Not only did Wensa start following him around, she wasn't even attempting to be subtle about it. She even went so far as to start eating meals in the student's dining hall when he did to watch him. Instructors could eat there for free, so a few of them cut costs by doing that sometimes. She was even an accounting instructor, so the idea of her saving money that way probably made sense to everyone. Just demonstrating frugality to her students.
Really, it was even a good idea, so at first no one noticed, but after four days of the older woman staring at him with undivided attention it became obvious that she wasn't just there at the same time by happenstance or because she enjoyed dry chicken and stewed beef slices in gravy.
Even when he went out to test parts of his shield she watched him. Glared at him was more like it. Staring so hard he doubted she missed anything he did at all. Ever. It was annoying and more than a little scary. Tor started wondering if she was watching him in the restroom somehow too? Or the bath? He didn't really think so, but checked for spy holes anyway. More than once.
The worst part came when Dorgal waited for him after dinner on the fifth night. The bully didn't normally stoop to eating with people like Tor and hadn't been at the meal itself, but stood right outside the door. Lurking, with a wicked look on his face, which was pretty normal for him, kind of a go-to facial expression as far as Tor could tell. He had two of his buddies with him, an older guy, Marko, who was a fifth year, Tor thought. The other kid, well, he wasn't a kid at all, older than any of them. Probably too old to be at the school, at least without a student to take them around as a guest. That man didn't say anything, standing at the back of the little group, taking pains to look menacing. If he wasn't trying then he had the worst case of sinister grin ever. He just looked angry, like he was about to attack without hesitation.
“So, little Baker boy… I hear you have a new girlfriend.” The last word was said with amusement. Marko laughed, but the other man, well dressed in black and green silk with dark slacks and boots dark enough that the color couldn't be seen in the dim evening light, didn't move or smile at the lame joke the moron had just told. He just stared as if wanting to fight. His eyes were freaky, the part that should have color was almost totally black. It really stood out.
It also didn't make a lot of sense. After all, if Dorgal had just hired a thug to beat him, he would have gotten someone low rent, not a finely dressed man like this. Why spend extra money on it, when the beating would have the same overall effect anyway? Maybe it was supposed to be a refined thrashing? But if so, shouldn't the fellow be acting a little more polite? The man didn't seem to have any obvious weapons and also didn't look tall enough to be royal, even if he was nearly a foot taller than Tor. About the same size as Trice or Wensa. Then again, all these guys were, or close enough to it that it wouldn't matter in a fight. The three in front of him closed on Tor menacingly, but didn't touch him. Not yet.
“Answer your betters Baker boy, do you have a new girlfriend? A certain accounting instructor? She certainly seems interested in you… Doesn't seem your normal type… A bit girlish and short, don't you think?” He said the words as if they had meaning, but didn't explain what that might be.
Wensa hadn't been a girl in a while and she wasn't overly short for a woman. Nearly as tall as a royal herself.
Tor shrugged. Nothing he said would make any difference now. Once bullies started like this they wouldn't stop until someone made them or they got tired. He sighed and shook his head.
“Dorgal… I only wish she just wanted to be my girlfriend. Instead… No, wait here.” Without warning he turned to the dining hall door and popped his head in. “You'll love this, just give me a second.” He spoke quickly, not really knowing what he was doing.
“Wensa! Come tell these men out here why you keep staring at me, will you?” The woman actually blinked at him and rose without hesitation, her hands going to a small pouch on either side of her belt. She stalked over like a beast of some kind, smooth and sinuous.
Dorgal looked outraged that Tor would do something other than cower, which made Tor want to laugh. As if any of this was about him. Stupid bully. If Tor could make it about the other man he would of course. Less for him to worry about. Let Wensa and Dorgal dance with each other for a few minutes instead of plaguing him. Confusion to his enemies and all that.
The Royal Guard captain moved through the door quickly, weapons pointed. Before anyone else could speak, Tor did.
“Bullies, meet Royal Guard Captain Wensa. Wensa, meet the bullies that think your attentions towards me are amorous. I'll leave you four to discuss your collective plans to “get me” or whatever it is your kind do. And yes, Wensa, I get that you probably plan to kill me over this. But you know what? Either do it, or leave me alone. I have work to do and no time to play with fools that can't see me for what I am.”
Tor stormed off trying to act offended and haughty, waiting until he got all the way around the corner to start hyperventilating. God, she was going to kill him now. No one had told him he couldn't tell people who she was, but her presence was obviously a secret of some sort. Maybe they'd have to remove her now? Then again, maybe she'd just kill them all to protect her secret? He really needed to get the work done on that shield as soon as possible. Then all he'd have to do was wear it around for the rest of his life. Yeah, that would work. Bathing was overrated anyway, he thought, his skin instantly itching in response to the idea of being unclean.
That night, instead of sleeping, he decided to get what work done he could on the shield project. After all, the old deadline he'd been set wouldn't make any difference if he was dead, would it? As soon as Rolph went to bed he started working, just sitting in the dark, eyes closed, mentally tracing the sigils that ran the circle, reminding him what he needed to do. Some of the really good builders didn't even have to use sigils at all, holding all the information in their heads perfectly. He could feel the basic patterns with his mind of course, so he didn't need light to see the marks or even to have his eyes open. Each floated in the darkness behind his eyes, a presence rather than a picture. It was enough to work with.
