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

by HDA Roberts

  Now, I’m not one hundred percent sure on this one, but I’m fairly sure that it was supposed to be a code word to flip some form of mental switch in either Tethys or Des, likely Des from the way Myrddin was suddenly staring at my brother.

  Alas, though, I’d been through his head with a fine-tooth comb after what had happened to Tethys and removed a few little things Myrddin thought he’d snuck past me.

  "Bless you," I said, smiling at him. "That was quite the sneeze."

  His eyes darted back and forth between me and my brother before settling on me.

  "How the hell...?"

  "You didn't think you were the only Telepath in the world, did you?" I replied brightly.

  He seemed to shake with rage, his teeth clenched and grinding as he tried to control his temper. The house started to hum around me as Mira prepared to... 'self-defence' Myrddin into a greasy stain.

  Just as I thought he might actually pull something, he turned and walk away. Rats.

  Well, why wouldn't he? He thought he'd won, if only in a different way.

  "Damn," Cassandra said as he left, his guards glaring over their shoulders as they followed him away, "I really thought he'd give us an excuse."

  "He's not that stupid."

  "Shame. It's easier when they're stupid."

  I shrugged and closed my eyes. I extended my hand and all the dangerous particles about my person gathered above my palm, where I ignited a little ball of plasma to burn them away.

  "Now, would you care to tell us what you did?" Tethys asked, looking agitated, "I don’t like that he’s getting away!"

  I smirked evilly, and then couldn’t help but laugh. Even I thought that it sounded a bit creepy.

  "What?!" Tethys snapped.

  "Well, the thing about Myrddin is that he's the product of a different time. Specifically, he was brought up before the invention of biochemistry and practical medicine. I have no doubt that he knows what a virus is, but without his Affinities, he just doesn’t have the knowledge base to deal with one without help."

  "A virus?!" Cassandra said, going pale. "Matty, tell me you didn't just use a biological weapon on another human being!"

  "Don't worry, I was very careful with it. That's why I was in my library for so long; I was modifying it so that it could only infect Ambrosias Myrddin and no one else."

  "Then why did you tell us to keep back?!"

  "In case I was wrong," I said with a shrug.

  Cassandra shuddered, "Are you out of your mind?"

  "It's fine, Mira helped me do the job, we're both confident that we did it correctly."

  "It's true," Mira said, popping out of thin air. "Master was actually quite brilliant, knew exactly what he was doing, almost as if he'd been plotting something like this for a very long time..."

  Then she popped off again, leaving me with a very suspicious Cassandra.

  "What?" I asked, trying to look nonchalant.

  "You need more supervision. I leave you alone for a minute and you start sliding towards the dark side!"

  "What can I say? I hear they have cookies."

  Chapter 48

  "So... what did you give him?" Tethys asked before Cassandra could smack me... again.

  "Herpes simplex," I replied with a smile. "With a few... special alterations thrown in."

  Tethys went bright red, "You gave him Herpes?!" she squealed.

  I grinned evilly, "Actually, I used Flesh Magic to give him a nasty little cocktail of rapidly-spreading Cursed Herpes," I said with pride.

  I really was rather proud of that. Ever since my encounter with The Hunger back in Algeria, I'd been doing some reading into Cursed Diseases (not quite the same thing as that monster, but in the general area). It was a discouraged practice these days (what with the potential for world-ending plagues), but the theory was sound. With Mira’s knowledge, combined with my new Affinity, it was a relatively simple matter to alter the samples I'd bought from the hospital into a magically coherent, linked ball of nastiness. Just a drop rubbed into my palms was all it would take to make Myrddin's life miserable, as long as it took hold.

  And it had. I'd felt the virus enter his bloodstream long before he'd left the house.

  Don't worry, I really had altered it in such a way that it could affect Myrddin and only Myrddin; his Aura was the only thing that could sustain the Enchantment; that fiddly bit of Spellwork was what had taken so much of my time.

  "You... you may be the most evil genius I've ever heard of," Cassandra said. "That is so... mean! Enough to make him miserable, not enough to kill him, he'll look like a letch, not a victim!"

