by HDA Roberts
He hung his head and sighed.
"Their Spell targeted me and my power, but it also acted on everything connected to me as well, including the castle. That was likely the only thing that saved my life. The resources of the fortress were the only things that allowed me to survive. I had to put most of my surviving people into Stasis to save on even simple things like food, water and air. I tell you, a steady diet of wheat gruel and potato mash gets old after a thousand years."
Kron chuckled a bit at that.
"I slept, too, from time to time, sometimes for centuries, when I was all out of hope. I'd slept since... oh, the end of the Second World War? That was when Britannia truly started to fall. That broke my heart after the triumphs of the previous two hundred years. What war could not do to our Empire, peace did."
That was a gross over-simplification, but he was born in the Stupid Ages, what can you expect?
Magicians could be as patriotic as any Pureborn. Many in the British Conclave had been all for preventing the fall of the Empire. Unfortunately for them, there were (and still are) iron-clad laws which prevented Mages from getting involved in Pureborn affairs. That was one of the few rules the Archons would enforce in person. Interfering like that was how you got a war between normal humans and Magicians, and nobody wanted that. It would be catastrophic for both sides and could only end with at least one genocide.
Just between you and me, though, I think that law was written more to keep the peace between the Archons themselves than anyone else. It was unknown for even two from the same generation to be born in the same country. Take my Circle, for example, Kron was from what was called Germania at the time, when the Romans were still doing their best to conquer it. Killian was born a Norseman (the people who later became Vikings), Hopkins came from Italy, Palmyra from France... historically peoples who've done Britons (and each other) quite a bit of a mischief.
It was only good sense to remove nationality from the equation, which made what Myrddin said rather a novelty, as you didn’t often hear talk like that in polite Magical company.
Anyway, I digress.
"But then, a couple of years ago, I was awoken by a weakening of the Spell that had held me in place all this time," Myrddin continued, looking over at me. "The Spell that Adriata and my father cast was complex in a way I can't really conceive, a thing of Fairy and Human Magic, a combination of the two that had never been matched; completely unique. That is, at least, until you came along. The second you created your Grotto, also something of Human and Fairy Magic, the power binding me weakened, just that little bit, but enough that when you killed my father, weakening it further, I could push against it... and damage it. It took almost all my power, but thanks to you, Mathew, I am free."
He bowed again.
Kron and Killian smiled broadly, Myrddin smiled back, but the expression quickly changed into a sly grin.
"So... just throwing it out there, but are we all still completely against me doing a little light conquering in Western Europe?" Myrddin asked lightly, that sly grin turning a little gleeful.
"Not this again, Ambrose! You may not go about making land grabs!" Killian replied. Going by the smile on his face, this was a familiar argument. It was the same smile Hopkins and I wore when we had our weekly 'debates' (every Wednesday night, even if it was only over the phone).
Arguing with each other was the Magician pastime of choice. Pureborn liked sports; we enjoyed shouting at each other about increasingly nit-picky things.
"Oh come on, is anyone here really using Brittany?" Myrddin countered. “It’s even got Britain in the name; it’s asking to be occupied!”
"No conquering!" Kron chimed in.
"You two have not mellowed at all."
"Neither have you!" Killian and Kron replied simultaneously, sending all three into gales of laughter.
It was actually rather sweet; three old friends slipping into familiar conversations like they’d never been apart. I was happy for Kron and Killian.
"So, we're done discussing the terrible new problem in my life, then?" I said to Hopkins, tapping the box next to me as Kron, Killian and Myrddin continued to bicker good-naturedly.
"Apparently," she replied. "Just give it to Mira and try not to lose it."
"Don't I have enough things to deal with?"
"No."
"Just 'no'?"
"Yup."
I sagged and harrumphed, which just made Hopkins chuckle. I looked over to Myrddin to ask a question, but I simply couldn’t find an opening in the conversation. The three oldest people in the room had already moved on from dividing up northern Europe and were now involved in a detailed discussion on the methods of psychological warfare in the modern world. A subject Killian and Kron appeared to be horrifically well informed about, by the way. I was rather beginning to wonder if they obeyed their own rules about not sticking Magical noses into Pureborn business.
"I get the impression they'll be at this for a while," Palmyra said, looking at her watch. "I have a thing in half an hour. When do you think the kids can duck out?"
"Sorry, I’m being a terrible host!" Myrddin said, snapping away from his fun with what looked like a visible wrench.
"Hardly," Hopkins said, "You're coming home after a long absence and you're reconnecting with family. Pay it no heed. We'll leave you to it."
"And there's no way I can just leave this thing here?" I asked hopefully.
"What do you think?" Hopkins asked with a glare.
"I think that no good deed ever goes unpunished, and that I can't catch a break."
"And that, little brother, is the meaning of life, congratulations on revealing one of the secrets of the universe. Now let's go, already. I don't want to hear them dissect the tactics of regime-change anymore, it's making me worried," Palmyra said, waving at the Portal she'd conjured while I wasn’t looking.
Myrddin laughed and stood. He came over and shook my hand before bowing over Hopkins' and Palmyra's.
