On the other hand, it didn’t seem to have a spirit anywhere near as complex as a human soul. I started disengaging it from the flesh, looping the connections back around on themselves so they wouldn’t leak energy when it came loose. With a little luck, it might even avoid the pattern-degradation all loose spirits seemed to develop.
Once I had it tied in to itself, it was loose from its body. It seemed a bit confused and more than a little tired, so I gave it a bit of vital energy, carefully, reinforcing its existing matrix much the same way I might reinforce a spell. It perked right up and looked at me.
“You’re welcome,” I told it. It hissed—spiritually—and laid its ears back. I hissed back; it crouched, frightened. “Serves you right,” I added. “Ingrate.”
I moved off toward the window and was about to leave when I saw the ghost-cat curled up next to the sleeping kid. Good. Hopefully, the kid wouldn’t feel all alone now that his pet passed away.
Hmm. I wonder how long the ghost will last? And would the kid be able to see it? You never know. The kid might grow up to be a wizard.
I climbed down the house and headed back to the palace.
Maybe I should have brought the cat to the Grey Lady, but, somehow, I don’t think she’s really a cat person. Just a suspicion that she doesn’t much care for things with multiple lives.
I let the healing spell quit just before retiring to a dark place at dawn. While I returned to the land of the living, Nina recuperated by having her vitality diverted into regenerating. I woke Jorgen before I left, and we decided to let Taisa sleep.
After cleaning up, I went back, checked Nina’s vitality like checking a dipstick, and transfused a little from my own store. She yawned and stretched, waking Taisa.
I felt really awkward after that. All the crying and hugging. It went on for a while, too, and both Jorgen and Taisa got around to hugging
me
. I didn’t know what to do, aside from the usual manly pat on the back for Jorgen and the gentle, there-there-there pat for Taisa. I’m just no good at this.
Jorgen sent for soup, Taisa washed her face, and I examined Nina. Her eyes focused, her pupils were the same size, she squeezed my fingers equally with each hand, and all the other things I remembered but didn’t understand. I’m not a neurologist.
“What’s your name?”
“Nina.”
“Where are you?”
“It’s my room.”
“Who is that?” I asked, pointing at Jorgen.
“Daddy.”
“And her?”
“Mommy.”
“And her?” I asked, pointing at a wooden doll in a dress.
“Tina. She’s a princess, too.”
“Good. I think you’re all better.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Daddy already sent someone for food. It’s on the way.”
“Okay. Can you help Tina over here?” she asked. I handed her the doll. She settled it next to her like the doll was also sick and recovering.
Sometimes, kids amaze me.
I got up and said my farewells. Taisa hugged me again for no reason; Jorgen didn’t mind. She stayed with Nina and Tina while Jorgen accompanied me to the front.
“You don’t know what this means to me,” he said, as we walked along.
“Probably not,” I admitted. “On the other hand, it was important to me, too. I
like
doing this sort of thing, Jorgen.”
“What can I give you?” he asked. “Anything I have, it is yours.”
“We already covered that,” I told him. “I’ll see if Amber—my daughter—will let Tianna—my granddaughter—come visit.”
“There must be something,” Jorgen insisted.
“My granddaughter’s happiness isn’t enough?” I asked, all innocence. Jorgen walked in silence for a minute.
“Very well,” he agreed, at last. “You are a strange man,” he added.
“Because I’m a monster?”
“All right, a very strange monster, if you’ll have it so. Why are you not like the nightlords of the old legends?”
“Those nightlords lost sight of what they were supposed to be,” I said, making it up on the spot. “They were supposed to help the dying move on, to be doorways from this life into the next, not rulers over life itself. They forgot that. I haven’t.”
“And, if Nina had…?” he trailed off.
“Then I would have seen to it that she felt no pain, even put her hand in hand with the Grey Lady, myself,” I told him. Then I grinned. “But she has a longer thread in the tapestry of the world than that.”
“I understand. Thank you. Are you certain that there is nothing else I can…?”
“All right, if you’re going to feel bad about this until I pick something, then, yes, there is.”
“Name it.”
“Karvalen. It’s a small kingdom. It needs allies. Will you be allies with it? I have hopes that, someday, this fractured mess that was Rethven will someday be a unified, peaceful, prosperous realm again. If I had to, I’d conquer the place, crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of the women. But that’s not how I like to operate. I’d much rather have a lot of happy people living happy lives in peaceful coexistence.”
“You want to be King of Rethven?”
