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The three chambered beehive sat in front of Zorian on its unfinished stone foundation. The hive was massive, the three chambers together easily dwarfed Imaya’s house. At the moment it was unremarkable to look at, little was visible besides the shimmering white stone casing. But Zorian knew from hard months of work how intricate the hive behind the stone finishing was.
Zorian had done very little of that work himself, leaving the Taramatula’s expert craftsmen to figure out the core design, only stepping in occasionally to make sure the shape stayed compatible with his wards. But the containers? The isolation mechanisms for all three chambers of the hive, the opening that would connect the main chamber back to reality, and the mechanisms that would control the passage of time in the two secondary chambers? Those were Zorian’s work.
Together the three chambers formed a kind of lopsided triangle. The smallest leg of the hive was the time acceleration chamber, a miniature black room. The space inside the smallest chamber was technically a pocket dimension, but the space inside wasn’t any larger than it’s container. It was placed in a pocket dimension to create a sharp divide between the real world and the space inside the hive. In some ways this felt like a waste. With as much work as Zorian had put into it, he could have stuffed a structure ten times the size into the closet-sized chamber.
But the lack of actual space compression had one tremendous advantage. Bees would be able to leave and enter the miniature black room while time inside was still accelerated. The black room wouldn’t have to be stopped and started at regular intervals to exchange the bees and add to their food supplies. It could be left running indefinitely.
A few of the consulting scholars were already discussing how they might apply the technique to human sized black rooms, but Zorian was skeptical. The technique had the unfortunate disadvantage of causing time to pass at two different speeds inside the body of any creature crossing the barrier. Bees were small, with a relative lack of fluid dynamics happening inside their bodies, and could pass through the time dilation with only minor ill effects. More importantly, individual bees were disposable. About one in twenty bees died outright when entering or leaving the chamber, with about thirty percent taking some minor damage. A worthwhile sacrifice in bees. But humans were much less disposable, and much more biologically complicated. Zorian didn’t see a scenario where the tradeoff would be worth it.
The largest of the hive’s three chambers served the opposite purpose, a reverse black room where time was slowed down. Slowing down time was much easier, and less energy intensive, than speeding it up. But the barrier was equally dangerous for living beings to cross.
Together, the chambers would give the Taramatula bees the ability to quickly reproduce and then put themselves in stasis until they were needed. Meaning the Taramatula could field an almost arbitrarily large number of bees at a moments notice. With tensions high around the Taramatula’s claim of Koth’s side of the inter-continental gate, it was an edge the Taramatula needed
As wedding presents go, Zorian thought that this was a very good one. Sadly, it wouldn’t be a surprise for Daimen or Orissa. Zorian had needed to consult heavily with both of them while working on it. Still, Zorian thought the present was nearly a good enough apology for wiping out a month of Daimen’s memory the year prior. The next time Daimen pulled out the memory erasure to hold out over Zorian’s head, Zorian would be able to bring up the bee army. He was almost looking forward to the next time Daimen decided he needed to negotiate with Zorian on behalf of their parents.
Around Zorian, the other mages began to disperse. The mood was high, everyone was looking forward to the wedding the following day. Zach, who Zorian had bribed into this by promising to work on his ‘replacement pocket palace’, flopped down on the grass next to Zorian.
“Impressive work,” he said, “Though I’m not sure it was a good idea to make your in-laws even more terrifying.”
“It’ll be much harder for Quatach-Ichl to take the gate back now,” Zorian said. It wasn’t likely the lich would try, he didn’t have anything to gain. But there was at least a chance the gate would be a target and with the war heating up, it had been worrying everyone.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a downer Zorian?”
“You,” Zorian said.
“How are you going to play this anyway?” Zach asked idly.
“What do you mean?” Zorian asked, staring up at the blue sky. Bees occasionally crossed above him. His long days at the estate had rid him of most of his instinctual fear of them. The bees had learned his scent well enough to treat him as a member of the household and wouldn’t attack him now, even in self defense. He’d accidentally bumped into or sat on bees so many times that they no longer seemed dangerous. That would definitely come back to bite him next time he encountered normal bees.
