by HDA Roberts
“God...” I managed. I was actually glad I hadn’t seen that.
"Funny, though ," Killian said, his tone suddenly even icier, "I really don't know what that warden was talking about. Killing them was ridiculously easy."
Well... you know what, none of my bloody business. I have enough trouble with the morality of my own actions without borrowing problems from Killian. He'd helped me get my associates out of Monster Jail; that was enough for me.
But someone was going to have to answer for the Lighthouse. It didn't matter what your goals were, you don't mess with human souls.
We found Glass and his Crows on the bottom levels of the prison, seven on the lowest, five on the one above. We freed Glass first.
He didn't look well. He was shorter than me, with blond hair that was dirty and disarranged, his normally sharp features were sagging slightly. His eyes had bags under them, his hands shook, and he had trouble standing when we came in. He wore a bright orange jumpsuit that hung off a greatly diminished figure; the man looked like he was half-starved.
"Glass?" I said, moving in closer. He’d recoiled from Killian ripping his cell door off its hinges.
He squinted at me.
"Lord?" he managed, his voice barely a rasp. "Is that you?"
"It is.”
"Are you here to get us out?" he said, his voice trembling, as if he dared not allow himself hope.
"We are.”
The poor man actually sobbed. I turned away so as not to embarrass him while he pulled himself together, so did Killian.
It didn’t take him long. He cleared his throat, "Thank you, my Lords. I am most grateful. I... I’d given up hope that anyone was coming to get us."
I turned back and nodded, gesturing him to follow us out.
We took him to each of the other Crows in turn, none of whom looked any better than he did, and several of whom looked considerably worse. Aside from their interrogations and interviews, those poor souls had been kept in solitary confinement for weeks, something which is not very good for the human psyche in general, much less for a group of people used to being in each others' heads on a regular basis.
Killian, his Wardens and I helped to get those people out, with the stronger helping the weaker until we could get them into the open air.
Before I could open a Portal, Killian turned back towards the Lighthouse and just stared at it for a while. Then he started casting a Spell. It took him about a minute, and then his hand glowed with grey energy, quickly coalescing into a swirling sphere of dark power that cast his face in a rather sinister light.
"Watch,” he said to the Crows, who’d turned to see what he was doing, “maybe you'll feel better."
He gestured and the sphere darted away, curving up until it stopped above the apex of the lighthouse tower. It glowed there for a pregnant second before there was a flash of light and it darted downwards, leaving a nasty hole in the roof.
There was a series of muted booms, and then the whole structure started to glow. A gentle tone rose to a whine, and then a scream before the whole building just exploded, every brick and chunk of mortar turning to dust before it came anywhere near us.
The sound didn't stop, turning from a scream to a rumble as the ground beneath where the lighthouse had stood collapsed in on itself, taking a small visitor's centre with it as well as a good acre of grassland. Thankfully the small flock of sheep that made their home there had possessed the sense to run at the first sounds of destruction and were safely galloping (if that's the correct word; with sheep, it really looked more like a fast waddle) across the fields.
Even though many of the Crows couldn't even speak, they managed to raise a cheer.
Killian smiled, took a bow, and opened up a Portal back to Blackhold.
Chapter 50
It took the rest of the day to see to the Crows and get them settled into Blackhold’s East Wing. That was only after a thorough medical and Telepathic check (I was taking no chances). Aside from some malnourishment and muscle wastage, they were essentially healthy, at least physically. Mentally... well, they’d heal in time, but they’d been through quite an ordeal and one or two might never be quite the same.
Glass wouldn't rest until his people had been taken care of. It was quite a while before I could even persuade him just to sit down and eat something. Even then, he wanted to know what had been going on, and he refused to rest until I’d told him everything I knew.
I hadn’t intended to ask him for his story until he’d had the chance to recuperate a bit, but I think he just wanted to get it off his chest, and I didn’t have the heart to stop him once he’d started.
"They came to my house, late at night," he said, clutching a cup of tea in newly clean hands. He had, at least, taken the opportunity to shower and change. He wore a simple tracksuit, one of the sets we kept around for guests. He was already looking better for a wash, a shave and a meal.
"I opened my front door, everything went black and I woke up in a cell."
"Sorry about all this, Mr Glass," I said. "This is all because of your association with me."
He waved my apology off, "Even if you weren’t here, they’d still have come for us. There’s no way we’d have gone alone with what they’re planning. We know better."
"Was there any warning?" I asked.
"Some, but not enough to indicate something like this! There are always schemes and plots around the Conclave, that’s what we do, after all. But it’s always civilised; we respect each other’s opinions, even when they’re different to our own. We may try to change their minds, but with words, arguments... not imprisonment.”
He took another sip of his tea.
“I only really started to get suspicious when they began asking about our Psionic Linkage techniques. There hadn’t been any interest in them before. It started out as friendly enquiries, and from people I knew, too, but when I didn’t give them anything, Councillors with more clout started asking. When I still didn’t give them what they wanted, they started threatening me and mine. So I told them where they could stick it."
I smiled.
