Nightlord: Orb (69 page)

“Yes,” I agreed, “but they’re buried in the thing, somehow.  I’m not sure how they did it.”

“Look it up in your head?” she suggested.

“Later.”

“How would we get a better look?” she asked.

“We’d have to turn it on.”

“Is there an easy way to do that?”

“I’d guess sitting on it might do it.  No, wait—” I snapped, but it was too late.  She promptly planted herself on the throne.  She became promptly un-planted, catapulting the length of the room.  She landed well, turning like an acrobat mid-air to land on her feet and tumble.  I helped her up.

“Did you get a look at it?” she asked.

“Are you hurt?” I countered.

“Nope!  But what does it do, aside from launch people?”

“I think it’s one of those One True King spells.  Whosoever shall sit his butt on this throne and keepeth it there is rightwise king of all Zirafel, or something.  Everyone else shall be launched at high speed to make nasty crunching noises upon impact.”

“How does it work?”

“I have no idea.  It only saw it for a second.  And, no, you’re not doing it again.  There are other spells on the chair; it might have secondary effects for repeat offenders!”

“Pshaw.  Spells don’t scare me.  Giant statues that can crush me, those scare me.  You worry too much.  ”

“And I’m still alive.”

“—ish.”

“Touché.  You’re still not sitting on it again.”

“Sometimes you’re no fun.”

“How about we see if there are more portable things you can steal?”

“And sometimes you are,” she added, brightening.

The second floor was much less of a public space, being reserved for officials of some sort.  Most of the space was given over to large offices, along with meeting-rooms, debate chambers, whatever you want to call them.  The furnishings here were also intact and remarkably well-preserved.  Apparently, the custodial automatons took care of that, too.

A third floor existed only in the central section; the wings had two floors.  The entirety of the top floor was luxurious and palatial.  Imperial family quarters, probably.  There were jewels embedded in the walls; that seemed like a clue.  The bedrooms were also a clue, and the murals on the walls of the… let’s call it a “playroom,”… weren’t merely suggestive; they were practically a set of instructions.  There was also a steam room/bath, a cold plunge, and a warm soaking pool.

The plumbing interested me.  No aqueducts flowed into the palace, so, somewhere, there was a pump.  I could see the enchantments on the pools to purify the water and maintain temperatures, but how did they get the water up here?  An enchanted pipe that constantly drew water up instead of letting it flow down?  Possibly, but that wasn’t how most people got their water in Zirafel…

Oh.  Imperial Family.  Kind of a special case, I guess.

“Halar?”

“You can call me by my right name,” I pointed out.

“You’re known as Halar around here, right?”

“Yes, if you mean ‘in this world,’ rather than ‘this geographic region’.”

“Let’s stick with that.  I’ll find it less confusing.”

“Whatever you want.”

“What I want,” she said, looking around, “is to move in.  This beats the hell out of an archaeological wine cellar.”

“You’re certainly right about that,” I agreed, waving a hand through the hot water.  “I’m leery about moving in until we’ve checked it out thoroughly, though.”

“Why?  It all seems in good shape.”

“Yes, but how many other surprises—like the janitors—are we going to find?  For all I know, there are hidden spells that will go off on any living being attempting to enter the Imperial chambers.”

“What does it matter?”

“Spells are more dangerous than you think, especially here,” I pointed out.  “I know spells—and so do other people—capable of throwing bolts of lightning, balls of fire, missiles of magical force, lances of flesh-freezing cold, or simply cause your heart to stop.”

“So?  I’ll get better.”

“If they hit you during the day?”

“Ah.  Right.  So let’s look for booby-traps.”

“Okay.  But we’ll still spend the morning in the cellar, then come back and look again.  I hate surprises.”

“That’s fair,” she agreed.  “Overcautious, maybe, but fair.”

We looked high and low, searching the Palace for hidden spells and ancient enchantments.  We found quite a few, but they were all conveniences.  Enchanted windows would move air in or out, heating it or cooling it—they were in constant operation, at present, warming the third floor.  Tables would preserve the temperature of anything placed on it—a complicated enchantment, that one, as it would handle multiple dishes at different temperatures.  Things like that were high-end enchantments, obviously expensive, but almost to be expected in the Imperial Family’s private quarters.  No, certainly to be expected.

