Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Lt. Brinks? Double duty this morning?” I asked as he walked up in a fresh apron and helplessly wringing his hands in a clean towel.
“Oh, no, sir, Lord,” he said cheerfully. “Just a little early last night, Lord Daybreak, sir. And we’re all set to break, here, shortly, anyway, sir.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said, breezing right past why without thinking about it. “Alsooth says you have about two days stock left. Any major shortages?”
“We’ll be a bit short on eggs, but not too bad,” Brinks said smiling the whole while. “That’s our largest concern, but after that it all goes downhill quickly, I’m afraid.”
“Days instead of hours are more easily managed,” I said casually. “And I’ve still got our talks with the Pentagon brass to consider. I think we can manage to keep everybody well-fed and healthy, regardless. Thank you, Lieutenant, you’ve done very well.” He met my smile with his own. And I swear, as I was following my entourage—yeah, following, Jimmy started leading everyone out into the dining room, which a good thing or this would have taken all morning—I could hear him carrying on with his crew in a very un-military fashion.
Jimmy flashed a warning as he entered the dining hall, sending me a visual of what he was seeing. First, the dining hall was packed out. Meals were usually served in waves with men leaving as they finished eating. The room normally never got more than a third full at any given time and that was at peak periods. Everyone hung around this morning and apparently we were the last wave.
Second, everyone, to a man, stood when they saw Jimmy and yelled, “First!” The roar down the hallway was outrageously loud as the shouts continued. Jimmy remembered who was following him and resisted the urge to take up his mantle and go fiery. He really wanted to, but he was definitely smiling from ear to ear. The line kept moving so conversation was impossible.
Everyone standing helped to show the third and most shocking reason for Jimmy’s warning to me. I’d been so wrapped up in myself with blocking the feelings from the memories of the battle that I wasn’t seeing or feeling much of anything around me. Jimmy showed me a sea of blue Palace Guard uniforms. When I looked into the room myself, I counted seventeen green uniforms. The rest were blue. Crap.
As I entered the room, another series of cries went out, then the room went silent. “Ten-hut!” in deep, bass voices, several times before heads snapped forward, feet together, arms at their sides, and chests out. I stood a few feet out of the doorway mouth agape and stared in shock for a moment. This was truly unusual behavior for prisoners admitting to attempted murder.
“Major Byrnes,” I called loud enough for them to hear at our table. “I don’t know how to respond to this. I know I’m supposed to say something…”
“Either ‘at ease’ or ‘as you were’ would be appropriate, Lord Daybreak,” Major Byrnes called out.
“Thank you, Major,” I said. “At ease, gentlemen and ladies. And, thank you.” Though it was easy to see that I was disturbed by the display, I needed to set that part aside for a time and it was intended as a show of respect. Putting on a cheerful mien, I continued to the table. As usual I had the biggest chair with Jimmy on my right and Kieran on my left. Alsooth perched on a riser in the chair across from me, surrounded by Velasquez and Byrnes. Harmond sat beside Byrnes, then Morelli then Barnett, the colonel we haven’t yet met.
“Colonel Barnett, I hope getting you up in the middle of the night wasn’t too stressful to your system,” I said as I sat down. “I had a very short window to act and I wanted to give you the opportunity. And you did have the option of declining.”
“Thank you for your consideration, Lord Daybreak,” Barnett said politely. “But we feel that the faster we resolve this situation, the better for everyone involved. And I slept very well actually. Haven’t felt so good in a long while.”
“Good,” I responded, reaching for the bacon before Ethan got all of it. “Ethan, we have guests. Don’t be a pig, please.”
“What? There’s more back there,” he whined defensively over the pound on his plate already. Kieran whacked him on the back of the head and mumbled, “Behave.” Of course, he was shoveling a dozen eggs worth of scrambled eggs onto his plate a second before, so I’m not sure how educational it was.
“So, Lord Daybreak, where does your name come from?” General Harmond asked, beginning his breakfast with polite conversation. He felt he was shying away from more difficult questions and I was all for it at the moment.