“Not if I can avoid it. I’m King of Karvalen. One kingdom at a time is plenty. On that point, though, would you like to be allies with Karvalen? It’s a good deal; we love to trade. And, if I ever do expand Karvalen’s borders to include Hagan, you’d be Duke Jorgen, rather than just some local baron.”
He looked troubled. I wondered if it was the idea of not being a prince or of being part of a kingdom again, or what.
“What about Byrne?” he asked.
“What about it?”
“It’s conquering its way through the old kingdom. It already holds most of the northeast in its grip.”
“Depends. If the place is well-run and the citizens prosperous, I don’t see the problem.” We exited the front door and stood on the raised area in front of it. A stableboy pretended he was leading Bronze around for me, or Bronze pretended, depending. He was in front, but he didn’t have any reins to hold on to, so she was just following him.
“Byrne,” Jorgen informed me, “is a tyranny. They conquer everything and enslave the people. Everyone works at their trade for their king, or they work in his mines. The old and weak are put to death, their bodies used to feed animals, their ground-up bones scattered in the fields. Infants born sickly or misshapen are put to the sword.”
“How much of that is fact,” I asked, “and how much is something someone said to someone else?”
Jorgen frowned, thinking.
“Perhaps it is not quite that bad,” he admitted. “There are rumors of your own kingdom that are probably not true, either.”
“Oh?” I asked, interested. “Like what?”
“Do you live in a palace made of gold atop a mountain made of pearl and silver?”
“No. There is a room with a gold-ish ceiling. Just the one, though.”
“Have you taken chips of the sun and forged them into lamps to hang in your halls?”
“No. I do have some spells to… ah, reflect sunlight underground.”
“Do you have giants for your personal guard, untiring golems for your knights, and an army of ghosts for your forces?”
“I’m gratified that people think so highly of my guys, but no.”
“There you are.”
“What, that’s it? No rumors of being a tyrant?” I asked, surprised. “Or that I drag maidens off to horrible, bloody deaths?”
“Well,” he admitted, “there is a rumor that you take each maiden to your bed for the night, once, and they return rather pale, to wander your palace halls with strange smiles and no memory of what transpired.”
I felt my face getting hot. Tyma and I were going to have a word.
“I can definitely say rumor has that one wrong.”
“I believe you,” he said, smiling a little.
“But, back to the alliance,” I said, changing the subject. “What do you think?”
“Would it be possible to let me consider it? I am disposed to agree, but I have my people to think of.”
“Take all the time you want,” I told him, and mounted Bronze. “It’s not a decision that calls for haste. But I’ll tell you one thing.”
“What is that?”
“The fact that you take your responsibility for the welfare of your people so seriously—that makes me more certain than ever that you’re a nobleman who deserves the title. I’ll be in touch.”
Bronze reared, turned in place, put her front hooves down on the flagstones, and then there were only blue-green sparks where once a statue stood.
I hate, and I really mean that word: “Hate,” the so-called roads in Rethven. Bronze is the only one of us with a sense of direction, apparently, or just a memory good enough to retrace our route. Every time we came to a crossroads, she took the correct branch without hesitation, and without consulting me.
I just held on and let her drive.
We reached Baret before lunch. It’s a much quicker trip when we don’t stop every seven miles to ask for directions.
The gates were open for the day, so we went right in. Apparently, anyone on a fire-breathing, giant bronze horse is exempt from inspection or challenge. Up at the palace, Banler was busy being a prince, so I visited Velina and our patients; everything seemed on track with them. I made it a point to pay a social call on the Lady Verenna and have lunch with her, Danler, and Brenna. The three of them seemed pleased to see me. Even Brenna; she talked non-stop throughout lunch about everything—her dolls, the food, and her pet hamster (I call it a hamster; the word was
thriaska
, which is a small, rodent-like fuzzball much like a rotund hamster. Close enough.)
Banler was still busy after lunch, so I said my goodbyes, assured Verenna that they could call me anytime, and that I’d surely be through again before too very long.
Whoosh
along a mountain road to Mochara. Plenty of traffic, but no signs of conflict or bloodletting. Very good.
Amber and Tianna were glad to see me, a situation that pleased me enormously. Tianna was overjoyed at the idea that she might get to meet another princess; Amber seemed pleased by it, as well.