First the physical protections, he captured the feeling of the needed field in his mind, an object coming towards him deciding to turn back the other way with the exact force it came with. Then he held that sense, let it grow and live, co-existing with the wooden template in his hands. Letting it merge with the wood itself.
Then the scattering, a hard concept to hold, but one that he found would spread the coherent pattern of any cutter or blast, disrupting it totally. It took longer to establish, because it was just so new to him. It would have been easier if he could have gotten a sense of it from another shield that already existed, but that had been forbidden him. More to the point, he didn't have access to anything like that and never had, so even if he wanted to cheat, it wasn't an option.
This had to be linked to the next field, the sifting one that kept out particles and then the one for heat. They all had to be held carefully in mind the whole time, each moment letting the whole grow stronger and stronger, then the spread of force into the ground and the other ten ideas he'd come up with for it had to be put into the wood. After eight hours he heard Rolph get up and move around, but he couldn't let the field go. Wouldn't.
Thankfully it was an off day for him, so he didn't have to go anywhere. He didn't eat or move for hours longer. Finally, once the whole thing became a single concept, once it had merged together as a single entity, one unique being, he let himself get up and go to the restroom. Tor held the concept in mind even as he made his way to the small room at the end of the interior hall. Letting the field go even for an instant would weaken it. He could rebuild it, now that he had the idea of what the whole thing felt like, but it would take hours to get it back to its current strength.
Better to hold it now, no matter how hard. His mind tried to stray, hours of focus did that to him, but Tor didn't let the idea go, clinging to it as if his life depended on it. This time it just might he knew. It took twice as long to do everything this way, his physical movements slow and careful. Longer than that even. It didn't matter as long as he kept the field going. He had all day.
Before dinner time Rolph came in, changed his clothing and left without speaking. Then he came back again and slept, the presence oddly reassuring to Tor. He couldn't think about that of course, not consciously, but the deepest part of his mind always felt a little vulnerable when he worked like this. If anyone attacked him, he'd never see it coming. In fact he may never notice it at all, just die. His friend wouldn't let that happen.
When Rolph got up the next day he opened his eyes and nodded to the man. The field was holding well enough so far. It was too complex to just let go yet, it needed to linger within his focus until it simply wouldn't fade without his attention. But he also had classes. He started to panic for a bit, then turned his mind back to the task at hand. Tor spoke one sentence as Rolph left.
“Tell them I won't be in today.” It came out sounding flat and dead, but he hadn't meant it as an order. Hopefully it would be enough and Rolph would let them all know what he was up to. If not… Well, he didn't have time to worry about that. He had to survive if they wanted him to go to lessons at all.
The next day, about the time Rolph was about to leave, Tor stood up. A pitcher of water was next to him, put there the day before most likely. He filled the cup and drank, then kept doing that until the whole thing was empty.
“Gah.” He croaked, voice sounding like a frog had moved in.
Rolph gave him a strange look and winced visibly. “I hope all that wasn't for the food dryer idea…” He sounded worried. Almost panicked at the idea.
Tor almost choked on his reply, a bubble of laughter coming out instead. “This? No, this is that shield project thing. That, the wood piece there on the desk? That's the food dryer. Sorry, I finished it days ago. It works on fruits and vegetables, not meat yet, I didn't want to risk drying out people or whole animals. I haven't put it on metal, but I can… Um, later though, OK? I know that this probably doesn't look that hard, but…”
Rolph held up a hand and told him to lie down while he went to steal some food for him. Tor decided to just sleep for a bit, hungry but too tired to worry about food. His eyes closed on their own, heavy and almost stinging when he forced them open, so he didn't fight it letting darkness close over him gently. A while later someone, Rolph he thought, shook him awake and made him drink something. It was a thick broth. He almost told him that he wasn't sick, needing invalid food, just tired, but then Tor realized that it wasn't his friend holding the cup, but Trice. Over by his desk Rolph and Sara looked at the food dryer. Playing with it actually.
“I wonder what the range on this is?” Sara said softly. She wore all black again, kind of a uniform for people in her section he guessed. She looked nice, blond hair long enough to show she was a girl, but not so long that it would be easy to use against her in a fight just a little under shoulder length.
Pushing the cup away for a second, he swallowed.
“About a five-foot square. Under the dryer and centered. That's the size of a wagon loading bin. Just, if you're doing that much at once you need to have it in something open on the bottom so it can drain. A mesh or slats or something. The water will just dump out. Probably want to be outside too. I tried a single apple and soaked my notebook. On the good side, it turns out the clothing dryer works on paper too.”
Trice shook her head and gave him more to drink. Then she felt his head, so he gave her a hard look. He really wasn't sick and while the broth was good, he just needed to sleep.
Rolph and Sara both asked him something, sounding excited. Tor thought it was if they could take the food dryer out and test it. He told them yes, to get them all to go away and fell back to sleep. When he got up it was dark out, and Rolph was back in his own bed again, breathing heavily. It wasn't a snore at least. Now, if his brothers could be trusted, he snored, but Rolph didn't.
Then Tor checked the shield template carefully, activated it and picked up the small cutter he'd built, sweeping it across his arm, hoping the shield worked. No blood rushed forth, so that was a good sign. No pain either, but that didn't mean much. A cutter didn't really hurt, it just separated things. You could lose a finger and not even notice it until the blood became a nuisance. One reason to stick with nice old fashioned knives for most things. At least with them the horrible pain would let you know if you were killing yourself.
