Chapter 4: Aston, on Patrol

Aston Grey remained still in the snow-covered brush, waiting for the men he was watching to leave. He had spent more time learning woodcraft in the last three months than he thought possible. He had also been gaining mental strength as he practiced using his mind. He could detect animals more than twice as far out as he could when he had arrived in the Cove. People were still harder to sense, but he was improving. What he was looking for now, was the reason this group of men had gathered out in the King’s hunting preserve. If they were poachers, he would have to call for help in dealing with ten men. This year’s spring thaw was late and with this much snow, flooding was going to be a major issue.

He waited, but the wait was short when a large, covered wagon rattled its way up the rutted hunting road. He thought for a moment they were planning on robbing the driver. That thought went out the window when the driver stopped and greeted the others like old friends. When the back was opened, he saw the cargo. It was packed with girls, all near or just into puberty. He counted twenty-five as they unloaded them. All the girls had iron collars with linked chains around their necks. Aston was able to make out the chains on their wrist and ankles as well.

‘Damned slavers,’ thought Aston. He knew they would be gone before he could retreat to bring in help. ‘I need to delay them, and it is going to hurt.’ He focused his attention on the largest man in the group. This bear of a man would be able to kill several of them before they could stop him. Aston pushed the thought, the urge, the need to kill all the other men and take the slaves for himself. He pushed the thought as hard as he could, he could see the big, bearded man getting a worried look on his face. Aston could feel him resisting the push, but he was also thinking about all the money he would get to keep.

Aston stopped and changed the thought, reaching back to the other guardians of the preserve that he needed their help right away. He knew at least one of them could hear him when he projected. He returned his thoughts to the big man. He had a very large knife out now and was fidgeting, looking around for what was making him so nervous. One of the waiting men was looking the chained girls over like meat at a market. He was the smallest of the gathering from what Aston could see. When he spoke, it was with a raspy, rough voice of a vine smoker. Aston knew the vine would have kept the man’s senses dulled enough to prevent him from noticing much of anything had he been smoking it in the last day or so. He stopped in front of a very young redhead and said, “I like this one.” He pulled the young red headed girl away from the line, releasing her chains from the lines in the wagon so he could drag her away. Aston noticed the girl did not struggle nor resist his pulling her out of the wagon. “I’m going to take her to the side and use her for a bit. I won’t kill her, but I need relief.” He started to drag the un-resisting girl, ten years old at the most towards a large fallen tree. The stump was large and flat, so he would have an easy time working her over.

Aston pushed the big man as hard as he could. The result was not the one he expected. “No,” said the big brute in a low rumble of a voice. “Pop her and we lose over half the value we would get for her. Virgin girls, remember? Clean breeders are what they want, that is what the order called for, that is what they get, virgins all of them.”

“Since bloody well when have you cared about the condition of the merchandise, you stupid mule?” snapped the little man. “You have popped more than your fair-share of virgin flesh on the road.” He pushed the girl onto the stump where she landed on her back, arms and legs splayed out. When her head flopped over, Aston could make out a stain of something black around her lips. ‘She must be drugged,’ Aston thought savagely. This made him push the mans mind all the harder.

“That one is high value, red on top and later, on the bottom when she grows some. Pop her and she goes from ten plat royal to ten plat flat. No raping the merchandise Grig on this trip.” He fingered his knife, not threateningly, but just enough to get the point across.

“Ok, ok Hef, I get the picture.” He pulled the dazed girl back to her feet and pulled her back to the wagon. The rest that had been ankle chained together in the back of the wagon so none of them could break away and escape after they had been brought out. She didn’t resist when he linked her back into the chains. None of the other men had said a word the entire time while this was going on. They just maintained a respectful distance from the big man in case he lost it and started slicing. He had done it before for no reason they knew of. Aston tried one last time to get the man called Hef to strike out at the others, but the man continued to resist his efforts. Aston managed to not jump when the entire company of forest guards suddenly surrounded him without so much as a broken twig snapping to give them away.

