Fugue, p.1
Fugue, page 1
Nightlord
by
Garon Whited
Copyright © 2020 by Garon Whited.
Cover Art:
“Beholder”
by R. Beaconsfield (rbeaconsfield@hotmail.com)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
This is probably a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Other Books by Garon Whited:
Dragonhunters
LUNA
Nightlord, Book One: Sunset
Nightlord, Book Two: Shadows
Nightlord, Book Three: Orb
Nightlord, Book Four: Knightfall
Nightlord, Book Five: VOID
Nightlord, Book Six: Mobius
Short Stories:
An Arabian Night: Nazin’s Dream
Clockwork
Dragonhunt
Ship’s Log: Vacuum Cleaver
The Power
The Ways of Cats
The most dangerous responsibility of a parent is believing in your children.
If you believe in them hard enough for long enough, they may very well prove you right.
Philosophical Question:
In my travels through the multitudes of Worlds of If, I have seen many things—some that were, some that are, and some that have not yet come to pass. Even in only the worlds of Earth, there are many themes played again and again, with variations great or small. I, too, have returned to the familiar, over and over, when perhaps a more adventurous soul would have ventured into far horizons.
There are so many possible worlds of Earth, spreading unchecked like a vine untended by a gardener. Is this by design? Or has the gardener obtained the fruits he desired and left the garden to grow wild and full of weeds? I have no way to tell, for a vine untended knows nothing of the gardener save, perhaps, the fact of a planted seed.
If God does not play dice with the Universe, does God instead permit all things? And, from these infinite worlds—good, bad, or indifferent—then choose only the things found pleasing?
What about the rest of us?
Child-Rearing, First Entry:
Sometimes, I think I need a keeper.
To be fair, I do generally manage to feed myself and wash. As an organism, I guess I’m about par. As a functional adult, I accept I am deeply flawed.
I know I have a tendency to go off when prodded the wrong way. I recognize it. I understand it. I can’t do anything about it, but at least I’m aware of it. Case in point: An infant. I adopted her because she needed someone and literally no one else was stepping up.
What was I thinking? I’m not qualified to parent! I’m barely qualified to babysit!
All right. Food goes in one end. Former food comes out the other end. Somewhere in the middle, there’s crying.
Up until very recently this was my total knowledge regarding infants.
So: I have a soulless—or so they tell me—infant. The locals want to leave her to die on some mountainside, a ritual form of execution they call attekytees. Basically, you find a good spot, put the kid down, and walk away. Kind of like an abysmal return policy on a defective baby, sending it back to the gods.
The milk of human kindness curdles quickly.
I have a vague impression there are other reasons in the Tassarian Empire for abandonment of defective babies, but I haven’t eaten enough people who would know. Attekytees is pretty specific, I think, and pertains only to copper-eyed (and therefore soulless) monsters in human form. Maybe they view any physical aberration as a sign of soulless-ness, or a defective soul reflected in the external form, or whatever. Their theology is largely manmade, so I question it.
This kid has a problem. Nobody wants her. Everybody thinks she should be killed—or, rather, left to die on her own. Everybody, that is, except a grumpy old vampire with a soft spot for children.
Am I going to raise her in Tauta? Obviously not. Where am I going to go? I originally went to Tauta to find a quiet spot to do magical research in preparation for an upcoming ass-kicking. Whether I would be dishing it out or getting dished on was a good question, but let’s not go into that here. What I needed now was a quiet spot to fake being normal while trying to raise a human child from infant to adult.
Come to that, since I’m seriously underqualified for the role, do I have any business being the one to raise her? Why can’t I find Ma and Pa Kent out in some version of Kansas, somewhere, and let them do it?
Two reasons. First, this infant might really be a soulless monster. I have no way to tell for certain, and any tradition this extreme had to have something start it. This could mean trouble for the unsuspecting farmer family. Second, the stereotype of the loving midwestern family is a stereotype, not a fact. Finding an idyllic little family arrangement might take years. I can’t automate such a search. I have to go spy on people and make judgement calls, and I just don’t have the time for it. A baby is like a ticking bomb with a countdown timer you can’t see.
Which reminds me. I have to get diapers. Am I going to use a shift-box to target a package of diapers whenever I run low? Or am I going to cheat and use cleaning spells? There’s a silly question. Of course I’m going to cheat. I need all the help I can get. I guess the big question is exactly how I’m going to cheat.
What am I going to do?
Well, first off, she needs a name. Then a home. Then I have an education to plan out—and serious decisions to make. Will I teach her magic? She’s going to grow up around it. Will I tell her what I am, and what I need to eat? Will I tell her she’s adopted, and why she had to be adopted? More broadly, what secrets will I be able to keep? Of those, what secrets should I keep?
If I’m going to turn a baby into a functional adult, do I have to become a functional adult? Or is it reasonable and acceptable to shoot for an ideal I haven’t achieved?
