§107 Taken (Patreon)

Taylor arrived in his slime form, ready for assassins, armed insurrections, enemy wizards, or popular uprisings. Instead, he landed in the middle of the princess's study.

What's wrong? Their bond twisted with worry.

"Rebecca is making a play against the Divine Envoy."

Explain.

"She said she was going to 'put a leash' on him so he could be controlled. She thinks that if she succeeds, she'll win Father's favor even though he's said the envoy's off-limits. I thought I talked her out of it weeks ago, but today she said it was done. She wouldn't tell me what she did, but she sounded confident she had something. You have to tell him."

The princess was trying to control him rather than kill him. Taylor was familiar enough with such power plays to guess what it meant: Rebecca was taking hostages.

More?

"That's all I know. Can you reach Taylor?"

Taylor tried to send her his thanks, but the idea got tangled up with his worry over his people. There wasn't time to fetch paper, so he wrote in the air with lines of light.

He disbanded immediately, leaving behind words floating in the air. "Leave it to me."

From Twilight, Taylor went through the gate and flipped open his communication mirror to the boardinghouse. He made the device for scheduled check-ins while he was away from home, but Cook always kept it nearby. He made the other side chime annoyingly until she picked up.

"Young Master?" Cook's face appeared in the little circle of glass, too close to see her whole face.

"Is everyone accounted for?"

"Kasper hasn't come home from school yet, but Ophelia and the others are here." By 'others,' he assumed she meant Blake and Chambers.

"Is Ras home? Let me talk to him."

"Domine! Mirror for you!"

Rasmusen's face replaced Cook's. "Is something wrong?"

"I need you to find Kasper and bring him home. Put protection spells on the house. Make the spies stay in their own rooms."

"We don't know they're spies, or their masters' intent."

"Kasper's in danger from the palace. Will you do it or not?"

Ras's eyes closed in consternation. "How sure are you about this?"

"The source is excellent."

"Mariella, through Miss Wibbles," the priest understood. "Which means the likely perpetrator is … yes. She seems like the kind of person who would overreach. I'll leave right now. If Briallen's in town, I'll bring her in to this. How soon can we expect you?"

"Half an hour." He clicked the lid closed.

Before he did anything else, Taylor took a silver quill from his satchel and summoned Hermes the Ghost Butler.

Elegance in form, elegance in grace
I call to you through time and space.
Appear from whence all spirits inhabit,
Come Hermes! Army adjutant!

Heremes was beside him almost before he finished the invocation.

"Tell the armies to muster."

"Both of them, sir?"

"Both. Expect a series of summonings, starting in roughly half an hour."

Before he finished setting the alarm on his pocket watch, Hector had faded into Twilight.

From Wenfold, he took the lamppost gate into the park, ran through the trees to the five-foot-tall pinwheel slowly turning in the weak breeze, and landed near Celosia. He risked using Slime Time! to speed into the city and landed on the roof of the Academy's tallest building. Back in human form, he used a location technique to find the medallion his sister wore. When he gave it to her, he said it would help him find her if she were ever lost. But even then, he knew he might need it to keep her safe before harm came to her.

He stepped off the building and floated toward a cluster of smaller buildings on the edge of campus. The Academy had its own little shopping district, with a few destinations for food and entertainment, and stores where students could buy most of what they were likely to need.

He strode into the middle of an afternoon study session over snacks and small beer. Cecilia was in an animated argument with others from her class about the likelihood of finding gryphons around Mt. Snowdon and whether finding them was a good idea.

"Little brother! What a surprise!"

"The family is in danger. I need you to come with me."

"For how long?"

"A few hours. Maybe overnight."

Cecilia hesitated while the students around her stared at him and threw around questions like, "Who is this kid again?" and "Oh shit, Mon, is that the Dux guy?"

"Cecilia. You're not the only person I have to protect. We have to leave now."

Cecilia scooped several papers into a bag she carried, quaffed the last of her beer, and said, "I'm ready!"

Taylor grabbed her by the hand and led her outside, where he layered several enhancements on her, explaining as he went. "These will help protect you, but I can only give you so much without proper training. Now climb on my back."

"You're going to carry me? I'm bigger than you, you know."

"Not by much, and I'm strong right now. Climb on, and I'll explain. And I hope you're not afraid of heights."

"When you put it that way," she grinned and jumped on his back. "Show me what you can do, little brother!"

Taylor shifted her weight until he felt balanced, and started climbing into the sky with Airwalk.  His sister screamed at the thrill of sudden near-weightlessness and their gathering speed. Her classmates crowded below them, pointing. Annoyed, Taylor shielded himself from sight before changing course for the nearest portal tree.

"You could have simply dropped me at the Vawdreys', you know!" Cecilia had to shout over the wind.  "They can protect me just fine."

"If a member of the imperial family showed up and asked for you, would they resist or hand you over?"

She gripped him tighter. "Maybe you should tell me what this is about."

Taylor explained as best he could while hurtling at his maximum non-slime speed, but Cecilia was missing crucial information.

"Why would the Emperor give special instructions concerning my brother, and why would a princess defy him? This makes no sense!"

So Taylor had to start over, beginning with his Divine Envoy title. He finished as they descended to the ground and landed by his tree, several miles from Celosia. To prove his point, he let her look at his (heavily redacted) class screen. He gave her a full minute to read, to let it sink in.

"Taylor, this is," she ran her fingers through her windblown hair, 'I mean, wow. I knew there were things going on with you, but you should have said something about this."