“The word ‘Daybreak’ is the closest English approximation to the High Faery word that approximates the sound of my mantle,” I said. “If you heard the singing this morning, that was my faery imitating the tones along with the Palace. All of it is not within your hearing, I know, but it’s a beautiful melody, even if I’m partial to it.”
“Mantle? What’s a mantle?” Morelli asked abruptly.
“It is what makes me Lord of the Realm,” I said. “Instead of just a guy with a lot of power.”
“I take it the title is not hereditary since you have older brothers,” Harmond said in an oblique question.
“No,” I said, not offering explanation. Once was enough today.
Peter, though, wouldn’t have it. “Seth’s position was won in hard battle, General. You saw the monument to it last night and heard the story of it. First even said that his position was won by Rite of Ordeal and Challenge. I stood beside him at that battle with the elf-king and his army. Every Fae here was at that battle and witnessed some part of it. He was ten times more powerful than Seth and had more than twenty thousand years of experience on him and yet he still failed against my brother.”
“Pretty unbelievable story. I thought it was a fairy tale,” Morelli said, barely withholding the disbelief and disgust he felt. But I could feel it bubbling at the top of his emotions and it was plain in his aura.
“Luckily, Colonel Morelli,” Alsooth piped in cheerfully and unexpectedly. “Your belief in the events of that day does not affect the truths of them. And since we were there, we know what happened.”
Ethan snickered at the brownie and Peter gave Alsooth a small bow. I suppose I should have been upset at his impertinence at my guest, but Morelli deserved it and Alsooth was the Warden of the Barracks and in authority here. And it was funny.
“Colonel Morelli, have you been on many diplomatic missions before?” I asked, continuing with my breakfast, though I’d lost my appetite.
“Yes, sir, though mostly as legal counsel to the ambassadors themselves,” he said, weary of suddenly being the center of attention.
“Ah, that would probably explain it, then,” I said politely. “Though I would think that even in a court of law there are more politic ways to express disbelief. Yours came precariously close to calling my brother a liar and all of my people as well. Not a terribly good negotiating tactic, I would think.”
“You must be quite accomplished in battle, then,” Harmond said appreciatively, and trying to draw me away from Morelli.
“Not particularly, no, but the tools I have at my disposal are and my brothers are teaching me.”
“’Teaching you’?” Morelli said, again his emotions were evident on his face.
“Yes, Colonel,” I said plainly. “I am still apprenticed.”
“My brother’s opponent was both out-fought and out-thought,” Kieran said. “But Seth was by no means prepared for the encounter and frankly we don’t know when he will be.” Morelli didn’t want to believe Kieran either, but he finally got enough of a clue to shut up. It might have been Harmond’s foot under the table slamming repeatedly into his leg and Barnett’s unsubtle grip on his fork in his fist and aimed at Morelli’s midsection.
“Are we talking about the Last Battle of the Arena?” Mike asked as he walked up to the table. “’Cuz I’d love to ask about how you shattered his sword in his hands. I barely caught a glimpse of it before I went down, but it was a phenomenal sight.”
“Good morning, Mike,” I said, cheerfully. “I wasn’t expecting you until well after dawn, at least. Letting Ian sleep in?”
“Morning, Seth,” Mike answered, sitting down beside Velasquez. “He was worried about Marty, so we stayed on that side last night. Dennis woke me a short while ago. Seems I missed more than just the Palace waking this morning.”
“Just a little,” Jimmy said. “Seth let us walk from their apartment to here, so they got to see a little of the Palace.”
“That was a little?” Barnett said, awed at the size already. “How big is this building?”
“Monstrous, I’m afraid,” I said. “I have no idea why it’s so large, but Gilán does nothing in small increments that I can tell.” Acting as though the thought had just occurred to me, I went on, “While my brothers and I see to something after breakfast, why don’t I have my assistants escort you through the Throne Room and out the front doors to the Promontory. That will give you the chance to both get a perspective on the Palace and see an excellent view of Gilán. So close to dawn, the dome will still be glittering quite beautifully.”
