I scoffed. “You mean vaguely and pointlessly?” I snatched away my mask and tossed it across the room, drawing gasps and objections from many of those present. “Oh, stop being melodramatic, you all knew who I was. And for those who somehow missed it; I am High Mage Duine of the King’s Alliance.” I took a breath. “Two weeks ago, an agent of the Order of the Templar tried to kill me. I have, for some time now, been trying to persuade this august, respected and thoroughly ineffectual body to take some sort of joint action against this terrorist and have been told that he represents no threat. Well, I hope we can agree that their attempt on my life does constitute a threat. Not just to me and to the King’s Alliance, but to this body as well. I am a Magistrate and when I am attacked, it is an attack upon this institution.”
Even behind the masks, I could see the narrow looks from my fellow Magistrates. What I said was true. What was also true, but which none of them had the balls to say, was that they thought I had provoked the Templars into action.
Bunch of cowards.
Finally, one of them (the purple chair) spoke up. “You say, High Mage, that this is an attack on all of us.”
“It is.”
“And yet none of our factions has suffered similar attacks. Or attacks of any kind, for that matter.”
“The Templar are targeting the big fish first,” I replied with a shrug. That might have been a bit arrogant; the Vampire Coalition was inert but powerful; the Fae kept themselves separate these days but still had a whole kingdom of their own. “We need to put the leader of the Templar down before he tries again.”
“It seems to me this is a personal matter.” The purple chair was female and spoke in a voice as smooth as silk, but as hard as steel. I wondered if she was Sinjin’s representative; he liked strong women.
“Assassination is always personal,” I replied. “Perhaps you will see it differently if… when they come for you.”
“I wonder if you are aware, High Mage,” the silken voice continued, “that when you mention the assassination attempt, you refer to ‘they’ or ‘them’. But when you talk about attacking, you say ‘he’ or ‘him’.”
That had been careless. My hatred of Pagan had slipped through without me knowing it. Whoever was behind that mask listened carefully and had more brains than the rest of the Magistrates put together, if I were any judge.
“We all know to whom I refer.” She left me no choice, but honesty. “The rebel leader, Pagan, is a scourge on this land. And one who must be put down like the dog he is.”
“I rather like dogs,” the purple chair replied, a laugh in her voice. Perhaps she was a werewolf. I found myself overwhelmed by a desire to see what she looked like. I did not recognize her voice. “The word ‘rebel’ seems an odd one to choose to refer to the Order of the Templar, who have always been a respected organization.”
“Until Pagan took over,” I put in.
“Of course. And began… scourging the land. How exactly, if I may enquire, does this ‘scourging’ manifest itself? It’s a strong word. I feel as if I would have noticed scourging going on, yet… I have not.”
Now I wanted to see her face, if only so I could slap the insolence off it. “He tried to kill me!”
“Not sure I’d call that scourging the land. Haven’t you been trying to kill him?”
“I have been trying to rid us of an infection that is…”
“Scourging the land, yes, you said.” She waved off my words with an infuriating ease. “Some might say your subjugation of magic users prompted the rise of Pagan and the Order of the Templar in its new form.”
“Who are you?” I growled, my temper finally getting the better of me.
“One who chooses to retain the mask,” the purple chair replied, her voice hard. “If you had done the same, then we could have discussed Pagan and his Order with a degree of detachment. Perhaps you would have won some members of this group to your side. As things are… May I move for a vote, Mr. Chairman?”
Even through his mask, it was easy to see the red chair wishing this had happened on someone else’s watch and that he was anywhere else right now. But a vote had been called for.
“Those in favor of taking joint action against the Order of the Templar?” he asked.
They were scared. I’d have bet money that, outside of the bitch in the purple chair, they were all terrified of me. But the masks protected them. Or so they thought. Whichever way they voted didn’t matter; I’d be coming for all of them one day, and I would remember this vote when I did.
“Don’t bother.” I spun around, kicking my green chair and sending it flying across the room. “You’ll all regret it when Pagan comes for you.”
They would regret it. I’d see to it.
I stormed out of the Circular Hall, tearing off the ridiculous robes of office as I went. I was furious with them, but I was angry with myself as well. I had played it badly. I should have kept my mask and my incognito intact. I should have argued from a less personal standpoint, should have made it about them rather than about me. But it was too late now.
The problem was that I needed their help. At least some of their help.
As Tintagel had proven, Pagan was a wily adversary. Finding him had been hard enough to begin with and it was only down to a stroke of luck that I’d found him at all—if you could call an assassination attempt a ‘stroke of luck’. Pagan would not make the same mistake twice. For one thing, he no longer had the men to lose.
That realization was what had prompted my new plan.
Though he had suffered bad losses, Pagan would probably not struggle long. He drew people to him by force of character in a way that was as impressive as it was annoying. It was not as though he could give public speeches, but the rebels had a little underworld network of their own, and Pagan’s words circulated through it, helping him to recruit new disciples to his cause.
That would be my way to destroy him.
I had tried the blunt approach, crushing him from the outside, and it hadn’t worked. Now I would be subtle and I would tackle him from within. I would infiltrate the Order of the Templar.