“What have we got Aston?” asked the troop leader in a faint whisper just behind his right ear.

“Slavers.” Aston looked and saw the hardening looks on the faces of these men and women. The troop leader, Harris Rivercross gestured, and the troop spread out, partially surrounding the criminals. With another gesture, they stood, and each had a bow out, arrows in place, ready to fire. Harris said just loud enough, “You can surrender and face trial, or you can resist and die right where you stand.”

The eleven men spun around, looking for the source of the order. The man called Hef spoke, “Find them and kill them.” That was the last time he spoke as a living man. The arrows were released, and all the men dropped with shafts in their necks, blood spraying as they bled out. These arrows had wide hunting tips that did fatal damage when used in the manner they had been. The girls in the wagon barely reacted to the events.

Harris entered the small clearing and checked the men over. All had stopped moving and the flow of blood had dropped to nothing in all except Hef. He was still alive just from his size. Harris also saw something behind the big man’s right ear, a faint orange pulsing glow. He had been briefed on these gems and knew what had to be done quickly. “Aston, the sealing kit, we have another of the Blood Bitch’s agents here.” Aston had a sealing kit that could lock the shard away until it could be stored with the rest. He brought the box out of his small pack and handed it to Harris. Harris cut the gem out, never touching it with his bare skin, slipped it into a small container that would shield it from the outside.

“I wonder how many this makes now?” asked one of the women in the troop. She was checking over the corpses and found one that had a strange medallion on him. The disk was silver and had a snake’s head with a humanoid face forged into it. She returned it to the corpse and left it to be burned with the bodies. It had felt foul to her touch.

“Too many,” Harris replied. “See about getting the collars off and find out what they drugged these kids with.” He could see Aston was worried about something. “What is it, Aston?”

“I tried to push him to attack the others. I couldn’t get through to him, or so it seemed. He had that in his head protecting him from me. It also means she’s got a good feel for me now.” Aston opened his senses and searched for anything coming. Not feeling a direct threat, he closed back down. He did feel Tara as she and her people were still on the far side of the Rampart. The roads were still blocked by the deep snows. He felt the faint call of the girl he had met before on the road. What was her name ... Weena. The girl that had attempted to reward him with her way to young body. Whatever it was, she was active now and she was powerful in communicating with people. He sent a thought out to her of comfort and closed the connection to her.

Aston looked around and then inspected the old wagon. It turned out the wagon was not old at all. It had just been made to look that way. The wheel bearings were the new sealed rollers that Ledger had caused to be invented. Thinking about the rest, he wondered how Andrew was holding up to the daily torture of basic Knight’s training. He knew Brena was learning how to run a real corporation, Robin to really sing and play. Aco, he had not seen hide nor hair of in two months. What little he had heard of her at the beginning, she was tearing the Monks school a new one with her methods of fighting. Ledger had gone into business making and selling charged tools and items. Lights were still his number one seller. Heating and cooling sets ran a close second. Every butcher shop in the city now had a deep freezer and meats could be stored for a longer time. Even the Druids, the forest patrols had their own set now. They found that keeping the food chilled helped fruits and vegetables stay fresh longer. Steaming food was cheap now as well. The only folks not happy with Ledger happened to be the coal miners and haulers. They now had to ship the coal further afield to make any profit.

“Well, that is eleven slavers off the roads,” Aston commented dryly. “That cart though has the newest parts that just came out on the market.” Aston was worried. ‘How had these men gotten the bearings and steel axles so quickly?’ he wondered. He would investigate it when he returned to the city in the next week while on leave. He secured the shard and watched as two of the scouts prepared to take the cart back to headquarters with the girls. It would come in handy as a transport. He saw one of the girls was talking now and the woman did not look happy about what was being said. She stood and walked over to talk to Harris.