“You’ll be the envy of everyone on the US council,” Peter said lightly. “Fuller will be beside himself with jealousy.”
“Who is that?” Jimmy asked. “You’ve mentioned his name several times.”
“You’ll meet him soon enough,” I said. “We’ll have to deal with him. His son’s pretty cool, though. I like him.”
“That’s because he didn’t have a clue about who you were,” Ethan said sarcastically. I remembered his shock at figuring it out and grinned a little, too.
“Lord Daybreak,” Morelli ventured to speak again and Harmond tensed. “I’ve noticed the similarity between your First’s uniform and the uh, uniforms of Major Byrnes and his men. Is there a reason you’re making them wear them?”
“I have required that they cooperate with the brownies in the barracks and attend to their own needs while they’re here, Colonel,” I said, rather severely. “Those have been the limits of my requirements and they can attest to that. No one has been mistreated while in my hands. As to their current attire… aside from being far more comfortable than your garments, a lot stronger and hard wearing, I’m not exactly certain why they’ve chosen to wear the Guard uniform.”
I peeked into the gym and saw that Alsooth had already arranged it into stadium seating with a platform in the center. Plenty of room for everyone and more along the double-rimmed wall for any of the barracks staff. “Nicely done, Alsooth, thank you. Would you start the men in that direction, Major? And yes, Alsooth, you will be with me and the others can watch.
“General Harmond,” I turned to him as I spoke. Everyone finished eating but Mike and he was shoveling it in, now. “Once Mike realizes he has a few minutes and
slows down
, they will take you and the colonels on a leisurely walk through the Throne Room and out to the Promontory. Please stay with them as it’s easy to get lost in this place and they have a sense of the Palace that you don’t. I will be performing a bit of magic on the men with Agent Messner as witness. I will be lifting the compulsion currently on them and replacing it with one with less severe strictures. No, you don’t get a say in its phrasing.”
“Why can’t we be there?” Harmond asked the perfectly reasonable question.
“Because there’s a limit to how many people I can protect from him,” Kieran said mildly. Ethan burst through the anchor and into my cavern, laughing in fits. I gave him a projection of Kieran saying it again and he started banging on the table, shouting, “Stop!” repeatedly and laughing. He was quite calm and smiling pleasantly in the real world.
The noise level rose as the men got up and left the room, talking boisterously but the soft leather of their shoes barely registering on the marble floor. They weren’t marching out, but tables were emptying in uniform fashion and forming into four lines, two out each door. The kitchen had already cleared of humans, replaced by a few dozen brownies doing some last minute cleaning and waiting for our dishes.
“Besides,” I said, pushing my plate forward slightly and leaning into the table dramatically, “Even if it’s just a tiny bleed over, do you really want to continue our talks from last night telling me nothing but the whole truth every time I ask a question?” The three men blanched at the idea. “Maybe that would be fun. Shall we try that anyway? Perhaps find out what the rush is?”
“No, Lord,” Harmond said, standing abruptly, his colonels standing hurriedly after him. “I think your idea is best, after all.” We joined them in standing at a more sedate pace with Byrnes and Velasquez enjoying their discomfort a little too much.
“Mike, should I have Ellorn send someone to control the Road?” I asked, turning to him. “Or would you guys like the practice?” He perked up immediately, so did Steve and David. They all got excited, quickly, at the prospect of being left alone with a new toy.
“I think we can manage it,” he said, smiling a cocky grin. “Three of us and three of them and the hall is empty. Don’t worry, gents, we’ll be a while before we get close to their speeds.”
“We’ll leave them with you then,” I said and turned to Harmond, “General, hopefully, I’ll be finished with this in a short time and meet up with you outside. Otherwise Mike will take good care of you. Again, don’t venture too far off alone, please.”
“Thank you, Lord Daybreak,” Harmond said as we made our way around the table and out into the hallway.
Once clear of the room, I asked, “Major, there seems to be an animosity between you and Colonel Morelli. Is there a prior history we should be aware of?”