The Builder (The Young Ancients) (28 page)

He handed her a damp piece of copper and had her test it. Standing out in the heat like they were, the effects were instant. He took one himself and did the same thing. The sudden sense of comparative cool took him for a moment. Delicious.

The thought reminded him that he should probably eat before getting back to work, if he could find food. He mentioned this to Karina, hoping she'd be able to point the way to the kitchen, which she did, even going as far as to walk him to the door of the small light colored outbuilding. Then she kissed him on the cheek and blushing, ran away.

He touched his cheek. Heh, kissed by a Princess. Wait until he told the folks at home. Then he realized they either wouldn't believe him or would misunderstand how innocent it really was. As she scurried away, a quick walk rather than an undignified run or playful scamper, she looked back over her shoulder and smiled. Her red hair swaying as she walked. Tor kind of wished she'd stayed. Having someone that belonged there next to him would have lent a lot of weight to the idea that he wasn't just some beggar that had slipped past the guard or something.

Looking down he realized that his old brown school outfit might not work for him in this situation. They'd probably grab him and set him to scrubbing pots or something, it didn't look that different than what a lot of the people in the kitchen wore he'd bet. The only problem really being that he had other work he needed to be doing. Instead, as he stood in the door, an unfinished wood frame, no one noticed him for a long time, almost five minutes. Finally a large woman, tall, not heavy, with gray and silver hair cut short, spun on him.

“Help you sir?” She said her voice friendly, if hurried.

Tor asked if they had a spare crust of bread or some fruit lying around that he might have, the woman chuckled and had him sit at a low table apologizing for the heat. She bustled and grabbed half a small loaf and cut him a slice of light yellow cheese, which she laid on top of the brown crust, to this she added a stack of apple slices that had been dried. They had an odd, almost crisp texture that melted in his mouth when he took a bite of apple. One of his new dryers had been used on these then? The effect was interesting, if not identical to regular dried fruit.

The woman smiled at him as she scooted him out the door by waving at him, he had to carry the new heat exchangers under the bread, but managed it without dropping anything. Thinking for a second, Tor rolled his eyes. Seriously, he was a moron sometimes.

“Excuse, ma'am? Um, here, they don't have cords on them, but they might help with the heat.” Holding out half the pile of copper plates got the tall woman to stop and stare at him for a second, as if he was trying to give her a burden. Maybe she didn't like magic or...

“Oh! Are these some of those cooling devices the servers got last night? I've been trying to cage one all day, since I heard about them...” She took one from his grasp and hit the sigil, closing her eyes briefly as she did.

“Ah... OK then, I can see what all the talk was about.” She tried to hand it back, but instead was met with the other half of the pile.

“For you in here. I know that it's brutal, the heat in here. Let me know if you need more and I'll try to get some to you?”

The woman blinked for nearly ten seconds and then nodded, taking the things slowly, as if unsure.

“I...” She didn't finish the statement though.

Tor looked at his food hungrily and shrugged after a bit, it was getting awkward. He didn't expect thanks for it, but the woman didn't seem to know what he wanted, since that had basically already been taken care of, Tor smiled and made sure the food didn't fall.

“Um, thanks for this.” With that, he walked out quickly, the rest of the people stopping to stare for some reason.

Then Tor sat on the grass next to the guest house, in the shade, hopefully out of the way enough so that no one would notice him. As he did his mind turned back to the problems he had to work on for the day. Getting water to the drought stricken area and heavy lifting cargo devices. Reluctantly, he decided that he'd have to wait to build the full fields for either of them. After all he didn't even know if he could move water yet, or take salt out of it. He knew he could do the other one just being a larger version of something he already had, but it would take three or four days of work for the template, and he had an appointment with the King about this other thing first.

So, the afternoon would be spent on seeing if he could control the flow of water at all. Tor thought it would work, but... without testing it he didn't want to tell anyone in case he proved wrong. It turned out that the idea, once he got past the initial three failures of concept, was pretty simple. He had to define the movement on a curve to test it in the bathtub, turning it into a kind of fountain for a while, but it worked. It would also, he realized, work for any kind of water pumping, not just long transfers over land. Tor wanted to try pumping water hundreds of feet into the air, but didn't have a big enough body of water to test the idea in. The bathtub just wouldn't do at all.

When Rolph found him he saw the activity in the big ceramic tub and clapped his large hands several times.

“Going to make an ornamental fountain? That could go over well this time of year. Especially if you do it in the pond garden. Even a temporary water feature would be good. My mother loves things like that and she has some of her friends coming over later. Royal types and high society women. So, you know... catty and unpleasant? Anything we can do to distract them would be a boon, I think.”

Excitedly he made his friend take him there and then, over the next four hours, they designed and built an elaborate water feature that ran a steady and rushing stream of water through loops, spirals, plummets and raised it as high in the air as Tor could hold in mind while building the motivation field, which turned out to be about two hundred feet he found. The only reason he didn't make it larger was that they'd already had about half the pond's water hanging above the ground over the pond at any given time. He was afraid to take any more out, lest the fish end up dying of thirst. The field would probably only last a week or two, but that would be fine. As it failed the water would just not be taken up as well and finally just stay in the pond itself.

It worked well enough as a proof of concept for half of it.

Now all he had to do was build a salt water filter. He didn't know how he'd do that. Oh, the filter made sense to him, a simple field that put salt on one side, pure water on the other. But how was he supposed to find salt water to practice on? He asked Rolph, who blinked several times.

