I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Then why haven’t you done it already? Don’t play games with me, Mort. I know you better than that.”
“I wanted to wait until you were fully recovered.”
Penny picked up a carrot and tossed it up onto the counter. “There’s no such thing as fully recovered, not while I’m missing an entire arm.”
“I meant your health.”
Wiping her eyes, she replied, “I know what you meant. And you’re still not telling me everything. It’s dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Everything I do is dangerous,” I said. “Everything involving my unique abilities anyway. I would have to become you, like I did when you were hit with the ballista bolt. We could both vanish, or wind up a single person, fused together. In the best case, it works but we never really know who was who to begin with.”
She exhaled, releasing a dark laugh. “I can’t blame you for not wanting to be me.”
Grinning, I replied, “I’d feel worse for you, if you wound up stuck as me.”
“That sounds grand to me,” she said. “Do you have any idea how much I envy you sometimes? No, of course you don’t. Remember when we were little? There wasn’t much difference between us then. You were just this awkward, skinny kid. No one understood you back then, but I did. I saw your heart, your kindness. I loved you, and I didn’t care that you were nobody. I was nobody.
“Then you became a wizard, and suddenly you were at the center of everything. And I was still nobody, but for some reason you loved me anyway. And lo and behold, it turned out you were the lost heir of the Camerons, and the Illeniels. Everyone wanted you, or wanted to kill you. You were important. But who was I? I was just the plain girl you refused to let go of.
“For a while I was your bodyguard, and I had some purpose. At least I was able to stay with you. But I could hear them talking. Did you ever wonder what I might hear with these inhumanly sharp ears you gave me? How many of those fancy lords and nobles might say things without knowing I could hear them? They felt sorry for you, or worse, thought you were a fool for wanting to marry me.
“But you married me anyway. How could I refuse? You were all I ever wanted, but I still felt ashamed. I should have let you go, pushed you away, but I was too selfish, too stubborn to let anyone else have you.
“Now I spend my days pretending—pretending to be something I’m not, pretending to be important, pretending to be a leader, and all I really want is to be invisible. I wish—I—I wish you were nobody, so we could go back to those days.” She finished with her head resting on her knees, staring at the floor.
“Penny…”
“I know,” she interrupted. “I’m wallowing in my own self-pity. Just let it be. I’ll be the Countess tomorrow. Right now, I just can’t do it. I’m tired.”
Standing up, I crossed the room and sat down beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders. “I want the same thing,” I told her. “So many times, I have wished we could just forget about all of it and run away. There’s only one thing in all of this that keeps me going, one consolation that makes it bearable.”
“If you say it’s me, I’ll knock you across the kitchen,” she said ruefully.
“No,” I answered. “At least, not the you I first fell in love with. You were sweet back then, but it’s the woman with me now that makes it worthwhile. The Penny I knew as a kid; she wasn’t anybody, but I loved her. But that isn’t who you are anymore. You’re the girl who refused to give up on me, the one who didn’t care if I was a nobleman or not, a wizard or not. The one who didn’t listen to all the stuck-up assholes who thought they knew better than I did about what was good for me.
“Maybe you think you’re pretending, but no one else does. You’ve held this place together when I wasn’t there. You’ve fought for our children when they didn’t know what to do themselves. You’ve saved me from my own bullshit so many times I can’t even count them. The only thing that’s kept me going is you, watching you refuse to give up. You’ve always been too damned stubborn to let them beat you down. That’s why I love you.”
She gave me a strange look. “Because I’m stubborn?”
“There’s nothing so precious as the love of a stubborn woman,” I said, smiling through my own tears now.
Penny didn’t say anything, and after a while she leaned over and kissed me softly.
“Are you going to knock me across the kitchen now?” I asked afterward.
She chuckled lightly. “I haven’t decided yet.” Then she stood and offered me her hand to help me up.
I took it, and after I had risen, I started to leave the kitchen, pulling her along with me.
“Wait,” she told me.
“What?” She glanced around, and then I realized the kitchen was still a mess. “Oh, yeah,” I said glumly.
The Count and Countess di’ Cameron spent the next several minutes picking up vegetables and cleaning the kitchen.
Chapter 22
“Open it,” I commanded.
Peter Tucker, my chamberlain and long-time servant, stepped forward with the keys. I could have opened the lock myself, with or without a key, but I had learned never to use magic in front of regular folks unless it was necessary. For one, it startled them, and sometimes left them confused, but even worse than this, it was a constant reminder of the difference between someone like me, and them. It also sometimes led people to strange expectations. Why should they do anything if I was present and could do it easier and faster?
While Peter shuffled the keys, Sir Gram moved up beside him, putting himself between me and the doorway. Lady Thornbear’s apartment had been locked after the bodies were removed so that nothing would be disturbed. With my magesight, I already knew there was nothing living within, but Gram took his duty seriously, and besides, our new enemy didn’t fit the traditional category of ‘living.’
Before Peter found the key, Gram voiced a quiet word and the enchanted tattoo on his arm flared to life. Metal scales flickered into existence and fluttered around him briefly, like a cloud of shining silver butterflies, before settling and locking into place. In a few short seconds he went from being unarmored to being better protected than any man in the entire kingdom.