Being quiet he finished the initial testing, trying to burn himself with a candle, inhale the smoke, and even dripping the hot wax on his arm. The wax settled on him after a second of hovering above the field, but it was hard and cool when it landed. Excellent.
Taking out the ten plates he'd marked for the purpose, little half-hand sized ones in copper, with a basic circle for a sigil, etched in acid again, just because it looked professional. Tor set to making copies of the template carefully. It took about two and a half hours, but gave him ten perfect shields. Each should last for years, unless he screwed up somewhere. It seemed alright. Now all the new field had to do was get him through the test. If he lasted that long with Wensa coming for him.
All of the shield plates had two little holes punched in them at the top, so that he could run a string or tether through them, letting him wear one around his neck. He didn't know what anyone else did to secure their shields, but that kind of thing could be changed later if needed. The field as a whole was the hard part. Now, even if he had to rebuild the whole thing, he could do it way faster. Changes would be a pain, but nothing too major comparatively. In a very real way he knew the field now, so it was part of him and he a part of it. Someone good enough at doing such things could probably feel his presence even in the copies of any field he'd created as a novel build. Maybe even if someone else had made them.
After that he laid back down for a nap until morning. Then he could try and test the whole thing carefully and under greater force. If that worked, he could go and see if Kolb wanted to try it out early. If it wasn't good enough then he needed to know as fast as possible. That Wensa hadn't broken the door down to get at him in his sleep was probably just her waiting for a more convenient time.
When Rolph got up and dressed, before breakfast, Tor stopped him outside in the commons and asked the giant to hit him as hard as he could. He tapped the shield to activate it just in time. Rolph didn't hesitate at all, or ask questions, didn't even blink. The blow came in hard and fast and then… just stopped. The ground under Tor made a soft popping sound, almost a click, but nothing else happened.
Tor didn't budge at all, which earned a narrowing of eyes and a half dozen more blows and a single kick, all with the same thing happening. Rolph stopped and the ground made a soft clicking sound. Without asking if it would work, his giant friend pulled something from his green tunic and aimed it at Tor's arm at an angle so that it wouldn't hit dead on, and when nothing happened, re-aimed at his middle, getting the same result.
“Heh! That's good. This lance is, um, special. Technically I'm not allowed to have it at school, and your shield treated it perfectly. If you can stop this, a simple cutter won't be a problem. Ready to have the weapons guys go over it then?”
Tor really would have liked more testing first, a slow and progressive thing that would show any flaws in a safe environment. Done over weeks or months. On someone else. Ideally Dorgal Sorvee or one of his friends. It was sensible and would hurt a lot less in the long run. Knowing that wouldn't have time to happen with Wensa around he nodded. If you can't be smart, might as well embrace being stupid. He told his friend that he'd go after lunch. Looking around he saw a flash in the corner of his eye that he thought was probably Wensa spying again.
Damn, he couldn't even walk out of his room unseen for a minute! Did the woman even sleep?
Morning lessons went well, no one commenting on his having been gone the day before, so Rolph must have gotten the word around for him. That was friendship there.
Tor wouldn't even know who to go to if he had to do the same thing for Rolph. Wensa probably, which would be a laugh if nothing else.
Lunch was awkward, and left him feeling uneasy, since a lot of people were staring at him. Some pointing slightly and nudging each other. Petra from the combat training section just smiled at him. It wasn't sinister looking or anything, but she nudged the girl next to her, a familiar sword swinger that had beaten him several times herself, which got both of them to look towards him. Then they started giggling at him. Giggling freaking girl giants. Bleh. Tor had to fight shaking his head at them. Going for a wry grin instead.
He got that he was a joke to them.
On the good side Wensa had decided to skip the meal at least. The older woman made him feel like he was about to die at any second. If she crept up on him from behind, his shield wouldn't help at all, it had to be activated to work and that took an act of conscious will, no matter how small. He'd have to get used to either being way more careful or having it turned on all the time.
He shrugged.
Everyone had probably heard that he and Wensa were an item now or something, which was laugh worthy at least. The idea didn't thrill him, everyone thinking that, but it beat his only other dating rumor, which hadn't been one at all, just public humiliation without a date being attached. As scary as Captain Wensa was, at least she'd been more polite to him publicly than Maria had been. Way more polite. Given his track record with women, maybe he should send her flowers or something. That would probably get her to run away and not look back.
Slowly Tor trudged to the practice field and found the square filled with an extra twenty or so people, about half of them instructors. Rolph, Sara and Trice stood next to the old man from the other day and oddly Wensa, who didn't seem happy to see him alive at all. Her hand at pocket as if she wanted to use whatever weapon she had there. Badly.
Kolb smiled at him and put his hand out towards him slowly.
“Ready to test your new field? You have a few days yet, about a week actually…”
“Yeah, but if it's not ready I probably won't live that long. Not with Wensa there plotting to kill me or whatever. Might as well try it now.”
Kolb looked shocked at what he said, but didn't comment on it. He did stare a little at Wensa whose hand moved all the way in to her pocket. Everyone else started to look at the woman too, except Tor, who took the chance to slap the shield medallion he had on under his shirt. It took an act of will to activate his fields, not physical contact, so a bit of cloth wouldn't stop that. As if in unison with the motion, Wensa pulled out a piece of metal and pointed it at him. Nothing in particular happened, so she triggered it again and again.
