Primal's Wrath: Book VI of 'The Magician's Brother' Series

by HDA Roberts

  The Queen’s eyes suddenly snapped open and locked square onto mine, making my heart skip a beat in surprise.

  "Help is coming."

  I woke with a start, my heart pounding again.

  This time, just Grommit was waiting.

  Soon, the Warp-Cat projected into my mind.

  He put a heavy paw on my thigh.

  I took a moment to calm myself down.

  What do you mean? Can you get me there? I sent back.

  Not yet. Not ready.

  You or me?

  Both, neither.

  That was hardly helpful.

  He leant up and gently swatted my nose.

  Soon, he repeated and then vanished with a pop.

  I flopped back onto my bed.

  If I'd thought for a second I could persuade that Cat to take me now, I'd have done so, but Grommit did only what he chose. Would he change his mind in time? Could he even really help me get there?

  Damn it!

  I rubbed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep. But, try as I might, I couldn't get the despair I'd seen on Gwendolyn's face out of my mind. It was like it was burned into my psyche.

  Chapter 29

  As much as I may have wanted to, I quickly discovered that there was exactly nothing I could do to speed anything along, and that left me antsy.

  A week after the Dark One had dropped onto my lawn, our investigations into the Conclave were going nowhere and our requests for help on Dimensional travel hadn’t shaken anything loose at all. It was maddening.

  In a desperate attempt to find something to distract me, I’d started investigating the Gods' Blade, but only after Cassandra had taken me through a three-hour knife-safety course. Seeing as how that thing could lop off a finger (or an even more important appendage) if I handled it wrong, I paid close attention for once.

  It was a rather amazing device, and only became more so as I delved past the exterior complexity and started poking around inside its frameworks. I had initially thought that it might be some form of permanent force field, or even a kind of matter-energy conversion matrix, but it was far more complicated than any of that.

  It wasn’t just solid energy, as I’d initially thought, it was solid Spellwork. The individual strands of Magic were so thin, so intricate, that they couldn't be seen by anything short of my most powerful modified Mage Sight Spells. The strands were packed in back to back and front to front in a weave that was so beautiful that I spent hours just staring at it.

  I could well believe that this was the work of something divine.

  Well, aside from the whole... unblockable murder-spike bit.

  No matter who had made it, the Blade was of a design far beyond human ingenuity, certainly beyond my ability to understand, much less duplicate, and that was just its structure. When it came to figuring out how it actually worked, I was barely able to start comprehending how it could penetrate defences and matter; figuring out how the transfer element worked could take decades to understand, if it was possible at all.

  It wasn’t a waste of time, though, not by any stretch. My explorations, poking, prodding and staring had told me one thing that I knew with almost absolute certainty:

  Someone had been tampering with the Gods’ Blade.

  It was subtle, or it might have been to them, but against the backdrop of creative perfection, their work was like someone smearing faeces on the Sistine Chapel's frescoes.

  I yanked those foreign Enchantments right out of there. No thought, no hesitation. I saw them and removed them. It wasn’t like I was in a trance or anything, but I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving those... blights in there, spoiling something that would otherwise be perfect.

  I had a pretty good idea of who’d put them in; it wasn’t like there was anyone else who’d been playing around with the thing, aside from me. I had no doubt that Myrddin had a good reason for doing so, but that didn’t change the fact that they were simply offensive to my eyes and they had to go (not that I’d tell him that; he was still looking for ways into Unseelie for me, after all, and I didn’t want to piss him off).

  In retrospect, that probably saved my life.

  As soon as Myrddin’s Spells left, the Blade’s weave changed, as flaws I hadn’t even noticed smoothed out. When I touched it afterwards, it felt... different. The change was subtle, but it was definitely there, like the one tiny clang of a discordant triangle had been removed from the line-up of the London Symphony Orchestra.

  It was the damndest thing, but it was as if some sort of... tension had drained from the Blade. I’m not explaining it well, but that’s what it felt like. Before, it had always seemed slightly foreign, just a little wrong, like I shouldn’t even touch it. When I held it in my hand now, though... it was like the fit was perfect. And even though I knew it hadn’t been, it was like it had always been perfect.

  It was an odd feeling and, naturally, being the sensible person that I am, I stuffed that feeling down hard and dropped the damned knife back in with Mira where I couldn’t be tempted to play with it.

  Unfortunately, that left me back where I’d started, with nothing to distract me from two imminent disasters.

  So, a couple of days later, when I was offered a potential solution, even a questionable one, I leapt at the chance.

  The phone rang just after lunch on Saturday.

  "Hello?"

  "MATHEW! IT'S AMBROSE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" Myrddin bellowed down the phone.

  "Yes, I can hear you, you can speak normally. Ow!" I replied, rubbing my ringing ear.

  "Oh, sorry. First time on a 'mobile phone'. I have something for you, a way into Unseelie, I think."

  My heart leapt.

  "It's... a bit dodgy, though. It would be better if we met at my place. Don't tell anyone. And bring the Blade. It will be necessary for this."

  "I'll be right there, thank you so much!"

  "I live to serve," he said. "Now, how do I turn off this ridiculous-" click.