“Well you’re not going to stand up tomorrow and tell everyone that you created a groundbreaking time-accelerating bee factory for the Taramatula are you? That’d kind of ruin the whole game of pretending to be a normal student. Besides, I thought the Taramatula wanted to keep the whole thing under wraps.”
“Daimen and Orissa already know about it,” Zorian said, “I’ll show it to them properly after the wedding.”
“After the wedding?” Zach asked, propping himself up on one elbow and wiggling his eyebrows in a ridiculous fashion.
Zorian threw a clod of dirt at him without moving his arms out from behind his head, using magic to scoop the dirt out and aim at Zach’s forehead.
Zach batted it away without using his hands and things might’ve devolved from there but someone loudly cleared their throat. One of the family’s mages had broken away from the walls they were erecting around the hive to come and glare at them.
“I hope you’re not planning to ruin the lawn less than twelve hours before guests start arriving?” she asked.
Zorian quickly scooped the loose dirt back into the hole and patted it down.
Satisfied they weren’t going to do further damage to the lawn she returned to the new hive. They lay on the grass in the sunlight for another long, lazy minute. Zorian knew it wouldn’t help him sleep when he got back to Cyoria, but it was so pleasant that he couldn’t quite pull himself away.
“Zorian,” Zach said after a while, “You do know how weddings in Koth work, don’t you?”
Zorian got a sinking feeling, “What do you mean?”
“Why did you think the wedding lasted three days?” Zach asked.
“For the partying?” Zorian said.
“Well obviously,” Zach said, “But also so the guests don’t get too sick of watching people present their gifts to the new couple. The more close family members someone has, the longer the wedding takes. Every member of the close family is supposed to make a big deal out of it. Give a miniature speech, show off their gift, that kind of thing. Since your Daimen’s brother, everyone will notice if you don’t give him anything.”
“Oh that bastard,” Zorian said. Though, if he was being honest, that was probably unfair to Daimen. Much as his brother had been messing with him lately, Zorian doubted he would sabotage his own wedding just to mess with Zorian.
“Well you have, oh twelve hours, to figure it out,” Zach said cheerfully.
Zorian threw an arm over his eyes and groaned. He could just imagine mother’s reaction if he embarrassed the whole family at the wedding by forgetting to get Daimen a present. There were going to be so many people watching.
“What are you getting him?” Zorian asked, knowing Zach had been invited.
“I’m not a family member,” Zach pointed out, “I’m barely an acquaintance. No one’s looking at my present. I’m giving him a copy of one of the battle spells I found in Oganj’s hoard.”
“That doesn’t help,” Zorian said.
“You really don’t have anything?” Zach asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, it’s not really a big deal,” Zach said, “Buy him a snow globe or something. All of the Taramatula’s know about the new hive so it’s not like you have to worry about your new in-law’s being mad at you.”
Zorian was trying to convince Mother and Father he was responsible so they’d let up about him watching Kirielle. Blowing off Daimen’s wedding present would not do anything to repair that foundering relationship. He’d wanted to sleep tonight dammit.
He climbed to his feet, exhaustion making him slightly unsteady.
“Get a snow globe!” Zach called after him again as he stalked off.
Zorian walked into Imaya’s house, to be greeted by the sound of warm chatter. Halfway through their fourth year, the academy had largely recovered from the damage of the attack and many students had moved back into the renovated dorms. But enough of Zorian’s classmates had gotten into the habit of studying at Imaya’s place that her kitchen was rarely empty, even this late into the evening.
Kana was sitting on Kael’s lap, doodling as he worked on a paper. She’d decided to copy Kirielle and was quite serious about her little drawings.
She peered at Zorian as he entered the room, like she was trying to figure out a puzzle. Finally she said, “Grumpy,” in a satisfied sounding voice and returned to her drawing.
Kael looked up from his paper. “You do look terrible.I’d have thought you’d be happier. Weren’t you finishing that project at the Taramatula estate today?”
Zorian had been telling everyone a slightly altered version of the truth. His above average warding skills were common knowledge, so he’d told everyone that he was helping Daimen set up the wards for the wedding.
“We finished,” Zorian said, sitting down heavily in a chair, “I thought the wards were going to be my wedding present. But it looks like I need something I can talk about in front of an audience, and all of the details of the wards are under wraps.”