“These girls are not in-bound, they are being shipped out from the Cove.” She saw the man’s face cloud. “I asked if she could remember anything about where they were going. All she remembers is something about ice and snow all the time. She also said they were all taken from the undercity. A man that is supposed to be part of the thieves had trapped them all and sold them to these men to be transported north.”

Now Harris and Ledger both scowled. “Ice Spine,” they said together. They looked at each other and Harris took over. “Aston, I have another job for you. I will have reports written up for the King and The Thieves. They will need to do a house cleaning. If they are poaching girls from us, they may be doing other things as well,” he paused, “That shard is a bad sign too. Get it secured as soon as you arrive, then turn in the reports.”

Aston gave a half-hearted salute and gathered his gear. He had a five-day run ahead of him.

Ledger

Ledger had been so busy he had forgotten about the lone operating ancient artifact somewhere in the city. When he did finally remember it, he couldn’t find it right away. He had produced so many new powered objects in the city, it drowned out the old thing. He filtered in his mind all the newer points in the weave he had made. Next, he filtered out the fewer new items from those he considered his apprentices. Six of the group had been able to gain greater control and could now make several types of objects.

He found it in his vision after some careful searching. He didn’t want to touch it until he knew what it was. Something about it felt wrong to him. He had requested several city maps so he could keep track of certain items he had produced. He marked his current location, then made a rough line towards where it was hidden. He told the others he was going out to hunt for something he had detected when he had first arrived in the city. He headed in the general direction at first, then headed south. He hoped to get a fix from another direction. He walked what he figured to be about three miles and reached out again. Now that he knew what to look for, he found it again easily. He drew a new line in the direction he could sense it. The new line crossed the old line almost ten miles away. It was in the Northern section, where the richer citizens lived. ‘Oh joy,’ he thought. ‘I’ll have to deal with them now.’ He returned to his shop just as closing time rolled around.

‘I am going to need help with this one,’ he thought. ‘I could ask Mistress, but she would just laugh at me.’ He sighed, ‘I have to ask Gareth then.’ He locked up and told the others he had errands to do in the morning and he may be gone for several days.

He went to his apartment that was only a block away from his shop and stopped at the entrance. “Hey Gilda, any messages for me today?” he asked of the lady at the table in the front room. She held up a sealed envelope to him. He started to reach for it, but she pulled it back. “You know the price, honey.” Ledger sighed at this. He had given her powered lanterns to replace all the oil and candles since he lived there. The price she wanted to pay, well, he was interested, but she was over thirty years his senior. He walked to her and laid a kiss on her that left her panting and him thinking maybe he would like company tonight after all. She handed him the missive and said, “Are you sure you don’t want a bed buddy?”

“If I want to get any sleep tonight, I must decline,” he replied, trying to sound regretful, and failing miserably. “Another time. I have something I need to take care of and will be gone for a few days from the looks of things.”

“Don’t worry stud, I will keep your room dusted and the bed warm for your return.” She didn’t hold back and gave him a full view down the front of her dress. ‘She is a fit woman,’ he thought and shivered. He liked her, but Robin might kill him if he started sleeping around.

With the letters in hand, he climbed to the third floor where his rooms were situated. He placed his carry-all pack on the wall hook and sat in a padded chair next to the window. In the fading light, he opened the first and found it to be a request for several dozen light stones. The second wanted to order a heating stone that would allow for the creation of glass on a large scale. Ledger knew enough about the smelting of sand to know it took tons of coal to get a few hundred pounds of glass. He considered this order and dropped it in a basket marked special order. The glow stone request went into the general order basket. The last order was a bit odd. The author wanted to know if he could create mirrors that a person could talk to another person through that had one as well. This one sent a shiver up his spine. A mirror instead of a globe-like most had wanted to purchase. It could be done, but he would need to think about how he could link them when he reached up, smacked himself in the back of his head.

