The Builder (The Young Ancients) (35 page)

There was no water anywhere he could find, so he limped slowly to the door of the room and poked his head out.

In the hall two black and purple clad men, both huge and holding strips of metal in their hands that probably had massive destructive power built in to them. He could figure it out if he could see them in action, or even better, get to hold one.

Royal Guards.

Tor wondered if he was being held prisoner. He couldn't think of a reason why, other than the fact that he'd sassed the King to his face.... That might do it. The man hadn't seemed to take it personally though, so that probably wasn't it. Besides, if he was being held against his will, it was an awfully nice dungeon.

The man on his right turned and looked at him, shock in his eyes.

“Sir! You're awake? We've orders not to let anyone bother you. Do you need anything?”

Tor asked for some water and then if he could use the facilities. The men didn't hesitate to make both things happen. So probably not a prisoner. After all, prison guards didn't run errands for you, did they? Tor didn't know for certain, but it seemed like a definition of the term really. Then he asked if he could possibly see the King. He knew that the man was busy, kind of what his job meant as far as Tor could see, so settled back on the bed to wait, wondering if he'd be summoned within the next few days. Could he get someone to collect his trunk and the materials inside or... Maybe they could just bring him something else he could work with?

It turned out he'd been moved to the palace building itself, by order of the Queen, so that she could attend to his needs herself. He assured the men that he didn't need much, probably not even guards, at least until he started work on the next project. He explained it to one of them, who clearly didn't get most of what he said, but did understand that he should have food, water, help to the restroom and peace as soon as he started, and that it would probably take days of work. The man nodded and left then.

Less than an hour later three large brass falcons were brought in, liberated from the palace gardens.

“Will these serve sir? We can procure something else if you wish?” The Royal Guard, a man named Finely asked, his voice lacking almost all emotion.

“Those... will work very well actually, if the King OK's the project. Thanks!” They really were lovely; the nicest thing he'd ever gotten to put a field on by far. A little big, being nearly as tall as he was and probably weighing four times as much or more, but he didn't think a mighty “sky river” should be linked to something the size of his hand and no thicker than a piece of paper either. For one thing, these would be harder to steal. Of course it would take a moron to steal something like that with a river attached to it, but the world was filled with people that didn't always think.

Not ten minutes after that the King, his wife and four other people came in. Rolph, of course, who he'd expected a little earlier, an older man, who looked kind, had on cream and yellow robes and was missing most of his hair, and oddly Karina, the Princess, who was followed by a prettier girl that looked a lot more like the Queen, only in miniature. Since she was the only person in the room that didn't leave him feeling like a midget, he tentatively decided to like her.

“Hey! It's everybody!” Tor said enthusiastically. He sat up straighter, and then grinned at Richard. “Sorry, bowing is completely out right now, how's everyone doing? The kids I mean? No one else got too hurt did they?” He'd heard them crying, but knew that sometimes people died of their injuries later. He felt relief wash through him when the King smiled.

“Both are fine. It seems the tanner boy had fallen attempting his own rescue of the girl, the youngest child of a chandler. People are impressed.” Richard gave Tor a very significant look as if he was talking about him or something silly like that. Tor ignored it.

He nodded gently at the words and took their literal meaning instead. “I can see that. For an adult to try and save a child is natural, but for a kid that age to risk his life like that took a lot of guts. I'm glad they're both alright.”

Pointing to the stolen statues, he asked if he could have them for the drought relief effort. Then he had to explain to the King and Queen what he meant by that. The Queen started to forbid it, but he shrugged and explained that while mentally difficult, he'd actually get a lot more bed rest for his injuries that way than if he was sitting around restless, worrying about people starving the next winter.

The man in cream and yellow bowed to him and held it.

“Oh, Tor...” The Queen gestured to the man beside her. “This is the King's counselor Smythe of Westend; he heads the military for the kingdom, after Richard himself. He wanted to be here when you woke...” She trailed off as if she didn't really understand what the man wanted with Tor.

“Indeed young sir. I wanted to discuss some things with you... but I see that you already have plans. Very good. Would it be possible for me to visit with you at some length before you leave the Capital do you think?” The man didn't sound bossy or wheedling, he just asked, so Tor nodded.

Why not? If the man wanted him to do something he could pretty much just tell him to, right? Tor would have to do it, since the guy was the head of the military and all. If he wanted to act all polite about it, well, it did make him feel better than if the guy had come in making demands and barking orders. He just hoped he wasn't being drafted into the guard or the army. Most of those guys were a lot bigger than he was for one thing. Besides his battlefield cry of “run away!” probably wouldn't go over very well. He could lead any strategic withdrawals for them that they needed though. Kolb had trained him pretty well for that actually.

Karina hung back, dressed prettily in a light colored green dress that flowed to the ground and looked completely useless as real daily wear. It was more like a party frock or even wedding dress. At least not something you'd want to wear while outdoors. In her hair she had a simple green ribbon, darker than the dress and made of shiny material. It could have been more silk. She stepped forward and smiled at him, then spoke rapidly.

“That was very brave, going into that... hole like that, after children you didn't even know. Did you... Did you really go into a combat rage?” She asked with only slight hesitation, though everyone else winced. The smaller girl next to Karina sighed loudly and pushed her arm.

