spread it around. Then they had to wait about ten minutes to rinse, this acid being rather stronger than the stuff he could get at school, but once that was done, they were ready to go.
He handed her a damp piece of copper and had her test it. Standing out in the heat like they were, the effects were instant. He took one himself and did the same thing. The sudden sense of comparative cool took him for a moment. Delicious.
The thought reminded him that he should probably eat before getting back to work, if he could find food. He mentioned this to Karina, hoping she'd be able to point the way to the kitchen, which she did, even going as far as to walk him to the door of the small light colored outbuilding. Then she kissed him on the cheek and blushing, ran away.
He touched his cheek. Heh, kissed by a Princess. Wait until he told the folks at home. Then he realized they either wouldn't believe him or would misunderstand how innocent it really was. As she scurried away, a quick walk rather than an undignified run or playful scamper, she looked back over her shoulder and smiled. Her red hair swaying as she walked. Tor kind of wished she'd stayed. Having someone that belonged there next to him would have lent a lot of weight to the idea that he wasn't just some beggar that had slipped past the guard or something.
Looking down he realized that his old brown school outfit might not work for him in this situation. They'd probably grab him and set him to scrubbing pots or something, it didn't look that different than what a lot of the people in the kitchen wore he'd bet. The only problem really being that he had other work he needed to be doing. Instead, as he stood in the door, an unfinished wood frame, no one noticed him for a long time, almost five minutes. Finally a large woman, tall, not heavy, with gray and silver hair cut short, spun on him.
“Help you sir?” She said, her voice friendly if hurried.
Tor asked if they had a spare crust of bread or some fruit lying around that he might have, the woman chuckled and had him sit at a low table apologizing for the heat. She bustled and grabbed half a small loaf and cut him a slice of light yellow cheese, which she laid on top of the brown crust, to this she added a stack of apple slices that had been dried. They had an odd, almost crisp texture that melted in his mouth when he took a bite of apple. One of his new dryers had been used on these then? The effect was interesting, if not identical to regular dried fruit.
The woman smiled at him as she scooted him out the door by waving at him, he had to carry the new heat exchangers under the bread, but managed it without dropping anything. Thinking for a second, Tor rolled his eyes. Seriously, he was a moron sometimes.
“Excuse, ma'am? Um, here, they don't have cords on them, but they might help with the heat.” Holding out half the pile of copper plates got the tall woman to stop and stare at him for a second, as if he was trying to give her a burden. Maybe she didn't like magic or…
“Oh! Are these some of those cooling devices the servers got last night? I've been trying to cage one all day, since I heard about them…” She took one from his grasp and hit the sigil, closing her eyes briefly as she did.
“Ah… OK then, I can see what all the talk was about.” She tried to hand it back, but instead was met with the other half of the pile.
“For you in here. I know that it's brutal, the heat in here. Let me know if you need more and I'll try to get some to you?”
The woman blinked for nearly ten seconds and then nodded, taking the things slowly, as if unsure.
“I…” She didn't finish the statement though.
Tor looked at his food hungrily and shrugged after a bit, it was getting awkward. He didn't expect thanks for it, but the woman didn't seem to know what he wanted, since that had basically already been taken care of, Tor smiled and made sure the food didn't fall.
“Um, thanks for this.” With that, he walked out quickly, the rest of the people stopping to stare for some reason.
Then Tor sat on the grass next to the guest house, in the shade, hopefully out of the way enough so that no one would notice him. As he did his mind turned back to the problems he had to work on for the day. Getting water to the drought stricken area and heavy lifting cargo devices. Reluctantly, he decided that he'd have to wait to build the full fields for either of them. After all he didn't even know if he could move water yet, or take salt out of it. He knew he could do the other one just being a larger version of something he already had, but it would take three or four days of work for the template, and he had an appointment with the King about this other thing first.
So, the afternoon would be spent on seeing if he could control the flow of water at all. Tor thought it would work, but… without testing it he didn't want to tell anyone in case he proved wrong. It turned out that the idea, once he got past the initial three failures of concept, was pretty simple. He had to define the movement on a curve to test it in the bathtub, turning it into a kind of fountain for a while, but it worked. It would also, he realized, work for any kind of water pumping, not just long transfers over land. Tor wanted to try pumping water hundreds of feet into the air, but didn't have a big enough body of water to test the idea in. The bathtub just wouldn't do at all.
When Rolph found him he saw the activity in the big ceramic tub and clapped his large hands several times.
“Going to make an ornamental fountain? That could go over well this time of year. Especially if you do it in the pond garden. Even a temporary water feature would be good. My mother loves things like that and she has some of her friends coming over later. Royal types and high society women. So, you know… catty and unpleasant? Anything we can do to distract them would be a boon, I think.”
Excitedly he made his friend take him there and then, over the next four hours, they designed and built an elaborate water feature that ran a steady and rushing stream of water through loops, spirals, plummets and raised it as high in the air as Tor could hold in mind while building the motivation field, which turned out to be about two hundred feet he found. The only reason he didn't make it larger was that they'd already had about half the pond's water hanging above the ground over the pond at any given time. He was afraid to take any more out, lest the fish end up dying of thirst. The field would probably only last a week or two, but that would be fine. As it failed the water would just not be taken up as well and finally just stay in the pond itself.
It worked well enough as a proof of concept for half of it.
Now all he had to do was build a salt water filter. He didn't know how he'd do that. Oh, the filter made sense to him, a simple field that put salt on one side, pure water on the other. But how was he supposed to find salt water to practice on? He asked Rolph, who blinked several times.
“Say, Tor… Have you ever actually seen an ocean?”
He hadn't, of course, this being as far from Two Bends as he'd ever been. That got Rolph to set up an outing to the coast for the next day with Trice and Sara. They'd fly, so the three hundred mile trip wouldn't be a problem. Instead of a day trip, they could take it in two legs, giving them an over night stay. Rolph really seemed excited about it, since it meant that he could spend time alone with Sara. He winked at Tor when he talked about it.
The next morning, early-ish, but not too early, they set out, taking the mandatory carriage ride out of the city itself, so that they could take off and actually make decent time. Tor was really starting to dislike carriage rides. They were bumpy and slow and you couldn't feel the wind on your face.
They had to get the girls on the way, which took them all over town, since Trice lived on the opposite side of the city from Sara. It took a while, due to all the people in the streets early in the morning. It was still cool, for this place in summer at least. That, of course, made it the time to get things done. Everyone swore that the very mild and wet winters made the summers worthwhile and that they didn't even have snow to contend with most years, but Tor wasn't convinced overly. It was a pretty place, if crowded, but no snow? That didn't seem right. Like they were cheating somehow.
The dwelling that they picked up Trice at was large, but actually held some passing resemblance to what Tor thought of as a real house. It wasn't a miniature palace and didn't pretend to be. Debri house kind of did, but lacking the size looked a little funny. For that matter the palace actually looked a little funny to his uneducated eye. This place looked more like what he always dreamed of having when he was younger. A place to raise a family and keep them comfortable and safe. It was nice. Oh, it still probably cost more to build than he'd ever make, but compared to the official residence of the King, it seemed like a good place to be.
Trice saw him looking at the house and flushed brightly.
“It's… you know, our second house. No one else is really here, except the servants, most of the time, so…” She seemed nervous about something.
The other two smiled and looked away, so no help there. Tor shrugged and hoped that he hadn't offended