His armor was unique, a product of my son Matthew’s special genius. It covered him from head to toe like a metallic, reptilian skin, but unlike traditional scale mail, it suffered from no weaknesses. The individual pieces moved freely with him, but when confronted with an exterior force, such as a sword blow or an arrow, they locked in place, becoming more rigid than a solid plate of steel. It formed not only armor for his body, but his head as well, and the parts that covered his face were invisible, allowing him to see.
The armor’s wonders didn’t end there, however. The enchantment also included his sword, which had been re-forged from his father’s greatsword, Thorn. The sword could take several forms, that of a greatsword, twin arming swords, or a sword and a large heater shield. It could even be commanded to take on its original broken form, before it had been remade.
With just the tattoo on his forearm, Gram could go from being unarmed and unarmored, to thoroughly equipped with a variety of weapons depending on the situation.
If Penny had had armor of a similar sort, she wouldn’t have lost her arm. But I had never found the time to bother repeating my son’s feat of enchanting. For now, Gram’s sword and armor were unique.
As the door opened, Gram eased Peter aside and entered the room, surveying it quickly before continuing on to check the rest of the rooms. Personally, I thought his insistence on so much caution was excessive, but Gram was much like his father in this regard—rigid, loyal, and stubborn to a fault.
“Clear, milord,” he called to me.
I already knew that, I grumbled internally. As I stepped into the small waiting room, my eyes confirmed what my arcane senses had already reported—Rose’s living quarters had been destroyed. The floor was covered in dried blood, and sunlight entered from the direction
of her bedroom, where a wide hole had been created in the wall.
The doorway from the sitting room to the living room was largely gone. Irene’s blast had removed it, along with portions of the wall on either side. The wall between the living room and Rose’s bedroom had entirely collapsed, giving a clear view of the round hole in the exterior wall.
The man that had been atop Rose was gone. All that had been recovered of his body was part of his right leg—the ankle and foot. The rest of him had been blown out of the room and seemed to have been incinerated in mid-air. Only ash and rubble had been found in the castle yard.
I had already examined the female assassin’s remains, but that had left me with more questions than answers. Her name had been Mary, and she had been the young wife of the tanner in Washbrook. The tanner himself was missing, so the obvious conclusion was that he had been the male assailant, though we had no way of confirming that. Both Mary and her husband had been well liked and respected in Washbrook.
I hadn’t known them well, but I had seen them at least twice a year at the feasts I held for the villagers of Washbrook, one of my duties as their liege. I had liked them both.
From Rose’s account, I had expected Mary Tanner’s body to harbor one of the metal parasites we had encountered in Dunbar. There had been no sign of one, nor had there been any tissue damage to her throat or neck. If she had been harboring an ANSIS parasite, I could find no sign of it.
Had she been acting on her husband’s behalf? Was he the only one being directly controlled? I couldn’t believe that either. The evidence pointed to both of them having scaled the wall to enter Rose’s apartments through the window. Mary Tanner was a healthy woman, but she hadn’t had the strength to do such a thing, and neither had her husband. No rope or other climbing tools had been found.
Also, Rose’s description of their behavior pointed to them having been controlled. Normal humans don’t ignore fatal wounds as Mary had. Normal men don’t ignore a solid knee to the groin.
Gram started toward the door that led to his own bedroom, but I cautioned him, “Don’t.”
“I thought we were going to search everything,” he observed.
“Give me a few minutes. Don’t touch anything,” I ordered. “I want to examine it carefully before we start moving or touching anything.” To illustrate my point, I closed my eyes.
Giving my full attention to my magesight, my focus roamed through the apartments like a disembodied ghost. Clothes, jewelry, teapot, cups… Mentally, I catalogued each room, searching through every nook and cranny. Everything seemed normal, everything was mundane, except for one small oddity.
There.
In the corner of the main room, near the hearth, there was something metallic that I couldn’t identify. It was flat and irregularly shaped, conforming to a small niche in the brick that enclosed the hearth. I moved toward it, with Gram following close beside me.
Bending my knees, I stared at the space where I had located it. There was nothing visible, though my magesight still showed it there. Something invisible? Stretching out one hand, I was surprised when it moved. I jerked my hand back. It had risen slightly, as if it meant to meet my fingers. Still, my eyes had seen nothing.
“There’s something here,” I muttered.
Creating a probe of pure force, I extended it, attempting to touch whatever it was, but as soon as it made contact, the seemingly liquid metal surged toward me. It struck my legs, but my personal shield kept it from making contact with my clothing or skin. Exhaling with a sharp hiss, I changed the shape of my probe, using it to envelop the metallic thing.
“Got you,” I exclaimed. Lifting it into the air, I was amazed to see it become visible within my globe of force, a thick, viscous glob of what appeared to be liquid metal. There wasn’t much of it; in total it comprised perhaps a cup of liquid. Within my magical sphere, it shifted and moved, searching for an escape.
“What is that?” asked Gram, his eyes growing wide.
“Nothing good,” I answered.