Kirielle wandered into the room, summoned by their voices. She pulled Kana’s drawing free to look at it. Kana scowled and made grabby hands.
“That hardly seems fair,” Imaya said from across the table, “You’ve been spending every spare minute over there these last few weeks and wards will be more helpful than any token present a fourth year academy student could afford. I thought your brother was more reasonable than that.”
“Daimen is,” Zorian admitted, “But it’s the public appearance that’s the issue. Daimen and the Taramatula know how much I’ve been helping, but that’s hard to sell to an audience if you can’t talk about any of the details. Maybe if I was a good public speaker I could manage it.”
“Well you certainly aren’t that,” Imaya said cheerfully.
“How are you just realizing this now?” Akoja asked, “You should have thought of this months ago.”
“Kiri,” Zorian asked, he’d started ignoring Akoja’s criticisms, “Did you know that we have to give a speech about our presents?”
“What?” Kiri asked, dropping Kana’s drawing. It drifted slowly downwards and Kael snagged it out of the air before it could hit the floor. “A speech? To everyone! No one told me.”
Well at least Zorian wasn’t the only one who’d been left in the dark.
“She’s ten, she has an excuse,” Akoja said.
“We can pretend I helped with your present,” Zorian said to Kirielle, half seriously, “And then I can give your speech and you won’t have to talk.”
“No!” Kirielle said, “That’s my present. I made it.”
Honestly it would be pushing credibility to claim that Zorian had done much for Kirielle’s painting besides buy the paints and the canvas. It was a beautiful depiction of Daimen and Orissa. They hadn’t even sat for it. Kirielle had managed to capture them in her memory clearly enough to put it down on canvas.
“I guess I have to go shopping then,” Zorian said, though he wanted nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep.
“If you’re going shopping then I’m going with you,” Kirielle said, already way too excited.
It was late enough in the evening that most stores were closed, but Cyoria was a big city. Imaya told Zorian that one of the wealthier shopping districts had stores that stayed open in case rich patrons wanted to browse after dining, so Zorian and Kirielle headed there.
Outside of the time loop, Zorian no longer had “hire teams of archmages” or “build war golems” money, but he wasn’t poor. Most of the extravagant purchases he’d gotten into the habit of making in the time loop weren’t the kind of thing you could do on a whim. And he made a steady and discreet income selling golems and other magical artifacts.Overpriced as most of the things in these stores were, there wasn’t much he couldn’t afford.
Problem was, while Zorian hadn’t previously known how much a set of obelisk china cost, his parent, and the other guests at the wedding, did. Zorian couldn’t justify having that kind of money. He could pick up something more mundane, some item a normal fourth year mage student would get for a friend’s wedding. But he knew his parents would be even more embarrassed by that than they would if Zorian brought no present at all.
The clerks and shopkeepers in this district looked at Zorian and Kirielle with barely restrained hostility. The expressions on their faces and their tones of voice were completely polite, but the hostility radiating from their minds was unmistakeable.
Kirielle picked up a gold ornament, not even something she could break, and Zorian felt a surge of irritation from the shop’s owner. He quickly hustled them out, but the shopkeeper next door wasn’t any better.
At least Kirielle was having a good time. She’d brought her sketchbook and kept pausing to make quick sketches of the more unusual items. This wasn’t helping with the shopkeepers attitude though. And after a while scanning through the wares, looking for something that wouldn’t embarrass his family while still being cheap enough it wouldn’t raise eyebrows, Zorian realized this wasn’t going to work.
He was ready to admit defeat and started trying to figure out if it’d be better to announce he’d worked on the wards for the wedding, and deal with the scrutiny that brought, or if it would be better to buy something out of his price range, and deal with people being curious about where he got his money. Then, a burst of friendliness caught him off guard.
It was from a shop they hadn’t even gone into. It was so clearly outside of their price range that Zorian had walked right by. But the owner had caught a glimpse of Zorian through the glass front and seemed to recognize him.
