You are an elite member of the royal guard. You have recently been fired from your position because of the new king. Little does he know, there was a reason why the previous king kept you in his service for so long.
The heir never liked me. Possibly because his mother the queen never liked me. I was getting on in years back when the old king (my king, Iras the Second, looking nervous and trying not fidget as he was crowned) took the throne. I could have, probably should have demoted myself to training the younger guards, but Iras wouldn’t hear of it, and always talked me out of it. “I need you on hand, Sol,” he’d say. “Father didn’t think he’d need you and look what happened.”
“That was an arrow, Your Majesty,” I’d said patiently. “A completely ordinary arrow. Not even poisoned. The only way I can stop arrows is with my body.”
“I don’t care,” Iras had said, well used to my terrible sense of humor. (Even in the face of well, that. No one had taken Iras’ father’s death well, Iras least of all. Coras the Third had been a good man and a strong supporter of the grange and guilds.) “Stay in the Elite.”
So of course I had. Saying no to Iras: impossible.
The heir though, never liked me. Not how old I was, how stubborn, my sense of humor, how I was down one leg and three fingers with a face and body full of scars. I wasn’t too impressed by the prince either. He wasn’t spoiled, no kid of Iras could really be that, but he was a brat, even in his twenties. He was arrogant, and some of that was because he was too smart for his own good, and too skilled to know better. Trying to temper that was above my pay grade, and I was paid a lot.
Which was another reason the prince didn’t like me. He didn’t know why an old cripple was being paid so much to sit on a stool, halberd propped on their shoulder or the wall as they drank tea. (The part where I could still kick any younger guard’s tail wasn’t excuse enough apparently.) And since no one told him (because no one at that point knew anymore, except Iras, and he wasn’t going to say anything, which is how I liked it, thank you) he decided I’d been kept on out of sympathy. And because he’d never liked me, he fired me the instant his butt hit the throne.
This meant I wouldn’t get a pension. (This was also not a great way to start your reign but it was no longer my business.) Fortunately, I had funds set aside for rainy days and bratty young kings. Also fortunately, Iras gave me a stipend under the table. (Him: “Are you sure I shouldn’t tell him?” Me: “Hell no, my lord, let him figure it out.”) I took myself and my funds to a nice little cottage in a lovely little village outside the capitol, and got a job scribing for the local grange. (I bet you thought I’d be working as a bouncer or training kids in the sword. Wrong: I contain multitudes.)
The village was of course close enough to the capitol that we got all the freshest gossip. Such as the sudden plague of curses hitting the castle grounds. (Also the plague of mice. And the plague of weevils and so on.) Tapestries and woodwork rotted, servants slipped and fell. The court mages all came down with illnesses connected with overuse of their power, as did the the queen and the new king. (Who were mages of some skill.) A number of dangerous magical artifacts had to be moved.
This eventually led to the new king himself coming to my village, trailed by members of the guard. I was “supervising” the kid I was paying to weed my garden. Supervision involved drinking cider while reading some ridiculous story featuring knights and dragons. (Sometimes out loud, as an extra reward. I apparently have a good reading voice, according to Iras when he was a tiny little prince and the younger guards and servants.) The new king was not in the least little bit happy. He also looked almost gray with what had to be serious nausea. It looked liked a combination of hayfever and a hangover. Poor man.
The kid, who was named Tier, looked somewhere between awestruck and terrified. “Hey kid,” I said. “Why don’t you go home early for the day?” The kid didn’t even bow or nod, just tore off running. “He’s shy, Your Majesty,” you say. “Usually he’s very polite.”
“I don’t see you rising or bowing,” the young king says, sounding more like when he was a very young prince.
“It’s even less polite to ask someone who has trouble doing either of those things to do those things,” I point out. Which he knows, because his ears turn red.
“Father told me you’d know the reason behind this sudden influx of curses,” the young king says. “If you’re behind this–”
“Your Majesty, if he thought I was guilty of something, he’d have me arrested, or have you have me arrested, though that’s about the same thing. He wouldn’t send you here for an explanation. Have a seat, and a cider.” I held out a bottle to him.
“I don’t know why he likes you so much,” the young king grumbles, but sits down on the porch and takes the bottle of cider from you.
“I was practically his nursemaid,” you say. “That helps. Also your grandfather never stood on ceremony, so I never learned any high court courtesy.”
“You’re an Elite guard,” the young king says, uncorking the bottle and taking a drink. “What is this explanation I’m meant to hear?”
“Give it a couple minutes, see if you figure it out,” I say. For a moment it looks like he wants to argue, but he gives up. A few moments go by, and the general grayish pale starts to fade as his body readjusts to your field.
“What in the world,” the young king says, and gives you a look that was half angry, half curious.
“I’m where magic goes to die Your Majesty,” I say. “Give it another few months and your body will stop pulling in extra energy to compensate for my presence. You’ll probably need to strengthen the wards and unknot all the little curses the courtiers keep throwing at each other.”
“Nulls are–” The young king says.
“Extremely rare. It doesn’t help that mages tend to try and kill nulls if one appears.”
“Nulls are said to be unholy or at least unnatural, they cause mages to waste away.” the young king says. He does not recoil in horror, or order his guards to kill you. The former is because he is Iras’ son, after all and the second is because the guards wouldn’t obey him, because they all know you.
“Beliefs like that are why no one knew, except your father and grandfather,” I say. “Your grandfather found me when I was about ten. The null effect was just starting to become extremely noticeable. He wasn’t a mage, but he had a scholarly bent and he wanted to understand the null effect. It didn’t take him long to see how extremely useful the ability is. As I got older it became stronger, and I learned to control the effect. Meanwhile I was also being trained as a guard. Your grandfather decided to keep my ability secret, and only told Iras when he was older. Somewhere there’s notes and probably a monograph. I only paid attention to the testing when there was something I could use.”
“Grandfather used you, you mean,” the young king says, actually sounding outraged. “You were used as a living ward! A secret weapon!”
“Coras the Third was a good king, and I learned how to control my ability so the court mages could actually use their magic, while still keeping curses from happening and dangerous artifacts inert. Without revealing myself as a null I might add.”
“And without Father revealing it to me,” the young king says, sounding irritated about it.
“Your mother would have found out and your mother would have had me poisoned.”
“I’m not a child who can’t be told secrets,” the young king says defensively.
“You could keep secrets from your mother?” you ask skeptically. “I don’t think so.”
“She wouldn’t poison you anyway,” the young king says.
“She has in fact killed people after assembling meticulous evidence on why they they should be dead. Being a null would probably be a good reason, since I’m unholy or at least unnatural.”
The young king grumbles at you, and drinks his cider. “Can I hire you back?” he asks quietly. “Not as a guard. Just. something. I’ll think of something.”
“No. This is a decision you’re going to have to stick by. You don’t like me anyway.”
“Because you’re annoying,” the young king says. “And always giving me disappointed looks.”
“I think you’ll find that I’ve given you disappointed looks when you’ve done something you probably shouldn’t,” I pointed out.
“Like fire you?” The young king asks in a snarky tone.
“No, I was definitely going to retire. You were going to have more warning about the curses and spells and artifacts, but your father decided you needed a learning experience.”
Coras the Fourth grumbles at you some more, and drinks your cider. One of the guards gets sent to the market for food, and you make dinner for the king and his guards. His Majesty makes some more half-hearted attempts to hire you back, but you stand firm. He’s just going to have to find his own null, and maybe improve the situation for them so they don’t have to be a secret weapon.
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