Why did the Empire have a Queen?  And, by wondering, I remembered.  Queen Flarima ruled the part of the Empire centered around Zirafel, just as Queen Oleana ruled the region around Tamaril.  They were subjects to the Emperor as rulers of their own small kingdoms.  They continued to rule regardless of which residence the Emperor chose to occupy in the world.  The Empire provided Imperial law everywhere, leaving much of the administration to the local kingdoms.

Well.  At least I was no longer confused about something I’d never wondered about before.  That’s comforting, in a preemptive sort of way.

On the other hand, I wondered at the lack of security spells.  Obviously, I didn’t have enough people in my diet who knew about that.  Maybe they were actual spells, cast by the Imperial Magicians?  Enchantments are fixed, unchanging; they could be discovered, charted, and bypassed.  Or did it have to do with the servants?  It’s hard to turn your living room into a minefield if people have to go through it every day.

Still, it was nearly dawn and we didn’t find anything insurmountable.  If that held true during the day, we might move in, at least until I found out the situation in Karvalen.  Maybe even afterward, depending.

Local Day?  Good Question.  First Sunrise.

We took our resurrection sunrise in the wine cellar.  In preparation, we built a couple of fires in the corners and I set up a guide-spell for air movement through the opening of the cellar stairs.  It was cold outside and we were about to be mortal.  I’ve noticed the transformation from dead to alive goes more smoothly when the corpse is warm.  The transformation will fix frostbite as it re-engages the life processes—I think.  I also suspect it isn’t a pleasant experience.

Last night was exceptionally long for us; we went from one time zone to another.  No jet lag for the unsleeping undead, though.  Sunrise did its usual thing.

With a few gates on Earth, could I stay in the night forever?  Step from pre-dawn to post-dusk every eight to ten hours?  There’s probably not enough magic on Earth for such a setup, but elsewhere it might be possible.  Elsewhere with time zones, that is.  Around here, when the sun comes up, it comes up everywhere.

As I expected, it was a rough transformation; regenerating my earlier sunburn did nasty things to my metabolism.  Mary waited until the tingling died away, then ran upstairs, gasping for air and holding her nose.  Her senses are enhanced, too.

“Yeah, I know,” I called up after her, and worked my cleaning spell.  Gunk and goo and everything else rolled off me, slipping downward like a layer of sapient slime trying to get to the floor.  It crawled down my legs and up from my toes, slithered over the tops of my boots, and settled into a fetid pile between my feet.

Firebrand turned it into a blackened spot and smoke.  I went upstairs.

“You don’t stink anymore?” Mary asked.

“I have spells for that.”

“Oh.  Right.  Can I have one?  Or do I get a bath?”

I worked a cleaning spell for her and she shuddered as it rolled her transformation byproducts off.  She stepped away immediately and shivered, looking at the glop on the floor.

“That,” she shuddered, “was extremely weird.”

“Get used to it,” I advised.  “It’s the fastest way I know to get clean.”

“I think I prefer a bath.”

“I’m a shower man, myself, but I agree.”

Firebrand torched the puddle and we went back to the Palace.  I had to repeat my introduction to the bouncer, but it had the same result.  We found nothing new.  The Imperial quarters seemed up for grabs, so we grabbed them.

On next trip to the Palace, this time bringing our stuff, I paused to examine the lesser statues in more detail.  They were dusty, even the intact ones, but the broken ones seemed to be missing pieces.  The larger parts were still there, but dust and chips that should have been on the floor were gone.  The janitors didn’t clean the statues or clear away the larger parts, but maybe they cleaned up anything small enough to be vacuumed up?  I’m assuming they don’t actually vacuum, of course, but maybe they clean the floor of tiny bits?

Still, the surviving smaller statues were detailed and wonderfully done.  They were also dressed oddly.  They wore clothing of various sorts, not the fashions of Zirafel.  They seemed out of place, even out of time.  They simply had no business being there.

We finished moving into the top floor and tried out the tubs.  Hot tub, cold plunge, and warm soak, all three of the pools were extra-large.  We could cozily fit a dozen people in each.  That might have been the point, though; a high-level meeting might involve a fancy meal and social bathing.  The Empire didn’t have the same nudity taboos as some cultures.  Mary liked the hot tub; I preferred the warm soaking pool.  I even identified and activated a water-moving spell to make it swirl and bubble.  It was delightfully relaxing.