Okay. Okay. I can do this. No, I can’t do this. I can learn to do this. I’ll spend the next hour going over baby names, then I’ll start in on finding a comfortable, stable world—not one where I can get a lot done in terms of my future projects, perhaps, but one where I can have a lot of time to focus on an infant. Since I don’t sleep, I can at least get some thinking done while she naps.
I’m definitely going to need a time-ticker gate in Tauta. Maybe I can do the child-rearing thing in a day or two of Tautan time and come back. It’s a shame temporal differentials are so unpredictable. Still, I can drastically increase the ratio between Tauta and wherever I—we—wind up.
All right. Let’s get this kid a name. Then I probably need to start a log book for charting progress, noting milestones, and otherwise keeping track of how the kid is doing. I need a spreadsheet!
But, for now, she really needs a name.
Phoebe. It means “bright.”
I’ll come back to my diary when I’m done with my child-rearing lab notes. See you in a few years.
Thursday, May 28th, 1959: Shasta, California
Okay, it was more than a few. I’ve been busy, and not just with the lab notes. I’ve accomplished a lot, both on a personal level and on a parenting level.
Speaking of which, I’ve narrowed down some key questions for anybody who wants to be a parent. The major one for me has to be, “Am I being a good example?”
The answer, of course, is a loud, resounding “No.” I’m not. There’s no way in hell I can be a good example to a human being. I’m doing the best I can, but I have been forced by circumstances to settle for “Do I appear to be a good example?”
This is harder than it sounds and much harder than I expected. I think I’ve done pretty well, all things considered. We’ve got the makings of a successful human being. She’s about seventeen and shows every sign of being a responsible, well-rounded individual. I’m continuing with her education, but I’m starting to think she needs to move out, go to college, and get some independent living experience. With training wheels, yes, but she’s getting to the age where I don’t know what else I can give her aside from encouragement and funding.
Although, at this precise moment, a solid spanking is not out of the question.
Phoebe sat on the passenger side of the truck, arms folded, body scrunched down, thin-lipped and silent, sulking as only a teenager can. She doesn’t usually sulk, but the circumstances were hardly normal.
She usually catches on more quickly. Maybe it’s a teenager thing. We haven’t had a good sulk since she was little. Despite my best explanations, verbal and psychic, she would pout. I would then do something fun and not let her participate. No grumps allowed! And Bronze would give her a hint, because at that point anything I said would add to the grumpiness. Maybe if she would act like she wasn’t a grump, she could play, too? And Phoebe would listen to Bronze and at least try to fake being cheerful.
It might have helped that I have really fun things to do. There are whole worlds out there, just waiting to be visited and explored.
Firebrand sometimes did the hinting, but Phoebe listens to Bronze. It’s been immensely helpful to have third parties in the house she can ask for advice. I don’t think I’d have managed nearly as well on my own. Parenting needs to be a team effort.
I was Dad, Bronze was Mom, and that made Firebrand th
I finished attaching the trailer while Bronze revved her engine, making sure everything was in perfect order. We’ve had this pickup truck only a few years. The last one was in a wreck while I was driving. Bronze wasn’t wearing it at the time, but she still wasn’t happy with me. She likes her car better, but we were taking the truck because we needed the cargo space.
On the bright side, she knew she’d have the fun of remodeling a new car to suit her. It’s kind of a hobby, sort of her version of knitting.
Firebrand hung in the cab, at an angle, behind the seats. It took some finagling to get it in there. My saber was much shorter and fit in the gun rack just fine. Gus lay amid a tied-down pile of boxes in the truck bed, his tongue hanging out as he panted in the summer heat. He’s a big dog and a smart one. He knew he was about to get a ride.
Boss?
What’s on your mind, Firebrand?
I’m not complaining, but I’m wondering. Why are we moving this time?
Because Phoebe decided to demonstrate some of her occult skills.
Nobody knows that, do they?
One of the rules of the house is: Don’t do supernatural things around survivors.
I think the last part only applies to you, it said, mildly. Phoebe isn’t the one who kills people.
I know, and I’m proud of her for it. She still isn’t supposed to do anything supernatural where anybody can see!
You taught her how.
And I made the rule, too.
I finished checking the trailer hitch and moved into the barn. Bronze followed, towing the trailer, tires crunching on the gravel as she left the circle driveway. In the barn, I gestured her forward and she edged into position between the lines on the floor, just short of her horse statue. We centered everything inside the diagram easily enough. I left extra space when I set it up.
I know it’s a rule, Firebrand went on, but it wasn’t a major infraction.
I agree, but it’s an important life lesson. If she’s going to have psychic powers and magical spells, being known to have them is going to earn her no end of trouble. It’s a lesson I had a hard time learning and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her go through what I went through to learn it. If people are around when she does a thing—whether they know she did it or not!—we move. Period. If she gets away with it, it only encourages her to do it more often. Then we start freaking the mundanes when they start to put two and two and two together. Freaking the mundanes is fine if you’re part of the Society for Creative Anachronism, but we don’t have them for a cover story, here. She’s got to learn to conceal the truth effectively!