"I didn't want our relationship to be about my weirdnesses. Or, even more about my weirdnesses. And you haven't even seen the crazy part yet. I have a shortcut that will take us to Midway in a few minutes, but you can't talk about what you're about to see."

"Why? Are we about to do something illegal? Because I'm not okay with any sold-into-slavery level of rule-breaking."

"It's not illegal or evil, but it would attract too much attention. Do you promise?"

"Sure. I promise."

"I'm serious. You can't go around talking about this. You can't even tell Prudence."

"So this is a secret just between us?"

"Between me and the people I have to protect."

"Okay. I promise." Clearly, she didn't expect the surprise to amount to much, but at least she was taking it seriously, now.

"Give me your hand." Taylor folded them through space, into the Other Place, next to the large pinwheel. He had to pull her through the park, half-stunned and struggling to stare at everything instead of watching where she stepped.

"Where are we?" she managed at last.

"A place I made. It's how I get around the empire."

"You mean, all these trees take you to different places?"

"Only the ones with landmarks. The rest are just trees."

"And where is here? Exactly? Are we still in the empire?"

"It's a pocket dimension. Think of it like an inventory space, but much larger and with special access points. And it has its own sun."

"You made a world?"

"Just a little one." Taylor continued to pull her down the path, past his whimsical landmarks: a swingset, a merry-go-round, a bust of Ophelia, and finally the seesaw. He pulled her into Aarden without ceremony.

"Brother, we need to talk about a few things."

"Not right now. We're just outside of Midway. Climb on."

This time, she didn't ask questions or complain. She got on his back and held tight while he started running. A few of the locals looked up and waved. They were used to seeing him cruise around at fifty feet off the ground to visit nearby fishing spots, just not with a girl on his back.

Fourteen minutes after their departure from Celosia, he let Cecilia down at the boardinghouse's front door. Ras had raised one of the church's defensive barriers and warded the entire building from entry. Taylor was forced to knock, or else spend an inordinate amount of mana taking down the ward.

When the door opened, Briallen was on the other side, with Ras behind her. "He's missing," she said without preamble. "He was at school this morning, went to lunch in town, and never came back." 

The paladin held out a hand to Taylor and pulled him through the warded threshold, the magic moving aside for him like a curtain of water. She left Cecilia on the porch, unable to follow. "Who is this?"

"My sister. And yes, I'm sure it's her. I know her mana."  Satisfied, Briallen pulled her through.

"Are we sure he didn't ditch school to go fishing?"

Cook answered, "He would have taken Tristan. But Tristan is in the back. That horse is anxious, Young Master. He knows something is wrong."

"I'll talk to him in a minute. I'm going to summon spirits to guard the house, and then I'll go look for him. But first," he pointed at the schoolgirl sitting in the parlor. She was the daughter of one of their boarders, whom Taylor had long suspected was a spy. "Why isn't she in school or in her room?"

The girl stood, "She has a name, and it's Faith. Though I can't imagine why I bother telling you when you never remember."

"I always assumed your mother was a spy who hired you as a cover, and that your name was fake."

"I am the spy, and I hired her to be my cover. But the name is fake, so well done, I suppose."

Taylor turned to Rasmusen. "Why is she inside the wards, if she's a confirmed spy?"

"Because she's on your side. The wards would have kicked her out if she were hostile. You should listen to her …"

"Okay, Faith. I'm listening."

"I work for the empire. And no, I won't tell you which part, or how to confirm it. I gave my confirmation to Domine Rasmusen, so either you trust his word or you don't. All I can tell you is that the Empire is not behind this. No orders were given to take any members of your family, nor does anyone have permission to stand in your way. We're even supposed to overlook minor law-breaking, like not handing over all the mana crystals you find. Whoever did this, it didn't come from us."

Taylor looked to Ras. "She's proved herself to my satisfaction," said the priest. "But there's the chance she's being lied to."

"Did you tell her about the princesses?"

"I did." The priest and the spy exchanged a meaningful look. "Imperial children have jumped the rails before now. It's entirely possible the princess went rogue."

"Better than possible," added Faith. "Bad behavior in the brood is a recurring phenomenon."

Faith looked fifteen, but suddenly, she sounded like a jaded operative.

"I have questions about you," he told Faith, "but they'll have to wait. Briallen, Blake, clear the road out front. I need to summon an army."

While they blocked off the street, Taylor went to the house's backyard, where they kept Tristan. The tall horse ran across its enclosure, halted at the fence, and then ran to the other side. He whinnyed and snorted and tossed his head, and kicked the fenceposts.

Tristan, he called to the horse, I know.

Want boy! The horse came to Taylor's side of the fence and huffed into his face.

Can you feel him through your bond?

Tristan spun to face north and stood, tense and alert. That way! Go now!

Soon. We must prepare.

Now! The animal reared and hammered his front hooves against the post. Now!

Taylor would have left the horse behind, but if the kidnappers were any good at their job, then they had stripped Kasper of everything, including the charm that let Taylor track him. There were other forms of divination he could use, but most of them were easy to counter. The bond between animal and tamer, however, was far more difficult to disrupt. He needed Tristan's bond to track the wolfkin.

Taylor removed his mask and his prayer beads, the things that blocked and absorbed his curse, and he aimed his mana-beast energy at Tristan in force. He pressured the animal with his mana, his levels, and his raw intent.

Obey me, and we rescue him together. Rebel, and I leave you behind.

The horse ceased his wild behavior and stood still, quivering and blowing. His body relaxed, and his head dipped low as if grazing.

Big Brother is the strongest. I will follow.