Lord of the Sky (The Young Ancients: Timon) (6 page)

He nodded.

"No offense taken. It is kind of a funny idea. Everyone probably thinks I'm just going to use you for sex or something anyway. Drain the banks and run off with your coin. I won't." He meant the coin, but the other thing wasn't happening either.

She let it all go, for about two minutes.

"What are you going to do with Cousin Patricia? She seems to have plans for you that way. I know at least some of what she means to do, but if you can't stand the sight of a woman without clothing, I'm not sure if it will..." Heather suddenly looked out the window to the east, falling silent as if she had worked something out for herself.

It was kind of nice in a way, since that meant she stopped talking about things that might make him feel uncomfortable. Instead of letting her start again, Tim pointed out that he had communications devices in the back, where the cases floated, looking like black blobs in the mainly dark interior of the craft. He could make lights, but they made it too hard to see out.

She was fairly docile really, just taking directions from him, and once she had the right unit in hand, hitting the sigil for Petra. The new units were harder to use, kind of like an Austran compact in style, working off of magic, instead of technology. Each one could reach hundreds of others now, instead of the sixty or so the old style ones had. They also flashed with a much brighter light than the original ones did, making them harder to ignore. If you were in the same room at least and hadn't stuffed the thing in a box.

Petra hadn't. After a few minutes a very sleepy sounding tall girl answered, her voice rough.

"What is it? Do you know what time it is? Grrr. I swear, if this is another person asking me what I'm wearing, I
will
hunt you down and kill you." She didn't sound like she meant it totally, but as tempting as it was to push her on the matter, Timon let it go and refrained from asking her about her clothes.

"Pet? This is Tim. Countess Montblanc came over to our side, in exchange for some help. You can check with the King on it, but we need to get a full complement of healing devices to County Montblanc as soon as possible. Sorry to wake you, but..." It wasn't a fun idea, but every second they were at dinner, people had been dying. There wasn't a lot he could do about that, so he didn't dwell on the idea. People would die. More would die if they were slow. Now it was pretty much up to Petra to get the items there and Heather and her remaining people to handle distribution and recovery of the things after they were used. Tor was being very careful with them, he hadn't said why.

For any normal person it would be about all the gold he could make off of them, but Tor didn't care about that. It had to be something else. There were several things it could be, but given his brother, it was probably something deep and important. Healing people would have some negative effect, or at least that was a possibility. Something like that. It wasn't that the amulets weren't stable, the fields were strong and would last for decades. Tim had felt that for himself.

From the device in the Countess's hand, his friend spoke, her words a bit clearer, thanks to the urgency in his own voice.

"Really? That's great. How did that happen? Did the King, or I don't know, Tor..."

"No, it was Timon. He knocked on my door and then forced me to see reason. I was there, and honestly don't know what actually happened. I
do
know that he's baking for me and doing house chores for the next few weeks. That was part of the deal. He still hasn't mentioned who exactly sent him. The King seemed shocked to hear what he was saying when he called earlier." She sounded almost chatting, as if talking to an old friend.

"Heather? Where are you?"

"Coming from the Capital. It was, as you might imagine, humbling and humiliating. We can go over my fall later. We should get off of this thing so you can contact King Richard and confirm that this is all honestly happening. I'm not certain, but I think there's a party tomorrow at my home? Alyssa Baker claimed she might bring people, but I don't know if that was real or not. It seems a bit crass, given all the death in my County, but Patricia Morgan pointed out that having visitors will make this whole thing seem more real. You're in good with that lot, aren't you?"

Petra was clearly forcing herself out of bed, the thing squeaking as she did it.

"Yeah. Um, let me get with the Palace on this. If I can I'll have everything there by first light. If not..." What she would do wasn't said, not in any way they could hear. The line just dropped out. Turned off, since the things didn't go silent like that otherwise. You could drop them, or put them under water and they still worked just fine. They were basically on pieces of solid glass after all. No one had managed to even break one yet.

The rest of the trip back wasn't that long, but it felt that way, since they didn't have a lot to talk about. For one thing they just didn't have that much in common. They were from very different worlds after all, for all that Heather had spent the first twenty-six years of her life as a Conserina and he was of roughly the same basic rank. That didn't change the fact that every other thing about them was vastly different. Here they were anyway, trapped in a small space together, forced to be polite. Or, really, no one was making them, but doing otherwise would be foolish. She was a
Countess
, if one that was kind of out of favor now. With pretty much everyone, too. The rebels would feel betrayed by her, and the King's people would hate her for having turned on them in the first place.

On her part she probably didn't want to make him angry either really. After all, he could have the healing devices "lost" without any problem at all. It wasn't like he was going to lose sleep over anything like that. Honestly he couldn't imagine anyone having that sort of problem at all. Oh, he had bad dreams from time to time, but only ones about torture, or Nora coming back, not ones that made him feel bad about anything he'd actually
done
.

The silence would have been oppressive, except for the fact that he was too busy fighting to keep his eyes open already. It wasn't that bad, but it took focus to make certain he wouldn't accidentally plow the craft into the dark earth below. That wouldn't leave him looking good, would it?

He landed next to his little cottage, and as soon as Heather got out started to unload the cube, late or not. Leaving the Fast Craft sitting out was an invitation for someone to take it after all. He didn't need that at the moment, so a bit more work was required before he rested. No one contacted them again, which either meant there was a problem or that Petra had fallen back to sleep. Or, and he realized that it was far more likely, the woman had gotten in her own vehicle and was loading it at that moment instead of wasting time.