It was a good plan, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. He might be brash, but Pagan was also very cautious, and Tintagel would only make him more so. The man was a powerful ‘warlock’ and surrounded himself with other witches and warlocks who were also adepts at their craft. Sneaking a spy into their group would be next to impossible if they were on the look-out for one. Any magic user, particularly one of my people, would be instantly suspect, they would be subject to scrutiny, and they would likely be found out.
But someone from one of the other factions would not be so suspicious. It was common knowledge that there was no love lost between any of the factions and particularly between the King’s Alliance and everyone else. Pagan would have no reason to suspect a vampire, lycanthrope or Fae, in fact he would have every reason to think they hated me as much as he did.
That was why I had so wanted Sinjin to be at the meeting today. He and I shared no common goal, but we were both alert to any threat to our respective groups; he for the sake of his people, me for the sake of myself. Also, while the other factions were secretly worried about me becoming too powerful, Sinjin was arrogant enough not to care. He felt he was more than a match for me. If I had been able to convince him, or his representative, that Pagan posed a threat to the vampires, I might have been able to get a vampire agent into Pagan’s group, reporting back to me. Such had been my plan, but now that I had lost my temper and stormed out, it seemed unlikely I would be able to carry it out.
Still, it was not the only way.
While the vast majority of vampires now made their home on the Coalition ships, there were a few stragglers who didn’t like the company of others. They tended to be those vampires who objected to any sort of organization, who thought of themselves as loners and wanted to kick back against the man, the system and the establishment. In other words; morons.
Such people are easy to manipul
ate. If you use words like ‘conspiracy’ and refer to things ‘they don’t want you to know’ then you can get people like that to do almost anything you want. That type of person goes through life, worried about what ‘they’ aren’t telling you, without ever knowing who the hell ‘they’ even are.
Then there were the lycanthropes—the werewolves and other shifters.
They had been amongst the hardest hit by the fall of the Underworld, possibly because they were pack animals who had suddenly lost their pack. Smaller packs had formed, of course, and there had been various attempts to unite them all together under one rule again, but so far nothing had stuck. There were always lone wolves out there looking for someone to bite. Wolves did not make such good infiltrators as vampires—vampires are born spies; subtle and ruthless, while werewolves struggle with secrets and prefer to just kick the door in.
But a smart werewolf might do as well, though a ‘smart werewolf’ was quite the oxymoron.
Getting into my car and giving a curt instruction to my driver, I contented myself with these thoughts as I headed home. I would find my way into the Order of the Templar, and then, Pagan would be mine.
Still, although my mind was mostly taken up with Pagan and with my next move against him, a corner of my brain remained on the woman in the purple chair.
Who had she been? What faction did she represent? Had I come across her before?
For all that she was the reason for my failure today, I found her unwillingly fascinating, and longed to know more.
TWELVE
MORSE
THE ABYSS
I was not certain how many days had passed since I found myself abandoned in this dangerous place, the Abyss. How I had come to arrive here in the first place, I was not certain. The reasons for such did not much concern me, though, for I imagined my arrival here was part and parcel of a much larger plan for which I was not granted awareness.
The name of the township in which I now found myself was Mayhem, a designation fitting to the nature of the settlement.
Mayhem was hardly a town or even a village as there existed no governing law. Simply put, ‘twas every man for himself. Chaos ruled supreme with no place for law or order. The hundred or so souls who called this town home lived in squalor, their only property the clothes upon their backs. A few of them had attempted to build shelters from wood and branches but most of the huts were quickly destroyed by wind, heavy rain or fellow dwellers.
The incidence of death was extremely high. There was a bonfire that was forever burning on the far end of the settlement where the tenants would relocate the dead, adding the bodies to the pyre. The odor of burning flesh was one that was initially intolerable, but after my second day here, I could not say I noticed it.
Men out populated women five-to-one and all existing women as well as new arrivals were quickly made the property of the strongest men within the stronghold. It did not come as a big surprise that most of the women were with child or recently had been.
The entire population, save for myself, lived on the south side of the settlement, all of them in fear of the forests that covered the majority of the perimeter. Stories pervaded of horrendous creatures that lived among the trees, eager to sup on flesh. Of course I attributed the stories to nothing more than the musings of wallopers. For myself, I preferred the quiet and tranquility of the woodland and had made it my home for as long as I could remember. The only time I ventured to settlements such as this one was to trade for supplies.
“Catch this, ye bloody bastard!”
My response time was not what it should have been, for no sooner did I turn around, then I found myself covered in loose and runny shite. The rank smelling and steaming lump hit me square in the chest, exploding outward to cover my neck, arms and a bit landed upon my kilt. The roaring laughter from the bampots behind me did not upset me any more than the steaming shite already had.
My pride was wounded and my anger incited, but I knew better than to approach them. Aye, a fighter I was but I was also aware of my limits. I could not take the five of them. Try and I was fairly certain I’d be gubbed.