"Lord Shadow, I remain in your debt. Ladies, it was a great pleasure to meet you, at last."
We bowed and exited quickly. Killian and Kron were looking frustrated. Never interrupt a Magicians' Debate, we got miffed.
Chapter 7
We emerged into Palmyra's sitting room. It was a wide, open space at the heart of her property, two stories high and illuminated by skylights. The longer walls were lined with tanks full of brightly-coloured, tropical fish. The floor was marble, interrupted by artificial ponds and fountains that burbled relaxingly.
Most of her house was in that same neo-classical, Greco-Roman style; clean and elegant, much like the lady herself (when she wasn’t being an outrageous prankster).
Palmyra dropped into her favourite sofa, backed up against a set of vibrant, green ferns in the corner.
"So... what the hell?" Palmyra asked. "Did either of you know any of that stuff?"
Hopkins and I shook our heads as we took seats on the other side of a black marble coffee table.
“Sad story, though,” Hopkins said. “Poor bastard.”
“Yeah, to lose your Circle like that...” Palmyra whispered, biting her lip.
"Yes, and speaking of which, could someone please take this thing? I should not have it!" I said, waving the box with the Gods' Blade in it.
"You think we want it?" Palmyra said with a grin. "You're already hated; you've got nothing to lose."
"First, ouch. And second, I still have my head!"
"Unlike that Vampire," Hopkins said cruelly.
I gave her a hurt look. "Why?"
"Why not? Your screw-ups are my primary source of entertainment."
Palmyra sniggered.
"You are just terrible people."
"Yes, but at least we're fun," Palmyra replied.
An hour later, I was back home, having failed to simply leave the knife at Palmyra's place (twice). I immediately went looking for Tethys and Cassandra. Demise was on holiday, unfortunately, I would have liked her input.
What
I had to say didn’t affect Cassandra much. As far as she was concerned, when you've seen one impossibly powerful Magician, you've seen them all. Also, she was originally from south-east Europe; the myths and legends of Old Albion were of little interest to her.
Tethys, however, was as mortified as I was when it turned out that all the myths and legends of Camelot were wrong. She grilled me for every detail I could remember from our somewhat limited conversation, in the vain hope of salvaging something. Alas, there wasn’t much and she ended up collapsing on one of my library’s sofas in a bit of a snit.
I shook my head at her and made my way to the display case containing Mira, the Grimoire containing all the darkest secrets Magicians had ever discovered.
The book's Avatar popped out of thin air with a smile on her face. She'd changed her shape again, removing the traces of Crystal that she'd previously incorporated. She looked even more like Tethys, now, but with traces of Cassandra in the eyes and cheeks, Kandi in the dark copper hair, Hopkins and Palmyra in the nose and lips.
"She might be coming back, you know," I said.
"If you really believed that, then I would too," she replied evenly, smiling a little smugly.
Tethys sniggered from behind me and Cassandra whistled faux-innocently.
I shook my head.
"I need you to take a look at something for me," I said, opening the box, which I'd discovered was something of a containment vessel for the knife, blocking the contents from Magical senses, even Mage Sight, which was a tricky thing to manage.
Mira's smile vanished.
"Oh no," she said.
It’s never reassuring when a repository of ancient evil sounds worried...
"What?" I asked.
Cassandra and Tethys were suddenly at my side, peering into the box. I may have somewhat downplayed that bit of the story.
A lot.
"That knife... it's more dangerous than I can possibly describe, Master. You must not ever let it be used against you, understand?"
"Sounds good enough to me, but I can't say that I was especially inclined to let people use knives on me, Mira, as a rule, you understand."
"This is serious, Master! That knife... it's the final weapon. It's the thing you use when a God gets out of line. It bypasses immortality, indestructibility. If used correctly, it can destroy a Soul."
I reflexively moved the knife further away from me.
"There are no defences against it, save High White Magic... and the Black, and even then..."
Myrddin hadn’t mentioned any of that. Maybe he hadn’t known?
"This smells funny. Who gives up the one weapon that can certainly kill them?" Cassandra asked.
"A cursed soul, desperate for redemption, on a quest seeking justice for his fallen brethren," Tethys said (no, gushed).
"You're drooling again," Cassandra pointed out.
"My favourite stories are ruined; I’m trying to make the best of it, alright?" Tethys said with a pout.
I closed the box and slid it into the display case with Mira.
"Don't let anyone pinch it," I said.
"You'd better believe it!" she replied. The box vanished into a little Portal.
I was quite impressed; I didn’t know she could do that.
"Um... you can get it back, right?"
"No problem, it’s a private little sub-dimension where I keep things. You didn’t think that ten thousand years worth of knowledge fit in this one vessel, did you?"
"Oh, I wish I could do that,” I said reverently.
"The words they'll put on your tombstone..." Cassandra muttered.
I did my best to ignore her.
"Any idea why it changed shape when I touched it?" I asked.
"The Primal was probably right, you're most likely going to end up using it, and soon," Mira replied. "I really don't like this. Situations that involve that wretched thing generally fall under the heading of 'Cosmic Problems, avoid'."
