Light Bringer (The Young Ancients: Second Cycle Book 2) (9 page)

"Oh... Yes. Sorry. Prince
Dareg, of Harmony? King Richard got in touch with me to set this up. One of my jobs
is making sure that people get help in emergencies." Or close enough.

The man looked at him, then
bowed. It was awkward, holding a plate of food, but he went fairly deep. After
clearing the latest plate of food, he did it back.

"I see. Well, please forgive
me if I was rude at any point? I should have known, but I really just didn't
think about it. Busy, you know?"

That one got a nod, since
flooding seemed a bit distracting to him, personally.

"Good point, and no, you
were all
fine
, the whole time. Let me know where we need to be, and I'll
ferry everyone to the other work site? Maybe that will speed things up, and I
can get to dinner on time? I'm going to need more sleep soon. You can wake me
up when you're done, right?" He was trying to joke, but the Captain
actually just assigned a woman that had a watch to do exactly that.

After they ate, they got right
back to work. All of them.

Thankfully his part in things was
both rather hemmed in at the moment, needing to clean up and watch his ship for
the time being. That meant about ten minutes of work, cleaning plates by
tossing them into the working materials for the ship, and brushing a lot of
crumbs. Tired soldiers were a bit messy, it seemed. So was he, but that wasn't
an excuse not to make certain things were tidy, after the fact.

Then he sat for a while, resting,
and getting in touch with everyone. It was daytime now, so he called up the
people on the Moon first. After all, he had no clue what their schedules were,
but had been woken up in the middle of the night himself. Sure, he had his
stepmother's wonderful waking device, on him even, but being a little low
energy he hadn't wanted to risk pushing himself yet.

They were all still awake
however, and excited to be going off to visit later. None of them were even
upset when he suggested they had to get themselves to the Noram King's Palace
before nine that night. Tenet just listened to him, and nodded.

"Do you need help? There? We
can get a crew together. That doesn't sound too different than an air breach,
so I bet we have some tricks that will work for it."

Tess and Taman hadn't mentioned
that sort of thing, but they were women. That made a difference as to what kind
of help they might think to offer, Dare thought. It was possible that they'd
just figured Dareg would handle it however. They weren't bad people after all,
from what little he'd seen. Sure, Taman had tried to make him have sex, but
that was just so she could get pregnant. It sounded horribly creepy, and
was
,
but she'd let Timon fix that for her, or so it seemed. The honest truth was
that he hadn't been able to check so far. She hadn't jumped him at luncheon,
but she wouldn't have, with the other right there, watching them like they
were.

"We should be good here, but
if that changes, or is different than I think, I'd like to keep that option
open? My bet is that I'll even be able to be there tonight, if I can get a bit
more sleep first." His eyes were heavy still, but he didn't yawn for once.

His uncle, the giant, and good
looking Tenet Baker, who was also a wizard, just nodded.

"I'll put up a notice, just
in case. I hope you can make it, but if not I'll make certain to offer your
excuses. Everyone will understand, I'm sure. I do, and King Richard sent you
there, so that's a good sign, don't you think?"

He nodded, trying not to seem
like the sleepy little kid he felt like.

"That does sound pretty
reasonable when put that way. I'll try to see you there. When you come in make
sure to take ten or fifteen minutes to move the last few thousand feet when you
land at the palace. Do that on the north side of the building. I don't know if
you've ever done that. It isn't hard. Think of it like docking on a ship?"
He didn't know if Tenet had done that or was even a pilot, but he smiled.

"Ah. I can do that then.
This is kind of exciting. I haven't been back since I left. Eleven years ago
now. I was just a boy then. Tess and I had to stay back here, in case you
killed the rest of us for abandoning you all." There was a serious edge to
his words, even though no one had even been thinking that when the others had
come back to Earth.

Not that he knew about anyway.

