Strange Land (The Young Ancients Book 15) (23 page)

If the woman that had attacked the first time was being coerced in the same manner...

"Say, Lars, were you supposed to yell anything when you tried for Timon?"

The man looked down and then away. For a long time he didn't speak, the nimbus of white around him as still as his body. The single line of golden yellow down the center didn't darken when he spoke however.

"They told me I was supposed to say 'Austra for Austrans' or something like that. Didn't I? I can't really remember. Things were tense."

"Nope. So, how do we find these people?"

Searching, was the answer, because there were too many people around for magic to really be useful, unless a wizard or mage had met one of the captives before, which didn't seem all that likely. They were all from Austra, and other than Lars and one other person, no one from there had learned even basic field reading. He could try, but even Tor didn't seem to think he'd have a lot of luck.

"Not at these distances. I think
I
can manage it, but there are a lot of people to sort through. I'll start on it now. I know Leslie and Simone. We won't let them die, Lars."

Sara nearly winced, but let Ali cover for her by setting off a new device, which simply caused nano machines to heat up and die in flame. It was over in a few moments, and as soon as things stopped glowing in the center of the slow moving air field that Tor was holding, he dropped the thing and sat down on the floor, tailor fashion. Then he closed his eyes, and went so still it was hard to tell if he were breathing or not.

Douglas looked at his children, one at a time, then shook his head gently. His hair was a bit curlier than the others, and he wasn't
as
good looking, but he was pleasant, and seemed no older than she was. That had happened when he'd become immortal. The first time they'd met he'd seemed to be nearly the same age as her own mother. So in his mid-forties. Now he looked like a man at his youthful peak, or perhaps slightly younger than that even. His clothing was dark brown and green, designed for comfort rather than style or to impress anyone. Merchant fashion.

The man finally settled on her, for some reason, locking eyes.

"We need a search, but have to find a way to do it that won't alert the captors. Any ideas?"

She didn't have any, and no one else spoke for a while. Finally, as Lars seemed to realize they didn't have much hope, Magda swallowed and then spoke, looking down the whole time, but roughly facing Douglas.

The thing was, she spoke in Tellerand.

"Do those of Noram all speak other languages?"

Timon huffed and then shook his head, his face suddenly happier. "You know I think I might be distracted, what with all the potential death around here with my name on it. That's
brilliant
. Some nobles might know another language or two, but almost none of them will know Tellerand. Will your people be willing to help? Can we get word to them about it in a way that no one else will notice?"

Sara pulled her communications device, and then tapped on the floating blue sigils that came up, until she had Roget's com pulled up. One more tap, and a look at Tor, got the line open. Then she looked over at Timon.

The man spoke in standard at first, but Sara changed that, using his language instantly.

"Roget, there's a problem. People from Noram, possibly, have taken hostages. We need to have people look for them, but we can't put out a general alert, lest a young girl and woman be harmed to silence them. Can we pass that information after the next set of prayers? I don't know if we have pictures, but if people go and... I don't know, try to convert everyone? It's rude to do here, but we
have
to try something."

"Aye. It will be done. If the All High asks it of us, we shall all do our part. Pictures though will aid us most handsomely. There are but a handful of hours before the next call to prayer, the evening devotion. Best we hurry and do that early. A special prayer, given the trials of the day?"

"I always knew you were smart, Roget. That's good. I'll try to set up the pictures. I don't know how to do that."

The man stayed on the line, as Timon tilted his head. It was clear that getting some kind of image was going to be harder than she'd thought. Except that Lars actually had one on him. The trick, it seemed, would be sending that out to everyone praying, at once. No one else, however.

Tor hadn't built that in when he'd set up the special link for the Tellerand people, it seemed.

"Fine, Tim, you can do that, right? Tor did it in about a minute and a half, so you should be able to work this out in no more than two."

That got her glared at, but Trice nodded at her and then her husband.

"Good point Sara. Tim can do it. He's nearly as good as Tor is." There was a dig in the words, but rather than seem upset, the young man, just closed his eyes, ignoring them. He didn't even pick up a communications device.

It was a lot longer than two minutes, being closer to ten, but they had a special prayer message going out, complete with pictures and the tale they were to tell everyone. That the All High demanded they seek to give comfort to those in need. No one would really be able to whine too much about
that
, would they? Honestly, it was a good idea, and they should have had people checking on everyone already.

Then they had to sit there and wait. Acting like they were all dead, or at least hiding the fact that Timon and Lars were gone. Hopefully the men that had taken Leslie and Simone would honor their word, if they thought their victim had come through for them. Not that they weren't going to die for it anyway.

"
Oh
." She looked at the others in the room and then rolled her eyes. "Baron Coltress is here. With his son, Mike?"

Timon locked eyes with her, but shook his head.

"Mike's my assistant. He used to be Michelle Coltress. His father is just trying to reconcile with him now. There were tensions over the change."

"Right... But Baron Coltress is known for being useful in finding information." She couldn't stress the words any more than she was without just saying what she was trying to think out loud.

Luckily Trice got her meaning.

"We should have him in on this then,
after
we do a loyalty check. We should get Smythe in on this too. If this really is about our people, Noram I mean, then we should have the best investigator we can find doing the work from our end. I can't think of anyone here better qualified." She glanced at Kolb, who spread his hands a little.

"If needed I can do it. Or
you
might pull it off. William is the right choice however, if we need to deal with King Richard directly. We'll still need someone on the ground there for it. Are you up for that, if it's needed, Debri?"

