up there, but the bright lines of the fire were clear, day or night. Worse, the farther they got from the city, the harder it would be to fight. The pumps wouldn’t reach that far, built short so that they could never get out of control or be able to cross back on themselves.
He could lengthen that of course. Tor had run a river three hundred miles once through the air, he could build something smaller that would go out ten or so, if he could get the time to work, and a place to do it. He didn’t know if he could manage here. It was noisy and he really couldn’t relax, thinking that a giant and angry man might sneak up on him, and say, kick him in the head, as he worked? He couldn’t build the field while wearing a shield either. It was a quandary.
Finally he decided to just do it. If Scotty the giant wanted to kill him, then it wouldn’t work, but otherwise it needed to be done. Tor wished he could sleep first, but that wasn’t happening, he knew. This was too important for him to nap. Without preamble or preparation, Tor plunked down on a bare patch of dirt, took two plates, and started building. No one bothered him that he could tell, even though it took at least a full day before the work was ready. Someone had given him sips of water while he worked, but other than that, nothing.
He didn’t test first, the field needed to be copied too badly for that. It just had to be right, that was all. In two hours he called over Karen, who looked exhausted, and explained the new devices to her. Two hours later he had another ten ready to go.
Then he kept building until everyone that could fly out had one. The number of flying people had grown somehow, but Tor didn’t ask about how. The devices were his job, deploying them he had to leave to someone else. He figured that someone had just grabbed the rigs from his gear and handed them out, probably along with lessons. If so… Then fine. Technically it was illegal for anyone not a member of royalty to have a shield and the flying gear was nearly as closely guarded, but he could give them away. Really to anyone he wanted. The idea was that if Tor felt strongly enough about it to not sell the things for thousands of golds, then it was probably important.
These devices hadn’t been given out by his own hand maybe, but he’d back it, if anyone asked. It was, oddly enough, late in the day when he finally stopped working, his eyes wouldn’t focus right, but he’d encountered that before after long work sessions. He also had a bad headache that made him want to throw up. Not a big deal. Builders got those if they pushed too hard and having just come off of being poisoned, not even being recovered fully, not even by half, he should have expected it. It would go away in a day or two. Most likely. It could last longer. A week. Not more than that. Hopefully.
A sleeping area had been set up near the wall, it was light out still, which always made it hard for him, but he decided to just rest his eyes for a while. He flipped his shield on just in case. Enough attempts on your life and you start learning to be cautious, that or you died.
Tor felt his eyes shut as he settled on the bare ground, not having a blanket or anything like that with him. It didn’t matter. He slept anyway. Once he woke up with dirt in his mouth, which shouldn’t have been possible, not through a shield, but that didn’t bother him too much, he was just so tired that he spat a few times and laid his head on his arm and went back to sleep. He’d gone to bed while it was light out and didn’t wake up until the morning, as a light spray of water hit him. Opening his right eye he saw the sky above him, a dark and even gray color.
That would be good, he thought. Rain would, as long as it wasn’t coming with lighting, help a lot. If it was hard enough it might even take care of the worst of the fire for them. The part that hadn’t already burned out. Luckily the harvest season had already passed, so that they didn’t have to contend with the loss of all their crops. Otherwise the grains they harvested for the kingdom would have gone up already. That would be bad. Even in Two Bends most of the flour was made of grains from Ross. All they really had to deal with now was the damage and the remaining fires. Rain away sky, Tor thought, hoping it would be enough to make a difference.
He got up and rubbed at his face, the black of his beard stubble must have looked a sight. He could, at least theoretically, grow a beard. It might even make him look less like a little kid if he did that. He never had, but he did have to shave every day and had for years. It was an idea at least. Not shaving was easier even.
After he got up and used the facilities someone had partitioned off about twenty yards from the wall, Tor got some water and drank until he didn’t want any more, then asked the first person he saw that kind of looked familiar, a big man who wore student browns that Tor was almost certain had clobbered him in practice at least a few times, a question.
What day it was.
It was hard to keep track of things while working sometimes. He thought it was Monday morning, but the guy was adamant that it was Tuesday already.
Argh.
Well, Tor had things to do, at least if nothing here needed him for the time being. The rain made that unlikely, nature easily trumping any work Tor could manage. So he should at least try to make his appointment with the King and Queen. Not that he really cared. Being sent away from the palace again didn’t really thrill him as an ideal plan for the day.
Still he shaved and scrubbed up in a bucket of cold water. Halfway through he laughed and went to get one of the bathtub water heaters. Then the bucket steamed slightly as he washed up. Other people were looking at him enviously and muttered about special perks, so after he finished he broke out the other water heaters and set them out near the wash bucket line. Using some bits of rope he found, hard brown stuff that barely qualified as twine, he hooked up all the buckets so everyone could have warm, or even hot, water to wash with if they wanted.
That done standing out in the rain shirtless and not getting any drier, but not cold either, thanks to the equalizing field he’d just put back on along with all the others, he dressed and went to find Kolb.
“Right, so, off to the palace. If they let me in, I’m going to resign still, if they don’t, well, then I’ll resign with cause. Getting real tired of all this stuff, you know? Anyway… Um, which way is the Capital from here do you think?”
It took a while for him to get all the equipment, now that the fire was largely handled. Tor noticed that not even half of what he’d lent out had come back yet. No big thing, it was almost dumped a few days before anyway, but he didn’t want people to think he was a pushover. Smiling a little, he told the old guy that any other gear that came in they could just toss in a box for him and for anything that was missing they could just toss fair market value in gold into the same box. Tor didn’t think that it would be a hardship for them overly. It was just incentive to not rip him off after all. If they returned the gear, they didn’t have to spend anything at all on it. Well, the cost of sending it to him, but that wasn’t a big deal, all things considered, they could send it slow post and it would only cost about four silvers.
Some of it was, clearly, still out being used to fight the fire. The new pumps for instance were all mainly out still and should be. The flying gear and shields for the people doing that where there’s now. The rest that he didn’t have, well, if someone wanted anything of his that badly, they could get off their butts and come ask him for it themselves. He didn’t really need it all, but it was the principle of the thing.
He shrugged, because this kind of led to another problem, didn’t it?
“I don’t really have an address. I…” For a moment he came up blank. There was always his family though. That would have to do.
“If you could send it to Two Bends, County Lairdgren, addressed to Tor? That should get it to the right place, eventually.”
The gardener looking fellow said that he’d see what he could do. He didn’t seem displeased by what Tor had said, so maybe something would actually happen. Probably not, but hey, life was too short to waste worrying over things he could make more of in a few days worth of work.
By eleven in the morning he was in the air and flying towards the Capital fast, but with a deep sense of dread. Now, if he could just “accidentally” take a wrong turn he wouldn’t have to deal with even more people that hated him and thought he wasn’t good enough. The very idea almost made him just turn around and fly back to the remaining bits of fire. It took all his will to keep flying straight on in the direction he was told to go.
At least this time he had some funds with him if he needed it.
Chapter eight
The two hour long trip through the winding streets of the Capital reminded him yet again how much he
