Rory added. “They found remnants of my and Nils’s magic on it. That was all.”
Piros summed up. “So we have an unknown creature with a hypothetical three stage lifecycle. Egg, grub, flying thing.”
Nora paced away from the wall slate. “The obvious assumption is that the egg is laid in a volcano to incubate. When it hatches, the grub seeks out its preferred food source. And this is where the ideas get wild. The grub could be attracted to any large, warm-blooded and solitary prey. Each of the five victims were alone when they vanished. However, given that there are no stories of such large grubs on Earth, not even mis-remembered as myths, it may be that these creatures have incubated for an extraordinarily long time waiting for a trigger.”
“Magic,” Amy whispered.
Nora corrected her. “Magic being channeled. Earth has abundant magic, but only with our arrival has it been channeled. This is one of the wildest theories. The entomologist proposed that it is possible the grubs can’t consume raw magic, so have to wait till it is present in a channel, and then, they eat the channel.”
“The magic user,” Piros clarified. He snorted. “The theory has a number of holes in it. Not least being that for the creatures to have eggs incubating would mean that at some time in Earth’s past there had been magic users present channeling sufficient magic to feed the grubs this ‘preferred’ food. Themselves.”
Amy hid her face in Rory’s shoulder. “Ugh.”
Istvan mentally applauded her wisdom. She possessed knowledge that they were currently hiding from Piros, Nora and Nils. Namely, that the orb of human magical creation that he had tucked away was proof, along with the sunken city that had hidden it, that humans had once channeled significant amounts of magic. However, to tell Piros and Nora that was to confess to the orb’s existence, and so, open up the fraught debate of what to do with it. Rory and he had experience in hiding their thoughts. Amy still showed her emotions. Hiding her face was smart.
Piros rolled his eyes. He evidently thought that her reaction was proof she shouldn’t have been included in the meeting.
“The hypothesis that this is an unknown creature that eats magic users is difficult to accept,” Istvan said. “I respect your experts’ opinions, Nora, but you’ve had the body for less than a day.”
“Obviously, our analysis has scarcely begun. I said as much.”
He nodded. “I appreciate your briefing and that you cleared and released Rory and Nils so quickly. However, the fact that you’re taking time away from that research tells me you need something from us.” And that she’d contacted Piros and included him in this meeting meant that she expected that the dragon, and the Fae Council, would support her request.
“Rory and Nils,” Nora said briskly. “The fact that they found, fought and slaughtered one grub makes them the obvious choice to lead an expedition to capture a live specimen. By their own account, they had to use high-level magic against it, which rules out most magicians. Three quarters of my scientists have volunteered for the expedition. Rory can decide who he needs. I will send support staff to oversee long-term containment and transport once the expeditionary team have the grub subdued.”
Before Istvan could agree or negotiate, Nils spoke up. “The theory doesn’t hold together. If the grub is consuming magic users for the magic they’re channeling at the time, then there should have been some magic residue in the grub from eating the orc shaman.”
Nora answered briskly, as if she’d prepared for this objection. “There is likely more than one grub. Grub A consumed the shaman and retreated to the volcano to digest his magic.”
“Ew,” from Amy.
“Grub B emerged to attack Rory. Obviously, we’re making giant assumptions.” Nora slightly flexed her wings. “However, even if we’re wrong and the grubs aren’t thaumavores,” literally magic eaters, “we need to learn more about such a large, aggressive animal that we managed to miss even though we’ve been watching this planet for millennia.”
By itself, a gap in knowledge that big would bother a scientist. But it was clear to Istvan that Nora believed the grubs had eaten the five missing people.
“Trapping a creature will take one night,” she continued persuasively.
Unfortunately for her claim, everyone in the room, including her, had experience in hunting. They knew you couldn’t count on prey to wander where you wanted. Even aggressive prey that you dangled an enticing bait in front of.