Calling her by her last name made the question seem almost military in nature. Then, they
were
kind of dealing with an attack, weren't they? This could be coming from
anywhere
, too. Austra, the Rebellion in Noram, one of the other lands, or even her own King, trying to get Harmony to throw in on his side. Sara hoped it wasn't that last one, since she wasn't certain that Richard would survive it, if that were the case.

Which meant she probably wouldn't either.

Chapter seven

Sara really wanted to spend time with Tor, even in the middle of an emergency, but instead she held her face still when Tiera suggested that she rush directly off to Noram and start pestering the King about the situation. It wasn't the best use of her time, but Queens probably didn't have to consider things like that too often. Not even relatively good ones that were known not to think they'd invented the right to rule personally.

Thankfully Tim shook his head, earning a dark and rather brooding scowl from the tall, very thin, monarch.

"That's not going to happen. If anything, this whole situation shows that Sara should be set to working on the tertiary grouping endeavor as quickly as possible. If people are going to attack us, here, then we need to have another fallback ready."

The words sounded sensible, and Tor looked at his brother closely, then nodded, about ten seconds later. He was so clearly doing magic that
Sara
could feel it happening. It was just him reading Tim though, who felt smooth and almost unconcerned to her.

Not that she had any great skill at doing things like that. She could clear her mind though, and feel the world around her a little. Most people could, with practice. It was a useful skill for a spy, so had been part of her training.

It was their mother, Laurie, who sneered at the scene.

"You're just trying to protect Sara from danger. Need I remind you that
she
was the one that stepped in front of that attack aimed at you earlier? That
hardly
sounds like a woman that needs to be coddled. Then she made sure the rest of us didn't harm poor Lars here." Her mood and tone shifting instantly, the pretty woman looked at the man from Austra, her brown eyes shining a bit with unshed tears. "We'll find your people. It's just a matter of time."

Not that they'd find them alive. No one in the world, in
either
world, could promise that, could they? It made sense to kill hostages most of the time. You didn't get a ransom for them, but in this case that wasn't needed. Lars had to do what he did, and succeed, or they'd promised to kill his wife and daughter.

Really, what they needed to do was fake Tim's death. It might not buy time, but it would be better than doing nothing, wouldn't it? Just in case these horrible people had some sense of honor?

Sara took a deep breath, getting Tor and Ali to both look at her, and then, a second later, Trice to do the same. No one asked what she was thinking, so she finally went ahead anyway, hoping it wasn't too stupid to be allowed.

"I'll go and handle the matters on Earth. On this end, I think that we should smuggle Tim out, both to remove the potential of him being attacked again, and so that the people that want him dead will have a reason to think Lars was successful. We won't announce anything, so it shouldn't affect the people doing the looking."

That got several strange reactions from everyone in the place. Except of course Timon, who looked at her calmly, and
didn't
mutter silly things under his breath.

"I can hide out on one of the space stations in orbit around Earth. Sherri's farm complex will work well enough. There's hardly anyone there, and most of them are commoners from Noram, or similar types from Afrak. I can work from there for now and it will be harder to find me, as long as no general announcement goes out about it. Then you here can use the time that will buy to figure things out. Good plan, Sara."

Trice gave her a
look
. One that spoke of her trying to steal her boyfriend, but that was silly. Tim was her
husband
, and Sara had lost that chance, a long time before. Not that they couldn't have some fun on occasion now. It had never come up, because Timon hating her had kind of made sense. No matter what else he felt about her at the same time, that pretty much had to be the case, didn't it?

Her friend's words were gentle though.

"Take care of him? We'll handle the rest of things here. We should have air back inside two days, and everything rebuilt a little after that, if we keep working like we have been. We need to capture the ones that are behind this."

Because that would be the real break in things. If they could find
anyone
involved, it would let them have a real shot at breaking the whole thing open. If not, then they'd need to scrape for clues and hints, while making wild speculations and hoping one of them was close enough to help. That was the modern world of investigation though, wasn't it? If you got close enough to the right people, the Truth amulets would do the work for you. It was the hit and miss getting to that point that was the challenge.

She expected hours of deliberation and careful planning about things, but Douglas moved to his son, and patted him on the shoulder. They looked more like brothers than anything else, even if Tim was a lot taller already.

"Get going then. Don't let anyone see you. We'll make things look right here. Like we're hiding what happened and that you died. Miss Debri will need a second ship. Otherwise everyone will see her taking off. Moving that many people is noticeable. Tiera, are there any left?"

That got a head shake. It made sense, even without people to fly them. The things were able to become huge and make their own air, as long as they had something to make it from. The problem there was that they were
all
full of people.

Tor shrugged, then grinned at her.

"It's slower, but I can lend you one of the old ships. If there are only two of you going you can easily get enough dust together in about fifteen minutes of work." That he had a ship around his neck on a hemp string wasn't that big of a deal. That he just passed it over to her
was
. Even the slow ships were worth more than some Counties back home.

His fingers tickled her palm as the focus stone block touched her. It was warm, from having been so close to his body.

"Be careful. Both of you. We don't understand this yet, and while it will probably be easy enough to fix once we know who's behind it, I can't actually prove that yet. This could be them."

The Ancients. No one in the room had to ask who he meant either. Sure, they were supposed to be dead, but so was Timon, and he looked pretty mobile and chipper in the moment. Almost happy, for some reason.

Sara hugged Tor closely, standing first. He stayed in his wooden chair, and was just a bit shorter than she was that way. It reminded her of how things used to be, back when she was the large one, and Tor was just a pretty and kind boy she knew from school.

One that the King had set her on, as a spy. It had been in secret, and well before Trice had been set to the task. Nearly two whole years, in fact.