While Amber and I talked, Tianna rode Bronze. Amber and I decided on a new policy for the traveling wounded, one that would give Amber’s priestess obligations a little leeway. Anyone who showed up wanting medical attention could get it from Amber and Tianna. If that failed to solve the problem, Amber would send them on to Karvalen. That way, the Mother of Flame got some good press and I didn’t get swamped by more general problems. It was Amber’s idea, but I liked it.
Amber also told me a tribe of the plainsmen were camped nearby. They didn’t want to see me, necessarily; they just wanted to trade and ask about the mountain. Apparently, they noticed it had people in it again, so it presumably wasn’t haunted anymore. They were also curious about whether or not it had plans to go anywhere, which I thought was a perfectly reasonable concern, considering.
I let Tianna ride along while I ran errands. First, we stopped to talk to Forsh, the silversmith who made the mirrors. He was quite pleased that I liked his work, and even more pleased to have another royal commission, so I went overboard and ordered a dozen pairs of full-size mirrors, each pair different from the others, as well as a hundred
identical
small mirrors. I wanted the little ones in small cases, like an old compact case for ladies’ makeup.
He didn’t even ask for a down payment. I guess he just assumed I was good for it.
Flim was also pleased to see us. He had the basic design of the bow I wanted—I already showed him the idea of a recurve bow, to lengthen the lever arm—and he was playing with different types of steel in different lengths and thicknesses. Another day or two and it would be time to bind the layers together and string it.
It’s nice to have someone who will focus on the task at hand until he gets it. It’s a good quality.
Speaking of which, Timon had quite a nursery of little plants growing. Apparently, a local potter had made a whole slew of clay cups for him; acorns and other seeds were just starting to sprout. I realized how long it was going to take before they could be planted in the wild and made a few changes. A couple of spells for light, even at night, would help them grow. I also juiced them up a bit by adding all the vitality they would hold; not much, in the larger scheme of things, but enough that they should sprout at an incredible rate.
Tianna offered to help with that, but also admitted that she might set fire to all of them. Maybe next year.
I also realized I was missing a bet. I could have connected Timon to one of the seedlings through Tort’s age-splitting spell; the plant would have aged faster while Timon aged a little slower. It would have taken the better part of an hour to do it, though, and then again for each seedling I wanted to affect. It would work, but it wasn’t worth the effort, in my opinion. Someday, he could either learn the spell—it was rather complicated; maybe not—or someone could set up the spell as a floor diagram and he could cast it that way. Someday, again.
However, in the connection between humans and animals, the aging distribution is much closer to a simple division; if the human gets one animal, the human ages at half speed and the animal ages about fifty percent faster. If the human gets two animals, the human’s aging is divided among all three, so the human ages at about one-third normal rate, while the animals both age at about one-third faster.
If the objective is to age animals to maturity more quickly, why not connect mature
dazhu
to
dazhu
calves? If the mother
dazhu
ages at half speed while her calf ages at half again normal, we’re ahead of the game on both ends.
On the spot, I put that thought into a message spell, folded it up, thought of Tort, and sent it off to find her.
I was also stopped—well, signaled by frantic waving—by a couple of people in the street. One was a farmer who wanted to know if Mochara was going to get one of those windmill-powered Archimedes’ Screw devices for irrigation; I assured him that I’d see to it. Another wanted to know who was supposed to run the mill at the canal overflow; I admitted I had no idea, so he volunteered. I told him to take it up with Amber.
I dropped Tianna off at the house, collected hugs all round and kiss from Tianna, and headed out.
And off to Karvalen!
I’ve saved the life of a little girl, made political friend—I hope—in the Prince of Hagan, had a pleasant lunch with the Princess of Baret, gotten a lot done in Mochara, and now I’m on my way home.
It’s been a good day. I’m trying to enjoy it without worrying about how it’s going to go wrong.
Torvil met me at the upper courtyard, wearing his new armor. Somehow, he’s already managed to scuff it up. Turns out that, once the replication spell finished, he went ahead and tested it. People were beating on him for most of the day with wooden weapons. He’s fine.
Our next test is to put his nice, new armor on a rack and shoot arrows at it. He wasn’t pleased about that, but it’s better to know in advance how it stands up to arrow fire. In the meantime, I have Seldar and Kammen down by the original suit of armor, lying down and flipping over every so often while Torvil monitors the process.
The mapping of the original armor included a lot of points I could use to adjust the size, stretching or shrinking the forming suit to match the corresponding points on the wearer. Torvil was pleased with the fit of his new armor, once he got some padding under it. I had Kammen and Seldar already in padding, so the fit was going to be a little tighter. We’ll see how that turns out tomorrow.