Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2) (14 page)

"Probably Petra. I know her
and while
she
suggested Alice Orange, I'm going to be at Printer School
anyway, next year. If I can get the funds around for it. I'm planning out a
shipping business. All those ships going places and all that?"

"Not a bad plan. Get with
Alice on it. I'll try to set up what you need. You don't mind looking like a
ten foot tall lizard man, do you?" There was a grin that wasn't restrained
at all.

Dare nodded.

"Honestly, if we have to do
that, then we do. I
don't
want to be caught out again. Really, if those
were the lower level Adversaries... We can't hold back. So yeah, whatever it
takes." Which could mean being a dragon, he guessed.

That got a serious nod.

"Understood. I'll handle
that portion. Call it a month? You won't really be ready before then. Not after
being mostly dead like you were. You need to rest and take it easy, if you can.
Avoid getting into fights, and if you can't, make sure to pick very tiny
opponents that don't fight well. Wear a shield all the time and be willing to
run away. A big failure in that room was that the people that
could
have
run all stood their ground. Fighting isn't always the best plan. Learn that one
now, because honorable or not, we might have to do
that
more than is
comfortable for the time being."

The words hit at him. Hard. While
not everyone would have done better by running away, some would have. One in
particular.

"High Servant Erid."

The scene, one that had been too
hard to recall, suddenly flooded into his mind. It was a distorted thing, but
vivid at the same time. He shook, fear flooding his body as it came back.

Timon didn't speak, simply
observing him calmly. Intently enough that even over the device in his palm
waves of attention hit him. Real ones that he could feel.

"Wait... You're reading me?
From the Moon?"

That got a smile, a thing that
only touched his mouth.

"And
you
noticed it.
That's a good sign, as for learning to build. Good. You're in a combat rage by
the way. You might want to pull that back. Flashback?"

"Yes. I think. High Servant
Erid was very scared. Brave, too. He
should
have run away. He tried to
help, but in the end it had no bearing on the attack. If I'd left, and trust
me, I
froze
for the first bit so that wasn't happening, then we would
have probably lost. I was needed to slow Bill down." Mainly by being
beaten, but that had been his portion of the thing.

He'd been the bar on the door,
that only had to last long enough to alert the guard that something was
happening.

"Erid shouldn't have been
there." The rest, even the leader of the High Servants, and Johan, the
other man in white that had been there, were fighters. Not only wouldn't they
have fled if they could have, everything would have told them to stand there,
and take out the threat. At least before it had taken place.

Timon seemed to pick all that up,
reading him with magic again.

"I can see that. It might
also have worked if you'd
all
run away. There's some indication that
space is integral to what was going on. You can't just slip into that time
state and run at super speeds. Not the way they were doing it. Half the damage
we all took, if not more than that, was just from moving around in space
without time working right. I didn't take a fraction of what you or Tor did,
but I broke bones in both my legs trying to get across the room."

That image, of a blurred giant
form moving to help his brother flashed then. Along with a sense of visceral
terror. That meant he was shaking by the time it stopped, a few seconds later.

Timon ignored that, and nodded at
him.

"So stay ready to run. You
should be able to get away, if you aren't trapped in place. Keep that in mind.
I just wish we could get the others, the builders, up on the time thing."

Dare took a shuddering breath.

"Take them into it first, so
they can experience it. Tor is coming to do up several right now, here,
tonight. He thinks that might work."

"Oh. Yes, that
might
.
Good idea. Get back with me on that if it does? In the morning though. Your
time. I'm going to be working on some things for a bit. I imagine you'll be
sleeping... Get Ten to do it for you? Remember to call Mike. Mike
Coltress."

The handheld went dead, showing
shining blue glowing names on white glasslike stone. It took a bit to find the
right name, since there were tens of thousands of them now. In the end it was
found under Baron Michael Coltress, which would have been nice to know to start
with. Dare had scanned thousands of names to locate it.

The face that came up was
pleasant looking, and had an age defying sense to it. Not old, but not a child.
Other than that, it was impossible to tell how old he was. Tim had been careful
there, telling Dareg that the man had once been a woman, which was strange, but
then calling him a man the rest of the time. It seemed to fit the look, which
was good, and nicely tanned, but not great looking. Nice though, as in
friendly.

With brilliant blue hair, that
was only a few inches long.

"Mike Coltress. How may I
help you, sir?" The fellow was taking in his clothing, and seemed confused
by it. It was nice enough, but the moving faces in places were pretty
different.

"Hello! Dareg Canton. I'm
supposed to get with you on setting up a pickup for some scientists? Going to
Saturn. You probably don't have ten trips for that in the next few days, do
you?"

"Ah! Prince Dareg?
Excellent. I wasn't certain how to approach you. Just pick up a talker and go,
then? Easier than I'd figured really. I wasn't sure that a personal visit
wasn't needed. I can have them at the docks in the morning... Tomorrow.
Twenty-two bodies? I know that you said twenty..."

He nodded, still feeling shaken
and probably pale.

It didn't show in his voice,
thankfully.

"So, six in the afternoon,
my time?"

That got a smile, since the
numbers were being ignored.

"Closer to eight your time?
At the main docks here? Can you find it?"

"I can. If not, I'll get
with you when I arrive. I'm planning on being away for four days to a week. We
can make trips back and forth however, and will have a... People to put things
on your media? I have some magical devices for that."

