Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) (34 page)

Oh. O
f course. Harry is the secret name of the Traveling God, the God of Roads.
Lord Andre wondered if perhaps he would have learned more about the ancient past if he'd been a priest instead of a scientist.

From just outside the door it was rather unspectacular.

"Ah, there's the opening. Hmm, three bubbles, one right on top of the next. There's one peeled." The God of War was just standing there, talking about bubbles? "And two. Get ready. Go."

An agonized scream echoed through the room and laughter. The screaming went on but the laughter shut off abruptly.
A few thumps and then cursing.

"Where'd he go?" Harry growled.

Lord Andre braced himself and looked in.

Dydit was shaking his hand
s and cussing under his breath. No sign of the male statue.

"Southwest. Far." The War God started cutting chain, apparently simply by wrapping a hand around it.

Lady Gisele was forcing nasty colored things down the woman's throat and the screams turned into whimpers. The old woman looked around. "Never. Help me move her. You men stay away, she's very dangerous just now. Get out of the doorway you fools, don't you think he's going to want his temple?"

Lord Andre backpedaled uncertainly, and followed them all the way out and beyond the pavement

"Now, you gentlemen back off, Never and I have a nasty bit of repair to do, and I doubt it will be good for your digestions."

The old man sniffed, but hobbled off. Funny how
a moment ago he hadn't seemed a bit stiff or lame.

Feminine cursing rose behind them. There was too much pain in it to be an improvement over screaming. But it subsided into panting, and sudden silence.

Lord Andre cast a quick look over his shoulder and saw that Lady Gisele and the injured woman were gone.
Was that the Goddess of Healing?

Oscar and Bran edged back toward the temple.

"You know, if you think he'll summon this to him, we could set up some traps, ambush . . . "

The temple disappeared, raising a bit of a breeze as air flowed in to fill the space. Oscar and Bran were gone with it.

"Those two get into the worst trouble." Harry shook his head. "I hope they remember to call if they're in too deep this time."

The gods closed up on Never and Dydit
, reaching for them. Harry caught Lord Andre's eye. "That strange building over there? It belongs to the God of Art. Try drawing or painting right by the doors, to open them." Then they were all gone.

Lord Andre looked around in dismay.

"They do tend to come and go rather abruptly." Rustle's eyes unfocused a bit. "Ask is in labor? That's a bit early!" She loped away, toward the fort.

Lefty was off to the side with Gre, who for once resembled his name.

"Do you know," Lord Andre addressed the bright dry air. "I quite enjoyed the academic life, writing papers on discoveries someone else sweated to make. I hope to hell that somewhere there's some dry, boring old fool who can take my hysterical babbling and write a nice dry paper about them. The very idea is so normal it settles my over-fevered brain." He turned and headed for the camp. Drawing paper. Most likely Oscar and Bran had some for their mapping work, and charcoal and pencils and pens . . . colors . . . He wondered if any of the soldiers had any artistic talent.

13
74 Summer Solstice

Karista

Colonel Lord Byson Treham finished going over all the material. Shut the last file with a sigh.

"Throwing me to the wolves, Uncle King?"

"Yep," the old man nodded with satisfaction. "I need someone I can trust out there, and you are it. We've got
one long term, successful community, a new one with a proper land grant, plus this Lucky Strike and five more smaller boom towns that have sprung up like mushrooms out there. The Auralians are out there, somewhere, and they need to be found and shoved back out. This is on top of the ordinary banditry that's going on. Now, I know you don't like to leave Eltia and the kids, but it will be awhile before it's safe for them out there."

"I know, sir, and I know I've been lucky to have been separated so infrequ
ently so far. We'll be fine." Byson's eyes drifted to the map. "You've split the New Lands into the three Territories, so far."

"Yes. You'll be responsible for the town of Lucky Strike and everything south of there. Jin Genero will handle everything north of there."

"And this Rip Crossing is too distant from everything to draw outside trouble."

"So far."

Two days later Territorial Marshal Treham was in the saddle at the head of three hundreds of cavalry. Once he had surveyed the situation, he would requisition more troops of whatever type he needed. City Guards, trained police for the boom towns, would probably be high on his list.

Twenty-five days got them to Fort Stag.

"Damn good thing Rufi warned me!" Bail was showing his age, gray haired, muscles gone wiry. "I laid in more feed and food, and shipped a bunch over the mountains."

"You're wasted up here, Bail. I can't believe they let you stay once the road was finished." Byson grinned at his old commander. "And don't tell me about all the damage you have to fix every spring. I've done enough of it myself."

"Well, you'll find the road in good shape." Bail smirked. "Wait till you see the new bridge over the Feather."

Byson snorted. "I've heard. I've also heard that you can't take credit for building it yourself."

Bail chuckled. "No, but it is startling. I assumed from Rufi's letter that you'd be heading south for Gemstone, so I sent the supply wagons that way. If you've got other plans, there's a couple of witches along, we can get a message sent."

Byson shook his head. "I really don't want to have anything to do with Ash. I think I'll just leave it a young man's fantasy."

