The audience gasped all at once, the lot of them caught entirely off guard. Even the two bedraggled women with the melting tattoos could not yawn that away.
Reggie sat wide-eyed in his chair, and it was a matter of several long seconds before his friend, the same who had struck him earlier, took the clock out of his hands. He saw the time had gone backward indeed. He held it up for the rest of the room to see. “It’s true; it’s true!” he declared. “He really has gone back. We all have.”
For a time there was general amazement in the room, but then the skinny tattooed woman turned back around and sent a frown up at the magician on the stage.
“If he gone back in time, then how come my phone still say he ain’t?”
Others immediately set to checking their own devices of chronology and, as usual, the magician on the stage watched as the trick ran its inevitable course: the gap-toothed gears in the brains of the inebriated eventually turning out the consensus of disbelief. Skepticism spread through the onlookers one by one, and despite what they had seen, the doubt was soon palpable for them all.
“Alas, there are tricks to time travel,” The Incredible Spectacularo said as he always did at this point. “No road runs evenly through time or eternity.”
“Bullshit,” called one particularly burly drunk seated near the back. “Faker. It’s all bullshit.” He threw a half-full bottle of beer at The Incredible Spectacularo, which the magician was just able to avoid.
“Now, now,” said the magician, his hands out before him, trying to avoid another missile aimed his way. “Let’s not be barbarians.”
Two more bottles flew his way, and not long after, Slick Danny came running onstage and threatened to throw everybody out. Half the scant crowd seemed more than happy to have it so, but the other half, the belligerent half, began shouting that they had paid for “real magic.”
In the moments while Slick Danny argued with them, and for certain assured them that there would be no refunds, the caped magician behind him silently uttered another spell. Soon after, the right side of the theater burst into flames, great orange tongues of fire licking up toward the ceiling, the roar of timbers popping loudly in perfect evidence.
The crowd all screamed in unison, and soon there was a stampede for the doors. The upside of there being so few patrons was that they all managed to get out unscathed. All but poor Reggie, who still sat staring at his hands where the clock had been.
“That was stupid,” Slick Danny said, turning angrily on his stage performer. “And mean. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“They were growing rabid, as you saw.”
“That’s it, man. This is your last chance. You blow out another audience like that, I’m turning you in. I’ll go state’s evidence or something. Or I’ll call that guy from that lab that was asking about you. I don’t give a shit what you say you’ll do. You were supposed to make me money, man. You’re just killing me now.”
“Threaten me again,” the magician said, all the frustration, fatigue, and fear of six months in hiding surfacing in an instant. “Do it and see how it plays out this time.”
Slick Danny looked like he was going to say something else, but he pulled it back. He took a visible breath, and then looked at the flames burning against the wall. He placed his hands on his hips impatiently. With a motion of the magician’s hand, the illusionary flames were gone and the theater was just as it had always been, run down and filthy, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Slick Danny breathed heavily again, then nodded in the direction of Reggie still sitting there. “Now go tell him your bullshit story before he walks out of here a believer.”
The magician’s sigh was nearly the measure of Slick Danny’s own. This really was no life for a Prosperion. No life at all.
Chapter 19
A
quick check of the upper floors of Calico Castle’s tall central tower revealed that Orli was nowhere to be found, so Altin made his way down into the courtyard to check the gardens. She wasn’t there either, so he went to speak to Master Sambua, who was overseeing a crew of masons.
“Greetings,” Altin called to the stocky fellow. The dull shine of the stainless steel plates on the east tower, his tower, made him squint as he approached. He was pleased to see that at least in some places they were getting the outer walls up. “I see you’ve made great headway these last four weeks. It truly is a wonder to behold. And the tower looks very sturdy with all that iron framework there.”
“Oh, it’ll be sturdy,” the engineer said. “And we’ve still got a few tricks up our sleeves.”
“What are all those gray lines snaking all about?” Altin asked, taking a step nearer and noticing more and more of them the longer he looked.
“That’s conduit. We’re running power in it for you,” he said. “Electricity. We’ll set you up an old-fashioned diesel generator in the basement, something your people can even make fuel for if you need to here on Prosperion once we show you how. It’s pretty primitive technology, but it’s reliable and won’t let you down after a teleport like a fusion genny might—at least from what I’ve heard. With that, some batteries, and some solar panels, you’ll be powered well enough for what you’ll need. If nothing else, well, Orli will have enough juice to do her hair.” He laughed, a great conspiratorial thing, but Altin missed the joke. “We’re putting in hookups for the grid,” he said, pressing on. “That way, when you come to Earth or hit some of the off-world bases, you’ll be set no matter where you go. This here tower will be the only thing like itself anywhere in the galaxy. Magic castle when you want it, technological outpost when you need. Honestly, I’m a little jealous.”
Altin laughed and watched with wonder as workmen were pulling the long ropes of gray tubing through the lattice of rough iron the men had put in place. “Yes, I expect that it is rather unique. I am very pleased. So do you think it will be another two months?”
“Well, that depends on whether you allow Mistress Kettle’s new request.”
Altin’s brows drooped, and he cast a backward glance at the entry to the kitchens behind him. “New request?”
“Yes. She says the steel plates are too shiny and the glare in the afternoons is ‘frightful,’ to use her word. She says those two plates we put on there yesterday were throwing a sunbeam into the garden and burning through Orli’s melon patch.”
Altin looked back to the gardens from which he’d just come, then to the tower, which again made him squint. “It looks as if Kettle has a point.”
“Yeah, she does. She says it’s going to heat up the whole courtyard like that.”
“So what was her suggestion?”
“She says she wants us to face the whole thing with stone to match the rest.”
