Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2) (52 page)

"Sorry, are you...
Right?" The Standard was broken and slow, but the concern sounded real
enough. Polite and almost worried, like a person might be for anyone acting a
little bit off.

So he nodded.

"Um, yes... This
woman?" He gestured to the lady, who bowed, clearly trying to do it right
and not knowing how.

"I'm Merriland. May I aid
you?" She spoke far more clearly than the green fellow, and while she had
what seemed to be a Forten accent, it was easy to understand her.

Dareg shook his head.

"No. It's just, you look
like my mother.
Exactly
. She died, several years ago. Her name was
Merilee." Interestingly, she looked panicked to hear that, and Yarl went
wide eyed, but green Kevin didn't seem to get what he was saying.

Not understanding standard that
well, at a guess. It was clear that these people spoke a similar, but different
language at home. Dareg shook his head, not knowing if anyone there would get
that.

"It's nothing. Let's go over
the devices?" He did that carefully, really showing them how to use both
things. It didn't take long, and they all got how to use the boxes after
setting it up and walking around a little. The lights were harder. He made some
light statues for them, to stall for time, and work things out. One of them was
his mother, who was clearly the same person, only human, not Forten.

The President looked hard, and
ready to fight, but when he turned to do that, and order her taken, Dare waved
at him.

"This woman here, Merriland,
is
real
. I can feel that. Magic? She
isn't
a threat. Not that
way. The only harm there is to
my
mind. There's no need to harm her, or
react harshly. She's who she seems to be." Dareg didn't mention what that
meant for him. That could be dealt with later.

The woman moved over to them
however, understanding that she was in real danger, the accusation being that
she must be one of the dark beings. The others started watching him, and he
forced a smile.

Then he gestured toward the ship.

"Neesa, can you take some of
these people for a trip? Have you gotten to do that before? It's very
interesting."

The President was doing
something, going for a weapon it seemed, which got most of the others to do the
same, even as Dare
tried
to get them all out of there. It wasn't
working.

Finally he just bowed to the man,
which worked, being so strange for these people. They all stopped, and looked
at him.

Dareg forced his voice to be as
calm as he could manage, and nearly whispered.

"This woman seems to be the
original
.
You and she, and these others need to go now. There is one of the Adversaries
here. Run away. I'll... Probably die, but... You
need
to get away."
He hissed the words, and looked over his shoulder at Neesa, who was starting to
get it. There was a stillness and no bobbing at any rate.

She spoke, her voice...
Remarkably normal for her.

"Yes, we should do that.
Come, please. The Forten have been kept away from such things a bit, but that
is not right. We should share such gifts openly."

One of the men, who was of the
silver eyed kind, moved toward them, and actually pushed the President,
physically.

"Go! I'll stay here, and
help get these superior lights and case things to where they need to go. Who
else do we need, Dareg?" His Standard was about as good as the President's,
though with a similar accent. That the man was willing to stay and fight was
brave of him, especially since he'd just heard Dare say he was probably going
to die. From what he'd heard, that was the
only
thing that had ever
happened for the Forten in regards to the enemy. Still, the man smiled gently,
and tried to move the others away, so that they could live. "You can get
us a trip later though, right? I'd hate to miss out on that."

That
was
an idea. He could
take green Kevin away with him in a ship, but people here had heard what he'd
said... Which didn't mean they all could understand it. The thing there
ultimately was that he didn't have a ship, and couldn't get the leaders away
without it. Neesa however, could.

"Oh, I don't know..."
He waved at the Adversary and tried to act like it was just normal to pick him.
"Would you help? It won't be hard, but it would be good to have an extra
set of hands." That had to be translated for the man, who seemed agreeable
enough with the idea.

For once in his life the evil
person
wasn't
six steps ahead of him. There was a hint of time
distortion, but it was very low level, and didn't seem to be gearing up for a
fight yet. Dare could hardly feel it in fact, and wasn't certain it was there.
That meant the man
should
be able to be affected by magic. Not that he
had weapons on him that way. No one had ever even suggested that he get that
kind of thing. Maybe a real knife, for eating or light work, but nothing like a
cutter or force lance.

If he knew who the being was, and
could kill them, instantly, before they slipped sideways in time, or whatever
they called it, that might, possibly, work. After they slid away into that time
thing, they'd just dodge anything directed toward them, with near perfect
accuracy. How that worked he didn't know, but it seemed pretty certain that it
would.

The silver haired guy, who was
vastly muscled, and powerful, looked at him, then smiled.

"We need to get into the
inner area, or it will get hard to breathe in here soon, once they strip the
air. Shall we?" The case followed them, and green Kevin moved in along
side of him, walking quickly. There was a door that slid open, and as soon as
the ship was loaded, and they were all in a small room on the other side of a
heavy metal door, a vast noise could be heard. It wavered, pulsing in a way
that shook the world around them.