Someone screamed.  It echoed through the Palace.  It was a good scream.

I didn’t feel any alarm from Bronze, so it wasn’t a squad of holy hitmen come to fry me—I didn’t expect any, either; I was still wearing my predecessor’s amulet and one of my own cloaking spells.  They shouldn’t even know I was in the world.  Bronze seemed interested in a group of men, but not concerned.

I relayed this to Mary as we climbed out of the tub, dried off, and dressed for trouble.

We went downstairs cautiously and did a slow advance on the sounds.  Outside, on the portico, half a dozen men argued about what to do.  They were all dressed for cold weather and armed.  Their breath plumed in the morning air.  They didn’t speak Rethven; it sounded more like Iynerian.

Crap.

“Hang on a second,” I whispered to Mary.

“What’s going on?” she whispered back.

“I have to find out what I know about the Iyner.”

“You’re going to have to explain that.”

“The ghosts I ate, along with the living people, leave impressions behind, right?”

“Right.”

“I recognize the language as Iynerian.  I don’t know anything about Iyner.  So I’m going into my headspace and looking up Iyner.  I thought I had it worked out so this sort of thing would be automatic, but apparently having a hatchway into the basement and a bout of demon-possession does bad things to my mental automation.”

“Uh, okay.  I’ll… stand here.  And keep an eye on things.”

“Thank you.”  I went into my headspace and sat down at the desk.

Half an hour later—internal time—I knew what I knew about the Province of Iyner.  Iyner was one of the cities on the coast of this continent—the Land of the West—and was located much farther east of Zirafel and slightly south.  Overall, it was largely unremarkable.  It raised good horses in the hills surrounding it, had a pretty fair wine industry, and raised a number of spices for export.  I didn’t know much about it in the modern era, of course, but I assumed it was still there.  These people spoke a dialect descended from the Imperial tongue, but not the same as the Rethven tongue.  They were similar enough to be recognizable as related languages, though.

I didn’t know Iynerian, not really; I was merely familiar with it from traders, merchants, and suchlike that I’d eaten.  Between that and my knowledge of Rethven and Imperial…  At a guess, I could understand it with some trouble, but I wouldn’t be able to talk coherently.

I came out of my headspace; only a few minutes had gone by.  Mary was still eyeballing the strangers at the door.

“Any luck?” she asked, softly.

“Yes and no.  I can’t speak their language, but I have a spell for that.  Anything new?”

“Yes.  I noticed something about the small statues.”

“What?”  I peeked around the corner at them.  They didn’t seem to have moved.

“There’s a new one.  The one on the far right.  See?  He looks scared and is dressed like the men outside.”

“You’re right.”

“Could he have been turned to stone?” she asked.  “I remember something in mythology that turned people to stone.  Medusa?  Gorgon?  Harpy?  Something like that, from the vids.  Do they have things like that here?”

“That’s… a good question.”  I pondered it for a moment.  There were spells which could cause transformations.  They were generally fatal, though.  Of course, if the objective was to kill an intruder, turning him to stone had its good points.  You might find out who he was—someone might recognize him—and there wasn’t much of a mess, provided he didn’t fall over and shatter.  Plus, if that was your aesthetic taste, you got a garden ornament out of it.

“Yes,” I agreed, finally.  “They do.  And I think he was.”

“How?  And don’t say ‘Magic!’”

“Okay.  My guess is failing to answer the doorman’s challenge causes bad things to happen.  I doubt these people speak a dead language, so when it asked the latest bit of pre-statuary who he was, he couldn’t answer.  It might have activated another magical function to inflict a transformation on him.”

“See, that’s what I need to know.  The doorman-statue did it.”  She nodded.  “Good.  I’ll bear it in mind.  And I want language lessons as soon as possible.”

“Agreed.”

“Thanks.  So, do we ignore the new guys?  Or do we say hello?  I mean, is it worth it?”

“We won’t know until we meet them,” I pointed out.

“I suppose.  Want me to cover you?  You’re the one with the translation spell.”

“No, let’s go say hello together.  I think they’ll be less likely to start anything if there are two of us.  Besides, I doubt they’ll come in when one of their guys got stoned to death.”