That got into a technical
discussion, but it seemed like everything would be easy enough to set up. At
least Mike thought so. If not, they really could get back to set things up for
best effect. He'd need enough mass with them to make what they needed, and to
set up sanitation services, but he thought he had the basic idea there.

He needed to set up a
manufacturing device, which he had one of, from Queen Tiera, and turn the human
waste to stone. They weren't going to be gone long, so it wouldn't be hard to
do that. If they were going away for years they'd end up having to reuse it to
create food.

Honestly, he didn't know that the
ship, the new kind he had, wouldn't do all of that automatically. In fact, he
was willing to bet it would. Timon would naturally put that in, if he built in
food creation to the pattern of the whole thing. It needed to be tested first,
and having a back up or two wasn't a bad idea.

This time when it was time to get
off the handheld, they actually
said
goodbye, and set things up so that
they could talk later if it was needed. It was far more polite than most of the
other people had been being on the thing the entire time he'd had one.

Then, still shaking a tiny bit,
he walked back to the party. The music was soothing, and in the near hour he'd
been gone, other people had shown up. There were nearly a hundred bodies there,
including a girl that looked familiar to him. She was decently tall, but about
his own age. Her gown was magical, and wonderfully created to look impressive.
Glowing slightly in white and pink, and made of satin and lace. He knew lace,
anyway, but rest was a guess. It could have been silk or some other fine
fabric.

He bowed as she passed, not
really caring much about her yet. She was pretty, but at the moment he was
fighting off the shaking that had been going on. If he'd been triggered into a
combat rage once, he'd probably just done it three times in a row not long
before.

She looked at him, her face
smiling, and with no particular concern in her eyes.

"Hello! I think we met, at
the return ceremony? You took me to my seat? I'm Allison Cordes." She
waved, as if saying that it didn't matter, then added her title.
"Princess. Of this place, I guess. I was raised on the Moon however. Have
you ever been there?"

That let him smile and nod.

"I have. Nice place. Dareg
Canton. Prince. Of Harmony?
I
was raised in a coastal city, as an
orphan, myself. It turns out that Tor is my father."

She nodded excitedly.

"He told me about you then! I
thought that might be you, but I didn't want to presume and be wrong. I hear
that's dangerous around here? I have to say, it's easier that way back home. If
you don't know something you just go up and
ask
about it. No one is
offended that you didn't already know." She shook her head, but had leaned
in, professionally, as if they were speaking in confidence. A lot of the noble
women did that, he'd noticed.

She reached out and touched his
arm too, then smiled at him. That got him to snort, a little. Not that he
explained anything. Instead he covered by smiling back.

"Well if you want to know
something you can just ask, me at least. So, they just dumped you in here, too?
I didn't even get a suggestion to mingle. You?"

She nodded.

"Queen Constance did tell me
to get out and meet people here. You're the first one I tried. I figured that
the age thing would be easier to move past that way. Then I was thinking I'd go
and stand next to Uncle Alphonse. Except that isn't going to work here, I can
see now. He raised me, but I always just kind of thought of him as my uncle.
More like my father, I suppose. I mean, I knew my mother, and father, but... He
was the one there for me. Just the nice man that hugged me and made certain I
did my schoolwork each day. He ran the wine shop, and here... People that are
important and powerful bow to him. It's just strange. Worse, they do it to me,
and I'm not anyone, am I? I mean, Allison, but that doesn't count for
much." She was sort of babbling, but was watching the entire floor the
whole time.

Carefully. As if she expected a
problem to be taking place. It was probably just her being prudent, so he tried
to do the same, even if he didn't care that much about the whole thing.

Suddenly the girl, who was nearly
a woman for all she looked about twelve, started to beam. Her smile was nearly
alarming, and her arms went out, to hug a familiar looking blonde woman.

Alyssa Baker. Behind her stood a
very tall, rather thin, man. He was only seven and a half feet or so, but he
looked bigger than that to Dareg. Probably some others, too. That was just what
being a legend meant.

Ali squealed a bit.

"Allison! There you are.
They're feeding you enough here? Are you getting enough exercise? You aren't
homesick, are you? We can take you to Harmony whenever you want. Just let us
know."

The big hug got transferred to
Tor, who hugged her back warmly, but in a way that definitely told the world
they were related. Given that this was Veronica's daughter, that probably had
to count. What Dareg was to her, he didn't know. If the Queen was his half
sister, biologically speaking, not in familial relationships, and Veronica was
that plus her mother's daughter, then... Allison was a person he should
never
be alone with romantically. Ever. Veronica was in the same boat, he was willing
to bet. Real family, in a way that few ever were.

People to avoid, if they seemed
too happy to see him. Tor didn't stint the girl however, picking her up a bit.

"There we go! I see you met
Dareg?" Those words were accompanied with Alyssa moving in to hug him.
Almost gently. Not in a way that smashed them together either. Like she was
afraid he might break. She didn't let go for a long while, talking to him as
they stood there.

"Tor and I were talking. We
want you to come live with us in Vagus." She stopped, let him go and
stepped back, her face a bit scared seeming. She had the unlined look that
people wearing a disguise sometimes did. That, or an immortal. It was that last
one of course. He could kind of sense that coming from her, now that he'd met a
few of that sort.

Allison had that going on too, he
noticed.

The woman was tall, but only
about six-six, maybe a bit more than that, not like some of the men in the room
with them. That meant she was large, but not commanding given the company
around them at the moment.

"I know that I don't have a
lot of say in things like this, but it's not right, for you to live alone like
you are. You have family, and... So. You have to come. I told you to. That's
fair, right?"