The silver fellow gestured toward
a table, so that he could set the floating box on it. It was old looking, and
made of what seemed like solid metal, but the style was the same one that
people had in their homes. Four legs, with a flat surface above them.

As soon as it was down, the
muscular silver haired man turned to him, still looking happy. There wasn't
even an overt sense of fatalism in it. That was interesting, since the man was
well aware they were about to die. He was just ready for it. It was, from what
came off of him, his part in the greater world. To die, as was his duty, in
order so that others might live

The sense was that his only real
regret in the moment was that Dareg was going to die with him.

"What is the plan?"

Dareg moved to the box, still
stalling for time, and tried not to seem as awkward as he felt. He spoke in
rapid Noram Standard, hoping the other man would miss it.

"Um... I'll distract him,
and you kill him from behind? We have to act first, and do it right, because if
he moves sideways in time, he'll kill us both. We might die anyway. I wish we
could get him off into space for this." He could only
hope
that the
other man didn't realize what was being said. That, and that this silver man
was willing to do what Dareg said, even if it was possibly wrong and evil. That
part had to be a real thing for the other man. He couldn't know that green
Kevin was truly their enemy. It
had
to have been possible that Dare was
just wrong, after all.

Since they weren't suddenly
fighting for their lives, it seemed that the first part was happening well
enough.

So, taking a light out, Dareg put
the thing on the floor.

"Say, um, sir? Would you
come here?" He waved at the green one, plastering what he hoped was a
polite expression on his face.

The man needed a prompting from
his friend, but finally walked over, smiling. He kept doing that while Dareg
formed a ball of light, leaving it incredibly dim. Floating in the air like a
solid yellow ball, nearly in front of the man's brilliant emerald eyes. Pretending
to be interested in the goings on the other man slipped behind the fellow,
removing something small from his belt, or pocket. Just before the man seemed
ready to move in, Dare smiled, and looked at the greener of the two.

"Okay, ready?" He saw
the man in the back nod, but so did green Straughan. When that happened, he
turned the light on very brightly, but so it would
only
hit the
Adversary in the face. He gasped, blind, and then screamed, moving away. As
that happened, his new Forten friend pointed a small silver metallic device,
and did
something
. There was a click, and then after a second, the man's
head exploded, dropping him to the floor.

Dimming the light, Dareg looked
at the dead man, who disintegrated, turning into a shadowy mass of black dust.
It was the smaller kind of event, thankfully. Like what had happened with Bill
and Kevin when they died.

They both just stood there while
it dissipated into nothing. Not even flowing away really, just fading.

The other man, who was dressed in
light gray, wiped his hands on his pants leg.

"
That
was different.
Here everyone told me that learning your Earth tongue was a waste of time.
They'll think twice on that now. This is the first time we ever managed to stop
one of them. We need to see the recordings. Pictures of what we did? Then we
will be arrested for the death, but it was needed. Duty required it."

The man ran off, leaving Dare not
knowing what he was supposed to do with himself.

After all, if Merriland the
Forten was the real person, then that meant his mother, Merilee, had been a
copy. One of the dark beings.

If that was the case, and those
things all turned to black like that when they died, then he needed to
investigate. Because his mother
hadn't
done that. She'd just been there,
for days, dead and unmoving. Right next to him the whole time.

Then she'd been taken away and
buried at the local graveyard. Dareg had been to her unmarked grave, but hadn't
seen her be buried. No one had thought that important at the time, since he'd
been recovering himself.

It seemed that he needed to go
back where he came from, and look into some things.

The Forten actually had crime,
and criminals, including murderers. It hadn't been mentioned before, but it
seemed like it was important to them that Dareg stand trial for helping to kill
Kieran Tag. Who was a healer in good standing within their ranks. As far as
anyone had known. They were even going to arrest him for it, until President
Sta'Benson came to the investigators, their version of a city guard, and proved
that it wasn't a normal thing, using the moving pictures the room had picked up.

It made for a tense three hours,
but everything in the Forten world was watched, it seemed.

The pictures moved and the sound
was recorded, but for the first time they had direct data on one of the
Adversaries that was clear and solid. It also showed that something far less
than normal had been going on in that room, off the main port hangar on F-Two.
The big problem there was that the Forten Police, which was how they referred
to their guards, weren't all that certain that the black mist the body vanished
in wasn't just Noram style Earth magic, designed to trick them. More to the
point, they couldn't know that it wasn't a weapon, or common thing they just
didn't know about.

It was a great point, Dareg knew.
He really couldn't
prove
otherwise, but luckily the President was
allowed to override that part of their system. In part.

The man looked at him hard, his
brown face tired seeming.

