner
though, so turned off his clothing device with a thought, and started the water
running with another, his hand touching the wall of the tiny dwelling.

It wasn't hard to wash, but
scrubbing was the order of the day, after so long without. He did it several
times, from head to toe, trying to figure out what his part in things was
supposed to really be. After all, he could fight a little, he guessed, but
there were people better at it. So getting trained up in that might not hurt as
far as skills gained. It also might not help. In the last battle he'd managed
to stay alive because Tor had pulled him into an alternate kind of
time
.
That wasn't a thing that most people could just do, however. Tor Baker was
special that way. It had been in his notes. Dare had fought with Bill, the
faithless squire, personally. A person that he'd thought might be a friend. One
that had acted like it, using him the whole time. Probably just to gain access
to the others that Dareg had been meeting. The King and Queen, for instance.

That he'd lived had been more due
to what his father had done, than any skill of his own. Even
that
bit of
magic had nearly ended him. Both of them. It
had
been the death of
several others. Commander Derring, Erid the High Servant, and Sir Kolbrin. His
fighting tutor. Two of them had been
immortal
, for all that hadn't
helped them in the end. Kolb had even lived for thousands of years, and was, or
had been, probably the best human fighter left on any world.

The second best had told him
that, so it wasn't faint praise.

So, while fighting was possible,
and he needed to be better at it, that trick that Tor had managed was even more
important. Not just for him, but for everyone else. Thinking of that settled
his plans for him. He had to learn how to do both those things, and... Well,
his job, too.

Building up the world's space
ports.

He dressed in clothing that
wasn't fine at all, just being a simple brown outfit that fitted him loosely
when the amulet turned on. A heavy work tunic, and trousers to match. Brown,
but stout looking boots came with it, picking him up about an inch when he
activated the thing. Dare was still slightly damp, but brushed his long black hair
back and used the clothing amulet to make a brown string tie for it, placing it
back in a tail. Then he looked at the remains of the protein drink bucket,
dreading what he needed to do with it, and picked the wooden thing up, tilting
it carefully, taking large, careful gulps of the chalky flavored stuff, until
it was gone.

Then, feeling tired, but whole
for the first time in over a month, he took it outside. Then stopped to seal
the door to his home with a lot of focused concentration, making the entrance
vanish into a smooth black and white striped wall, before moving to the
Tam-Unit. His only real friend.

A blue box that gently gleamed in
the sun, and had a screen with the face of a lovely young woman.

"Hey, I'm back. I brought
that bucket?" Instead of getting a refill, he put the thing in the trash
receptacle on her right side. The big blue box flickered to life, the window on
the front showing a girl that looked a good bit like the Wizard Taman. Exactly
like her really, except smiling. Most of the time the Wizard didn't seem to do
that. Not when he was around.

"You seem better. A lot. How
did that work? You used a healing amulet? Dangerous, given your condition..."

He moved around, so he was
looking her in the eyes, even if that probably wasn't needed for her to notice
him. She wasn't a person, and saw things very differently than he did. Than any
human
could
, no doubt. Inside her range, she was very precise, and knew
things that almost no one else might. That was only about twenty or thirty feet
from her however, and past that she was pretty much blind. Tam-Unit was one
being however, with about sixty bodies in different places. She'd mentioned
that Timon had gotten her set up in Austra, and that Afrak's space port had
twenty of her as well, now.

It was daunting to think about.
She was right there, with him, but also in sixty different places,
all
at the same time. It was like magic. That thought got him to smile a little.

"A risk, but it paid off. As
long as being alive is the right choice. I'm not really certain on that score
yet." He sounded a bit glum. Given that three of his friends had died,
that made sense to him.

None of them were really close to
him, having just met a week before they passed, more or less, but it was still
hard for him. Worse for everyone else, he bet.

What he needed to do, really, if
he was going to set anything up, was find out where people were. The ones he
needed.

Patting his side pocket he
realized that he didn't have his communications device on him. That had been
tucked safely inside the floating chest that was in his house. With his gold.
That was, he figured, why no one had been in touch with him. The floating chest
was sound and light proof, after all. At least he thought that was the case. It
could have been that no one had
tried
to call his handheld, but he
doubted that. They would have checked on him, and a few had even come by to do
that. Early on. Timon had, and Terry, though he barely remembered that, having
fallen asleep both times. They were both gone now, he bet, since their visits
had stopped after a week or so.