The Builder (The Young Ancients) (18 page)

He agreed to go, not really thinking about it at the time, except that, if they were flying, he needed to come up with a device that would let them take their gear with them. That or learn to pack really light. Tor started drawing up the plans while Rolph spoke. At least his friend didn't get worked up about him doing that, working and talking at the same time. He just scribbled the ideas down now, so he'd remember it later.

“Anyway, Trice and Sara are going too and Tovey but he really has to go for work purposes not socializing overly, but it will be cool for the rest of us. My parents have asked if you'd stay with us though, instead of with him. He offered, of course, it wasn't even a real question to him, but mom said you were almost family anyway and it would be rude to have you stay on the outskirts of the city like that... Not that you've met my parents yet, but I've mentioned you a couple of times in letters, since you know, we're best friends and all that.”

Without looking down overly he wrote that he'd need five full sets of flying gear and at least five lifts to carry stuff. Girls had a lot of things, didn't they? And Counts too probably. With Tovey it was most likely practice weapons and junk like that. So ten lifts then. Right. He had a month or so, which shouldn't be a problem. It was only a redesign of the flight field...

Of course, everything took longer than it should have. Sara's mother sent an emergency request for a water purification field device which set his plans back a bit. It was just a filter which was a common enough piece of magic, little ones for personal drinking water and the like, but apparently they needed one that could cover the aquifer of a large city. That field was harder to build than the flying one was originally, because the area it had to cover was just that huge. This time he stocked water first and a bit of food, so the six days he was locked in his room weren't as dangerous at least.

He lost weight and Kolb yelled at him for not exercising enough, but the city had clean water again wherever it was, even though a sewage line had broken into their underground water system. He made ten copies of it, so that in a few years, when the first one wore out, the city wouldn't have to come find him again. If they hadn't fixed it in twenty years, that was their problem. He made sure that Sara included that in her return note with the devices. He didn't want to be mean, but seriously, there were limits, right?

The rest of the month was rushed then and he barely had time to get the lifts ready for luggage by the time they were supposed to leave. Apparently he'd also forgotten to mention to anyone else that they were flying instead of going by wagon, or given that they were traveling with a Count, a coach.

It wasn't that big a deal, they'd all flown already and the Count actually went up daily. His personal ability to fly he assured Tor wasn't nearly as interesting or as comfortable as using a flying rig. After all, he had to be in full combat rage for it to work and only flew about five feet off the ground most of the time. Slowly. Plus it left him with a horrible headache.

Tor was glad he liked it.

With the new gear they should be able to get to the Capital much faster than if they had to go by horse or wagon. Trice asked who was flying with her three trunks, crossing her arms and raising her dark eyebrows at him. She didn't sound happy about it either.

“I guess we can put them on your shoulders, but it's going to get a little hard for you to see when we add everyone else's...” She crossed her arms as if challenging him to tell her that they couldn't take their things. Like things were important? He almost laughed at her, but handed over the lifts instead, deciding to forgo the beating that would probably incur and helped her to fix the hand size copper plates with straps to the bottom of each trunk.

“So, here's the nifty part. Use the plate on the back of your hand to activate the ones on the trunk. Do that first!” He stopped the Count from getting the order wrong, since that would involve a dark gray leather clad giant slamming around at speed. With a shield on that meant that everyone else was in greater danger than him, but still, not a fun way to start a pleasure trip. “Then just take a position about five to ten feet away from it and activate normally... like this.”

He started with a simple tap of his left hand on the stylized bird, a whitish green on copper. He thought it was pretty, but apparently some of the high level merchant ladies wanted them in crystal instead, with finely engraved birds scratched in by artists. All he had to do was authorize it being done at a manufacturing plant, so it wasn't a hassle for him at least.

Lifting up to about twenty feet so that everyone could see what was happening clearly. His single trunk, an old one of Rolph's that he'd lent for the trip, instead of the burlap sack Tor normally used for traveling, tracked with him perfectly.

“Just don't fly too close to each other, or the trunks will end up colliding!”

Everyone took him seriously and spread out a good ways. Trice smirked at him for some reason but didn't say anything to him directly. At least he didn't have to try and carry her trunks himself. That would have been hilarious, right up until he either dropped them or they caused him to crash to his death. He wasn't sure which one of those options would have been worse for him personally and decided to be glad he'd thought of a fix for the problem first.

the Capital was about two thousand miles to the south of the school and a bit east which, as long as they all wore shields the whole time to protect from the wind, they could travel inside ten hours. Less really, but everyone wanted to stop to eat, and use the facilities in some of the nicer cities they saw from the air several times. All the new people made Tor feel uneasy, so he didn't say a lot and tried not to gawk like a bumpkin overly each time they landed. People stared at them openly of course, because flying was still new and most places hadn't even seen it yet. Some people even pointed and waved, which made him self-conscious, but he waved back when he noticed it. They all did.

The last leg took longer, because they had to follow a river as a landmark, and it didn't travel in a straight line. There was a stone paved road next to it most of the way, which was the only sign that it was the right place, since a big river in one area probably looked a lot like any other. It did glint a bright and pretty blue from the air at least, the light twinkling and shiny from above. It was nice and cool up where they were, but on the ground it was hot and got worse each time they landed. It made Tor glad that Rolph's parents had one of the cooling plates already.