She glared at them, defiant. “We need a live specimen. We need to observe what it eats, how it metabolizes its food, what it metamorphoses into—if it metamorphoses.”
“Tomorrow night,” Istvan said. “Rory, if you and Nils can try to capture a live specimen tomorrow night, and if none appears, can you and Nils alternately be on call to help Nora’s team? With a time limit to being on call,” he added. “No longer than a month before lead responsibility switches to a different magisterial guard unit.”
Everyone agreed, although Amy glared a bit. It was her husband and her packmate they were sending into unknown danger.
That though was the nature of Rory and Nils’s work as magisterial guards. They dealt with magical dangers.
“Thank you,” Nora said, on her dignity. “The grubs are everyone’s problem.” Her emphasis on “are” was defensive.
“You have the Fae Council’s confidence.” Piros’s cool, distant response reproved her.
Politics. Istvan whistled a sigh. The political game players on Civitas never missed a chance to score points. Like Piros, they could put aside their egos for the good of the Migration, but they always kept score.
The researchers in the bunkers had lost a lot of points when magic had unexpectedly shown up in a few rare humans like Amy.
The most popular hypothesis back on Elysium prior to the Migration, where they hadn’t detected, long-range, any magic in humans, had been that magical ability wouldn’t appear in Earth’s indigenous sentient population for generations. Perhaps even centuries of contact with the Faerene would be required before humans developed rudimentary sensitivity to magic.
Now, here was another large, and potentially magic-related creature, that the researchers hadn’t known about. And unlike with the human mages, the grubs had likely killed Faerene.
Nora had every reason to insist on acquiring a live specimen and learning absolutely everything about it.
“Will the Fae Council warn people to stay away from volcanoes?” Rory asked.
Amy slid off his lap.
Piros considered Nora. “Yes.”
The golden griffin flinched.
Chapter 10
We all had our problems.
However, some problems didn’t have to be shared. At least, not yet.
As soon as Piros and Nora departed, which they did quickly, Rory sent Nils off with the request to update Dorotta on the discovery of the grub. “Tell her to stay in Civitas,” he concluded. “The grub may be the least of our problems.”
Nils’s swift, shrewd glance included Istvan and me, and suggested that he’d guessed we had a secret we were keeping from him.
It was for his own good. Depending on what we chose to do with the orb my magical ancestors had created, there was going to be trouble sooner or later. Ignorance of it gave him deniability when the manure hit the fan.
“Then take the rest of the day off. Stay available, please. But you’re free till morning.”
Nils nodded acknowledgement and closed the doors to Istvan’s office behind him, doors that Piros had left open. Nils definitely guessed that we were going to discuss secrets.
“The orb,” Rory began. During decontamination, he’d had hours to consider what the discovery of the grubs meant. “We wondered what threat the ancient human mages faced that had been grave enough that they sealed away their magic. It could have been the grubs, depending on how many there were and their lifecycle. If the grubs hunted the human mages with the single-minded ferocity with which this one came after me, and the mages couldn’t defeat
them, then they did the smart thing. They retreated and hid. By not using magic, the grubs couldn’t feed on them.”
Istvan prowled the room. “That assumes that Nora’s hypothesis that they are thaumavores is correct.”
It also meant that the ancient human mages had been driven to the extremity of desperation or cowardice if they’d willingly surrendered their ability to channel magic. And they’d done so on behalf of billions of their descendants.
Was now the time to find out why? What price were we willing to pay—to risk—for knowledge?
Rory hitched himself up onto Istvan’s desk. “The grubs are bad enough. If not them, then the orb hides an even bigger threat. The issue for me is that the orb holds the ancient human mages’ knowledge, and we’re currently denying ourselves access to it. For a reason, I know. We can’t guess what the cost of activating the orb will be. It could be nothing. It could release magic into thousands or hundreds of thousands or all humans. It could destabilize the flow of magic around the Earth.”