"Really? You should get with
Sam Builder and set up a room then. That, or get Taman to make a house for you.
The pods aren't bad, but I think you'll need it to be a bit higher, if you want
to stand up. Though..." He stopped and thought about that for a moment, as
the dark eyed man watched him, smiling happily the whole time. Finally he shook
his head. "I was just thinking... I can hide the door on it, and turn the
floor into a mattress for sleeping. It isn't meant to change like that, but it
can
do it if you focus enough. So if we had the basic magic and focused enough, we
should be able to make it larger, right?"

That got a sudden head tilt, and
then a nod.

"You know, I bet we can. If
you can do that, you can probably build, I bet. It helps to have something to
work from, but that, hiding a door on a magic like a small Tam-house... It
should mean you have the basic ability, and probably enough focus to actually
just start out doing things without the boring building up portion of things.
It took me years to get to that level, so you're lucky. Have you thought about
taking lessons for it?"

He pursed his lips, then was just
honest about the whole thing.

"Not really. Timon said he'd
teach me to step outside of time, and that it would be really hard, but I don't
know what that will actually require of me, training wise."

That news got a pause, and the
fellow looked away for nearly a minute. When he looked back there was no more
smile on his lips.

"That's going to be hard I
bet. No one else that has tried it has worked it out yet. It's direct effect,
and a complicated thing to set up, at the same time. The wonder builders, Tor,
Tim and Tam, they can all do it, but no one else has gotten close yet. Not even
Terry, and he's
good
. So if Tim thinks he can train you for that, I have
to bet it won't be fun. I'll suggest the building part of it, too. You might as
well gain a useful skill at the same time, if he isn't already planning that
part of things. He
will
be, of course. He's
Timon
." That bit
held a certainty that was nearly strange. As if there was no way for Timon
Baker to ever fail, at
anything
.

It seemed like dumping an awful
lot on his shoulders though, thinking that.

The man kept speaking after a
bit, nodding to himself.

"I'll handle that part of
things. See you later, I hope?"

"I'll do my best."
Dareg wasn't going to promise more than that, since this man would probably
remember if he did. None of the wizards were stupid as far as he could tell.

As soon as the handheld went dark
after that, he touched the side of the ship and made a small room that only had
a bed in it. Then he put his name on the door, in case anyone needed him,
adding that he was the pilot, under that. It was nice and dark inside, and he
drifted off hard.

When he woke, it was to the door
being opened, and a soft female voice calling out.

"Sir? Captain Jones wanted
me to tell you that we're finished? It's five in the evening."

He sat up, and stretched.

"Got it. Thanks. I'll be
ready to go in about ten minutes.
Or
as soon as everyone is loaded up. I
need the restroom first or it wouldn't take me that long." First they had
to shift the chairs around, since things were still set up for food. A mess
too, since they'd worked out how to get luncheon for themselves. That meant
there were plates to be tossed and things to be cleaned up.

He sighed, and waved at people.

"Can we get the plates
stuffed into that hole?" He waved at it, and the five or six people that
were inside started working, while he dashed to the back, where the room he
needed was. That didn't take long, even with his washing up first, but they had
that part done, and things ready for him to get the soft travel chairs back
out. He just copied the set up from earlier, fit the wall that had been left
open, and decided to turn it off later, to get rid of the ten thousand bugs
that had flown in while he'd slept.

As soon as everyone settled in,
half exhausted or more from being up for most of the day, Dare took them up,
went out over the ocean and dumped all the water that they'd picked up earlier.
Not the solid mass, because that would make a mess, but the water was gone,
which was a start. Then he turned the heavier mass into air and vented it as
they flew back to Wildlands Station. This time there was no hurrying in
particular, as the people kind of dragged themselves off the craft.

Going last, Captain Jones stopped
and bowed.

"Prince Dareg. Thank you for
aiding us in this effort. We may never get any praise for the work, but people
being able to keep their homes is enough for me."

He thought for half a second, and
then nodded.

"Great point. You did some
good work. I'm
more
than happy to grab some of that glory by having gotten
you all there. Don't imagine I don't know who
did
it though." It
was a thing he meant, but the man just bowed again, grinning a little.