***
I stood in the yard outside of the smithy that Matthew used for his workshop. “Is that enough?” I asked. A large pile of copper in irregular chunks and pieces lay on the ground in front of me, the product of another exercise of my connection to the earth.
Gary glanced at Matthew, and after a moment they both nodded. “It should be plenty,” said the android.
“I still don’t understand why it takes this much material,” I confessed.
“It wouldn’t,” began the machine, “but we don’t know what frequencies the enemy may be using, so I have to construct antennae of a variety of sizes and orientations to make certain we detect whatever ANSIS uses.”
“Orientation,” I muttered. “Is that why they use a cross shape?”
Matthew jumped in, “Exactly. If the transmitter is using a vertical antenna then a horizontal one would miss the signal, and the opposite is also true.”
“What if they use a diagonal antenna?” I mused.
“We would get a half strength signal,” said Gary confidently.
“And why do you need different sizes?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the largest antenna pick up everything the smaller ones would?”
Matthew started to speak but then deferred to Gary. Gary explained, “It depends on the wavelength of the signal. If the antenna is a quarter, a half, or the full length of the wavelength, you get a good signal, but if it’s much larger or smaller you won’t. We have to match the resonant frequency length of a wide variety of possible signals…”
He went on for a while, and I found myself following much of it, but it was too much, too soon. The topic was fascinating, but I already had too many other things to think about. I decided I would have to trust his expertise.
Even so, I listened, storing his words away for further study. When he finally ran down and stopped, I was ready with my next question. “So, back to the functional end of this. You’re going to use these small ring gates to put the output leads from each of these antennae in a central location here, and then connect yourself to all of them?”
Both of them nodded, then Matthew added, “We’ll also make sure that each lead has exactly the same distance from the antenna to its connection with Gary.”
“Why?” I asked.
“To make sure he receives each signal at approximately the same time,” said Matt.
Gary held up his hand. “Well, I won’t get them at the same time, but I intend to measure the difference in reception time for each antenna, and I don’t want a disparity in the antenna lead length to confuse that.”
I felt stupid then. I should have remembered from our earlier discussion about trilateration. “Got it,” I said. “By the way, I found something today. Take a look.” Reaching into my pouch, I drew out the glass container holding the silver metal I had found in Rose’s rooms.
The glass had been open on one end, but I had used my power to heat and seal the open end, and then for good measure, I had enchanted the glass to make it nearly unbreakable. I wasn’t taking any chances.
Matthew frowned, and Gary simply stared. Neither said anything.
“Any idea what it is?” I asked. “I found it hiding in the wreckage of Lady Rose’s living room.”
Finally, Gary answered, “I think it’s ANSIS, a piece anyway.”
Matthew muttered, “Grey goo.”
“They finally made it work…,” added the android.
Their responses were cryptic and frustrating. “Anyone care to explain? I get tired of mysterious answers.”
“It means we have already lost,” declared the android.
I fought the urge to choke him. I doubted it would do any good anyway, since he didn’t breathe. Instead I waited; my patience had improved with age. After a minute he began to explain, “They’ve created programmable matter. That glass container holds a vast number of impossibly small machines, each communicating and coordinating. Together they can create almost anything you can imagine—larger machine
s, for example. Assuming that that is indeed them and not just a container of quicksilver.”
I held up the glass. “So with this amount they could construct a teacup, or something similar in size. How does that equate to us having already lost?”
“Self-replication,” said Matthew. “If it works the way it was described to me back on Karen’s world, it can create more of itself. It could potentially convert the entire world into more of itself.”
Gary nodded. “My creator, the original Gary Miller, worked on the software for ANSIS, but there were several other related departments trying to create something very like this. As far as I know, they made some progress but never fully succeeded.”
“Then where did this come from?” I asked.
“ANSIS is much smarter than those who created it,” said Gary. “It may have succeeded where they failed. However, I misspoke earlier. We should not give up hope yet. We don’t know the properties of this new nanomaterial. It may not be able to self-replicate, as Matthew mentioned. It might still require larger facilities to produce it.”
Matthew spoke up, “Why didn’t you detect it? You were following its signals when Rose was attacked. How did it escape your notice afterward?”
Gary tapped his temple, “No signal. It isn’t attempting to communicate. When the attack failed, it probably ceased signaling to avoid detection. Let me try something.” He held out his hand for the container.
Somewhat begrudgingly, I handed it to him. The android held it in his hand without speaking, while he merely stared at it. A minute went by and nothing happened.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to talk to it,” said Gary. “Let me focus. I’m trying a variety of different short-range radio signals.”
Nothing happened, but after a minute the android spoke again, “There it is.”
“What did it say?” I asked.
He gave me one of his unsettling smiles. His mechanical body was an almost perfect human imitation, but it showed its artificial nature in certain expressions and gestures, and smiling was one of them. If questioned, I couldn’t have put my finger on exactly what it was, but something about the expression didn’t ring true and it never failed to leave me feeling uncomfortable. “I have no idea,” said Gary. “ANSIS uses a variety of encryption methods, methods for which I do not have the key, otherwise I could attempt to alter its programming, or at the very minimum spy on its communications. This sample is communicating in the two-point-four gigahertz band.”