‘I have to go to the Broken Sword anyways. I can call my mother and ask her. She seemed to have a way with that sort of binding of devices.’ He smiled and began undressing. The room had a small wooden tub for washing and bathing, and he could supply his own hot water so was able to grab a quick bath before going to bed. He took a moment and emptied his bladder and bowels, cleaned up with the damp cloth he kept handy for the purpose, and headed to bed without putting on any clothing. He hoped Robin might stop in during the night tonight. She didn’t come to him that night. It turned out she had problems of her own brewing.

Blood Queen

The Blood Queen was getting worried. The snows this year had been so deep and cold, commerce had ground to a halt. The Thaw was running so late as well. When the rains did come, the Thaw would cause massive damage to her Kingdom, and to all those around her. None of them liked her and for good reason, but she sent runners with messages of her concerns about the coming thaw and the dangers to all of them around her. She did get back a reply about a week later. One runner was still alive which for her track record was impressive. It simply said, “Thank you, we are already working on it. Now stay out Bitch.”

She sat in her high tower and had sent crews to reinforce bridges and look for any place flooding would be an issue. She looked out at the river to the north of the city when it finally came to her. Her entire harbor and capital would be washed away if all that water started moving all at once.

‘Master? I have Questions,’ she thought to her master buried under an old castle long gone to total ruin.

“I know what you are going to ask, no, I have not had anything to do with this weather. It worries me as well.” He remained silent as if considering what he could tell her if she would even understand what he wanted to tell her. “Your world is very old, girl. Your Star is even older. It is dying and this weather is a result of that.”

“Master, how can a star die? Don’t they last forever?” She winced at the sudden stab of pain in her head. “I’m sorry Master. How can a star die?”

“When stars are born, they have all the fuel they will ever have. As it runs out, things can get nasty in a hurry. This star seems to settle down and cool down for extended periods. That is why this winter is so deep and lasting this year. Over time though, as the star grows older it will begin to expand. I can see a change in it since my unplanned arrival on Gardallen. It is redder than it was, and I can almost feel it has expanded slightly. Our time is growing short girl. Send vessels to the southern ice shelf and start the search for the Gate. I should have had you do that the day you took over from your grandmother.”

“So, you are saying we will freeze when the star dies?” The woman was puzzled by this new knowledge.

“No, the world will be consumed in the fires of the star as it expands. This star is just large enough, it could explode rather than just cool down into a tiny ball of hot stone. Well, we think it is stone.”

“We?”

“My, my. You are inquisitive today, aren’t you?” The Vampire sounded amused rather than angry this time. “Yes, we. My race is old. Older than you can imagine. My creator and Master told me once that he had been on ten separate migrations from doomed worlds. He is so old, he remembers when there was only one universe, not an infinite number of them.”

Now she was really confused, “Many universes? Master, this is beyond my understanding. I will push for finding this doorway, but we will need all the shards and parts before we go there.” She sat and thought, ‘I need to get word to my remaining agents that they need to locate every bit they can and return right away. All other missions are now second in importance.’ “Master, I will need to use the mirror to talk to the one that can make the power work, if he will listen.”

“Why?” was the only reply.

“He may be able to help us locate the door with his talent. I got the feeling he can sense what is in the weave as he calls it. I heard that thought in that one, brief contact.” She stood to leave the high tower but was stopped by a sharp thought.

“Be careful on how much you tell him. If they arrive first, we will be destroyed entirely by them.” The vampire went silent, watching and waiting to see what she screwed up next.

The Queen went to the viewing room and uncovered a near-perfect mirror. It had replaced the sphere she had used before. She willed it to life and sent a thought to the viewing globe in Fairham’s Cove, hoping someone would see her call.

Somewhere?