  "Well, yes," I admitted with another smirk. "And it’ll be funny, too."

  Not just funny, though; an integral part of the plan...

  Tethys appeared at my side, her nose suddenly up against my neck.

  "Hi," she whispered. Her voice was low and throaty and it sent shivers down my spine. She took my (now clean) hand in hers.

  "Hi," I squeaked back, the look in her eye was... distracting.

  "Want to go for a walk?" she purred.

  I chuckled and kissed her cheek, pulling her into a hug.

  "Stop ruining it, I'm trying to be dirty here!" she complained.

  "Tough," I said, rubbing her back.

  She hugged me as well and settled her head on my shoulder.

  "I'll get you," she promised.

  "What did the note say?" Cassandra asked, putting a damper on the moment.

  "I've been summoned. I'm to appear before the Conclave this Friday at noon."

  I handed the note over.

  "This... this could be very bad. What if they try to imprison you?" Cassandra asked.

  "They will be unsuccessful," I replied levelly. Tethys shuddered again.

  "Matty, if you want me to behave, then you can't go using that tone of voice while I'm pressed up against you, it does interesting things to my libido."

  I laughed.

  "So, we're all skating over my brother giving another man Herpes? That's what we're doing right now?" Des interjected with a snort. "What would Mother say?"

  "Don't you dare tell her! I can't conceive of the amount of explaining I'd have to do!"

  Des' smile turned evil. Damn, I could see why people found my smiles so creepy. That thing was just plain disturbing, and he wasn't even trying that hard...

  "So what do we do until then?" Cassandra asked, bypassing Des before the whole conversation could descend into idiocy.

  "Keep looking for a way in, a crack we can expose," I said. "We don't know what evidence they'll have to use against me, but it would be nice to have the ability to fire back."

  Tethys nodded and stepped back from me, a smouldering look in her eye.

  She smiled when I blushed and swayed away, knowing I'd be watching her. Damn, she had a sexy walk...

  It took a minute for my brain to start working again, but then I headed off to my library. I had some serious thinking to do.

  Late that same evening, I was still in my library. Unfortunately, my plotting had degenerated into brooding. I hated being in the dark like I was, and I really didn’t like the fact that, for my plan to work, I had to allow Myrddin’s to succeed. Worse, in order for Myrddin’s plan to advance, I needed to step into an obvious trap, and that was getting my hackles up in the worst way. After all, I was only guessing that Myrddin’s trap was political in nature. I could be walking into a meat-grinder or a prison cell for all I knew.

  And if I was wrong, how far was I prepared to go to stop myself being imprisoned?

  Pretty far, actually. I'd seen the Farm, I wasn't going there willingly.

  Oh, what a mess! It wasn't as if I'd ever been popular with the Conclave, but I'd never expected things to degenerate this badly...

  A knock on the door interrupted my increasingly dark thoughts, for which I was very grateful. At this point all I was doing was the mental equivalent of poking at a toothache with my tongue.

  “Come in,” I said, shoving a
way a book I’d been skimming on the history of the Conclave.

  Lacy came in; she was the Warden on duty that night.

  “Visitor for you, Boss. Duchess Hellstrom?”

  My eyes went wide.

  “Thanks Lacy. Would you see her to the drawing room and tell her I’ll be right there?”

  She nodded and left while I darted for my bedroom so I could throw on something vaguely presentable.

  Hellstrom again? And just after I’d been summoned?

  I couldn’t imagine this was good news...

  "Sorry to keep you waiting, your Grace," I said, as I walked into the room a couple of minutes later. "I wasn't expecting you."

  She was dressed in dark jeans and shirt under a hooded sweater. It was an odd look on a woman normally so conscious of her appearance. She seemed relaxed enough, though, leaning back on a sofa with a cup of coffee.

  "By design, Graves. You're in deep trouble," she said without preamble.

  Bad news. Called it.

  "Don't I know it," I said with a heavy sigh, lowering myself onto the sofa opposite hers.

  "I doubt it. I’m fairly certain Bradley and her new ‘friend’ are planning on arresting you."