He tapped the edge of the desk. “That’s something I hadn’t considered till I heard the scientists talking about scanning and analyzing the flow of magic around Earth. Fighting an aggressive and unknown animal that might have wanted to eat me for the magic I channeled threw off some of my preconceptions. What if the flow of magic on Earth is too stable?”
Istvan stopped pacing.
The two powerful Faerene magicians stared at one another. Rory continued steadily. “On Elysium, when they announced the Migration and invited applicants the big selling point was Earth’s magical stability. Faerene monitoring of Earth started after your human mages had sealed away their magic. Our scientists saw what they interpreted as an untouched world—untouched in the sense that no one on it used magic. People signed up to the Migration believing that Earth was a magical arcadia.
“But what if instead of modern humans’ obsession with linear progression being solely to blame for the weakening of Earth’s shield, it was partly a result of the ancient humans’ fear? We assumed that when they made the orb, buried their city underwater and sealed their magic that it was solely humans’ use of magic that they locked away. But the flow of magic on Earth is incredibly stable. There have been no outside shocks to the system. No evolution or devolution in the lines of magic. The scientists, all of us, should have been suspicious of such a perfect system.”
“Because perfection is unnatural,” Istvan concluded, absently. He was clearly thinking hard. “The ancients who hid their orb managed the subtle trick of also hiding the magical signature of the spell that concealed it. They might have been capable of embedding quintessences in the flow of magic by a method we haven’t discovered. Your idea can’t be ignored, Rory.”
The quirk of my husband’s mouth said he agreed. “Our initial assessment of the orb was that the consequences of activating it were riskier than leaving it inert and concealed. We don’t know how it will affect humans, in particular, and the flow of magic on Earth. But now we have a two-part counterargument that we might need the knowledge locked inside the orb and to free Earth from an unnaturally stable magical system that is weakening its shield.”
“Hypothetically,” I murmured. I hopped up and sat beside him on the desk. “But I guess the Fae Council and the people they can call on for help are best placed to analyze the orb and the potential consequences of activating it. Humans certainly don’t have that capacity, and won’t for a long time.”
Istvan scraped a paw against the stone floor. “However, the orb is humanity’s inheritance.”
“Would you trust the militia with it?” I asked bitterly. “Or someone like Sean? He would see it as a bargaining chip. We can go around and around on the issue, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not qualified to decide what to do about humanity’s orb and nor are any other humans. You are, Istvan, as much as anyone. You’re a magistrate and partnered to a human familiar. I entrusted the orb and its future to you, and I still do. I’m just sorry that it feels as if I’m passing you a terrible responsibility.”
“It is a level of responsibility I accepted when I joined the Migration as a magistrate. But let’s not make the decision in haste. Shall we consider it for a day? Think of reasons for and against delivering humanity’s orb to the Fae Council.”
A shudder shook me. “Some will consider me humanity’s biggest traitor.” The militia would, if they learned of it. They already wanted me and my magic. The orb was so much more.
But humanity was so much more than them.
Before either Rory or Istvan could reassure me, I rejected my personal worries. “Luckily, it’s not a popularity contest.”
Rory side-hugged me. “Strangely enough, your father’s old advice to you is relevant. We all have to take the right path, not the easy one.”
“And wear the criticism for our choices,” Istvan agreed. As a magistrate, his decisions were always open to public criticism. More than that, if he took the orb to the Fae Council tomorrow, they would respond with the obvious and difficult question: why didn’t you inform us of the orb’s existence as soon as you became aware of it?
Chapter 11
Istvan remained at the hall until dinner, with a parade of staff and visitors in and out of his office, everyone intent on capturing a few minutes of his time.
Rory kissed me quickly, and promised he’d join me in our room in an hour, after he’d handled a few of his head of the magisterial guard unit tasks.
Lacking any immediate duties to occupy me, I ran a hot bath and emptied my mind. Tomorrow would bring a heap of trouble, but for tonight Rory would be with me. No separation. No grubs or politics.