Then, baffled, she pointed it at the new pell and triggered the device once more. The thick wooden log exploded. The only saving grace was that all the pieces flew away from the crowd not just all over the place like some explosives did. Part of the gray stone wall behind it buckled, bowing outward, even as it held its basic wall shape. Everyone stood in shocked silence for a minute. Except Wensa, who put that weapon away and pulled another one, a simple cutter it looked like, from the way she used it, sweeping it back and forth over him.
“Alright then…” She murmured, and pulled a third weapon. No one moved as she did. It was a good thing too, because fire covered him. It didn't spray towards him, it sprang up around him, hanging in the air itself. He held his breath. The shield held against the heat and even the living flame, but he hadn't been able to figure out how to keep the air vital while it burned like that. The fuel this burned was the air itself, or something in the air that he didn't know about, a hot white flame. If she held it on him long enough, he'd suffocate.
Thankfully, after nearly a minute, about the time when he would have had to try and gasp for breath no matter what else was going on, she stopped. Taking a deep, but slow breath, Tor waited for whatever she had in store next. Oddly it wasn't her that moved, but Kolb. Picking up a practice sword from the low rack with a shrug and a grin, he charged and slammed it across the juncture of neck and shoulder as hard as he could. The ground gave off a much louder crack than Rolph had managed. Then he repeated it for a good twenty minutes, when he stopped he wasn't even breathing too hard, though sweat glistened on his bald head in thick drops.
“Well, that more than satisfies the requirements for the test except for time on the cutting field, I suppose we can take turns beating you for a while… But I think your design proves out. Especially since the original test was to take place on the pell and not Tor at all… and it was really just supposed to hold against sword blows and cutters, as I believed you knew Wensa? To my knowledge there are no shields that have been made that can do all of this yet. Even asking for physical protection and cutters was pushing it a bit.” The large man stepped back and regarded her closely.
Wensa smiled at the man and nodded.
“I knew the field would hold. Besides, anyone making something like this they wouldn't trust their life with, doesn't deserve to live.”
Trice walked up and threw more of the white powder in his face from about five or six feet back, without warning. It hung in the air and sifted to the ground, not touching him at all. He was able to keep breathing the whole time at least. When it all settled the girl slowly put her hand on his cheek, which, because of the soft and gentle movement made contact.
She leaned in as if to kiss him, which, he knew, had to be a trick. Because no one ever tried to kiss him. He hopped back just as the knife would have stabbed him in the stomach, causing her to lurch and the knife to stop as she pushed too hard. It could have cut him if it came slow and soft, but the design of the field let him move away from the blade even as it did. A flaw in the shield he knew, but one that he hoped could be worked around.
It was his advisor, Frank Gear, who suggested they pick him up and toss him in the low pond, to see if he'd found a way to breathe underwater. The idea made him wince, but it turned out that even working together they couldn't pick him up. Five of the larger people, including Kolb, tried. Tor could walk, even run full speed, but any large, or fast, outside force directed at him was absorbed by the ground. To lift him they'd have to shift about five tons of earth underneath him too.
Kolb and the older man both smiled. The gray beard walked towards him and stopped about ten feet away, his smile seemed genuine at least. Tor wondered what he was going to hit him with, but the gentleman just kept looking happy and spoke in pleased tones.
“Congratulations, this is… impressive hardly covers it. Do you think you can duplicate the field?” The man looked politely interested and stroked his beard sagely. It was an awesome piece of facial hair, white and down to the front of his collar.
“Oh sure. This is a copy. I have the original template and nine more of these back in my room. I didn't want to come out here with one made of wood. It just seemed tacky.” He smiled and hoped that no one would make fun of him for the obvious holes in the whole thing. Trice had gone right through his field. If she'd tried to choke him instead of stab he'd probably be unconscious already.
The man nodded and looked at the weapons instructor.
“Try to sweet talk him into lending us some of those, eh?” He turned to Tor and winked, smoothing his black tunic with his right hand. “You've already made ten copies? Incredible. I won't insist, they're yours after all, but the school can't really afford something of that quality for practice. I don't know, but I think the military might not have shields of this quality for the most part. Certainly not covering so many different potential combat aspects. A lot of people will benefit if you're willing to perhaps, lend us some?”
The man didn't stand around waiting for a yes or no, instead he walked over to Wensa, whispered something in her ear with a smile and gestured towards the gate. The woman, for the first time that Tor could remember, laughed out loud and turned to leave, an actual smile on her face. She nodded towards him as she walked past. Probably her way of telling him that he'd better be ready for her. It wasn't lost on him that almost everything she'd just tried on him was outside what the test was supposed to entail.
Crap. Well, at least he had some ideas of what he had to fix.
Sara ran up to him excitedly and bounced on the balls of her feet, her eyes going wide.
“So, do we have the same deal on these as for the clothes drying device? Oh, the food dryer too?” Her voice was excited and breathless. He shrugged. Would anyone want a shield like this? Oh, soldiers maybe, and him, as protection against the evil Wensa, but who else needed something like this? Still, the food dryers might be useful, so they could sell. Dried fruit took a lot of prep time, because big pieces or whole fruit didn't air dry well, they rotted and mildewed. With what he'd come up with — what he and Rolph had come up with, he corrected — whole fruits, even large ones, and vegetables could be processed within minutes, right out in the field.
He nodded and grinned at the blond.
“Sure. Ten percent of any sales you set up.”