  Damn it. That’s what I was afraid of.

  "They can't actually do that, though, can they? Legally, I mean?"

  "Technically, no. And that's what has me so nervous. Bradley and her cronies are mustering up support for something, but nobody will tell me what. Somehow my visits here were spotted, and now nobody will tell me what's going on. It took calling in about half my remaining favours just to get that tiny piece of information."

  "Damn," I said, rubbing my eyes. "I was worried that they might try something like that, but I never imagined that they'd actually go through with it. My Circle would go ballistic!"

  "That may be part of their plan. I think we're in the midst of a coup d'état, Graves. They may be preparing to throw out the authority of the Archons completely."

  I frowned, "Well, that's not good. But why bother? Aren't we largely ceremonial sovereigns anyway?"

  "Yes, but you still have real political power. You can overturn laws, you can demand obedience from any government official and you have sovereign immunity. You rarely use any of these privileges, but you can."

  "That just seems batty. Who engineers a coup to get rid of people who aren't even in the country fifty weeks out of the year?"

  "Power-hungry idiots, that’s who!" Hellstrom spat. "We need the Archons, for Heaven’s sake! You exist to deal with the real problems, the existential threats to humanity. Without you..."

  "It's not like we'd stop dealing with those problems just because someone decided to fold up our political power.”

  "Maybe you wouldn't, but then you've never been the most astute political operative. Even aside from that, the Archons are our check, our balance. The wisdom that comes from power and service; something to keep our ambitions sensible. Look what happened the last time you lot went away, we came out to the bloody world!"

  "That turned out alright.”

  "Oh yes, Magicians turned into circus attractions brought out for the amusement of the mob. And let's not even discuss the religious nonsense that broke out in the Vatican and the Middle East when the existence of Demons was confirmed."

  Yes, that had been bad. Most governments had sensibly covered up all that sort of terrifying information, but there had been a couple of... missteps. There were still parts of Iran and Iraq where you couldn't go without a tank of holy water and a small armoured brigade. And the Vatican had not taken the confirmed existence of the Demonic very well, either. There had been a small holy war when Pope Luke II tried to reform the Inquisition. They were still cleaning up after that political horror show nearly twenty years later...

  "Oh, and then there was the short-lived Oceania Guild for the Preservation of Traditional Values, let's not forget that screw-up!"

  I winced. I'd only recently found out about that. A large group of traditionalist Magicians from the Far East and Australasia decided that they didn't want the world to know about them, but since they did, that Magicians may as well come all the way out of the shadows and rule. That went about as well as you might expect. Several national Conclaves got together to stop those half-wits and accidentally sank their island; it was a disaster. It had cost a fortune to cover it up, not to mention a lot of fancy Spellwork.

  "I get the point," I said.

  "I hope so, because I can't imagine Ambrosias Myrddin will be a stabilising presence in the Conclave. By the way, he's the new Councillor in charge of Foreign Affairs after you killed the last one. Did you do that, by the way?"

  "What do you think?"

  "I think you're too much of a weed to have killed him, much less everyone else you're supposed to have done away with."

  "Thanks, I suppose."

  She shook her head before leaning over and pulling a small piece of paper from a pocket. She dropped in on the table in front of her.

  "For you," she said.

  "What's this?" I asked, picking it up. It was a series of numbers.

  "Latitude and longitude," she replied, "of a place that doesn't exist in any official document, and only in the minds of maybe fifty people. You would be the only Archon who's ever been told about it. It cost me the other half of those favours I mentioned to get this."

  "What is it for?" I asked, confused.

  "A prison," she said with a shudder, "the one where they send people who need to disappear, but who are too valuable to kill out of hand."

  "And what will I find there?"

  "Likely your only chance of getting out of this with your skin intact. Your only real allies in the Conclave; the Crows."

  I blinked, "Seriously? Glass and his people were taken by the Conclave?!"

  She nodded.

  "But they've been gone for months, Bradley’s been planning this for that long?!"

  I’d known that she’d been keeping an eye on me for a while, thanks to Ross, but this was another thing entirely.