Curious, Zorian pushed the shop’s door open and went inside. It sold mostly furniture. Zorian recognized a table made of northern weeping elm. Zorian had purchased small chips of the wood as potion ingredients for Kael during the time-loop. In a potion, the wood’s ability to attract ambient mana was useful. Though it was a slow and irregular enough process that it could only be used in relatively stable potions. Here, the drops of mana gathering on the light wood had to be purely decorative. Even if weeping elm wood was useful for fueling wards (it wasn’t, it was much better to harness the ambient mana directly), the table didn’t have any wards on it.
The door chimed behind him as Kirielle finally caught up with Zorian, having finished whatever her last sketch was. She comes over to stand next to him and immediately pulled out her sketchbook again, “It’s so pretty.”
Zorian supposed it was. The table was polished to reveal the grain of the wood and the mana beaded on it like glimmering jewels. Zorian noted with interest that Kirielle wasn’t drawing the table as a whole, but instead was trying to draw one of the drops of mana. He was impressed that she could draw something translucent at all with only a pencil and paper.
“It is pretty,” the owner said, walking up to them and still radiating that same inexplicable friendliness, “I’m going to be sad to let this one go. You’re Zorian Kazinski aren’t you?”
“I am,” Zorian said, a little unnerved. Strangers didn’t normally recognize him on the street and he was becoming increasingly sure he’d never met this woman before, “Do I know you?”
“Oh no, no,” the woman said laughing, “But Resonance showed me what you looked like once.”
“Endless Repetition of Sound Without Resonance?” Zorian asked, remembering the name of an aranea who Novelty complained about at length.
“That’s her!” the shopkeeper said.
“What about me?” Kirielle demanded, “Do you know who I am?”
“Hmm,” the shopkeeper said, “Are you his little sister?”
“You’re just guessing,” Kirielle said.
“Guilty as charged,” the store owner said with a smile.
“You ‘re one of arenea’s merchant contacts?” Zorian asked.
“I am and let me say that this last year has been an incredible boon for business. It’s one thing to sell high quality spider silk. It’s quite another to sell silk that is known to come from magic sapient spiders. Everyone wants aranean silk nowadays. I’m making a killing in the linens.”
The owner was more than happy to show them the area of her shop specializing in such things. The sheets were probably quite beautiful, not that Zorian was an expert in quality linen, but the price-tags made his eyes pop.
Staring at them Zorian realized he did have a publicly acknowledged way to get at least one luxury good. The Matriarch would be delighted, she was always eager to do any favor that would put Zorian in her debt.
He dropped Kirielle off at Imaya’s, had a brief conversation with the arenea, and then descended below the city to pick up a set of glimmering blue spider silk sheets. He ended up trapped for two hours afterwards fixing one of the golems he’d made the aranea. By the time he finally went to sleep, it was almost dawn.
The next morning, Zorian and Kirielle stepped through the gate into early evening light of Koth. The wedding was as far from a private family affair as it was possible for a wedding to be. Cyorian royalty was attending, as well as Koth’s most influential families. Damien and Orissa were the excuse but truly this was a political meeting between two previously distant countries who had become unexpected geographic neighbors.
The wedding was a perfect excuse for Koth to show off its wealth and powerful bargaining position to Cyoria, while still keeping everything friendly. Discussions would be happening over the next few days that would change the near future of both nations. Zorian just wanted to stay unnoticed.
Zorian and Kirielle weren’t seated with their parents, but for once their parents didn’t mind. This was a chance for the Kazinski family to catapult their social status from slightly wealthy merchants to real players in the game. They didn’t want their anti-social son and their ten year old daughter around to mess up those conversations any more than Zorian wanted to be there.
Instead the two siblings were seated by Zach, since Zach and Zorian’s friendship was now well known. They were surrounded by a large group of Damien’s old peers and teachers from his days at the academy and a small number of Zorian’s own peer group. Fortov sat a few tables away and Zorian quickly looked away from him before they accidentally made eye contact.
The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the pearly white walls of the Taramatula’s estate in red and orange. As the sun set in the west, a low hum rose in the east. A swarm of bees flowed up into the sky, each carrying a small light. They flew up and out over the guests, some groups of bees twisting away to make currents and eddies in the flow of the light. Soon the entire sky was filled, surrounding the guests in a bright and shifting dome.
Then the bees stilled their graceful movements and hung almost motionless in the air. And the wedding ceremony began.