dangerous to other people, so they went slow. The controls were similar to the flyers, but on the right hand like the original ones, since they weren’t meant for military use at all. Just getting around in the city. He’d done it that way as kind of a sign that they were a peaceful thing, but didn’t know if anyone else would be able to get that. It was a little abstract maybe.
Rolph looked odd, zipping along in his green silk shirt and black trousers, his legs not moving at all as they traveled. Less odd than he likely did, dressed in another all silk outfit, this one a powder blue that would have looked good on Trice. The color would go with her eyes, not matching them, but giving her a little bit of a softer look than the blacks she normally wore did. He found himself wondering if she’d like the Not-flyers… until he remembered. A sudden flash of rage and sadness moved through him then. It hurt. Like a physical pain coming from a place that didn’t exist within him properly.
He tried to shake it, putting his mind on the world around him instead. It really did make it easier after a few minutes. Tor even found that he could breathe again after a bit.
Debri house looked the same as the last time that he’d seen it, so they hadn’t been spending all the coin from the sales on renovations at least. Not on the outside of the house at any rate. Not that it mattered. Right now he just couldn’t bring himself to care about gold at all, and more than anything he wanted to turn around and leave, rather than face another uncomfortable situation. But he had to.
He couldn’t avoid this forever and they didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t like they were working with Trice to get him or something and short of that, well, wealth wasn’t that important really, was it? Tor tapped the amulet under his shirt, the one with a stylized sandal on it, to signify walking.
Well, it wasn’t walking either, but Tor thought it fit the “Not-flying” theme.
He stood back and let Rolph ring the bell, since for him to do it would have required him to stretch up on tippy-toe to grab the little pull chain or maybe jump a little. Rolph, taller now than he used to be, barely had to reach out straight. The implication being that if you weren’t tall enough to reach it, you better not? The idea that it may have been put up like that on purpose had never occurred to him before, and left him feeling a little cold. Was it a subtle way of telling him that he wasn’t important enough to work with at all? Or good enough?
The door opened quickly. A man just over six foot tall, about fifty years old and nearly as thin as Tor was after all his weight loss, asked them to come in, with a deep bow. Short or not, looking like a child or not, Tor got one too. Heather Debri stood in the hallway, Sara next to her, with a tall blond guy, Sara’s brother Kris, to the older woman’s right.
“Welcome Prince Alphonse, Master Builder Torrence Baker. Please, won’t you come in and have a seat? Perhaps refreshments?” Heather gestured towards the room to the right with a sweeping motion that was choppier than Tor remembered her being. He wondered if, in that room, they’d find assassins waiting or at least a tray of poisoned muffins. He walked in slowly and stopped in shock.
Two for two?
On the table was indeed a tray of muffins, poppy seed by the look of them. They smelled cold, so they were probably either made earlier or bought from a bakery. Warm product always filled a room with stronger scents. Sitting at the table behind them, in a slinky black dress that wouldn’t have been warm enough anymore up north at his old school, sat Trice.
Holding up one finger, Tor forestalled speech, then fished inside his shirt for the incredibly dangerous explosive device that was masquerading as a poison detector. He held it carefully and put his thumb on the activation sigil. It didn’t go off, because that would only happen if he intended it to. He smiled and then laughed slightly, a little bitterly.
“Right, so… if I trigger this device in here, shields or not, we all die. Well, probably. Anyone I point it at will certainly die instantly. Given that we’re inside the city, and this will probably take out half of it or more. I don’t think that any of us except Rolph would survive long, even if we lived through it, you know what I mean? The Royal Guard would probably kill anyone here just for being too close to it at the wrong time.” Tor gestured for the Debri family to move in front of him and put Rolph at his back. It wasn’t much protection for his friend, but it was all he could think of on short notice.
“I don’t know what your plan was today, but I don’t think it’s going to work very well. We’d come to tell you that you had more time, based on the idea that you weren’t really trying to rip me off and that it was all just a misunderstanding based on my incorrect hard feelings, and that you weren’t working with my enemies against me, but this… I think not. You have four hours to have every template I’ve made for you at the palace. I don’t care where they are. If they don’t show up, then I’m going to come looking for them.”
Laughing a bit harder, an unhappy forced sound he held up his left hand palm out towards Heather. “Yes, you’ve heard that I’m not a killer, maybe even that I’m weak and stupid enough to fall for anything. Possibly so, but know this, I may have been too dumb to require payment up front from people I thought of as friends, but for enemies the rules are a lot different. Four hours or I start finding every Debri property in the kingdom and destroying it. If you don’t think I can do it… Well, then you haven’t been paying attention at all, have you?” Tor looked around the room, trying to keep his face as still as possible.
“I’m starting here, so, you know, if you have anything you want to keep, you might want to hurry, or at least move things out in that time.”
He started to back out of the room, but Rolph blocked him slightly. He kept moving until his large friend got the idea. It looked clumsy as all get out, but it worked well enough. Tor wasn’t about to let two special school students have his back, even with a shield on. Just as he got to the door of the room, Trice called out.
“Tor… It… what I said, it wasn’t what you think! I didn’t mean it, I was just trying to make people think that I thought that, so that maybe whoever poisoned you would try to use me to kill you and we could catch them.”
Oh. Well. That made sense.
“Ah, I see! So you’d kill me, and then blame them for it? That’s… actually pretty clever. Or…” He tilted his head at her as if inviting comment.
“No! Just catch them, with you alive and well. I love you… I thought you knew that.” Her voice became soft, agonizingly alluring.
Too much so. If she’d just said the words, or sounded sad at the end, it might have had some effect on him, as it was he affected his own soft look.
“Oh? I… well, that makes everything different of course. How could I have been so silly and not realized that you were only playing make believe, saying those things to help me… Of course. It all makes sense now. You were just trying to get attention for your plan, to help me out and… probably help clear your parents as well? That’s understandable. Even sensible. I never thought they’d poisoned me anyway you know, no benefit in it. You just committed to your plan totally, because anything less would leave holes that the bad guys could see?” Tor tried to make himself sound like he actually believed the story. It was a credible job, particularly if she really thought he was as moronic as she’d said.
“Yes. Let’s put the past behind us and run off together to get married right now, we’ll do it today, so that no one can gainsay our love!” He nearly giggled when he said it. It sounded like something out of a bad romantic tale.
It was about that time that her eyes, looking a little hopefully into his own dropped down to notice that the explosive was pointed directly at her still.
“Um, Tor?” Moving just one finger she indicated the weapon with a weak smile.
“Oh that? Don’t worry about that. That’s just there because I may have to take out the side of the house here. You see, the problem with saying things like, “I could probably sleep with both of you in front of him and he’d still go on with the marriage because the ugly little troll can’t do any better and he’s so stupid.” Is that even dumb people stop trusting you. Makes it harder to fool them again I imagine. You might want to work on that one in the future. You know, with the next guy you jerk around like this.”
Rolph took another step back into the hall so Tor called out as he walked backwards carefully.
“Heather, I don’t want to be a dick about all of this, so that four hours will start from the time we leave, not when I first said it, so that’s what, an extra four minutes? I really also suggest that I don’t see any of you around for a while. I’ve not been in the best of moods lately and the facts add up to Trice here as being the likely culprit behind all the attempts on my life just a little too well right now for comfort. Really Trice, you could have just told me you didn’t like me you know. I wasn’t going to make you marry me or anything and I really tried to be a good friend to you.” He looked over at Sara. “Both of you. Why you couldn’t see that as more valuable than making me into an enemy I don’t know. Troll or not, I have feelings too, right? Heh, probably shouldn’t have said that, now