"Good point. If that’s the case, then this might be the sort of thing a Liaison might be in a position to clear up!" I said, raising my voice a little, looking around in the hopes that either Rose or Gabrielle were knocking around (Cassandra had made me tell her about them after the last eternity-related mess).
"The one time we might actually want to see them," Tethys said with a sigh after a minute of nothing happening.
"That actually reassures me. If they're not here, then it means that the chances of the world ending on account of something I'm about to do have gone way down," I said with a smile. "Now, what about Myrddin's problem? Can we use the knife to get those powers out of him?"
"Absolutely," Mira said.
"Oh. Well, that was easy."
"But there's no guarantee which powers or Affinities the blade would remove, or how many, and they would need a host. By all means provide me with the list of complete strangers you'd trust with three times the power of a high-end Sorcerer," Mira said with a smirk. "That's what each Primal had, by the way. Since Myrddin has them all..."
"Twenty-one times the power," I said, "Yikes."
"And from what I'm getting from your memory, quite a bit more. Magicians get stronger with age, so... twenty-five times? Give or take. About twenty percent more Well capacity than Lady Kron, forty percent more than Lord Killian. With his sheer versatility... it's a good thing he's on our side."
"Says you. This still smells fishy to me," Cassandra said.
"I'm reserving judgement," I replied, dropping onto my favourite recliner, near the fireplace. "He seems like a genuine enough sort of fellow. I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised."
"Pleasantly surprised? That means you don't trust him either," Cassandra said, looking almost proud.
"I can count on less than two hands the number of people I trust, and a solid percentage of that are in this room. I've learned to be cautious."
"The hard way," Cassandra finished, taking a seat as well.
"Must you always twist the knife?" I asked.
"How long have you known me?" she replied with a sadistic grin.
"Right; stupid question," I said, pausing to massage my aching head. Tethys took the opportunity to drop into my lap and leant against my chest.
I turned back to Mira. "So, what can you tell me about what the blade actually does?"
"Quite a bit. One of my previous Masters possessed it for a time around 2000 B.C., he did extensive experiments. He discovered that the blade is akin to a mystical siphon. It takes the inherent powers of the victim and transfers them to the user. Depending on how it’s used, it can also transfer the life force into the user, prolonging his life, or even granting him immortality if the victim was of such a nature. The Master in question stole the powers of many a Magician before one of Killian's predecessors swatted him like the insect he was."
"Damn, that's a powerful weapon," Cassandra said. "Would it work on an Archon?"
"Certainly. It's Heaven-made, possibly... Creator-made. Nobody terrestrial could say for sure."
"How much damage would need to be done to cause the siphon effect?" I asked. "Are we talking a paper-cut or a heart-stab?"
"Any wound that sheds blood, or whatever vital fluid the victim possesses, is enough to siphon power. Taking the Life Force, though, requires a mortal wound."
I thought about it, and a frown came over me.
"What?" Tethys said.
"Well, if the weapon requires an actual user to work, not to mention a victim, then how did the Primals' powers get transferred to Myrddin?"
"That is the question," Mira said. "I suggest answering it before too much time passes, and that you not let this weapon away from me before you do."
I nodded. "Agreed."
I promised that I’d take a look at it when I could, but that was a project that would have to wait, at least a while.
Necessity had me spending the rest of my truncated day trying to deal with the fallout of the Vallan-mess. I doubted that there was anything I could do to fix my relationship with C
rystal, but I still wanted to try. I called, but she didn’t pick up, not that I could blame her. I left a message and considered going to see her, but thought better of it. The last thing I wanted to do was to pressure her and appear threatening.
I so wanted to try and make things better, to make her understand, but I knew that there was nothing I could say and even less that I could do. I’d killed her father. I was pretty sure there was no coming back from that.
With that act of futility out of the way, I contacted Vivian Price, the other Vampire in my life. She and Tethys were the beating heart of my intelligence network and I wanted to mend any fences that may have been damaged as quickly as possible.
She didn’t care. At all. The death of an Elder she didn’t know, from a House that wasn’t her own, and a vicious bastard, too, wasn’t an issue for her. If anything, she was pleased once I’d told her what he’d been up to; people like Vallan made being a Vampire more difficult for the rest of them.
That was very reassuring. If Price had turned on me, I would have had a serious problem.
I called the Stonebridge Conclave and the SCA about the Aurelia Elders, and their crimes, but nothing I had was really evidence. They needed names of victims, dates, a body, a murder weapon, something, and I had nothing except my glimpse of some Auras in passing. They promised to do some snooping, but they also told me not to get my hopes up.
Essentially, the Aurelia Elders would get away with murder, just as they always had. It was maddening, but I suppose we couldn’t just go around arresting people without so much as a connected missing-persons report.
I would have been quite content to simply deal with this problem myself, but since I wasn’t willing to kill anyone, and I’d never get a conviction from a court, either in England or abroad, then there wasn’t much I could really do, besides make a mess, and that would likely ruin people that didn’t actually deserve it.
Besides which, any punitive measures I took (such as burning down all their houses, just off the top of my head) would only make the rift between me and the Aurelia (and Crystal) worse. If I could reduce the tension, it was probably worth letting things lie.
