Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2) (32 page)

"Training to get ready...
For that
harder
training you have in mind. Petra started me on combat
lessons again today. If beating me for hours counts as that." He grinned,
not really caring about that part of things, but Wendra nodded.

"It was... Brutal. He had to
fight
everyone
. He was beaten blind at one point and wasn't even allowed
to heal for over an hour, just going without end."

Timon looked at the girl,
noticing her for the first time, at least as a real person. Then he examined
her in a way that she probably thought was sexual, but that was more than that.
Including magically. Dareg could feel it happen. He thought. It was still very
light, but there was something there.

In the end, Tim looked back at
him.

"You're training her to be
the groups pilot?"

"Right. She can jump
already. I'll let her fly back on her own as a test, and land at the Printer
School. I'll use the jump shield. We're setting up an exchange with the
incoming fleet. They host some of the school kids and we do the same with some
of their people. If they go for it, we'll need to find some mentors for people."
It sounded kind of silly, but Timon nodded at him.

"I can see it. I... Don't
have any ships left, and you probably aren't ready to do your own build just
yet. I'll walk you through the grow pattern after your first normal build. Sam
said that he was in charge of you, since you're a Noram citizen. At least for
magical training. I hear he's working up a whole program, just for you. Get
with him, and Petra, to set up schedules for tutoring. Also, don't forget to
keep in touch with Karina. She gets lonely."

He crossed his eyes. It was a
real and good point, and being too busy wasn't a great reason not to at least
talk to people. Not when he had, on his person, a magical device that let him
do just that, at any time. It was just a strain, connecting like that.

"Got it. I'll do all of
that."

Before he could get away, Timon
looked at Wendra directly.

"I should have a set of jump
ships coming in twenty-six days. I'll earmark one for you. What's your
name?"

"Wendra... Sir." For
some reason she grinned, and looked away a bit.

He nodded.

"I
thought
I
recognized you! I didn't do the work on you... It's quality though."

"Um... Master Tor did it. I
came up, years ago and asked."

"Ah! Well, good to see you.
Do you have a handheld?" She didn't, and they hadn't loaded the bag with
them, being too large. That got the girl that worked there to scamper for them,
walking back with thirty-odd in a blue magical sack, and one that was out,
which she handed to Wendra with a smile.

"Everyone should have one of
these."

Tim nodded, happily about that.

"They should. We need an
outlet in Noram, and one in Austra for it. Set that up with... Tess, on that
one. Will you Dare?"

He didn't know how to do that,
but took a breath, and then thought about it for a bit.

"I'll see what I can do."

Timon clapped him on the arm,
then looked at him, seriously.

"Also, don't let people push
you into work that you don't want to do. I mean, be helpful and kind, but if
it's too much, say no. You too, Wendra. Tell your parents and Stara that I said
hello, if you see them?"

Dareg put that one together,
since Stara wasn't exactly a popular name. This girl was taller, and looked
noble, but he could see the basic idea, around the eyes.

He didn't mention it however.

For one thing, he could be wrong.
Uncommon names could repeat, so it might not be this girl's sister that had
serviced him that one time. That was someone that he wanted to look up, if he
got a chance. Stara had been nice, if only pretending to be a whore. In order
to spy on him for Countess Thomson.

Timon patted them both and
wandered off into the store, to see who his wife was talking too, letting them
walk off toward the dock, carrying their ill gotten, if legal, loot. It still
felt a bit like stealing, carrying tens of thousands if not hundreds of
thousands of golds worth of magic like he was.

At least it would be worth that
when they got back to Earth. Here it was valuable, but not expensive at all.

"So, you heard the plan?
Undock from here, carefully, then head back to Earth. I'm going back another
way. Don't worry, I'll be watching you." Not that he'd be there to help
her, so really he was just making her stress level higher. "
You
get
to carry the new things. I don't want my hands to be full the entire
time." That was a bit lazy of him, but he smiled at her, looking up a bit.

She took a deep breath, and
touched his right arm.

"What if I do it
wrong?"

"Well, the worst case will
have you killing a lot of other people. Most likely, if you move slowly, and
deliberately, then everything will go very well. When in doubt, stop and think
about what you want to do. I'll meet you at the weapons area?"

She nodded, swallowed and shook,
ever so slightly.

"I can do it. I'll be fine.
I can do it." She seemed to not believe it.

Dare nodded.

"You can. Actually, you can
do a lot more than that. I believe in you, or you wouldn't get to borrow my
ship like this."

She smiled at him, nervously, and
went wide eyed.

"What if I stole your ship,
and these things?"

That was possible, but he shook
his head.

"When you can get your own
to use legally in a month? Once you have that, you can come back here and get a
lot more magic than this. No, that makes no sense at all. Besides, you're a
good person. After all, you didn't take a turn beating me when you had a
chance. It's not because you're a coward either."

He was certain of that one. A
coward wouldn't have been able to fly the ship as well as she had. Not on their
first try.

Then, after handing her the
things he bowed a bit, like friends might do on parting.

"Let's go. I'll follow you
out." Hopefully the new shield worked as expected. It probably did, but if
not, he was going to end up stuck for a while.

That part, went well, to start
with. Honestly, Wendra did very well, going slowly, and smoothly enough that he
couldn't tell she was an old professional pilot. It was her exit into space
that was a little off, since she simply moved, as if no one else could be in the
way. Except that there was a ship coming in at the same time. They both froze,
the other craft doing the same thing she did. Then they both tried to go, and
then let the other ship go first, several times. Finally, the other ship, a
fleet vessel, started to glow a bright orange, and went ahead.