We ate dinner with Istvan in the formal dining room, and retreated to our room when he left to rejoin the court circuit. The night session began at ten o’clock.
We didn’t waste our night together, talking.
In the morning I dressed carefully for my nine o’clock meeting. I had a whole wardrobe of black clothes—black to match Istvan’s gleaming appearance and declare my loyalty to my magician partner—and I chose a hip-length jacket over a collarless shirt with tailored wool trousers and boots.
I looked prosperous and confident.
“Gorgeous,” Rory approved. He was in his navy-blue magisterial guard uniform with a loving, satisfied look in his eyes that I felt in my whole body.
After breakfast we separated. He and Nils had a grub-capturing expedition to prepare for. I had an invitation to a town meeting.
So did General Dabiri, Colonel Smith and the two men who’d accompanied them to the first meeting with Justice’s town leaders.
Mayor Bataar and Deputy Mayor Sabinka already occupied center stage in the town hall when Yana and I entered. The sides of the hall were far fuller for this meeting than for the first. The militia had angered and saddened the Faerene with the suicides they’d orchestrated.
A centaur out exercising had come across the most recent bodies—I won’t go into details. She’d buried the bodies and was traumatized from the experience. Her family were outraged.
The meeting would be volatile.
Yana and I sat beside Callum. Just as my butt hit the seat, I recognized the police officer on guard by the side door. “Niamh.”
She couldn’t have heard me across the noisy crowd, but she’d obviously been watching for me. She smiled, quick and serious. Her black uniform fit her exactly. She’d need to practice with the baton fastened to her belt. The elven police officer guarding the front entrance had a sword strapped to his back.
The visiting militia wouldn’t know if Niamh was human or werewolf. Nor would our other visitors.
Rangers guided Dabiri and his men in first. They had collected them before dawn so that they’d arrive in time.
“General Dabiri and colleagues.” The goblin ranger saluted Bataar and fell into a guarding position on the other side of the doorway to the elven policeman.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Bataar said. “Initially, we agreed to take
a month to consider your request to open trade links with you. Your offer was for goods in exchange for access to information. You then breached the good faith element of negotiations with the abhorrent use of suicides.” Our mayor waited out the grumble of disapproval that rolled through the crowd. “We could have ended the negotiations at that point. However, you do not represent all humans in the region.”
Our invited visitors took their cue and entered self-consciously. The mayor of Memphis, Jesse Regan, was flanked by two of his citizens: an older black teenager who looked enough like him to be his son, but was actually a nephew and his last remaining family member; and a woman in her late sixties, thin and active, and wearing a green sweater over her pink sari. And combat boots. Although how Tanisha had found a pair small enough to fit her was one of life’s mysteries.
“Mayor Jesse and colleagues, welcome,” Bataar said.
While the militia had chosen to remain standing, the civilian representatives from Memphis sat on the chairs provided; chairs that were one bench away from where I sat with Yana and Callum.
Colonel John Smith’s gaze had found me immediately, and hadn’t left me since then, despite all the other distractions of the varied Faerene present and the invited humans.
Bataar’s low but commanding voice filled the town hall, easily overpowering the rustle and murmur of comments. “General, before we begin the business of the meeting, I would like to clarify that although we here in Justice disapprove of your use of your own people as statements of challenge and despair in mass suicides, the fact that human corpses are no longer being magically returned to the earth overnight is a matter of coincidental timing and not a response to your actions. The Fae Council has decreed that the Reclamation Team, a global initiative, cease accelerating the natural cycle of life, death and rebirth via magic.”
Bataar didn’t pause for a breath, let alone for a response. Evidently, blacksmithing developed a person’s lung capacity. “Mayor Jesse, Anze asked that as part of these negotiations I apologize for him and his failure to warn you of the resumption of the normal realities of death.”
First Magic Page 14
