Nightlord: Shadows (12 page)

“And if those spells were to fail?”

“I am not turning back the clock, my angel. My body truly is as you see it.”

“Nice!” I said. “And very clever. That’s my Tort. Hey, one of the youngsters called you ‘Lady Tort’. Are you a noblewoman, now?”

“I was given the title of Court Magician of Karvalen by Raeth, shortly after T’yl decided he was too old to be bothered with the day-to-day rubbish of a kingdom.”

“Ah. Good to know.”

“But, to return to my story?”

“Of course. Go on.”

“After you were safely vanished, the mountain began to change. It altered its form on a daily basis, causing no end of difficulty. After a time, ghosts began to appear, wandering the halls and screaming. Those things alone were sufficient to drive everyone out. We moved south, to the coast, where we built a fishing village and began to farm. Fortunately, the people of the plains are a very understanding group.” She grinned, and I saw the face of the little girl I knew.

“At least,” she added, “they are understanding when it has been made clear to a shaman that the last of the Lords of Night says to be tolerant.” I smiled a little, myself, recalling my conversation with a shaman and the following conversation with Raeth. Nice to see I got something right.

“I trust everyone else has been tolerant of them?”

“You did make that quite clear to Raeth,” she agreed. “He demanded that all dealings with the people of the plains should be fair, if not generous. Anyone found taking advantage of them or cheating them found himself on the wrong end of Raeth’s displeasure.”

“I don’t think I’d like to see that.”

“I didn’t.”

“Fair enough,” I said, wondering momentarily just how awful it would have to be to… no, never mind.

“With their help, we established farms, hauled lumber and stone from the mountains, built fishing boats, and so on. It is quite a sizable town, now. It even has a temple to the fire-goddess.”

“Is Tamara there?”

“Yes,” Tort said, hesitantly.

“You say that without conviction,” I noted.

“Yes. She resides in Mochara, but she is old and not fully herself.”

“Oh?”

Tort was silent.

“Do go on,” I prompted.

“I would rather allow you to see for yourself, my angel.”

“Hmm,” I hmmed. “All right. I think we’re nearly there, anyway.” We were traveling alongside tilled earth, and there were lights and structures ahead.

“Indeed we are.”

Mochara was a walled town, set atop the low cliffs at the southern coast. A lot of the town was spread out along the top of those cliffs. Farms surrounded the place, more heavily to the east; the canal ran along the east side, forming a sort of moat at the foot of the town wall. The wall was some sort of limestone and brick, only about ten feet high, and probably not meant to do more than keep infantry from simply walking into the place. There were a number of lesser gates, really just very heavy doors, and the three on the canal side were probably just drawbridges that blocked a doorway; those three were much taller than the wall itself, thus to bridge the canal when lowered. The gate facing us was really a pair of wooden double doors, looked quite solid, and was closed.

It wasn’t all that large a place. At a guess, it had about four thousand souls. If pressed, it could probably pack in twice that on a weekend basis. I wondered how many of them were from families I brought through the Eastrange.

Bronze slowed gradually, in deference to our lack of a saddle, and finally stopped a dozen yards from the main gate. The sound of our approach alerted the guards, however, so lanterns atop the wall lit up and focused on us before we came to a complete halt.

“Who goes in the night?” came the challenge.

That was a wonderful straight line. It was hard to resist, but I refrained from an answer that would probably get me pegged as a smartass.

“The Lady Tort,” Tort replied.

“What is the word?”

“Song.”

“And the color?”

“Silver.”

“Open the gate!”

“You have passwords at the gate?” I asked her, quietly.

“Naturally. Raeth was very insistent about such things, and the city’s guards hold themselves as an honored tradition.” She shrugged. “Many of them are merely jumped-up busybodies, but most retain what Raeth wanted: a sense of justice.”

“I knew I had the right man for the job.”

“Indeed, my angel.”

The gate creaked and half of it swung inward. Bronze walked in and two men shoved the gate closed again. A third man drew a bar across the gates and into a socket in the wall. We stood in an open area just inside the gate. A pair of leashed dogs snarled at us, probably not liking the smell of Bronze or of me. Come to think of it, they probably knew Bronze. I was the problem—a dead stranger.

Guards still had lanterns on us. Several men in ring-and-scale armor stood around us, staring. I wasn’t sure if they were staring at me, Tort, or Bronze. Tort and Bronze are beautiful and worth staring at; I’m just some guy in fancy black armor. Tort slid off Bronze and I held her hand to make the landing easy. She stepped away, her staff landing beside her. She leaned on it and raised her other hand.

“Welcome to Mochara, my King,” Tort said, loud enough to carry, and went to one knee. Bronze took that as a cue to rear up and blow fire into the sky. I hung on via a deathgrip on her mane. The wire of her mane wrapped itself around my hands and wrists to help hold me on. I didn’t know she could do that.

When she settled again, the only sound was the creak of leather and the soft, metallic sounds of men removing their helmets, followed by every one of them going to their knees. The dogs whimpered.

“Tort?” I murmured.

“Yes, my angel?”

“You’ll pay for this.” She bit her lips to avoid laughing. She held her staff parallel to the ground and sat on it. It lifted her and began to float forward, crystal end first, illuminating the way. Bronze followed, leaving behind a rising murmur.

As she led us down the street, I whistled softly. Tort looked over her shoulder. I beckoned and she floated up next to me on her staff.

“Was that really necessary?” I asked.

“I believe it was, yes.”

“Do I want to know why?”

“I do not believe you do, but you will need to.”

“Politics in Mochara?”

“Yes.”