Spoken like a dragon, Firebrand agreed. I stopped, mid-rant, and reconsidered my position. I’m hardly a model parent, but I try. Just because Firebrand agreed with me didn’t automatically mean I was wrong. Did it?
Look, I went on, I’d happily settle down for twenty years at a stretch, but it’s been a rule ever since she could think loud enough for other people to hear. Every time we draw too much attention to ourselves—or start to draw attention—we hit the shift-booth and evacuate to a new world! No exceptions. Friends, most of our stuff, the house, the spells, the works—left behind or destroyed on departure. New world, new start, and hopefully no more mistakes.
She doesn’t like it when you think of her as a screwup, Firebrand pointed out.
I never do, but everyone makes mistakes. Phoebe is brilliant, competent, well-educated, and a better person than I am. Although I’m at a loss to explain how that happened.
Bronze, maybe?
It certainly wasn’t either of us, Nack-Monster.
Firebrand didn’t exactly radiate shame, but there was a definite sense of embarrassment.
There are good points and bad points to a psychic household. Phoebe rapidly became accustomed to telepathic and empathic contact. This allowed her to communicated far more effectively than mere crying could. A crying baby may have any number of reasons. At night, I could tell what was wrong by looking. During the day, I needed her to tell me. So she did, and with surprising clarity, too.
But while I learned a great deal about the care and feeding of tiny humans, Phoebe learned even more quickly.
Having a draconic spirit in the mix has had some side effects.
One example. When Phoebe wasn’t yet two years old, she had a surprisingly advanced vocabulary. This included the word “nack.” It was short for “snack,” of course. Cookie? Nack. Banana? Nack. Cake? Nack. If you can eat it, it’s a nack.
When selecting a stuffed animal to take to bed for the night, she would hold her arms out wide, circle her collection, and pounce on one, shouting, “nack,” as well. She usually pounced on Mr. Stuffins, her biggest teddy bear, but all her stuffies were named “nack” for a while, or at least lumped together in the “nack” category.
I asked Firebrand where she might have picked up such an idea. It didn’t have an answer. That is, it didn’t answer. The question was rhetorical, anyway.
Her second birthday party is another example. When she turned two, there was an incident with the candles on her cake. She tried to breathe fire on them and cried when she blew them out, instead. It was not the most successful birthday, but she did, eventually, enjoy attacking the “nack”-cake.
Firebrand and I discussed the matter. We’ve talked several times about raising a human. It’s hard to get Firebrand to grasp the differences between human children and hatchlings. I almost had a Word with it. I don’t often lay down the law, put my foot down, or even insist on things. I try to be pretty easygoing about most of what goes on. But this was simply unacceptable. I’m trying to raise a human, not a dragon. Not a vampire. Not a soulless creature formed of human flesh. A human.
She can be a vampire later, if you want, Firebrand pointed out.
“Agreed. She still has to be human first. Unless dragons can be turned into vampires?”
Uh… I doubt it, but I don’t know for certain. There are different kinds of vampires and different types of dragons, so maybe there’s some combination that would work. I don’t actually know.
“Neither do I, and I really wish I hadn’t thought of it.”
Me, too.
“Glad to hear it. In the meantime, how about we do our best to let her be human? All right?”
I’m trying! It’s not easy letting her be… uhm.
“Human?”
Inferior.
I had to remind myself Firebrand has a very different viewpoint. We’ve had variations on this discussion several times. I know Firebrand is trying, but it wants to help, too—and it’s version of “help” isn’t what I’d call good parenting. Not good human parenting, I should say. It may be first-rate draconic parenting.
Okay, how to phrase this to cater to Firebrand’s perspective?
“Fair point,” I allowed. “Do you seriously want to make her think she’s capable of being something so far above her abilities?”
Hmm.
“Do you want her to grow up thinking she could be a dragon, someday? Is it fair to her?
All right! All right! I’ll try harder to ignore the impulse. Human. She’s a human. It’s just so hard to see her waste herself on being just a human!
“So think of it as helping her be the best human she can be.”
If you think it’s the best she can do, Firebrand muttered.
On her third birthday, she blew out the candles, no problem.
All around the barn, I activated repellent spells. They would drive away anyone or anything I hadn’t already shooed away. Gus whined a little, but he’s oversensitive. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard, only without any actual sound. It’s all in your mind, which is much, much worse. You can’t put your fingers in your ears to make it stop. The only solution is to get far, far away.
I got the idea from some psychic zombies. With the spell running, anything outside the diagram on the floor needed either a shielding spell or a will of tempered steel to avoid running for the hills. Gus was already inside, so he had nothing to complain about, the big baby. The repellent spell was to make sure there wasn’t anyone hiding in the barn or house when the self-destruct spells turned them from unassuming buildings to fully-involved structure fires.
