Best guess is he isn't even working against us, he just isn't ready for our input or help. It's his family, so maybe he just doesn't want outsiders involved?”
They could speculate all day, fret and worry, but until they had a real plan, Tor decided to go back to being a regular school student. Burks could find him there if he wanted him. It should even be safe enough, after all, Burks hadn't hurt anyone, not really. Tor was going to have a real discussion with the man, but no one else needed to worry, most likely.
“Absolutely not.” The voices came as one from both Rich and Connie, both seeming suddenly united in their decision.
It was understandable. Something odd had happened and they'd been lied to, so now they didn't want to risk their children. Tor could even get behind it, he told them, but then he mentioned that he, at least, would have to go back. His classes…
The King crossed his arms firmly over the soft looking sleeping shift he wore.
“Don't matter at all. Tor, it's very kind of you to attend school to be close to your new wife and we all understand that, but Lairdgren owns the school. Now I doubt that being here would be any safer, but we certainly can't risk putting you all back there either. Perhaps,” He looked at all of them and nodded firmly.
“Yes, a vacation. For the rest of the term. We'll send you all… Hmmm, well, somewhere that no one would think to look for you, not even Burks. I don't have a clue where that would be, but we'll figure out something.”
Tor shook his head sadly.
“Seriously, I'm never finishing school, am I?” For some reason it came out sounding sad and soft and no one laughed, which had been the intent.
They were ordered, an actual royal decree, if not one written down, to go get something to eat and leave the planning to them. The guards stayed with them and escorted them all to the dining room, where bowls of oatmeal, toast and boiled eggs were quickly delivered. It was all fine, but the situation seemed wrong. They were being sent on a sudden vacation? He got that meant going into hiding, but where and why? Burks wouldn't harm them, would he?
How would you know? Tor asked himself, considering some hard facts. Think about it, he'd planned to lie, that's why he made a trick truth device. What did he have to lie about? Whatever it was, it wasn't meant to fool Tor, not with the piece of crap he used the night before. So who? The King and Queen? Was it just an amusement or precaution for the future? Was it for the Count at all, or had he made it for someone else? That he made it was fact. Tor had felt him all over it. It hadn't even been borrowed from his original field, but was a novel build. That meant time had been involved and planning.
Sloppy, careless, planning.
Eating the oatmeal without seasoning Tor noticed that everyone else seemed excited, not scared. Not annoyed, which was closer to what Tor really felt himself. Except Karina who watched him closely the whole time. Finally, waving a piece of toast at him she asked if he was feeling all right.
“What? Fine, considering I woke up in a closet. I just… We just found out that someone is trying to take over the world and he's escaped with the help of the top advisor to the kingdom. Why am I the only one worried here?”
Rolph took a drink of tea and considered the whole thing for a second.
“Probably because someone is always trying to take over the world. Sure, Brown's got more experience than most by far, but… well, as a group, the Ancients kind of already have control of the world. If they back him, then he has it, and nothing we do would make a difference. If they don't, then they'll take care of it and he'll lose.”
It sounded calm and confident, but was it really that simple, what if Denno and his side won? What would happen then?
Varley munched her own toast and swallowed politely before speaking.
“Then honestly? We'll probably all be dead. Can't leave spare royalty lying around, it gives people ideas. That's really what happened with the first Cordes, wasn't it? He reigned for nearly a thousand years, but finally someone overthrew him. It wasn't twenty years until his grandson sat the throne. Though, if I have it right, the Green man had a hand in making that happen.”
“Nearly a thousand years?”
Varley looked at Karina who agreed and told the tale, history being one of her fields of particular study.
“Yes. He was an Ancient too, but not like the others we've met, a different kind, big like we are and with combat rage, though he controlled it pretty well. Like you Tor, if the legends are right. Decent enough leader, though it started to get to him I think, he started passing nonsense laws about sex, making it illegal except in marriage and that kind of thing. Really crazy. That's what did him in, all his nobles rose against him and took him out of power. Killed him too. Kind of gruesome, they weren't really sure what could really end him, so they did everything, hung, stabbed, poisoned, cut his head off, burned the body and then put the ashes over four different moving bodies of water. Really goes to show that you need to be careful of what laws you pass, doesn't it?”
They chuckled and so did Tor, not wanting to bring everyone else down. The real fact of the matter was that he kind of felt like there was no purpose to all this. Go on a vacation? Why? To rest up for the inevitable Larval army? Suddenly he felt like just going to sleep and waiting for it all to be over. It would be too lazy to actually try, but it would be worth doing if even one more thing went wrong in his life. As it was he had work to do and no idea when he had to be ready by, or what exactly he had to be ready for.
Would he have to fight Burks? It seemed like a painful idea for him. The man was family, more demonstrably than anyone else in the world, they were close. How could he do that? He couldn't even catch the guy if he ran away, not on foot. That would have to be worked on. What if he had to face the other Ancients? It was impossible of course. All he could think of to do was cheat and have so many back-up plans that eventually something worked on them. He also had to take out the Larval before they became a real threat.
The idea sent a chill down his spine. Tor wasn't afraid of them, no more than was healthy at least. No, the problem was that stopping them really meant killing them. They'd had to chop off the arms and legs of the seven that he'd defeated in a dual just to keep them from killing everyone. After they'd lost. That was only seven. What would he do about seven hundred?
Worse, he'd probably have to face the Austran fast craft too and he didn't know how much more speed he could get out of a carriage. Maybe double? That still left them with about six craft faster than what he had by far and about ten or so that would be about thirty percent faster. He could have good shields for it, so at least there was that. It might make a difference in a fight. It really wasn't fair at all.
Because some Ancient was possibly working with Denno, Tor couldn't trust any of them. Well, not without reading them clearly. From what Burks had said, if anything he'd told Tor had been true, it seemed that the other Ancients didn't have the same blocks regarding magic as Brown. That meant, probably, that they'd be aware of it as a real threat. They could even have ways to thwart him in place, things he didn't even understand. How could he beat that?
Really, he couldn't.
But he could try to get things ready for everything he could think of. Whatever the others could come up with too. Tor started realizing the white china dishes were being taken away suddenly and everyone else had kept talking, even as he drifted off somewhere. Kind of rude of him, he knew. Oops.
A fresh cup of brown and bitter sludge had been placed in front of him, so he checked it for poison with a detector on one of the consolidated amulets and then drank it quickly. It was used for hangovers and battle rage side effects, but Tor didn't think he'd qualify for either right now. Maybe it was just in case? A preventative or because no one knew how the sleep device worked and they wanted to be safe?
Varley kept staring at him, her desire to ask what he was thinking so loud that he nearly heard it with his ears. What was he going to do?
“I don't know.” Everyone else looked at him then, but Varley nodded getting that it was really an answer to her question. He elaborated for the others, since Rolph and Ali looked concerned. Karina looked slightly amused, which meant she was feeling a little better. At least all the current mess was helping someone.
“I feel… I feel like I have to fix all this. That Denno and Burks are my family and that if they're messing up, it's up to me to make it right. At the same time, I barely know either of them and, you know, Burks is basically who I'll become in a lot of ways… So if he’d doing something bad, does that mean I will sometime too?” Tor shrugged, a sullen thing that got concerned looks from everyone and a kick under the table from Karina, one hard enough to make his shield trigger. Right, she was the gloomy one her, no good stealing her position.