"I can't stop this forever.
You may have to stand trial for this... It's... We don't have any mechanism for
this kind of thing. Right now I'm claiming it was needed, which people do seem
to understand, but... Kieran Tag had friends. Ones with enough power to make
trouble for us all. It may be best if you leave, and avoid coming back to our
space, the ones under Forten control, until we get to the bottom of this."

Dareg got that one, since being
hung as a murderer, or tortured to death for it didn't sound fun at all. He
mentioned it, still feeling a little bit like his world had ended.

"I can't get to the bottom
of all this if I'm dead. I'll leave. It... You know that it was real, right? No
one back home has magic that can do that kind of thing to a body. Not that I
know of, or have even heard hinted at." There were probably ways to get it
done, but he really didn't know them. He could
prove
that under Truth
verification, but Yarl let him know that even if that was the case, and the
devices worked, their laws wouldn't count it as real. Not without decades of
testing first. Which the President clearly felt interested in, but didn't
mention out loud.

Reading the man, it was clear
that he was basically bending the law by giving Dare a chance to run. Possibly
breaking it outright. If he waited, even another hour, he'd be imprisoned, and
put on trial.

That nearly got him to flee at
full speed, but doing that would have left the silver haired warrior man that
had helped him stuck, taking the blame for the whole thing. As it stood, it was
kind of obvious that Sta'Benson's plan was pretty much that one. Blaming the
warrior, who had simply done his duty to save them all. Dare was threatened
with being locked up for
helping
to murder an innocent man.

The warrior man, who was named
Lynd, was actually guilty, under their laws. The only way out of being punished
would be to prove, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that Tag had been an enemy
combatant. That
couldn't
be done, however, even if they showed that he
was one of the Adversaries. The dark being hadn't fought, or even struggled
much while dying. They'd simply assassinated him, not giving him any chance at
all.

Which meant that if Dare just
left, the man would be enslaved and forced to labor, for the rest of his
natural life.

"I understand. Yarl... Would
you do me a favor, and leave?" It probably seemed like a strange request, but
the leader of the Forten stared at him, the idea that Dareg was going to
fight
,
instead of just escape, running through his whole being.

Mainly because, when there had
been a real threat before, the boy had sent the rest of them away, in order to
protect them from harm. People that he didn't even know. To Yarl it simply made
sense that he wouldn't allow an innocent man to be locked up for what had happened.
The trick of course would be in preventing bloodshed. The thing there was one
he couldn't come up with a plan to allow to happen. If an escape started, the
police
would
fight, to prevent that from happening. They were all of the
silver caste, and couldn't really help doing that, if their duty required it.
No more than Lynd could have not tried to save them from the darkness.

In short, the entire thing was a
mess about to take place. One that Yarl had no way to control or stop. Worse,
if the Forten accidently killed Dare, that would, probably, start a war with
the very people they'd come to help.

Dareg didn't see a way out
either. Not without simply grabbing the Forten prisoner, and leaving with him,
jumping away. That wasn't possible with a jump shield however. Or, rather, it
could
be, if the shield wouldn't push the other man away when it activated. The thing
there was that it was designed to do that, because Tim hadn't foreseen a need
to jump with more than one person at a time. If you needed to do that, then using
a ship was simply natural. That he didn't have such a thing at the moment was
an oversight on his part, no doubt.

The trick then, would be in
rewriting the jump shield itself, in order to get them both free. That was
going to take longer than an hour however. At least if he made a new shield,
however
that
was done. He had a feeling that, much like the jump ships
themselves, some secret process was used to make the things. It wasn't like
doing up a batch of lights.

Unless it was simpler than that.
He could, perhaps, force the device to do something it wasn't meant to do, if
he was strong enough. Like making a door vanish on his pod house. The field
wasn't designed for that, but with enough focus he could get it to happen. The
trick was that with a little house he could stand there all day long if he had
too, in order to make it work. Here he was going to have to get to Lynd, and
then into vacuum, so they could flee. That simply wasn't going to work. The
other thing he might try would be jumping from inside the space, but in a
closed room, at least a small one, there was a chance that doing that might
well kill anyone that was too close.

The fact was that no one had
tested that part of things, as far as he knew.

It meant that he had to get the man
outside, or into the empty hangar bay, at the very least. Then force his
shield, which would be far more reluctant to help him out, to do something it
was specifically built to not allow. Then risk hurting thousands of people, by
jumping away from inside the atmosphere of the moon sized ship.

Well, he could also leave the man
to suffer at the hands of his own people for the crime of protecting them. That
was
a real option. Not one that he loved however. He would have left,
planned and come back later, but as soon as they moved Lynd, it might be
impossible to ever find him again. The fleets had so many ships, and so much
space on, and in some of them, that it would be harder to locate the man than
if he were being
hidden
on Earth.