  "Revolutions take time to do correctly," Hellstrom replied before taking another sip of her coffee. "From what I've been able to glean, this has been in the works for a while. I’d imagine that having Myrddin around has accelerated the timetable, though. He provides legitimacy... and power.”

  "Bloody hell! Can you tell me anything else about this Prison?"

  "Next to nothing. But be aware that you can't just crack it open and let everyone out. Most of the people in that place are there because they're very dangerous. It's beyond maximum security."

  "If I can get Glass and his Crows out of there, can they stop what's happening?"

  "I seriously doubt it," she admitted. "But we may be able to blunt the worst of it if there's enough opposition in the Conclave."

  "I wish we knew exactly what they were doing.”

  "As do I. There's no legal recourse for arresting an Archon or removing one from power, much less all of you, not that I think they'll try to go that far... damn, it's maddening!"

  "I should warn you that I'm fairly certain I'm not going to win this one, not right away at least. Myrddin and Bradley will have stacked the deck against me quite thoroughly. It's what comes afterwards that I'm preparing for."

  "Well, releasing Glass will certainly help with that," she replied, though her posture seemed to slump a little at what I'd said.

  "Everything will be fine in the end," I said, trying to reassure her. "Myrddin can't last long."

  She looked up at me, "You seem very sure of that."

  I smiled, "I am. It almost doesn't matter what happens on Friday, as long as nobody tries to kill me."

  She smirked at that. "I hope you're right. This has a nasty stink to it."

  "It's politics. It usually smells like that."

  Chapter 49

  It didn't take Tethys long to produce a map of the coordinates Hellstrom had given me.

  They pointed us to a spot that was actually about fifty miles past t
he middle of nowhere, on a tiny island in the North Sea by the name of North Ronaldsay.

  I’ll say this, it was picturesque; beautiful, even. It was three square miles of fields, sheep, heather, cliffs, beach and tiny, tiny clusters of ancient houses along with a miniscule airstrip. About as far from the beaten path as you could possibly get and still be in the British Isles.

  At the furthest, north-east tip of this tiny place, there was an ancient lighthouse. It looked like an old pacifier bottle built of grey stone. It wasn’t pretty, or especially venerable, only kept intact by a government preservation order; just another old building in a sleepy part of the world.

  In other words, the last place you’d expect to have a secret prison carved into the living rock underneath it.

  "I can't believe they thought they could get away with this!" Killian growled as we walked up the cobbled path to the lighthouse’s front door.

  "If it hadn't been for a convenient whistle-blower, they may well have succeeded," I pointed out.

  Killian was the only Archon who had a spare minute to help me with this mess. Everyone else was under immense pressure trying to keep the Hyde attacks in their territories from getting out of hand. It was starting to get really bad in Kron's area. She’d had to burn out an entire village and blame it on a chemical spill.

  "Still, this is not on. We do not act like this. Criminals go to prison; we do not abduct people and hold them without trial. We're better than that!"

  "Bart, you have a dungeon. It's occupied.”

  "I'm old, Graves, I'm allowed to be a hypocrite. And besides, I am a legal authority, that doesn't count!"

  I chuckled and he nudged the door open. The room on the ground floor was bare, all stone, not a carpet or a bit of wood in sight. There was a set of stairs heading up and another, newer, set leading downwards. I only saw the latter set because I had Mage Sight cast, otherwise they would have been invisible; a rather neat combination of Illusion Magic and Telepathy that inclined you not to look at what would appear to be an empty space... very crafty.

  Killian led the way down, with me just behind him and three of his Wardens bringing up the rear. They were like Demise, Death Sorceresses all, trained to the peak of their physical and Magical ability. They were all of a type, tall and lithe, with darker hair and fine features. They were armed with an impressive collection of guns and swords, including each one's own version of Demise's shape-shifting Death Rod. Normally they wore skin-tight black suits, enchanted for durability, generally under a jacket or some other tool-bearing clothes. That day they wore actual armour; bullet and knife proof suits and helmets, with heavier plates to protect groin, neck, chest and head.