"That is dangerous knowledge. It could be put to terrible purpose if you know what you’re doing. Besides, we have every right to our secrets. It’s not for the Conclave to demand our intellectual property without cause, that’s not what we’re supposed to be about."
I nodded my agreement.
He paused to finish his cup and refill it before nibbling on a biscuit, his eyes staring off into the distance for a minute.
"After that, we were shut out. What few of us were on the important committees were pushed off, and we quickly found that even our allies were refusing to speak to us. I was on the verge of coming to see you about it when I was taken."
That was telling. And even more worrying than Hellstrom had led me to believe. Whatever Bradley was doing, she had all the big departments at the Conclave locked in. That almost certainly meant the SCA and the Hunter Teams, too (as if I didn’t already have plenty of violent evidence regarding the latter!). If I’d harboured any dim hopes of stopping this mess before it had a chance to get going, they died right there.
We chatted a bit more, sharing theories about Myrddin and the Conclave's potential plans, but it really came to nothing much. He knew even less about that than I did. The Lighthouse’s staff hadn't even bothered to interrogate him after they'd ‘persuaded’ him to give up everything he knew about Psionic Linkage, so we didn’t even know what Bradley and Myrddin’s other areas of interest might be.
And seeing as how Killian had obliterated anyone and anything that might have provided us with information about the Lighthouse or who was in control of the thing; that was a dead end and all.
There really was nothing more to do except wait for the hammer to fall... and choose the best moment to return Glass and his people to the Conclave.
Alas, this meant that I would still have to answer my summons to Conclave, and I was very much not looking forward to it.
I was fairly certain that they wouldn't try to kill me. They weren’t that stupid, so that wasn't a worry. No, it was the unknowns that were getting to me. What were they after? How were they planning to get it? Who, exactly, was involved?
I guess I'd just have to find out the hard way.
At least I was consistent.
The day of my summons, I dressed carefully. I wore a dark suit, polished shoes and my robes of office, complete with the white hood that draped down my back. Cassandra and Tethys both fussed over me before I left. Neither really wanted to let me go, much less alone.
I'd insisted on that, though. If, against all sense, things went really bad, I didn't want either of them in the crossfire of what was going to be a room full of very angry Magicians. I’d told the other Archons what was going on, of course, and they were all for bursting in there and just... well, you can guess what Killian and Kron wanted to do; Hopkins and Palmyra wanted to do worse, if you can believe it. They realised that they couldn’t really help, not without horrific, global repercussions, but it was nice that they wanted to.
They still wanted to come, to offer support, but in the end I convinced them to let me handle it alone, at least this first part. They weren't happy, either, but they understood that the benefits to my rather sadistic plan (you’ll see what I mean) outweighed the risks of this initial piece of theatre. Besides, I imagined that the second the Conclave sat, there would be a series of horrific attacks by the Hyde, and they’d be needed at home.
Oh, and Killian loved my plan, by the way. He’d just sat there laughing for a solid twenty minutes when I told him the particulars of what I'd done to Myrddin and what I expected my manipulations to eventually accomplish. Kron did her very best to appear disapproving, but there was a certain gleeful twinkle in her eye that told me my stock had gone up a few points. The civilisations they’d been born into took vendettas very seriously, so they appreciated a good revenge plot and mine ticked all their boxes.
When I arrived at the Conclave's front doors, there was an 'honour guard' waiting for me, and they escorted me to the grand chamber much like I’d been escorted when I was a prisoner (I'd always had such a good time when I visited the Conclave...).
The room was full of Councillors, but the viewing galleries had been cleared, except for what had to be fifty cameras, all pointing down at the oncoming farce. A podium had been set up for me in the centre of the chamber, but I walked right past it, heading for the Seats, where my enemy waited, sitting in the centre chair, a smug smile on his face.
"That's not your place," I said evenly.
"It is now," he replied, leaning back in Kron's Seat in a way that made me want to throttle him. The other four had been covered with white cloths, something else which infuriated me. They were sending a very clear message:
The Archons didn't hold power here.
I'm sure that they would have removed the chairs completely, if they could, but they’d been Enchanted by Kron herself; they weren't going anywhere.
If there was one bright silver lining to this whole mess, it was the fact that my plan appeared to be working perfectly, as Myrddin didn't look well at all. His skin was damp with sweat, his lips and nostrils bore sores that were badly concealed under makeup (not Illusion. That room held too many people who could cast Mage Sight, after all). He sat very gingerly on the Seat, no doubt on account of some rather terrible problems down below. He was also hunched and clearly sickly, his frame wasting, his eyes half-manic from distraction and pain.
So far, so good. The cursed disease I'd given him was probably more than enough to do what I had in mind, but combined with the little Spell I'd slipped into his head after my expulsion... I was surprised he wasn’t manic already.
You see, I'd given him a nightmare.
A tiny, tiny little nightmare, so small that even the most skilled Telepath would need to know exactly what he was looking for in order to find it. Conceptually, it was so pathetic that someone like Myrddin would never believe that something like it could get past (what he believed to be) his massive defences.