“You’re right, I don’t want to know. But fill me in, anyway.” I sighed. “I’m not awake two whole days and already I’m hip-deep in assassinations and politics.”

“Assassinations?” she asked, cocking her head.

“People have already tried to kill me since I woke up.”

“Much more quickly than I expected,” she mused. “I will look into this.”

“Oh, he’s dead,” I assured her, and made a slight burping sound. Tort smiled in cold surmise.

“I remain unsurprised, my angel. But I doubt you will want to deal in like fashion with the Princess of Mochara.”

“Possibly. Who is she? One of Hellas’ and Muldo’s descendants? They had a good political position.”

“No, their line ended with Esmun. It is your daughter that rules Mochara from the Temple of the Sun.”

We rode the rest of the way to Tort’s house in silence. I was busy thinking.

When I was considering the implications of being asleep (or comatose) for so long, it never occurred to me that my children might be alive. They didn’t spring to mind, I think, because they were never more than heartbeats in the darkness; I wasn’t there to see them born. I didn’t raise them. I planned for them, anticipated them, but, until that moment, hadn’t considered that they might still be around.

Which raised some serious questions. How do I feel about that? Do I want to try and get to know them? Or do I want to chicken out and just avoid them? I probably can’t avoid them, so… what do I say?

This was not in the manual on How To Be Undead. There should at least be warning labels.

Immortality problems.

The streets were mostly narrow, hard-packed earth with some gravel. The buildings were mostly wood, though some had stone walls for one storey with wooden second storeys. Rooftops were almost entirely tile and chimneys dotted the skyline; I was very pleased. I’d mentioned, once, that thatch was just asking for more rats then people, and that it was also the main reason towns burned down. Someone—probably Raeth—remembered.

I miss him.

The place was less than pleasing in other ways. Most windows were simply holes in the wall, covered by shutters. Off the main streets, Bronze needed to be careful; there might not be room for her to turn around. In some, there might not be room for her and a pedestrian to pass each other!

I noticed a considerable level of filth. No gutters, sadly, and no sewers. There was a cleaning service, though; two men with a wheelbarrow and a shovel moved down a side street, collecting… um… “waste.” Okay, let’s be accurate: people dumped chamber pots in the street. The only time this place wouldn’t smell foul was after a day of solid rain. Maybe a week.

We arrived at Tort’s house. Bronze dropped us off at the back door and walked into an oversized stable-for-one, started munching on charcoal. Tort didn’t seem to have a normal horse; the stable was just for Bronze. I petted Bronze while Tort waited at the door, then we went in, settled into the living room to talk.

Tort lives in a pleasant, rather sizable place on the southeast of town. The first two storeys are stone and brick construction while the third storey is really more of a loggia than a floor. That upper part has quite a nice view of both the ocean and the fields. Her house isn’t right up against the city wall, but it is taller than any of the houses around it, which helps the view. It’s easily the most expensive house in that area of the city. Then again, she’s also one of the only full-fledged magicians—ouch. Now the
only
magician—in town, so her services are always in demand.

In the course of some discussion, I did find out that my desire to found a school was still carried out. Over half the population could read well, and most of the rest knew their letters and numbers. Moreover, Tort taught masterclasses in magic once a week, both to raise the bar for local wizardry and to keep an eye out for the talent needed to be a magician.

There are a few possibilities, but no one that really stands out to her.

The city of Mochara is famed as a place where everyone is a wizard. That’s technically true, insofar as everyone who has more magical sensitivity than an eggplant knows a spell or two, but very few of them make it their actual career. I’d say they aren’t wizards, just people who know a few spells. Wizards tinker with the things. Most people in Mochara are rather like very-low-grade magicians; they were trained well enough to memorize a few convenient spells and that’s about it.

Sadly, there seems to be little or no interest in the science I brought. I talked myself hoarse to give them the secrets a whole other world struggled to discover, and everyone seems to be, “Oh, I can use numbers on a lever to calculate how much force it exerts? That’s nice. How about I just try it, and get a longer lever if I need one?”

Magic, they care about. Reading, they care about, at least a little. Science and technology are just too much work.

I am sad.

Is that a cultural thing, I wonder? They think in terms of magic, rather than how to make the world work without it. Or is it the fact that magic is so pervasive and obvious? When you can violate the “laws” of science by an act of will, it might be difficult to have any faith in them.

Would this attitude change if I insisted? If I had been here for the last few decades, would my attitude toward this stuff have changed theirs? Or would I be slowly influenced by their point of view? Interesting question. I tend to mix my magic and science already.

Still, I suppose I should admit to unrealistic expectations. I thought that they would have something along the lines of, say, the Victorian era technology—rudimentary steam engines, for example. But they haven’t much technological change. True, they make a better grade of steel, but that’s hardly a cultural revolution. They just don’t have any impetus to change! Why develop a steam engine if it doesn’t have a job to do? Why build a hot-air balloon if you don’t see a need for one?

They have changed, at least a little, on the cultural front. Hellas becoming a Duchess helped, as did Tamara sitting on the throne of Karvalen. I’d like to think my repeated insistence that women be treated like people, instead of property, might have had something to do with it, too. Daughters are still often stuck with an arranged marriage, but it’s become less common. There are even a few women who have their own businesses—Tort being a perfect example. True, most of the other women’s businesses are things like tailoring or laundry. But Mochara has one seafront inn that I would call a restaurant with rooms, and one printing shop, both owned and operated by ladies.

They need the printer, too. Since literacy is now pretty much a given, it’s no longer something people regard as impressive. Now, if someone can’t read, they’re kind of looked down upon. Peer pressure can be used for good, apparently.