“You don't ask people about that.” She said, her voice sounding pleasant but slightly exasperated. A little like she was talking to a small child that needed to be corrected gently.

He looked at Karina, wondering if he'd misheard and smiled. Brilliantly he added a slightly mirthful, “what?”

Rolph shrugged. “Yeah Tor. I mean, you weren't all violent or anything, but you obviously had a shield around you even without wearing one, and pulled the girl out of the pit using direct effect. Controlled direct effect, which is... rare. I got caught in the disorientation aura, that's why I told everyone to run when I realized what you were doing. This was while you were being ripped out of the ground by a broken leg. It had to be something similar at the very least, didn't it?”

Everyone thought so except the King who smiled and waved this away. “Don't worry about it right now Tor, just do what you need to, and let us know if we can do anything to help. It will be seen to instantly.” The man smiled at him, and for some reason winked, then walked out, taking his advisor with him.

Rolph stayed, waiting for his mother and sister Karina, both of whom offered to “fluff his pillow” for him. The younger girl looked at them all and laughed quietly behind her hand. For some reason this got a laugh from Rolph too, who told them that it was inappropriate with him in the room, because he shouldn't ever have to listen to such talk. Karina blushed a deep scarlet and looked furious for a second her lips tightening, but Connie just laughed at her son.

“A very good point. Perhaps you should leave then? We wouldn't want to offend your delicate ears. Now that you gave us that wonderful idea, I'm sure-”

Rolph threw his hands over his ears, and spoke loudly to drown her out.

“I'm not listening... Ho de hum...”

“Well, you've been warned.”

Her tone was dry, regal and somehow still playful.

After a bit more talk like this that Tor didn't get, but could tell meant something, they all left, finally letting him get to work. At last. They were nice, but he couldn't work with everyone standing around talking like that. For one thing it would be rude. And really the pillows he had were already almost too fluffy. It was nice of them to offer, seeing to his comfort like that, without even considering that they were all royal and he was just... him.

The next six days were harder than he'd thought they'd be, because the pain kept screaming for attention as he worked at first. Still, Tor forgot he hurt at all by the end of the day, and had to be led to the restroom and fed after that. He didn't know who did it and couldn't spare attention to understand what they did to him, which was probably too embarrassing to consider anyway. Everything he had went into holding the three separate fields constantly nearly the whole time. That he'd gotten the whole thing down to only three fields instead of thousands... It would make a vast difference in the end, he thought. By day four he folded in on himself, the world becoming nothing more than the three sets of information he was generating. Then he locked it all in place taking another two days all told.

After that he had to sleep for a while. A long while, waking up only long enough to eat a little and drink as much water as he could. On the evening of the seventh day he was finally able to send the statues out, he scratched numbers on them so that each would go in the right direction. Number three needed to go up the King's River by a good way, as far as they could get it and still have the full width to work with, he told the men who came to cart them all away. Workmen that were getting a detail of Royal Guard to make sure no one bothered them, this was important after all.

The second had to go nearly a hundred and fifty miles north, halfway to the ocean since it was the field that defined where the line of water went and the first needed to be as close to the coast as possible without actually ending up being washed away. Then number one just had to be activated, a simple tap like one of the shields or clothes dryers used. It didn't have a real sigil, so he suggested they just needed to tap the number. Anywhere on it would work, but most people couldn't seem to get the idea for some reason.

If all went well, the King's River wouldn't overflow. He'd had to guess at the amount of water needed, too much would be worse than too little, but he hoped he'd at least gotten it close. Water could be taken from any point in the stream that would float above the ground, just by sticking something in the flow. A stick or a wooden board would work, if braced well enough.

Easy.

It took most of a day and all the luggage floats, retrieved from the others by Rolph, to get the statues in place, but by the ninth morning they had water flowing into the river, which doubled the height of the water line along the banks but didn't cause any flooding. Tor felt a sense of relief. They could set a guard to turn it on and off at need at the beach, but the less messing with it they did, the happier he'd be.

New clothes, more loose silk that felt wonderful to his skin, but probably looked incredibly bizarre, in a light violet color, was brought for him to wear after he finally got a real bath, the splint being removed so that his leg could be scrubbed carefully. It looked awful, covered in black and blue bruises with the skin torn in a ring around it, a strange oblong where the rope had grabbed at him. Embarrassingly, he couldn't bend over to do that himself, it hurt way too much, so Burks, the man that had helped him at the guest house, came to do it for him. The guy didn't even blush as he reached the soft brush carefully into the bath water. It had to be done if he didn't want his leg to stink the place up, so he put up with it, turning red the whole time in embarrassment.

Splint back on with new wrappings, sturdy canvas, and tied carefully into the loose silk pants he was ready to venture out of the room finally. They wouldn't let him go and see the river himself, since it was a good distance north of the Capital, not yet at least.

Connie came and sat with him at a table in one of the dining rooms, family style, she called it, so that there weren't ten paces of space between them, letting them sit and talk in a civilized fashion. That was good, because otherwise they'd have to scream at each other just to be heard. It was funny, but no one seemed to ever use the whole sitting that far apart thing here, not even at the tense dinner party where the space might of helped a little. Maybe it was an old custom?