Even in its action, it didn’t do much, it just turned a miniscule portion of a dream into something shocking, just enough, and only enough, to jolt him back into wakefulness. Not even enough to scare him.
Still, though, imagine what that must have been like for the man. Whenever he went to sleep, he would jolt awake, maybe he’d get an hour here or there, but he’d never get more than a few minutes of that restorative deep sleep that human beings needed to function. If I’d done it right (ha!), then he’d get just enough to stay alive.
But not enough to stay sane.
Now, further imagine what that’s like when you combine it with weeping, bleeding sores in all of your sensitive places, preventing you from even having the peace of a painless visit to the loo.
It would have driven me mad, and it seemed to be doing a similar job on Myrddin, which was largely the point. He wasn't quite there yet, though. He was obviously fighting against my work, but he still looked exhausted, and I'd designed my little disease to be highly resistant to painkilling and Flesh Magic; he had to be in a bad way.
But he wasn't quite ready to give me what I needed to end this, not yet.
Soon, though, I noted with an internal smirk at his expense. His hands were twitching in a way that told of a terrible itch that he couldn’t scratch in public. It had to be torture.
Lovely...
He pointed at the podium behind me, unaware of my internal mirth.
"That's your place now, Shadowborn."
I shrugged, walked back the way I'd come, and stood where they wanted me. As I'd expected, there was yet another Truth Stone waiting for me. Kron had explained how they might have played that trick on me before, a little Spell woven into the base of the Stone's Enchantment, designed to switch the response from white to black on the command of a linked object. I quickly searched for that Spell, and it worried me that I couldn't find it. As far as I could tell, it was just your run-of-the-mill Truth Stone, and it almost certainly wasn’t, not for something this important.
"Mathew Graves, we have called you here today to answer for your crimes against this Conclave and its allies," Bradley began at a nod from Myrddin.
I turned towards her spot in the stands, where she was sitting among a group of calm-looking Councillors, many of whom were unable to conceal the anticipatory smugness on their faces.
"Have I been charged with a crime, then?" I asked levelly.
"Whether you've been charged or not is beside the point. You have committed crimes-"
"I'm sorry, Primus, but that's not how the law works, and you know it," I replied. "If you want to claim I've committed a crime, then there needs to be a judgement to back it up, and that requires a trial."
She smiled like a piranha spotting a goldfish and gestured to the clerk sitting in front of her, who brought me a folder, inside of which was a single document.
So much for that argument. I'd been tried in absentia and found to have taken part in 'destabilising operations throughout the Magical World, resulting in injury and disruption to the Conclave of Great Britain and her Allies.’
"Can you try someone in absentia when they haven't even been notified of the trial taking place?" I asked, placing the folder on the small shelf in front of me.
"We can," Bradley said. "Any other questions? Or can we move on?"
She was openly smiling now.
"By all means," I said with a sigh.
"You have abused your power. That much is clear. That has been determined. You are here now to witness testimony and respond before we finalise our course of action and determine a response."
Again, that dreadful smile.
"Let's begin with the events preceding your attack on the Aurelia safe house."
What followed was simply unpleasant. I would call it a show-trial if the paperwork hadn’t said that I’d already had my trial. If anything this was a show-trial re-enactment, and it came complete with witnesse
s.
They started by bringing out the French Primus, Hémery. He looked very uncomfortable as he recounted what had been said during our lunch meeting; though I noted that he gave the same date for my attack that I'd given Myrddin. No doubt he’d been coached beforehand.
Throughout the questioning, he couldn’t bring himself to look at me.
"And what would you say was the Archon's attitude during this conversation?" Bradley asked.
"Avaricious, my lady," Hémery replied, going red. "And aggressive. He was desperate for a fight, for pain... and for profit."
"And just how did that manifest itself?" I asked before Bradley could get another dig in, "Nothing you've said supports that."
"Well, Primus Hémery?" Bradley said.
"When you've been a Magician and a Politician as long as I, you can tell when someone is after more than they’re telling you about. He was definitely after something, Ma'am."
There was muttering from around me, nods and whispering. Damn.
"Well said, Mister Hémery, well said," Bradley replied with a low bow. "This body thanks the French Conclave for their valuable help in this matter."
Hémery bowed in return and withdrew, still unable to look at me.
"As our ally has established, Mathew Graves went into this conflict, not as an aggrieved citizen seeking redress, as he claims, but seeking something else entirely. Our next witness can reveal what that was. We call Marie Bellegarde, formerly of the Vampire House of Aurelia."
Wow, they were really pulling out all the stops, weren't they?
The doors opened, and in she came, looking demure and humble, dressed all in black, her hair pulled into a tight bun as she walked towards the centre of the room and bowed once to each side of the chamber.
"Welcome, Lady Bellegarde, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, I know that you are in mourning."
"Thank you, my lady," Bellegarde replied in a tiny voice.
"Could you tell us what happened that night when Mathew Graves came for your people?" she asked gently, as if speaking to an upset child rather than a centuries-old predator.