Altin laughed. That was hardly in the spirit of Calico Castle. “Perhaps if you just painted it black.”
Master Sambua grinned. “That’s what I said. But she says it will still be too hot in the summertime. And she says she’s got enough in the kitchen that she doesn’t want to come out here and look at a giant metal pot.”
Altin hummed, then suggested, “Well, perhaps a ring wall, just halfway round to butt up against the battlements. That will get you two stories of stone. It doesn’t have to be too thick, if you don’t think the basement structure will hold properly after a teleport.”
“Oh, the basement will hold. You could put a lot more than a tower-sized pile of stone on it and it will hold. I think that’s a fine idea. It’s going to look pretty strange sitting anywhere else but here, but I’ll get some plans drawn up and we can go over them.”
“Right. Thank you.” He turned to go find Kettle, but stopped and asked, having nearly forgotten why he’d approached the man, “Have you seen Orli recently?”
“Not in the last hour or so.”
He thanked him and went into the kitchens, where, as usual, Kettle was hard at work. These days, with Pernie gone, and Tytamon gone, and with a much larger group of mouths to feed given the growth of the keep’s staff in recent times, the stout woman made a point of keeping herself heaped with things to do.
“Kettle,” Altin called to her, “there you are. Have you seen Orli?”
“She’s gone off ta see her father at the Earth fort near Crown,” Kettle said, straightening herself from her work stirring a giant cauldron filled with stew. “Left near half an hour ago.”
“Who took her, Gimmel?”
“She went herself.”
“On horseback? She’ll be days getting there that way.”
Kettle’s florid cheeks rounded and rose as she smiled. “Ya don’t give her much credit askin’ that,” she said. “The girl learns quicker than that.”
Altin wrinkled up his face. “Then how?”
“She done gone up and sent a homing lizard to the TGS from that clean room up in the tower. She gone straight to Crown, and meant to make the rest a’ the way afoot.”
Altin’s dread instinct kicked him in the chest. A reflex. He panicked sometimes from merely thinking that Orli would go off alone. But she did go off alone, and frequently, at least when she could. She was much like little Pernie in that way. Turn your back on her for a moment and she’d be gone, out along the creek or wandering into Great Forest nearby, happily following whatever path curiosity tempted her to.
But Crown City was another thing. Most of the city was perfectly delightful, but there were darker neighborhoods too, and with the devastation of the war, there were still plenty of desperate people around, people who had fallen through the cracks of Her Majesty’s bureaucratic aid programs, or who disdained it on principle. Orli had been taken from him once by such people and in such a neighborhood, though in Leekant, and he’d almost lost her for good.
Kettle saw what he was thinking, and it was her turn to furrow up her brow. “Now don’t ya go and start frettin’ her every last breath,” she scolded. “I can see it in yer face. She’s a fine strong lass and can fend fer herself as well as anyone. You’ll smother her goin’ on at her like all that worryin’ in yer eyes.”
“Says the woman who frets for Pernie every moment of every day.”
“Well, that’s a wee tiny child,” Kettle said, putting her hands on her stout hips. “And there’s a whole heap a’ difference tween the two.”
Altin laughed. No, there wasn’t. He’d seen little Pernie in a fight. That child was as helpless as a prairie wolf. And like as not, after two months with the elves, being trained in the art of butchering humans, no doubt, he expected she was even less helpless now than when she left. But he didn’t want to argue, so he nodded instead. “As you say.”
He left the kitchen and stepped out into the hall, where he cast a quick seeing spell into the TGS office in Crown City. Of course Orli wouldn’t be there.
He thought about pushing his vision through the streets and out into the fields beyond the city walls, but thought better of it. If she went on her own, she likely wanted to be on her own, so he decided the easiest thing to do was simply meet her there.
With another quick seeing spell to make sure he was clear, he teleported himself just outside the gates of Little Earth. He greeted the two guards with familiarity, went inside, and headed straight for General Pewter’s office, intent on finding out if Roberto and his crew had gotten the
Glistening Lady
restarted yet back near Earth. It had been a few hours since he’d teleported them there. He was anxious to know how long it was going to take Professor Bryant to find the right machinery.
The general’s pinch-faced secretary greeted him as familiarly as had the gate guards, and he was admitted right in to see the general. Orli was already sitting there.
“What?” Altin exclaimed. “How did you get here so fast?”
“I ran,” she said. “I felt up for a run today. It’s been a long time since I really got out at all. A little three-mile jaunt was nice, but honestly I wish they’d built this thing a little farther out. I did like running through the city, though. The rebuilding is coming along well, at least in the mile-long stretch I saw. The Temple of Anvilwrath looks like it’s nearly finished now. That’s amazing, such a huge building and in such a short period of time.”
“The Church is never short on money. Fear and desperation make the salvation business extremely profitable, especially when you never have to deliver the goods.”
“You’re such a cynic. Those people helped save everyone’s lives.”
“As did many others, and it wasn’t with the people’s money.”
“I’ve got work to do if you two are going to debate the morality of monetized theology,” said the general, but he was smiling at his daughter, contented to have her there.
Altin shrugged. The fact that many of the people of Crown still struggled to rebuild their neighborhoods while the temples and city buildings went up with speed bothered him more than a spell song with a missing note, but he let it go. “Well, I’m glad I found you here,” he said instead, moving to sit next to her. “I wanted to tell you what Blue Fire said.”
“I was afraid of what she was going to say. That’s why I needed to go for a run.”
He nodded, knowing well what she meant. “Well, the good news is that she has agreed to have us do it. You might even say she holds the smallest bit of optimism that it might work. Very small, but I saw it, if briefly.”
Orli perked up at that, but she saw the way Altin’s expression flattened after. “But what?”