The death dust moved away from the blast and sought the people of the crowd, closing on them. What could he do? Other than die of course. He couldn’t even run away…
Still the air?
He knew the field needed, but this was a huge space… It probably wasn’t possible to do anything strong enough, fast enough. Not without time. Or… enough focus. Could he do it?
No.
It couldn’t be done, not in time. Not without risking death due to pattern failure. Just trying could rip his own body apart on the basic level.
Would he do it anyway?
That, he knew, was the real question. Dead was dead, but he had to try. He sat cross legged on the ground suddenly and built the field, climbing as deep as possible as he could into his mind, then going deeper. So deep that reality stopped being for him.
For each moment he failed, people died. Tor couldn’t think about that, he could only think of the air not moving. The dust in it not shifting or floating.
Still.
Be still.
He knew it worked finally, after what felt like forever, but had to be less than a minute. The sounds of fighting lingered, but he held his focus tight and didn’t waiver. People needed to run now. He couldn’t tell them too. Tor couldn’t even open his eyes. Doing that meant letting go of his desperate grasp on the clouds of death.
He felt himself hit, but didn’t move, couldn’t let himself even try to. Then, for a while, he was hit over and over again. He thought. Tor couldn’t feel it really, the blows that struck at him he just kept going and sought to move deeper, past the black and images in his mind, past the bottom and the emptiness on the other side. Holding only the field he needed to keep people alive. Everything stopped then. It was, he thought, a place between. No, it wasn’t a thought.
It just was.
He didn’t move out of it for a long time.
Tor didn’t know if he could really. This death dust, if he let it go, would anything else be able to stop it? It seemed a deadly thing. Better to hold as long as he could and let everyone else run away, if they could stop the attackers. That was all he could do.
Not that he thought that either really. It was just what was. Tor knew it, but didn’t consider it at all.
Finally he began to hear something strange, bizarre really, it called to him, got his attention and pried him away from what he was doing just enough for him to wonder what it might be. Singing. At first he wondered if it was his imagination, his mind having grown so bored that it was making up songs to entertain itself. Fair enough, except for the need to hold the nanos in place. Finally he opened his eyes to see Burks standing in front of him humming along with the singers.
“Ah! I thought that might work! Novel stimulation can sometimes attract attention, even in the deepest states. Tor, the death dust has been dealt with; we managed to wash it out of the air then removed the earth to a safe location out of the city… A lot of people have died, but not nearly as many as might have. That was… not too bad, holding it all in place like that.”
People were dead?
Yeah, he knew that. Selfishly he just hoped it wasn’t his friends. Tor knew that some of them had been in danger though, so he tried to hold his own mind still, until he could find out what all had happened. People sang still. Two people actually. It was Mercy and Connie singing softly to him, their voices lovely, both looking over at him, so he nodded.
“Who?”
Tor couldn’t ask which of his friends he’d lost. Which people he’d loved that he’d never see again. It was important he knew, because both women cried openly as they sang. God…
The Queen stopped singing, followed by Mercy a few seconds later, and sniffed loudly.
“Oh Tor! Thank god you came back to us, we were all so worried, it’s been three days. Burks didn’t know if you’d ever let go of the field, until you died from it. When dumping snow on you didn’t work, everyone kind of thought you’d never come back.”
“Who?” He asked again, his voice flat and without expression. From the looks on all their faces, Tor knew they got it. Finally The Queen spoke, her voice just above a whisper.
“Laura. The cook. She heard the commotion and saw the fighting, so she led eight of the men and women from the kitchen in an assault on one of those…things. Most of them were injured, but it… destroyed her Tor. She didn’t even live long enough to…” There was a sob, but no description of what happened. Tor was kind of thankful for that. He’d liked Laura.
“Duke Winchester fought with the one that attacked you, and held long enough for Burks and Varley to kill it. He died of his wounds yesterday. The Duke fought most bravely and didn’t yield, even when he was wounded unto death.” Connie stood straighter when she said it, her voice sounding proud.
Tor nodded.
“Varley?” His voice sounded soft and weak, but Burks spoke strongly enough.
“She’s fine. She used her shield as a battering ram and her Tor-shoes to hit the Larval attacking you. It worked well. She’d seen the war minister, Smythe, do the same thing a few moments before and picked it up almost instantly. Smythe took out three of the assassins by himself that way. Said he learned the trick from you? A godsend really. I’ve seen three of the clones go through nearly fifty people on their own with nothing more than knives before, and those were all hardened warriors. Without Smythe and the Princesses we would have lost a lot more people.”
That got a nod from Tor and it all started to hit him. People he knew were dead? Some of them died protecting him? Duke Winchester had saved him at the cost of his own life? God. Gods.
Mercy’s breath shuddered.
Her sister kept talking anyway.
“Twenty-three people died in all Tor. I don’t know that you knew any of those, mostly staff and party goers from around the Capital. Your people are safe. You saved them. Saved us. Some are wounded. Alphonse was stabbed several times in the stomach; he’ll live, but is in great pain. Captain Wensa has two broken legs and a dislocated elbow. Trice… She’s alive at least.” The older Morgan sobbed just slightly and sounded incredibly sad when Connie said the words.
Neither woman would tell him what that meant, but Burks didn’t bat an eyelash when asked.
“The Larval took her left arm at the elbow Tor. He had a nano pack on him and she grabbed it as they fought, to keep him from deploying it. We had to cut it off to keep the machines from eating her alive. Karina actually did it, she had a cutter on her and figured out what was needed in time. It was a hard act and if she’d been even a second slower Trice would be dead right now. Bless the girl, I really never thought of Karina as being that swift, but I’m glad to say I was wrong about her.” He sounded sad when he spoke but Tor shrugged. Mercy winced when he did.
“Ah. Don’t worry Mercy, I’m not saying she deserved it. It’s just that the loss of an arm to save all those lives is a fair exchange. We’ll hire someone to be her left hand or, or I’ll do it myself if I have to. This doesn’t have to be a tragedy unless we make it into one.”
Mercy cried, hard, but nodded at him. Burks though snorted.
“Good. Now go tell her that. She’s a strong girl, but she’s being a bit of a wimp about this. It’s an arm, not her life. A nice clean separation too, so it doesn’t even look ugly. Young people always want to make everything about looks for some reason and forget the important things.”
Tor stood. He needed the restroom and a bath first, but would get a cold shower, since that’s all the palace had and he was tucked back in a supply closet of all things. It wasn’t really a shower even, just a large sink, but he’d live. Space it seemed was at a premium and while the Queen acted like she expected him to be offended, he just shrugged. It wasn’t like he’d noticed it or anything, he assured her. It wasn’t even a really small room. Nearly ten by ten and he’d had it too himself, except for the people walking in and poking at him. The floor was polished bright and there were shelves of rags, brooms and mops, as well as brushes and other cleaning supplies all around him. He’d had worse accommodations, Tor thought, as he made his way towards the room that Trice had, shared with Wensa of all people.