His mind spun, trying to figure
out a better way to do things, but time was running out. For the moment a
rather stoic Lynd was sitting, shackled with very solid chains, in the room directly
next to the one he was in. There was no way that Dare could simply walk to that
room and order them to open up. On the good side, the guards weren't inside the
space any longer. On the bad, the door had to be opened by having one of the
guards in proximity to it, alive and conscious, demanding that it allow them
in.

He sighed, and then stood up.

"Come with me, please? I
need to see Lynd." It was a bold thing to announce, in this place that
spied on people constantly. The President of the Forten looked very troubled,
then stood up.

"What do you plan?"

Dareg shrugged, then shook his
head. That move didn't seem to carry any information to the other man however.
Why that was, he didn't know. It worked with almost everyone on Earth, and the
Forten were from there initially.

"Seeing what he wants to be
done. I got him into this. If he insists that I stay and face penalties as
well, then I have to do that. I'd be honor bound to." Which was probably
true enough. Hopefully Lynd would see running away from everything he'd ever
known to be superior to that. It
could
be that going into that room
would be the end of his life, as he knew it.

Yarl wasn't buying that one in
the slightest however. The Forten had a very strong hold on the idea of duty,
and law, but
honor
had been gotten rid of long before. That meant it
seemed like a trick when he stood on that, even if it were as real to Dare as
anything else in the messed up situation he found himself.

He felt drained, and still like
he was in shock. Oddly that had little enough to do with murder, and more to do
with Merriland, who, if he had it right, was the template that his mother had
been taken from. She looked youthful enough, but the feeling from her put her
age at around sixty. Older than his mother would have been by about twenty
years.

Thinking about that drove him to
distraction for a moment.

"I have to know what's
required of me. So, can you get me in to see him?" That didn't seem
possible, but the man nodded, feeling sad. After all, it was clear that this boy
from the original home world had done the right thing. They simply didn't have
a good way not to punish someone for it.

Which apparently wasn't a thing
that the child was going to allow to happen. The sense of all that practically
poured from the leader.

They walked into the hallway,
which was done in white and gray, since the room they were in was still not too
far away from the main port. About three hundred feet from the airlock that
would let them into the vacuum of the hangar itself. No one used that kind of
thing back home, but it was kind of clear what it had to be. The difficulty
there was that Dareg had no way to make the doors work.

He also didn't have time to worry
about that kind of thing. What was needed in the moment was getting at Lynd,
and making certain that his shield, when turned on, would wrap two people in
it. That was a thing that he couldn't manage rapidly. Not in the unfocused and
worried state he was in. So he fought to clear his mind, which caused his body
to become much slower. It was enough that Yarl looked at him even as he waved
at one of the two bulky, but still short, men in the hallway.

"Are you feeling well?"
There was concern in his voice, but Dare didn't answer. He couldn't, really.

The guards were waved over, and
they came, probably due more to the President being there than anything.

"Mr. Canton is requesting to
speak to Mr. Zise. Can that be arranged?"

The two guards,
police
,
who were both in gray outfits that reminded Dare of Austran jumpsuits, seemed
troubled, but one of them finally nodded, not wanting to anger the man in
charge. He didn't think it was a good idea however, since it could be an escape
attempt. Dareg picked that up very easily from the man. Then he realized that
Yarl hadn't spoken in Standard at all, even though he'd understood him. That was
due to reading him, he realized. He'd understood the intent behind it, not the
sounds.

Then he shut all of that down, and
let himself be placed in restraints, not struggling at all, and walked slowly
into the room with Lynd in it. They were thin shackles, with a hardy chain
between them, which secured tightly behind his back. Those would have to come
off, before they left. Not that he had anything on him that would allow for
that. In a combat rage he could rip them apart, even if doing so damaged him,
so, calmly, for the first time ever, he started to work that out. How to
trigger a combat rage on purpose.

It wasn't going to be hard.

All he had to do was think of the
situation with his mother. His kind, almost doting parent, who might have been
much different than she'd seemed. The betrayal of it all slid across him, even
as Lynd glanced up at him, and the President suggested they leave them alone.

The silver man stared at him, and
then lowered his eyes to the cuffs behind him.

"I'm sorry. This was the
price of saving people however. I'd heard that they were letting you go free...
I did what I could to clear you, but the record is fairly clear. That we worked
together?"

It was hard, since he was
actually both worked up on a physical level, and mentally calm. He needed to be
a lot more of both however, if this was going to work out, so redoubled his
efforts, trying to speak at the same time.

That meant he stood there for a
long while, shaking. Lynd seemed to think it was fear, but he wasn't capable of
that for the moment.

"Do you...
Want
to
leave?" The words were slow, and sounded almost like a drunk person were
saying them. That or a person that had been hit to hard on the head.