The girl turned half to the side, looking at him strangely. If he'd been back in his own village he would have thought she was being coy. Here it was probably something else. Like she wanted something from him. Trice pushed her on the shoulder to move the girl out of the way, looking down at him the dark haired girl cleared her throat.
“It's like this Tor. Sara has some connections in manufacturing, and if you're willing to part with the templates for these fields, she can set up having a lot of them made. You don't get as much money from each one, but silvers add up too. Plus it's a lot less work for you in the long run. Still, you make these things pretty fast, so it's something to think about. I think it comes down to how many other ideas you want to work on. If you want to hang with these, you get more gold making them yourself as fast as you can. If you want to do other devices, it's worth more to free up the time and let other people do the copies for you.” The girl didn't shrug, instead she nodded as if trying to get him to just agree with her.
Of course he already knew about using templates in manufacturing. It was kind of the point of novel building, at least if you weren't making a one up. You wanted copies and ideally you set up the templates to be easy to do up by anyone that had the talent. Tor had, on all the templates he'd built. It took hours of extra work, but it was potentially worth it. It was part of the reason he could make batches of ten at once in the copying process. Not every builder used the multiple copy idea, but about half were now.
“Sure, that should work. Let me get some run up here first, for our own use and for sale or whatever. Um, is anyone going to be interested in these things though? I mean a clothes drying device is handy, but how many people can afford ten or elven gold for something like that? The food dryers, well those should make money, but may take some time to catch on. Shields… Well, same thing really. We could probably make enough right here given what people will want, right?”
For some reason everyone started laughing at him, he looked around to see if someone had put a sign on his back when he wasn't looking, but Rolph shook his head.
“Nah, look Tor, you're thinking on a village scale, but Sara and her people can take this across the land. Maybe even into other lands eventually. A lot of people will want some of these things.”
Laughing Tor waved that away, since it didn't sound likely at all, but told them that they could do whatever they wanted. Sure, he'd like some coin from it, who wouldn't? But what did he really need? As a kid he'd dreamed of making a lot, like a hundred golds per year. Past that… What would he do with it anyway? Buy a bunch of things he didn't need? With that much money he could build the fields he wanted and not have to worry about going hungry or losing his home. Even have some left for savings and luxuries as long as he didn't go crazy with it.
He'd leave the money part to his friends. After all, school had to come first. Of course that meant surviving long enough. Wensa… What was he going to do about her anyway? He couldn't kill her. A Royal Guard was protected from most prosecution and their death treated the same as killing a noble almost. His family might survive, but they'd all be dispossessed of worldly goods after his execution. Count Lairdgren would see to that no doubt. So it was right out. He couldn't run, because that would make him look guilty. Tor had the shield, but he needed to fix the problems and gaps in it. She was too smart not to have noticed those. She may be evil, but she wasn't teaching economics because it was the world's most simple class. She had to know what she was talking about there too, on top of being a Royal Guard.
A slow cord over the neck would take him out right now, or a pillow over his head while he slept. She might be big and strong enough to do that to him.
So fix it. The thought practically rang in his mind for a few moments.
Right. Don't be a crybaby, just get ready and do what could be done. It was all he really had after all.
Torrence knew that he couldn't afford to wait for her to come after him. He had to find out how she'd attack, and defend against it first, because she'd be too good to let have the upper hand. Most of the teachers had left, so he asked the people remaining how they thought Wensa would come for him next. Rolph looked angry and started to reassure him, but Kolb put out his right hand in a gesture meant to get him not to speak.
“Right now? Well, she had to have noticed the suffocation problem when she used fire. That has to be addressed. Also, the slow field passage is a gap you can't afford, but I'm betting you already saw that. If you don't fix that one, all the combat instructors will use it against you. Mental forces would be next after that I'd think. We didn't test them, but off the battlefield they aren't often used as weapons. She'd have to import something, but that could happen, she has the resources, so I wouldn't leave it long.” He tapped his fingers on his chin.
“Some of the Austran weapons use incredibly tiny machines, and illnesses, so things to defeat that would also be good. I don't know if she can get those, but I don't know she can't either. Other than that…” He spread his hands as if to say he didn't know.
Count Thomson stepped towards him with a nod. “Poisons. Normally a Royal Guard wouldn't bother, but it's not totally unheard of. Something to watch for if she can't get at you any other way. If I can think of it inside ten seconds, she can do it in three.”
The idea made Tor want to faint. He had to eat in the dining hall. He couldn't afford anything else. He didn't see the food being prepared at all, it just came out through a window at him three times a day. How could he protect himself there? As an instructor she could just walk in and add poison to his food without anyone even trying to stop her or crying foul. Then as a Royal Guard she could walk away chuckling about how stupid he was. Totally unpunished for killing him.
From the back of the group a cluster of combat giants pushed Petra forward suddenly and she spoke, her voice surprisingly soft and kind sounding.
“What about electrical weapons? Those haven't been tested for yet… Or light based ones?”
That sounded highly likely. All of it did. Especially since he hadn't even known that half those things existed at all.
“Of course…” The Count looked at him seriously his eyes dark for a moment. Then suddenly he smiled. “I do know a certain Count that could simply order her not to kill you. She can't countermand that unless the King orders it done you know. That should at least buy you a little time. As long as you don't make the King mad at you, and he's a decently level-headed person.” The blond giant man winked at him knowingly.
“In fact, if you ever meet him, I'm sure the two of you will be fast friends. He tends to like people that actually manage to get things done. So that has you written all over it.”