"Do you have enough people to pass the healing devices around when they get here?" It wasn't hard to use them or anything, but it had to be done one person at a time. People would still die while waiting their turn, but acting too slowly, or leaving things just sitting around in a box wouldn't get them fixed faster.

Heather held her hands in front of her rather unclean white dress. In the dark it was hard to see her, since her skin wasn't very reflective. His showed a lot better that way.

"We do have a system in place. The original plan was for us to send a third of the shipment to each major city, and pass them that way, spreading out to the countryside. Then, due to... mistakes, the items weren't delivered. I suppose I can understand why, but this attack is still monstrous. Since when did the crown punish the common people for the actions of their leaders?" It was pretty clear the woman didn't expect and answer at all. That made sense. After all, if you talked to a thousand kids his age at that moment, most wouldn't know anything about the situation at all. A lot of them would have to ask what she meant, as far as that went.

Timon just looked toward the pale shapeless form of her legs.

"The crown didn't." It was the kind of thing that she'd probably find out eventually, so it was better for him to say it, then let her feel extra betrayed later, right? Of course she might hate him after she knew, but that was probably what she should feel. "My Grandmother, the Gray Ancient, made the plague to kill most of the world. Tor made the healing devices to undo that. It was a heroic measure too. He made more devices for this in a week than all the builders and copiers in Noram could have made in twenty years or more. The decision to withhold them wasn't the King's,
or
my brother's."

There was a soft inhalation that he couldn't see. It sounded baffled, rather than shocked. After all, she already knew that the things hadn't been delivered as planned. It was hardly news to her.

"No,
I
did that part. I took the ones that were meant to go to you, and to all those that were announcing themselves at war with us. It was to weaken you all. So... all the death of your people, that comes from
me
. It really is barbaric. Even Tor called me that when he found out about it. It's a horrible thing, but then, I'm pretty much a horrible person, so I can do things like that."

Timon waited to be called names or even be attacked, but it didn't come. Instead there was just a soft sobbing from where the giant woman stood. It only happened once, and then there was the sound a very deep breath being taken.

"Am I supposed to believe that? A single boy can thwart the might and will of the entire Kingdom, and that no one could stop you? I don't know if you took the devices initially, but even if you did, the King could have ordered you to bring them back. Your
brother
could have. No, it doesn't matter whose hand did the stealing, it was King Richard that made the final decision. I hate him for it, but it's already done, isn't it?"

Things suddenly felt awkward. After all, demanding that she blame him for his own actions didn't make a lot of sense, but there wasn't a lot of logic to her words. Was it his responsibility to fix what she was thinking? Could he?

"I told you the truth. I also get that you already have problems with the King and his family, or had at least. You need to make certain that you don't go back on your word, or I'll look pretty bad." He smiled, not meaning it, but was glad that she couldn't see it. That kind of thing just made you seem unbalanced. "We should get some sleep. The devices will come, or not. Being exhausted won't help us either way."

She murmured something that sounded like she was wishing him pleasant dreams, rather than cursing his name like she probably should have. She walked alone to her front door, some twenty yards away over the soft grass of her lawn. It wasn't perfectly cared for, being winter. He didn't feel the cold, but realized, after it was too late, that she had to have been freezing the whole time. With that thought he went into his own little dwelling and secured the door, then changed into other clothing and slept until the noise from outside woke him.

No one had knocked and the sun was already up when he stepped outside. Nearly a hundred people were there, filling boxes with healing devices, that or packs, and loaded them onto horses, riding away as if it were a race. Petra called out instructions and pointed to a man that looked more like a thief than an official of some kind.

"You there, are you ill?" Her long finger pointed at the smaller man rudely, but he just coughed, a wet and miserable sounding thing, and nodded. He had a grizzled look about him, but didn't stop working, scooping handfuls of the devices into sacks and boxes for others, calling for them to go quickly.

Petra didn't stop him either, just walking over and holding one of the small focus stone things to his neck. He paused for a bit, clearly having trouble healing that fast and moving at the same time, but uncomfortable or not, after a few seconds, he continued.

The pretty woman, with her richly dark skin and rose colored fighting leathers just looked at the people around her, a sense of admiration coming from her for some reason.

"You're all very brave and strong. Heal yourselves first anyway. You'll do better work that way and be able to keep going longer. We can't afford to have people falling on their rides and deliveries." When that first man was finished, color coming back to his cheeks and breathing becoming easy, she moved to another person, a tired and sweaty looking woman. Timon caught on to the idea and did the same.

It took a while but working that way, slowly, riders finally started to move out. No one blamed them for being late, but no one called out their thanks either. They had work to do after all. One of the people, a tall woman that he realized after a few moments was the Countess herself, had set up outside her front gate, handing the devices to passersby.

"Take them to your homes and heal everyone there, then pass them to your neighbors and have them do the same. Leave no gaps in this, even if it means traveling the land yourself to see it done." She sounded tired, as if she hadn't slept at all, but she kept saying the words, over and again. The scene really didn't change for hours, until newly healthy people came and took over. Guardsmen and minor officials mainly. That, or those in their families that lived and could take up their tasks. Some of the people were kids, who, healed or not, ran with gasping breaths to move the pieces around.

By mid-day no one was coming to be healed, the locals all having been given a chance already.

Heather finally walked over to them and oddly enough, gave Petra a hug.

"Pet. Thank you. Many have died of this and I fear more will yet, but thanks to your actions we might manage to save most. I won't forget this." She didn't let go of the slightly shorter giantess for a long time, holding herself up it seemed.