"Probably wise. Although the witches you tangled with are all older now, less alluring with multiple children."

"Less alluring? Ha! I see Never occasionally, and less alluring just isn't true. I doubt Mostly and Likely are any less spectacular as mature women than they were as young ones."

"Three of them, goodness I hadn't realized."

"Only two," Byson said defensively. "I never did catch Never. I think she fell in love with a goat."

Bail snorted. "However, getting back to business, Rufi said you might be dragging me out there to build you some forts?"

"Yep. I need to see the ground first, but I think I'll be splitting the hundreds. The only question is, how far south do I want to draw the line. Then I'll want a presence in all these boom towns. Permanent offices for some City Guards with enough stabling and barracks for patrols when they come through."

Bail nodded. "I see. The main challenge will be the lack of wood. Give me as much lead time as you can. I can have lumber brought up through Farofo or from here. Stone for all the walls, of course."

***

In the lead supply wagon, Dydit made it to Gemstone barely a day ahead of the Western Troops.

The valley took his breath away. No matter how many times people had said 'circular valley' he hadn't pictured an impact crater ten miles across. It even had a classic upraised center where the town proper had been built, to save as much of the floor of the valley for
crops as possible.  The road followed the course of a brisk stream through the only large breach in the crater wall, and Jin met them there.

"Dydit! I was wondering if I'd recognize anyone."

"Jin, good to see you again . . . where did you get that horse!"

The man was riding a tall palomino, both muscular and elegant. Maybe a Sun Gold foal? He was a lot like Sun Gold, even in color, except for the creamy mane and tail.

"Beat up the God of Peace, kept the horse as spoils." Jin was absolutely straight faced.

Dydit studied the horse. "Unfortunately I can't laugh in your face when you're riding
that
."

"Gods dropped a bit in my estimation, the way that one treated Guy, here."

"Guy?"

"Well I don't know what his name used to be, and by the time I'd been saying 'hey guy' to him for a month, it had stuck."

"And no bit?"

"Nope, nor anything tight around the muzzle. He neck reins, and I swear he understands what I say."

"If he's anything like Sun Gold or Jet he probably does."

Jin nodded.
"Dydit, you're a wizard, right?"

"Right. Thank you for not adding 'goat' to the description, even though it is unfortunately accurate."

"There are a number of boys here who were fathered by the goat wizards. They need some guidance. Badly."

"Hmm, well without that nasty little operation that was so popular in Scoone in my day, they'll be like you. A lot of subconscious magic, but no serious power behind it."

Jin choked faintly.

"What? No one ever told you
you
were a wizard? You never wondered how you managed to be in the right place at the right time, said exactly the right thing, had just what you needed for the job you actually wound up doing?"

"Uhhh."

Dydit grinned. "Of course I'll talk to your kids. Now, where are you going to park three hundreds of cavalry for the night?"

He left the wagons and drovers setting up camp for the troops and rode Brighty into town with Jin. Another Sun Gold daughter. He was definitely going to have to stop by on the way home . . . Damn it, at this rate he wasn't going to have a single horse left in rideable condition next year. He chatted amiably through dinner. Jin's wife was quite a cook, and his three kids . . . the oldest was clearly a Goat Boy, the youngest not only looked like Jin but showed the subconscious reactions of a future wizard. The daughter was in between the boys in age, and he'd seen too many young women growing up to mistake what he was seeing. Jin's subconscious wizardry had apparently led him to marry a woman with a single wizard X. All three kids had serious magical potential.

After dinner, more boys started drifting in, and they all wound up outside, an unorganized and uncertain gaggle. He was shocked by the number of still-high boyish voices. He hadn't thought the wizards had been castrating their babies.

"Where are you from Dydit? Can you tell us about the Goat Wizards?" Jin started the ball rolling.

"Scoone. I was born in the town of High Top about eight hundred years ago. Both my parents were wizards—or at any rate my parents of record. Scooner high society—all wizards—had a nasty little social game. They called it birding, it was small scale teleportation—travel they call it these days. The wizard wives, once they'd produced a couple of sons for the inheritance, would try to magically steal semen from wizards more powerful than their husbands." That brought out a nervous titter. "And young male wizards would try to magically inseminate the wives of the more powerful wizards. The older wizards spent most of their time protecting their assets, and heaven help the wife of one who couldn't protect herself."

He let the snickering reactions quiet down. "So, since my mother had two sons and a daughter older than me, I don't actually know who my father was." He shrugged. "That's the way it was back then, and nobody thought anything of it. And then at ten, any of us who were showing magical promise would be apprenticed to a wizard of as high a rank as our parents could finagle. And we'd castrate ourselves."
I think I'll leave out the part about splitting it with our Masters for dinner.

When that reaction died down, he explained. "There is a last bit of brain growth in the late teens and early twenties. Without testosterone the brain develops the ability to gather power and use it. With the male hormones, it can just barely hold any power." There were a lot of nods through the crowd. Someone had explained this to them before.