“Would you speak to her? Just knowing that she didn't plan to kill me in my sleep would be a relief. Or poison my food. I could probably put up with the rest if I could get those…”
Smiling the man nodded and said he'd see what he could arrange directly. It felt like a heavy weight lifted from his shoulders. Of course, just because she wouldn't be trying to kill him, that didn't mean she couldn't just get someone else to do it. He had to make what preparations he could fast. It was like the Count had said, if he could think of a way around it, so could she. It was her job after all. Only a fool would underestimate her.
Carefully Tor walked back to his room with Rolph and the girls, watching around himself as he did. After a few minutes Trice asked why he was being so paranoid. He blinked. Had she not been paying attention?
“Um, let's see, crazy woman just used three weapons trying to kill me, and two of them weren't anything I'd ever seen before. The shield wasn't even supposed to be able to stop anything like that. If I hadn't just guessed that something like that might happen, I'd be dead right now. I know the Count said he'd give an order, but… Really, Royal Guards aren't well known for being sane? She could just decide that her dying was worth it, in order to take me out… Why I don't know, but her thinking I'm a threat doesn't make any sense at all either. Insane doesn't always have a reason that normal can understand, right?”
He glanced at his friends and they all looked a bit worried. After all, he had a point, didn't he? Trice put her arm across his shoulders, or at least tried to. The action from walking kept the shield pushing her arm away from him. She laughed and told him that no matter how pissed Wensa was at him, she wouldn't dare kill him with a Ducherina on his arm. Too great a chance of accidentally getting her instead.
Grudgingly he disabled the field so he wouldn't look stupid. The girl put her arm over his shoulders protectively, as if he were a little kid that needed her to save him. He considered that for a moment, and tilted his head. That was about right, wasn't it? If nothing else he could always pretend she was trying to tell him she liked him. It wasn't true of course, but he could imagine it. Well… if he tried really hard at least.
That night, instead of eating, giving that a pass at least until he had word that Wensa had orders not to poison him, Tor decided to make more copies of things instead. It would take a few days for him to work up to his next project anyway. Rolph and Sara wanted more clothes dryers and the first batch of the food ones for testing. Trice suggested he put out a good bunch of shields for the school, even if he was going to make better ones soon, because that would spread good will. He sent Rolph out to get more copper plates and acid for etching then got to work.
For the next week he spent most of his free time making up field copies, which oddly enough kept his instructors happy, so he didn't even have to do out of class work for any of them. Kolb made him run and practice every day for two hours, but that wasn't new or anything.
On the sixth day a rare spring time freeze happened, catching everyone off guard. It wasn't just chilly, the ground actually froze solid outside, a bitter cold that made it hard to sleep, even under thick blankets, filled the rooms. The fires could be started down on the lowest levels, but by the time his and Rolph's room warmed up, it probably wouldn't be even cold anymore. The school wasn't even going to bother with it, figuring that it would be largely wasted effort.
Could he use a field device for that? It would have to be huge, but…
Tor started drawing up the plans. Halfway through he started laughing. Couldn't he just reverse the process in the summer and cool down a house or room as well? The idea was simple enough, pull heat from the ground, deep down where it was warm, when cold weather came and then do the opposite in hot weather, which should keep everything roughly in balance in the ground over time even. He smiled. It shouldn't even be that hard. That was basically how he'd built the shield to defeat extreme heat after all, so he already kind of knew what to do.
Two days later, still incredibly cold outside, he hit the warming sigil and waited, the room grew toasty, and then after a few hours, almost too warm. He turned it off to see what would happen. The heat left slowly, just like from a fire. Unlike a fire, the whole room was warm, no cold spot by the door particularly or along the back wall away from the fire. Heh. Worked.
Later that night everyone came to his and Rolph's room to hang out, mainly to talk business. Sara jokingly asked him to marry her when he explained the field to them. He laughed, but no one else did. Trice shook her head, arms crossing playfully, then looking directly at her friend.
“Sorry Sara, I saw him first. Anyway, how many of these can you get going by tomorrow?”
The answer varied, based on how much sleep he'd be willing to do without. The answer that satisfied everyone was twenty. Sara acted like even that was nearly impossible, but it wouldn't be that hard, maybe taking three or four hours, tops. The girls waited while he made the first batch, each of them taking one and putting it in their coat pockets when he had them done. Sara pulled the rest of them to take with her and urged him to start the next batch, which she'd be back for in the morning, she promised.
Rolph stayed quiet and mercifully didn't tease him about the girls mocking him earlier about marriage like that, after they left, allowing him to get right back to work. He turned his light off so that the other boy could sleep and finished an hour before midnight. As long as he didn't toss and turn, he could get nearly eight hours sleep before he had to be up in the morning for meditations. Yay. That had worked out at least. It was a lot easier to sleep in a warm room than freezing cold.
The next morning Sara came for the next batch just before he had to go to breakfast, the girl didn't follow him, having promised the heating and cooling plates to some of her friends already. Well, at least they'd all sleep warm that night. He didn't really think about anything but school work for a while after that, except for making incremental shield improvements. He came up with a breathing tube function that would let him go underwater at least a bit. He still got wet, but air went into his mouth and nose as long as he didn't go deeper than three feet. At that depth he couldn't force his lungs to draw the air in for some reason, it felt like the air just wasn't thick enough. Not that he planned on trying that anytime soon, but it was nice to know he could if someone managed to throw him in the pond.