“Say, Tor... Have you ever actually seen an ocean?”

He hadn't, of course, this being as far from Two Bends as he'd ever been. That got Rolph to set up an outing to the coast for the next day with Trice and Sara. They'd fly, so the three hundred mile trip wouldn't be a problem. Instead of a day trip, they could take it in two legs, giving them an overnight stay. Rolph really seemed excited about it, since it meant that he could spend time alone with Sara. He winked at Tor when he talked about it.

The next morning, early-ish, but not too early, they set out, taking the mandatory carriage ride out of the city itself, so that they could take off and actually make decent time. Tor was really starting to dislike carriage rides. They were bumpy and slow and you couldn't feel the wind on your face.

They had to get the girls on the way, which took them all over town, since Trice lived on the opposite side of the city from Sara. It took a while, due to all the people in the streets early in the morning. It was still cool, for this place in summer at least. That, of course, made it the time to get things done. Everyone swore that the very mild and wet winters made the summers worthwhile and that they didn't even have snow to contend with most years, but Tor wasn't convinced overly. It was a pretty place, if crowded, but no snow? That didn't seem right. Like they were cheating somehow.

The dwelling that they picked up Trice at was large, but actually held some passing resemblance to what Tor thought of as a real house. It wasn't a miniature palace and didn't pretend to be. Debri house kind of did, but lacking the size looked a little funny. For that matter the palace actually looked a little funny to his uneducated eye. This place looked more like what he always dreamed of having when he was younger. A place to raise a family and keep them comfortable and safe. It was nice. Oh, it still probably cost more to build than he'd ever make, but compared to the official residence of the King, it seemed like a good place to be.

Trice saw him looking at the house and flushed brightly.

“It's... you know, our second house. No one else is really here, except the servants, most of the time, so...” She seemed nervous about something.

The other two smiled and looked away, so no help there. Tor shrugged and hoped that he hadn't offended her. Sure, her house may not be as nice as the palace, but what was? Some other palace in a different part of the world maybe? It really didn't seem like she had to worry about that. Not with her friends at least. Tentatively he clapped her on the shoulder. She'd done that a couple of times with him, so it probably wouldn't seem improperly friendly, he hoped. She leaned into him and put her arm around his shoulders in a half hug like the Queen kept doing.

Sara stared at her friend after about half a minute, eyebrows raised, which just got a lifted chin and a look away, off into the distance, from Trice. Whatever it meant, she apparently had decided that it was alright if Tor treated her like he would his own sisters. All to the good, they were friends, right?

He wondered if she'd a betrothed already arranged or not herself too. Was it all royals that had that or just the firstborn, or maybe just Rolph? No, wait, Karina did too... He'd have to ask later. Their world was such a mystery to him. On the good side, it went the other way too, he thought. Oh sure, they had money, connections and knew who was who and all that, but he could make bread and winter cakes with the best of them, split firewood with an ax and darn his own socks. Totally equal in the grand scheme of things. Really.

Tor sighed a little and had to resist shaking his head, because he couldn't match fine people like this in any way. For a few seconds he kind of wondered why they bothered keeping him around. Entertainment value, probably.

Dance Tor monkey, dance?

Well, they were more polite to him about it than that at least, if it was the real case. His dancing could probably be a source of amusement though, if he tried hard.

Rolph helped him get Trice's heavy trunk on the top of the large brown carriage. Metal bars on the top made it so they could tie it down for the trip using a thick rope the carriage carried for the purpose. They all had a trunk with them, even though it seemed like overkill for a one night trip, still, it wasn't a hardship for them with the floats, so why not?

They rode in silence for the most part, everyone still a bit sleepy or maybe saving up their stories for the camp fire later that night. Tor knew he didn't have any stories to tell that the others wouldn't know, not that they'd want to hear, but it gave him a kind of comfortable feeling. After all, your friends were the ones that knew you and what you'd done. Mainly at least.

Unless they were living a hidden life for years that they weren't allowed to tell you about... No huge thing. Who was he to demand answers from people like them? Yes, they were his friends, but also royalty and important people. Great that he knew them, but Tor didn't delude himself into thinking their tolerance of him meant he was their true equal.

It took less than two hours to get to the beach, where they were going to stay at the “little cabin”. For once that wasn't too much of a misstatement, at least not for Rolph and his family. It was a house, not a cabin, one with running water and flush toilets. No servants though, and only two bedrooms, so they'd have to share. That wasn't a real problem, since they shared at school anyway. They had only one bed in each room, but the beds were huge, even compared to the giant wonder he had back at the guest house. Everything was done in light, fresh colors and soft fabrics that could breathe, giving the whole thing a more open feeling than he'd expected from the outside. It was very nice, but not as opulent as the palace or the King's guest house. In all Tor had to wonder if it would be alright for him to stay here instead. The idea was relaxing at least. For one thing, way fewer people.

The first thing they did was go to the beach. Well, honestly the first thing everyone did was use the facilities and clean up, but then they went to the beach. Tor couldn't believe what was in front of him even as he stood looking. He'd seen it from the air, sure but that had been so far away, just an expanse of blue-green on the horizon, here he could walk right up and touch the water. It wasn't just salty but so salty that he could taste it in the air itself. Subtle but actually there.