Wendra held her ground, and move
hesitantly after that. Until she got into orbit, from where she jumped in a way
that was amazing. Dare had never actually seen it happen like that before. He
was miles away, but had a good view of the whole thing. It just,
wasn't
,
any longer. It had been there, glowing a pale green, in kind of a mint color,
and then was gone.

He set up a jump, just like he
normally would for a ship, even though there was no special place to put his
hand. That one was simple to figure out however. The shields used mental
controls, but the idea was familiar enough. Using the same two dots and a
dotted line, the whole thing was easy. A good piece more so than with a ship,
actually. Enough so that it would be important for people to learn that first,
to make sure they didn't have problems doing it by mistake or going to the
wrong place. For him the end point was right over Printer, in near orbit.

Behind him Wendra was closing,
dropping down about twenty miles to his right, over the ocean a bit. There was
a bit of adjustment needed, but she had it under control. He followed along, moving
nearly as fast as the ship was, due to her going slowly, rather than the shield
being faster than his old one. It still only took about ten minutes for them to
land.

Well, two minutes for him, but
Wendra was taking a test, so had to do it all under control. Plus they had to
get kids out of the way, since it was still class time. Petra walked over to
him as he made a point to wave people out of the weapons square.

"This is... A surprise?
Who's with you? Gerent?"

"Wendra. What did you think
we were doing? I taught her how to fly a jump ship. Timon is getting her one,
in a month. Provided she proves she can do this on her own without killing
anyone. I mean, that would be a deal breaker there. Oh. I also sort of promised
your students, the ones from earlier, for an exchange program with the new
fleet. The Allies? Can you host one of the groups of people from there coming
in? I mean, mentor them and all that?
If
it happens."

 The ship landed like there were
eggs under it, and not one of them was going to be broken if Wendra had
anything to say about it. Which she did. When she climbed out there was
applause from the others there, from outside the walls. They'd worked out who
was piloting, at least when one of their fellows got out.

She had the bags with her, and
handed them over, though Petra was the one they were handed to.

"Gear?"

Dareg nodded.

"From Harmony. For the ones
going with the program.
If
we have one. My thought is to have them go on
their off days, so they don't miss any classes." Petra nodded and looked
around. Most of the kids from earlier, the core students, weren't there at the
moment.

"I bet they love hearing
that. Then, if they want to do the interesting things, there has to be a
cost."

That was kind of close to what he
was thinking, plus, he didn't know what was more important. School might be so
useful that keeping them from it was too much to ask of anyone. If it cost
seventy-five gold a year, then it had
real
value. Most people didn't
make that in a decade.

Petra looked at him for a second,
her brow furrowing.

"Wait, if Wendra came back
alone, in your ship..."

"New jump shield. I tested
it for Tim. That... It's really sensitive on the jump. I'm not certain that
regular people will be able to handle it. Builders might, and people with a lot
of training. Speaking of which, I need to... Gah." He didn't know.

There was too much for him to do,
and that meant his brain was locking up, trying to work out how to do it all at
once.

Which never worked.

So, nodding at nothing he spoke
slowly.

"Really, I need to go home,
and rest for a bit. I feel okay, but it's getting late. See you in the
morning?"

The weapons Instructor nodded.

"Yes. I'll be at the salle
on Harmony. It's past the bakery and the wine shop? About noon, our time, which
is the evening work out there. So you can sleep in and everything."

That didn't seem likely, but he
agreed with his expression.

"See you then. Oh, I need to
get you and Sam together to plan out schedules for tutoring?"

"I'll handle that. We're old
friends, after all."

That was nice to hear, because it
sounded complicated to him at the moment. Not that it was all that late. In
fact, after getting his ship back, and getting back to his current home at the
Capital port, it was still before four in the afternoon. Meaning he had half a
day left to fill up. Taking a breath, he decided that calling around to get
things done, and do that suggested checking in was a good plan.

After he showered and scrubbed.
That was needed, thanks to the fact that he had dried blood on his face, and
not just a little bit. No one had mentioned it to him, so now he felt embarrassed.
Worse there was some in his hair, which took about half an hour of standing
under the water just soaking to pry loose. Then, feeling clean enough, he
climbed out, and went to see Tam-Unit.

Even she, his best friend, had
work for him.

"Not to be a pain, but the
people in Austra haven't been that good about filling me up. Part of that is
just that no one had really been using the port yet, but they come to use
me
and take things away. I've tried to complain to the guards there. We have
people, just nothing like the dirt children here. Oh, also, the port personnel
here
need to be paid. It's a bit late... No one has wanted to complain, but... I
hear things."

Dareg nodded, and sighed. Then
had to think about what to do toward that end. People needed funds, and he did
have enough for them all, in his chest. It had been floating in the corner,
filled with more coins than he could really feel good about. The thing there
was that Tor had said that he'd pay for the port personnel.

All of them really.

It was going to be very late in
Vagus, but the coin he needed was in the big palace that Tor kept on the other
side of the city. That was cared for by Collette Sorvee, who was, Dare thought,
Tor's girlfriend. She lived there with her husband, who, strangely, used to be
the King of Vagus. Feeling like he didn't know what to say, he found the
correct name, which was under Collette Coltress. Luckily he'd bothered her
before, so knew that off the top of his head.