It wasn't until a few weeks later, when Kolb presented him with his next assignment of “insane combat giant” building that things really started to get shaken up. Sara had collected the templates and sent them off to her mother, so his personal copy work had ended for the time being. She gave out a lot of the fields he'd made to people at the school, which didn't bother him at all really. If they could use them, why shouldn't people have them? Tor didn't get the whole pretending they were being sold thing himself, maybe that was just a game rich people played or maybe Sara wasn't as good at selling things as she pretended? It left him more time for Kolb's new project, which was something that he'd never even thought of before.
“Wait… You want me to make it so a man can fly?”
The weapons instructor just nodded as if it wasn't a totally crazy idea. People didn't fly, did they? Could they?
“It can be done, the Austrans do it all the time. In fact their ability to move people by air is pretty much the only thing that lets them really challenge us in direct conflict. They fly over and drop chemical explosives on us from great heights. Our shields and weapons are as good or better on the ground, but as often as not they simply won't close with us for that reason. I won't tell you how to get it done, but if you could have that for me in say… a month?” The man winked at him. It was a happy thing that said… Not a lot more than that. The weapons instructor just wasn't sane.
Tor had suspected it for a long time now, this just proved it.
At first he just shook his head. The idea was ridiculous. Just crazy. Except… well, he'd seen a man fly hadn't he? The Count could do it. So could the Austrans apparently. If they could, then why couldn't he build a device for it?
A field that told the smallest portions of a person which direction to move… Well, that could be done. It was a huge field for that type of thing. Vast, which meant it would have to be strong, massively so, but basically, telling the little things to move is all a cutter did. Organize them all in a single direction, say up, harder than the downward force, and the person or object should float. Then move the field, tilting it in the direction you wanted to go to move around…
Finally Kolb shook him and asked him if he was alright. Tor nodded and walked away, not bothering saying anything. He only had a month after all. In a lot of ways this would be way harder than just shielding from things, especially if he wanted to keep it low in energy use, which was pretty much inherent in the idea. If it took too much personal energy the whole thing just wouldn't work. You'd get a few feet in the air and then freeze to death or die of exhaustion.
First he had to test the basic idea itself.
Back in his room he carefully built a small field into a wooden block that simply told it to go up in the air. Tor felt a sense of excitement when he hit the tiny sigil he'd put on the bottom. It floated up, to the ceiling of course and didn't come back down. It wasn't strong enough to make him rise, so he could hold it on the table while deactivating it. Good, it would have been embarrassing trying to explain to Rolph why a block of wood the size of his foot was stuck to their ceiling.
So part one worked. The second part, steering, was harder. Mainly because his initial idea of how to do it was flawed. The idea had made sense, directing the field with his mind, but it proved to be monstrously hard to put into practice. Even spending the rest of the month designing that part, there wouldn't be enough time to get the work done. It had to be rethought which made him sigh. It would have been so cool to direct his flight just by thinking about it like the Count could.
By using a second device, he could tilt the field in any direction at a distance, so that much worked, but he didn't have a clue as to how to pick how high it went or how to control it for a soft set down. It worried at his mind for weeks, as the deadline approached. Tor knew he was living in some kind of odd fugue state by the time he finally understood that all he needed was a simple control over how much upward directed force there was.
Duh.
It was an organizing field.
All he had to do was disorganize it slowly to come down and reorganize to rise. Tor wondered if it would do actual brain damage to beat himself in the head with a brick or if that might make him smarter? It was so basic that he should have seen the idea in seconds, not weeks.
The work itself nearly killed him, of course.
Dehydration.
The hours and days of work he was used to didn't harden him to four days without water or food apparently. Oh well. He managed to get the work done before he collapsed, and that, really, was what mattered right? Getting the job done in time?
When he woke up Trice sat next to his bed, looking more than a little pissed. Well worried at first, then angry when he focused on her. She crossed her arms and glared for a long time before she spoke.
“Dying over a school project has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I've heard some really lame headed things. From now on eat and drink at least if you're going to try moronic things like this… whatever it is. Got it? If not, I will personally be coming around to kick your ass next time instead of feed you broth and sooth your head with a damp cloth. Is that understood?” Her tone was severe, as if she actually meant it instead of her normal playful teasing.
Well… if he collapsed Tor couldn't do the work she and Sara wanted, he supposed. That was probably what this was all about, her protecting an asset. Still, nice of her to come around and visit him. No one else had, he noticed.
She wouldn't let him do anything except sleep for the next day. Not even get up to try out the new device as annoying as that was. The odds of it working right were small and if there were massive problems he needed to know about them so he could attempt a fix before the month was out. How she got him out of classes he didn't know. No one came to bother him about it at least, not that anyone would. He really had to be better about that, Tor knew. Attending classes was kind of why he'd come to school in the first place and they still had a lot to teach him.
Like how to not push himself into exhaustion while still getting his work done maybe? That would be a lesson he didn't want to miss.
Trice didn't sleep in his room, so he could have gone out to test the device at night, but that seemed almost suicidally stupid. Crashing into the ground or a tree because he couldn't see it? Brilliant plan. Trice would kick his behind then. What was left of it anyway. Everyone else would probably help her do it too, stomping the little red smear he left on the dirt under their hard boots. He'd wait for the next day and go slow, so that he could see his death coming at him properly when he messed up.