The seeker had walked the road for untold ages, stopping at random to feed on some world that had no knowledge of his race. He had finally found the door to the world he wanted. The problem was when he opened it, a wave of deep cold washed out into the corridor. A wall of black ice was all he could see on the other side. “Damn,” was his only comment. He tried to use his vision to see beyond, but the power was weak and different from what he used. “I will need to find a civilization to enslave and use to open the way. Delays, delays, and more delays.” A faint chuckle came out of the nothingness all around him. He shivered, he, a Lord of Lords felt fear of that one. “I need to hurry.” He turned back the way he had come and went to a door that he knew could provide him with much of what he would need to clear the way. He opened the door and stepped into the night of this lush, living, now doomed world, and got to work.

Brena

Brena was enjoying herself in her new position of relative power. The discovery that the Thieves Guild was part of the crown’s banking system had sent her spinning lost for a few weeks until she grasped what part of the banking system it belonged too. The guild worked to ensure that the crown and the visible parts that the kingdom worked with did not get out of control. Rules and regulations had been set down in stone centuries before. If the crown began minting too much coin, the guild insured it was taken off the market as quickly as possible. If the supply of coin ran low, well, that was a problem for the crown after all. The Brotherhood, while separate, was also part of the crown. It ensured that any that got too greedy stopped being greedy and stupid. They also worked for hire to end other folk’s problems for the right price. She had been made aware of the seven men following her that had been paid by the Old Duke’s Wife to kill her. Reports from just before the big storm cleared up a few things. The duke’s wife had the missing ring on her hand.

Brena decided that issue would be settled later, much later when she had the time. Andrew was out on training missions now. He had survived that first month of hell when he started his schooling. Now he was out leading patrols on the Roads leading up to the Ice Spine Reach. Snow removal had started out hard, then the kid had produced a cart with a heated blade on it that melted the snow as it was pushed aside. The hookup for the horses had been a problem at first. Aston solved that by having the blade on a frame in front of the horses, they walked behind it, rather than in front of it.

Ledger had needed her help when the orders just became too much for him. The two weeks it took to get Ledger set up taught her a lot about running a business as well. She quickly found out that city permits were a bitch to get if you were in a hurry. Grease the palm and things went smooth, refuse and the paperwork, “what papers are you referring to?” vanished into oblivion. She then learned a few limits in what her authority would be when she was set to take over guild operations. The bureaucratic nightmare was a thing made in the hells to keep mortals from getting uppity it seemed. A few of the leaches had tried to hustle her, but she made it clear it was not wise to try to blackmail her. She didn’t kill anybody, but names were dropped, and bad things can happen to the unwary.

Another thing that had her worried was the coming thaw. The north city would survive, the south and middle city would have serious flooding, especially down by the coast and the ports. The under city would be devastated by the flooding. She had discussed this problem with the people in charge and they were trying to prepare to evacuate when the time came. The existing retaining walls would not be enough to keep the floodwaters out. So far, the crown was not paying attention to this situation, or at least it seemed so to Brena. The men in charge of the docks did take it seriously and had begun stock-piling sandbags to try and keep the water back. Only time and effort would tell. Brena went on with her daily work in dealing with the guild and the Brotherhood, praying for the best, expecting the worst.

Ledger

Ledger decided first to see if he could use the old globe to look at the artifact before he tried to reach it in person. At first, he would be able to reach the general area above ground, but only buildings and people showed in the images. He pushed down into the ground and reached a point several hundred feet down where the image went blank, then the globe would lose power. He recharged it and tried several more times, with the same results each time. Something down there was sucking the power out of the globe and came close to severing the weave connections. He prevented that and had a sick thought that came in a wash of images. The virus that caused the fall was still functioning and contained down there. If he could destroy that, he could begin resetting the weave to the world. It was after the last attempt that he got a bigger surprise, the globe lit, and the image of the Blood Queen appeared in it.

“Wait boy,” she said before he could close the image, “I need to talk to you about a matter that concerns us all.”

Ledger was panicking. He knew she was dangerous, but she was upset about something that needed to be talked about. “Talk quick, or I will cut this link and fry your end if you try anything.”