“D…d…don’t mind them,” Scrote, my only companion, stuttered whilst rubbing his hands together as he did when fashed or nervous. The name Scrote was “Scrotum” shortened and ‘twas the title given him by the bloody neepheids of this settlement. For his own self, he did not remember his real name, thus he adopted the crude title as though he had been born with it. I had only met Scrote within the last two days, within this shitty settlement.
“Aye, I dinnae give a feck aboot the dobbers,” I answered, not sparing them a backwards glance. From the moment I had awakened in this shit place, the inhabitants of Mayhem had regarded me with suspicion. Some had first mistaken me for a god, mayhap owing to my large size. Or perhaps their confusion arose from the fact that I was only dressed in a kilt, the sporran around my waist and the crude boots I had fashioned for myself from animal pelts. Once the bampots realized I was no god, their suspicion turned to reproach.
“J...j…just let’s be moving onward.” Scrote attempted to smile but then his shoulders began jerking, his neck mimicking the same rough motion, as his eyes blinked in quick procession. ‘Twas his nervous tick, or so he had named it. As a rule, Scrote became tense at the mere thought of a collieshangie or squabble with our fellows.
Though I was not eager to carry on with a companion, Scrote had decided to become just that. Not wanting to spoil his good mood, I had not argued it.
“’Tis okay, Scrote,” I said, hoping to calm him because his dithering would only cause the wallopers to castigate him further. I took a few steps toward a large vat of water, Scrote beside me. As soon as I washed the feces from my being and traded enough hides for fresh meat to sustain my companion and me for supper, we would return to the comfort of the woodland.
“That’s it!” the idiot who’d hurled his shite at me yelled after us. “Run away just like the slags you are!”
“Shut yer geggie!” I bellowed at him, unable to quell my anger any longer, for I did not appreciate being termed a whore. “Or I will come up there an’ shut it for ye, ye lazy sugg!”
“M… Morse,” Scrote began, looking up at me with large, circular eyes that made him resemble a lemur.
I glanced back at the numpty trouble maker and noticed he was now much quieter. He was also near half my size. Mayhap I could take all five of them…
“Aye,” I answered Scrote with a brief nod as I quelled my inner rage, deciding I would avoid a confrontation with the dobbers for this day. Come the morrow, I could not say what my feelings would be on the matter. “I willnae encourage them.”
“T… they’re just a bunch o’ nutters,” Scrote continued, hopping along beside me until he reminded me of a peely-wally jackrabbit, pale and sickly. With his lanky appendages, short stature and long, narrow face, a jackrabbit was not a bad comparison.
I was not certain of Scrote’s age. He could have been two and forty or he could have been forty and two. Whatever his age, it paled in comparison to my years—years that had passed so numerously, I was not even certain how old I was. And I had spent the better part of them down here, in this waking hell.
“Aye,” I answered, breathing in deeply as I considered his statement. The truth of the matter was that the five neepheids were not the only nutters in this godforsaken place. The entire population was in leave of its senses. Save myself, the inhabitants were insane, some of them criminals and some of them not. All were the refuse of Fae society—those civilians who could not function in proper civilization. Or they were enemies to the Fae. Or they were simply the dead who had nowhere else to go—regardless, all were doomed to live in darkness down here, in the pit, the Abyss. The land of no return.
“T…t… tell me again about the l…l… land ye come from,” Scrote beseeched me, glancing up with a wistful expression. He joined his palms in a praying gesture, no doubt aware that I had entertained him with this story more times than I could recal
l.
“I hail from a land called Scotland,” I started, repeating the story of my ancestry for at least the tenth time. ‘Twas the only story that appeared to calm Scrote. I removed my kilt and submerged it in the water, watching as the feces released the fabric and washed away. I continued, scrubbing the tartan with a stone I picked up from the ground.
“Will you t…t… take me back with you?” Scrote asked, sounding hopeful.
“Aye,” I answered although I did not know how I would find my way back to Scotland as I had been down here so long now, I did not believe there was a way out. I was not even certain where the Abyss was located. Not surprisingly, no one here seemed knowledgeable of its whereabouts either.
If ever I did find my way home, I would not be averse to taking Scrote with me. I did not imagine he would survive much longer in Mayhem. He had already been marked by his fellows for befriending me, thus there was no telling what might become of him without my protection.
“Oh, thank…k…” Scrote started before he was interrupted by a screeching sound that carried over the tops of the trees.
I glanced up from my laundering, toward the direction where the noise had emanated and narrowed my eyes on the mouth of what appeared to be a cave. The cave was within the side of a mountain, rising high from the middle of the forest. It was surrounded by jagged and large rocks. A strange, gelatinous fluid dripped from the mouth of the cave, in rivulets of bright green.
“Where does that cave lead?” I asked my witless companion. Chances were he would not know.
“To Fatalia,” Scrote answered immediately, sounding nervous.
“What is that?” I was surprised I had not heard of it, but then the Abyss was a large place with settlements and villages dotted along the awful landscape.
“A place ye want nothin’ to do with,” Scrote responded. “Caverns an’ tunnels all interconnectin’ an’ stretchin’ as far as the eye can see,” he finished. I noticed with interest that he did not stutter once.
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