"Good. You can send a note
to my boss then? I'm sure he'll love to hear how wonderful we all are."

That got a snort from both of
them, and the man walked off. Someone else carried his gear for him, Dare
noticed. That was part of the privilege of command, no doubt. You got other
people to carry the bags and all that. It was probably nice, after a fashion.

Two hundred miles wasn't a lot
for a space craft, but he went slow, and took about ten minutes to get back to
the port. Taking the ship down, he did his own trudging, heading back to his
pod house alone. There weren't even a fraction of the people out and about that
there had been during King's Week, a month prior. In fact, he only saw about
ten or so, and most of them were outside the tan buildings about a quarter
miles away from his place.

No one waved or called out to
him. Not that anyone would. Even if they knew who he was, they probably
wouldn't have bothered. That meant a shower was available, and another brushing
of his teeth and hair, leaving him clean and dressed in fresh magical clothing.

Oddly enough, he felt all right,
after that. Awake, or as much as he had in the last weeks, and ready for the
day. That probably meant he was going to be asleep by the time the meal was
served, but it was nice not to be half asleep finally. To that end he tried to
think about which of the many things he'd been ignoring that he needed to get
too. There were actually two of them that were pressing at the moment.

His father, and Karina, his
fiancé. At least he thought they were both still going with those titles. The
easier of the two for him to deal with was actually the Ancient of Mars, for
some reason he wasn't totally aware of. Probably because he, more than anyone
else knew how hard the whole thing must have been on Tor. That the man still
lived was nothing short of a miracle. To that end he got out his handheld and
tapped it to life, calling his father.

After all, leaving the easy part
for the last bit just
felt
right.

To his surprise Tor not only answered
himself, but seemed to be walking as he did it. Dareg blinked and then nodded.

"All right, that's a
bit
better than the bed ridden skeleton I was expecting. I take it that you used
some kind of magic to get yourself up and around, too?"

Tor smiled at him, glancing at
his hand. The background was very smooth and filled with grass where he was for
some reason.

"Dareg! Yes, I used a
meditation technique that I picked up a few years ago. It still took me nearly
a week. You look good. I figured it would be most of a year for you to recover.
I also thought you weren't talking to me, for some reason?" He seemed
worried to be mentioning it, but wasn't dodging the idea.

"Um, no? Why would I do
that? I was just sleeping for a month. That and eating all I could force myself
to, in order to build up enough so I could use a healing amulet. Which I did...
Yesterday now. There was a problem down south, in County Riven? A flood. I had
to take some soldiers there, from Wildlands Station. They got the work done,
and
I
slept through most of it. I was just calling to get caught up.
What's going on?"

Tor didn't make him explain that
he didn't know everything, just sharing outright. As if Dare had a
right
to know that kind of thing.

"Ali and I are in Vagus. We
set up just outside the port here, near the mage school. Alyssa has been
teaching classes, and I've been trying to duplicate the all-time field into an
amulet. So far... That hasn't worked at all. I'm a little panicked over it, to
be truthful."

That got him to nod, since it was
a big deal if
Tor
couldn't make something happen with magic.

"Timon thinks I can learn
how to do it myself. Tenet suggested that I learn to build at the same time,
since it's going to be almost impossible to learn anyway. No one else has yet?
That doesn't speak well to my chances, does it?"

There was silence on from the
device, then a very brief, soft chuckle.

"You know, it doesn't work
that way. You were able to do it once, and that means you can again. I should
have thought of that myself. If I take the others into it for a while they'll
be able to understand it. I should get on that. Maybe next week?"

Dare nodded then.

"Or
maybe
in a few
hours? Get over here for dinner, and several wizards will be here. Tess, Tenet
and Taman are coming to give the King and Queen a gift. I'll check with Richard
to make sure you're allowed. If not, you can cram into my pod house to wait. We
can't afford to be lazy. Not now." Not after him taking a month off, being
nearly dead. "You also need to walk me through that thing you did. The
meditation one? It took me way longer to recover than you did."