He had a few extra, more than a few, of everything, tucked away in his trunk, just in case they were expected to bring gifts. No one had said anything, but that was normal in Two Bends and the surrounding area. If you were going to call on someone you brought a little something, a bit of bread or cider was traditional, but extra meat or even some flowers could work. He just hoped that his little homemade things wouldn't be considered too tacky by these wealthy and powerful people. Maybe they'd just think it was quaint and be happy that he'd tried to be polite and hadn't wiped his mouth on the curtains or mated with the livestock?

He could only hope. Everyone assured him that he'd be a hit, as long as he didn't forget to talk to people like he sometimes did when an idea struck him. He promised that he'd try to remember, which made everyone smirk at him except Count Thomson, who smiled warmly and nodded encouragingly.

Trice waved to him and pointed ahead, where a city at least ten times larger than anything he'd seen before shone like a jewel, a thick white wall around the outside and a riot of color inside, offset by the walls of most of the buildings, identical to the outside of the city, a glowing bright white in the sun.

About ten miles outside the place a group of men met them, flying with what were probably military grade lances in their left hands. Copper plates with pale green birds visible on their right hands held in place by very stylish looking dark brown leather strips. It was a good look. His was held in place with hemp twine, which made him feel a bit self-conscious for a moment. Everyone else had something nicer than that. Count Thomson had a heavy silver chain, Sara a bright blue ribbon and Trice a light tan leather thong. OK, Rolph had twine too, but on him it looked manly and like a statement about how he didn't care about fashion. On Tor it probably just seemed poor. Which was the truth, but he didn't want strangers to think that. It probably looked bad enough wearing his old brown exercise outfit.

At least Rolph had done the same thing, probably so he wouldn't feel out of place. The guy had nicer clothing too, so that almost had to be it. It was really kind of him to have thought of it.

The man in front stared at them as they approached, not saying anything, his face blank and calm, if a little stern. Everyone, the guards and his friends, slowed and then stopped, just hanging at the same level in the air, so Tor did too. By their red and white uniforms and funny looking round hats, these were city guards of some kind rather than an actual military force, so at least they weren't all going to be killed out of hand. Tor hoped that was the case at any rate. One of the men in the back floated forward and whistled before the one in front could greet them.

“Damn.” He pointed at the floating luggage trunks with the weapon in his left hand, sounding impressed. “How are you all doing that? That is so...” The man in front turned and scowled at the man, clearly junior to the others. He mumbled an embarrassed apology and floated back into position, causing a few of the men to have to fight smiles from their faces.

The front guard made a curious gesture in the air; a wave of the left hand that Tor realized must be a weapons salute with the off hand. They needed their right to fly. He supposed he could switch the field over in case they needed to fight, he just hadn't thought of it when doing the original design. After all, Torrence hadn't been planning to fight from the air himself so just hadn't considered it.

The Count and Trice nodded back, as did Rolph. Sara made a bob in the air, a curtsy he realized after a second. It looked cute, but then she was cute, so anything she did tended to look adorable. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, so he decided to go with what he would have done had he seen these kinds of men in his home village.

Then he immediately thought better of it.

Screaming “run away” and trying to fly away as fast as possible to hide in the forest might not be taken too well, especially since there was no forest in sight. And really, everyone was supposed to be here, even him, as awkward as it felt at the moment. He nodded his head and murmured. “Greetings sirs.”

No one shot him or even glared, so it must not have been too poorly done. The lead guardsman gave him a courteous nod even making brief eye contact. He hadn't with the others at all though.

“Sirs and ladies, please identify yourselves...” The lead man didn't look at anyone directly then, eyes going to the right, possibly so that it wouldn't seem rude, him looking at the wrong person first or something. There were rules to that kind of thing Tor guessed. At home he would have just looked at the ground himself if presented with obvious royals like the Count and Trice, but doing that here would probably be a poor idea. You tended to fly where you looked.

The Count did all the introductions for them. Appropriate being the highest ranked person in the group.

“I'm Count Toverland Morehouse Thomson. To my right is the Ducherina Patricia Alyson Morgan. Behind her is Sara Debri, daughter of the Debri merchant house. The red haired fellow is Alphonse, but we all call him Rolph at school and when traveling... you understand? The last man... is Tor.”

The men all bowed in the air, low and humble looking, which they had to have practiced, because it required bringing the right hand up just slightly, almost too small an amount to see, at the same time they folded their bodies to give the right impression without sending them flipping head over heels. One of the men almost lost it, or so it looked to Tor. He probably couldn't have managed the move himself either, so he couldn't fault the guy. The lead man spoke again.

“Pri...” He started but the Count and Rolph both shook their heads “no” for some reason, flustering the man for a moment. “Worthies, please be welcome to the Capital city. As the advent of flying is new here, we ask that... all persons please enter the city through the main gate, where transportation may be arranged for you. I trust that will be sufficient?”

The man looked nervous, sweating a little even if it wasn't all that hot up here. Maybe the Count being there shocked him, or... Well, it could be the girls? They were good looking and maybe they didn't have a lot of ladies flying around yet? At school it was slightly skewed towards men flying so far, but about forty percent of the regular flyers were royal girls or female combat giants, which was often the same thing. Or... the trunks? It was new. Maybe they suspected they were for weapons or something? Thinking about it he decided that he'd make them land too. Any tall man could claim to be a Count, but who had flying luggage? Only them.