say something about the King’s early education. Eventually his eyes returned to the military Counselor.
“I'll assign a couple Royal Guards, a team of four, so that both of you will have a scribe that can handle a fight. I'd really rather you didn't try to use Tor as a servant William….”
“Think he'd kill me if I did?” The voice, that Tor had heard going smug and smarmy after his people had been thwarted in an assassination attempt was… just politely interested. For the world it sounded like the Counselor, for all he kept trying to kill based on fear, wasn't afraid for himself at all.
“God no. The thing is William, he'd do it. You say, please help me scrub the toilet to humiliate him, and he won't just grab a brush, he'll work for days until he has a magical device to do it for you then, make a hundred copies for you to pass to your friends at need. It can be delicate, preventing that. Ask the wrong thing and he might work himself to death.”
Tor snorted derisively, loud enough to catch both men’s attention.
“I could make that in a day, or if you want a toilet that appears from nowhere at the tap of a sigil, in two hours, if you insist I make a new one. Otherwise I can send for one right now without doing any extra work. They have a little building that pops-up and everything, for privacy. Those are automatically self cleaning, so it's kind of worth it, but a regular toilet will still last longer in raw years, if you take good care of it and start with a good one. But… my hand writing isn't great. Kind of slow. Good enough for notes, but I wouldn't want to try interviewing someone with that being the only record…Oh!”
He wanted to slam himself in the head and would have but the shield would stop it anyway.
“How about a device that people can talk into that will repeat their words later? I already have that, I can extend the time and make it so that it will pick up anything in a given room, I think. Again, a few hours tops. Could that help at all?”
The older man chuckled easily, an almost friendly thing.
“Yes, and if you have a device that lets me talk across the kingdom to the other side, let me know. The biggest impediment to cases like this is the time factor in communications. More than once we've had investigations go sour because everyone died. Of old age. Enough of them to destroy our case at least.”
Tor pulled inside himself. He could produce sound, and if he sent the information from one place to another instead of holding it in potential, that would be a start. It would need some way to contact more than one point, if everyone was supposed to have one, it would be too hard to make direct contact with each one deployed…
“OK… by tomorrow?”
Everyone laughed, so Tor did too. After all, it was funny, he didn't even know how to make the selectors work. Ah! It jumped into his mind full blown. Make them all using a central device, then train all of the units to it, making physical contact the first time, then taking them to their final location, already linked. Give each place a sigil that would show on each speaking plate? Well… That would work.
Smythe wanted to get to work the next day, but also wanted to use carriages. Tor balked there. Transports would work as well, be hundreds of times faster and cost less. No horses to feed or broken wheels. Besides, he told the men, the longer this took, the greater the chance that something would go wrong and everything would end up in civil war again. Instead Tor suggested the King request a pilot and a transport for the people going to and fro with them.
As much as Tor hated carriages, Smythe didn't feel that a transport would give a proper feeling of authority. Tor offered to paint one to look like a carriage and even build a little cubical that would be stuffy and uncomfortable for the whole ride if the other man wanted, just to give the whole thing the proper feel. Yeah, he was being a little dickish about it, but the other man was too, so as a conversation it worked.
Though to his mind, the red-black of focus stone was intimidating and kind of grabbed attention. It could be made to look like almost anything, if he wanted though. It would take extra time, but would still be faster than going overland. Going by old style Not-flyer would be faster by far, or taking a boat. But that wouldn't get them to half the places they needed to go.
The debate continued for a bit. Smythe had flown and enjoyed it, and could still fly, but didn't want to, again the dignity thing, so it wasn't fear of being too high up, it really was just the looks of the thing? Tor focused trying to get a feel for the man, and found the real reason lurking inside him.
He was trying to draw things out, so that he could think up a way to get rid of Tor. Not kill, but send away, so he could work unimpeded. Tor blurted out that he'd never heard something so silly. Which got the older man to raise his eyebrows sharply.
“Look, I don't think the King is trying to say I should do your job, or interview people or anything like that even, he just wants us to get along. If you keep trying to get rid of me, he's going to lock us up in a little room together until one of us dies or we end up fast friends. Since, well, frankly we'd both get pretty ripe after a few days, can't we compromise on duties? I'll handle travel, communications and, I don't know, food, or… clothing. Whatever you think is fair. You do your investigation thing and I'll jump in if you tell me to and otherwise stay out of it? I know I don't have your skill or reputation in this. I'm not pretending I do. It would be ridiculous for one thing. You're not blind or sitting in a prison cell because of your skills… That isn't lost on me.” In fact it had been his idea, but Tor didn't point that out. No need to push the guy after all.
The King finally decided for them, they'd go in two days, by transport and if they didn't get along, he really would lock them in a little room together. The tone of his voice was serious but his mind blank, which meant he was really joking. If he was serious he'd have let his pattern show it, right? It made sense, but who knew with royals. Maybe he'd just try to go blank when Tor was around from now on? Tor tried it just to see what it was like.
It was pretty normal feeling to him, but then he spent a lot of time that way, didn't he?
Heading home, Tor wondered how he'd come to this pass.
First he made an enemy of a powerful and well connected man somehow. The devices he'd used to try and kill Tor showed that, if the high title and rank wasn't enough. Now he had to basically live with the same man for the duration? Whee. It seriously wasn't fair that Tor had to put up with an individual that had tried to kill him, twice. No normal person had to put up with this, did they? No, the bad guy was just put to death and everyone went on with their life a little better for it.
Except that sometimes people lied. And sometimes they thought they told the truth but didn't remember things correctly. Could he build a device to show that? It would… be halfway easy, he realized, blinking. He already knew how, and had done parts of it with the King himself. The emotion sensing amulets worked on a similar feedback idea even.
The next two days involved work for him, no matter what Smythe of freaking Westend was up to, which given their history probably included buying up and testing magics to kill Tor with.
Constant and unending work, but he managed a full ten hours sleep before he had to go to the palace complex, well nine of sleep and an early morning hour of cuddling with Petra.
That was nice, cozy even, but Tor kept wondering if she meant it. Was she just spying on him for her family and using sex or pretended affection to get close to him? Sure, he could have checked on what her field said about it, but Tor wasn't sure he wanted to know. He liked her. If she didn't feel the same way, it would hurt. But not knowing was hard too and caused him to pull away, keeping his distance emotionally. Could she tell that yet? Probably not, all the work he'd been doing would make him seem a bit slow and at a remove for a while, since he'd been so deep the whole time. That would mask things a bit.
Three novel builds in two days.
Tor had to feel a little proud of that. Well, at least if they all worked. He had to test things first, but the devices all felt right at least. That was a good sign. It meant he was starting to get a real feel for things, maybe at least. Unless he was delusional. Tor smiled and shook his head, because he was far from the point where at least some testing would be needed each time he made something, wasn't he?
Tor went to the palace early, the morning light still just coming out of false dawn, people on the street, but only sporadically yet. Mainly tradesmen and people sweeping their walks while it was still cool enough to not be a horrid experience. He stopped at Debbie's to drop off a few devices for sale, which she thanked him for, coolly, as if he'd done something wrong.
Another thing? He didn't have enough to deal with already? Still, as a friend he had to get to the bottom of this if he could.
Smiling a little weakly Tor asked her to explain, and not play games with it, since he had to leave the Capital inside a few hours. It sounded a little rough, but he wasn't trying to be mean, just get past the normal three weeks it took for women to explain why they were mad at him. She actually started on the whole “you know what you did”