We strolled around the corner, Mary holding on to my left arm.  She could drop her hands to draw guns or knives and it kept my right hand free to draw Firebrand.  And, of course, Bronze was outside, somewhere behind them, pretending to be another statue.

The men saw us and stopped talking.  They didn’t say anything until we halted just inside the door.

“Good morning,” one of them offered, or near enough.  He was a tall, lantern-jawed fellow and reminded me of Abraham Lincoln without the beard.  Much more swarthy, though, or maybe well-tanned.

“Good morning,” I replied.  “Do any of you speak Rethven?”  One of them did.  “Oh, good.  I recognize Iynerian, but I don’t speak it.  Would any of you mind a translation spell?”

It turns out one of them was a wizard.  We both worked our spells under the watchful eye of the other.  Straight-up translators, nothing more.

“That’s better.  Everyone understand everyone, now?”  There was general agreement.

“We’re from Ynar, not this Iynerian place,” the lantern-jawed fellow told me.

“My apologies.  I don’t speak Ynarian, but it sounds a lot like Iynerian, which I speak badly.  My own fault for confusing them.  Ynar is a kingdom?”

“Yes.  It’s east of here, on the coast.”

Figures. 
Iyner
became
Ynar
.

“Are you two living here?” the lantern-jawed fellow wanted to know.

“For the moment, yes.  I’m sorry; I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.  I’m called Halar; this is Mary.”

“I’m Bellons,” he introduced himself, accenting the second syllable.  “This is Tryne, his brother Krone, and Maragus, Pelter, and Vort.”  Each nodded as his name came up.

“Pleased to meet you all.”

“We’d like our friend back, if you don’t mind.”  He gestured at the latest statue.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know how that happened.  We only recently found the place, ourselves.”

“But you didn’t get turned to stone.”

“No, obviously not.  I’m not entirely sure why he did.  Did he do something to aggravate the house guardians?”

“You mean the statues?” Maragus asked.  He was a big man, broad-shouldered, and leaned on a large, two-handed hammer.  I doubted it was for hammering tent stakes.  It gave the impression of something for driving breastplates into ribcages.

“The big ones, yes.  They seem to be harmless as long as you don’t make them angry.  You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.”

“He didn’t do nothing.  One of ’em came up and talked to him in a weird language, then poof, he was a rock.”

“That’s odd,” I admitted.  “I don’t know how to undo a transformation like that, but I can probably haul him out for you, if you like.”

“That would be a big help,” Bellons agreed.  So I picked up the statue and carried it to the threshold.  This impressed everybody; it was life-sized and solid stone.  I held it in place while they carefully tilted him over, out the door, and shuffled away to lay him down.

“You seem to have this place pretty much figured out,” Bellons reflected, when the statue was safely arranged.  “I don’t suppose you’d care to let us in on the secret?”

“There isn’t a secret,” I told him.  “I don’t upset the house guardians, that’s all.”

“And why is that?”

“I speak the language.”

“Imperial?” he asked, surprised.

“Yes.  I can answer their questions.”

“Ohhhh!” interjected Vort, their wizard.  “They challenge whoever enters.  When Frosh didn’t answer, they stoned him.”

“That explains that,” Bellons agreed, nodding thoughtfully, “but how are
we
going to get in?”

“Excuse me,” I asked.  “Why, exactly, would you want to get in?”

“You’ve seen the place.  It’s loaded with valuables.”

“Ah.  Now that Zirafel isn’t cursed anymore, people are after the loot.”  I nodded.  “That makes perfect sense.”

“I’m so glad you approve.  I don’t suppose you’d give us the passwords?”

“How about I make you a counter-offer?”

“I’m listening.”

“The Palace doesn’t have much in the way of portable wealth,” I told him.  “Sure, there’s fancy old furniture and a couple of magical cleaning constructs, but not much you can stuff in a sack and take home.  Cups are bulky; knives and such cut the sack open—it’s trouble.  On the other hand, Zirafel also had a treasury.”

Ding, ding, ding!  I had their undivided attention.

“I don’t care if you loot the ruins,” I told them.  “I don’t want trouble with anyone, and you’re welcome to carry off whatever you can lift, carry, or just plain drag away.  All
we
really want is to be able to come and go and live here in the Palace without anyone trying to bother us.  If I tell you where the treasury is, will you play nice?  Leave the Palace alone and be civilized, polite people to me and my lady?”