She started talking quickly. She didn’t want to lose the mirror. “Gardallen is dying, and not because of the weave being severed. This is far more deadly.” She saw his disbelieving expression, “I know, I know, you don’t like me and for good cause, but this takes precedence over all other matters.”

Ledge waited, thinking, “Proceed.” He was running a mental trace and had a lock in the weave of her device. ‘A Mirror!!!’ He put his mind on how it worked and told her to proceed.

“The star, our home star is dying boy,” “Ledger,” he said absently. “Ledger then. Our star is old and running out of fuel. It is starting to fail even now. That is why this winter was so bad. In time, it will swell up and consume our world Ledger.”

“How am I supposed to help with that?” he asked. More of his attention was on the mirror now and he figured it out and knew he could replicate it now. The impossible order just became possible. He could see she was not happy with his lack of focus up to this point. “Sorry, I was studying your mirror and how it works. As to saving the world, I wouldn’t even begin to know where to start on that.”

She sighed; she knew the risk she had taken. “The only way out is the walk, The Star Walk as my master calls it.”

“Never heard of that one. What is it if you are allowed to answer that,” Ledger asked? He didn’t turn to look, but somebody had entered the other room and was listening from outside the door.

“I am, it is a door to a corridor that has doors to every other world in creation. If we can set up the transports, we might be able to move part of the population to a new, younger world.” She could see the disbelief on his face, “I know, I am not one hundred percent in believing such a place exist myself, Ledger. All I know is it is somewhere on the southern Ice Lands. I have ships being made ready to begin searching now. If we can find it, the evacuation can begin as soon as the fleets can be made ready.”

“Blood Queen, I will bring this to the attention of those in charge here, at least to any that will listen, but I doubt very much they will believe me.” He looked at her and saw someone that could have been beautiful once, but the power had corrupted her looks. He closed the link. “Come in Gareth,” he said to the listener.

“Please Ledger, please tell me you didn’t call her,” said the old man. What he had heard disturbed him greatly.

Ledger looked at the globe and activated it again. This time he focused on one of the few working relics. The one he chose was to the far south, the one that was in the ice. The image cleared and he could see the tunnel to the door again. It was heavy wood and metal. He focused the image away from the door and saw a wall of ice filling the tunnel. He knew it was the way to go because of the heavy stone bricks lining all the surfaces. Ledger pushed the image through the ice. He lost the view after a few seconds. The ice was too thick and deep. Much too far for the old device to penetrate. He pulled back and tried to look through the door. The image shut off as soon as it touched the surface of the door. It took a minute for the globe to reset, then Ledger brought up the map showing where the globe was in relation to their present location.

“That is well inland on the ice boy. Getting there will be hard enough. Finding the entrance buried as it is will be worse.” Gareth looked at one of the packs and pulled out an old scroll. He unrolled it on the globe table and showed Ledger an old map. The details were missing from the southern lands. On the far side of the Storm Sea, it is just listed as swamp and unknown. “This is the best map of the time we had. Maybe you can fill some of it in.”

Ledger studied it while frowning. “I can’t just look around. There has to be a working receiver close by for me to look through.”

“Well, next time she calls, get me. I can’t have you giving away intel she has no need to have,” said Gareth. “Things are going badly enough as it is.”

“What about what she said about home star dying? Could that be true?” Ledger was disturbed by this. He had a way to look and see for himself, but the weave might object to his looking-off world again. Then a memory hit him. He opened the globes images and focused on the strange sphere the party had passed along the way. He found it and suddenly found himself looking at a detailed map of the planet, as if from high above. He looked up and saw Home Star. Numbers and words flowed across the view that meant nothing to him. When it finished, a long series of red flashing words and numbers remained visible.

Gareth was copying down what was there as fast as he could. It was a very old form of script that he could only make out a few bits of. He knew who he could take this to, to get a reliable translation. “Close it down son, you have done enough damage for one day.” Ledger let the view end and the globe went dark. “I know you came here for a reason Ledger, now what was it?” he asked quietly.