  I shook my head.

  Mira appeared, "You're not actually going to go without telling anyone, are you?"

  "Hell no. I may have the occasional bout of stupid, but it's not that bad a dose!"

  It took a while to get to Camelot, including an unfortunate detour into the River Avon that left me swearing and damp, but I got there within half an hour or so.

  The fortress still looked beautiful, and much busier. People were coming and going from the outer bailey, over a bridge made from ice of all things, connected to the shore near a hastily constructed car park.

  I emerged from a Portal in the inner bailey, next to the Citadel.

  There were Wardens either side of the huge oaken doors, and one came forward to greet me. They'd replaced their armour and tabards with dark suits and white shirts, their forms bulging with muscle and badly-hidden weapons. They called Myrddin's servant for me, and even he was dressed differently, in coat and tails rather than a robe.

  It was quite impressive how quickly the place and the people had been modernised, there were even electric lights in the hallway and the faint whiff of diesel fumes in the air, likely from a generator.

  Eventually, I was led into Myrddin's library. He was waiting behind his desk. He smiled and waved me towards a chair.

  "Good to see you," he said, waving at his butler, who beat a retreat.

  I sat down, the knife's box in my lap, "Thanks for calling, and for working on this for me."

  "Oh, yes, about that... I'm afraid that I brought you here for a different reason," Myrddin said, his smile vanishing. I lifted an eyebrow.

  "You don't say?" I replied.

  "I do. And, I must admit, having met you and gotten to know you a bit, I almost regret what has to happen now."

  Magic flowed, an awful, awful lot of it. The light outside the window changed colour and I felt a magnificent, amazing... terrifying Fortress Shield descend over the whole island. A shield I was intimately familiar with.

  "I see you're fond of my work," I said nonchala
ntly.

  "Yes. It took a while to unravel exactly what you did in France, but you left that impressive trap just sitting there for a long while. That was careless."

  His eyes flickered with energy, swirling through reds and oranges, greys and blues... every colour of his many affinities. Gone was the camaraderie, the smile, the wry sense of humour. Here was only Ambrosias Myrddin, Lord Primal, the Last of the Druidan...

  Power-hungry maniac.

  I should have seen this coming...

  Oh wait, I did!

  I kept the smile from my face, affecting hurt and shock, “What are you doing, Ambrose?”

  “Can’t you figure it out?” he replied, almost sympathetically.

  “Well, yes, actually. But why don‘t you tell me anyway.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  "You've been planning this for a while?" I tried instead.

  "Since the day you emerged screaming from your Sheep-mother's poisonous womb."

  Wow.

  That nearly resulted in a mess, but I held my temper. Right now, I needed information.

  Thankfully, if there's one thing about people who think they've been clever, it's that they like to talk about it. I know this because I might be just the tiniest bit guilty of that, myself.

  Alright, I love a good gloat, I’ll admit it.

  And so did Myrddin.

  "The Blade told me, you see," he said, pointing at the box in my lap. "She knew you'd be the one to set me free, the one to start me on the path to ultimate power."

  Really? Ultimate power? What a cliché...

  That didn’t... quite ring true.

  "That can't be it," I said, my face scrunching with confusion. "You're Myrddin, the Primal. You have plenty of power. Hell, you're the most powerful human being who ever lived. You don't need mine, what are you really after?"

  He leaned back in his chair, a rather exquisite leather recliner, by the way. He’d upgraded that, too.

  "It does me no harm to tell you. You've seen the things in the Dark Realm?"

  See? Gloater.

  "Yes. I presume I have you to thank for the one that landed on my lawn?"

  "Only incidentally. The right word in the right ear. That's not the point," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "Those things are just weapons. Horrific creatures capable of ending worlds, certainly, but they are not the real danger, not by a long shot. The real danger is what made them."

  "I thought that was the Elder Gods."

  I’d been doing some reading. There were several theories, but that was the one that seemed most plausible to me.

  "Elder Gods? Ha!" he snarled, darting to his feet, pacing back and forth in front of the window.

  "Consider the Archangel. A being of almost Cosmic power. Able to rearrange solar systems with its sheer might. Ask yourself, why would Creation need guardians like that?"

  "The things that made the Dark Ones?" I offered.

  Myrddin nodded, "That's why I need power. Your power. Your Shadows."

  I shook my head, "That's not our purview, Myrddin, think it through. If those things still existed, we wouldn't have a planet to live on."

  "They aren't gone, they're just sleeping. Dormant. And they're waking up."

  "We would know if they were. Vanessa would know.”

  I didn't know one way or the other, really, but this had the whiff of justification about it; nothing more than a reason for stealing his fellow Primals' powers for himself. Clearly, the man had some major screws loose.

  "Kron? Ha! Blind as a bat and half as smart. Killian is a fool who couldn’t See past the end of his dick, Palmyra doesn’t care about anything not lodged between her thighs, Hopkins has her pretty nose so far up Kron’s hind-quarters she can’t see anything except colon and you? You're a small boy playing in a man's world. You know nothing!"

  "I know that you are obsessed," I replied, again having to control my temper, "and I know that you are about to make the mother of all mistakes. You can't kill me and not bring the others down on you."