Excited, he got up as daylight came, false dawn, and headed out to the weapons practice square. If he crashed and died he could at least let everyone else get a good night's sleep, right? He didn't try to figure out the odds of that happening. His chances of surviving probably weren't all that good…
Wanting to kick himself he headed back to his room and got his shield. Would it work in the air? Probably. If he crashed the force should go into the ground, right? He hadn't designed it for that, but it was better than nothing, so much better he kind of wondered if anyone should fly without a shield at all, ever. He checked carefully to make sure that no one was watching, just in case it simply didn't work, or made him look funny or something. A vision of him hanging upside down screaming came to mind suddenly, which earned a nervous smile.
That would probably happen, given his luck. At least if anyone was watching. On his right hand he had a single hemp string with the small coin sized copper control plate in the palm. It made a nice enough looking square decoration at least. Tor couldn't close his hand while flying though or he'd drop from the sky, turning both fields off. At least if he ever thought the wrong thing. After a moment he decided to move it to the back of his hand for safety. That way he could use his other hand to control it without accidental death being quite so likely.
In general, he decided, death should be avoided. It would make him look bad if nothing else. Plus leave a mess that someone else would have to clean up and that wouldn't be fair at all. Who just left corpses lying around like that? Not him, that was for certain. Talk about rude…
Taking a few deep breaths he held his right hand low, palm even with the ground below him and reached over with his left hand, tapping the design on the back, a single line in a floppy “V” shape to represent a bird and waited. Nothing happened. He kind of expected to float a little. Had he missed hitting the sigil? That really shouldn't matter given the design, just hitting near it with strong intent should be enough. He taped it again and nothing happened. Then he realized that if it had been on, he'd just turned it off, so he hit it again. Still nothing.
Then in frustration he lifted his right hand to look at it and found himself suddenly shooting up in the air. Fast. Initially he wanted to dash his hand down in response, but realized that would have him plummeting to the ground. Instead he slowly moved his hand back towards his waist. Thankful suddenly that he was wearing brown trousers, not that he needed the camouflage yet, but just in case. Then he stopped, just hanging in midair.
His heart pounded hard, but after a few seconds he realized that learning to fly there, at several hundred feet, was a lot safer as far as not crashing into things than being near the ground was. As long as he didn't drop suddenly he'd be fine. Slowly, not sure how fast he would go, he pushed his right hand forward. The cool breeze became cold as he started to move, picking up speed as he went, until he felt like he almost couldn't breathe. The ground below didn't move that fast, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he was flying a lot quicker than he thought. After a minute he noticed he was over what had to be Lenders, so five miles in just over a minute? Seven miles? That was fast enough. Not as fast as he could have gone most likely, but much faster and he wouldn't have been able to get enough air to breath.
Then he practiced turning, which took a more careful hand than just going straight by far, the controls spinning him wildly several times before he managed to stop. He reeled, feeling a little sick after a moment Tor tried moving first side to side and then backwards. That all worked wonderfully. The turning was a lot harder, the controls for that were more sensitive for some reason than the other directions. He had to work on it for about fifteen minutes just to keep from spinning randomly when he tried it. If he ever remade the field that part would need to be changed he decided.
It felt a bit like floating in water, only without the resistance. It was a pleasant, airy feeling, once he got used to not having his feet on the ground. He flew back towards the school complex a little faster than he'd gone out, just to see how fast it would go. It took less time, but he couldn't tell how much, since he didn't own a pocket watch and wouldn't have taken it out if he had one, not while trying to fly like he was. If he dropped an expensive watch from here it would break and even if it didn't it would be lost forever in the evergreen trees below.
With a little care he found the practice square, everything looked different from the air, which made sense, new perspectives and all, but was something he'd never thought about before. It was hard to be really patient, but Tor wanted to be extra careful going down. This flying thing had worked so far which meant dying now wouldn't just make him look bad. Worse, it would probably get him a bad mark from Kolb on what was essentially a solid build.
Moving slowly would be important here he figured, as dashing into the ground couldn't be fun, shield or not. Starting about a hundred feet up in the air he left his hand in place almost and let himself drift down slowly. The whole trip downwards took about two minutes, but he landed safely, something that had worried him more than he'd admitted and turned off the whole thing easily with a casual tap.
Good. He already had ten copies of this one. Not because he'd been sure it would work, just as backups, because he didn't want to lose all the work he'd done. It had taken way too long to act casually about this time.
Flying was fun, he decided and could be useful for the military or people that wanted to travel, he guessed. The average person wouldn't have a lot of use for it probably, but hey, the idea wasn't to make leisure easier, but to pass his classes. Flying people had been the assignment, and he had it ready.
Yay him.
Tor thought about it all and wondered if his initial concept of how many of these things people would need was about right? So far he hadn't gotten any money for his work, except what Rolph had paid him. That was alright. There was more than enough to buy the materials he needed for now and Tor had even splurged on a little chest to keep his money in. It wasn't as big or as nice as the one his roommate had, but it was bigger and contained more gold and silver than he'd even imagined himself as having for real.
Thinking about it he wondered if he should send some of it home? His older brother Teral had started a family the year before, and had a child on the way. They could use a little bit extra to get started. He pulled ten gold of the nearly fifty he had left and set it aside for them. How to get it to them was a problem, but he'd figure something out.
Maybe Rolph could help? He knew how to do that kind of merchanty stuff, sending packages and all. It was in his blood.