  "What did I just explain to you? All I have to do is tell them that you tried to stick the Blade in me. And even if they didn’t believe me, with your powers added to mine, they would be no threat, not here.”

  "They won't believe it. They know me."

  "They know me better. I'm a hero to them. You're what? A replacement part that will only wear out in time."

  I shrugged, "That's assuming that you can kill me. I'm not without resources, you know."

  He laughed, a long, loud, cruel thing.

  "Oh, thank you, I needed that. You're a toddler. You don't have a chance. But, if you hand me the Blade, I'll make it quick and painless."

  "Kron will see through this eventually. You have to know that."

  "Really? You haven't wondered why she wasn't there when the Dark One dropped on your house? It's not difficult to circumvent Temporal Sight, not if you know what you're doing. I spent two hundred years learning how. How else do you think I got away with so much?"

  "You wanted that thing to kill me? I thought you wanted my powers!"

  "The Blade would have taken them from you," he said, moving around to stand in front of me. "I plumbed that weapon's very nature, and I turned it to my cause. The second you bonded to it, you were playing into my hands. If you die with that thing anywhere near you, then all your power comes to me. Every bit of it."

  So that's what that foreign Spellwork in the Blade was...

  Should I tell him I broke that?

  "And if you somehow managed to stab me with it, then... poof, same result, you die. That blade is mine, bound to me by blood and fate and power. If that was your hope for getting out of this, then you should think again."

  Nope, I shouldn't tell him, he might get upset...

  That explained a lot, though, including how his fellow Primals had fallen. Since he was being so forthcoming, I decided to try and solve one or two other mysteries. I tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was only being so chatty because he thought he was about to murder me.

  "So, how much of the Aurelia mess was your doing?" I asked.

  "Oh, all of it. They wanted to make peace with you. I persuaded them otherwise. I was annoyed that they fell apart like that. Idiots."

  "And... my brother?"

  "That was some nice work, wasn’t it? An ace in the hole, as you say. I needed to gain your trust. That did it, don't you agree? You just turned yourself over without even putting up a fight!"

  "And what about the Hyde?" I asked.

  That actually made him freeze.

  "You know about that?"

  I nodded, "Do you remember the last conversation you had with Namia Sutton? I do. I was there."

  It had taken me the longest time to place that voice. The one I'd heard talking to Namia on the day Ankiala had killed her and taken her body. The spectral man in the robes, the one she'd been getting her orders and her Hyde monsters from.

  Don’t give me too much credit. It wasn’t like I was a super-genius (I was merely the more modest, regular kind of genius), I only put it together after the Aurelia Elders said that one of their sources reported the attack taking place in thirteen days. I only gave that number to one person: Myrddin.

  And it had been by accident! A beautiful accident that had only happened because I’d been too tired to tell the truth! Sure there were clues here and there, but nothing that would have had me looking in the right direction in time to prevent today happening. Without that accident... well, things might have gone very differently.

  Laziness and paranoia save the day again!

  "You... knew?" he asked.

  "Only the very basics. I can guess the rest, now, though. You were exiled, but you had more than just that window you told us about. You still had some influence and a little power here. You made the Hyde and started using them to arrange for your escape. Once I’d damaged your prison, you were able to access Unseelie, and made some there, too; I imagine for the same reason?"

&n
bsp; "And for simple revenge. That bitch Adriata has it coming and then some."

  "Well, that's a problem for another day."

  "Wait... you knew all this... you must have suspected me of something with the Blade... and yet you still came here? Alone?"

  "Well, firstly, I thought you might actually have a way into Unseelie. Do you, by the way?"

  "Of course not! If I did, I'd be there myself, choking the life out of that bitch! It was all I could do to assemble a creature there that could start building an army!"

  Not exactly what I’d thought, but close enough. I thought he’d at least have some idea of how to get me through the Barrier. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  "Right. Well, that explains why they put up those barriers. She knew you were getting close to escaping, but didn't know that you couldn't get to her yourself."

  "No, they put them up to keep Seelie safe," Myrddin said, now looking a lot less confident, though, "and to stem the tide of my creatures. She thought I was sending them directly. It didn't help of course, Adriata only stopped her own forces from using Portal Magic. She'll be dead within the year."

  Damn. The scope of it, the work, the planning, the sheer, animal cunning of it all. I was an amateur compared to this man. He played the long game like nobody else, planning centuries ahead to get people and pieces in place to help get him out of his prison, help him get his revenge and, finally, acquire the power he'd wanted all along. He'd suborned Namia Sutton into an act of utter evil, embarked on genocide, started a war between Vampires and Magicians, and unleashed a Dark One on the world, all in the pursuit of power.

  It was disgusting, really, but also rather impressive, in a sick sort of way.

  I could only hope that my actions in bringing him back into the world earlier than he planned, and not killing the Abomination with the Blade, had thrown him off enough to give us all breathing room before he did some other terrible thing.

  And I suspected that we would rather desperately need that breathing room.

  That was all I could think to ask, but I think I covered all the important, world-ending topics. Never let it be said that Ambrosias Myrddin didn’t plan big as well as complicated.